I do not believe that any intelligent life has ever visited Earth, nor has any such life directed devices or craft to do so. Though I do remain open to evidence to the contrary that could change my belief, should the evidence be sufficient.
My reasons are simple: I consider the vastness of the galaxy (and the universe) too great in distance and time to afford an opportunity for physical visitation.
And, none of the arguments for alien visitation have been convincing. This includes all pictures, films, testimony and the like.
There is no such thing as absolute certainty about a claim. We are left only with deciding between choices of likelihood. Which is more likely? We ask. Whatever the subject before us, we can ask that question.
What method do we use to decide what is more likely? Reason or Instinct?
Reason of course, as instinct is simply what you already take to be true. And we gain instinct from environment and experience. We are predisposed to certain assumptions, so using reason will give us some help sorting what is, from what we assume it is. We come with embedded beliefs from childhood, and all the later times when we took something to be true for bad reasons. It is a good practice to examine all beliefs to determine how we came to hold them.
Occam’s Razor is a good tool, even applied casually. It is a question of numbers of assumptions. Sometimes people say it means the simpler, the better. It isn’t that exactly, but more like, in which argument do you have to assume more things without proof in order to get to the result.
A simple proposition might be the statement: I have a brown dog. A person who hears this only has to make one assumption to form a belief. They have to assume I am telling the truth.
Whereas if I said that I had a brown dog that can drive a car and fly his own airplane, they’d have to make more assumptions to form a belief. (Dogs driving cars, flying and owning planes).
But here the assumption that I am joking is enough to form a belief about the statement. (Or that I am crazy, etc).
There are uncountable numbers of stars and potential planets in our galaxy alone, and it seems foolish to believe that we are alone. It must be, we say, that life emerged on many other such planets. And even if a tiny percentage of these potential planets had life, and even if a smaller percentage had intelligent life, there would still be large numbers of such lifeforms out there amongst the stars.
This is a reasonable proposition, at least for the sake of looking and listening to see if we can detect any intelligent life. It is a big place, and we have barely begun to look. Maybe we will find some?
But these numbers arguments are flawed. They all are static, and the galaxy isn’t. The galaxy is 87,000 light years in diameter. Even the spiral arms are 1000 light years thick. Only a relative handful of stars are within 50 light years of Earth. That means that speed of light communication would take a century round trip. If we heard today from an alien race, our answer could be generations before it was received. On the contrary, our grandchildren’s grandchildren might get an answer from messages we sent fifty years ago. That’s just at the speed of light.
The practicality of interstellar travel makes it more likely than not that any intelligent life would not undertake such trips. The distance of time is too great. We look at the night sky and we do not see the stars. We see the light from those stars that has been traveling for a thousand years. That light might have gone out centuries or millennia ago. Time. The distances are time.
I make one assumption: They don’t likely know we’re here, and couldn’t come if they did know. It isn’t a question of simply overcoming the technology. (Which we have to assume they could).
Time traveling? That’s another assumption, and not one that comports with reality. Why assume they have different physical laws? Why speculate about possibilities at all? Each time we allow for a new truth based on speculation, the more assumptions we are making, and the less likely it is true.
At some point we need to realize that we are not making estimate for predictive purposes, but excuses to allow continued belief.
This is sort of my position when it comes to what might be “out there.” We are probably not alone, but it probably hasn’t been here, nor would it come.
But to think it is probable that we are not the only place where life emerged, is not the same as having evidence that it did form elsewhere. And it is a long way from reasoning that it would or could come here.
Let’s examine the rarity of intelligent life capable of space exploration.
Life emerged on Earth roughly 3 billion years ago, a billion-ish years after the planet formed. And hominids didn’t evolve on Earth until about 6 million years ago. It has taken all of those billions of years to evolve the intelligent life we have now. Intelligent life is brand new on this evolutionary scale.
There are 1.2 million identified species of plants and animals on Earth, with estimates suggesting there could be 8.7 million. And yet, only one of those is intelligent enough to create written language or transmit messages beyond our planet.
This is evidence that life sufficiently intelligent for space travel is exceedingly rare. There could well be millions of planets with life that may never evolve to this degree. Millions of possible worlds with life that never reaches the intelligence of even primates. We could be the pinnacle.
