The Luke and Pete Show - Introducing... Eureka! - Should we fear an alien invasion?

Episode Date: May 21, 2022

Have you ever been annoyed that Pete won’t let us talk about alien invasions? Today, we're going to put that right!We think you'll love 'Eureka!', Stak's brand new science podcast! Every Wednesday, science enthusiast Rick Edwards and actual real-life scientist Dr Michael Brooks get to the bottom of some of the universe’s most puzzling questions with the help of world-leading experts.In this episode, Professor Avi Loeb helps Rick and Michael answer the timeless question: should we fear an alien invasion?If you enjoy this episode, make sure to search “Eureka!” on your podcast app and hit subscribe! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, it's Luke and Pete here, and today we wanted to bring you a very special treat and introduce you to one of our newest shows from the Stack Universe. That's right. Pete and I think you'll love Eureka, our brand new podcast that gets under the skin of science, in a good way, as Rick would say, with the questions that really matter. I guess with science you have to be very specific. I mean, that's very much one of the building blocks of science. Don't get under my skin. I know you've

got the capacity to do so, you scientist. In a scientific environment it could be literal. I like that Rick, who I believe to be, with the respect of everyone else we've got here, my personal belief is that Rick is the best presenter out there. And he always, and a great example of that is that he does that intro the same,

it's the same intro, basically, because it's so differently every single time. And we're up to episode about 20 now. And it's different every time. It's very, very good. Well, every Wednesday, science enthusiast Rick Edwards

and actual real-life scientist Dr. Michael Brooks will get under your skin. They dissect some of the universe's most puzzling questions with the help of world-leading experts. Absolutely. So if you guys have ever been annoyed

that Pete won't let me talk about alien invasions on the Luke and Pete show... Because I know you're not good at it. That is fair, actually. Rick and the good Dr. Michael Brooks, they're good at it. So actually, there's a script here, but I'm not going to read it.

What I'm going to say is, if you don't like my amateurish ideas around alien invasions, why not download a proper show and listen to actual experts like Rick and Michael with experts on top of that to listen to what could actually happen. It's a big Madeira cake

with different layers of expertise. An angel cake. You picked a Madeira cake, which is basically the only cake with no layers at all. Exactly, that's why I'm not a scientist. So catch Pete on the Great British Baker from Monday

we'll have a listen to this recent episode of Eureka entitled Should We Fear an Alien Invasion and if you like it make sure you search

for Eureka on your podcast app to subscribe give it a listen now make sure you enjoy it let us know what you think but do give it a subscribe

we think you'll love it we absolutely think it's fantastic the truth is out there i've added a marimba beat to it that didn't need it seriously though do listen to eureka and hit subscribe now Scully! Scully! I've got my knob chopped in an alien! Seriously, though, do listen to Eureka and hit subscribe now. Hello and welcome to Eureka, the show that gets under the skin of science in a good way,

as we invite a new expert every week to help us answer one of science's most interesting questions, as decided, obviously, by us. Isaac Asimov once said the most exciting phrase in science is not eureka but that's funny respectfully we think you can have a bit of both i'm rick edwards joined as ever by my um what we call you these days we're not saying sidekick that's for sure i think a sidekick works informer you're not getting co-host i'll tell you that that that's a deal breaker no way're not getting co-host. I tell you that, that's a deal breaker. No way are you getting co-host. Well, get on with it.

Just get on with it. Dr Michael Brooks, not a real doctor. This week it is your turn to lead. I set you quite a good question and there's a bit of context here as well. It's kind of relevant, isn't it? Yeah, it is relevant. So you said to me, basically, should we fear an alien invasion?

Yes, cheery stuff. Which is a good question. And it turns out, actually, this year is the 50th anniversary of NASA first sending a message into space, basically like a greetings card from the human race. It went on Pioneer 10 in March 1972. The golden record. No, record no no no that was later so that was on the voyager ones so this was this was not quite gold it was gold anodized aluminium

and it was just a plaque on the on placed on board pioneer 10 so just like a card like a hallmark card yeah kind of metal made out of metal and with a a picture of a man waving, naked obviously, naked man waving next to a woman who's not waving. Neither of them have any pubic hair. Yeah, naked, but no pubic hair. It's 1970s, that's quite advanced, isn't it? That's quite weird in a way. It does feel like it.

