UFOs: The Fermi Paradox

Where is everybody?" was a question posed by physicist Enrico Fermi. The 'paradox' is that extraterrestrials should be here, yet there is no indisputable evidence to support that. Or is there? Those pesky UFOs just will not go away!

The Fermi Paradox (after physicist Enrico Fermi) briefly goes as follows. Extraterrestrial intelligences with advanced technology and interstellar spaceflight capability exist. Sub-light interstellar spaceflight violates no laws of physics. Adopting the mantra of quantum physics, ‘anything that’s not forbidden is compulsory’. The time it takes to explore every nook and cranny of our Milky Way Galaxy via sub-light interstellar spaceflight is a tiny fraction of the age of the Galaxy. There’s at least one universally valid reason to boldly go – species survival. No star, no solar system lives forever. We (Planet Earth) can’t hide from alien exploration and/or colonization. So, where is everybody? [By analogy, terrestrial life forms like bacteria, ants and cockroaches, birds, and of course humans, have explored and colonized Planet Earth in tiny fractions of the time that Earth itself has existed.] So again, where is everybody?

I can hear screams of ‘objection, objection’ now. It’s obviously too far and takes too long to get from there (wherever that is) to here. Well, life wasn’t meant to be easy! Seriously, if you think about it a while, methinks you protest too much!

Firstly, aliens could have a very long natural lifespan relative to us carbon-based terrestrial bipeds. There’s no natural law that confines intelligent life forms to an existence of just three score and ten.

Secondly, advanced extraterrestrials may have perfected various hibernation techniques. Put your spaceship on autopilot and sleep the long journey away. 

Thirdly, there’s that way old sci-fi chestnut, the multi-generation interstellar spaceship. While I feel that’s an unlikely concept, especially for exploration, it might not be quite so far out if the objective is interstellar colonization.

Then there’s bioengineering, turning an organic body into something that’s more machine than flesh and blood, perhaps akin to Doctor Who’s Daleks. Given advances in artificial body parts for humans, albeit it hip replacements or dentures or even mundane tooth fillings, that’s certainly a valid possibility.

Fifthly, why stop there? Send 100% machines – artificial intelligences in the form of cybernetic ‘organisms’ or robots or androids or tiny nanotechnology machines. One obviously things of Data from ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, or something akin to the original ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Cylons. Think of the savings in not having to provide life support and other life essentials for biological organisms. We’ve made a start already down this path. There’s nothing different in principle between a Cylon and our Pioneer 10 & 11; our Voyager space probes. It’s just that a Cylon is a lot more sophisticated. The day will come when our Pioneers and Voyagers will morph into something approaching a Cylon, or any one of multi-dozens of similar ‘beings’ in the sci-fi literature. Since AI is nearly immortal (relative to flesh and blood), that takes care of travel time arguments, and the possible environments fit for relative easy exploration (colonization?) are expanded greatly.  

Lastly, maybe, just maybe, a sort of warp drive, faster-than-light ship is possible. Aliens whose science is thousands of years more advanced than ours just might have gotten around Einstein’s speed limit. I wouldn’t want to wager any money on it, but I’d be less than open minded not to admit the possibility, however remote.  Add to that, theoretical but allowable ‘gateways’ between distant points of our Universe, maybe even to other universes – wormholes and Black Holes. Maybe, just maybe, an advanced alien civilization has the ways and means to manipulate such objects and forces to facilitate easy travel in space (and time too maybe).  An excellent hardcore science based sci-fi novel that doesn’t rely on pseudo techno-babble that illustrates this is Carl Sagan’s “Contact”.

So yet again, where is everybody?

Answers include (but aren’t really limited to) general concepts that suggest that…

They don’t exist; never have and never will. What’s wrong with that? Well, given the vastness (100,000 light-years across) and timelessness (over 12 billions of years minimum) of our Milky Way Galaxy’s entire expanse, the odds that we are the proverbial IT, the one and only, is extremely unlikely. It’s a massive violation of the Principle of Mediocrity or the Copernican Principle.

We’re the first kids on the block, not the new kids on the block. What’s wrong with that? Again, the odds that in all the vastness of our Milky Way Galaxy we should happen to be the first, is unlikely in the extreme. Our Solar System is but 4.5 billion years old; our Galaxy is way, way, way, way older than that.

