The Fermi Solution

 

For decades people have talked about the Fermi Paradox. This is simply the theory that if life is abundant in the galaxy, then there should be other sentient lifeforms out there as well. Given that many of the stars are older than the sun, it means that some of those civilizations would be farther advanced, technologically, than ours. Those civilizations should have colonized the galaxy, or, at the very least, visited Earth, according to the theory. Fermi wondered where they were. Why hadn’t they arrived?

Enrico Fermi

Although my recent discussions with Dr. Avi Loeb didn’t deal with the Fermi Paradox directly, I could infer an answer for it from that interview. Loeb was of the opinion that an object that had passed through the Solar System recently was something that was not part of the Solar System. It came from somewhere outside. While it seems that most of science would agree with that assessment, they parted company with his opinion that it was artificial creation.

Given the speed of the object, that is a tiny fraction of the speed of light, it must have been traveling for tens of thousands of years, whether or not it was artificial. The theory is that it would have been guided, repaired, and cared for by AI. That would prove that there is other intelligent life in the galaxy and by extension, in the universe.

However, it is a rather frightening proposition. Oh, not about AI or extraterrestrial intelligence, but that the speed of light is the limiting fact and that it means interstellar travel is, basically, impossible. It suggests that those more technologically advanced civilizations had not found a way to defeat the problems of interstellar travel. It means that they could only launch probes that would travel slower than light. It would mean that worm holes, and warp drive, and gravitationally bending time and space to allow for interstellar flight, while theoretically interesting, were just, well, flights of fantasy.

Dr. Avi Loeb

While such a theory does not eliminate interstellar flight completely, meaning that the civilization that created that artifact had not figured out how to travel among the stars when they launched the object nor does it mean that others haven’t learned how to do it. Actually, it doesn’t mean that the civilization that created the object didn’t have interstellar flight. It could be that the object was launched before they learned the secret. We have sent out probes that are just reaching into the deep space beyond the edges of the Solar System.

But for me this argument is somewhat moot. There have been dozens of UFO reports that suggest interstellar flight is possible. I believe, that had there not been an organized attempt to suppress UFO information that began in July 1947, we might have the untainted evidence that science demands. I can think of many cases in which there are multiple chains of evidence, multiple, independent witnesses, and information gather using instrumentation. UFOs have interacted with the environment, left landing traces, and have been featured in some very good, crisp photographs.

The problem is that no matter how good that evidence, there is someone in authority ready to show us how wrong we are. There are just too many out there who believe that interstellar flight is impossible, therefore alien visitation is impossible, so anything that suggests otherwise is just wrong. The tiniest imperfection in a sighting report is used to prove that the sighting is mundane, even when that imperfection is irrelevant.

Want an example. In the Lubbock Lights case, some reject the photographs because Carl Hart, Jr. didn’t copyright them. The thinking is that he didn’t obtain a copyright because he had faked the pictures. He was told if he did copyright them, then people would think they were faked because he was after the money. To this day, the photographs have not been explained.

All this means is that my solution to the Fermi Paradox is that they have been here, but like those passing a bar because there is a fight in the parking lot, those inside the flying saucers pass us by because there is a fight, a war, always going on somewhere here. Better to drive by than get sucked into the conflict.

Anyway, after talking with Avi Loeb, I had the horrifying thought that the alien probe that flew through the Solar System was telling us that interstellar flight by humans was impossible. But maybe, as Loeb said, it was meant as a monument and shouldn’t be seen as anything more and we shouldn’t deduce the impossibility of interstellar travel. Just thought I would mention it.

The Fermi Paradox

A recent post I read suggested the writer did not accept the reality of UFOs because no one had come up with a good explanation for the Fermi Paradox. This was the idea that if there was other intelligent life in the galaxy it would already be here.

I am inclined, flippantly, to say, "But they are here now. Look at all the unexplained UFO reports."

In fact, the history suggests that the Fermi Paradox grew out of a discussion about UFOs, as Fermi and others walked to lunch. According to that history, they were talking about the latest UFO reports. Fermi then said that if there were a multitude of civilizations in our galaxy, it was strange that no evidence of them had been found.

So, how do we answer the question?

We can always look at the assumptions made. First, that there are a multitude of civilizations out there. Maybe there are but a few scattered throughout the galaxy which would mean they are probably separated by tens of thousands of light years. Contact among them would be sparse until one or more conquered the problem of interstellar distances.

Maybe we have found no radio trace (or limited radio traces) because they have not reached that level of technology... or more likely, have reached it and moved beyond it. We search for alien radio signals based on some human assumptions given the nature of the radio sources in the sky, but other creatures on other planets might not use those same assumptions. We might be searching in vain because we think like humans and not aliens.

Carl Sagan has postulated that we could expect visitation by an extraterrestrial civilization about once every ten thousand years... though I don’t know how he came up with that number. But let’s say it’s accurate. That would mean that sometime in the last ten thousand years aliens arrived on Earth, and that would mean that they would have found our civilizations.

It really doesn’t matter when they arrived or the state of the civilizations they found. I would think that once you found something like that, you’d be inclined to keep watch on it, if for no other reason than it is another intelligent race. And if that is true, then the number of visits would increase as we advanced. Once we reached an industrial civilization, once we began developing machines to make our lives easier, rockets that could leave the planet, atomic power, and began radiating electromagnetic signals that would make us brighter than almost anything else in the Solar System in that spectrum, they would come by to take a look. They would visit with more frequently...

And isn’t that the situation we have today? Reports of UFOs growing from the beginnings of the industrial revolution until we have the thousands of good, solid cases.

Don’t we have some good physical trace cases including radar/visual sightings? Aren’t there some good photographs that can only be explained as either alien spaceships or hoaxes with no middle ground? Aren’t there some very puzzling sightings that involve multiple witnesses, instrumentality and other evidence?

So, the answer to the Fermi Paradox might not seem so flippant when we look at all the evidence. Maybe the answer is that we have been visited but we have failed to recognize the visitors. We’re so busy arguing about the reality of UFO sightings that we have ignored the bigger questions which is who are they and why are they here.