The Infinite Monkey Cage - Extraterrestrial Life

Episode Date: December 7, 2009

Series in which physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince take a witty, irreverent and unashamedly rational look at the world according to science. Robin and Brian are joined by alien abduction expert Jon Ronson and Seth Shostack from the SETI Institute in California to discuss science conspiracies, UFOs and the search for ET.

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For more information, visit bbc.co.uk slash radio 4. Welcome to The Infinite Monkey Cage, the show that mixes science and rationality, although it may meander a bit. I'm Brian Cox and I understand the pomeron. Well, I'm Robin Ince and I'm sometimes, in fact, frequently confused by the gender-swapping nature of the slipper limpet.

Coming up on The Infinite Monkey Cage this week, we'll be discussing the possibility of intelligent life beyond our solar system, the search for signals from alien civilizations, and we'll be imagining what they might make of us. And if they decide to pay us a visit, how would they get here? It was triangular in shape, a fairly bright luminous grey-green, and one of the oddest things about what we saw was the way this object, whatever it was, was following our flight absolutely perfectly, as if it were flying in formation.

The truth behind UFOs, alien visitations and some other great conspiracy theories. Helping us separate the science fact from the science fiction, we've got two extra primates inside the monkey cage today. Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer with the SETI Institute in California, whose job is to search for intelligent life beyond our planet, and a filmmaker and author who's made his reputation covering some of the more peculiar beliefs out there,

from examining David Icke's obsession with lizards ruling the world to looking at alien abductions with Robbie Williams to the US Army's attempts at psychic warfare in his book, now film, The Men Who Stare at Goats, John Ronson. Hello. By the way, I have to ask you, John, first of all, we won't talk about David Icke any more, because that was one of your more famous early documentaries.

Does he believe that the lizard's stroke reptiles are from another planet, or indeed, where is their original location? Well, he always contended that they were giant Anunnaki lizards from, I believe, the lower fourth dimension, child-sacrificing, paedophile, blood-drinking lizards who secretly ruled the world. What I really liked was the fact that all the people on our side of the fence, like the Anti-Defamation League and various anti-racist groups,

were convinced that when David Icke said giant blood-drinking child-sacrificing lizards, he was using code, and what he really meant was Jews rule the world, to which David Icke said, no, I really mean lizards, to which they said, that's code too. So that's what I love about that particular story, that the crazier the people on the fringes get, the crazier our response is towards them.

On more scientific matters, Seth Shostak, you work for the SETI Institute, which stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Could you briefly describe what that is and how we go about searching for signs of alien civilizations. Well, sure. In fact, this is what's called the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence, because there are plenty of people who are looking for the aliens, as you've already alluded to, right here on planet Earth. We're not doing that. We're

trying to find them at home by eavesdropping on signals, just what Jodie Foster did in the movie Contact. And so we wield these big antennas, radio telescopes. We point them at nearby stars. We try and pick up on signals that might be headed our way from somebody else. Simply on the basis of the fact that even we, only 100 years after really inventing radio or perfecting radio, we can already make transmitters that could reach the stars with their signals, very strong signals at the distances of the stars. This was realized half a century ago. So some people said, look, if there are other societies out there that are at least as clever as the, you know, the residents

of Clapham Junction or something, they may be broadcasting signals that are washing over us all the time. Why not look for them? And that's the fundamental premise of this experiment. Seth, what makes us think there is intelligent life out there? Well, I think it just boils down to the numbers, Robin, really nothing more than that. I mean, on the basis of data that astronomers have accumulated in, say, the past dozen years, now you can say that the number of planets in our Milky Way galaxy is on the order of a trillion. That's a million million, right? So if only one in a million of those guys is somewhat like the Earth with liquid oceans and, you know,

thick atmospheres and all the salubrious ingredients that might lead to something as clever as you are, then that still leaves a million planets in our galaxy. And if you don't like your fellow galaxians, hey, there are 100 billion other galaxies we can see with our telescopes, and they each have a similar number of planets. So just on the basis of the numbers alone, no matter what else you think, it seems rather likely we're not the only game in town. John, do you think the human race could stand the narcissism,

you know, if we suddenly find out we're not the only child of the universe? What always makes me laugh, one of the things that UFO believers say is the reason for the great worldwide UFO cover-up is that, you know, the governments think we just couldn't handle it. Like in The Simpsons, we'd throw television through windows we'd just start running. But of course, if we found out,

