WEBVTT - The Aliens Are Coming! 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.720 Forward Thinking, and Welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast that 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.120 looks at the future and says things just haven't been 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:21.720 the same since that blind Saucer came. I'm Jonathan Strickland 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.480 and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to do 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:29.200 yet another listener request episode from the old Inbox. Awesome. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:34.080 So who requested? What? Well? This is an episode that 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.519 faced them an email that came in from our listener, Brett. 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.680 All right, and what does the email ask us to do? Well? 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:43.479 Should I read it? Or should want to be here? 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:46.760 I'll read it. I'm reading all right, here we go. Okay, 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.040 So Brett says, I've watched my share of alien invasion movies. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.640 Far too many of them have an absurd America mentality 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.600 and don't seem to realize that Martians will not be 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:02.600 stopped by explosive shells, battleship, the common flu War of 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:07.400 the World's or my MacBook no reference needed. Additionally, aliens 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.160 would not wait a few days before deploying some sort 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.399 of air vehicle were the world's as well as Battle 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.360 Los Angeles. I know that you've tackled similar subjects before, 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.480 and even devoted an entire episode Independence Day alone. Or 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.280 was that tech stuff? Not sure? Side note that was 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.240 totally text stuff. I am sad about that fact because 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.440 I wish I could have been there. I think I 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.720 think that there's enough material to revisit it. What is 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:37.120 the future of Independent watch it again? Back to Brett. Okay, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.480 but I think that you guys could make an outstanding 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.400 episode on this topic. We could assume that they want 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.959 our resources like oxygen or water. Would they try to 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.840 kill off the human population with a nuke or biological weapon, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.680 or would they even bother even bother themselves? Obviously there 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:53.680 would be nothing that humanity could do to fight back, 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.120 much less win. Just don't tell me that we should 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.800 hijack an ironclad from the nineteenth century and use it 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.880 to blow up the mothership. You utilizing our innate ability 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.960 to drop an anchor battleship was a terrible movie. You'll 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.720 lose no geek cred for not getting that reference. Thanks 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.680 for reading well, Brett. Thank you so much for this 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.640 email because I am so excited about talking about this 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:20.160 topic because it's true what you say. The ways that 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.400 humans fight back against alien invasions in the movies are 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:28.200 so stupid. Yeah, not would not be effective in real life. 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.000 D minus would not fight with again. To be fair, though, 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.760 we don't have any real historical battles with aliens we 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.000 can point to and say, see, look where they got 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.440 it wrong. You know, I do have a great idea 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:42.960 for an alien invasion movie. Though. It would be kind 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:48.799 of like Battleship. But I haven't seen how battleship. I 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.880 haven't seen battleship, but I get the gist. Okay, but 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.320 it wouldn't involve modern battleships. We would get into wooden 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.240 Spanish galleons and fight the aliens in those. So you're 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.600 essentially thinking of like Pirates of the Caribbean mixed with 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:04.840 War the World. Yeah, like a like a man O 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:09.160 war versus a flying saucer. You know what. In my book, 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.760 pirates always win. So I'm on board. I mean I 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.280 would watch that movie. I guess on board literally in 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:20.080 this case. Yeah, I mean I would be in that movie. Yeah, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.760 So let's talk a little bit about this. I mean, 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.720 obviously we're gonna be talking all on hypotheticals here, right, 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.000 I mean, this is gonna be a tricky episode because 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:30.799 we can't really base our answer. In fact, we can 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.160 just sort of look at some facts and then try 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:38.000 to speculate. We can make intelligent conjectures. Yes, uh so 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.920 Brett has already covered some of the ways in which 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.960 science fiction has already addressed this. Of course, we've got 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.360 Independence Day where you know, aliens come in and they 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.480 hover over our cities for a while. I don't know 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.040 why they just wait around before they attack. Well, they 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.280 have to coordinate that attack so that all happens at once, 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.440 and for reasons that we can't understand, and I have 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.720 to scare us, yeah, by blowing up monuments that mean 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.040 a lot to us personally, right, right, So instead of 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:08.600 attacking major population centers, they attack things that you would recognize. Yeah, 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.960 it makes sense, especially if they're trying to get their 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.560 word out through a major motion picture. It's terrorism, not 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.120 uh yeah, First, let's scare them into subjugation, and then 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.920 we're just gonna you know what finished them off. Actually, Aliens, 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.320 if you're listening, you should probably just go ahead and 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.920 blow up like like coffee farms first, because that is 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.479 going to be the most terrified. I love Hawaii, don't 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:37.480 don't blow up, Hawi, you don't. I think