Extraterrestrial or Hyperdimensional Hypothesis

Recently, the nuclear physicist and writer Stanton Friedman passed away. He was a prolific author of books on the unidentified flying object phenomenon and gave hundreds of lectures. His belief, was that alien visitations were true and he was a proponent of the ‘nuts and bolts’ perspective, in that alien technology is here today and governments were aware of this. This is known as the Extraterrestrial hypothesis, and it makes the claim that observation of craft in the sky or claims of visitations and abductions, are best explained by the acceptance that a non-human intelligence has travelled here on an alien starship purely to visit the planet.

Many follow his view point and he leaves behind a trail of dedicated researchers who also subscribe to this perspective. The idea that aliens are visiting our planet from another planet around another star, is attractive to many, and some want it to be true. This could be because they see it as a possible solution to the problems of our civilization and our inability to solve them ourselves, or it could just be because the idea is cool. That said, not all subscribe to this opinion.

A clip from ‘Earth versus the Flying Saucers’ movie, 1956 (Columbia Pictures)

The French/American researcher Jacques Vallee takes a radically different perspective, despite the fact that early on in his career he had supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis. But his views began to change, and a factor in this was the absurdly large number of visitation cases being reported, which made the Earth and its people appear to be like the equivalent of the local interstellar zoo for travelling alien tourists.

Instead, Vallee advocated for a different idea, known as the interdimensional hypothesis. This holds the view that visitations originate from other realities and dimensions that coexist alongside our own reality, perhaps in a multiverse of universes. In particular, the fact that our history is littered with ideas of mythological or supernatural creatures (goblins, elves, giants, dwarfs) might suggest that we are in fact witnessing a psychological phenomenon that has been with us for as long as human beings have existed.

Vallee makes some chief objections to the Extraterrestrial hypothesis, which were first laid out in his paper titled “Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects” (Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1990). It is worth listing these arguments in full and to make some counter-point comments as a devil’s advocate argument:

1. That unexplained close encounters are far more numerous than required for any physical survey of the Earth; Although this does not take into account the vast number of planets around other stars that could be inhabited. If the galaxy is teaming with life, then the numbers of reports would correlated with a crowded galaxy. That said, it seems unlikely that many different species would be visiting Earth independent of each other, without interaction, communication and potential conflict among themselves over say visitation rights, for which we would then become aware of.

2. That humanoid body structure of the claimed aliens is not likely to have originated on another planet and is not biologically adapted to space travel; It could be that a species downloads its consciousness into a biological form that is grown at the destination, in an attempt to increase the interaction and encounter potential, by making efforts to appear like humans.

3. That the reported behaviours in many of the abduction reports contradicts the hypothesis of genetic or scientific experimentation on humans by an advanced intelligence. This would be true, except for the situation where visiting aliens had a form or anatomy completely different to our (as different as say a jelly fish to us) and they had no idea how we operated because we were so alien to them. However, if the aliens are ‘advanced intelligence’ and have figured out star travel, then this implies they should easily figure out our anatomy without the need for crude experimentation techniques.

4. That the extension of the phenomenon over all recorded human history suggests that it is not a contemporary phenomenon. Unless one considered that all past observations and reports, pre-dating the development of modern industrialised society, were just stories due to the lack of education, informed opinion and the ability to rationally comprehend observations and also record them reliably. But then how do we explain that not only did the reports continue, but they increased?

5. That the apparent ability of unidentified flying objects to manipulate space and time might suggest radically different and richer alternatives. The reported flight capabilities of such craft certainly go beyond what the existing or projected aerospace capabilities of our modern technological societies can achieve. And there is sufficient data, observations from pilots and radar measurements from radar stations, to clearly demonstrate that objects are being observed. The question is, are people seeing what they really think they are seeing and is what they see external to themselves or an image generated internally to the brain?

Whatever ones views are on the Extraterrestrial or Interdimensional hypothesis, it is clear that from the vast number of reports annually across the globe that some strange phenomena is occurring. Perhaps none of these hypothesis are true, but instead we are witnessing a psychological phenomenon which results in an as yet unknown symptom of our brain tissues exposure to certain technologies. We certainly live in a technological world, and electromagnetic fields are moving through the airspace almost as a constant background sea upon which our consciousness now swims. Who is to say that this isn’t having an effect on our brain, causing delusions, hallucinations or merely manifesting our best fantasies or worst nightmares but as a waking dream state?

It is clear however that something is going on, and it is wrong for governments to take the attitude they do, which tends to be dismissive of peoples claims. If this is not visitations by aliens from other stars or from other dimensions, then we could be looking at a global phenomenon of a form of mania, in which case this should also be of interest to governments, who are charged with looking out for the well-being of their populations. One thing is for sure, the conversation is not likely to end any time soon and the reported sightings will surely continue into the future.

