Nobody Here, Nothing to See, Please Move On

Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), flying saucers, or whatever you choose to call them, are experiencing a surge in public interest of late, spurred by military pilot reports of inexplicable things they've seen by eye or by radar, like this one. 

Inexplicable things have always been seen in the sky, and interest in them has waxed and waned over time, from Ezekiel's Wheels to the Roswell Incident to the Air Force's Project Blue Book. The question of whether or not we are alone in the universe exerts a powerful pull on many people, and has provided rich veins of ore for science fiction authors to mine.

But have you noticed that most science fiction movies which depict aliens from outer space arriving on Earth don't usually end up well for Earth? For example, here's the famous scene from the 1996 movie Independence Day which shows the White House being totally destroyed by an alien spacecraft ... even more damage than Der Furor was able to do, though he tried his best.

How about the 1953 classic The War of the Worlds? ...

Or its 2005 remake with Tom Cruise ...

Or the 1956 epic, Earth vs the Flying Saucers?

The potential danger of alien visitors has long been present on television as well, with Outer Limits episodes like The Zanti Misfits and Twilight Zone episodes like To Serve Man. And we haven't even mentioned novels like Harry Turtledove's Worldwar Saga and Footfall, by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven.

Yes, in most science fiction films, poor Earth doesn't do very well against aliens ... which may explain why most conservatives are reflexively opposed to allowing any of them into the country, regardless of where they're from south of the border or from the outer limits of space.

So why we are trying so hard to let those potential enemies know we're here?

In a recent Op-Ed article in the Washington Post, physicist and science writer Mark Buchanan suggests that attempting to communicate with extraterrestrials - as proposed by the "Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI)" program - could be extremely dangerous, and that we need to decide whether it’s very smart or very safe to do so without careful thought and preparation.

I'm of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, it would be amazing to know if there were intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, there not being all that much here on Earth lately. Think of what we could learn from them! On the other, though, any alien race technologically able to come visiting across the unimaginable vastness of space would be so far ahead of us in technology that we would likely be as  insignificant to them as most insects and small animals are to us. And we know how we tend to treat insects and small animals not suitable for food or pets.

On balance, I think Mr Buchanan is probably right. We've been radiating electronic signals out into space for well over a hundred years, and eventually someone "out there" is likely to intercept them and wonder about their source, even as we wonder about the occasional odd signal we hear from a distant star. But that's not the same thing as trying to beam messages directly to star systems we think might be inhabited by someone who might understand or be curious enough to visit. 

After all, you never know who might respond to the invitation.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo