Reinventing S.E.T.I. with John Gertz

Tonights guest has spent more than two decades leading the search for extraterrestrial life. Former board chair of the S.E.T.I. institute John Getz joins the show to discuss the challenges he's faced head on trying to confront and reinvent some dated and tired scientific ideals. Check out his new book Reinventing SETI: New Directions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence from Oxford University Press available now

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome back to the show, my friends. I am your host,
Eric Slodgi. If you've had an uncomfortable experience and you'd
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(00:39):
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(01:01):
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(01:21):
single best place that you can find anything and everything uncomfortable,
all in one spot. The link for that is in
the show notes below. All Right, guys, I'm really glad
you're here for this one, because today we're going to
go deep into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but from
a whole new angle. My guest tonight is John Gertz.

(01:42):
He is a former chair of the SETI Board and
author of Reinventing SETI. John's not just rethinking how we
search for intelligent life, he's challenging the core assumption behind it.
We're gonna talk about aliens probably not beaming radio signals
from across the galaxy, but might be instead sending some

(02:05):
long range robotic probes, possibly already here. We're going to
get into whether or not humanity should even broadcast our presence,
who should represent the Earth if contact ever happens, and
how close we really are to becoming an interstellar species ourselves.

(02:26):
I think it's going to be a good, smart, speculative conversation,
but ultimately grounded in real science. The kind of conversation
I think you guys are going to love, and something
else to ponder if you've ever looked up at the
night sky and wondered if someone or something might be
looking back. So, if you're ready, let's get into it. So,

(03:13):
if you will, please give a warm, uncomfortable welcome to
mister John Gertz. John, thank you for being on the
show tonight.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
And Eric, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
It's a pleasure. Very interesting stuff. As we were talking
just before we started recording, I got a chance to
do more than just peruse through some of the information
that your publicist had provided. Very interesting stuff. I wonder because,

(03:50):
like where I anticipate this conversation going, I wonder what
that does because you admitted you're you're not necesscessarily a
UFO guy, You're not a Flying Saucer guy. But the
two are nonetheless related, as or we think they are

(04:15):
really as the group of people like myself we think
they're related. They must be related, right, But you make
some interesting points. It's like I can't tell you how
many times I've heard with some of the some of
the louder voices in the UFO u AP conversation where

(04:43):
they move in a way that defies our abilities, their
their speeds exceed things that I've heard. I've heard multiple
people say if there was a human being in that craft,
they would be jello because of the the rate of
speed and how they move and the abrupt ninety degree

(05:04):
changes would crush them. Yeah, so it makes sense when
I read your theories that there's a high probability that
those are not manned craft.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
That's right. Well, first of all, let me start by
indicating that I, as you mentioned, I'm not a UFO person.
I'm not a UAP person. I come from an entirely
different perspective. I come from the vantage point of astronomy,
and astronomy begins where the atmosphere ends, and consequently, UFOs

(05:40):
and UAPs are not in our wheelhouse. But as a
SETI theorist, I've come to the considered opinion that the
way we've been doing SETI is all wrong. We assume
that et is sending signals from its own home planetary system,
when in fact, for a variety of reasons, I hope
we have a chance to get into some of them.
This today, eed's best strategies not to send signals from

(06:05):
its own planetary system, would rather to send robotic craft
to our solar system, in which case they're here now.
And even though I am not a UFO person, I
remarkably I've come to a similar conclusion and buttress, I
guess the people that do believe in UFOs, even though

(06:26):
I personally am a UFO skeptic, I don't really believe
very deeply in the in the reports that I've seen.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
It's fascinating, though, how you know, and you're not the
only one. I mean, there are plenty of people who
are out there that are skeptical about all kinds of things,
whether or not Kennedy's assassination was a setup, or whether
it was real, or you know. I mean, there are
skeptics when it comes to just about anything. And I

(06:55):
appreciate skepticism, but I also appreciate skepticism with an ability
to look at something and say, I don't believe this,
but I can see your point, and I can see
that there are a lot of things that point towards
this being a possibility, you know. And I guess what

(07:18):
I'm trying to draw into here is, you know, with
the since the nineteen forties, when when Roswell, New Mexico
blew up and became a part of pop culture, Essentially
we've all heard of, you know, little green men or Aliens,

(07:39):
the Grays, the tall Grays, the Nordics, the Whites, all
these different classifications of extraterrestrial that apparently are having interactions
with people here on this planet. And that's that's one.
That's one frame to look through.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
You know, if you look at Roswell for a second,
nineteen forty seven, I believe since then, if I count correctly,
there have been fourteen presidential administrations. The idea that there
were spacecraft that landed or crashed in Roswell, and that
it's been kept under ice by fourteen separate administrations. Presumably

(08:26):
generations of bureaucrats, hundreds or thousands of people would have
had to have been in the know. Not one of
them made a deathbed confession, Not one of them leaked
anything to the New York Times. And as far as presidents,
I mean, Bill Clinton ran breathlessly before the cameras with
a little microbe that he thought was in a rock
from Mars. Donald Trump, you love him or you hate him,

(08:49):
I don't care. But I think we can all agree
that Donald Trump wouldn't keep that secret. So I don't
buy the conspiracy angles I don't a big.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Copiracy boy to keep to keep that many people quiet,
you know. But the I mean, the argument can be
made that they haven't been kept quiet, you know, in
light of recent years with the congressional hearings, the pilots,
the whistleblowers, all these people that have been going in

(09:21):
front of Congress and testifying to these things being in
our sky and you know, causing issues with with training
missions and stuff like that. I think the bottom line
is there is something in our air that we're either
drastically mistaking or there is something there that we just

(09:46):
don't know what the hell it is. And and if
that's the case, where I would love to be able
to just sit here in my my, my blue skide
world and say, well, obviously they've got to be aliens.
I mean, how else would they, you know? But it
makes complete sense that that the notion of probes or

(10:11):
as in part of what I read of yours, nodes
to be cast out and indiscriminately looking for whether it's
signals or sensors that would would indicate the possibility of

(10:35):
rudimentary or life as we know it.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, I mean, let's look the very first et civilization
could have arisen about thirty about actually about eight or
nine billion years ago. You know, the universe is thirteen
point eight billion years old. It took about a million

(11:02):
year billion years before the first rocky planets were formed.
But thereafter you're only looking at the evolution of possible
life and how long it takes to evolve into technological competence.
If it's like Earth, another four or five billion years. Okay,
So that's that brings us to eight or nine billion
years ago. That's a long time ago. The first et

(11:24):
civilizations are that old, imaginably more advanced than ourselves now.
They would send probes to visit the rest of the
galaxy to explore for situational awareness, to see what else
is out there. They likely found out about us right

(11:48):
after our planet was formed, and have probably sent probes
here from the last four point five to five billion
years since our planet formed.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
To jump to jump in on that. You don't think
that our our rise to nuclear superiority, our rise to
the holding nuclear power in our hands, has anything to
do with their discovery of us.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
No, if you say, if you believe that that if
what you're trying to say is that there's a coincidence
between the explosion of the of the bomb in Hiroshima
and the first report of UFOs at roswell in nineteen
forty seven. No, I don't draw that connection. For one thing,
I don't believe that roswell was anything more than a
weather balloon or something. But but apart from that, there

(12:47):
is something called the speed of light. So even if
they have a very very powerful telescope that could have
seen the Hiroshima explosion, they would still not know about
us for however, many years as equated into the distance.