SETI: Drake Versus Fermi

The Fermi Paradox is a name given to a problem first proposed by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi over lunch one day. Fermi had observed that any basic assessment of the number of stars and assumed planets with chemistry and organisms for life, and their associated timescales, suggested that if intelligent extra-terrestrials did exist in the galaxy, then statistically they are either here now or have been here in the past.

The Drake equation is a name given to a formula expression of multiplicative terms, to describe the probability of life evolving on another planetary biosphere independently. It is named after the American astronomer Frank Drake. The terms include things like the rate of star creation in the galaxy, the average number of planets around stars that might support life, the fraction of those planets that develop life, the fraction that develop intelligent life and the lifetime of any such civilisations that may develop communications technology to eventually transmit into deep space. However, the final term, designated ‘L’ makes a rather grand claim that is worth exploring a little further.

Project Cyclops

A key study that underpinned this equation was Project Cyclops in 1971, written by B M Oliver, J Billingham and others with the title ‘Project Cyclops, A Design Study of a System for Detecting Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life”, (NASA-CR-114445). Some of the conclusions of this seminal work included “It is vastly less expensive to look for and to send signals than to attempt contact by spaceship or by probes”, and “The cost of a system capable of making an effective search, using the techniques we have considered, is on the order of 6 to 10 billion dollars, and this sum would be spent over a period of 10 to 15 years”, and “The search will almost certainly take years, perhaps decades and possibly centuries”. When reading this report, and other papers that came later, it did seem to converge on a conclusion by the SETI community that starship travel was not likely possible and this does indeed seem to be the view of Frank Drake.

It is interesting that the term in the Drake equation ‘L’ does seem to imply that any advanced extraterrestrial civilisation would only attempt to reach out to other civilisations in the Cosmos by transmitting radio (or optical) beacons. No consideration is given to the idea that instead they may choose to build a starship and travel across that distance and interact on a physical level. This brings up an interesting examination on the consistency of the thinking of both Drake and Fermi and it would appear there are two interpretations possible.

Interpretation (1); Fermi’s observation that they should be here (or have been here) yet we don’t see any, is suggestive of the conclusion that any advanced ET would make contact by long-distance transmissions, and so therefore is completely consistent with the Drake equation.

Interpretation (2); Fermi’s observations that they should be here appears to be predicated on the idea that interstellar travel must be possible, and so on this basis it is not consistent with the Drake equation and in fact is in competition with it. This is because it implies that there is a further term that needs to be added to the Drake equation that takes account of interstellar diffusion by starships.

Well, it is up to each individual to come to their own conclusion. But it is worth noting that the physics basis for interstellar travel was first demonstrated theoretically by L Shepherd in a Journal of the British Interplanetary Society publication titled ‘Interstellar Flight’ (JBIS, 11, pp.149-167, 1952). Then in the 1970s the Project Daedalus team, went on to design over five years an actual starship concept that was credible in principle, as a proof of existence theorem. Their conclusion was that if they could conceive of such a machine at the outset of the space age, then in the future centuries it is likely that we could do much better and so interstellar travel was possible. Alan Bond and Anthony Martin, members of the same Daedalus team also went on to design full world ships in the 1980s, with papers titled “World Ships - Concept, Cause, Cost, Construction and Colonisation” (JBIS, 37, pp.243-253, June 1984) and “World Ships - An Assessment of the Engineering Feasibility” (JBIS, 37, pp.254-266, June 1984). This work demonstrated that not only was reconnaissance by interstellar probes likely possible, but so too was colonisation.

Many other studies have also been conducted to support this conclusion and it is curious that many in the SETI community seem to hold onto the ‘starships are impossible’ mantra, almost as a form of dogma. Only time will tell who was right.

Daedalus Starship (Don Dixon)

Linquistics

For the Apkallu Initiative, one of the complex decisions to make about the artefact is what is the nature of the information that is to be displayed. It is useful to briefly explore different types of information.

The first written language was cuneiform and it was invented by the Sumerians in the late 4th millennium B.C. It is known as a language isolate since it does not have any genealogical relationship to other languages. The language began as a pictogram based system and then evolved to a logophonetic one. What is the difference?

A language based upon pictograms is one which conveys its meaning through an image to represent an physical object. Other than the original cuneiform the other good example of this is Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. Such things were also ideograms which represented symbols and ideas, and can often be independent of any particular language. Pictograms may often evolve into full logograms, which is a written character that represents a word of phrase.

The other type of writing is phonograms which do not have a word or phrase meaning in singular form until they are combined with other phonograms. This is the basis of phonetic writing and alphabets.

