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Are We Alone? Scientists Uncover Evidence That Intelligence May Be Inevitable

This theory will need to overcome the Fermi Paradox and the existence of Trump voters

By Penn State

Humanity may not be a rare exception but rather the expected result of planetary evolution — both on Earth and potentially on other worlds — according to a new scientific model.

This model challenges the long-standing “hard steps” theory, which argues that the emergence of intelligent life was an extremely unlikely event. 

Instead, researchers from Penn State propose that the development of intelligence was not a matter of improbable luck but a natural consequence of environmental conditions aligning over time. 

Their findings suggest that intelligent life may be more common in the universe than previously thought.

What QAnon supporters, butthole sunners and New Age spiritualists have in common

Oh where to being?

Christopher T. Conner, University of Missouri-Columbia

Even though it’s been linked to cancer, butthole sunning
is an alternative wellness practice that has become
popularized. Nick Lehr, CC BY-SA

After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, former NBA player Royce White became an outspoken advocate of defunding the police. Over those ensuing months, he appeared at a number of protests and marches in Minnesota – demonstrations that conservative politicians and pundits excoriated.

Four years later, White accepted the endorsement of the Minnesota GOP in the state’s 2024 U.S. Senate race.

In the interim, White had appeared on the show of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, where he decried the “establishment” and “corporatocracy.” While on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, he complained that women “had become too mouthy.” Elsewhere, he lambasted the LGBTQ+ movement as “Luciferian” and described Israel as the vanguard of a “new world order.”

White’s transition from an NBA player who advocated for progressive causes to an acolyte of Jones is more common than you might think.

Many people might associate conspiracy theories with certain demographics or political leanings. But the reality is far more nuanced, with emerging research finding that there is far more diversity among conspiracists than scholars previously thought.

Conspiracy theories are just as likely to be held by your MAGA-hat wearing uncle as they are your best friend who’s a fan of the band Phish and goes to CrossFit three times a week.

Live long and prosper

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Not from out there?

NASA report finds no evidence that UFOs are extraterrestrial

Chris Impey, University of Arizona

NASA’s UAP study team and newly appointed director of
UAP research represent growing efforts to study and
declassify UFO-related data. AP Photo/Terry Renn

NASA’s independent study team released its highly anticipated report on UFOs on Sept. 14, 2023.

In part to move beyond the stigma often attached to UFOs, where military pilots fear ridicule or job sanctions if they report them, UFOs are now characterized by the U.S. government as UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.

Bottom line: The study team found no evidence that reported UAP observations are extraterrestrial.

I’m a professor of astronomy who has written extensively on astrobiology and the scientists who search for life in the universe. I have long been skeptical of the claim that UFOs represent visits by aliens to Earth.

Opening Our X Files

Sure, let's open the files

By TERRY H. SCHWADRON

Of course, I’m willing to believe in the occasional visits from Unidentified Flying Objects. At the risk of replaying a Twilight Zone episode, I’m only disappointed that the visitors sophisticated enough to have superior technology aren’t making more formal contact.

I’m just not willing to believe that the U.S. Congress, which is kicking up a renewed fuss about whether the government is squashing reports about UFO sightings, is ready to do anything about acknowledging ET.

For once, we can say with confidence, we had an issue arise before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee this week that drew equal skepticism and dismay from both sides of the political aisle. 

Perhaps we should thank the apparently pending alien invasion for briefly halting endless, nonsensical culture war skirmishes over every public issue in sight.

At least they could provide a common target.

Admittedly, when I heard about a hearing to air grievances about hiding our X Files, I had expected Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to attack the hearings for even mentioning that there may be lifeforms whose presence might make Americans feel bad, or Donald Trump to announce – without evidence again – those aliens had taken over prosecutor bodies in the Justice Department.

Then Joe Biden could say that he has separated himself from any personal influence over alien visits, and Homeland Security could insist that we have adequate defenses against alien invasion – unless the conservative majority of the Supreme Court says that non-humans are not addressed in the Constitution, leaving it to each state to respond separately.

But there it was, a formal House committee hearing in which a former national intelligence official told elected representatives that the U.S. government is sheltering alien spacecraft, that sightings are more numerous than believed, and that we’ve been sitting on the information. 

Just why the secrecy was not addressed, and The New York Times, which has written more seriously about UFOs than most, said the hearing exhibited “the extraordinary standards of contemporary political theater.”

Trump's hair 2024

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Are we alone in the universe?

Four essential reads on potential contact with aliens

Mary Magnuson, The Conversation

UFOs usually have non-extraterrestrial origins, but many
have urged the government to be more transparent about UFO data. 
Westend61/Westend61 via Getty Images

The House subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs met in July 2023 to discuss affairs so foreign that they may not even be of this world. 

During the meeting, several military officers testified that unidentified anomalous phenomena – the government’s name for UFOs – pose a threat to national security.

Their testimony may have raised eyebrows in the chamber, but there’s still no public physical evidence of extraterrestrial life. In fact, most UFO sightings have earthly explanations, from tricks of the light to weather balloons.

Whether or not these testimonials hold any grains of truth, some scholars argue that simply by listening for signs of extraterrestrials, we’re already engaging in the first phase of contact with alien life.

These four articles from our archives dive into what went down during the subcommittee hearing, why perceived UFO sightings usually have human explanations, and how humanity can learn from history when it comes to engaging with extraterrestrials.

First contact with aliens could end in colonization and genocide if we don’t learn from history

We don't have a good history of "first contacts" with new civilizations

David Delgado Shorter, University of California, Los Angeles; Kim TallBear, University of Alberta, and William Lempert, Bowdoin College

We’re only halfway through 2023, and it feels already like the year of alien contact.

In February, President Joe Biden gave orders to shoot down three unidentified aerial phenomena – NASA’s title for UFOs. Then, the alleged leaked footage from a Navy pilot of a UFO, and then news of a whistleblower’s report on a possible U.S. government cover-up about UFO research. Most recently, an independent analysis published in June suggests that UFOs might have been collected by a clandestine agency of the U.S. government.

If any actual evidence of extraterrestrial life emerges, whether from whistleblower testimony or an admission of a cover-up, humans would face a historic paradigm shift.

As members of an Indigenous studies working group who were asked to lend our disciplinary expertise to a workshop affiliated with the Berkeley SETI Research Center, we have studied centuries of culture contacts and their outcomes from around the globe. Our collaborative preparations for the workshop drew from transdisciplinary research in Australia, New Zealand, Africa and across the Americas.

In its final form, our group statement illustrated the need for diverse perspectives on the ethics of listening for alien life and a broadening of what defines “intelligence” and “life.” Based on our findings, we consider first contact less as an event and more as a long process that has already begun.