I mean, he's got a penis. He could have been proper joy of sex. She hasn't got a vagina, so obviously that was considered a step too far. Quite confusing stuff for the aliens. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what they're going to make of that, to be honest. But it basically said, it had a sort of pictogram of where this message came from in the solar

system. Oh, so sort of third rock from the sun. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So, so, yeah. So that was 50 years ago now. It's very, I'll tell you what's great about that is someone sitting down and thinking, are we 100% sure that a wave will translate? Is that definitely friendly? Well, I like the idea that somebody thought about it because I wonder if they did. Of course, they must have done.

They must have thought, does that look in any way aggressive? Well, not to us, but I mean, no way of knowing. Yeah, because if you like smile at a chimpanzee, that's aggressive, isn't it? Yeah. Very risky business sending messages to aliens that may or may not exist. That is what we're talking about. The more we learn about the universe, the harder it is to believe we're alone. It's a story that's truly out of this world.

Navy ships and pilots capturing images about their experiences with what they claim are UFOs. Whether they're little green men or not, it's becoming increasingly accepted by scientists that there is likely to be life beyond planet Earth. So if aliens do exist, how likely are they to pay us a visit? And if they do, what can we expect? It would be handy to know if they dine on human flesh beforehand. Today we're discussing extraterrestrials, space waste and the incredible phenomena of Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object detected passing through our

solar system. We're also asking whether we should be sending out signals to communicate with aliens, what the global protocol is if we're invaded, and most importantly, we're going to be posing this week's question to our expert, Avi Loeb. Should we fear an alien invasion? So this is our sort of absolutely timeless question. Should we fear an alien invasion? And who have we got as our expert this week? Legend, total legend legend in fact professor avi lobe who is the frank b baird junior professor of science at harvard university

all right one more time because i enjoy you saying it's struggling through the words avi lobe the frank b baird junior professor of science at harvard university presumably he's not junior professor of science he's the junior i think he he's not the junior professor of science. He's the junior, I think, is attached to the Frank B. Baird junior professor of science. Just to make that clear. Sorry, are you going to read it one more time? No, I'm not.

So we kicked off asking him to basically set the scene. Obviously, if you're going to worry about aliens, you need to know, well, whether there's any aliens out there. Is that likely? How do we find them? And should we be telling them how to find us? Third rock from the sun, everyone. What is it?

We have to make a man for that. We have to. Don't worry. Continue your program. We now know that about half of the stars, like the sun, have a planet the size of the Earth, roughly at the same separation. And if you arrange for similar circumstances, you might as well get similar outcomes. So technological civilizations could be quite common.

But that doesn't mean that most of them are available for us to communicate with, because most stars formed billions of years before the sun and they could have had technological civilizations that predated us by billions of years. We cannot have a phone conversation with the Mayans. The Mayan culture is gone, but we can find traces for it in archaeological sites. And in much the same way, we can look for relics from technological civilizations in space, sort of like searching for plastic bottles on the beach. Most of the time you see rocks that are naturally produced, but every now and then, there is a plastic bottle that indicates a civilization is around.

When you enter into a room full of strangers, it's prudent to stay quiet and listen rather than speak out because you never know if there is a predator in the room that might pose a risk to your existence. And so, unfortunately, we've been speaking out for a while now, for more than a century, we've been sending radio waves into space. And if there is anyone within 100 light years that has the radio telescopes that we possess, then they may be aware of us already.

It may take some decades or perhaps centuries before we hear back, but it would have been better if we didn't speak at all. Now, here's what I think about that. I take his point that you don't necessarily want to be broadcasting your location to a furious alien race who are looking for planets to try and conquer

and subsume. Fine. However, inadvertently, we're sending out those signals anyway just by dint of the fact that we have TV and radio.

Yeah, by being a civilization. Yeah, by being a civilisation. Yeah, but by being a technological civilisation, that means that you send out signals, not coded specifically for aliens, obviously, but they're going out there. So you can't really help it. So whether you're sending a specific message or not is kind of irrelevant, isn't it?