Fundamental to an alphabet is the concept of a syllable, which is a unit of organization for sounds of spoken word. A word that contains only one syllable is called monosyllable. For a word containing two, three or more syllables they are termed disyllable, trisyllable and polysyllable respectively. What makes up a syllable is a group of consonants and vowels. For the English language the vowels are a, e, I, o and u. All other letters are the consonants. 

A syllable is constructed around a central vowel which is called the nucleus. The consonant to the right of it is called the Coda, and with the nucleus this makes up what is called the Rime. If a consonant precedes the nucleus it is called the Onset. 

Here is an example to break this down. Let us take the word water. This contains two syllables, which are wa and ter. For the first syllable it contains only an onset and a nucleus. For the second syllable it contains an onset, a nucleus and a Coda and so also a Rime. 

What this all illustrates is that the structure of language is complex and this needs to be kept in mind in the design of the Apkallu initiative artefact. If logograms are used then careful thought must go into their choice. If phonograms are used then no matter what language they are written in, it has to be communicated to the future explorer who finds the artefact how a syllable and its constituents is the fundamental building blocks of language. 

In 2016 a film came out called 'Arrival', directed by Dennis Villeneuve and based on the short story by Ted Chiang called 'Story of Your Life'. One of the central events of the film is in an attempt to translate an unknown alien language, the word 'tool' is misunderstood to be 'weapon', leading to the pending tension that follows in the plot and the risk of a first contact scenario going horribly wrong. 

Image from the Film ‘Arrival’

In the design of the Apkallu initiative artefact, one must also think carefully as to how any information encoded onto it can be misinterpreted. Indeed, on the assumption that the artefact was studied and embraced for all of the knowledge it could teach, there is even a risk that the artefact would start to be treated as a spiritual / religious item and so its text could be embraced by some as a form of dogma. This may in fact act to regress sociological and technological progress down the line, which is the opposite of what the Apkallu initiative wants to achieve. For the Apkallu initiative, a full understanding of linguistic information transfer, is critical to the successful achievement of its mission and so a great deal of care must be exercised in its design and the information that it imparts to the reader.

Language of the Aliens from ‘Arrival’

Intelligent Life in the Galaxy

I will restrict the analysis only to the galaxy, since any conclusions can be scaled up and extrapolated to the larger scale. The apparent question is why we do not see intelligent life in the galaxy, usually framed as the Fermi Paradox. This is an apparent contradiction between our theoretical expectations for intelligent life in the galaxy and our observations that we do not see any.

We begin this essay by clearly stating what the Fermi Paradox actually is. A paradox apparently exists between our theoretical expectations for intelligent life in the cosmos, based upon our measurements of stellar structure, age, composition, type, evolution, and our observations which are in apparently conflict with this expectation. This suggests straight away that there is something wrong with one or both or our two assertions: (1) that our theoretical models are incorrect (2) that are observations are incorrect. In order to bring them both into alignment, a detailed and rigorous revisiting of these assertions is required.

Firstly, we can define a paradox as a statement that apparently contradicts itself, such as a logical paradox which is an invalid argument. A paradox will often have revealed errors in definitions that are assumed to be rigorous. Because of this, I do not see the Fermi problem as a logical paradox, but more of a logical contradiction in terms. That is to say, that in classical logic, a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when two conclusions which form the logical, usually opposite inversions of each other. Hence I like to reformulate the Fermi Paradox as the Fermi problem.

Instead, it is better to look at the Fermi problem, from the standpoint of a mathematical axiom. An axiomatic system is any set of axioms from which some or all axioms can be used in conjunction to logically derive theorems. A mathematical theory consists of an axiomatic system and all its derived theorems. So with the Fermi problem, any statement which asserts the presents of intelligent life in the galaxy is a theorem, which must derive from the axiom that the galaxy is capable of hosting intelligent life in the first place. We know that this this axiom is true, because we are here, and so we represent the manifest evidence for the starting point of reasoning, to be accepted as true without controversy. Given that we exist, we are left to ask do others exist? This then leads to the development of a hypothesis as a proposed explanation for the phenomenon. And in the Fermi problem there are two forms of hypothesis that are proposed. The first hypothesis is that the galaxy is capable of hosting more than one intelligent life form on separate worlds around other stars. The second hypothesis is that we have the technological capability to measure the presence of such intelligent life should it exist. But these are not logical paradoxes, merely mutually exclusive and independent hypothesis which can be tested, in order to develop full theorems. But as we shall see, there are numerous issues with our handling of both hypothesis which make reasonable progress not sensible, due to the logical fallacy of the questions and how they are framed.