it's funny 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:42.120 that Brett dismisses the answer in War the Worlds, and 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.160 I think with pretty good reason. I mean, you can 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.640 kind of imagine that. Again, it's hard to speculate about 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.640 the nature of alien minds, and we'll talk more about 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:51.840 that later, but it's kind of hard to imagine that 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.279 they would mount a sophisticated military attack on Earth without 0:04:55.279 --> 0:05:00.320 being aware of germs and their susceptibility to germs. Similarly speaking, 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.680 you would think that any alien race that came down 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.680 to conquer Earth would also be aware that it's most 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.640 plentiful resource that covers most of its surface is also 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.839 the stuff what will kill you. Oh, you're referring to 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:17.039 signs a little. Yeah, that's problematic. That was just water 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:22.760 vapor in the air. You guys dumb, incredibly dumb. But yeah, no, 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:24.640 I guess it would have made more sense if they'd 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.039 invaded a desert region. But yeah, they show up in 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:29.920 a nice moist countryside. It's got fog and everything. It 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.599 would make more sense if they had invaded a planet 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.880 that was devoid of water. That it was not right, 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.200 so but anyway, Yeah, these are lots of of course 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.719 variations in science fiction, and usually the alien invasion stories 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:48.919 not always, but usually that's just the dressing and the 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:54.160 actual like themes or whatever are more embedded in the 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.600 characters and how they react. There are exceptions. Independence day, 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.600 I don't think there's really much more going on other 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.520 than stuff what blows up. Well, I do think that 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.839 I do think that frequently these kind of alien invasion 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:12.479 movies are thinly veiled metaphors for other foreign invasions, be 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.960 they cultural or products of of of whatever not international 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.160 conflict is going at the time, like like, certainly, I 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.359 think a lot of the classic Cold War era movies 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.640 were about the communists. O MG, the communists, right, you 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.680 have an invasion of the body snatchers or any kind 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:34.480 of other Nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties invasion movies were 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.680 very much, I think, often concerned with the infiltration of 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:42.360 dangerous ideas, be that communism from you know, actual acting 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.919 communist agents around the world like the Soviet Union, or 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.400 merely fear of changing culturals like guys like in the 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:54.200 nineteen sixties. Well, let's talk a little bit about how 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:56.799 likely is something like this to happen in the first 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.600 place before we talk about how it would turn out. Right, 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.240 So in this is an area, like pretty much everything 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:03.960 we're gonna have to say in this episode, where we 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:06.880 don't really know an answer. We can just kind of 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.680 make some guesses based on what we do know. So 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.560 how but there are some really good numbers about like 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.440 possible alien life out there. We've we've covered this a 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.600 little bit on the podcast before, right, So I think 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.520 a good thing to start with would be how many 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:28.160 alien civilizations are out there? I mean, again, we don't know, 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.680 but we could start by looking at how many habitable 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.760 planets are there, probably in the Milky Way galaxy. So 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.480 in November, I was just trying to look for some 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:39.960 of the most recent updates because they keep updating this 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.600 number as as telescopes continually scope out more and more. 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:49.040 In November, dot com reported that about twenty percent of 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.680 Sun like stars observed by the Kepler telescope had had 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:57.040 earthlike planets. That is defined as a planet roughly Earth 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.960 size in the habitable zone. So that's the zone where 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.080 it's not so hot that you know, water would be vaporized, 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:06.280 and it's not so cold that all the water would 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.000 be frozen. So you extrapolate from that and say, well, 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.920 if this is indicative of a broader trend throughout our galaxy, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.120 that ends up being a lot of planets that could 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:21.720 potentially support life. And that's just life as we know it, right, So, yeah, 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.200 as far as we can imagine life, the kind of 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.520 life that's based on liquid water, which you know, on 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.400 one hand, that seems like a pretty reasonable metric for 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.880 judging whether a planet could have life, but we don't 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:37.480 really know. Uh, that's a lot of Earth's Seth show Stack, 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.520 who we've referred to on the podcast before. He's a 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.080 senior astronomer and director of the Cet Institute. He said 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.679 last year that the number of habitable planets in our 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:50.880 galaxies in the tens of billions minimum, and that's not 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.280 even including moons, which could also harbor life. So I've 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:59.240 seen estimates of around forty billion or sixty billion planets 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.200 in our galaxy, see that could host life. So there's 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.520 a lot of potential real estate out there for life. 