Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: In terms of technology SETS, what's happening with the Paul
Speaker 2: Allen array.
Speaker 3: Well, the Paul Allen ray is still being used. It's
Speaker 3: being used for SETI, but it's also you know, a
Speaker 3: pretty powerful radio telescope, so it's also used for, if
Speaker 3: you will, conventional astronomical research. It's still, you know, far
Speaker 3: short of the original intention, which was to build two
Speaker 3: or three hundred of these antennas across the valley floor
Speaker 3: here in well, California, behind the Sierras. But you know,
Speaker 3: there wasn't enough money to do that, so we have
Speaker 3: what is it is somewhere between forty and fifty antennas,
Speaker 3: and they're being used, as they say, for SETI, trying
Speaker 3: to find a signal that would betray the aliens, but
Speaker 3: they're also used for radio astronomy.
Speaker 2: Now, tell us what other countries have with organizations like SETI. Anything,
Speaker 2: not too many?
Speaker 3: Actually SETI this is actually an interesting thing, at least
Speaker 3: to me. I hoped from the listeners that SETI this
Speaker 3: idea that you might be able to find the aliens
Speaker 3: by tuning them in on the radio that's been almost
Speaker 3: exclusively an American experiment since its beginning, since Frank Drake
Speaker 3: did the first SETI experiment back in nineteen sixty, it's
Speaker 3: only been the Americans that have done this now, you know,
Speaker 3: to me, the interesting thing is why is that? It's
Speaker 3: not that the Americans are the only ones who have
Speaker 3: the equipment. That's not true. I lived in Europe for
Speaker 3: thirteen years actually, and you know, there are a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of radio telescopes in Europe. In particular, I was
Speaker 3: in the Netherlands and they had a very large antenna
Speaker 3: array that they could have used for SETI. The only
Speaker 3: person who ever used that antenna array for SETI was
Speaker 3: me an American and that, you know, that kind of
Speaker 3: surprised me. And I would ask my Dutch colleagues and say,
Speaker 3: why why don't you guys try doing some experiments here
Speaker 3: using this array? And they, you know, they kind of
Speaker 3: poop pooted. They didn't think it was real science.
Speaker 2: Can we assume that every extraterrestrial race out there is friendly?
Speaker 2: We can't do that, can we?
Speaker 3: No, you can't. You have no idea whether they're friendly
Speaker 3: or not. I mean, you don't want to make a mistake.
Speaker 3: I suppose. I mean, there is this. I don't worry
Speaker 3: too much about hostile aliens, although they're pretty amusing in
Speaker 3: the movies. But I think that if there were a
Speaker 3: lot of hostile alien species out there, and out there
Speaker 3: I mean not terribly far away, within one hundred light
Speaker 3: years or something that's relatively next door astronomically speaking, I
Speaker 3: think that if such societies existed and they, you know,
Speaker 3: wanted to do us in, they would have done us
Speaker 3: in a long time ago. I mean, you know, they
Speaker 3: could presumably do that. I'm not sure what's in it
Speaker 3: for them, and it would be expensive, but the fact
Speaker 3: that they haven't done it suggests to me that, you know,
Speaker 3: we don't show up on their radar.
Speaker 2: As it were, if we found aliens, if you actually
Speaker 2: saw one walk in, what do you think it would
Speaker 2: look like?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you know, I occasionally get phone calls from
Speaker 3: people in Hollywood who want to know what the aliens
Speaker 3: look like too, because you know, they're making a movie
Speaker 3: that involves aliens and they want to get the aliens right,
Speaker 3: which is to say, they want them to be scientifically plausible. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but of course, you know, the requirements of the story
Speaker 3: usually don't allow you to do that because in most movies,
Speaker 3: aliens are not friendly. I mean, if they're friendly, if
Speaker 3: you're just going to palle around with them, like Et
Speaker 3: the Extraterrestrial, I mean, that's not a very dramatic movie.
Speaker 3: You want the aliens to, you know, have attitude and
Speaker 3: flatten Downtown Loss Angelist or something like that. So it
Speaker 3: pays to make them ugly looking. But of course ugly
Speaker 3: is you know, in the eyes of the beholder, I suppose,
Speaker 3: and an ugly alien might be attractive to other aliens.
Speaker 3: But anyhow, nobody knows what they're going to look like
Speaker 3: except this, and I have said this before because I
Speaker 3: really think there's something in it, and that is that
Speaker 3: any society that's able to, you know, travel between the
Speaker 3: stars and maybe come to Earth or whatever. If they
Speaker 3: can do that, they've already invented thinking machines were about
Speaker 3: to do that. So I suspect that the majority of
Speaker 3: intelligent aliens are just machinery. They're not you know, they're
Speaker 3: not squishy guys soaked in mucus.
Speaker 2: What if they're looking for a new home.
