Hello out there

The UFO craze was hot and heavy when I was a kid, and I loved reading books about Flying Saucers. Obviously the earth was a major crossroads in the universe because it seemed like space ships piloted by Little Green Men and Bug Eyed Monsters were zooming here, there, and everywhere. They were evidently so dumb they could be spotted by anyone driving a truck on a hazy night, but too smart to be caught on film.

I still think there’s no question that other civilizations are orbiting distant suns, looking out with one sensory organ or another at the big old universe and wondering if we’re out there too.

Only now I also firmly believe that UFOS are just that: Flying Objects that haven’t been Identified just yet. With a little rational investigation they almost always turn out to be something perfectly explainable. Enthusiasm has to be balanced by realism.

Even so, I have to say there have been at least three instances where, at least for a moment, it looked like there really is Something Out There.

On August 15, 1977, the “Big Ear” radio telescope at Ohio State University was scanning the sky in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, picking up the usual background noises from the universe, when suddenly a powerful inexplicable signal blared forth out of nowhere for the full seventy-two seconds the instrument was pointed that direction. The scientist studying the readout circled it and wrote WOW! in giant letters beside it. It’s been known as the WOW! Signal ever since.

Innumerable efforts to explain away the Wow Signal have failed. Nor did the signal ever repeat itself. Last year astronomer Alberto Caballero conducted a search for the source of the WOW! Signal and concluded there’s a sun-like star in that region that could support intelligent life in that direction.

Then there’s Tabby’s Star, cataloged as KIC 8462852, located in the constellation Cyngus, and informally named after Dr. Tabetha Boyajian of Yale University, who realized the star’s light has been growing dimmer in an irregular fashion since at least 1890. It’s a normal star and it shouldn’t act in this abnormal fashion.

While some scientists threw out various theories why Tabby’s Star was acting this way, some preferred the most outlandish: decades ago Hugo Dyson suggested that a sufficiently advanced civilization species could conceivably convert all the matter in its solar system into some sort of mega-structure now called a Dyson Sphere that blocked the star’s race in order to convert a substantial portion of its energy for their own use.

I was even inspired to write a silly little poem speaking from the viewpoint of the Extraterrestrials, reminding us in contrast to their Dyson Sphere nothing we had done was big enough to call attention to Earth.

Kay Eye Cee Eight Four Six Two Five Eight Two:

“We are here and NEVER think of you….”

And finally, in April and May of 2020, the Parkes telescope in Australia picked up narrow beams of radio waves coming from Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our sun, only 4.2 light years away. One of its planets, called Proxima Centauri B, circles it in what is known as the “habitable zone,” where life like ours is theoretically possible.

There are all sorts of reasons why this planet might not support life. But it’s intriguing. And it’s one more reason I don’t bother believing in Flying Saucers. There’s plenty of real excitement going on without them.