It kind of is. I mean, we haven't thought through the implications of it very well. By the way, I worry about the kind of irrelevant, isn't it? It kind of is. I mean, we haven't thought through the implications of it very well. By the way, I worry about the kind of parties that Avi goes to when he walks into a room and thinks, now, is there a predator here? I mean, maybe that says something about parties at Harvard. I don't know. But I've never walked into a room and thought,

I'll just wait and see if there's any predators here. Let's see if anyone gets eaten in the next sort of half an hour. But basically what he's saying is we probably should have kept our mouths shut. We're the worst predators ever. Given that we've all evolved probably by the same kinds of rules and it's sort of evolution, red in tooth and claw, we've really set ourselves up as the kind of rabbits of this whole thing, haven't we? But do you not think

all the others probably would have done a similar thing? Because at the point when we're developing radio, if you assume that all civilisations are going to go through something like that and be broadcasting some kind of electromagnetic waves with information,

I think you would. That seems fair, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. But the point you do that, I don't know if you're thinking that much about alien civilizations like what's going on on other planets. That's true. I think it may be inevitable that you just do it

and then later on you're like, fuck! Especially when you realize that other civilizations might be much, much more advanced than ours is right now. But anyway, we'll get into that. The point is, it's kind of a bit late now. We've done it. And we maybe should get a sense of the risk. I mean, obviously, you want to do that by maybe going and looking,

but that's a big long shot. Space is hard. It's too far, isn't it? It's too far. It's too big. Yeah, I mean, we don't do much with people in space. And aliens is basically a needle in a haystack sort of situation there's nothing in any reachable distance so we're

fairly sure that our solar system is devoid of intelligent life apart from us yeah uh and the nearest star that we've got is proxima centauri 4.25 light years away yeah that's a long way we're never going there not with the technology that we've got anyway are we going to talk about generation chips well no we're not not now no no but i mean effectively you know we've got to look for signs of technology like you know what we've sent out yeah presumably we can look for things that other people have sent out. Or something like the, I liked the plastic bottle analogy on the beach, like spotting something in space,

we're like, hold on, that's not naturally occurring. Something's made that. That'd be quite good. Not easy to spot. No, obviously not easy. But I mean, you know, we could, we do look at other atmospheres

of sort of distant exoplanets. We look at, you know, and we, we do look at other atmospheres of sort of distant exoplanets. We look at, you know, and we look for signals. So we've got this project called the Breakthrough Listen Project, basically, which I think in 2020, it saw a signal that it thought might have been an alien signal. That was the first signal. It's listening with this vast sort of radio telescope. And actually, it turned out not to be. vast sort of radio telescope and actually it turned out not to be it was when they analyzed it and worked out they probably said they said it's probably of terrestrial origin and just sort of you know some kind of resonance or echoes sort of from something you know we had the wow

excitement the wow we had the wow signal in 1977 which has never been explained and actually that was um so that was just one blip basically picked, picked up by the Big Ear Telescope in Ohio, August the 15th, 1977, the day before Elvis died. Coincidence? I don't think so. I was going to say, yes, obviously a coincidence. It was a call to go home, wasn't it? And is it called the Wow Signal? Because they wrote wow on the reader.

Yeah, Jerry Amon, the guy who was operating it they wrote wow on the reader. The guy who was operating it wrote wow on the printout. So, yeah, but it's never been explained. It came from the region of Sagittarius, and it was just one blip, never repeated. So it's not really anything much to go on. Funny, actually, to think that that's an alien civilization who are a bit smarter than us, and they've accidentally done it,

and they're like, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off! So, yeah, we don't really know i mean you know we're we're in a position where like you say it's more likely experts think it's more likely we'll find evidence associated with extraterrestrial life than the actual signals of the life itself. And so Avi basically says, don't bother looking for actual life, look for the litter. Yeah, okay. In my view,

a very advanced civilization would potentially close itself off. I call it social distancing on a cosmic scale. They would create a cocoon inside of which they have everything they need. And being in contact with a lower level civilization would only degrade their quality of life. But that doesn't mean that we will not be able to find more about them because they still have to throw their trash. And just like investigative journalists in Hollywood that search for the trash cans of celebrities in order to find about their private lives, we could learn about those civilizations from searching for their trash

in space. Most likely, the objects that will travel the distance will be pieces of equipment because they could survive for millions or billions of years. Biological creatures face a lot of hazards in space. There are cosmic rays that can damage any living cell. And by the way, this is a major health concern for going to Mars. cell. And by the way, this is a major health concern for going to Mars. We will need to protect ourselves if we want to establish a sustainable base there. And my sense is that just like plastic bottles on a beach that keep accumulating over time, we would find first evidence for technological equipment that was deposited in space that is billions of years old,

probably not functional anymore. And we will see that before we can actually get in contact with living creatures out there. So the best thing for us, if we're trying to think about, you know, will we spot an alien civilization? It's to think, well, will they spot us? Like, what could they see that we've left around that they would pick up on? And that sort of gives us a clue. So like old satellites and stuff like that. Old satellites, like massive amounts of space junk, basically. I mean, you have to get quite close to see it.