I mean, I think we found out there was an alien living among us, we'd just be pitiably thrilled, wouldn't we? John, I mean, Robin is grasping his way towards a sensible question here slowly because there is a feeling amongst many people that the aliens are already here and they'll hear us discussing with Seth

the idea of looking for civilisations. Many people would say, we know they're there because we've seen UFOs. I know you speak to a lot of these people in your professional life. I mean, what's your feeling on that subject? And what's your feeling on these people who absolutely are clear that they've seen aliens?

Well, in fact, I did this thing quite recently with Robbie Williams where we went off to a hotel in Laughlin, Nevada to meet alien abductees. And he said something very interesting at the end of that day, which was that, you know, well, you may think that they haven't, and maybe they haven't, but they really, really think that they have. And I thought that was a fascinating question, and I don't actually know the answer to it

unless there's some kind of shared delusion. But what is that thing about repressed memory, where they've done a lot of looking into the idea that people suddenly at the age of 30 go, I've just remembered when I was eight this happened to me. And from what I can gather from psychiatrists, they go, it is actually very unlikely that if you have a major event where you do actually go to another star system where you're repeatedly probed,

you'll still have an inkling of that. It doesn't just suddenly go, oh, do you know one of the things I forgot recently? Milk and my abduction. Seth, what's your opinion on that? Well, I tell you, I hear from people every day, of course, who are having difficulties with aliens in their personal lives. And so, you know, I'm not qualified to investigate this, but a lot of people have. And the matter of abduction, in fact, is generally attributed to something called sleep paralysis. And, you know, this is just, everybody experiences this,

or at least a lot of people do, where you sort of wake up and your body is kind of frozen. You can't move at first when you wake up. Your body does this so you don't fall out of the top bunk of a bunk bed, for example. But sometimes you wake up and it hasn't shut that mechanism off. And at that point, very frequently, people will imagine somebody standing next to the bed and so forth and so on. So some studies have shown that this is responsible for the alien abduction scenario.

There is an interesting question lurking in here, though, isn't there? Because our galaxy has been around for, well, let's say, 8 billion years, 9 billion years. The Milky Way galaxy, 10 billion years. There are a lot of star systems there. There should be extremely advanced civilizations. So the question of why they haven't developed interstellar travel and come to visit us is actually a good one. It needs addressing, doesn't it? Well, it is a legitimate point.

I mean, whatever else you want to say about the UFO phenomenon, the fact that so many people think that we are being visited, I mean, it doesn't violate physics. You're quite right, Brian. I mean, you know, there's been plenty of time, and even with slow rockets of the type that we can manufacture, it would be violate physics. You're quite right, Brian. I mean, you know, there's been plenty of time and even with slow rockets of the type that we can manufacture, it would be possible, it would be very tedious, but it would be possible

to go from one star system to another. So it doesn't violate physics, and if it doesn't violate physics, then you have to at least say, well, okay, you claim that the aliens have landed in the backyard. Let's at least look at the evidence. Yeah, that's a legitimate thing to say. Well, we're joined now by our reporter, because we've got a reporter, that's a legitimate thing to say. Well, we're joined now by our reporter,

because we've got a reporter, because we're professional, Tracey Logan. You've looked at this. You've looked at the possibilities for building interstellar rockets, knowing what we know now. Yeah, and it was all kind of sparked off by the fact that the National Archives

have declassified their UFO files. You know, for decades, people who have seen unidentified flying objects over Britain have been writing to the Ministry of Defence, and now those letters are declassified. And, I mean, you know, you have all different sorts of aircraft and glowing lights and things that have been spotted, and I just wondered, OK, thought experiment for Monkey Cage, what would an alien spaceship look like

