Well. A month or so ago, Trump released the “secret” UFO files. I think most of us can see this was his attempt at distracting us from the war in Iraq, the $5 per gallon gas prices, the high inflation, and everything else that was happening at the time.
They didn’t amount to much in the news. But a few scientists were interviewed and spoke about the possibility of “life” in other places in the Universe.
Personally, I think it is a given. Do I think we have visitors who come here? To see what us dumb humans are doing? Probably not. But I am betting on the life forms in other places. Beings that we dumb humans can’t understand or perceive.
Anyway, this has been going on for a long time, this same speculation.
In fact, on April 12, 1960, an astronomer named Frank Drake launched Project Ozma. It was the first modern scientific attempt to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, this guy Drake used an 85-foot radio telescope to listen for radio signals from two nearby sunlike stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani.
Hello? Is there anybody out there?
Drake tuned the telescope to 1420 MHz, a frequency linked to hydrogen. First of all, who knew hydrogen had a frequency? I just got back from the bathroom. I had to go listen to my bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Sure enough, it was singing like Ethel Merman.
Anyway, back to Drake. He believed an advanced civilization might use it as a universal communication signal. But sadly for him, over several months of observation, there was not a peep. The project detected no alien transmissions. Zip. Zilch. Nadda. The only unusual signal likely came from a passing aircraft.
Although Project Ozma found no evidence of extraterrestrial life, it helped launch the modern field of SETI, which is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
But hey. The experiment was dirt cheap as these things go. It only cost about $2,000. But. But it inspired decades of scientific research.
The ability to listen is truly an incredible skill. But if there’s nothing to hear? Well, then, listening might be a $2000 waste of time.
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“The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” — Carl Sagan
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“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” — Arthur C. Clarke
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“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” — Carl Sagan
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“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” — Albert Einstein
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“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” — Carl Sagan
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