I listened to this weekend’s After the Paracast because people told me that Paul Kimball mentioned me by name (four times, iirc) while basically ripping on the ETH again (or at least, simultaneously calling it a viable hypothesis while slinging around slurs like “space aliens” again). And then after misrepresenting my position (I never said that I have any idea where these things are coming from, and obviously the exact origin is inherently indeterminable, but they don't seem to be earthly technology so "extraterrestrial" is the best assessment that we can make), and generally belittling it for 20-30 minutes, Gene and Paul agreed that we shouldn’t talk about it anymore. Hm. How is that fair?
So I’m forced to make a rebuttal. Primarily because Paul accused me of not understanding the difficulty of interstellar travel, which is an absurd thing to say to somebody who’s been studying theoretical physics for 40 years with an eye to understanding what I observed as a kid, and also the subject of interstellar spaceflight in general.
We’ve already spoken at length about the subject of interstellar travel here on the forums, and I started
a thread here that gets into the details at some length, where people can find links to the relevant academics physics papers on this subject and lots of general discussion about it.
The empirical evidence and supporting logic of my position are very simple and compelling, and I’ve repeated most of this many times:
1.) We know now via the Kepler mission that roughly 20% of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way are Sun-like stars,
and roughly 22% of those are orbited by a warm Earth-like planet in the habitable zone, which yields 8.8 billion potentially habitable planets orbiting Sun-like stars in the Milky Way alone. That’s a vast number, but it’s much larger if we also consider that habitable planets could exist around other types of stars as well, and many moons may also be habitable. And there are 1-2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, so the lower bound on potentially living planets is at least 8.8-17.6
billion trillion within optical range. We also know from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey collaboration, that the observable universe is merely a spec of the entire universe, which
may in fact be infinite in extent, to the best of our present knowledge.
2.) And we now know that the average age of these potentially habitable earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars is about 3.1 billion years older than our Earth, thanks to
this intriguing 2015 study. Let that sink in: the average habitable planet like ours has a 3-billion-year head start. So if some skeptical scientist tells you “we won’t have a field propulsion solution to interstellar spaceflight in a million years!” then just ask “how about 100 million years, or a billion?” Because that’s the kind of head start that a planet with a similar evolutionary profile would have on us. If you assume that an intelligent alien species survives that long - and I think that with a few hundreds of millions of potential intelligent species to consider some very well could, then it’s unthinkable to presume that they wouldn’t have solved the technical challenges of practical interstellar spaceflight within that kind of time frame. We already have a theoretical model for the kind of field propulsion system that's required, and we're only about 1-2 centuries into the industrialization age.
3.) But apparently Gene and Paul don’t think it’s that big of a challenge after all, because they both seem to think that the kinds of devices being observed outperforming our top military interceptor jets using what appears to be the kind of gravitational field propulsion system that’s required for superluminal spaceflight, is only maybe 50 years away for us. So which is it, guys? Is interstellar spaceflight impossible even for extraterrestrial civilizations that are on average 3 billion years ahead of us, or is it easy and just around the corner? You can’t have it both ways.
4.) Paul suggested that the craft we’re seeing could be some kind of projection that appears on radar and often emits artificial light. I don’t rule that out – a civilization billions of years ahead of us may well have that level of technological capability. My point is that it comes down to relative probability. Which is more likely: that a civilization would send probes to other worlds just like we do today (but across interstellar instead of interplanetary distances), or that they’d be able to project a solid kind of object that looks like a physical device, across light-years of interstellar space? The former seems a lot easier and more probable to me, but I think that both things may be happening (and other things that we may not even be able to comprehend at our level of advancement).
We also hear a lot of talk about “they” as if we’re talking about one civilization sending devices into our airspace. But clearly what we’re seeing with the empirical numbers from our top astronomers, is a model of a universe likely teeming with life, and probably a lot of intelligent life in the mix. So we should expect that civilizations at all levels of advancement would be exploring the universe, just as we will do when we devise the requisite level of technology. Some of them will have had interstellar spaceflight capability for a relatively short time, by the time they send probes or craft our way. Others on the far end of the spectrum may have incomprehensible levels of technology to facilitate interstellar exploration using wormholes or something even more exotic. So it seems reasonable to presume that some of the sightings we’re seeing are just advanced interstellar drones made of metals and other readily comprehensible technologies, while others may involve quantum engineering that defies our current understanding of the concept of “a machine.” It seems likely that all such possibilities and more are happening at the same time.
Gene and Paul seemed to offer an alternative explanation: that God or some god-like intelligence is somehow manifesting physical devices for our benefit – something that we can wrap our minds around, to make some furtive level of contact with us. Could be. But where is the origin of that intelligence? We don’t see any compelling evidence that the Earth is inhabited by such an intelligence (unless you consider hauntings, as Paul suggests, which sounds crazy to me – why the heck would some essentially omnipotent form of terrestrial intelligence only make itself known to us by taunting people walking around in empty houses at night? Such a proposition seems ludicrous, prima facie). So they would be, by definition, extraterrestrial in origin.
And I have to point out another error that Paul made on the show, when he suggested that the seemingly alien devices being reported by witnesses and radar operators appear to mimic the alien craft depicted in 1950s science fiction movies. That's not what happened Paul. The alien craft in those movies were modeled after what UFO witnesses were reporting, not the other way around.
And the historical evidence that we've been visited sporadically for centuries or millennia+, isn't evidence against the ETH; it's evidence in favor of it. It's not a recent phenomenon because the universe is evidently teeming with intelligent life and probably has been for billions of years. They've come by to check us out from time to time, apparently. This shouldn't be surprising to anyone.
Then there are other possible alternative exotic explanations; interdimensional visitors for example. There’s only one problem with this idea: there isn’t a single whiff of empirical evidence that alternate dimensions or realities actually exist. So that’s invoking a wildly speculative and non-evidentiary explanation to explain a mystery – how can anyone consider that to be “progress” in our understanding? It’s not. It’s just a Hail Mary wild supposition based on zero foundational evidence. It’s not impossible, granted, but lots of things fall into the “not impossible” category. So why even go there when we have ample empirical evidence to support a model of the universe that’s rife with life, and the majority of that life has a 3 billion-year lead over us on the biological and technological evolution spectrum?
In parting, Paul implores us to focus not on the nature or origin of the source of these witness reports, but rather on “the message.” What message is that, Paul? Because the only message that I can see, with sightings of exotic aerial vehicles that can accelerate like a bullet and hover silently with no observable reaction force, is “we are not alone, and we are vastly outmatched technologically.”
To each his own. Actually I don't really care where these things are coming from. I want to figure out how to build one. If other people want to figure out what it all means, that's fine with me: let us know what you come up with. I'm a pragmatist. I think that anything we observe can teach us something about physics, which can lead to major technological advancements that benefit all of mankind. So that's why I'm interested in all of this: I can think of few scientific ambitions greater than a viable method of rapid manned interstellar spaceflight, and if it is only 50 years away as you gentlemen suggest, then I want to do everything that I can to help accelerate that process. And right now, the AAV phenomenon is our best lead for clues and new levels of understanding that could get us to that goal.