That's what I'm thinking. I mean, does any of our space junk end up just sort of drifting off? Not really. It's all kind of orbiting, isn't it? No. So, I mean, we've got massive amounts of stuff. NASA says there's 23,000 pieces of debris sort of in orbit that are sort of the size of a softball or larger.

Okay. Size of a softball? Is that cricket ball? How big's a softball? A bit bigger than a cricket ball, I would say. You're leading this episode, mate. How big's a softball? Is that cricket ball? How big's a softball? I don't know. A bit bigger than a cricket ball, I would say. You're leading this episode, mate. How big's a softball? Don't just say the size of a softball.

Anyway, the point is, there's stuff orbiting around us, but we've gone up to the moon and left stuff on there. Do you know how much stuff we've left on the moon? Kilograms. Have a guess. So I guess we've left quite a few. Sorry, I haven't brought back so I mean

I'm going to say like several tons 187,000 kilograms what? 187 tons of stuff on the moon wow

I was going to sort of say like 10 187 tons it's mad isn't it so the energy to get it up there

yeah and there's probably the 1969 Apollo 11 lunar escape module is probably still in orbit. Nobody's seen it, but the calculations say it's going to be there. It kind of must be. But then we've got the Voyager space probes, which have just disappeared beyond the edge of our solar system. Well, yeah, I mean, they're specifically sent out there. So somebody could, in time,

find them, and they've got their own little messages on them as well, haven't they? I think a really key thing that you've just mentioned there is that we can't even see

that escape pod. We sort of know that it must be up there, but we can't spot it, and we are next door to the moon. Yeah. So aliens, they haven't got hope in hell of seeing it, have they?

Like, if you imagine... Well, it depends on their technology, doesn't it? If they... I guess, yeah. And they also... I'm just thinking, if we were looking for that kind of debris around a planet, what on earth would we be... Like, we'd have no hope of spotting it, would we?

We probably wouldn't't but it depends how big some of it is if if you had a civilization that left a load of stuff that was big enough to say reflect starlight you would see a sort of you know you possibly see the right the reflections of it sort of winking at you occasionally or something like that and then you might say there's something there let's go and look and if you had sufficiently good technology you could go and you know take your starship and and just go and have a look so you know it's not impossible we might be going on to discuss this but what about the fact that biological entities biological life is quite limiting and certainly if you if you think you want to travel anywhere in space.

We can't really do it. What you might be interested in doing, though, is creating artificial intelligence or the classic sort of downloading yourself. So you basically become a digital species, and then you actually can travel as far as you like because effectively you just turn yourself off and then reboot when you're like 4 million years later and you've arrived wherever you're aiming for. So you might actually encounter digital life. Yes, that's true.

And you kind of hope that maybe that digital life doesn't have the capability to launch an attack on the planet. It also might have. It might well have. It might have. You feel like they're coming prepared. We'll take a quick break now, but in the second half of the show,

we'll be discussing the evidence that we may have already found to prove aliens exist, Oumuamua. And as always, Avi Lowe will be answering our question this week, should we fear an alien invasion? Welcome back to Eureka with me, Rick Edwards, and my sidekick, Dr. Michael Brooks.

Not having that. You are. No, I mean, you actually are. Fine. So we were discussing before the break how to find evidence of alien civilizations and how if a more advanced civilization does exist out there, they might not even want to talk to us.

I mean, that's a thought, isn't it? There's us worrying about it. maybe they just don't really care but that's one of the like when when people think about why we haven't had any contact with aliens because when you run the numbers you're like it seems very very very very implausible that life wouldn't have evolved somewhere else yeah there's so many uh opportunities and there's been so much time and so on I really love the idea that either we're just in without realising it

just in an awful like backwater in the universe where aliens are like well we're not going to that shit or we're just so

dumb that we're of no interest yeah or this is the physicist whose name I can never remember, but you annoyed, Michio...

