by Mac Tonnies
The Face is a possible example. Maybe its purpose—assuming it had one aside from decoration—was to house the original interstellar probe that spawned the faxed civilization. No wonder the Face reminds us of visages of Egyptian god-kings: it may be a true oracle, forever protecting an artifact of mind-boggling potential. Human explorers may even be able to interact with it, learning the history of the Cydonian civilization and its planet of origin.
The interstellar probe could be a sort of galactic archive and sentinel that, even now, monitors our radio broadcasts and anticipates the day when it can speak to us in person. What sort of message would it have for us? A quick fix for our own technosocial ills, a galactic travelogue, or arcane gibberish?
The need to protect an elaborate technological device provides a realistic motive for building the Face in the first place. It’s difficult to accept that a civilization—even an incredibly sophisticated one—would construct such an artifact without a compelling reason. Given the Face’s centralized location within the Cydonia complex (midway between the western edge of the City and the Cliff), it’s reasonable to assume that it played a vital cultural role—if not a central technical role, as well. Perhaps our postbiological Martian colonists—streamlined, imminently functional creatures of vacuum-proofed ceramic and superconductive neural nets—made periodic pilgrimages to the Face to commune with it electronically.
The elaborate funereal rituals of the Pharaohs echo the prospect of interstellar personality-faxing. The Pharaohs attempted to use the Pyramids as transmitters to the stars, where their souls would be received and welcomed into eternal life. Were they, somehow, pantomiming actual events? If so, how were they privy to happenings on another planet, possibly hundreds of thousands of years before their time?
On Earth, intelligence is a remarkably new phenomenon. While we are able to date our planet’s geological history with phenomenal accuracy, the biological legacy that led to intelligence is steeped in mystery. And unlike comparative planetologists, we don’t have the luxury of examining intelligence elsewhere in space—at least in the foreseeable future. We are our own specimen—unique, precious, and, it appears, all too fragile.
Our uniqueness hasn’t stopped speculators from addressing extraterrestrial intelligences. Physicist Enrico Fermi is known for his simple question: “If there are other intelligent beings, where are they?” Fermi operated under the assumption that extraterrestrial intelligence would slowly but surely populate the galaxy, leaving no question of its presence. Either the night sky would betray alien engineering marvels, or the electromagnetic spectrum would be filled with interstellar dialogue. Thus far, scans of the sky have revealed no proof of intelligently directed extraterrestrial signals, although there have been some provocative hints. As of this writing, SETI scientists are laboring over several dozen candidate signals that may have originated from alien civilizations. Perhaps all will turn out to have prosaic explanations; perhaps not.
To be sure, the prospect of visiting extraterrestrials—UFOs are real and from “out there”—casts SETI efforts in an ironic light: why devote endless hours searching the depths of space when the sought-after evidence has been in plain view all along? Although ufologist Stanton Friedman has half-jokingly referred to SETI as a “Silly Effort To Investigate,” there is no reason why radio SETI and ufology must remain mutually exclusive.
So what do we make out of Fermi’s paradox? If the galaxy is ripe with life, why isn’t the signature of extraterrestrial intelligence writ large across the night sky? Fermi, obviously, was an anthropocentric chauvinist; he expected extraterrestrial intelligences to conform more or less to the prevailing expectations of the immediate post–World War II era. At that time, plans for humanity’s ascendancy were ambitious. Space travel seemed an inevitable product of post-war techno-industrial growth.
The basic optimism of Fermi’s era has since collapsed. We seem more adept at insulating ourselves from the stark reality of space than exploiting its potential. If space is addressed at all, it is within the context of missile defense systems and add-ons to the already ponderous International Space Station. Except for a largely Net-based, pro-space movement, which includes such relatively mainstream organizations as Robert Zubrin’s Mars Society, the United States has closed its doors on manned planetary exploration, refusing Russia’s offer for a cooperative mission to Mars and committing itself to the familiar turf of low Earth orbit.
