Are We Alone?

News articles suggesting the existence of UFO’s have been circulating lately. Stories about Air Force pilots encountering unexplainable objects during training flights are going viral. Former Senator Harry Reid admitted to the existence of a US government sponsored program responsible for investigating UFO sightings. In all likelihood, these sightings have mundane explanations. That said, the uptick in UFO discussions has sparked the public’s collective imagination. The biggest question on people’s minds is: are we alone in the universe?

Honestly, I hope we are alone. If these UFO’s are piloted by aliens, then we’ve encountered more intelligent beings. These more intelligent beings would have the following:

The ability to perform interplanetary travel. Technological capabilities superior to those of humans. Intelligence about Earth and its inhabitants (specifically, humans).

It’s safe to say that should these beings have a hostile agenda, we’re unlikely capable of defending ourselves against an alien invasion. While I understand our captivation with the possibility of alien life, it’s best if there isn’t any. Colonizers have historically had the advantage over natives. I don’t expect this scenario to be any different.

What’s the Likelihood of Life Outside Our Planet?

Physicists far smarter than me have been struggling to answer this question for decades. If our universe is infinite, than one would think there should be aliens out there, right? It’s not so simple, though. Human beings are special. The Earth is more than 4.5 billion years old. Human beings have only been around for 200,000 or so years. It therefore took an incredible amount of time and chance events for humans to populate the Earth. I won’t go into a list of the miracles it took for us to get here because the list is nearly endless. Having said that, it’s safe to say that our mere existence is incredibly unlikely. The probability of another planet inhabited by human-like beings existing in our universe is just barely above 0. But let’s say there is such a planet. Could they contact us?

Timing is everything. It takes time to reach another planet. It takes time to develop the technology necessary to reach another planet. This would mean that this other species would have been around longer than humans have been, or they evolved at a far faster pace. Who knows, by the time a species gets technologically advanced, it may end up killing itself. Look at the current state of affairs humans are in. Threats of environmental disasters, nuclear wars, and superbugs plague our species. Who’s to say that these threats are unique to humans? Can a species fend off these threats long enough to become interplanetary?

Alien Invasion or Alien Savior?

Let’s imagine for a second that however unlikely the possibility, aliens do visit Earth. Could we expect the aliens to be helpful, like in Arrival, or hostile, like in Mars Attacks? We first need to discuss the motive. Why would aliens visit our planet? They could be as curious as humans. That, of course, assumes that aliens would be similar to humans. We can consider curiosity to be relatively benign. Maybe they instead want to share their technological advances with other species across the universe. Could aliens be beneficent saviors that could solve our problems? If so, they’d be making a pretty long trek across the universe to do so. Or lastly, could they be on an interplanetary mission to take our resources? As stated above, the Earth defied the odds in becoming a habitable planet for human life. I could see why we’d be a desirable destination. Our discovery, though, could be the beginning of the end.

The main takeaway is that we are very likely alone in the universe. If not, then the chances of us ever coming into contact with another species is even less likely. The doomsayers out there can sleep peacefully knowing that an alien will not abduct them in their sleep. Let’s instead focus on terrestrial threats, as there is no shortage of them out there.

What do you think? Do you have thoughts about alien invasions? Leave a comment below or contact me directly.