Speaker 3: Set, well, well, I don't know that our home would
Speaker 3: befit them. I mean, I don't know what their own
Speaker 3: planet's like, but maybe their home planet, you know, has
Speaker 3: nice temperatures like ours does, and has liquid We have
Speaker 3: a lot of water on this planet and that may
Speaker 3: be useful to some of the aliens. Maybe even the
Speaker 3: atmosphere that we have might appeal to them too. But again,
Speaker 3: I think that if they were relatively nearby and this
Speaker 3: was something that appealed to them, they would have done
Speaker 3: it already. I mean, this is the storyline of War
Speaker 3: the World's Right, the HG. Wells story, that the Martians
Speaker 3: decide that their own world is no longer very attractive
Speaker 3: to them, and so they take over ours. But of
Speaker 3: course the assumption is that they could survive on our world.
Speaker 3: It turns out that they couldn't actually, But you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know that they would be so interested in
Speaker 3: our world unless they were biological and had biology that
Speaker 3: was somewhat similar to our own.
Speaker 2: Who would take the forefront to release the information? Would
Speaker 2: it be SETI would it be the governments? Who do
Speaker 2: you think it would be?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's actually an interesting question. People have, you know,
Speaker 3: sat around at various lunches and dinners talking about it.
Speaker 3: There is a protocol we've talked about it occasionally, and
Speaker 3: that says I mean, it's intended for people who are
Speaker 3: trying to pick up the aliens on a radio telescope
Speaker 3: or maybe even an optical telescope, an ordinary telescope. But
Speaker 3: the protocol, which has no force of law, nobody really
Speaker 3: has to listen to it. But what it says is
Speaker 3: that if you do pick up a signal, you're supposed
Speaker 3: to make that public knowledge. Now, you know a lot
Speaker 3: of people and I run into them all the time,
Speaker 3: think that that wouldn't happen, that the government would swoop
Speaker 3: in and keep that story from getting out there, because
Speaker 3: the public would go nuts if they knew that there
Speaker 3: were aliens nearby. I don't believe that. But in any case,
Speaker 3: you couldn't keep it secret anyhow, because if you were
Speaker 3: to pick up a signal, or you were to see
Speaker 3: something in space that you know, you didn't recognize and
Speaker 3: you figured it was an alien construction, you would want
Speaker 3: as many as scientists around the world to look at
Speaker 3: that as you could get because you'd want as much information.
Speaker 3: So the idea that you would keep it secret and
Speaker 3: that the government would keep it secret, I mean that
Speaker 3: you know that doesn't sound right to me. I don't
Speaker 3: think you could keep it secret. I think I've mentioned
Speaker 3: that I had a job summer jobs with the federal
Speaker 3: government in Washington, and I had I think it was
Speaker 3: top secret clearance for a while, right And you know,
Speaker 3: I got to tell you, George, I was never terribly
Speaker 3: impressed with the government's abilities to keep anything secret. And
Speaker 3: something like this, which is after all, a science, it's
Speaker 3: not a nuclear weapon or anything, I think it would
Speaker 3: be impossible to keep it secret.
Speaker 2: It is exciting, though, suff isn't it?
Speaker 3: Well, it is. I think it's one of the most
Speaker 3: exciting things going. I mean, the twenty first century may
Speaker 3: be remembered as a century where we finally figured out that,
Speaker 3: you know, there's somebody out there. I mean, that may
Speaker 3: be the lasting legacy of our century.
Speaker 2: Where is SETI located, Well, the.
Speaker 3: SETI Institute, which of course is where I work. That's
Speaker 3: a nonprofit research organization with you know, they're like one
Speaker 3: hundred employees, but they're mostly research scientists, and we're located
Speaker 3: in Mountain View. That's where I'm speaking to you from
Speaker 3: mountain View, California, which is in the Silicon Valley. It's
Speaker 3: where Google has its headquarters in case that helps you
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: Do you give tours?
Speaker 3: Well, I have given tours. I mean sometimes people will
Speaker 3: call up and say, hey, can I get a tour?
Speaker 3: And if it's not you know, I mean, if it's
Speaker 3: a day in which I have some time to give
Speaker 3: it to her, which is actually quite quite a number
Speaker 3: of days, I'm happy to give it to her. But
Speaker 3: I have to. I always warn them. I say, look,
Speaker 3: I don't know what you think you're going to see here,
Speaker 3: but it's just a bunch of offices. The really interesting thing
Speaker 3: to visit would be the telescopes themselves, the antennas, but
Speaker 3: they're not here in the Silicon Valley. They're up about
Speaker 3: a five hour or four hour drive north of San Francisco,
Speaker 3: so you can go visit those two. But you know,
Speaker 3: there're somehow I think, more interesting to visit than the
Speaker 3: offices of the SETI Institute.
Speaker 2: How was your tenure appared to other members of SETI.
Speaker 3: My tenure you mean my personal tenure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, as long as you've been there.