Michio Kaku. Yeah, yeah. His thing, I really like his thing about ants, you know, quite sophisticated for ants, living in their little anthill next to a motorway, even though they're absolutely right next to the motorway. The ants have absolutely no comprehension of human civilization. It's just operating on a totally different plane.

And we could be the ants. Yeah. We could be surrounded by aliens right now in alien life and just have no idea. Well, it might be that we've just woken up and had an idea. Because, well, there's an argument thati lobe makes that we may have seen evidence of an alien civilization in the form of an object that we call omua mua i'll let avi explain omua mua was the first object that discovered near earth that came from outside the solar system and it looked very peculiar unlike any comet or asteroid that we have seen before from within the solar system.

It didn't have a cometary tail. It had most likely a flat pancake-like geometry. And it was pushed away from the sun by reflecting sunlight. And that meant that it must be very thin, sort of like a sail. And nature doesn't produce sails. So potentially Oumuamua is the first evidence for something that was not naturally produced, that came to us from a technological civilization. And we should continue to search and look for evidence of objects similar to Oumuamua, because when I go to the kitchen and I see an ant, I get alarmed.

It means that there must be many more out there. And we only surveyed the sky for a few years before we found Oumuamua with the Pan-STARRS telescope. So if we continue to survey, we will find more. And of course, the best way to figure out whether they're artificial or natural would be to take a photograph a picture is worth a thousand words i got very excited when the mua mua was it was pretty huge wasn't it yeah quite literally yeah how big was it i think maybe like 800 meters long. So if Avi's wrong, what else could it be?

What are the kind of, what are the sceptical possibilities? Well, so people are saying, oh, maybe it's a bit of like hydrogen ice that's broken off something. Okay. Or nitrogen ice is another one. But I mean, he kind of refutes those arguments by saying there just isn't that concentration of nitrogen around, for instance, that you could form it into some big shard of ice you know the shape is weird isn't it yeah i mean the whole thing is weird so i mean he he sort of and then you've got the issue of like the fact that it sort of accelerated out of our solar system so and that because of the the light that was shining on it so that makes him think that it could be some kind of light sail yeah because light sails are things that we've

talked about in terms of propelling crafts at high speeds and people say well it can't be a sail because it sort of tumbles end over end you know when we've seen it it was sort of tumbling but you know if it's a light sail that actually has just gone rogue, it's knackered, then maybe it just happened to be caught and it works very well as a light sail. So there's lots of controversy about it. I mean, most people would say, come on, that seems too far-fetched.

But Avi's a believer. Avi's sort of basically saying you can't... He says you have to consider that it could be alien technology because that is one of the options however implausible that is one of the options and i mean interestingly so the european space agency is sort of scrambling to design a kind of you know a mission uh for getting up there quickly and looking at stuff like this when it comes along because we just happen to spot a mua mua you know and and we're lucky in that respect we didn't see it for very long did we get any decent photos no no no and and so you're in a position where you just think oh okay

we need to be able to spot this stuff and then go up and have a look at it as fast as possible because you know it answers or it could potentially answer that big question of are we alone but avi's view is look this is you know potentially a sign of an alien civilization and that's something we have to sort of take seriously you know we might get some useful data out of it if we can spot the next one that comes along what's the rest of the scientific community saying that he's mad i mean a lot of them he's drawn a lot of criticism for this let me let me say yeah you know i don't mind it no i don't mind it at all i think i think it's all right but you know but there isn't the thing is there's not like a a stonewall better explanation no no of what that thing no it remains a mystery i mean you can you can conjecture about it you

can say oh you know maybe it's a big shard of ice made of hydrogen or nitrogen or whatever but you know we'll never know basically now so you know we better be awake when the next one comes along so we can have a better idea but you know i mean basically given how little we know it sort of makes sense to think about aliens i, and alien civilizations and the possibility that they'll come along and might not be friendly. We have to be prepared for that, surely. Yeah. It's hard to tell what their intentions are, but let's put it this way. If I were them, I wouldn't be particularly interested in humans on Earth. They just came up with, we just came up with our technologies over the past century.