(13:10):
So if there were one hundred light years away from us,
that if their nearest civilization, it would take them one
hundred years to find out about it, and then to
send a probe to us after that would take, you know,
until thousands of years. So I don't believe that they
sent probes in reaction to our nuclear knowledge. But they've
been here probably since you know, they probably knew that

(13:33):
we were technological back when we were building pyramids or
the advent of agriculture. Certainly they've known we've been biological
for as long as we have been biological, and noted
the first onset of oxygenation of our atmosphere which implied
multi cellularity. They probably figured that out at least two

(13:54):
and a half billion years ago, so pro and as
a matter of fact, if we do find a probe
in our solar system, there's a very strong likelihood it's
going to be dead. That is to say, it's space junk.
I don't know what the lifetime of a probe is,
but they could have been sending hundreds or thousands of

(14:16):
them over the years. If even if they paced them
at only once every million years, they would certainly pile up,
so that the ratio of space junk or dead probes
in our solar system may be far far higher than
that of you know, active or probes.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
See the like the I guess you'd call it the
fantastical side of.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
What I hope.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Ultimately, I hope that that there are and there is
another life, and that we do get to encounter it,
and it is benevolent and it is you know, open arms,
and hey, how you doing. Glad? You know, glad you
your neighbor. You know, I hope that's it.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Well maybe us uh, you know, uh, it's entirely possible
that those early probes seeded Earth with the very first
bacteria and allowed it to evolve as it would as
it will, and that effectively, like a Johnny apple seed,

(15:24):
the first ets that are much much older than us,
you know, pollinate or or fertilize or in or inseminate
planets or infect planets, whichever adjective you prefer, as they
as they are created.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Well, it was interesting because reading about your your your
theory on the the probes or nodes, that that kind
of took me down that rabbit hole as well as
you know, what if that was? You know a lot
of people were refer to I believe it's pan spermia.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
That's right, So you know.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
What if that was the methodology? What if what if
these probes were were loaded with the building blocks of
life and as they went on their journey to to
find other life where they found potential for life, they

(16:25):
would deposit that that that biological matter to get things
started precisely.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
So, I mean, there is still the great mystery and
it cuts either way, the great mystery of how it
is that life began on planet Earth almost the very
first instant that it could arise on planet Earth, the
oldest life is it goes well there there it could
be three point seven billion years ago to four point

(16:55):
three billion years ago, there's some uh controversy, but certainly
no later than three point seven billion years ago did it?
Did life start? Which was right after the late heavy bombardment,
the one that created all the craters on the Moon
that would have destroyed presumably or might have reputatively destroyed

(17:15):
life before that. So the question is how did life
begin so rapidly in geological times just in a snap
of a finger. Well, either it was sans panspermia, I'm
intentionally planted here, or it's simply that life is very
easy to get going, and if it's very easy to

(17:38):
get going on Earth, it must be fairly ubiquitous in
the in the in the galaxy and in the universe.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Well, it struck me going through pages from your your document,
you know, some of the some of the photographs that
have been taken by the Hubble and by the Kepler,
and when you you know, when you see these photos,
and I know there's going to be some of some

(18:06):
people out there who subscribe to you know, while they're
just there their representations, they're not actual pictures. You know,
a lot of people like to argue that stuff. But
when you see just the vast, uncountable numbers of stars
and realize that those are only the bright ones. It's

(18:28):
just it's mind boggling to think of how many opportunities
there are out there for other planets to sustain some
kind of life. And I believe in I have a
spiritual belief, and I have you know, I have a relationship.

(18:53):
But to say that we are the only thing out
there amongst all those is just it doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well, you know, and to that point, this our souls,
our sun is actually a young starn of all the
stars that you look at out there are older than
the sun. And consequently, you know, the opportunity for them

(19:27):
to be more involved than our life is very profound.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
So when when we're talking about these probes, the how
realistic is it the feasibility that these these probes could
could be traveling the distance that they would have to
in order to get here.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Right. You raised an excellent question, because human machines tend
to break down after what one hundred years or something.
We don't really have a lot of machines that last
a lot longer than that, but they are in interstellar space,
and they are shielded. Presumably their technology is vastly superior

(20:18):
to our own. They're not necessarily traveling at a very
fast speed. It doesn't really matter to a probe, or
to the civilization that sends a probe to a young Earth,
whether it takes ten thousand years to arrive here or
ten million years to arrive here, it doesn't really matter.

(20:38):
We're dealing in issues of deep time. But I do
grant you that there is a very significant issue as
to how robust these probes are. And one of the
arguments I make in my book is that we have
negotiating power with ET. When ET comes here, I think,

(21:01):
you know, there's a there's a tendency to think that
we're going to be judged, and I think we will
be judged in some respects, but ET will be very
hesitant to destroy us. I mean, they may be tempted
to throw yellow police warning tape around around Earth as
a you know, stay away. It's a wretched place. But

(21:24):
but but at the bottom, they are going to need
us because there is no there is a galactic internet
of these probes that communicate via communication probes, as as
I spell out in some great detail in my book.
But no one's civilization can maintain this galactic Internet. They ultimately,

(21:51):
and that's our negotiating power. They'll need us to help
maintain that. That the galactic Internet and our a quadrant
or are the particular small area of the galaxy by
manufacturing and launching the probes and using our telescopes are
transmitting telescopes are big, huge radio transmitters like the a

(22:15):
Recibo telescope, which is now defunct, would be an example
of that, to transmit messages also across the galaxy. So
but I do grant you that that is it is
a deep concern. One of my other deep concerns is,

(22:36):
you know, when if sending probes make a lot of
sense from ET's point of view, because a probe can
do science, can we explore? Whereas if they send messages
from their own solar system, they get no information back
unless and until it typical technological civilisation arises and transmits
something back to them. But here that a probe can

(22:59):
actually do science long before a technological civilization arises, sending
signals from your own solar system could be dangerous. You know,
there may be some very very bad actors in the
in the galaxy. And and by definition, when you send

(23:20):
a signal from your own planet, you you tell everybody
where you are right dangerous you send the probe. The
probe doesn't never doesn't need to reveal the coordinates of
its progenitor.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
So if these things were designed to let's say, hide
or go undetected. Mhm, have you run into or do
you have some good theories on how we accidentally or
how what might give them away?

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Uh, it's a it's a good question. So, first of all,
they may of course have stealth technology. A probe could
be sitting on an on an asteroid somewhere and and
and and be buried under the regolith, under the rock

(24:15):
or rocks of the of the asteroids for protection from
as from micro meteorites and from uh, from radiation and
so forth. So it could be hiding just for self protection.
But when you think about it, most asteroids, especially small asteroids,
we don't know anything about them. All we know is

(24:36):
the points of light, you know, and we we don't
actually know for a fact that they're asteroids are not probes.
All we know is they reflect the light. We just
assume that they're asteroids, so that they may just be
in it.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
There is there is there any data that you know
of that would indicate that these so called probes have
been tracked or have been able to be tracked for
any amount of time.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
No, I mean, obviously if if now let's stay away
from government conspiracies for the second. But if but assuming
that there's no government you know, cover up, we would
know whether probes have been tracked. So, for example, satellites
and I'm not an expert in this field whatsoever, but

(25:36):
you know there are you know, Lord knows how many
satellites up there. Do we know what all of them are?
It is possible or is it possible that a satellite
that we assume is Chinese is that and the Chinese
assume is ours is actually you know, in an alien probe.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
That kind of makes my head wander a little bit.
Have you ever heard of the black the Black Knight satellite?

