Those pesky space aliens are at it again … or I should say, conspiracy theorists’ hopes, dreams, fantasies and wish fulfillment, along with a combination of government reluctance to give adversaries an advantage by disclosing new technology, fuzzy gun camera pictures, computer glitches/hacks by adversaries, “expert testimony” and field reports … is responsible for the current media hyperventilation about space aliens.

Conspiracy theorists demonstrate a complete failure to use basic scientific principles like Occam’s razor (that is, “Shaving away improbable assumptions” or “What’s the more likely explanation?”), and a reluctance to use common knowledge about astrophysics.

Add to this that Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Disclosure Day, opened on June 12 and we are primed to consider that space aliens are among us.

Spielberg: “… the circumstantial evidence (for UFO/UAP and extraterrestrial life) is overwhelming.”

Nonsense. As fallible human beings, we must acknowledge how our long history of emotional desire and wish fulfillment causes us to make things up and desperately believe in utter nonsense.

The current round of space alien interest begins with the false premise that the government should have no secrets.

However, even in an open society like ours, there are clear, normal reasons for governments to keep some secrets, which most people would agree with: the identity of police, CIA and other undercover agents and their home addresses; military plans and technology; operational details and techniques for SWAT, etc.

Generally, governments in open societies keep secrets so as to not give our adversaries an advantage that would harm our police officers and troops.

This is reasonable standard of government behavior.  

Next, all our space alien information is based upon “expert testimony” and field reports from pilots, admirals, CIA experts and other witnesses, fuzzy gun camera photos, which could be computer glitches or worse, hacking by Chinese agents or other adversaries.

In conducting a scientific investigation, the very first process is to eliminate all expert, witness and field reports … because these reports are notoriously unreliable and we have an amazing ability — as a species — to fool ourselves into believing what we want to believe.

Space alien “evidence” is exactly the same as all the Bigfoot “evidence”: thousands of field reports of sightings and noises in the woods, given by expert hunters, park rangers and others, that there is an 8-foot-tall species, which has managed to avoid decent photographs, or leaving any bones, scat and hairy hide DNA … and whose existence flies in the face of all population biology (that is, the number of individuals necessary to maintain a species over the hundreds of years of Bigfoot’s purported existence).

Space alien information is exactly the same as Bigfoot information, and both are essentially personal belief systems, emotionally exaggerated to an almost religious fervor.

Into this cauldron of hopes and dreams comes The Sol Foundation: “… The Sol Foundation brings together experts from academia and government to address the philosophical, policy and scientific problems raised by the likely presence on the Earth of UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon).”

Sol’s stated outlook is that the government is hiding alien technology and that they just want to prepare the human race for faster than light technology, alien interaction and the many changes that would bring to our society.

How altruistic of them … and what nonsense.

A quick look at the foundation’s Board of Directors notes an array of highly accomplished academics: anthropologists, a pathologist, biologists, sociologist/political experts, and even a former U.S. senator and an admiral, etc.

Wait, where are the astrophysicists?

Fortunately, the real experts for a scientific examination of this situation, our astrophysicists (like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox and Brian Greene), are remarkably consistent in answering questions about UFO/UAP, faster than light travel and space alien presence.

Here are the two most pressing questions and answers from the astrophysicist community:

Question 1

Question: “Is there life on other planets?”

Answer: Since there are about 2 trillion galaxies in our ever-expanding, observable universe and each galaxy has about a hundred billion stars, many with planetary systems, it is a statistical certainty that life exists on other planets: microbes? … bacteria?… plant life? … intelligent life? There is no direct evidence but it is hard to imagine that, with the vast numbers of galaxies, stars and planets, that the conditions that produced life on earth, would not also produce life on other planets.

Question 2

Question: “Since space alien disclosure ‘evidence’ documents the existence of faster than light travel, won’t we eventually develop faster than light star drives (perhaps with the space alien’s assistance) and be able to travel to the other galaxies and stars?”

Answer: No, it’s impossible! This question highlights the space alien fantasy problem: believers treat the speed of light as just another barrier to be overcome: we overcame the sound barrier by developing a faster rocket engine so, in the same manner, won’t we eventually develop a faster than light drive just like the space aliens who are already here?

No, no and no! Our terminology of “the speed of light” causes us to colloquially misunderstand the speed of light as simply a speed problem. It is not.

The speed of light describes the space-time continuum, which in turn, describes the fabric of the universe. As objects approach the speed of light, time slows down and mass increases. At the speed of light, time stops! … and mass becomes infinite!

Scientists measure and verify this every day at the Large Hadron Collider, located under the border of France and Switzerland, as they study subatomic particle physics and attempt to recreate the conditions at the beginning of our universe.

Greene, a theoretical physicist, has an excellent explanation of the speed of light as the defining element of the fabric of the universe.

The fabric of our vast universe — with the size, time and distances involved — determine that it is impossible for any object with mass to move faster than light in the vacuum of space, and that the faulty idea that space aliens are here or that we could develop faster than light travel, is just wish fulfillment.

But you can believe. All you have to do to believe in this current round of space alien information is ignore the entire field of astrophysics.

Damn, science and scientific literacy is such a bummer: It prevents us from mixing our beliefs with the way our world actually works.