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:11.560 But we're not like getting text messages from civilizations there. Yeah, 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.640 So if there's sixty billion planets out there that could 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.760 have an alien civilization on them, why haven't we heard 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:22.959 a single word from anybody. This comes up with the 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.920 Fermi paradox, right, the whole idea that, uh, in fact, 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.160 if there is this this abundance of life, or at 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.800 least the potential for it, why is it then that 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.800 we have not actually observed that? Right? So the Fermi 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.720 paradox sort of draws attention to this idea of the 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.120 Drake equation, which we devoted a whole podcast to one time. 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.240 If you haven't heard that, I recommend going back to 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:48.120 check it out. It's a really fun problem in exploring 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.520 the sort of the the numbers game of astrobiology. So 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.040 the direct equation says, look, you know, we've got all 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.679 these planets out there. Um, yeah, we haven't heard anything. 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:03.640 So there must be some limiting factor that's interfering with 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.679 us hearing from all these planets. It's either the fact that, say, 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.240 life doesn't actually arise all that often, or it's the 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:15.720 fact that maybe life arises fairly frequently, but intelligence doesn't 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.520 develop all that often. Or maybe it's the fact that, uh, 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:24.360 technology doesn't necessarily develop with intelligence, or maybe it's the 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:29.640 fact that, uh, the technological civilizations are likely to only 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.880 transmit for a short period of time to transmit electromagnetic 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.120 radiation we would detect for a small period of time. 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.840 That's the kind of scary one because it implies that 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.920 for some reason, species that develop radios pretty soon after 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.200 that go extinct. Uh, And we don't know what the 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.680 answer is there, but for some reason, we're not hearing 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.559 anything from these planets. And then there are all these 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.520 other crazy theories like who knows how crazy they actually are, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.920 but there's like the zoo theory. There could be alien 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.760 civilizations out there that are using their vast technological powers 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:12.480 to literally prevent us from detecting them. So it's jammed, yeah, 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:16.040 exactly right. They're they're keeping us in a protective little shell, 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.800 maybe for our benefit, maybe for theirs. Who knows. We 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.200 don't know the answers to these questions, but what we 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.160 have to go on right now is that we haven't 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.760 heard word one right. And also another thing to keep 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.080 in mind, another part that's going to really come into 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.600 this discussion as we go along, is that, as Douglas 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:38.600 Adams once observed, space is big, really big. You think 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:40.600 it's a jot down to the chemist shop on the counter, 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:45.240 that's peanuts compared to space. You are quite right on that, 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.880 and so was so was our our dear departed friend. No, 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:53.920 there is a ridiculously huge distance between stars. So when 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:55.920 we're talking about space being big, we're not just saying 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.840 there's a lot of stuff in it. There's a lot 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:03.000 of space in it, a lot of space between where 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.960 things are. So I'm gonna lift some notes that I 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.240 came up with from our old episode how to Discover 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:12.880 an exo planet, because back when we were talking about 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.800 exo planets, I wanted to think, like, what would it 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.000 actually involve to get to one to yeah, to travel 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.679 from one solar system to another? Like does it make 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.480 sense to say we could colonize an exo planet in 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.640 another solar system? And I kind of came to the 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.400 conclusion that unless we develop like near light speed travel, 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.280 especially faster than light travel, it really doesn't make a 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.800 lot of sense. Or we find some means of allowing 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.679 a ship that could support multiple generations of people so 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:44.719 that the people who land at the exo planet are 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.080 the descendants of the ones who took off from Earth. Right, 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.840 But but but how many generations are we talking about? 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.320 Like how what kind of time length are we looking at? Okay, yeah, 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.040 let me look at my math here. Okay, So the 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.400 Milky Way is about a hundred thousand light years in diameter, 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.880 so light takes a hundred thousand earth years to get 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.560 from one part to the other, or from one end 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.080 to the other. Sorry. And the average distance between stars, 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.040 I've seen a few figures for this, but it's typically 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.520 I would say the average estimate here is that it's 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.760 more than four light years. So it's maybe five light 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.760 years or four points something light years between every star 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:28.080 in our galaxy. That's so much space that it takes 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:32.720 light four years or more to travel between these stars. 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:37.200 And we have nothing that allows us to remotely approach 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:42.559 that speed. And moreover, based upon our knowledge of physics, uh, 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.280 at least from what we know, there's no way to 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.440 go as fast, let alone faster than that speed. Yeah. 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:53.400 So the nearest star to our Solar system is Proximus Centauri, 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.000 and it's about four point two light years away. That 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:57.920 means it would take something traveling at the speed of 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:02.079 light four point two years to get here from there. Right. 