The first point of our analysis is simply to ask if interstellar travel is even possible. Because if is does not appear to be, then that would be the explanation for the Fermi problem. However, given that the 1970s Project Daedalus study conceived of a fairly credible machine, despite its flaws, it is not an unreasonable interpretation of this work that in the future (even if centuries or millennia) we can design a much improved machine which is far more credible, and therefore interstellar travel does appear to be feasible in theory, as a proof of existence problem. This conclusion is amplified even further by the fact that Daedalus was just a method via fusion, and since then we have conceived of a dozen other methods by which a machine could be propelled to the stars – which is a form of validation for the original Project Daedalus conclusions that interstellar travel was possible in theory. This is a conclusion one might choose to only apply to robotic vessels, but we have also conceived of various methods by which biological crews may be transported (e.g. seed ships) and so this conclusion would seem to be applicable to human missions too, at some point in the future. So given that interstellar travel appears to be feasible in theory, we must look for other solutions.

We also live in an age where countless exo-planets are now being discovered around other worlds. But one fact that has not been considered is that if an alien species never discovers a science that goes beyond simple chemistry, and they live on a large mass planet, then they will never be able to leave that planet due to the enormous escape velocity associated with the gravitational well. To assess this, one would need to know more about the mass function of Earth type planets and Jovian type planets that exist in the galaxy, in order to inform any statistical assessments.

Certainly, our observational telescopes are improving our knowledge of the universe every day, and giving us insight to inform our ‘best guesses’ about what may be possible. But it is also clear that sending starships too far away destinations, as a form of in situ reconnaissance, will add valuable to such an effort as a form of scientific enquiry.

We can look at the problem by examining two extremes, and then everything else in between. These two extremes are that we are the only intelligent life in the galaxy, or that we live in a crowded galaxy. The idea that we are the only intelligent life in the galaxy, and therefore the first intelligent life to arise in the galaxy, has been argued by many. This includes Viewing in his paper “Directly Interacting Extraterrestrial Technological Communities” (JBIS, 28, 735, 1975) as well as Hart in his paper “An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth” (QJRAS, 16, 128, 1975) and Tipler in his paper “Extraterrestrial Intelligent Beings Do Not Exist” (QJRAS, 21, 267, 1980). The idea that we live in a crowded galaxy, has been argued by authors such as Shklovskii and Sagan with their book “Intelligent Life in the Universe” (Holden Day, 1966) and also Sagan and Drake in their paper titled “The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (Sci.Am., 232, 80, May 1975). Bond and Martin examine these two extremes succinctly in their paper “Is Mankind Unique? – The Lack of Evidence for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (JBIS, 36, pp.223-225, 1983). Let us consider both of these extreme possibilities in turn, before we consider everything else in between.

Hypothesis 1. We are the only intelligent life in the galaxy. This seems to be highly improbable, purely from a statistical point of view. That said, evolution by natural selection does allow for spontaneous mutations that have never been seen before. It could be that intelligence is a form of evolutionary mutation and we are merely the first to exhibit it. Then again, there are also examples in the animal kingdom of Earth where two species, having no connection to each other on the evolutionary chain, (different lineages) have a similar design element or analogous structures, because nature has found that solution twice for those two different species – this is known as convergent evolution – as opposed to homologous structures or traits which do have a common origin. An example of this would be vertebrate wings as forelimbs, such as used on bats and birds – they are analogous and resemble in each in the same way, and they fulfil similar functions, but their roles in flight have evolved separately. On this basis, looking for evidence of a separate biogenesis on Earth or outside of the Earths biosphere is entirely reasonable. In particular, since mutation by natural selection favours those mutations which are beneficial, and natural selections appears to guide the evolutionary processes to incorporate only the good mutations into the species and expunge any bad mutations. Given that intelligence appears to be an advantage to survival, it would be a surprise if nature has not allowed this mutation to occur in other species. Overall, it would seem fair to conclude that the idea of there being only intelligent life on this world is mainly a problem for biology to address, and not the other disciplines of science.

In addition to this, biology tends to define an organism as any contiguous living system, and it is generally the consensus that all types of organisms are capable of some degree of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development and homeostasis – the so called properties of life. An organism may consider of one cell (unicellular) or more than one cell (multicellular) and they are typically of microscopic size and hence termed microorganisms. There will also be an ecological connection between any organisms and their environment. Biological classification will also tend to cite the following organisational groups as a form of hierarchy: atoms, molecules, macro molecules, molecular assemblies, organelles, the cell, tissue, organs, organ systems, organisms, populations, species, community, biosphere. If we are to fully understand the apparent limitless pathways of evolutionary biology and the application of natural selection, it might be prudent to look for evidence of these organisational types operating in unexpected systems. This could be in apparent ecological systems or even astrophysical systems.  Who is to say that the entire galaxy is not in some way operating, in analogy if not directly, as a giant organism? Overall, we need to establish a greater dialogue among the many disciplines of human thought to ask a broader question about what is life.