that had travelled to Earth across interstellar space? And would any of the shapes of those crafts look anything like the sightings we Earthlings have seen? Back in the late 70s, Roger Harbin was one of three pilots in the cockpit of a British Airways flight into London who had a close encounter they'll never forget. We were flying over northern France. It was late in the evening and dark,

and above us, very slightly in front and to the right of us, we saw this object which we could not identify. It was triangular in shape, a fairly bright luminous grey-green, and one of the oddest things about what we saw was the way that this object, whatever it was, was following our flight absolutely perfectly, as if it were flying in formation. Captain Harbin isn't alone in his UFO sighting. Many pilots see them.

But was he as an alien spacecraft or something else? Was it even the right shape for interstellar travel? Hi, I'm Robert Frisby, recently retired from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I've been working in the area of advanced space propulsion for 30 years and during that time I've done quite a bit of government-funded science fiction looking at way out advanced propulsion systems. There are no flying saucers or even shimmering green triangles on Dr Frisbee's drawing board, but three likely options for spacecraft travelling at half the speed of light when trips to or from infinity and beyond become more practical.

Aliens may already possess such craft, all giants by Earth standards. The first one is a matter-antimatter rocket, where you take subatomic particles and react them, then focus with a magnet to produce useful thrust. The antimatter rocket is basically shaped like a very, very long needle, thousands of kilometers in length. The second option would be to use a solar sail that's pushed by a very powerful laser. The sail itself is just a very thin circular sheet of aluminum metal. So imagine a sail a thousand kilometers in diameter coming towards us. The third option is the Bussard Interstellar Ramjet. The basic idea is to take hydrogen from interstellar space and compress it down using this huge funnel to such high It's about half the diameter of the Earth,

but its length is almost twice the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Very large structures, but that's the nature of the problem of trying to go half the speed of light. The waste products released by alien spacecraft could be used as an early warning system by Earth's astronomers. They're processes, says Robert Frisbee, that could help confirm aliens heading our way in outer space. Perhaps a more practical system, the National UFO Hotlines, like the one Britain's Ministry of Defence closed down just last week. Still, they said they were only interested in

enemy aliens of a terrestrial kind, anyway. Very interesting, and they're Dr Frisbee, and one of the childish things is Brian Cox is meant to be a professional physicist, and yet when he heard the name Dr Frisbee, he found that funny, the fact that he was involved. It is a happy coincidence, his name, and that he studies things which some people might regard as generally flying saucers,

but he doesn't actually look into flying saucers. Thank you very much, Tracy Logan. Now, John, as you were saying earlier on, you went out to Nevada with Robbie Williams, where you met people who believe they may well have been abducted. Did you go UFO watching at all? Have you ever experienced something that you believe is beyond explanation?

No, unfortunately. I've never seen a UFO. I've never seen anything that could possibly be a UFO. You know, obviously, my big question, and it's everyone, every sceptic's big question, is if aliens, you know, live among us and UFOs fly around, why do they always reveal themselves in ambiguous ways? And I asked Robbie Williams that question, and he said,

well, I think they're there all the time, but once in a while the shield of invisibility accidentally comes off and they just reveal themselves for a few seconds. I've never bought that, you see, because the technology is utterly wonderful, clearly. You can fly across interstellar distances and the notion that it occasionally fails, revealing them for a moment,

or that they try to wipe your memory and don't do it very well after all the probing that they've done and understanding of human anatomy. Honestly, I think if they were here, and I agree with John on this, the evidence would not be ambiguous, right? The Spaniards in 1492 did not sail to North America and then just sort of tease the Indians by sailing back and forth

three miles off the coast for 62 years while the Indians debated on late-night radio. Do you think we're being visited by Europeans or not? I mean, the evidence was completely unambiguous. Half the Indians were dead within 30 years because of diseases. You know, they were enslaved by the Europeans and so forth. Well, I think that the evidence would be down on Exhibition Road if, in fact, we were being visited.

