SETI’s Catch-22: Part Two.

I would have to assume, that ET, from the first visit, all those years ago (thousands, millions, even billions of years ago) wouldn’t have tagged Planet Earth as just another hunk of planetary debris, unworthy of any ongoing interest. From the get-go, Planet Earth would have showed unusual traits – an atmosphere, not so much; a lithosphere, not so much; a hydrosphere, yes indeed, very much; but especially a biosphere, very, very, very much.

If ET has any scientific curiosity worthy of the name, same as our SETI scientists are curious about ET, then Planet Earth would not only be routinely tagged and entered into the alien’s database, but uniquely tagged as an abode worthy of an advanced rate of follow-up visitations. We would be monitored, maybe not 24/7, but more frequently than once every 450,000 to 45,000 years.

But even if that interval had been maintained, well that puts visitations well within the range of the time when modern humans were already established as the future if not already the dominant lords and masters of Planet Earth. By Jove our ET neighbours would be certainly stepping up surveillance of this development. They’d obviously want to keep tabs on whether or not our intelligence might ever prove to be a threat to their intelligence, for just as Planet Earth can not hide from the scrutiny and surveillance of ET, so to ET can not hide from ours, once we start to boldly go.

So, ET radio transmissions good; but ET visitations bad! I don’t think so, and any SETI scientist who suspects otherwise is akin to the proverbial ostrich’s head surveying that sand dune.

Translated, any ET with smarts who knows about us from visitations millennia ago; millions of years ago, would be here now keeping a watchful eye on us. Sorry SETI scientists, UFOs are a logical outcome of this scenario, and if you fail to see this, well, you’re in a Catch-22 situation; you’re between a rock and a hard place!

SETI is in a Catch-22 because on the one hand SETI scientists cannot reject ETI here at the same time searching for and accepting the presence of ETI out there when both possibilities are equally plausible. SETI scientists cannot search for ETI out there, yet refuse to search for ETI locally when the evidence for both is technically the same. SETI scientists say there’s no evidence (or poor evidence) for ETI here – yet there’s (to date) no evidence (or poor evidence) for ETI out there, yet they stake their professional careers on ETI out there and rubbish ETI here. How so the rubbishing?

Of course the SETI scientists counter that each of the threads of ETI having been then or now on Earth are weak-in-the-knees when it comes to solid evidence. Roswell is weak; UFO abduction cases are weak; the UFO conspiracy or cover-up case is weak; UFO photographs and videos are weak; UFO radar cases are weak; the case for von Daniken’s ancient astronauts is weak; the ghost rocket sightings (1946) are weak; contactee claims are especially weak; UFO eye-witness reports are unreliable, etc. But, put them (and much more besides) all together and like all good detective stories combine/integrate all the clues into one composite whole (after separating out the wheat from the chaff and eliminating the red herrings) then the whole is more than the sum of the parts. You get a consistent pattern that emerges; not the radio signal patter-of-little-dots-and-dashes the SETI scientist wants but a nuts-and-bolts and a here-and-now pattern.

Now admittedly any one of a hundred different and independent threads might in itself be not all that convincing, but then all 100 are woven together – that’s a different duck of another colour. It’s like if it looks like a duck – it may not be a duck. If it flies like a duck – it may not be a duck. If it walks like a duck – it may not be a duck. If it swims like a duck – it may not be a duck. If it quacks like a duck – it may not be a duck. But if it looks, flies, walks, swims and quacks like a duck – then it’s a duck!

But there’s another quirk on the part of SETI scientists; the ultimate Catch-22: As already noted, SETI scientists in general are on record as stating that there’s “poor” or “crummy” evidence overall for the rival UFO ETH or ‘ancient astronauts’ and as such, are topics not worthy of a SETI scientist’s time and presumably that of any physical scientist or indeed any scientist full stop. Yet the evidence collected for ETI out there in the depths of interstellar space in traditional SETI-land, 50 years plus on, is equally as poor whether there is one SETI “WOW” signal (as usually highlighted in SETI books) or a 1000 SETI mini-wow signals of unknown origin, but strongly suspected to have ultimate terrestrial origins. SETI scientists have come no closer to providing the ETI ‘smoking gun’ as has Erich Von Daniken [‘ancient astronauts’] or Stanton Friedman [UFO ETH].

At best that’s an attitude or a philosophy that is inconsistent at best and perhaps a contradiction at worst within the SETI community. In fact, it’s a downright double standard. If I were a young scientist just starting out, would I consider SETI? Probably not because there’s so little evidence of such poor quality that’s emerged over five long decades that I’d think I’d probably be wasting my time and throwing my career away. So, whether it’s SETI or UFOs or ‘ancient astronauts’ it’s all equally piss-poor evidence, but at least it’s a level, playing field. It’s still quite plausible that an amateur UFO buff or an archaeologist may yet scoop SETI to the ETI punch.

My ultimate conclusion and recommendation to those between the irresistible force and the immoveable object is to not put all your SETI eggs in the EM basket.