Considering the question of biology in the Cosmos, it seems to me to be a highly arrogant position, to assume that biology has only occurred on one world in a vast and expansive universe over its 13.8 billion years of history. This position would seem no different to me than the age old assertion that the Earth was the center of the solar system and thereby the universe. The reason it takes so much longer to address the biological element to this apparent anthropocentric thinking, is that the distance between the planets and by implication the stars is so much further away, and it is only in fairly recent times that we have achieved the technological capability to begin to ask this question when we became a space fairing species. My own view, based on statistical arguments alone, is that not only has intelligent life been to our solar system, but they are here now – but the nature by which they are here is non-trivial to unravel, given our biased thinking, preconceived notions, assumptions about them, lack of knowledge, and the poor manner by which we frame our questions such as the Fermi Paradox.

Hypothesis 2. We live in a crowded galaxy. This has a much larger suite of options in terms of explanations, and it is mainly a problem for the disciplines of physics, astrophysics and moral philosophy. If we take as a priori assumption that we live in a crowded galaxy but are not observing or seeing any evidence of intelligent life, then we can examine the problem from three levels of investigation. The first is observations, the second is analysis and interpretations, and the third is moral philosophy as applied to extraterrestrial socio-cultural groups.

When we say we are not ‘seeing’ evidence of intelligent life in the galaxy, we have to ask what is meant by ‘seeing’? Principally, our only mechanism for interacting with the Cosmos over large distance scales is via the observations of light, be it through radio waves, micro-waves, infra-red or optical. This means that we are interacting with the universe purely through the electromagnetic spectrum and then trying to use that information to interpolate about what is taking place to manifest that specific spectrum that is observed. So the first thing we could do is to expand our range of observations, to encompass the entire electromagnetic spectrum, but also to go outside of it to observe other phenomena. We could also examine the vast animal kingdom of the planet Earth for examples of species that have senses or interaction mechanisms that are not just through the electromagnetic spectrum, and then to hypothesise for alien biology’s where nature may have found a similar solution. Overall, we need to vastly expand our horizons for what we are trying to ‘see’ and in particular to avoid a human centric perspective.

This also includes a re-examination for what we observe with light and whether our assumptions about homogeneity throughout the Cosmos are correct. This Copernicus principal has served us well in past centuries, and there are good reasons to think that the universe is homogenous and uniform on all scales (although fractal modelling of the large scale universe might suggest a breakdown in this model on extra-galactic scales). But it may not be in certain parts, and if that is the case, then our observations will simply be in error.

As well as ‘seeing’ we can try to access other senses by which we might interrogate these distant worlds. Currently, the laws of physics appear to prohibit us from smelling, tasting or hearing them. But certainly we can touch them, if we have the courage to send out reconnaissance probes and land planetary landers onto the surface of any bodies in orbit around those distant stars.

So let us say that we have then exhausted all options in terms of observations, presumably after a multi-decade program of work and we still conclude that we are not ‘seeing’ any evidence of intelligent life in the galaxy. The next stage is to question our methods of analysis and interpretations, of the data that we are observing. It is entirely possible that the evidence is staring us in the face, but we are ignoring it because it does not fit within our pre-conceived notions. This could be for our definitions of life or intelligent life for example, and living systems may be much more ubiquitous that is imagined within our limited definitions. We also need to examine our methods, such as the requirements of the scientific method for reproducibility and falsifiability. If an event cannot be observed again, it is immediately disregarded and thrown out. When in fact, this is inconsistent with the large scale belief of human history – i.e. many claim there was one biogenesis event which gave rise to all living things. We also have a tendency to throw away so called outliers, because they do not fit the statistical trend of a data set. We should go out of our way to scrutinise those outliers and not be so keen to disregard them because they do not fit our preconceived notions of how things work. There is also a bias in science, such as a rush to conclude that an observation must be explainable by some astrophysical event. Although this is not an unreasonable position to take, alternatives should be considered, no matter how wild, and the door should never be closed on what possibilities there may be.

One example of data that may be staring us in the face is the famous 1970s ‘Wow!’ signal, for which a 72 second radio burst was observed from one of the detecting horns, never to be observed again. Scientists have spent much time examining the signature and the apparent location of the source, on the assumption that it is either an astrophysical event or ET attempting to communicate with us via radio beacons. All nearby terrestrial sources have been ruled out. Yet, one possibility that may explain the energy emission is that it is in fact a mobile source, as in a starship engine signature at a distance. Similarly, there are at least 35 other similar signatures in the astrophysical data base which do not receive attention, but may be explainable by this cause. Yet because it is considered too fantastic a possibility, the apparently free thinking and open minded SETI community which has spent much of its time examining the data, doesn’t even consider this option. Some earlier attempts have already been made to examine what long range starship signatures may look like. This includes the Zubrin paper “Detection of Extraterrestrial civilizations via the Spectral signature of advanced interstellar spacecraft” (Progress in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life, ASP Conference Series, Vol 74, 1995). This idea has also been examined by Viewing in his paper titled “Detection of Starships” (JBIS, 1977).