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:07.200 Uh So nobody knows exactly how many stars are in 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:09.800 the Milky Way, but you can sort of guess by 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.160 estimating the total mass of the galaxy. Though this is 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.319 also difficult because then you have to divide that by 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.559 what size you think the average star is taking into 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.520 account the effects of dark matter and other normal matter 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.360 in the galaxy. So it's hard to get a good 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.680 number on that. But I've seen astronomers guests from between 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.160 two hundred billion stars two up to a trillion or 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.720 more stars in our galaxy. So if we put the 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.480 number at one trillion, just for argument's sake, if you 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.720 grant that there are a hundred other technological alien species 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.640 in this galaxy, that leaves a one in ten billion 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.560 chance that any of them are in the Solar System 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:54.480 nearest to us. Yeah, So what I'm getting at is 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.960 that if they're out there, they're probably really really really 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.720 far away. And and right, going back to that to 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:07.000 that travel speed thing, like, I'm not sure what the 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.560 fraction of the speed of light that we can travel 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.160 at is, but it's a small fraction. Well, let's look 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.120 at the fastest spacecraft we've ever created. So right now, 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.680 the fastest thing we can think of in terms of 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.600 spacecraft is the voyager, And the voyager is kind of 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.000 a special case because it's traveling it more than thirty 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.400 five thousand miles prow. Actually there are two of them, 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.160 Voyager one Voyager two. If you look at like Voyager one, 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.000 it's going more than thirty five thousand miles prour, maybe 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.320 like thirty eight thousand miles per hour as it's exiting 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.040 the Solar System. This is the one you've heard about 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.240 that it actually exited the Solar System. It's going out 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.440 into interstellar space. How did it get it? Did that 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.560 like twelve times? Right? How did it get to that fast? Well, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.480 it had to use some really special maneuvers to achieve 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.760 that that speed. It had the slingshot around Jupiter and 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.240 then think also sling shot around Saturn. I believe you're correct. 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.280 So it had to use the massive power of the 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.680 gravity wells of these planets, the gravity wells and the 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:14.920 and the planetary motion itself, like the planetary motion around 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.640 the Sun, in order to sling shot out that fast, right, 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.479 And nobody's on it, So it's not like they're experiencing 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.400 extravagant g forces or any kind of time dilation or 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:26.760 anything like that. Yeah, God, I wonder what the G 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:28.800 forces would be like if you were to put a 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.320 person on the voyage or I mean, it seems like 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.240 I would guess I don't have a number for this, 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:39.480 I would guess it might kill you. Uh. But yeah, 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:41.880 so even if you so, that's like more than thirty 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:46.280 five thousand. But let's just round up to fifty miles 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.920 per hour, which is a big old chump, but for 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.240 the sake of argument and mathematics, especially for the sake 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:57.440 of mathematics. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, let's say you're going 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.520 at fifty thousand miles per hour in a an alien 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.360 made space craft. I'm sure that we'll have that. Yeah, 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.159 And they're traveling from GLI S six six c C, 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.560 which has been declared one of the closest highly earth 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.040 like exoplanets that we've yet discovered. It's only about twenty 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.040 two light years away, so it's very very close compared 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.639 to most stars in the galaxy. Um, you do a 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.880 little math on that twenty two light years, that's like 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.560 one point twenty nine times ten to the fourteen miles, 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.600 or about a hundred and twenty nine trillion miles. If 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.680 fifty thousand miles per hour, Uh, that would take two 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.480 hundred and ninety four thousand, three hundred and twenty five years, 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:44.000 that's a better pack of snack. Yeah, some coloring books, 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:49.119 a couple of activity books maybe dames. Yeah yeah, slug 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.960 Bug would get really old, as I pointed out, As 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:54.960 I pointed out the last time we talked about traveling 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.360 this distance, that's longer than we've been a species that's 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.439 longer than Homo sapiens have existed. At this rate, you're 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.040 talking about an alien invader that would really be more 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.520 a native of the spacecraft it traveled in than a 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:14.200 native of the planet it came from, because it would 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.080 have to. I mean, in in that long you'd be 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.960 talking about evolutionary time, they would adapt to the spacecraft 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.400 and become a native of that environment. Yeah. I mean 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:27.199 again like based off of life as we know it, 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:31.120 because I personally cannot conceive of being I guess other 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:35.240 than maybe like a virus that lives in any kind 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.560 of time span that would understand what you know, two 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:41.920 years even me the equivalent of that, of course, because 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:46.440 we're talking Earth years. Yeah, absolutely, I mean that that's 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.680 being generous to the invasion hypothesis because, as I said, 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.439 that's a really close s exoplane. And keep keep in 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:56.679 mind that this is all also dependent upon. You know, 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.359 we're making some assumptions, but we have to. Let's assume 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:01.720 the aliens are going to need some sort of source 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.840 of energy for themselves to survive, so they have to 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.880 get hold of that on the trip, or be able 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.439 to carry it with them. How about the energy to 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:14.119 power the space That would be a huge thing too. 