{"id":2769,"date":"2011-06-15T19:38:55","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T01:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2769"},"modified":"2011-06-15T19:43:23","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T01:43:23","slug":"space-is-big-time-is-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2769","title":{"rendered":"Space is Big, Time is Deep, Aliens Aren’t Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

Les Johnson’s article “The Aliens Are Not Among Us<\/a>” reflects the way that I have come to think about physical aliens arriving in physical spaceships from other planets: Not very likely<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let me be blunt: the chance of an alien species evolving, developing intelligence with the physical characteristics that allow them to make fire and use tools, evolving to the point at which they can travel through space (obeying nature\u2019s speed limit), crossing immense distances, and just happening to reach Earth at a time that we, too, are starting to explore space is, within any reasonable rounding error, ZERO.<\/p>\n

At this point, some might say, \u201cBut Les, you<\/em> are now underestimating the effect of deep time! Science and technology are advancing at an amazing pace. Who\u2019s to say that ET hasn\u2019t found a way to tap the quantum vacuum energy (or some other breakthrough). Look how much we\u2019ve accomplished in the last 500 years\u2014maybe the extraterrestrials are a thousand years ahead of us technologically.\u201d<\/p>\n

My conclusion is unchanged. Look at the odds. It wouldn\u2019t make a difference if they were 50,000 years ahead of us technologically. The odds of them being here<\/em>, now<\/em>, and with a technology that we would recognize<\/em> are too small to worry about. Might such a super civilization have visited the Earth in the past? Perhaps. If so, then it is far more likely that they arrived to find an Earth populated with dinosaurs and not human beings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Nature’s speed limit” is the speed of light. Sci-fi writers have long postulated “hyperdrive” and “warp drive,” etc. as plot devices<\/em>, to keep their spaceship crews from dying of old age in the course of a short story, but we are a long way from moving a physical space ship faster than the speed of light\u2014and other cultures, if they exist, might not have crossed that barrier either. (All movie spaceships have nifty artificial gravity too\u2014how?)<\/p>\n

So what about “raw, unmediated ufology<\/a>“? What is happening with these people who report such experiences?<\/p>\n

Rule out hoaxes, misunderstandings (I’ve had those), and deliberate deception. <\/a><\/p>\n

I favor the Jacques Vall\u00e9e <\/a>explanation. Perhaps “they” have always been here<\/a>. Sometimes they tell us that they came from another planet, but it is more likely that they are inside the walls of our houses\u2014or other spaces that appear larger to them than they do to us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Les Johnson’s article “The Aliens Are Not Among Us” reflects the way that I have come to think about physical aliens arriving in physical spaceships from other planets: Not very likely. Let me be blunt: the chance of an alien species evolving, developing intelligence with the physical characteristics that allow them to make fire and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-2769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-weirdness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-IF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6908,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6908","url_meta":{"origin":2769,"position":0},"title":"Why “Aliens” Might Be Invisible","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Magonia, the review blog of esoteric books (0r should that be, books on esoterica?), recently revisited two books on Unidentified Flying Objects from the 1950s by Morris K. Jessup, the first writer, they say, to use the term \"UFO\" in a commercial publication. Ah, those were the days, I take\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4684,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4684","url_meta":{"origin":2769,"position":1},"title":"What Happened to Ufology?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"When people are still talking and writing books about the Roswell Incident more than sixty years after it happened, you have to wonder if the air has leaked out of ufology. In Britain, the Telegraph reports, Dozens of groups interested in the flying saucers and other unidentified craft have already\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"weirdness\"","block_context":{"text":"weirdness","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=weirdness"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5900,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5900","url_meta":{"origin":2769,"position":2},"title":"Quality of British Crop Circles Sagging","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Says the Daily Mail, which prints some examples. Insiders say a number of top crop circle makers have quit following a clampdown by farmers and moved onto making sand circles, which are legal. In previous years, impressive crop circles have drawn in thousands of tourists to southern England and some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":973,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=973","url_meta":{"origin":2769,"position":3},"title":"Review: Beyond Lemuria","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Imagine that cult film director Ed Wood was also a ceremonial magician.Or imagine a merger of Dion Fortune and Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. She would be perfect to introduce this film.Imagine giant caverns underground filled with degenerate descendants of the Lemurians, accessible from the lower slopes of Mount Shasta.If\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B001186Y1Y","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10448,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10448","url_meta":{"origin":2769,"position":4},"title":"Pixie Problems, or Working Things Out with the \u2018Cousins\u2019 (4)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 So what are fairies? How do you research them? Just as important, do you even want to have anything to do with them? Each of those is a book or article-length question, so I will paint with a very broad brush here. Nevertheless, fairies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1401000819","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1059,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1059","url_meta":{"origin":2769,"position":5},"title":"The Fairies of Torchwood","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I never joined the Doctor Who cult, although I had friends who remembered every episode and could debate whether Peter Davison made a better Doctor than William Hartnell. At a post-INATS dinner, however, a publisher friend said that I had to see Torchwood, a Doctor Who spin-off. He compared it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2769"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2772,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions\/2772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}