So let us say we have now greatly expanded the scope of our interpretations and analysis, and even after this program of work we still conclude that we do not see evidence of intelligent life in the galaxy. On the priori assumption that intelligent life does exist, but we are not seeing it, this leaves several possibilities, most of which comes down to forms of moral philosophy, given the nature of the uncertainties involved in such futuristic scenario building.

The first is that there is some agreed consensus not to interfere with our cultural development. Alternatively, there could be a genuine fear to interact with us, due to our immature nature, or the unwise manner by which we use our technologies. We might also not be seen as good custodians of our own planet, so what example are we setting for how we might conduct ourselves out there. We can take an analogy of a family living in a street, and there is another house in the street with a family of convicted felons, known liars, instigators of violence, overall bad company; from which we might choose to cross the road rather than interact with them. Another example could be there is a family which are perfectly fine in terms of obedience to law and order, but they are from a different culture to us and they have strange ways which are alien to us and we have tendency to fear that which we do not know or understand. Intelligent life in the galaxy may choose to avoid us for any one of these reasons, which are all variations on the zoo hypothesis.

Alternatively, it could be that we are simply not of interest to any advanced intelligent life form, the same way that we walking down the street would not be interested in an ant crossing the road. This would be the case if our cultural and/or technological development was so far apart, of order a million years or more. It could also be the fact that because of the huge gap in development, that they cannot see how to communicate with us, because we are simply too primitive. Another possibility related to this is the technological runaway effect, where some form of full blown transcendence or AI convergence has been achieved by those advanced alien societies, thus exacerbating the cultural and technological divergence between us. Such things are imagined in the concepts of von Neumann probes, self-replicating machines.

It is clear therefore that we need to question the scope of our observations as well as reassess our interpretations of the data we are measuring, if we hope to have any chance of detecting evidence of intelligent life in the galaxy. But ultimately, any life forms travelling across space will be using starships of a form. It is therefore highly prudent to widen our imaginations as to what form they may take, as well as what observable emissions they may make which we can detect – accepting that the known laws of physics will apply, or the unknown laws of physics will eventually be elucidated by such studies. The act of designing starships is also a self-fulfilling prophesy in that by imagining them we are inching forwards towards their fruition. Hence we come to my own motivation for the starship, and why I am pushing it so hard – to increase our chances for finding them and thereby understanding if we are alone, or in a crowded room, and all of the profound implications of that, particularly for religion and philosophy.

We have explored the two extremes of a crowded galaxy and a galaxy with only one example of intelligent life – us. But there are obviously lots of other options in between these two extremes, such as there being two intelligent species in the galaxy, or dozens, which would not necessarily meet either of the definitions of the two extremes examined above. So it may be that the galaxy is populated by intelligent civilizations among its 100-400 billion stars, but they are just not frequent enough to notice each other. This comes down to a question of distance and time. Given the galaxy is 100,000 light years across, and the average star distance is around 5 light years, this means that in any interstellar crossing a starship will encounter 100,000/5 = 20,000 stars on its line of sight path. Now it will obviously pass within a few light years of others on that journey, so let us be charitable and say it will come within observational distance of around 100,000 stars on one galactic crossing. That is still only 100,000 / 100 billion = 0.0001% of the entire stellar population. And so if there are say optimistically even as many as 100,000 intelligent civilizations in the galaxy distributed over the 100,000 LY diameter spiral, we are looking at a very low probability of interaction.

The other issue is a temporal one. In that even with say 100,000 intelligent civilisations in the galaxy, with each stars separate evolution, planetary formation timescale, the rise of life, then emergence of intelligent life and eventually a space based culture, these events will not all happen in parallel. Some may be overlapping, but it is more likely that there will be limited windows upon which to discover other intelligent civilizations that have a similar level of technological development to us. By similar, I mean within one million years, because anything less or more than this has implications for interest and also whether it is possible to conduct meaningful communications between worlds. Overall this is a question of probability and population size which feeds into the likely hood of interaction.

Another possibility is that we are once again anthropomorphising the problem, mapping human hopes and desires onto an extraterrestrial species. Our primary driver for exploration and discovery is curiosity and the growth of industry. But an intelligent extraterrestrial species may not have the same motivations of us. They may choose to cross the galaxy but for entirely different reasons, and on their journey not even be listening out for the presence of others. Survival is likely to be a primary driver for exploration, but we do not know this for sure.