Speaker 2 (26:05):
No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
So it is it is something that's been in in
Ufo lore for a long, long long time, and it's
apparently thought to have been around for thousands of years.
It's a it's a very oddly shaped black for lack
of better color chunk of metal or so it is,

(26:31):
would seem or looks to be that has been in
our orbit around our Earth for for a long time,
and a lot of people seem to think that that
is some sort of a a probe or a sensor
gathering information on on our planet.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Well, there's so many military satellites that are not registered
or unknown, you know, and that are a human terror.
So this particular satellite, I have absolutely no idea. But
but the question is where, you know, where would et
be hanging out in our solar system? And why aren't
they making themselves known to us? Well I would I
would posit or argue that they're not just saying, hey guys,

(27:16):
we're here because they're studying us. You know, is as
advanced as their computers, their onboard computers may be. It
probably will take a lot of time of uploading you
know old I love Loofsey episodes or youtubes or whatever
that they're studying in order to learn our they be

(27:37):
they may be learning our language from Sesame Street, our
maths from academy. All the rest of it is from YouTube.
I don't know, but it takes a long time to
decode us. Moreover, they may not have beyond board ability
to deeply analyze us to the extent that they need
to and be and be poorting data back to some

(27:57):
home planet UH an unknown distance from us. Or they
may need permission to make contact with us UH you know,
and then and they may be seeking permission that the
probe may be seeking permission from its home base to
do that. But once that permission is granted, that probe,

(28:17):
which has now deeply analyzed us, might be communicating to
us in the Queen's own English, or or in Chinese,
or in Urdu or or some other terrestrial language, because
they have deeply studied us. And to my mind, that's
why they haven't revealed themselves yet. They are still in
their surveillance phase.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Are we as we as humanity? Are we? Are we
making any baby steps? Are we taking any steps forward
to enter our hat into the whole idea of creating
these nodes for for our species to try to assimilate

(29:01):
data from from other worlds? Are we Are we doing that?

Speaker 2 (29:06):
No? Emphatically, not I wish we were, But we are
absolutely unprepared for the first day of contact. There's been
no rigorous thinking by the innumerable fields of expertise that

(29:26):
should be brought to bear upon this, everything from cryptology
to behavioral biology, to evolutionary biology, uh, to economics, to
military affairs, to diplomacy, and on and on a linguistic
techname a dozen more fields that should be involved in
the in the planning for the day after contact, and

(29:49):
perish the thought we should just leave it to astronomers
like myself, you know, you know, or do you have
enthusiasts like like you're some of your audience. I mean,
this is we really got to bring a lot of
expertise to their on it. Moreover, we have to work
in concert with the rest of the with the rest
of the world. You know, if the Chinese, well, well

(30:13):
let me say, I'm a I'm a SETI guy. Okay,
our SETI data and we've looked at, you know, roughly
a million stars, and our data is wide open to
the Chinese. Uh. There are raw data is there for
them to analyze in any way they want. They're running

(30:35):
a very large SETI program also on their on the
largest radio telescope in the world right now are a
single dish radio telescope in the world called Fast. The
Chinese have it. It's it's about fifty percent larger than
our Aracibo, which was is now defunct. You think our data,
their data has opened to us. I know three it

(30:56):
is not. And let me say this, I mean if you,
if if one of their Chinese scientists establishes contact, do
you honestly believe they're going to share that information with
us or stamp a top secret and will be the
last way ever a year of it. So there needs
to be an agreement with the Chinese and with the
rest of the world, a treaty. And in my book

(31:18):
By the Way, I draft a treaty in adopting and
adapting some of the language from the from the Outer
Space Treaty as a as a potential first draft. But
there needs to be thought given right now to the
to what happens the day we make contact. Let me

(31:40):
give you just a if you'll bear with me, just
give you a hypothetical for a second, or not a hypothetical.
Let's say I'm wrong that they that that that e
T is sending probes and not sending a signal from
its own plan, its own plan. Let's say we get
a transmission, I'll contact the movie contact with Jody Foster
Carl Sagan as the author of that book. Let's say

(32:02):
that's that signal arrives one day. Let me ask you this,
Should we respond That's a simple question. My thoughts, Yeah,
should we respond to it?

Speaker 1 (32:17):
My thoughts is, why would you tell anybody where you
are unless you know who's on the other phone on
the other end end of that phone.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Ah. But but maybe they're pinging. Maybe et is pinging. Listen,
when we do setting, we look at our stars one
by one by one by one, and we look at
them reach for about ten minutes. Maybe they're sending a
signal to stars boom boom, boom, boom boom, ten minutes.
Here they're they're they're there, okay, and they're looking for

(32:45):
a response. Now the question is, you know, if they're
if they're looking for a response, maybe they're they're obviously
want to meet us, they want us, they obviously send
investitation to respond back to them. But should we I mean,
it's a simple question, yes or no, And the answer
isn't obvious. Maybe maybe the civilization is like a bat

(33:07):
doing get go location, trying to seek out prey, to
kill us or to do us great harm, you know,
Or maybe they're going to give us a cornucopia of wisdom.
I mean, which is it? Well, I don't know the
answer to that, but I do know that that that
I don't have the right to make that decision. That

(33:28):
decision should be made by all of mankind. It's a
it's a it's a fraught decision. And whether we decide
to reply or not to reply, there is a decision
we should all be making. But how through the UN
Security Council, through the through the General Assembly by two thirds,

(33:49):
both three quarters? Both? Who knows this? It's never been discussed,
it's never been decided, And and and uh and and
what will we say? And who gets to the side
what we say? And should we release the coordinates of
which planet it contacted us? Because you know, if we
if we released the coordinates, then everybody in their grandmother

(34:11):
can send their own message. Kip chun On concent his message,
the scientologists can send their message. Whatever. You know, So
maybe that needs to be kept secret. Again, it's a
subject that we should all think about and think about
it now before it happens.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Haven't we already done that to some extent? Haven't we
launched haven't we launched information that showed our I believe
it was the sequence of DNA. What a male and
a female adult looks like our placement in the Solar system.

(34:49):
Hasn't that stuff been like arbitrarily just thrown out into
space with the hopes that somebody finds it.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Well, Yes, it has, and very wrongfully. So one of
it was Carlos to be Frank Drake, the father of
SETI was a dear friend of mine, by the way,
and a very very lovely human being. But he sent

(35:19):
a signal for Mericibo in nineteen seventy four. I believe
it was her seventy seven. Anyway, he sent it to
M thirteen, the globular cluster at a twenty seven thousand
light years distance, so that message won't even get there
for another twenty seven thousand years and will probably well

(35:44):
will have damped down to the point that it's incoherent.
And moreover, he forgot to account for the proper motion
of M thirteen, so it's going to miss anyway. That
was an ill advised move. He should not have done that,
because on who's authority did he do that? On his
own say? So, that's all. None of the rest of

(36:05):
us had any choice in the matter. Uh he is.
I mean, he confessed to me personally that he's sorry
he did it. But anyway, so uh but uh, I'm sorry.
Where are we when.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
I guess I was going to lead into sticking kind
of with the idea of diplomacy and and the nations
of the world having to work together to entertain this
this new guest, you know, this new uh, this new

(36:48):
life form that we were going to run into. You know,
that was part of the part of the episode that
I did, is when I really started to delve deep
into some of the things that you were talking about
as far as you know, I mean, it would affect
everything every aspect of life, from religion to to politics,

(37:10):
to languages, and you know, you would have you would
have to come up with a new group of linguists
who were able to communicate and learn the languages so
that there would be a bridge between our language and theirs.
Art and every every aspect of of our daily lives

(37:33):
could be dramatically impacted by contact with another intelligence.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Or or not. It may be if they don't surveil us.
And this is one of the advantages of sending a
problem they don't thoroughly surveil us. There's no there's very
little hope that we can meaningfully communicate. They may communicate
and like be like waggle dances or cuddlefish like color changes.

