by If all the reports of mysterious objects buzzing our skies are accepted as real encounters, it looks like Earth is under attack.
But spoiler alert: To the chief executive of the SETI An institution, founded to search for and understand life beyond Earth, needs to step back and cuddle up to the cup of Cosmic reality.
“We have no evidence from any credible source that would indicate that there is alien technology in our skies. And there never has been,” said Bill Diamond, president and chief executive officer of the SETI Institute, headquartered in Mountain View, California. . “The idea that the government is keeping something like this secret is just completely absurd. There is no incentive to do that.”
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SETI is a prime research contractor to NASA and the National Science Foundation, and collaborates with industry partners across Silicon Valley. Space.com caught up with Diamond for an up-close look at his own thoughts and counterpoints to claims of alien visitation and asked if there is any sign in the story. UFO noise
A thought experiment
Diamond said that while we shouldn’t completely rule out the possibility that we could find evidence of alien technology in our skies, “we also shouldn’t assume that UFOs are alien technology in the absence of compelling evidence.” . . And there is no strong evidence,” he insists.
To help see why, Diamond suggests people try a thought experiment.
The fastest spacecraft ever built by humans and which continues to leave Earth is NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. It was kicked out back in January 2006, cruised by Pluto and is still adding mileage to its odometer.
“If you sent that spacecraft to our nearest neighboring star, Alpha Centauri, it would take 80,000 years to get there,” Diamond said. “Any civilization that has mastered the ability to traverse the vast expanses of interstellar space would have technology so far advanced from our own that it would be beyond our comprehension.”
It would be a lot like a smartphone to a Neanderthal, Diamond suggested.
“If there are such people, they would probably put hardware here first and not biology, and they certainly wouldn’t crash in our desert,” he said, like the 1947 nose dive and the highly praised UFO crash. -prone occupants near Roswell, New Mexico.
In short term, that’s a long way to travel and run out of brake fluid.
Where is motherhood?
“Long before they put any craft into our sky they would have some understanding of what they were dealing with,” Diamond said, “because they would already know everything about our atmosphere, our airspace, our technology and more.”
It wouldn’t happen, Diamond said.
“And if he did they wouldn’t leave them behind. And by the way, if you have a small craft swinging around in our airspace, where’s the motherhood? And if they didn’t want to be noticed, they wouldn’t be!”
Connective tissue
Likewise, in the public mind, is there some kind of connective tissue between SETI and UFOs?
“There’s definitely connective tissue,” Diamond replied. “Why do people have these beliefs? It’s because they want to believe. Nobody wants to think about this World The place is only in the vastness of space where life emerged. Even that thought is kind of absurd too.”
For example, Diamond points to the disclosure made by NASA Kepler mission, which was terminated in March 2009.
That hunter/data-gatherer spacecraft discovered more than 2,700 planets beyond our Solar system. Compiling nine years of deep space data, the message from Kepler: there are billions of unseen planets, indeed, more planets than stars.
Statistical probability
“Statistically, every single star in the sky has one or more planets orbiting it,” Diamond said. Furthermore, 50 percent or more of these are similar to Earth (rocky surface and similar size) and in the habitable zone to his host star, he said.
“That suggests that there are thousands of habitable lives in our galaxy alone,” Diamond said. “So indeed, the statistical probability that we are alone i of the Universe zero. Surely there is life beyond Earth!”
But the presence, in space and time, as well as proximity, the advanced alien civilizations is another matter entirely, continued Diamond. “There are countless variables, and they are all in the sciences of Conradh na Gaeilge astrobiologyplanetary science, astronomy and astrophysicswe’re trying to figure it out.”
Accidental observations
Diamond questions why any alien civilization would send biology when they can’t send hardware.
“The longest things we’ve sent into space are hardware. And that’s logical,” Diamond said. “But if so did send beings and the most interesting thing you can do is draw circles in a bar … come on!”
One more score of doubt added by Diamond is that all UFOs – now associated with the term Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UNP) – are all “accidental sightings.”
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“Therefore, they are very unreliable. They don’t have the instrumentation, technology or methodology to understand what they are looking for,” Diamond said.
Finally, the head of the SETI Institute said if the government really believed in ET buzzing our planet, where is the study money?
“The lack of government funding to study UAP/UFOs is evidence that the government is pretty sure there is nothing to these accidental observations – or – the government would rather we not use the technology available to look closely at our skies because of our own human technologies. are being developed – confidentially,” Diamond said.
“I think that’s the strongest evidence against the idea that we have visitors in our skies,” Diamond said.
For more information on the SETI Institute and its programs, go to https://www.seti.org/