They exist but don’t care to explore space, to seek out new life and new civilizations. They don’t want to boldly go or seek communications. They want to be left alone – isolationists. What’s wrong with that? That might be true for one, or several alien civilizations, but to extrapolate and suggest that that applies across the board to each and every extraterrestrial civilization is illogical.

They boldly go, but haven’t come our way yet. What’s wrong with that? Again, it doesn’t take that long to explore the entire Galaxy. It would be a fluke if we hadn’t of been noted and logged in some other civilization’s database.

They’re here, but leave us alone. What’s wrong with that? Again, that might be true for one, or several alien civilizations, but to extrapolate and suggest that that applies across the board again strikes me as illogical. There is such a thing called the Zoo Hypothesis to explain the Fermi Paradox. It’s both a Star Trek ‘Prime Directive’ concept combined with that of a zoo. Aliens (the zoo keepers) don’t interfere with us (though of course every now and then the zoo keepers have to interact with the animals (humans) in the zoo), don’t allow others to interfere with us, yet probably wouldn’t allow us to escape the cage (meaning probably the confines of our solar system – I mean we have been allowed to travel to the Moon).

They’re here and interact with us and our environment - UFOs anyone? What’s wrong with that? Absolutely nothing!

UFOs are a perfect answer to the Fermi Paradox!

Further readings: The Fermi Paradox

Hart, Michael H. & Zuckerman, Ben (Editors); Extraterrestrials: Where Are They?; Pergamon Press, N.Y.; 1982:

Hart, Michael H. & Zuckerman, Ben (Editors); Extraterrestrials: Where Are They? [2^nd edition]; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 1995:

Verma, Surendra; Why Aren’t They Here? The Question of Life on Other Worlds; Icon Books, Cambridge; 2007:

Webb, Stephen; Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life; Copernicus Books, N.Y.; 2002:

UFOs: Sorry, Interstellar Space Travel Is Bunk!

Where is everybody? “Everybody” in this case are those extraterrestrial aliens. UFO believers say they are here, but UFO non-believers say surely they (the aliens) can’t get from there (wherever there is) to here – interstellar space is the ultimate no-fly quarantine zone and since superluminal velocities (i.e. – Star Trek’s warp drive comes to mind here) are a violation of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, that takes care of that. E.T. exists but can’t get here; therefore UFOs can’t be the products of E.T. Want to bet?

According to many scientists, especially when it comes to the exploration, migration and colonization throughout the cosmos by extraterrestrial intelligences, outer space is your ultimate no-man’s-land and quarantine zone. No exploration; no migration; no colonization. Any intelligent life is pretty much going to be confined to their very own planetary abode or solar system.

That’s probably true if contemplating intergalactic (between galaxies) space where distances to your nearest galactic neighbour are measured in millions of light years; that’s certainly not true for interplanetary (between planets) space where distances to your nearest neighbour are measured in light minutes to light hours; now that’s leaving a question mark over the middle ground – interstellar (between stars) where distances to your neighbour are measured in several light years.

But while interplanetary travel is plausible in terms of reasonable travel times as witnessed by our own unmanned space probes to the planets and many moons within our solar system, exploration, tourism, or migration where we’re on the receiving end isn’t likely. We can’t expect any interplanetary visitors, those locals within our solar system, with itchy tentacles desiring to explore the local neighbourhood of which we’re a part of, to come calling. The era of the advanced Martian civilization, canals and all, not to mention “The War of the Worlds” scenario, are now long gone, confined to a ‘what if’ history that never eventuated.

Visitors from other galaxies are out of the running as well because as noted above the distances needed to be crossed are many orders of magnitude greater relative to short-hop interplanetary trips. It is one thing to swim several dozen lengths of the pool; quite another to swim across the Atlantic.

With no existing intelligent non-terrestrials of the local kind that can visit us, and extraterrestrials from other galaxies confined to those galaxies, well that still leaves several billion of stars in our own galaxy which E.T. might phone if away from home.

Of course phoning home is going to be a function of where you are within our star-stuttered galaxy. Towards the inner regions of our galaxy (like the inner regions, the CBD, of our cities), stars aren’t as far apart as where we (humans) are out in the suburbs, even perhaps out in the boondocks. It’s cheaper to phone home at local (CBD) distance rates; more expensive when dealing with those boondocks long distance charges.