(38:04):
Then or are the things that we're interested in? You know,
my dog and I think we understand each other. I
guess a little debris. But when I walk her and
she and she's you know, fixated some smells of a
bush for five minutes, and I can't drag her away
from the bush because she's interested in you know, I'm

(38:25):
not particularly interested in the very norse. Can she communicate
to with me about the subtleties and the bouquet of
male dog urine? Okay, splashes of urine. It's what she
cares about. What I care about are different things. Even
if she could manage to somehow to communicate, uh, you
know about the glories of of urine smells. Okay. So

(38:53):
then there's the intelligent rift between us. I mean, if I,
you know, I met a member of my own species
a knowing years ago, Homo hablists or homemoss erect Homo
erectus or something, you know, what would we talk about.
He's not interested in Shakespeare. He has no way of
understanding Shakespeare, Einstein and I have no particular use for
his stone scrapers. So what are we going to talk

(39:14):
about with et? Honestly, we we we we have nothing
to teach ET in terms of science, in my opinion,
I mean, if we try to tell them about equals
mc square, they're going to say, hey, man, we've heard
that a million times before. You know, that's all you got.
And you know, and you know, but the only thing

(39:37):
we do have of interest is our culture, our music,
our our literature, our books, our paintings. You know, that's
that's what's unique that we've got our culture. And I'm
not sure that they're going.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
To be interested at all in that, you think?

Speaker 1 (39:51):
So lost on them?

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Well, or they may not care. Do I care about
the their top forty waggle dances? You know? Good point,
you know, So why should they care about our top
forty music? We don't. We don't know. But it may
be then when they come here, it's not really to
learn from us, but it may be to lay down

(40:14):
a law that that that's what they really want to
communicate with us about what the rules of the road
are to live in a peaceful galaxy, And and and
that law, and they come down to just a few
words like don't come, stay still, or you come, you die.

(40:35):
You know, just the universal rule may be just stay
where you are, you have no right to colonize. And
then all the golden rules stuff and do unto others,
and all that doesn't goes away. There's if you don't
have contact with anybody, you can't. It's it's pointless to
talk about whether you should turn the other cheek or
what it means to be compassionate or whatever. All that

(40:55):
goes away.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
So what do you what are your thoughts? And this
is going to sound goofy, and I guess I kind
of mean it to be that way, but ultimately I
think it's a legitimate question. What do you think like
a let's call it a galactic federation, all right, I've
heard that term used by other other people. Do you

(41:20):
think that there is a governing body kind of like
what you're talking about that when you get to a
certain point and then you you you warn't being visited,
and that is primarily just stay in your system, don't go,
don't go start and crap with this system.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Stay in your stay.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
In your lane, do your thing, and and don't be stupid,
and then they just up and move on till they
find the next The next ones that are ready to
hear that message as well.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Well, they don't have to move on. They're everywhere simultaneously.
Just as there are probes in our solar system, there
are alien probes in every other solar system. There are
probably alien probes around every star in the galaxy because
they need each other to communicate. One point of physics

(42:18):
is that it takes a very big transmitter to transmit
to across interstellar distances. And if you're not transmitting just
to the next star and sort of as a relay station,
you're going to have huge engineering problems building something that

(42:39):
is that large. If it was that large, we probably
would have found it already, if it was so large
that it could transmit for a thousand light years or something.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
So, you know, like our our planet, our world, our
streaming services, our radio towers, our CB radios are or
what's the the other Ham radios. Those are all putting
signals out into the air and they're being collected by
antennas and cable systems and dish networks all over all

(43:13):
over this planet. They're being bounced off satellites and retransmitted
to different parts of the world and all that are
we sure Are we sure that those signals that we're
bouncing off of our satellites, our communication satellites, are entertainment satellites,

(43:35):
you know, Time Warner and all these other ones. Are
we sure that what we are sending them those satellites,
are they only getting to that point and then just dissipating,
or they are they continuing to broadcast beyond that? And
and does that not make us essentially a sitting duck

(43:59):
for somebody who would be looking for that kind of.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
No? So, so the the the answer to that is
that those signals damped down with the inverse square, so
that at twice the distance there four times this week.
And if you extrapolate that outwards, uh, any of those
signals have damped down to complete incoherence. They just fade

(44:27):
into the interstellar uh uh uh noise essentially the cosmic
microwave background or whatever. And at the at the at
the range of the nearest star office centaury, they're completely
damped down. And and but large military radar a recibo,

(44:53):
when it was used as a transmitter, was used sometimes
as a transmitter to to probe local asteroids, to try
to determine what the orbital characteristics are of asteroids, to
see if they would impact Earth. It was a noble cause.
But but there was spillover and whatever is in the
in the in the background might have been illuminated by that.

(45:16):
But by those signals, those radar signals sent by Aracibo.
That's what Frank Drake sent when he sent to him thirteen.
He used the Aricibo radio transmitter as a radar to
send a message. But but our normal signals are I love, lucy,

(45:37):
kind of television signal would damp to incoherence even at
the nearest star system.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
But how far is that like it? If it damps
down to the nearest star system, how how far are
we talking that that signal is actually getting?

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Well, it goes, it goes. The signal goes forever. I mean,
the signal will go an infinite distance in an infinite
amount of time. I mean. But the point is, at
what point does it rise above the noise so that
the signal can be extracted from the noise and that

(46:17):
and the answer to that is not very far for
radio and television broadcasts, normal normal radio television, internet so forth,
telephone communications. It's not going to get to the it's
not going to be detected even at the nearest star system,
which is four point two light years away, which would

(46:40):
be about six trillion miles. I think something like that. No,
I think it's twenty five to trillion miles. Twenty five
billion miles.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Sorry, I want to shift this toward the weird a
little bit, because if we're going to accept your hypothesis
on on the node or probe to me, it kind
of the question could we already have seen something and

(47:11):
just not recognized it? And I guess, I guess what
I'm getting to buy. That is kind of a reference
to ave a lobe with the the past couple of years,
uh O, very very odd shape, didn't seem like it
was designed for interstellar travel, made made very outwardly weird

(47:43):
eclipses around our our system, and then kind of just
jetted off almost seemingly under its own uh propulsion or
under its own what's the word looking for? Under its
own power? You know, if the if the photos that

(48:07):
I've seen are actual representations of what AM looked like
through radio telescopes, that was a very strange. It doesn't
doesn't have the typical characteristics of what you would expect
a meteor or a comet. So I mean, well, you.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Know, my my own point of view, which is I'm
sure shared by the preponderance of astronomers, is that it
was a rock, an interesting rock, but a rock. The
evidence you know, against it being uh, you know, an
artificial uh body of you know, something alien like an

