Aliens likely exist, but don’t put out welcome mat yet
There is a distinct possibility that aliens exist. What’s more, they may have made contact. These two claims have been strongly implied, if not confirmed, by institutions that wouldn’t normally go in for that sort of thing — “that sort of thing” being trippy hallucinations. In 2007, the Pentagon created a program to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects. Last week, the New York Times reported on this effort in a manner sober enough to suggest it considers the research not necessarily the work of an insane person.
Is it? That depends. If being insane means falling significantly outside the normal range of human behaviour and belief, then no. Four out of five Canadians believe in the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, according to a 2016 Angus Reid poll. Half of all Canadians believe aliens have visited Earth. Nor is it abnormal for governments to seriously examine reports of alien contact: Belgium, Germany and others have done so.
But if the definition of insanity — however temporary the state of it — is broadened to include holding and acting upon irrational and unproven beliefs, the answer is more complicated.
It is not complicated specifically by the question of whether aliens exist. They probably do.
Copernicus, having earned the distinction of being the first man rude enough to point out that we’re not the centre of the universe, suggests that we’re not in a unique position to observe the universe, either.
Modern science has dealt further blows to our cosmological narcissism. Scientists now believe the Milky Way alone may contain anywhere from 11 billion to 40 billion habitable, Earth-sized planets, while our solar system alone may contain several planets and moons with liquid water. Some think life may exist as nearby as Mars.
Life, after all, is not so delicate as to require perfect conditions — or to require any conditions, really, aside from mainly water. We now know that life can be found in even environments least hospitable to it on Earth. There is no reason to think it’s less resilient extraterrestrially.
For all these reasons, many scientists and astronomers agree that we are probably not alone. It may be more insane to think that intelligent life could only exist on Earth than to believe it exists beyond ourselves.
It is a great deal less insane, however, to be skeptical that aliens have made contact.
On this point, probability may not be on the side of the believers. For decades, scientists have searched for interstellar communications and confirmed nothing. Even if aliens wanted to get in touch, their messages could come from far enough away as to be so old that they outlived the civilizations that sent them. Where there is intelligent life, it often destroys itself.
Still, when scientists use what’s known as the Drake equation to estimate the number of Milky Way civilizations that could communicate with our own, they often suggest the probability is not zero. And although many reports of alien sightings (not to mention alien abductions) are manifestly absurd, they cannot all be so easily discredited. The Pentagon program specifically solicits reports from servicemen and women, some of whom have provided video evidence to corroborate their testimony of objects hovering in the air without betraying any sign of how they are able to do so, only to speed away at impossibly high velocities.
Alien contact is dramatically less likely than alien existence. But scientists do not all believe it to be impossible, and many military members insist it is an observed fact. Reports of unidentified flying objects merit further study in the basic interests of science, if only to rule out the remote possibility that extraterrestrial lifeforms have made contact.
The continuation of such investigations would demonstrate a serious commitment to the principles of rational inquiry. And it would be only very slightly mad.
This article first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen.
Shannon Gormley is a global affairs columnist and freelance journalist.