Perhaps a similar solipsism retards other intelligent species, explaining SETI’s failure to detect ET signals. The phantom utopias promised by virtual reality suggest that humans may prefer the unreal to the real and may vanish into decadent immersive computer environments in a manner of decades—achieving a form of immortality in the process. Science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer takes this possibility to a disturbing extreme in his novel Calculating God, in which alien societies upload themselves into sophisticated computers, taking special efforts to protect their new cybernetic homes from potential alien archaeologists.
Although I personally don’t subscribe to Zechariah Sitchin’s ancient astronaut scenario, it’s intriguing to note that the very shape of the Pyramids has become near synonymous with immortality. While the Giza Pyramids were likely never intended to function as tombs, they played an intricate role in binding the ancient Egyptian conception of identity to the constellations.
In a way, the Pyramids can be interpreted as “machines” designed to grant the operator mystical immortality. The epic measures taken to insulate the apparent arcologies in Cydonia may serve to protect an active computational substrate. In other words, the Martians may not be extinct at all but rather exist in a sort of postbiological hibernation. The uploaded civilization, realizing that its technology might be discovered by another spacefaring species in the far future, might have employed countermeasures to ensure its own survival.
This admittedly fanciful scenario may help explain some of the enigmas that have befallen Mars probes. For example, the Russian Phobos II spacecraft photographed an unknown object prior to disappearing. The spacecraft was to have fired a laser at the largest of the Martian moons to obtain spectroscopic readings. Could an artificial intelligence of some sort have anticipated Phobos II’s agenda and interpreted it as a potentially hostile act? Perhaps Mars is equipped with an automated space-based defense system created to deter would-be meddlers. At the very least, it’s a good springboard for a high-budget movie.
Yet more activity linking Mars to an active extraterrestrial intelligence is the regular rise of UFO sightings when Mars is closest to the Earth. This unlikely correspondence was identified by Jacques Vallee, whose statistical analysis of UFO sighting data, conducted in the 1960s, is still considered a landmark attempt to quantify the phenomenon. This book simply doesn’t have room to encompass the UFO enigma, but it’s safe to say that if Vallee’s proposed Mars-UFO link isn’t coincidental, even the controversial position taken by Mars anomalists may appear relatively quaint.
Still, it’s tempting to speculate. Many credentialed scientists have presented an interplanetary hypothesis for UFOs, including NASA’s Paul Hill, Jacques Vallee (model for the French researcher in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind ), astronomer J. Allen Hynek, atmospheric physicist James MacDonald, and nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman. Detractors argue that there is no proof that UFOs are evidence of nonhuman intelligence. SETI proponents, for instance, dismiss UFOs out of hand.
Maybe some UFOs are automated scoutcraft synthesized on Mars to observe technological progression on Earth. This hypothesis would make sense of the many UFO sightings by astronauts, as well as the many sightings near military testing facilities, where modern rocketry was developed. The Martians (or their cybernetic descendants) would be naturally curious about our ability to travel in space and might choose to keep us on an invisible leash. Contact with the Martian civilization, direct or indirect, might be strictly on their terms.
Conversely, if humans do eventually colonize spa
ce (whether seeking profit or sheer survival) we may eventually discover that our exploratory spirit is unique in the cosmos. The urge to expand may be a genetic eccentricity forged by billions of years of terrestrial evolution. Other technological civilizations may bypass space migration entirely, and devote their energies to defending their home world from asteroid strikes and other calamities.
By encapsulating its star system in a “Dyson Sphere,” a vast, energy-absorbing shell proposed by physicist Freeman Dyson, such a civilization could conceivably protect itself from the ultimate interstellar threat—the hard radiation of supernovae. Pragmatic cultures bent on eternal life may even outdo the solipsistic cradle of the Dyson Sphere and attempt to tunnel out of the universe as we know it via an “Einstein-Rosen Bridge,” a space-time tunnel popularly known as a “wormhole.”