(48:51):
alien spacecraft. I think it's very very weak. Uh. Basically,
the basically it deviated by one tenth of one percent
around the Sun from what would have been predicted to
be its orbit according to Einstein's general theory of relativity. Well,

(49:11):
Einstein's theory of relativity, general relativity doesn't lend itself to approximation,
so even one tenth of one percent needs to be explained.
But most most astronomers believe that it was from outgassing
that simply as it got close to the Sun gas
was was you know, evaporated or off off the surface

(49:32):
or from under the surface, which which which changed its
orbit by that slight, slight amount. I have a big
problem feeling that this was anything but a rock for
a number of other reasons as well. If if let's
say came from Barnard Star, a very nearby star, the

(49:55):
second nearest star to Earth, and was sweeping past our
sun and then going to to af of centaury. I
would pop the champagne bottle and say that we found
E D by private. But the chances of that sort
of coincidence, that it's coming from one nearby star system
to us to the next nearby star system, the chances

(50:16):
of that happening by coincidences are close to are basically zero. Okay,
I would say that was eas but no, it was
coming from the last time it entered a star system
with millions of years ago, and the next time it
will enter another star system, according to its trajectory, is
another million, millions of years from now. It's coming from
nowhere in particular and going nowhere in particular. Okay, that's

(50:39):
that's that's to me is very strong evidence. It's going
at a very slow speed for relative to what we
would expect from an et spacecraft. It's tumbling erratically, so
if they're beings on board, they would be permanently sick. Okay, Uh,
you know, it's to me the you know, and I

(51:01):
don't know what pictures you're talking about. But it was
only a couple of pixels. It was so far away
by the time it was discovered. There are even our
best telescopes only got a couple of pixels. Right, anybody
can see.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
What they would I think.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Yeah, A rule of thumb is the fewer the pixels
the or the bigger the blur, the more people are
going to think it's alien or big Twitter. I don't
know what you know, Uh, you know, so it's there's
an inverse rule there. The fuzzier the photograph, the more
likely anybody can see whatever they want to believe in it.

(51:36):
As far as its shape, uh, it's it's roughly ten
times longer than it is wide a big deals so's
uh so's.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
Uh ultimate thule, which is a quaper object belt the
New Horizon belt object that New Horizon visited picture.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
I've got a picture of it in my book Reinventing SETI.
But uh but as New Horizon approached it, it looked
it looked like a cigar shape, just like, just like
but as you got close to it, you realized that
looks like a pancake also like. Okay, and but it

(52:18):
was clearly two flattened rocks attached to each other. There's
no question that it's not an artificial body. It's it's
it's just two asteroids stuck together New Arizon. It's got
close enough to get a very good photo of it,
but from afar and from a blur you can see
it's the same sort of spacecraft. Is so sorry, sorry

(52:42):
to you know, to disabuse people of that notion, but
you know, I'd like to stick to the evidence. The
evidence is not probably great Bobby Lobe's position.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
It's very interesting to have conversations with people on on
both sides because if you listen to you Ave speak
about it, he's very passionate in his defense of the
possibility that that was something much further from the normal

(53:14):
than what you know, looking at the way you speak
about it, you know, it got too close to the Sun,
it off gassed. That changed the orbit and the trajectory
and possibly the speed for very short span of time,
and that accounts for the whole thing. So it's funny
when you get into the conversations how different they can

(53:38):
be just because of you.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
Know, look, I know Avi very well. He's a very
very smart guy. I don't know a single astronomer who
agrees with him. On this and many have looked at it. Yeah,
he's just out there on his own particular crusade, and
all of us disagree with him. Okay, believe me, I would.

(54:02):
I'd be the first one to you know, be happy
if it were true. But but you know, I come
from a field of serious astronomers, and we take we
go where the evidence leads us.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
Is there anything out there that you guys, in the
world of astronomy, is there anything out there that is,
if not consistent, consistently odd. Is there anything out there

(54:39):
that is producing things that are making you take notice
and continue to track because there there is no understanding
for for it.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Yeah, and this is when whenever we come across new phenomena,
some of us like to believe that we should be
you know, seriously entertaining, uh, the prospect that could be alien.
I remember when when pulsars were first discovered, the the
the two scientists that that astronomers who first found the

(55:17):
pulsars named them l g M as Little Green met
intentionally because they were really seriously thinking that this might
be et. But they but they kept that that thought
to themselves and they continued their observations of this and
they found another pulsar, and eventually they determined that that

(55:41):
that it, you know, was basically a neutron star. The
pulsar was a physical phenomenon, and they disabused themselves of
their of the notion that it could be an alien signal. Uh. Similarly,
whenever there's a new astronomical phenomena, we do look at it,
we and we and take seriously. I remember some years

(56:03):
ago a leading SETI astronomer came to my office breathlessly.
I live in Berkeley, California, and this astronomer, also was
in Berkeley, came into my office SETI it to see
me urgently and for me of a new star that

(56:24):
had been discovered that was dimming by twenty two percent,
and and it was discovered in the Kepler field, and
that twenty two percent dimunation of light is phenomenal. Jupiter

(56:45):
would only dim the Sun's light have seen ed Jehn
by one percent, not twenty two percent. And moreover, it
was it was dimming it in a different in a
different pattern, so that one time it would be twenty
two percent, another five percent, and so forth. I only

(57:08):
asked one question of this astronomer would sort of settle
the matter for me, I asked, what is the periodicity
of this object? You know, because we were the thought
was that there must be some huge Dyson sphere of
an artificial object orbiting the the uh some other star,

(57:29):
and his response settled the matter for me. He said,
there is no periodicity, and no, that makes no sense
to me. An object has to be in orbit. If
it's not in orbit, it would it would you know,
basically plunge into the star. Well today, that's now known

(57:50):
as Tabby's Star, after the astronomer who had discovered it, Tabitha,
whose last name is escaping me. At the moment, and
Tabby Tabby Star is no longer thought to be an
alien phenomenon. Most astronomers think that it's a cloud or

(58:11):
dust dust cloud or hydrogen cloud uh somewhere in the
foreground and maybe not associated at all with the stars,
just by accidental, by by by accident, you know, in
the same line of sight. But it's still a mystery, honestly,
I don't think there's any definitive proof yet. So that's
another example. Fast radio bursts currently or are you know,

(58:36):
are considered candidates for for being of some of them
being of alien derivation some of some of them seem
to be associated with magnetars turnerain type of pulsar, but
some of them are are so complex or complex enough
that they don't seem to want to be generated by

(58:58):
a magnetar. So it's an open question for the moment.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
What about the wow signal?

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Is there?