You know, we were not that interesting 10,000 years ago. And by the way, it took Oumuamua more than 10,000 years to traverse the solar system. So perhaps the reason we haven't heard from anyone is that we ourselves are really undeveloped still. And as a result, we don't face the risk of someone coming over. But it might happen one day. And as to the intentions of whoever comes along, that is really up for grabs. We have no clue. And it's not just a question of what is more common, you know,

what kind of intentions are more common among all the civilizations that are out there, but who would be the first to come to us. So if an imperialistic drive brings other civilizations to us, then obviously it's not good news. But if it's scientific exploration, it may be good news. it's not good news. But if it's scientific exploration, it may be good news. Bit of a risk, then. And are you guys,

is it imperialistic stuff or is it more exploratory? Are the white coats a good sign for us? Or are you just the guys running the mortuary? I mean, you know, it's probable that we couldn't do a lot about it. I mean, if you look at where we're at at the moment in terms of our ability to, you know, A, motor through space and B, defend ourselves. We are sitting ducks because any civilization that's come in and managed to get across,

you know, at least 4.25 light years from proxima centauri um then you know they've got some technology that we haven't got they're outgunning us maybe it's likely that they've got weapons as well as like transport isn't it yeah they probably didn't forget to like develop weapons and so so we're sort of dead if if they decide that you know they want earth for its resources or something yeah we're sort of done aren't we yeah we can't defend ourselves i don't think not against a civilization that advanced that would be able to get to us no it would be it would be hopeless so we should fear aliens really if they do exist well no no because unless they're coming because like it's interesting

to come and see us. Yeah. Does that seem plausible to you? I mean, so what I'm wondering is, like, you look at our sort of trajectory as humans and, you know, I mean, we've been alive for such a short period of time. but by most measures although there are obviously loads of wars and stuff going on maybe we're getting less warmongery maybe there are maybe that's what steven pinker would say kill each other less yeah than we were healthier population maybe if that is the direction of travel as you advance you get better at coexisting without just constantly being into warring factions and stuff so what you're saying is like an alien civilization with that kind of technology yeah probably has solved the problem of aggression possibly possibly yeah i like that idea that's

quite optimistic in which case no worries yeah yeah send out as many greetings cards as you like but i mean it's likely as well, isn't it? That you go through these phases of civilization where you, you know, you destroy yourself. I mean, that's one of the classic sort of problems is that every civilization ends up

destroying itself, you know, with technology or without technology. Well, it's not, well, hang on. I mean,

it's not, we, that's just pure supposition. We don't know, do we? Okay. Right. But you know,

civilizations come and go. And it might be that humans have the technological capability. Oh, I suppose we know in human terms, we? Okay, right. But, you know, civilizations come and go. And it might be that humans have the technological capability. We don't know that, do we? I suppose we know it in human terms. We know civilizations. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So, I mean,

people have even sort of said, oh, maybe there were civilizations on Earth before our civilization. Oh, yeah, that's bollocks, isn't it? Yeah, I don't think that's true. That's not true. No. We would have found evidence.

That's the thing. I think so. There's no evidence, unfortunately. Yeah. Although some, I've seen the argument that as you get more advanced in your civilization, you realize that you're wreaking havoc on the planet because you need energy to advance your civilization. So you get better at not wreaking havoc.

So you leave less signature. Yeah. Less of a footprint. I'm still not really buying it, to be honest. yeah that's the footprint i'm still not really buying it to be honest i mean i think the the the big issue with that for me is we're we can plot a pretty good path from the very very first signs of life emerging on earth whenever it was 4.5 billion years ago yeah yeah and then when it first became multicellular and blah blah blah. And there's not really any obvious sort of branching off points where suddenly a civilization would develop and then disappear.

Yeah, it wasn't. Yeah. So, I mean, humans sort of evolved about 200,000 years ago or so. 250,000 years ago. But obviously we had, you know, sort of four bears. Yeah. But if we're talking like technological civilizations. Oh, right.

Well, technological, 20,000 years maybe? Yeah, it's not been very long at all... Oh, right. Well, technological, 20,000 years, maybe? Yeah, it's not been very long at all. Oh, no, it's tall use. That said, in the age of the universe, so the universe, 13.8 billion years old, right? So there's been a lot of time for other things to happen elsewhere in the universe. So we've just been talking about what's happening on Earth,

which is, as we've said, a backwater. So you've got the position where, obviously, you know, you have the Big Bang, you have to cool everything down to the point where life as we know it can operate. So you get down to sort of room temperature in about 15 million years. And then, you know,