Finally, if we do live in a crowded galaxy, then any reasonable analysis of the number of stars, number of planets, the evidence for life formation on Earth, the age of civilisations, certainly makes it highly probable that they, meaning ET, are already here in some form, or are at least aware of us and perhaps observing from a distance. Certainly, if any life is found on the planets within our own solar system (such as on Europa or Mars) as evidence of separate biogenesis, then the probability of life in the galaxy will increase too – and we must conclude that not only have they been here but are here now in some manner. This is not to support the vast claims of UFOs and alien abductions, many of which can be examined by any reasonably thinking person and dismissed as mistakes, misinterpretations, fantasies or fabrications. That said; there is a small quantity of those observations, perhaps less than 0.1% which is of interest and could be examined further. But those incidences are lost in the noise of the fantastic claims, and also in the difficulties of distinguishing from genuine sightings and government black programs which are by their nature secretive and explicitly clandestine – and sometimes to the extent that government programs have been used as cover stories for reported sightings therefore making proper objective analysis difficult.

What we might consider however, is that if we presume an intelligent species is observing us from a distance, the same way that we observe the animal kingdom from a distance, or the same way that our telescopes are now looking for evidence of habitable planets around other stars. It is entirely likely, given the advanced state of their technology, that they can observe and therefore learn a lot about us, including from emission signatures to indicate evidence of wide scale industrialisations, or the development of nuclear based technology. When the world’s highest atomic explosion was detonated by the Russians, it achieved a yield approaching 60 Mtons, and it was so energetic that it created two new elements, later named Einsteinium and Fermium. It is these sorts of signatures that would be of interest to any observing civilisation, as evidence that we are maturing technologically. In particular since nuclear technologies have myriad applications to starship power and propulsion systems. It is possible, that they would place ‘sentinel’ type probes in the outer limits of our solar system as a form of warning beacon, as envisioned by Arthur C Clarke’s “2001 A Space Odyssey” or his short story “The Sentinel” published in 1951. The idea of searching for extraterrestrial artifacts which might have this function has been suggested previously by Freitas in his 1983 paper “The Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts (SETA)”.

Once we have attained technological prowess, they would then be interested in what direction we were going to go, towards technological annihilation and/or stagnation or technological maturity. If it appeared that we were in fact heading towards technological maturity, then the next question they might ask is when will we achieve space capability, in terms of sending missions to the outer edges of our solar systems and eventually to the stars – in effect when are we coming?

We have in fact made this question easy for any advanced monitoring ET to assess, due to the invention of the World Wide Web, itself perhaps a precursor to a form of large scale artificial intelligence not unlike a Matrioska brain concept. Given that the information from the web is beamed via space satellites, accessing that information may present an easy way to retrieve data about our civilisation – and by the way, this is another area we could examine for evidence of ‘interstellar hacking’. One area they might be interested in is at what point we start to express interstellar ambitions, towards the stars. They would be interested in our designs, our concepts, or our philosophical and moral perspectives, and even our analysis of their existence, such as this very document that I am writing. In which case, all of the interstellar organisations and their principal protagonists and advocates, would also be of interest to them – and with that chilling thought; it’s time to turn off the lights and go back to a candle and type writer.

Stellar Scale Engineering

The concept of stellar engineering refers to the deliberate orchestration of artificial changes to a star or other similar astronomical object for the purposes of engineering a useful construction, power source or some other function. Its minor cousin, planetary engineering (the engineering of planets) has been nicely discussed by others [1].

In 1964 the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed [2] a scale for measuring the output of interstellar civilisations in the Cosmos that can be used for long distance communications. This has come to be known as the ‘Kardashev scale’, and three types of civilisation were defined.

A Type I civilisation has the capacity to store all of the energy which reaches a home place from its parent star. For the Earth this is of order ~10^17 Watts, when the reality is that today our power consumption for the present civilisation is around ~10^12 Watts or equivalent to an energy consumption of ~10^19 erg/second (where 1 erg is equal to 10^-7 J of energy).

A Type II civilisation has the capacity to harness the total energy of its parent star. The total power output of the Sun is around ~10^26 Watts or equivalent to ~10^33 erg/second. The proposed way by which this can be achieved is through a device known as a ‘Dyson-Stapledon sphere’, more on this below.

A Type III civilisation has the capacity to control energy on the scale of the entire galaxy. The total power output of the Milky Way, defined as its luminosity, is around ~10^37 Watts or equivalent to an energy consumption of around ~10^44 erg/second.

