Of spaceships and little green dudes and dudettes!

By Joseph Walther

I quote directly and unedited. “There’s definitely ‘exterterrestials’ out there. A friend of mine, who’s a science major, saw em last week as he was comin’ home from a night class at Community College in Catonsville.”

I am not making this stuff up. I overheard this as I left a McDonalds. Two men, one in his mid-twenties, the other in his forties… at the youngest, were having this conversation as they sat at an outside table in front of the restaurant.

My ears are especially attuned to this sort of statement. They seem to be able to detect such conversations from miles away. It is virtually impossible for me to ignore them and just walk away!

Before going on, I’m making this disclaimer for the record. First, the community college these two mentioned is part of the Community College of Baltimore County’s multi-campus institution, one of which is located in Catonsville, Maryland.

This is an academically solid, fully accredited college with an outstanding faculty, many members of which hold Doctorates in their respective fields.

Sincerity notwithstanding, whatever the science major may have seen OR said to his friend about this matter had nothing to do with any aspect of the College.

Second, the two men having the conversation I’m referring to were just as sincere. Neither one was boisterous or obnoxious. Other than a tiny hint that both may have, shall we say… partook of a wee bit of the grape prior to stopping at McDonald's, they BOTH seemed quite lucid and gregarious.

As well, both of them were very persistent in their accusations that these sightings “happen every damn (not the word they used) day,” and that the United States Air Force “covers this stuff (not their word) up.”

So, I felt both safe AND comfortable as I sat down next to the older one and asked the younger one to describe what his friend actually saw and whether anyone else had witnessed it.

I also gave them one of my business cards and explained that even though I have nothing to do with the federal government; I like to check these things out.

Well, guess what! You probably already have, I’ll bet. Like Moses’ alleged reciprocal conversation with a burning bush on that mountain top many centuries ago, there were no witnesses.

Besides, you folks would not believe what they told me, anyway. So, I’m not even going into it.

But, since NASA’s report of the Phoenix Explorer sending back evidence of water on Mars, I’ve heard many comments concerning the “likelihood” of life in “outer” space.

While most of them have raised legitimate and intriguing points, others have been so farfetched as to be simultaneously sad and hilarious.

So, I present this in order to posit another perspective, one that accounts for the effects of the sheer, infinite-like scale of the known universe. And, also, to clarify some misused terms: possibility, probability, and likelihood.

That we exist at all is an amazing fact in itself. But, even more amazing is how complex we humans have become, even though we’re made of the same stuff as the stars and the rest of the inanimate universe.

Evolution, a highly distasteful theory for some of the “God” people, nevertheless remains a highly robust theory because it’s been scientifically testable, AND it consistently explains much more than it doesn’t.

Thanks to this and our species’ ability to adapt, we’ve evolved with two unique abilities: self-awareness and proactive thinking as opposed to instinctive reaction.

Indeed, we’re proof that consciousness arose on this pinhead-size rock, third in a line of several other-planets orbiting an average, but not remarkable, star located in the outer tail of a huge galaxy that is only ONE among billions.

We call it the Milky Way Galaxy. And it’s BIG, too, incomprehensively HUGE! Here’s an idea of how big it is. I’ve purposely expressed light years and their MILE equivalencies in order to emphasize just HOW big.

Milky Way’s disk has a diameter of about 120,000 light years. At about 5.8-trillion miles per light year, this comes to 704,346,347,520,000,000—that’s 704-quadrillion, 346-trillion, 347-billion, 520-million miles!

It has an enormous vertical thickness, too: about 1,000-light years. If you’re planning a trip from top to bottom, take a good-sized lunch because you’ll be traveling about 5,869,552,896,000,000 miles.

The distance from planet Earth to Milky Way’s galactic nucleus is about 30,000 light years or around 176-quadrillion, 086-trillion, 586-billion, 880-million miles (176,086,586,880,000,000).

Our indistinguishable, dot-size solar system—the Sun, all its orbiting planets, planetary satellites, and asteroids—circles the Galaxy about once every 225-million years (225,000,000).

And, thanks to our upgraded Hubble Space Telescope, evidence suggests that our star (Sun) is only one of an estimated 300- to 400-billion others within just this galaxy.

So if it(our Sun) flickered and went out RIGHT NOW, the remainder of the Milk Way, let alone the rest of the universe, would neither notice it or miss us.

Cosmological/Astrophysical Science, among others, is backed up by many centuries of scientific observation, testing, more testing, and, still more testing.

This has granted scientists the ability to make sophisticated and testable predictions about the universe. While much of it remains theoretical, many of our theories have become highly robust.

Of course, it’s still all based on an assumption that what WE can see is only a fraction of everything that’s out there. And, things can change, as they have many times in our past. But, so far, so good.

Still, there are more questions than answers. Science doesn’t know it all and may never answer some of the questions. But, so far, we think we know enough answers to place some range of limits on our freedom to believe just any old thing we desire.

Like it or not, science can tell us only what’s there. Sometimes we don’t like it. At others, it’s not thrilling enough for us. So fantasy and gullibility step in and fill the scientific voids to make things more interesting and intriguing.

But, “wishing to believe” does not create facts any more so than martyrdom verifies the veracity of a belief. It does address a martyr’s undaunted commitment TO a belief, but that’s all it does.

For some people—most of them are politicians—science consists of a litany of highly tedious, mind numbing, boring, and unfathomable tenets, all seemingly conspiring to cause us perpetual migraine headaches.

It is so much more alluring to imagine “space folks” on determined, targeted missions to seek us out, snatch us up into their “space buggies,” and whiz us away at warp-10 to conduct biological probes and, perhaps, engage in some kinky, intergalactic sex with us.

Is Earth the only place where life exists? I don’t know. I’ve asked other legitimate scientists about it, too. Each has said the same thing: “I don’t know.”

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” wrote Carl Sagan. Our science, so far, has NOT found any evidence of life out “there.” This does NOT mean that none exists, only that we’ve yet to find any.

By its sheer scale, though, the universe certainly makes multiple random occurrences possible. This same scale also makes it reasonable to assume probabilities for other life in the universe.

But, this is where communications break down. Possibilities exist by their nature; they’re not the same as probabilities, though. And, probabilities, in the scientific sense, NEVER mean “likely.”

A probability is stronger than a possibility. But, it can be as weak as the smallest fractional measure greater than zero, as strong as the largest fractional measure less than one, or any point in between.

Because of the universe’s infinite-like size, life in the rest of the universe is possible. We can even say, legitimately, that there is a probability of such existence. However, in the absence of scientific evidence to the contrary, we can’t say that it’s “likely.”

In the world of possibilities and probabilities, “likely” has to be supported by scientific, reliably predictive evidence. Empirical thinking, while alluring, doesn’t count much in natural law.

How many grains of sand would you estimate are on a ten-mile stretch of sandy beach? No matter the estimate, the number falls considerably short of the number of stars in the universe.

Yes, space dudes and dudettes might be looking for us. With the sheer size of the matter, it’s certainly a possibility. We could even assign a probability to the prospect.

But, I’d lay some serious money on the proposition that you’d “likely” find a specific, single grain of sand on that beach I described above long before those “space folks” found EARTH.

Besides, if it’s sex they’re seeking, I hear that the Andromeda Galaxy is a virtual hothouse of seething, unbelievably kinky stuff—THE literal Sodom and Gomorrah of the universe. So, they’d probably go there instead. See you next week.

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.