Speaker 3: Oh well, I've been there a long time now. I
Speaker 3: joined the institute. I think it was nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: It's not for me to believe that but I think
Speaker 3: it's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I interviewed you back in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: six when you were at Arecibo and Puerto Rico, and
Speaker 2: I was doing my local Saint Louis Nighthawk show.
Speaker 3: Yep, I remember it. I remember it well, I can
Speaker 3: still picture it. But yeah, and and also Art DELI
Speaker 3: did the Art Bell Show a couple of times.
Speaker 2: Yep. Filled in for Art for a while. And here
Speaker 2: where I am now, and the rest is history.
Speaker 3: Indeed, I have to tell you there's not that this
Speaker 3: maybe matters terribly much. But I was on a cruise
Speaker 3: up the Inside Passage to Alaska, you know, I was
Speaker 3: given a lecture or two. And one of the other
Speaker 3: people on board the ship was Jimmy.
Speaker 2: Church, good old Jimmy, our buddy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, he substitutes for you, I think occasionally.
Speaker 2: Very nice guy, Jimmy Church. He believes in extraterrestrials too.
Speaker 3: Well, he does. Yeah, we had some interesting meals.
Speaker 2: Since all this has been going on. What's your best
Speaker 2: guess on what's going to happen over the next couple
Speaker 2: of years.
Speaker 3: Well, it's you know, it's always difficult to kind of
Speaker 3: predict what's likely to happen in the research field, because
Speaker 3: research is you know, it's exploration, and you never know
Speaker 3: what's going to be discovered next year, ten years from now,
Speaker 3: or anything like that. But the patient is that sooner
Speaker 3: or later, you know we're going to be we're going
Speaker 3: to pick up a signal that is not just interference
Speaker 3: from some radar station, but a signal that's actually produced
Speaker 3: by a transmitter on another world operated by aliens. Right,
Speaker 3: that's the assumption, and that's the goal, and that's the intent,
Speaker 3: and that's what would be absolutely the most interesting thing
Speaker 3: we could do. But we haven't done that yet. We
Speaker 3: haven't picked up yet. And why is that. Well, it
Speaker 3: could be that there aren't any aliens, but I don't
Speaker 3: believe that, and I don't think you believe that either.
Speaker 3: The aliens are out there, but you know, we haven't
Speaker 3: picked them up. Maybe they're broadcasting at very low power
Speaker 3: levels and we just can't pick them up. Or maybe
Speaker 3: they're broadcasting in particular directions and not our direction, so
Speaker 3: there are lots of or maybe we're just listening on
Speaker 3: the at the wrong spot on the radio dial the
Speaker 3: wrong frequency. There are lots of reasons why we might
Speaker 3: might not pick them up. But eventually, I think we will.
Speaker 3: And what's eventually, Well, I've always said within twenty years.
Speaker 3: I think I've been saying that for twenty five years.
Speaker 3: But I think within a few decades we'll likely pick
Speaker 3: something up. But you know, don't hold your breath.
Speaker 2: More than half of the US population believes that aliens
Speaker 2: are visiting the planet. That's astounding, isn't it.
Speaker 3: It is astounding. But on the other hand, more than
Speaker 3: half the population of the US believes in ghosts too.
Speaker 3: And although you know, ghosts are fun to talk about,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, you can go to the Smithsonian
Speaker 3: or any other science museum or whatever, and you don't
Speaker 3: find too much about ghosts because there's a much science there.
Speaker 3: So the fact that a lot of people believe that
Speaker 3: the Earth is being visited, I mean, that's interesting, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't prove that Earth's being visited.
Speaker 2: What would it get you to change your mind?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I think that if you know, I
Speaker 3: picked up the newspaper off my front porch tomorrow morning
Speaker 3: and there was a photograph of an retrieved alien, I mean,
Speaker 3: that would be certainly compelling evidence. Because the papers I
Speaker 3: subscribe to are fairly reputable so you know that would
Speaker 3: be that would be a big thing, but it would
Speaker 3: also be immediately picked up by all the science publications.
Speaker 3: I mean, it would be a big science story. And
Speaker 3: so it's one of those things that if you claim
Speaker 3: that you've made this discovery, you'd have to prove it
Speaker 3: the same way you'd have to prove the discovery of
Speaker 3: I don't know, cold fusion or some other science discovery.
Speaker 3: You have to, you know, do an experiment or provide
Speaker 3: photos or give tours or something right. And it's not
Speaker 3: something that you would want to keep secret because then
Speaker 3: you don't get the Nobel Prize. You don't get the
Speaker 3: Nobel Prize. Or keeping something a secret.
Speaker 2: That newspaper photograph might show, are buddy George Knapp shaking
Speaker 2: hands with an.
Speaker 3: Alien, Well, I'm glad they're on friendly terms.
Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast ams every weeknight at
Speaker 1: one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
Speaker 1: dot com for more