Further work by the American astronomer Carl Sagan in 1973 proposed [3] a method of extrapolating and interpolating intermediate values, on the assumption that there was a Type 0 civilisation that would control around 1 MW of power. Using this scale, it is possible to show that human civilisation on Earth has an average world power consumption of around ~10^12 W, which means we have a Kardashev value of around 0.7. Many other versions of the Kardashev scale have now been proposed, but they all largely agree we are far from the masters of our own local energy sources as a young species.

The ability to engineer astrophysical sources, such as stars, is an interesting idea which we could equally expect a more advanced civilisation to have attempted. It is useful to briefly discuss some of the structures that could be engineered in the universe by those other species or by a future human kind.

Dyson-Stapledon Spheres: These objects were first suggested by the British philosopher Olaf Stapledon in his 1937 novel Star Maker [4]. The idea was later picked up and refined as a thought experiment by the physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960 [5] who reasoned that such a structure would be a result of the escalating energy needs of a technological civilisation. Such a sphere, or set of orbiting structures would completely encompass a star and capture all or the majority of its power output. It would be uniquely distinguished by an infra-red emission spectrum which would make such structures detectable to long distance observations.

One has to ask however, whether such an advanced civilisation with escalating energy needs would instead choose to occupy other star systems by interstellar diffusion, rather than huddling around the light of one lone object? More credible versions of this idea known as a Dyson Swarm consists of many large number of independent constructions orbiting in a dense formation around a star. Another variant is a Ring World, a hypothetical orbiting structure around a star, but rather than a complete sphere, it is instead a ring. The idea was popularised in a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven [6].

Matrioska Brains: This is another type of hypothetical that is really an extension of the Dyson-Stapledon sphere, but instead of power output purely for energy conversion the output is used to drive massive computational capacity. The idea was conceived by Robert Bradbury and the concept takes its name from Russian Matrioshka dolls, since the analogy is adopted so that there are the equivalent of nested spheres within each other, each built around a star, and drawing all of its power output. The inner shell would have the temperature of the outer stellar atmosphere and the outer shell would be so cool as to be equivalent to the temperature of space. In theory, such a large computing architecture could be full artificial intelligence, or create full artificially simulated universes for people to exist in. The Matrioshka brain concept looks even more complicated that the Dyson-Stapledon sphere.

Shkadov Thruster: This is the term used to describe a type of megastructure which is able to use a stars radiation output to create usable energy, such as for the purpose of producing thrust and therefore actually accelerating the star through interstellar space, and any object orbiting it, in any direction. Several variants or classes of stellar engines have been proposed. It involves the use of a large mirror or light sail to balance gravitational attraction and radiation pressure outwards from the star, such that the net pressure of the star would be asymmetrical and the excess radiation in one direction would act as net thrust to move the star from its original position. Any planetary system that is in orbit around the star, would also be dragged through space, and so the entire Stellar System could in principle be moved. This author used a similar idea to a Shkadov thruster in a short science fiction story titled ‘The World Movers’ published in 2015, although the thrust generation was also originated from negative energy density gravitational fields [7].

All of the above megastructures are different types of Stellar Engines that could in theory be constructed by advanced extraterrestrial civilisations or by future human kind. This presents interesting observational opportunities, in looking for either ‘live’ stellar engines or ‘dead’ stellar engines, the remnants of a once forgotten civilisation.

There has been several postulated sightings of potential stellar engines by the Kepler Space Telescope. This includes the objects KIC 8462852 and EPIC 204278916, but the analysis is so far inconclusive. The former, known as Tabby’s Star is an F-type main sequence star located in the Cygnus constellation at a distance of around 1,276 Light Years. Astronomical studies of changes in the stars brightness could not be attributed to intrinsic variability and one of the hypothesis being proposed to explain the unusual blocking of the light emission is a stellar engine.

We do not yet know whether advanced extraterrestrial civilisations exist, let alone have built large megastructures, but certainly observational programs that seek such structures out, or eliminate their possibility, will add to our knowledge of life in the universe. It would seem that in our pursuit of enquiry as to the various manifestations of existence, our most powerful tool is that of the imagination, which enables us to see alternate futures that may or may not exist, and therefore help to direct our research programs. Indeed, this may be the most important service that the literature of science fiction has given left us as its legacy.

[1] M. J. Fogg, Engineering Planetary Environments, Society of Automotive Engineers, 1995.

[2] N. Kardashev, Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations, Soviet Astronomy, 8, 217, 1964.

[3] C. Sagan, Cosmic Connection: An Extraterestrial Perspective, 1973.

[4] O. Stapledon, Star Maker, 1937

[5] F. Dyson, Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation, Science, 131, 3434, pp.1667-1668, 1960.

[6] L. Niven, RingWorld, Ballantine Books, 1970.

[7] K. F. Long, The World Movers, Published in Visionary, A Science Fiction Anthology in the Spirit of the British Interplanetary Society, BIS Publication, 2013.