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Has that been has there been more made of that
than should have been, or is that.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
I think that's an interesting signal. My own point of
view on that, First of all, it's a it's a
misnomer to think that we've gone back and looked at
it a lot. We haven't. There have been, you know,
from time to time, some telescopes had pointed in that direction,
but there's been no systematic study, long term study of

(59:33):
that field of view. And it was a larger field
of view, it's not it was it was unfortunately not
a point source that you could associate with the single star.
It was a larger field of view. My own point
of view on that is that it really could have
been a local probe because we don't know. You know,

(59:56):
it's pointless to go back to that same field of
view if it's a pro in orbit around the Sun,
you know, it wouldn't be in the same spot anymore.
It would be somewhere else, and it's orbit. Maybe it's
a I would ask the question what asteroids were in
that field of view at that particular point of time.
I think it was again in nineteen seventy seven in Ohio,

(01:00:22):
and no one's done that study. I've asked the question
in my book, but to my knowledge, nobody's answered.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
It's let's let's get to your book.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Uh. You say one thing about the wow signals. Also,
one of my chief ripes against the traditional way of
doing SETI is it's always done with one telescope. Properly done,
it should be done with two telescopes. If two telescopes
who are looking at the same field of view, one
one in Ohio and the other you know, at say
Kit's Peak or something, or or you know, or or

(01:01:00):
any other observatory or a sepoy, you name it, I
don't care. If two telescopes were looking at the same
spot in the sky simultaneously and backing up each other,
we'd be popping champagne. With just one telescope the wows
detecting the wow signal. You scratch your head and say
missed opportunity. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Sorry, well, you kind of got ahead of me there
for a moment. I wanted to start talking about your
your book, Reinventing SETI New Directions in the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
And the.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Basically what I wanted to get from you is, obviously,
let's let's talk about your book where people can find
it when it's out, how long it's been out, what
the reaction to it has been so far. But what
I wanted to get to was, like you have you
have rewritten the ideas behind what SETI does. I assume

(01:02:00):
that means that you must have a critique of how
they've been doing things up until this point. Sure, and
what are you changing? What's what's the shift to?

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Sure? First of first of all, to answer your first question,
my book Reinvented Setting is not out yet. It's being
published by Oxford University Press and on August eleventh, so
it'll be out very soon, next next month. Uh, don't
let the fact that it's being published by Oxford University
Press dissuade somebody in your audience for getting it, because

(01:02:37):
it's it's not written for academics, It's it's really written
for a general audience. It's written with I think a
lot of humor and fun and so forth. But but
it's but it's academically rigorous and in that respect you
know that what's presented there as fact is actually fact. Okay,
So that's about the book. Uh. Now one of the

(01:02:59):
and my background isn't in SETI. I serve three terms
as chairman of the board of the Seti Institute. I
went on to found a group that with the purpose
of raising one hundred million dollars for SETI. When you're
a milner stepped forward and actually put up one hundred

(01:03:21):
million dollars. Then I became the only layman serving on
his on the advisory board to advise on how that
money might be best spent. So I have a lot
of background in SETI, but I come from it from
a different perspective. I'm on a day to day basis.
I'm a businessman, and I try to get into the

(01:03:42):
head or the CPU or the gangli or whatever of
ET and asked the question what makes best strategic or
economic sense from ET's point of view, on the best
way to communicate with us, assuming that they want to communicate,
and the standard paradigm since the inception of SETI has

(01:04:03):
been since Frank Drake did the first SETI experiment. Experiment
in nineteen sixty has been to look at stars for
ten minutes each and on the presumption that ET is
signaling to us. And I turn that on its head,
and I say in my book that as a strategy

(01:04:23):
makes no damn sense whatsoever. Okay, it's just fraught with problems.
One is I mentioned earlier, it's dangerous, okay. Number two
is that there needs to be temporal alignment between the
telescope and the and the receiver telescope and the transmitter.

(01:04:45):
So if ET, if we're looking at us at stars
ten minutes this way, this way, this way, this way,
that way, and ET is doing the same thing. They're
signaling this way, that way the other for ten minutes each,
then the chances of us lining up they're transmitter or
our receiver in the same timin of space is essentially

(01:05:07):
close to zero. We'll never find each other. Alternatively, if
they're trying to transmit to us for a billion years
or two billion years, wherever long they who's paying their
electric bill? Okay, it's a long time to be dedicated
to the proposition of sending signals at enormous cost and

(01:05:35):
energy and an enormous dedication to the proposition. Moreover, they
need their own receiver that is at the ready twenty
four to seven for that same billion years or whatever
until we Earth gain will receive their signal and decide
we're going to return a signal, which we need to
decide not to do. And they need all this time

(01:05:58):
a huge telescope at the ready looking just at Earth
and multiply that by all the stars that they may
be interested in a billion stars. Who knows, however many
where are they going to build all this? You know,
they don't have enough matter in their solar system to
build that many telescopes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
And I guess I guess the piggyback on that and
interrupt you for just a second. Sure when we're when
we're talking about the output of energy to do what
we're talking about, in order for us to match that,
we would have to be able to update our energy supply.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Oh, it's it's it's it's more profound a problem than that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
And then and then also like these probes that you're
talking about, how are they being powered? Are these things
being you know, are they are they leaving their planet
on their quest to find us and and everything else
that's out there. If these things are in the in

(01:07:05):
the internal of the universe and space, are we talking
tens of thousands of years that these things are be empowered?

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
Are right? Right? Okay? So let me let me take
the several problems here. Let me try to disentangle some
of the problems in operation very very very interesting good questions.
The first is about the power. There's a power in
balance here, in a true, true unfairness in the trade,

(01:07:39):
in a trade between us. Not only is E t
and signaling to us in this in the old paradigm,
they're signaling to us all the wisdom, all the the
Encyclopedia galactica that they have to send to us. They're
signaling to us an enormous energy cost to them. And
what are we doing first? They're doing it for a

(01:08:00):
billion years. We ourselves need to just listen for maybe
a hundred years whatever it takes us to find their signal.
And the you know that that needle in a haystack,
and it takes very very little energy to listen. I mean,
it's a little bit like to use a rough analogy,

(01:08:21):
if you look at the start, we know how much
prodigious energy a star puts out, and all we need
to see it is to look at it with our
eyeballs or maybe with a telescope. I mean, that's you know,
it's it's unfair the energy the sudden needs to use
that much energy just for us to see it. Okay,
in the same way, you know, they're giving us all

(01:08:42):
the wisdom and we're the ones that are putting nothing
out there. So any fair trade between us would dictate
that their telescope, their transmitter should be very small, and
our telescopes that are receiving it have to be gargantuan,
much larger than anything we've got. And one of the
reasons we may not be seeing a signal from e

(01:09:04):
T is because we're simply you know, they're they're presuming
that fair trade means that they're putting out a week
signal and we have a humomious telescope that we don't
have to pick it up. Okay, that's one point. To
the next point that you've raised is extremely good and
I don't have a terrific answer to it. I wish
I did, And that is a probe needs to be

(01:09:27):
powered somehow, So in a probe, as I said, there
could be you know, one active probe for every thousand
bedch probes in our solar system that have run out
of energy. So what are the energy sources? Well, the
obvious one would be, you know, solar energy. They could
think as much energy from our sun as they please

(01:09:52):
there and then there's various forms of radioactive energy, but
most of it, you know, I don't you know, have
to be isotopes that are very you have every one
half lives. So those are the two obvious ones. They
may know of energy sources that we do not know of, uh,
And they be maybe sitting on asteroids mining it for

(01:10:16):
for materials that are useful to them and to build
out capabilities in situ when when they're here. So, but
I wish I had a better answer. I honestly don't
that they But I think it's a valid problem.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
When you when you talk about, uh, how realistic, When
when you talk about the these probes and the energy
that it would take to get them from their origin
to to us, you used uh M three as as

(01:10:56):
a a cluster. That's what would you say? Twenty three?