And the window of time within that evolutionary timeline where intelligence reached even the ability to transmit radio signals is a tiny fraction of that time, I suspect it would be in the last few seconds of New Year’s Eve if presented on an annual calendar. That is, technologically advanced intelligent life is evident for only an extraordinarily small fraction of time, and only within a single species out of millions.
When we are looking out at space with this evolutionary timeline in mind, we should understand that it may be that none of the intelligent life that may be out there exists now. We not only have to understand the number of potential planets, the rarity of intelligence, and the distances of time, but we must also figure out those windows of time that intelligence exists in – if it exists at all.
Occam’s Razor applied here says that it is more likely that other life does not overlap in time and distance with us.
There could be vast amounts of life that we will never be aware of, nor could be aware of, because the time lapse of communication exceeds humanity’s period of technology.
Aliens could have sent signals to Earth for millennia to no avail, because while we were here and intelligent, we were not yet technologically advanced enough to understand them. They might have reached out millions of years ago, and since have vanished in the collapse of their own local star, asteroid strike, or internal conflict.
The evidence for alien visitation is insufficient to support belief based on the feasibility.
Claims:
Broadly speaking, the claims of alien visitation are eye witnesses, photographic and video-graphic images, and conspiracy theories.
UFO sightings have increased in direct proportion to the development of manned flight. When human powered aircraft began crossing the skies in earnest, UFO claims became a thing. And they increased as human flight increased.
And what people say they saw has changed too, and chiefly according to the popular conception of what others saw.
In the early 20th Century, aliens of our fictions looked entirely different than they came to look later. The first “saucer” wasn’t a saucer at all. It was a reporter’s mistake that led to that description. Before that they were cylinders. After that, the saucer shape dominated the sightings.
In The War Of The Worlds novel, aliens were octopus-like creatures. And they were Martians. Later, we imagined short men with suction cups on their limbs.
After the movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, the “gray” became the predominant description in UFO claims. And the “alien” bodies being displayed in Mexico look remarkably similar to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.
I point these out to show that when we see something we can’t identify, we form in our mind the image we think we should see. Once we start thinking the UFO is alien, we fill our mental image with what we think it should look like. And that appearance is often what is most popular at the time. This is evidence of human error in identification.
I’ve heard it said that these claims are evidence, just not good evidence. This is incorrect. The UFO sightings (all of them, or at least those that remain unidentified) are not evidence of aliens. They are evidence of UFOs. All they tell us is that someone saw something they couldn’t identify, and they asserted it was alien in origin. But none of them have ever crossed into evidence beyond unknown, except when found to be from Earth, which was all of the ones that were identified.
Apply Occam’s Razor to this. If every time we identify a UFO it turns out to be from Earth, what’s most likely true about the next one we see?
When UFOs mostly turn out to be planes, birds, balloons, and atmospheric phenomena, why do we continue to persist in thinking some of the remaining are alien?
“I saw an alien craft,” is an assertion without supporting evidence. To correct it we could say, “I saw something I couldn’t identify, and I assert it is alien.”
A UFO should not prompt a choice between whether or not it is alien to Earth. That’s a false dichotomy. This kind of logical error leads us to think that some number of them could or must be alien by default. This puts an assumption into our heads at the beginning. We assume that some alien visitors are coming here. This is an unwarranted assumption.
Each claim should be treated as if it is likely from Earth, and if we are unable to make such an identification, it is fallacious to presume it is alien to Earth.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
A thousand unproven claims do not add up to one proven claim.
The entire body of ufology amounts to claims and accusations of conspiracy. Anything alien remains speculative.
This has led people who are committed to the belief in alien visitors, to assert that “they” are hiding the truth. This should be dismissed out of hand because it is an unfalsifiable claim. We cannot prove anyone isn’t hiding it, because you can’t prove a negative, so the assertion shouldn’t even be part of the discussion.
The burden of proof is on those making the claim. The claim of government coverup must be shown to be true, not merely asserted as a way to distract from the failure to verify a claim.
The alien believers club has tried to do this in papers, books, films, online and the like, by asserting that various classified government programs exist in order to hide the truth. Of course they have not proved any of that. That our military has secrets about some things is not reason to believe it has secrets about everything. Nor should the lack of evidence be used as claims of hidden evidence.