then you get about 200 million years for gravity to pull clouds of dust together. So you create all the infrastructure that you need for life to have somewhere to live yeah basically yeah uh earth was born after about nine billion years so other planets presumably might have been born around the same time so it's taken a long time really for life on earth to evolve and maybe it didn't take so long elsewhere. So maybe there's other civilizations that are more advanced that maybe came several billion years before us and they might have advanced to the point where

they could just pop up through some kind of teleportation or something. Ah, right. So you're saying we could have been visited before. Yeah, so we could have been visited. Yeah, yeah. That to me feels more plausible. I don't think it's that, you know, gut instinct says it didn't happen. But it's certainly more plausible than another civilization

developing on Earth and then vanishing. That feels entirely unlikely to me. So hang on, I think I've got confused with my dates. So the Earth is four and a half billion years old no life is no and life is 3.8 life is 3.8 4.5 4.5 yeah yeah okay so there's yeah i mean there's a lot of quite a lot of years before the planet forming and yeah yeah but that doesn't mean that it took that long elsewhere is the point, is it? No, no, no. So you could have had things happening elsewhere and technological civilizations arriving

and then just visiting Earth, sort of having a look around. Or like I say, just wiping themselves out. So you get to a certain point and then gone. And then it's just a sort of, are you lucky enough to overlap with another technological civilization that is vaguely close by yeah and that but then that i suppose becomes much less likely doesn't it yeah what do you think happens when you know if they show up what would you what's your sort of best guess about you know okay we've spotted aliens or they've just showed up as in protocol yeah i mean i'm assuming that the governments of the world kind of uh rapidly no no

no i mean there's just no no no real protocol at all hang on is it not going to be like the seti guys so the seti guys have a protocol yeah this is a not-for-profit kind of you know a little thing uh in california search for extraterrestrial? Yeah, so they've set up a protocol. The guy who's like the head for welcoming the aliens is Paul Davis, you know, the British physicist who now works in Arizona, I think.

He's the welcome committee. He's basically the guy. Self-appointed? No, I think probably appointed from within the SETI kind of... That's effectively self-appointed. It's a committee. It's a committee of sort of, you know, Western minds. So there's no, like, Asian representation, I don't think, at all on this.

Amazing, amazing. So it's literally like SETI have said, right, well, we'll handle this. I mean, they probably, you know, have been watching maybe, you know, certain films and just sort of decided that somebody needs to be in control of this. But I don't think there's a UN protocol. There's no sort of... And to be honest, the Chinese have just... They've got the biggest telescope in the world,

so they're most likely to see... The Chinese have probably got some plans in place, I reckon. Yeah, but do you think they include us? Well, given that we haven't included them, no. I think the aliens are going to arrive and like, these guys don't get along at all. Nobody's got a clue what to do. But Paul Davies actually thinks that nobody will care

when aliens arrive. So he thinks people are just like, oh, you know, just get on with their lives. It won't end like civilisation as we know it. People will just sort of shrug. I mean, it entirely depends what the aliens want from us. I mean, if it's a war of the worlds kind of situation, then obviously, yeah. I think some people are sitting up and paying some from us. I mean, if it's a War of the Worlds kind of situation,

then obviously, yeah. I think some people are sitting up and paying some attention. No, I get that. But you'd think we'd sort of work all this stuff out, but we haven't really done that yet. So, you know, there is the question of, are they out there? There's the question of, if they turn up, what do they want? Which sort of makes you say, should we fear the aliens? I mean, that's our whole point.

And from everything I understand, I mean, also, it just seems so implausible that they will find us. I mean, it's just such a small amount of civilizations that could be out there. You know, when you do the math and you work it all out, you sort of feel like, you know what,

there's not a lot. So when you run the numbers and you look at the sort of drake equations kind of thing like you know how often will a civilization arise how will it you know how will it be how long will it last that kind of thing um we sort of reckon there's maybe nearly 11 billion civilizations intelligent civilizations in the universe in the whole universe that's quite a lot yeah that's quite a lot and maybe more than 70 000 intelligent communicating civilizations in our galaxy alone so my initial yeah so my initial feeling is like oh that's never going to happen there's not going to be anyone there but actually when you run the numbers it becomes like a question that maybe you do need to ask yourself yeah it's It's like, are we ready?

