Some time in the early 1960’s, a few of us college students were driving on the outskirts of our central Kansas town enjoying a summer Friday night as the headlights pierced the darkness. We were “riding the ridges” to steer clear of any traffic and discussing probing issues like the meaning of life and college girls. And then in an instant the surrounding area burst into a white light for what seemed to be about ten seconds. We were dumbfounded and silent. Then someone in the back seat asked “What was that?” No one had a ready answer, but the unanimous response was to get back to the sanctuary of city lights!
The only
explanation we could come up with that night was the possibility of a close
falling star, even though we never witnessed something streaking away from
us. But later in life, I have read of
people who claim to have been mesmerized by an alien ship overhead emitting an
intense light at night. We never seemed
to be affected by the light, however.
But that experience has always left me with a keen curiosity about alien
contact.
In the
summer of 1950, a group of scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory
including Enrico Fermi were sitting around at lunch and started talking about
extraterrestrials. And then out of
nowhere, Fermi says, “Where is everybody?”
There are hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy that have been
around for billions of years, longer than the Earth. If you believe that intelligent life arises
given enough time, where is everybody?
Hence, the Fermi Paradox was born.
There have
been many resolutions proposed such as all civilizations which reach sufficient
technological capacity will destroy themselves.
Generally, when civilizations clash, the more advanced has destroyed or enslaved
the other. Earthlings have been
demonstrating this forever so that no aliens have an interest in communicating
with us. Perhaps the Star Trek policy of
not interfering with a culture’s development until they have attained a high
degree of technological and cultural development is enforced. Maybe they were here thousands of years ago
and waged war with a competing race which resulted in mutual annihilation. Some speculate that aliens may indeed be
walking among us in plain sight.
Our human
race has now achieved a level of technology that has enabled us to begin
exploring outer space and we’ve stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to destroy
our planet. Maybe it’s us! The basic problem lies in our inability as a human
race to keep up culturally and live together in peace.
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