The most recent has been alien true believers testifying before Congress. This was a fascinating example of how the UFO community uses innuendo and assumptions to mislead the untrained public.
In Congressional hearings about the subject of UFOs, the claimants talk about actual programs, some of them secret, which investigate the phenomenon. It is important to understand how this sounds to the untrained ear.
When most of us hear the word UFO, we assume aliens. We do understand when it is pointed out that unidentified doesn’t mean otherworldly, but for most laypeople UFO is synonymous with ET.
So, when a “whistleblower” tells us that the government has secret programs to investigate and retrieve crashed UFOs, we often assume this means that alien craft have been recovered. This is a logical fallacy called a non sequitur. Unidentified does not equal alien. The US military has shot down unidentified objects. Some very publicly. This year’s downing of supposed Chinese spy balloons were all over the news. These were definitely from Earth. We sent teams to these crash sites and recovered the wreckage. We also shot down some stuff we weren’t sure of (which turned out to be balloons). UFO crash site recovery teams doesn’t mean aliens. That’s a non sequitur.
Anyone in the government familiar with these recoveries are aware that these are from Earth. When they omit that from their Congressional testimony, it is fair to conclude they are doing so intentionally to mislead the public, and perhaps Congress itself. It is deceit by omission.
Even more telling is the use of charged language. The newest is “non-human biologics.” At a hearing where witnesses testify about alien visitation and government coverup (all implied but never directly claimed under oath), this phrase sounds like it means the government has the alien bodies.
I have paid close attention to the reaction to this phrase, from the Congress members at the meeting, news reporters covering it, articles written, and the general public as a whole, and in nearly every case it is clear that people believe non-human biologics means alien creatures.
The use of this phrase is woefully misleading. And the witnesses seem clearly intent on letting it mislead. At no point did the witness attempt to clarify this, or even define the phrase. Here’s a definition of biologic: biologic |ˌbīōˈläjik|
adjective
relating to biology; biological. there is growing interest in the biologic activities of plant extracts in the treatment of disease.
noun (usu. biologics)
another term for biological (noun). these natural biologics can be as potent as manufactured drugs.
When I first looked this up it reminded me of my childhood. I can’t remember the exact age, but some school mate pointed at me and told me my epidermis was showing. This was a good laugh for kids until everyone learned what that word meant.
Non-human biologics could be any other living thing on Earth. At no point should we conclude that this means alien to our planet.
That Congress and the public misunderstood this, is evidence of how easily we will jump to conclusions. We (the people, broadly speaking) are not skeptical. We do not think critically.
And the use of this phrase in the context it was presented without clarification suggests (strongly) that the witness intended for people to make that assumption.
A suspicious drone knocked out of the sky by a trained eagle (yes, that’s a real thing) would have a crash recovery team sent, and the bird feathers would be non-human biologics. A spy balloon that lands in a field of grass would have non-human biologics.
There is zero reason to conclude that this means alien, but nonetheless this is what most people would assume because of the context.
In all, the witnesses made no direct claims that could put them in jeopardy of perjury while under oath. And they were all very careful to qualify that they personally didn’t see any of the craft or bodies, or biologics. It was all hearsay. Someone told them. Even the claim of being a whistleblower is misleading. He merely made statements regarding the existence of activities, and hearsay of others, while implying that evidence of aliens was being hidden. No accusations, but plenty of ambiguous statements implying aliens.
And around that they crafted a story that would set up the listener to believe the tale that “they” are hiding the truth from you.
The testimony was a complete nothingburger. It sounded like every other claim I’ve heard, full of implication and misrepresentation. And the whole thing steeped in the belief of coverup.
I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. The time to believe something is when there is sufficient evidence and not before.
In the case for alien visitation the reasonable burden of proof has not been met. It has not even been approached. When examined critically, none of the claims get past the stage of unknown, except where we found them to be Earth born. And our inability to understand what we saw, or recognize the error in our observation, does not permit us to infer something not in evidence.
Couple that with the known constraints of distance and time, and the likelihood of such visitation becomes even less plausible.
Triple that with the innate human tendency to assert an answer wherever there is a gap in our knowledge, even so far as our own minds forming images, and the idea that any sighting is credible isn’t reasonable.
I’ll keep an open mind, but I don’t know what it was, maybe it is alien, is poor reasoning.