I mean, so my thing is, as those numbers heavily suggest, of course there is other intelligent life out there. So then you get to, okay, it's out there. Are they going to come looking for us? Very hard to say, but given the level of advancement they might reach. And we would if we could, wouldn we we would yeah i think there's a and who knows if this is a human thing or an earth thing but we definitely have the curiosity that would take us yeah to go looking yeah so you suspect that that would be shared by any life yeah you don't really know and if you're looking and if you're very advanced

i don't know what the chances of you you finding us or wanting to come are but they're non-zero aren't they yeah for sure and if you're anywhere in our neighborhood you'll start to see signs of yeah you might come across voyager or something like that out there and you think oh look at the trajectory of that let's just follow that back and see what we'll find i'm curious to know why the lady doesn't have genitals, but the man does. Let's go and find out. I think then this whole question, should we fear an alien invasion,

just hinges on what do we think their intention will be. That's it. I don't think there's a question over whether there actually are aliens. I don't think there's a question over whether they would be able to find us. It's just, what do they want? I'm hoping, like I say, that you get to a level

where you've just lost all the aggro and they're quite friendly and maybe we don't even know about it. That's what I'm sticking with. I'm sticking with it's going to be okay. So your answer to the big question really is... No, no. I think if they do...

Nothing to worry about. They're going to be benign. Okay. Yeah. My answer is, I think if they do, they're going to be benign. Okay. Yeah. My answer is, I think if they're going to make the effort, they're probably going to be after something. And I think the whole, you know, ant versus human thing, I mean, I feel nothing towards ants, you know.

I sort of look at them interestingly, but if I want to kill them, I will kill them. See, I won't actually. Yeah, okay, that's good. Would you pour hot water on no that's horrible i don't know i don't kill ants what am i talking about i don't kill ants but i might have done in the past and but there's that sort of sense of if there's a problem you know if i'm digging new foundations for an extension or something i'm not going to say

well we can't do that because there's an ant's nest there no no no no me neither actually so you know so if we have a purpose then we'll just sort of railroad over that thing and i think that would be the situation we're in because we're puny we're not advanced we are really not a very impressive civilization and i think if they decided you know that they actually wanted to just take over earth and and we had some you know resource that they wanted i think they would take it from us without thinking twice. And so I think, yes, we probably should fear aliens, but there's nothing we can do. I mean, we're sitting ducks.

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely defenceless. All right. So the main question of the episode is, should we fear an alien invasion? Let's get an answer from the big man, Avi Loeb. One thing I've learned from decades of working on research in astronomy is a sense of modesty. The universe is so much bigger than we are. I mean, there are more planets like the Earth in the observable volume of the universe than there are grains of

sand on all beaches on Earth. We live for such a short time relative to the age of the universe, one part in 100 million or less than that. And we also, our knowledge is so limited. It's an island in an ocean of ignorance. And so we should be modest. That's my fundamental premise. We should learn about aliens before we decide whether to fear from them. Learn about aliens before we decide whether to fear from them. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, a bit of a cop-out. I feel that's a cop-out.

But he's right. I mean, he's basically saying, well, there's no way of knowing whether we should fear them yet. But surely the precautionary principle says, oh, maybe we should actually do something to defend ourselves, prepare ourselves in some way. Ah, but there is nothing we can do. I firmly believe there's nothing we can do i firmly believe

there's nothing we can do so we're just going to cross our fingers and just yeah yeah what else you're going to do should we fear aliens well what's the point but what's the point what's the point if it's going to happen it's going to happen and on that optimistic note i think it's a it's a classic case of fingers crossed eureka is a stack production presented by me rick edwards and dr michael brooks the production team is andrea lucia peters luke moore and charlie morgan sound designed by katie baxter special thanks to today's expert professor Professor Abbey Lowe, the Brooksy? Oh, don't make

me do that again. Go on. The Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. You just did so well. If you like the show, please subscribe and rate wherever you listen to your podcast. It does make a big difference. You can also find us on Twitter at EurekaPod. Thank you so much for listening to that.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Pete, I really have to ask you this because it's the only chance we're going to get to do so because normally you just flat back this kind of question away. If we are visited by aliens, what do you think? Will they be friendly to us?

Will they be angry? Will they be friendly? I've told you before, I don't want to talk about aliens, but luckily, Rick and Michael do. So if you want to talk about aliens but luckily Rick and Michael do so if you want to hear all about that

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I'm an alien. What? Nothing. I'm an alien. Eureka is a Stack production and part of the ACAST Creator Network.