Life Beyond Earth
The Fable of the Unknown Floating Objects
People debate whether life developed outside of Earth. Some think so, and that we are already being visited by beings from other worlds. Maybe it all depends on your point-of-view.
I ONCE SPENT MY VACATION in Fernando de Noronha, an archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean belonging to Brazil. It’s a paradise island with breathtaking natural beauties. What makes it stand out is that the archipelago is below sea level.
The dives were done with oxygen cylinder or snorkeling. One day, I was performing a snorkel-assisted dive in a natural pool surrounded by reefs and rocks on all sides, so that the water could only enter the pool from the top at high tide, and that’s what supplied the pool with saltwater. That made the pool’s ecosystem unique because there were no biological exchanges with the external environment (the Atlantic Ocean).
The creatures that lived there never knew anything other than the inside of the pool. That was the whole universe known to them. They didn’t know what was going on outside the pool, because they couldn’t get out of it or see what was outside. They are lush, colorful, charming fish, to leave anyone enchanted, but they are ignorant, as their worldview is very limited. Still, they lived happily, in their daily affairs, which were basically looking for food to survive another day in this microcosmos and reproduce themselves.
What should such beings think? Would there be life outside the pool? What’s more, complex life? A little more: intelligent life like theirs? They couldn’t know, because they were confined in their pool without being able to look outside. Sad fate!
What about those objects they often saw floating on the water (people snorkeling)? Some fish named them “unknown floating objects” (UFO). They didn’t know what it was, but they knew it was there. Some fish began to speculate whether they would be visitors from outside the pool. But others, more skeptical, said, “Extraordinary allegations require extraordinary evidence.” And the debate continued…
Those who didn’t believe in the extrapool hypothesis said: “If they are visitors from elsewhere, why not contact us? After all, that’s what we’d do if we were in their shoes, isn’t it?” But believers retort: “Maybe they don’t want to make contact. They didn’t come here for that. They’re much more evolved and intelligent than we are. They have no interest in establishing communication with us. We have nothing to teach or offer them. Maybe they’ll come here just to watch us, get to know us, maybe follow our evolution. Who knows…”
Some fish have created a project to try finding signs of intelligent life outside the pool. To do so, they developed a system to detect fast repetitive ticks (FRT; which are sounds that the fish emit to communicate, by a somewhat unusual way: the anus). But after several decades of research, they found nothing, which led skeptics to conclude that they were alone in the universe; there was no intelligent life outside the pool! The universe was too silent!
However, some more “open-minded” fish speculated: “Perhaps they have another more sophisticated form of communication. They may have abandoned the FRTs a long time ago. Maybe we’re looking for signs of intelligent life the wrong way.” Others pointed out: “Look at UFOs, they emit ticks, even though they’re not fast or repetitive (sometimes they are). Maybe it’s a more evolved form of communication.”
Sometimes UFOs abduct some beings from the pool. They had a special interest in turtles. They’d take them out of the pool, do some tests and return them to the pool. Some even returned with some kind of device implanted in their bodies. They said to the fish: “I’ve been abducted! They took me out of the pool. They examined me. They put a device on me. There’s life outside the pool!”
But the skeptical fish said: “Turtles can’t be trusted. They want to believe in something. Their judgment is compromised. They suffer from confirmation bias. Witness evidence devoid of physical evidence is not profitable to science (solemnly ignoring body implants).”
It wouldn’t do any good! Nothing made the fish reach a consensus. The debates were endless! But no matter how much they debated, each had their particular viewpoint and a reasonable argument, to one side or the other. At the end of the day, the only thing they could do to end the debate and get to the truth would be to develop a way for a fish to jump out of the pool and look at what was there. But they would also have to develop a way for him to return!
And so the days are set in Fernando de Noronha, with the fish of the natural pool not knowing the truth about life outside it and the universe completely indifferent to them.
Thinking About Life Outside the Earth
This story puts the question of life off Earth from a different perspective. It is possible (and I consider it quite likely) that the universe is teeming with life everywhere. As we just wet our feet in this infinite ocean, we have a still very incipient perspective of the reality that surrounds us. Like Fernando de Noronha’s fish, we are trapped in our natural pool, with a very limited view of what happens out there.
It is quite possible that we are already being visited by beings from other worlds. It is also possible that they simply do not want to contact us. There is a civilizing guideline that states that we should not come into contact with isolated indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest. In addition to having nothing to offer them, nor them to us, this is because an eventual contact could contaminate them with pathogens that they have never had contact with and therefore their immune system would not be prepared to fight them. This has even happened when Spaniards and Portuguese arrived in the New World. The result we already know well and were not at all fortunate (at least for the natives).
In the series Star Trek, Starfleet’s First Directive prohibits all ships and fleet members from interfering with the normal development of a culture or society. This directive is even more important than the very protection of ships or fleet members. The first contact with an emerging civilization should only be made when this civilization had developed, by its means, the ability to travel at the space warp speed (because then they would inevitably encounter other traveling ships or reach inhabited planets) and have a centralized government. To join the Federation of Planets, this civilization would have to fully accept the Constitution and have a technological level close to the Federation’s one, in addition to going through a quarantine period until it is considered a de facto member of the Federation.
The First Directive makes perfect sense and I think it would be likely that it (or a similar version) is adopted by extraterrestrial civilizations traveling between the stars, if any.
The issue of abductions can be seen from the same perspective. In the fable I wrote above, sea turtles are abducted by human researchers, interested in their protection, as they are at risk of extinction. Throughout the animal kingdom, animals are taken from their habitat by biologists, veterinarians, and other researchers, who experiment with them, often put in them identification devices and sometimes even electronic geolocation devices, to study migratory behaviors.
This pattern is very similar to abductions reports, in which people are torn against their will from their homes, taken to research laboratories, examined, and then returned healthily to their “habitat”. Some report having implants in their bodies (and some doctors have even removed them from some abductees). Although there are reports of hostile behavior on the part of the hijackers, the vast majority point in the opposite direction, that is, that they are not hostile. How do animals view the behavior of the biologists who study them? Do they consider them hostile? Or do they somehow feel that they don’t mean them harm?
One lesson we draw from this fable: it is possible that the universe is teeming with life and we know absolutely nothing about it because of our still very limited perspective. The furthest place man has ever been away from Earth is the moon, but that means practically not even having left Earth. It is quite true that we have already sent probes to investigate other planets in our solar system and their moons, but this is also just wetting our feet in the vast ocean of the universe.
One thing is certain: if we find life on any planet in our solar system or some moon, it will mean that the universe is probably full of life everywhere. And intelligent life will probably have developed somewhere. However, if we want them to reveal themselves to us it is desirable that we develop space warp technology, in addition, of course, to establishing a single Earth government (the space warp is closer than that). So maybe Earth can become a member of the Milky Way Federation of Planets. We’ll be the freshmen in the class, of course, but it’s okay!
Trail of the Saucers is edited by writer/producer Bryce Zabel and published by Stellar Productions. Zabel co-hosts the popular new podcast Need to Know with Coulthart and Zabel that can be found on all major platforms.