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
It's I'm thirteen and it's about twenty seven thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
Years awag Okay, so twenty seven thousand let's use that
as an example to get here to Earth, to put
a probe or put multiple probes around this planet and
gather data from it. Like, what is what would be
a realistic timeline for a probe to traverse our neighborhood

(01:11:30):
because essentially that's what it is. It's not that far
in the big picture with our current understanding of physics.
Would it have to have some kind of would it

(01:11:51):
be able to go? Yeah, I'm having trouble.

Speaker 5 (01:11:55):
Trying to put this towards Would it have to have
some kind of unnatural propulsion something that would be way
beyond what we.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Would understand in order to traverse that distance? Or or
could it technically be able to do that just because
it was powered and created by an intelligence that might
be three billion years more advanced than we are.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
No, we've already sent interstellar probes ourselves, with our crew
to technology from with nineteen seventies technology. We sent Pioneer
and Voyager into interstellar space, and they're continuing at roughly
twenty three kilometers a second or so. They're going to
go basically forever and so getting a propelling a probe

(01:12:55):
to its cruising velocity is is no problem at all.
You just launch it from your from your solar system
and send it on its way, okay, the same way
we do. You can use chemical rockets. I doubt they
would use something that crude, but you could, you know
it just like we did, and it would sail along. However,

(01:13:16):
when you get to the other side, you need to decelerate,
and so you need a propulsion system that can decelerate.
It can be a solar sale. And you know, by
the way, you know, solar sale is a more likely
solution to abvi lobes. Maybe it's a discarded solar sales

(01:13:42):
that was decelerating a probe that was being put into
our solar system. But the problem with that is that
if it's tumbling, then how does solar sail then you know,
adjust it it's orbit by that point one percent, it's useless.
The solar sale doesn't work anyway, that's an aside.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
It was, you know, because I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Maybe used to it could be a probe could deploy
a solar sale to decelerate when it gets to the
solar system of interest.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
You know, when you when you start talking about these
types of these theories and hypothetical things. I mean, I
don't think it. It's not that big of a stretch
of the imagination to like start to think in terms
of star trek and and star wars and you know,

(01:14:39):
the things that make more sense to us because we've
seen it in a movie, you know, just to outwardly
be able to work out the physics of how things
you know, like in space, is there a Is there
a I guess maybe you'd call it like a terminal velocity?
Is there a Is there a speed that an object

(01:15:00):
that is unpropelled can reach and maintain indefinitely? Is it?
Is that just because of gravity entering and exiting the
gravitic forces of other planets, and.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
You can accelerate an object in space to an arbitrary
speed until you get to the light speed. No. No,
no object can actually attain light speed. No physical object
can attain light light speed. But the energy would to

(01:15:41):
achieve relativistic velocity is so enormous that it's it staggers
the imagination. And it's not anything that I would postulate
because I think it's counterproductive for you t to send
something at at relative phystic speeds. For one thing, it

(01:16:02):
would explode the minute it hit a micro media right,
you know, or a piece of dust or whatever in
interestellar space. That would be like you know, huge bullets.
And then it has to decelerate when it gets to
the other side. And then what's the rush. The Earth
isn't going anywhere in astronomical time scales, so there's no

(01:16:29):
reason for EAT to achieve large accelerations to get here.
But there's no but the laws of physics do not
preclude it. It's just the enormous the energy expenditures would
be absolutely enormous.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
Okay, so let's we're creeping up on ninety minutes here.
Let's let's take a minute and make sure everybody knows
where the bok is going to be available again and when,
and then and I have I have a few more
questions for you.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
Sure Reinventing SETI is available now for pre order on Amazon. Uh,
it won't be shipped until August eleventh.

Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
In your view, in your in your educated view, who
should take the lead when it comes to crafting the
documentation or the the protocol for first contact? How? How

(01:17:47):
how do you see that? Like in in its most
amicable form. How do you see that?

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
Okay, So, I I feel that this should that the
first order of business would be for the un to
recognize that there's a problem. That the second then is
to organize a committee of experts across multifarious disciplines who

(01:18:15):
need to study the problem and and devise constingency planning.
It needs to be a well funded, standing organization, and
there needs to be As I said, the work product
should be a treaty. Now, I've already drafted a treaty.
You can find it in my in my book. I've

(01:18:38):
also published it in an astronomical journal already. But but
but it's a it's a first draft, and I think
it's a pretty good draft. But it but it would
grapple with these issues as to what to do on
the day after contact. But that group needs to be
organized now, not to wait till the moment after of

(01:19:00):
contact when we're all befuddled anyway, which is overwhelmed with
the fact of it. But we need to consider this.
It may take a decade or two of deep consideration
before we come up with the work product, which would
be a standing committee to work after the fact of
a detection and a guiding treaty that guides us in

(01:19:24):
how we would react to it. So it's important to
do this now before this because look, let's take this
signal from another planet. Let's say I'm again wrong, and
I don't have all the wisdom in the world, and
it may be that I'm wrong that et does send

(01:19:44):
a signal from its own home planet. If they did that,
how long are they going to wait for our response?
I mean, I know that we move on every ten minutes.
Are they going to also move on for ten minutes?
As a trusted by the speed of light? In other words,
if they if there are a hundred light years away,
then they're going to look at for our return signal

(01:20:07):
two hundred years later. In other words, the one hundred
there or one hundred back and after that two hundred
year are they going to wait for ten minutes, two
hundred years plus ten minutes, two hundred years plus a month,
a year, a decade. Who knows? So our best strategy
is to know what we're going to do now. If

(01:20:27):
we have a response, we are going to respond and
make the decision that we're going to respond to. Make
that decision now and the moment we get a signal
from that other planet, hit the send button as quickly
as possible, because the decision will already have been made.

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
Do you think there are any recognizable front runners to
be to head to head this the idea behind this.
Are there any nations? Are there any global.

Speaker 3 (01:21:00):
Collect there are?

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
There aren't two nations where front runners and this and
that's of course the United States and China, the two
usual suspects. Okay, the United States has, of course a
very vibrant SETI program where we have a SETI program
at Berkeley at U c l A at Penn State
uh and and and and the UK has got one

(01:21:23):
in Oxford. Other there are robust SETI programs in South
Africa and Italy and so on. But the but, the
but the big problem is that the Chinese are now
entered the field and they've done so big time. They've
got the largest single dish radio telescope in the world,
called the Fast Telescope, which is doing SETI. Not only SETI,

(01:21:45):
but it's doing SETI. So we should be in dialogue
with with the Chinese. It may be that if failing
an international treaty, that we should have a bilateral treaty
between the United States and China, and that other countries
can can join. But let me tell you why this is.
Then give you an example of why this is so important.

(01:22:07):
Let's say that that I'm correct and that ET is
here right now in our own solar system in the
form of robotic probes. And one day we get a
signal from from EtuH saying, uh, well, I've decoded your
language and I'm telling you in in in English. Uh.
That nice to major acquaintance. And I've got my Uh,

(01:22:31):
I've I've We've got the Encyclopedia Galactica. I've brought to you.
It's in a nice laminated U and a nice laminated
card saying your membership cards the Galactic Club. Uh, come
and pick it up. It's all my paye, you know,
my in my cargo hold. Come come on up and
pick it up. WHOA are we going to get there first?

