Extraterrestrial First Contact: Support Science

http://www.firstcontact29.blogspot.com/

The US government has provided insiders an advance look at their “bombshell” report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). Here is my summation of their findings:

There’s stuff happening in the skies around military operations and it’s not us, but it could be the Chinese or Russians. We don’t think it’s aliens, but honestly we have no evidence one way or another. We just have a bunch of unexplained sightings, some by very experienced military pilots, and confirmation with high tech military instrumentation. We have no idea what it means.

Thanks. Very helpful. We do appreciate that fact that you are owning up to your ignorance. That’s a level of honesty we don’t usually get from the military.

So, where do we go from here? Clearly, the Pentagon will need billions of dollars to study this issue. General Dynamics salespeople are probably reading every UFO book they can get their hands on, to prepare the project bids. That work will also be farmed out to the other usual suspects- Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. The entire investigation will be kept top secret. It will take years of work by thousands of consultants and we will end up having to beg for public updates.

Meanwhile, even outside of the military industrial complex folks are battling for position. Understandably, the scientists who have devoted their careers to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) are not thrilled by the attention UAP have been receiving. SETI scientists have good reason to be concerned. If we become obsessed with UAP investigations, perhaps we won’t care anymore about SETI research? I agree that would be stupid. SETI research is important and it should continue to grow. But to ignore the UAP situation seems like a bad idea. The folks who say they believe UAP are natural or man-made don’t provide any evidence. And quite frankly, that’s just as dumb as the folks who claim UAP must be alien visitation, without any evidence.

I’ll be honest- I didn’t give a crap about UAP or UFOs until the New York Times articles on the subject came out in 2017. Luis Elizondo and his TV show, Unidentified, also grabbed my attention. Those reports contained the first evidence of UFO activity that seemed credible. Now I’m caught up in it like everyone else.

I have a simple suggestion for how to proceed: support science. We’ve been developing our scientific chops for hundreds of years now. Let’s keep on. We need a scientific study of UAP carried out by civilian scientists. Hell, NASA is even considering the subject. Bill Nelson recently spoke out about the subject and NASA has generously suggested that scientists working on NASA projects could consider UAP research. Not a very bold statement, but a nice first step. You have to remember- NASA is scared to death that politicians will turn their research into political fodder. Given their past experiences and our current political nightmare, that’s a realistic concern.

But we can’t turn our attention away from the amazing scientific work that is being conducted currently. Astrophysicists and astronomers are discovering new things about our universe in almost daily revelations. The discovery and confirmation of hundreds of exoplanets and an actual image of a black hole are just two of the revelations. We live in extraordinary times and that is due to the work of thousands and thousands of scientists, each working together, and arguing with each other, in pursuit of knowledge. Particle physics research continues to find new ways to baffle us. They are trying to answer mysteries such as the nature of dark matter and the inner workings of quantum mechanics.

We need to support those scientists. We need to give them adequate funding and we need to better educate ourselves so we can share in their excitement when the next finding comes out. We also need to be educated enough to understand that findings may contradict each other. Some research may have weaknesses, leading to a debate. That debate is not a failure of science- it is science in action.

We need to better support SETI research. It is a partner in our human space exploration. You may say- why study far off star systems when the aliens may be here on Earth? For the sake of argument, let’s say alien technology is here on Earth – doesn’t that mean we need to know even more about where it came from and how aliens are communicating? Even if the aliens sit down and hold a news conference at the United Nations, we are going to want to have a better look at the universe around us and collect our own data.  

I know we have many serious challenges here on Earth. Climate change, nuclear proliferation, cybercrime, and biological hazards threaten to undo our human civilization. We need to pour resources into those issues – serious monetary, scientific, and industrial resources. But we also need to continue the exploration of the universe. We need to know how the material world is organized and what it encompasses.

So, where do we go from here? Support science. Support open inquiry. Continue to debunk conspiracy theories and falsehoods. Have an honest and open conversation about what we find. Don’t allow politicians and other leaders to turn these inquiries into political weapons. They will do that anyway, but we can call them out when they do, and punish them for such cheap maneuvers.

Support science. Support the incredible NASA missions underway as we speak. Humans have multiple vehicles driving around Mars, conducting research, as we speak. That’s pretty damn cool. And just wait until the James Webb space telescope is operational. These are just a few of things it will be investigating. Support scientists and keep an open mind. There is so much we don’t know. Let’s just add UAP to the list and keep on with the good work.

If you want to support SETI efforts consider a donation to the SETI Institute: https://www.seti.org/donate

For more about these issues check out my book- “The Extraterrestrial Big Hello: A Guide for What to do When the Aliens Introduce Themselves.” It is available on Amazon worldwide.

http://www.firstcontact29.blogspot.com/