Regardless, whether you are in our galactic CBD or out in the suburbs or even in the boondocks, I maintain it doesn’t take all that long to get from one (say the CBD) to the other (the boondocks).

I can now hear screams of ‘objection, objection’ to that. Galactic CBD to galactic boondocks; well it’s all obviously way too far and takes way too long to get from there (wherever that is, say the galactic CBD) to here (Planet Earth; location: galactic suburbs if not the boondocks). Well, life wasn’t meant to be easy! Seriously, if you think about it a while, any serious objections fade away. If you don’t want to think about it for yourself, then see below!

Unfortunately for the sceptics, fact number one is that E.T. doesn’t need any wormhole or theoretical ‘warp drive’ or other ‘Star Trek’ type superluminal velocity techno-babble to explore the galaxy and boldly go where no alien has gone before.  Sure, space is really BIG but it is also very old. There’s lots of time available to explore and colonize starting a few light years outward at a time. Consolidate, and then expand some more. Repeat as often as required. The time it would take to explore and colonize the Milky Way Galaxy (that is, via interstellar travel) is but a small fraction of the age of that galaxy even if a race of E.T.’s never travelled at more that say 1% to 10% the speed of light. Such velocities, while pretty fast by our current abilities, shouldn’t be beyond the means of a technologically advanced race. I mean to cross 100,000 light years of interstellar space, at 1% the speed of light, requires but 10 million years. Our galaxy is ten billion years old. If you doubt this, consult any elementary astronomy text for the relevant distances and volumes and ages and do the calculations for yourself if you like.

Regardless of that bit of mathematics, UFO sceptics would still have you believe that interstellar space travel is at best highly improbable, and at worst impossible. Therefore, UFOs cannot represent the technology of a space-faring race of extraterrestrials. Hogwash! I can not believe this old and totally outdated chestnut is still bandied about since there are terrestrial equivalents and even a human parallel.

Okay, space is really BIG. Planet Earth was really BIG to human society too many centuries ago, but that didn’t stop our planet being explored from pole to pole, even if individual journeys took many years. And bacteria, insects, birds, and other terrestrial life forms preceded us in exploring and colonizing Planet Earth all in pretty quick-smart order.

While it’s proved relatively easy for humans to colonize Planet Earth, humans cannot travel to the stars because we can’t travel fast enough within our short life-spans to make the journey from start to finish, and I assume here that if you start the journey you want to be around to finish the journey.

Now there is no law in biological science that says an intelligent flesh-and-blood entity must kick-the-bucket after roughly three score and ten years. If you recall from mythology, the cosmic and sky ‘gods’ were (at least from a human perspective) as close to immortal as makes no odds. Quasi-immortality makes interstellar travel quite feasible.

Aliens could have a very long natural lifespan relative to us carbon-based terrestrial bipeds. Again, the point must be emphasised that there’s no natural law that confines intelligent life forms to an existence of just three score and ten terrestrial years.

What if you have an alien race with life-spans way, way surpassing ours?  The idiotic assumption by the anti-UFO boldly going skeptics is, in a very anthropological way, that E.T. of necessity must have a lifespan equal to that of humans, or is confined to technologies equivalent to our own 21^st Century technologies. E.T. could have, and probably did have, a multi-billion year head start on us since our galaxy was already some 5.5 billion years old before Planet Earth (plus Sun and associated solar system) even formed out of interstellar gas, dust and associated debris.

That 21^st Century technological equivalency that aliens must have relative to us is more hogwash: any alien intelligence that can visit us will have technologies far beyond our own. There’s a possible likely alternative to a naturally longer life span relative to humans: what of a bit of the old fashion genetic engineering to increase life expectancy? Or there’s the likelihood of enhanced bioengineering (part flesh; part machine) to accomplish the same goal. What if an exploring race were to adopt those old stand-by sci-fi concepts of suspended animation or a multi-generation interstellar spaceship? Let’s have a look at those in turn.

Genetic or other forms of bioengineering could artificially extend life-spans by many orders of magnitude. Perhaps flesh-and-blood has morphed into nearly all silicon-and-steel; turning an organic body into something that’s more machine than flesh-and-blood, perhaps akin to the Daleks as featured in “Doctor Who”. Given advances in artificial body parts for humans, albeit it hip replacements or dentures or even mundane tooth fillings, that’s certainly a valid possibility if one extrapolates ahead from today to mere decades to centuries ahead.