(01:22:53):
Or or or are Chinese? Or or is it SpaceX?
And and Elon Musk is going to be the first
one to get there. I don't know, but but this
and if we get there first and we bring it
home on on the on a you know, on a
on we get there first and we bring it back,

(01:23:14):
will the Chinese be incentivized to shoot it down, shoot
down our craft lest we receive a quornucopia of technological knowledge.
And they're they're they're going to lose out on Are
we going to start a war of this? I mean,
let's get our act together, guys, and let's do it
before this all happens. So that's my book. Is actually

(01:23:35):
my idealized reader this book is a thirty something year
old congressional staffer. I need a young the young generation
of policymakers to begin to grapple with this and you know,
bring forth and planning to the to the gray heads.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
Right, which that in itself is a job that almost
seems a monible to get through that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
Well, let it let I would like to be optimistic
and hope that this will happen. You know, we could.
If there are probes here, they will make contact with us,
you know, they there's some thinking in the SETI community. Uh.
David Brinn was the first one to bring this out up,

(01:24:26):
that that it could be that they're just lurking out there, uh,
just uploading all of our ip you know, and with
absolutely no intention of giving us anything back in return.
I don't buy that. I think, as I've said earlier,
that they need us. They need us to be part
of the Cooperative Galactic Club to help maintain the Galactic Internet.

(01:24:52):
And I do believe that they will make contact with
us when I cannot tell you, if I can tell
you that it would be very soon if they're autonomous.
In my belief, my personal belief is that they would
make contact with us soon if they are really autonomous,
but it could be a millennia or something before we
hear from them, if they need to report back to

(01:25:14):
a home base and receive further instructions so that they
be what's going on now?

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):
Do you think if they are here autonomously, I don't know.
Do you think that they would have the ability to
interact and intercede with us without having to give back
any kind of information to who or whatever sent them

(01:25:45):
to begin with. Do you think they would be that
far advanced that they would they would have the answers
to most of the situations and problems that we could
pose for them.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
I think it's I think it's very likely that they
are autonomous AI beings, and they and their progenitor may
no longer be extant. They could have gone extinct. And this,
by the way, the probe hypothesis, you know, completely solves

(01:26:18):
for Drake's l if your listenership knows what that is.
The problem of that Frank Drake post and his eponymous
Drake equation that the problem with communication is that two
civilizations need to coexist. If our civilization only exists for
ten thousand years, an et civilization only exists for ten

(01:26:40):
thousand years, the chances that in the thirteen billion plus
years of the universe that we're both coexisting in the
same ten thousand years are negligible. We'll never see each other.
Probe synth solved that problem. Essentially, once a probe is launched,
we've launched Voyager. Voyager's out there, it's gone, Pioneer's gone,

(01:27:02):
New Horizon's gone, it's gone into into interstellar space. Once
they're launched, it's it's one and done. They're gone. What
happens here on Earth, whether if we blow ourselves up,
it's immaterial to the fate of Voyager and Pioneer. They're gone.
Same thing with these probes. You know, the probes may

(01:27:25):
belong and have been launched by civilizations that have that
are long extinct.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
The probes that you were just speaking about that we
have launched that are now currently on their way till
Kingdom come. Are is there any contact between Earth and
those probes now? Are we still collecting any kind of data?

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
We're still collecting data from Voyager and from New Horizon.
Really yeah, I don't believe we're collecting data anymore from Pioneer. Yeah,
Voyager is seven back data on the nature of interstellar space,
and it can you know, and it's actually was the
first spacecraft to pierce the heliosphere or the actual border

(01:28:18):
between the solar wind and the interstellar medium, and it's
giving us actual data on the interstellar medium. Yeah, it's good.
You know, it's on its last legs. It doesn't have
very many more years left before it expires.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
How many years been going.

Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
Since nineteen seventy seventy three or seventy four it was
launched something like that seventy five. I mean, the think
was nineteen seventy five.

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
That's crazy, crazy to think that something is still and.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
That's the technology. It's functioning with nineteen seventies technology.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
John Gertz, It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
Eric. It's been my pleasure as well. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
A lot of a lot of great, very interesting conversations.
Let's let's let's wind this up. What do you think
what's the most let's let's leave the listeners with with this.
What's the most concerning thing to you now about everything
that we have discussed in all of the information that's

(01:29:30):
available in your book that's coming out, what what is
something that we should most be concerned with and and
take to heart immediately.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
Well, there's a subset of SETI scientists or hangers on
that advocate for sending messages to the stars proactively. They argue,
we haven't heard from e T yet, why don't we
be the first ones to initiate signaling? And most of

(01:30:10):
us in the semi committee community, and certainly the pre
you know, the pre eminitive thinkers in the field, think
that's a dreadful idea. So that that's that's a a
almost a cult of of of of of SETI activists

(01:30:30):
who believe that that that you know, that it's a
that's a good idea to sim signals. First, My my
own view is that you know, I entitle a chapter
of my book, uh something like this, I may forget
exactly but I say many beyond the beyond the dangerous,

(01:30:56):
to the arrogant, delusional, unethical, unscientific, illegal, quasi religious. And
in case, in case anybody you know, misunderstands where I
stand on the subject.

Speaker 1 (01:31:09):
I think that clears it up.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
Anyway. I could go on for quite some time and
why it's a horrible, horrible idea, and uh and I
regard it to be very dangerous and very and very delusional.

Speaker 3 (01:31:24):
Uh Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:31:25):
You know, it assumes from the get go that that
that E T is benevolent. So what's the evidence that
E T is benevolent? Let me give it to you
all right now. Silence, silence, Okay, there is I've just
given you all the evidence. There is no evidence. There's

(01:31:48):
no evidence that is that ET is benign or malicious
or you know, whether you whether you're at and your
imagination more reflects Spielberg's beautiful on ET or those encounters
when or or Ridley Scott's alien is strictly a matter
of taste. Right now, we don't know, We have no

(01:32:09):
idea what ET's intentions.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
Are with my with my luck, it will be Ridley
Scott's version.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
But so as I said, you know, we're rolling the
dice when we even when we respond to ET, we're
rolling the dice. You know, maybe it's a good idea
to do it, but it's not something that a few
lonely uh uh, you know SETI hangers on have the
right to decide for themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:32:35):
I've not thought about that much. But you you make
a valid point, and I and believe me on that one.

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
I've got many many more valid points. But I don't
think KID allows here.

Speaker 3 (01:32:44):
So I've got to agree with you.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
You can chance go through it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:49):
I gotta agree with you.

Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
Why would you Why would you risk waving the flag
saying here we are here, we are when you don't
know who's watching.

Speaker 2 (01:33:01):
Absolutely and we simply don't know. And even when we
when we do make contact with ET, and let us
say that I'm correct, and their probes are here and
they know we're here, and so it's not a question. Uh,
there's no hiding from them. They know we're here. They're watching,
and I love Lucy or whatever, hope hopefully you know
they they're also watching our nightly news and from that

(01:33:24):
they see where a wretched species. But hopefully that I
Love Lucy will tell them that you know we've got
some sense of humor too. I don't know, but but
you know, even when that probe that knows we're here
and it's pointless for us to hide from them, we
still have to be very careful when we do make

(01:33:46):
contact with them what their intentions are. If they want
to download load some Encyclopedia Galactica, we'll be sure, but
maybe there's a trojan horse in there. They're going to
affect our internet with Who knows what you know? So
I don't I don't know what the solutions are. But
that's why I say we need a large body of
experts to begin to grapple with us.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
I don't disagree. I don't disagree at all. John Gertz,
thank you so much for being here. It's been an
appetite pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:34:14):
Thanks for having me all the best.

Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
Thank you, good night

Speaker 2 (01:34:28):
Along U