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:18.800 I mean, they're they're there's such huge and seemingly insurmountable 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.640 challenges at least for as we see it, the way 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.399 we travel through space, that these are some of the 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:30.280 reasons why we feel that an alien invasion is is 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.159 is unlikely to happen. But we'll we'll explain more in 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.720 a bit. Okay, so we've established why we think it's unlikely, 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.240 but and that's not the only reason unlikely. We'll talk 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:44.080 about more later there in terms of perhaps alien motivation. 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:49.160 But you'd have to assume that if you just play 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.960 the probability game, any alien species getting to us in 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.320 any reasonable amount of time probably is going to have 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.560 to have a faster than light mode of transport, and 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.720 as far as we know, that's not possible physically impossible. Now, 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.680 it'm not saying what's out there in the realms of physics, 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.600 Maybe you could engineer a faster than light travel system 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.560 by creating some kind of warp drive where instead of 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.679 moving through space faster than light, you move the space 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.199 around you. Right, yeah, yeah, we've discussed that before on 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.080 the show a little bit too, and things like worm 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.880 holes and all this kind of stuff. But all this 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:29.560 is really theoretical, and even the theorists say there may 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:34.120 be no real, real equivalent to this stuff. We're showing 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.160 it maybe that you know, mathematically this is possible, but 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:42.359 practically it's impossible. That's always a chance for that. Yeah. 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.600 So anyway, the only point I want to make there 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.480 is I think it's pretty safe to assume if an 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:53.280 alien species gets to us there, they probably have such 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:58.480 incredible technological capability we can't even comprehend how powerful their 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:02.280 technology is, which which is to suggest that if they 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.719 if they got guns, we're done for, because I mean, 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:07.520 if they've got to if they've got the ability to 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:09.960 travel faster than like, can you only imagine what their 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.359 weaponry must be like. Uh So, before we go into 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:15.520 more of that, let's talk about some of the different 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.680 scenarios that could potentially serve as motivators to an alien 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.480 species invading the Earth. Yeah, I think a good point 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.360 Brett brings up in the email is what are they 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:27.439 looking for? Like, why do they invade Earth? So the 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.960 answer Brett gives is they want our consumable resources. I 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:36.120 think Brett says they want like oxygen or water. Right. 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.840 This seems very implausible to me, simply because if we're 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.399 talking about that same number we mentioned earlier, the vast 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:49.720 host of potentially habitable planets out there, you have to 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.840 assume that at least many of them, if not most 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.960 of them, do not have any sort of intelligent life, 0:21:57.119 --> 0:21:59.439 just based on the fact that we haven't detected anything. Granted, 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:01.879 some of them are so far that we wouldn't have 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:04.439 picked up any signals if their development was on the 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.120 same time scale as Earth's. But you know, making these 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:09.840 kind of assumptions, you have to say, well, there's got 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:11.920 to be plenty of space out there that you could 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.239 go to, or you wouldn't even have to bother with 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.159 any kind of civilization that would be there. Either there 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.280 there it may be a plant that's capable of supporting life, 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:22.399 but there's no life on it, or it may have 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:24.760 life on it, but there might not be any intelligent 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.439 life on it. So why would you go through the 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.040 trouble of bothering a planet that has intelligent life on 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.840 it when you've got other options open to you, especially 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:37.600 if ultimately what you're looking at doing is building a 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.760 giant pipeline back to your home planet or what. Because 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.280 even if it's a resources thing, how do you harvest 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.520 those resources and get them back to wherever they need 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.480 to go? Because presumably, you know, that's the reason why 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.080 you're going to a new planet, or maybe maybe they're 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:55.160 you know, traveling and they like run out of gas 0:22:55.240 --> 0:23:00.760 and what they use for gases? People be people. You 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:04.160 heard it here. First it's like a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:06.960 You just shove a couple of people in there. That's 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.879 nothing like a hydrogen fuel people. It's like it's like 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:15.280