But why stop there? Send 100% machines – artificial intelligences (AI) in the form of cybernetic ‘organisms’ or robots or androids or tiny nanotechnology machines. One obviously thinks of Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, or something akin to the original TV’s “Battlestar Galactica” Cylons. Think of the savings in not having to provide life support and other life essentials for biological organisms. We’ve made a start already down this path. There’s nothing different in principle between a Cylon and our Pioneer 10 & 11; our Voyager 1 & 2 space probes. It’s just that a Cylon is a lot more sophisticated. The day will come when our Pioneers and Voyagers will morph into something approaching a Cylon, or any one of multi-dozens of similar ‘beings’ in the sci-fi literature. Since AI is nearly immortal (relative to flesh-and-blood), that takes care of travel time arguments, and the possible environments fit for relative easy exploration (colonization?) are expanded greatly. Artificial intelligence can boldly go where no man (flesh-and-blood) has gone, or could go.  

There’s the standard sci-fi scenarios of the multi-generation starship or hibernation that passes the time away without much additional aging. Even if E.T. has a biological lifespan roughly equivalent to our own, advanced extraterrestrials may have perfected various hibernation techniques. Put your spaceship on autopilot and sleep the long journey away.  That sort of scenario has been a staple of science fiction for generations, for example think of the movies “Alien” or “2001: A Space Odyssey” or the original “Star Trek” TV episode that featured Khan.

There’s another sci-fi staple that could get E.T. from there to here. That way is via the old sci-fi chestnut, the multi-generation interstellar spaceship. While I feel that’s an unlikely concept, especially for exploration, it might not be quite so far out if the objective is interstellar colonization.

Then too perhaps a super-civilization of the extraterrestrial type has been able to approach luminal velocities; perhaps they have knowledge of physics and engineering that can even go superluminal. Maybe, just maybe, a sort of warp drive, faster-than-light spaceship is possible. Aliens whose technological science is thousands, tens of thousands, and even beyond that in years more advanced than ours just might have gotten around Einstein’s faster-than-light speed limit. I wouldn’t want to wager any money on it, but I’d be less than open minded not to admit the possibility, however remote.  Add to that theoretical but allowable ‘gateways’ between distant points of our Universe, maybe even to other universes – wormholes and Black Holes. Maybe, just maybe, an advanced alien civilization has the ways and means to manipulate such objects and forces to facilitate easy travel in space (and time travel too maybe).  An excellent hardcore science-based sci-fi work that doesn’t rely on pseudo techno-babble that illustrates this is the novel by Carl Sagan, “Contact”.

But one doesn’t need such extreme possibilities. All it takes is the first initial journey. It’s like migrating from New York City to Sydney, Australia. Once in Sydney, it’s all local commuting. So once here, our quasi-immortal, technologically advanced E.T. (yesteryear the ‘gods’ of mythology; today UFOs) sets up shop, say some sort of artificial space colony out in the asteroid belt, maybe even a lunar outpost. No further interstellar journeys required.  So in a roundabout way, one interstellar journey by E.T. from somewhere else in our galaxy, morphs into just short-hop interplanetary journeys from that point on. There may not be intelligent Martians that come a-calling, but that doesn’t mean our solar system doesn’t play host to another alien intelligence – they’re just not originally an indigenous native, but rather an interstellar migrant.   

Immortality: Who Wants To Live Forever? Part Two

“Nothing is certain but death and taxes”, so the saying goes, and while much has been written about taxes, death, or the lack of death, the latter is my topic under consideration. The question I pose is, can technology deliver on what religion promises, but probably can’t deliver on - that is to say, the promise of life eternal.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Apart from the immortality question, let’s say you have an intense personal desire to have a career exploring the planet Jupiter – not via telescope, but in person. Today, for various reasons, your prospects are bugger-all. There’s no way to get you there at the moment, and you couldn’t survive the hostile environment even if you did. There’s no part of your organic body that would survive the Jovian (Jupiter’s) environment.  And if you wanted to explore, in person, extra-solar ‘Jupiters’,  in addition to inherent hostile environments, you wouldn’t survive the time frames necessary to get you to them which would require interstellar travel, travel to be measured in tens to hundreds of thousands of years at present, even extrapolated advances in spacecraft velocities in the near to midterm future.

