Whaddya think of UFOs?
In response to the recent uptick in reporting about the subject, and the U.S. government investigations, I jotted down a few thoughts about this subject. As you undoubtedly know, it’s frequently on the minds of observers of the sky. How much life is out there in the cosmos? Are any strange things we’ve seen in the sky evidence of physical visitation by other intelligent life?
To scientists, the recent surge in reports and news of governments spending lots of money investigating UFOs are curious. Astrophysicists know that the universe is incredibly large, with at least 100 billion galaxies, and several hundred billion star systems like our Sun’s family in each one. We also know through spectroscopy that chemistry in the universe is consistent everywhere. That suggests that life should be common in the universe, although we have only one place where we know it exists — right here on Earth.
But the distance scale to even the nearest stars is incredibly vast. And the energy required to travel between star systems would be enormous, regardless of the technology, due to the known laws and limits of physics we understand very well (thanks to Newton, Einstein, and others).
This is a moment where wishful thinking enters for many: “But we don’t know everything, so much of what we now know might turn out to be false.” Some 2,000 years ago, Eratosthenes demonstrated Earth is a globe. Many could have then said that he didn’t know what he was talking about and that might one day could be overturned. But mathematics, the language of the cosmos, works.
So it seems very likely that traveling between star systems would be an incredibly steep challenge for any civilization.
It may well be that reports of UFOs tell us more about the nature of people here on our planet rather than any potential advanced life forms that may exist in deep space.
Yours truly,
David J. Eicher Editor