DECEMBER 25, 2023 – After Santa’s visit last night and in the calm before the Christmas celebration storm today, I heard an interview with a serious journalist, Garrett M. Graff, author of UFO: The Inside Story of the U.S. Government’s Search for Alien Life Here—And Out There. I’m not particularly interested in the science (or “non-science”) of aliens, UFOs, or other related forms of speculation bordering on conspiratorial fantasy.
Graff launched into his promotional spiel with the simple proposition of statistical odds: whereas we used to think that our solar system was the only one with a planet that could support life, we now know that every star has within its gravitational grasp . . . a planet that could harbor “life.”
Hmm, I thought. “Every” star? “Could” harbor . . . “life”? Fine, let’s run the play, just to humor the guy . . . who’s main mission is to promote his earthbound book and pad his royalty checks. Like a prestidigitator who has his audience looking one way while he manipulates the Queen of Hearts in another, Mr. Graff then knocked my socks off by citing an earthshattering number.
“What this means,” he said—based on the stated premise that “every star has a planet that could support life”—”is that there are a septillion . . . that’s a thousand trillion . . . planets out there that could support life.”
At that point I found myself yanking hard on the reins, and the old nag pulling my buckboard of skepticism slowed (even further) to a full stop. The author’s assertion reminded me of the “shikara men” on Dal Lake in Kashmir[1], who shouted, “For you mister, special price! Fifty percent discount!”
Of course I had to ask, “Fifty percent discount off what starting price?” but conveniently, none of the shikara men seemed to understand my question. They simply repeated, “Special price! Fifty percent discount!”
Garrett Graff’s use of the undefined term “life” seemed to be an analogue to the unidentified “starting price” in Kashmir. Are we talking life that includes sophisticated creatures that build shining cities and move around in hydrogen-powered vehicles approaching the speed of light or are we expecting single-cell life forms that will require another billion years of evolution (with multiple setbacks along the way) before becoming halfway interesting?
In trying to convince his viewers/listeners to buy his book, Graff posited that maybe certain laws of physics exist that are outside our current understanding. The implication is that perhaps the universe is ordered in such a way that would promote life forms governed by laws different from or supplemental to the “rules of the road” that prevail in our tiny corner of the cosmos—or small recesses of our crania. Meld that possibility with “septillion” and you get 10 to the ridiculous power. Apply that math to undefined “life” and you might get a puff of stardust, but I don’t think you get any closer to finding “life” of a sort that would fundamentally alter the way we earthlings see ourselves and our place in the great big sky.
Yes, I know, it’s fun to speculate, fun to pretend that by statistical odds we have “company” out there—and maybe even company that’s managed to find us. But the existence of any such “company” is rendered useless and irrelevant—to us anyway—if we ourselves go extinct. Call me myopic, call me provincial, but before we get too carried away by aliens—or with the idea they’re “out there”—I think we should obsess about reforming our ways so as to avoid self-extinction. We probably can’t do much about preventing a comet or asteroid from knocking us off our game, but it would be a crying shame if by our reckless disregard for life on this planet we were to initiate our own extinction.
It’s time to stop alienating ourselves from the fairest of the septillion—our very own wondrous home. Unless and until we discover some better place, the odds that we have the best place are . . . well, 100%.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[1] In Srinigar, the capital of Kashmir, it is (or was in 1981) de rigueur for the sojourner to stay aboard one of the many houseboats that were tied up along the shore of Dal Lake. Every morning “shikara men” paddling their long wooden flat-bottom boats, laden with wares, would congregate around the houseboats trying to sell local goods and finery. They were the most determined salesmen of the many I’ve encountered around the world.