So, even a combination of your organic biology coupled with some machine technology (you becoming a cybernetic bio-mechanical hybrid) wouldn’t ultimately help your goal. What would work would be an entirely technological or mechanical ‘organism’ – a robot with artificial intelligence – one that could survive the lengthy journey times and the hostile environments. But that doesn’t do you (or more to the point your mind that’s within you) any good – unless you became that robot! However, one needs then to get the relevant organic parts of you – your mind or your brain - into an inorganic form.

Just as it’s currently possible for one to transfer or download the contents of one computer into another computer, and just as your brain (which contains your mind) is an advanced type of computer – it’s your mind’s software that controls the rest of you - so too might it be eventually possible for your organic mind-within-your-brain to be downloaded into a nuts-and-bolts computer which could then be merged with an appropriate mechanical body or some other technology specifically designed to achieve a particular goal that’s unachievable by actual  flesh and blood. Examples are exploring Jupiter, space travel to distant stars and solar systems, or undersea exploration. You cannot, unaided, dive to the depths where RMS Titanic rests of the bottom of the Atlantic. If your mind however was somehow contained within a silicon and steel robot, well exploring the oceanographic depths would be easy. Robotic probes have explored the Titanic and the deepest of the deep parts of the ocean.

The upshot is that if your mind, the inner “you”, were part and parcel of residing inside an inorganic body, given that inorganic materials last a hell of a lot longer than organic bodies, then you’ve achieved quasi-immortality!  That’s ditto the case in that when your mind becomes the software in an inorganic computer. That software can later be transferred to another computer and then another and then another – right on down the line. That can also lead to lots of copies of your mind being around. Not only quasi-immortality, but cloning as well!

Using nanotechnology, building from the ground up, atom by atom, tiny but useful machines/things is a

current rapidly emerging technology in our 21^st Century. Fast forward to the far future – if one has, down to the last detail, a blueprint for a living thing, then even that living thing could be created, from the ground up, atom by atom, using nanotechnology techniques, again and again and again – all identical. That living thing could be the physical you combined with the inner you – your mind - a being identical to whatever the pre-existing you was. Immortality! [As an aside, this is the way, atom by atom, that organic bodies are naturally constructed. Our food, air, water, etc. are broken down and recombined into organic compounds, bio-chemicals and so on up the chain through to cells and tissues and organs, etc.]

Of course such complicated nanotechnology may well be many centuries (if ever) away before this version of immortality is even a remote possibility. But, who knows what advancements might be possible that far ahead?

That said, it’s therefore possible that very advanced extraterrestrial intelligences have already achieved, if not immortality, then at least something approaching it. Such a civilization would have no difficulty, if so inclined, in exploring, even colonizing the galaxy in fairly short order – several millions of years at most, even at sub-light speeds. That’s a small fraction of the age of our galaxy. Extraterrestrials can colonize the galaxy akin to how humans have colonized Planet Earth – it doesn’t take that long relative to the age of the object – galaxy or Planet Earth – being colonized.

Quite apart from achieving immortality through silicon and steel, or nanotechnology, you know there is no law of nature that states you must die after so many days; after three score and ten years; after so many heartbeats; after so many cell divisions; after so much calorie intake; after so much whatever. Therefore, perhaps you might be justified in firmly believing that no matter what, you will always wake up the next morning. You are so convinced of that that you have never even remotely contemplated making out a will, or buying a graveyard plot, or making any sorts of arrangements post your death –cause it ain’t gonna happen! That’s the power of positive thinking as it were! Of course that leads to the converse, perhaps if you do acknowledge that there’s no uncertainty when it comes to your death, you’ve sealed your own fate! Once you accept that you will die, you will indeed. Of course it may not matter one bit what you firmly believe or refuse to believe in or acknowledge – like your own croaking. I assume it doesn’t matter since I suspect over time there have been lots of individuals who have denied death’s inevitability, but nevertheless, are now stone cold dead.

Of course in one sense we all achieve a form of immortality. Some of our atoms and molecules that made us up will eventually recycle and become incorporated into new life forms - maybe as bacteria, or plants or bugs or maybe a part of another person. The heart may not go on, but the atomic bits and pieces will. Perhaps after billions of years, after our sun and solar system are no more, some of the fundamental particles that make you, you, might find its way across the cosmos to eventually become incorporated into some extraterrestrial life form! The reverse might also be true – molecular bits of you might once, eons ago, have been part of an alien organism.