What If It Really Is Aliens?

The "loneliest man on Earth" is a recurring character in The Standard. A lone indigenous tribesman in the Amazon, he is one of a handful of "uncontacted peoples" on the planet today—neolithic tribes who keep to themselves, with no contact with the modern world. The man roams some forty square miles of protected land in Brazil, off-limits to outsiders. He has lived alone for more than three decades, since the rest of his tribe were murdered in bloody altercations with ranchers and loggers. Today, Brazil's indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, keeps a watchful, benevolent eye upon him from afar.

We—by which I mean the modern, globalized world—have collectively decided that this man, and other uncontacted peoples like him, should remain uncontacted. We perceive that he has a right to self-determination, and we also fear exposing him to pathogens which are common to us, but to which they have no immunity.

And so the "world's loneliest man" persists in his solitary hunter-gatherer lifestyle. He must catch glimpses of planes in the sky above him and wonder what they are. Perhaps he thinks they're some sort of magic. After all, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, as Arthur C. Clarke famously wrote. The wonders of our technology, which we take for granted, are likely beyond his comprehension.

With the publication of my article last week about the Pentagon's UAP report, I accept with some trepidation that I'm now "a UFO guy," with all of the stigma associated with that. But with the stigma also comes a host of new and thought-provoking questions to ponder, the most mystifying question being: if extraterrestrials are here on Earth, why don't they make contact with us?

I write science fiction as a hobby, so I hope the reader won't mind indulging me in a speculative exercise.

"Much like the 'loneliest man on Earth,' we may be the 'loneliest species in the universe,' surrounded by advanced civilizations that we know nothing of."

If there is technologically-advanced extraterrestrial life, I don't believe that its motives would be inscrutable to us. I think there are probably certain constants about intelligent life that would apply as equally to an alien civilization as they do to us. They would use the same principles of reason and logic that we do, and come to the same conclusions as us. I think they would feel lonely, as we do, and seek out other forms of life in the universe. They, too, would have eating and mating rituals, and miss their mothers. Therefore, I believe it's possible to make inferences about alien motives.

There are many possible reasons why an alien civilization might choose not to reveal itself to us; personally, I favor the theory that they look upon us the way we look upon uncontacted peoples on Earth today—as comparably primitive life forms with a right to self-determination, undisturbed by the outside "world" (or galaxy, in this case.) Just as FUNAI observes the "world's loneliest man" from afar, aliens would similarly keep a watchful eye on us, according to this theory. We might catch glimpses of their technology in the form of unexplained UFO sightings, just as uncontacted peoples on Earth might spot our planes in the sky and see them as "magic," per Clarke.

This is known as the "zoo hypothesis," and it's fairly common in science fiction. Clarke explored the possibility in his books Childhood's End and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Star Trek, of course, famously features the "Prime Directive," a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of primitive civilizations. And Iain Banks' The State of the Art portrays an advanced civilization—the "Culture"—leaving Earth deliberately uncontacted.

But it isn't merely science fiction—we have a real world precedent for this hypothesis in how we approach uncontacted peoples on Earth today (or rather, do not approach them.) Advocates for the autonomy of uncontacted peoples will generally leave it up to those peoples themselves to make contact with us, if they so choose. An alien civilization might have a similar policy, waiting for us to achieve a certain degree of technological sophistication before making contact with us.

Haim Eshed, the former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's space directorate, raised eyebrows last year when he claimed that a "galactic federation" was waiting for humanity to "reach a stage where we will understand, in general, what space and spaceships are" before making formal contact with us. (One imagines that something was lost in translation here.) It's a fantastic—and fantastically unlikely—scenario, but having opened the door to the existence of advanced extraterrestrial life, I admit that it can't exactly be ruled out. (This is the problem with entertaining unfalsifiable claims; if you crack the door open for one extraordinary claim, other, even more extraordinary claims will clamber inside as well.)

There is also the possible danger of exposure to alien pathogens that we have no immunity to. This is a problem that NASA takes very seriously. Apollo astronauts were quarantined for days upon their return from the moon to ensure they weren't carrying any lunar pathogens, and the rovers we send to Mars are painstakingly built in sterile environments to reduce the amount of Earth bacteria that we send to other planets. An alien civilization might be cognizant of this danger, and purposefully avoid contaminating us just as we do with the "world's loneliest man" and other uncontacted peoples.

But I think the strongest case for the zoo hypothesis is that it's precisely how we would approach extraterrestrial life forms that we discover on another planet. If we found an alien civilization more primitive than us, a vigorous ethical debate would ensue and, I believe, would swiftly conclude that we have a duty of non-interference, just as we do with uncontacted peoples on Earth today. It's not a significant logical leap to imagine that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization could be treating us in a similar way (with the caveat that we must beware unfalsifiable claims.)

There are other proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox (that is, put simply, "where are all the aliens?"). The "dark forest" hypothesis—taken from the science fiction novel The Dark Forest, by Liu Cixin—imagines advanced civilizations crouching in a dark forest, perceiving each other as threats and hiding from one another. In this conception, humanity is unique—and perhaps, uniquely foolish—for broadcasting our location to the stars; considering the possibility that an alien civilization could destroy us, it's not worth the risk. Stephen Hawking was a notable proponent of this view.