In this case, it’s unlikely we would ever contact extraterrestrials in any meaningful sense; they may perceive us as a nuisance or threat to be ignored—or disposed of. While the human psyche tends to rebel against the status quo given long enough exposure (and access to productive alternatives), an alien culture may intentionally stagnate as a way of guaranteeing its survival, even if it means foregoing diversity and new technologies. Progress might not always be in a species’ best interests.
The Gods Themselves
How can we be entirely certain that some celestial events are not, in truth, the work of intelligence? Pulsars—collapsed, rapidly spinning stars that emit an eerily regular spotlight of radiation—were originally thought to be artificial beacons of some kind. As the collapsed star model was developed, the intelligence hypothesis was quietly abandoned.
But refined study of pulsars, best summarized in the book The Talk of The Galaxy by astronomer Paul LaViolette, has given rise to new questions, exhuming the slim possibility that they are engineering marvels.
Going even further, some cyberneticists theorize that the entire universe is an artifact arbitrarily created by a capable alien intelligence, perhaps even a sort of flawless virtual reality in which we, and other intelligences, are simply threads of code scrolling endlessly beneath the veneer of perceivable reality.
Maybe once an intelligence is detected (or deliberately created), visiting civilizations adopt a hands-off policy. Although intelligence is most likely widespread in the cosmos, it’s probably also the universe’s most exotic commodity. One can think of little reason why an ancient alien intelligence would wish to meddle or intervene. It may wish to do so only when both intelligences are on equal intellectual footing—if such is possible.
To SETI’s unacknowledged horror, we seem to be alone. If our solar system was once host to alien emissaries or godlike super-intelligences, they appear to have moved on, perhaps scouting out newly emergent life-forms on distant planets. Of course, an intelligence of sufficient cunning could merely pretend to have disappeared. Maybe we’re not alone at all; perhaps we never were and never will be, regardless of appearances. In that case, evident ruins on Mars and the Moon may be a form of invitation.
In the movie The Truman Show, Jim Carrey plays a suburbanite living a “normal” life. In fact, his every waking—and sleeping—moment is scrutinized by dedicated fans who watch his exploits on television. His friends, neighbors, family, and community are cruel imitations assembled to lull him into acceptance. By the movie’s end, Carrey’s character realizes that his life has been manipulated since conception, and that he isn’t nearly as alone as he has been conditioned to believe.
Maybe the human race is living in a sort of cosmic Truman Show, watched from afar while convincing itself that it’s alone in the vastness of space and time. If and when we choose to expand into space, armed with the right questions, we may find ourselves greeted—or at least acknowledged—by a menagerie of galactic intelligences.
SETI and Martians
Despite radio SETI’s reasoned speculation and good intentions, we have no way of knowing what an alien transmission might hold in store for us. This calls SETI’s international protocol into question. In the event that we receive an impartial beacon consisting of prime numbers or a digital schematic of the aliens’ domain within the galactic disc, there would be little problem democratizing the transmission. On the other hand, what if the extraterrestrials sent a more ambitious message our way?
Instead of sending us a series of conspicuous beeps, an alien civilization might feel inclined to help emerging civilizations by supplying blueprints for new technologies, offering new paradigms for communication, energy extraction, medicine, or even artistic expression.
Conceivably, any message encompassing unknown technologies would fall under the domain of national security. Suppose an ET message contained a coherent primer for extracting the fabled zero-point energy of the vacuum. Few would argue that a global, utopian society would eagerly accept such wisdom. But the Earth of the twenty-first century is far from utopian; the nation in possession of such knowledge would stand to benefit enormously in both economic and military spheres.
SETI’s protocol sounds completely just, but it naively assumes that incoming signals from faraway civilizations will be little more than cosmic Hallmark greetings of no possible strategic importance. Would the United States openly share information leading to new energy sources with, say, Iraq or North Korea if it could be used to create new and more destructive weapons?
A nation can’t tell its friends without also alerting its enemies. If alien benefactors sent us the key to inexpensive, non-polluting fusion, our planetary addiction to fossil fuel just might come to an end. But plentiful fusion implies easily constructed weapons. Policymakers at the top rungs of Earth’s economy may elect to suppress it in favor of the polluting, politically degenerate—but predictable —petroleum industry.
We often think of extraterrestrials as authorities on matters technological. But while their knowledge may indeed be vast, it is humanity’s task to decide whether or not to implement it, and if so, how. Whether confirmation of extraterrestrial intelligence comes in the form of radio transmissions or tangible artifacts, these challenges to the status quo must be considered if we are to deal with them responsibly. It would be ironic indeed if knowing that we aren’t alone in the universe served to accelerate tensions on Earth rather than revealing them as petty and dispensable.
More ominously, extraterrestrials themselves may pit our territorial weaknesses against us as part of a studiously wrought ethnic cleansing. Psychopathically selfish civilizations might unhesitatingly spam neighboring cultures with instructions for new and better gadgets designed to steer them into oblivion. The galactic disk may be a vicious playing field with potential newcomers systematically led astray by technologies beyond their abilities to control. Paranoid extraterrestrials, perceiving humans as warlike and distasteful, might find it in their best interests to casually allow us to self-destruct, lest we present a future threat.
Disappointingly for Hollywood, no city-sized interstellar warships are needed for this kind of invasion. Yet several authors have capitalized on the concept that our planet is the battleground of nonhuman forces. This is an appallingly easy way in which to pass the blame for mankind’s historical failures to a meddling third party. Even Zechariah Sitchin’s revisionist cosmogony, which has garnered nods of cautious approval from some Cydonia researchers, depicts humans as mere pawns in an interplanetary game of chess. But Sitchin, unlike his ideological descendants, invests little effort in suggesting that extraterrestrial intervention is ongoing.
The few scientists and academics who publicly support the notion that we are being visited by a nonhuman (although not necessarily extraterrestrial) intelligence have mixed reactions. Computer scientist and astronomer Jacques Vallee, first to note the UFO phenomenon’s strange correlation with Mars, views perceived alien encounters as part of a psychosocial conditioning system that antedates history. Harvard psychiatrist John Mack perceives close encounters as a breakthrough between Western ontology and suppressed, subjective states of consciousne
ss. Temple University historian David M. Jacobs subscribes to a more nuts and bolts view and suspects that a massive task force of alien genetic engineers is invading us.
SETI pundits frown on such negative views, pointing out that it’s virtually unthinkable that a relatively primitive civilization like ours could present problems to galactic elders. Disabling emerging technical civilizations, they argue, would be like the entire United States military accosting a tribe of Bushmen.
But intelligence in an interstellar context must, of necessity, be perceived in terms of enormous lengths of time. In the time a radio transmission wings across the void from its point of origin to an Earth-bound receiver, regimes will have risen and collapsed, new technologies invented and cast aside, and worldviews subverted and reinvented from the ground up—more than enough time for a civilization to transform itself into something construed as malign. Instead of waiting for potential cancers to emerge, established galactic intelligences may choose to practice a fierce—yet elegant—form of preventive medicine.
Oddly, if there is one thing that New Age thinkers and SETI astronomers agree on, it’s the feasibility of a sort of “galactic federation.” In SETI’s case, members of the community are vastly far apart in both time and space, each contributing to an “Encyclopedia Galactica” woven from the combined knowledge of its constituent civilizations and available to all within range of its radio telescopes.
The New Age perspective holds that benevolent extraterrestrials have arrived physically on Earth and are patiently waiting for us to mend our primitive ways. From the earliest days of the UFO era, “contactees” have reiterated warnings about misuse of nuclear energy and issued warnings of impending eco-apocalypse. Neither the New Age aliens nor SETI’s distant intelligences can help us directly. But, argue advocates for both camps, embracing their very existence (or probable existence) explicitly recognizes our own failings as a technological species—and perhaps only by seeing ourselves in a harsh galactic light will we be able to ensure our continued existence.