Yeah, I mean, for me, the real mystery and the magic of all of this is the magic of the human brain. I mean, there's a wonderful story about an RAF pilot in the 90s who flew over a field and then a few seconds later turned around and flew back again. And in those few seconds, an enormous crop circle had formed. It was the most intricate crop circle ever. It was called the Julia set and conferences.

And it really kind of regalvanised the entire Crop Circle gang, you know, who'd been sort of dying off, and everyone was, like, so excited, you know, that this Crop Circle had just formed, you know, for no reason, and T-shirts were printed and conferences were organised. And, of course, the real mystery is why had the pilot failed to spot it on his way over the field the first time,

because it had definitely been made the night before by a bunch of conceptual artists with a plank and some string. So to me, that's the mystery of it. Seth, what's interesting here is around the table, we don't seem to be able to separate a scientific discussion from comedic rants about conspiracy theories. And this is a problem, isn't it, for this field of study, for what is actually

a profound question that needs to be asked and we should try to answer. Well, you know, people are of various minds about that, Brian, at least my colleagues. Some of them think that we have to do everything in our power to distance ourselves from, for example, the UFO phenomenon, because that's not what we're doing. But on the other hand, you know, from the public's point of view, remember that the UFO phenomenon, it's not a fringe phenomenon. In the United States, one third of the public believes we're being visited. In the UK, that fraction is one third. It's the same. Also, Japan, Australia, the rest of Europe, it's, you know, almost half the population believes there's some truth to this. So it's not a fringe phenomenon. And so people who are

interested in this, because what could be more interesting than to think that we're sufficiently scintillating that the aliens want to come here and haul you out for those experiments that you always hoped you'd be hauled out for in high school. I mean, that clearly is going to be confounded with the search for signals that would

prove that the aliens are out there. Even though we think that they're different enterprises altogether, from the public's point of view, they're not so different. Funny, in the 60s and 70s, obviously, I think there was a lot more excitement amongst the public about space, the space race had begun, and everyone wanted to be an astronaut. People don't want to be astronauts, nearly as much as they used to. When I was a child, astronaut was one of the main dreams,

astronaut or zookeeper or zookeeping astronaut. And one of the most fabulous things that happened in the mid to late 70s was the golden record, our message to possible alien civilizations and it has an incredible eclectic mix of things on it. Seth, what was your thoughts on sending up this? It has music, it has images, our position in the universe hopefully mapped out. Well, the Pioneer plaques, which were the predecessors to that, and that was just a greeting card glued onto the side of these Pioneer spacecraft,

the Pioneer 10 and 11. But the Voyager record was a follow-up to that, indeed, and it was far more comprehensive. Lots of pictures, lots of information. I think that's a good thing to do, not that it'll ever be found. These things are the size of VW Beetles. You're never going to find them in the depths of space. They're not aimed at any particular stars. They're just wandering. But it's a great exercise to ask yourself, if we ever do come in contact with

other beings, you know, what are you going to say to them? Commander Zagord. Ah, Zimzmabzozab. We have recovered a data storage device from the crashed space vehicle. Can you retrieve the data? Commander, this device is a primitive one. The information is contained within a groove etched onto the surface of this golden disk and can be retrieved only by placing a tiny pointed object in the groove and rotating the disc. It seems we will never retrieve the data from this primitive disc.

Unless... Commander, with our flat circular heads and rotating necks... Yes? What do you... You are right! Put the disc on your flat rotating head. Like this? Yes, yes, you see? The hole fits perfectly over your Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, Zab, trousers down and place my mighty trudge nail in the groove. Of course, your trudge nail fits

exactly in the groove. Commander, is it possible that this is how the disc is meant to be played? Yes. Now rotate your head. As if scanning the horizon for flying reptiles? Yes. Good, good. That is it. Fascinating. This piece's music is advanced, unlike anything we've heard before. And now I will slap my zumbles together. Commander, this dope is the bomb. Yeah, boy!

John, if by some horrendous mistake, I suppose, you were put in charge of the message to the alien civilisations, what would you put on it? I mean, it sounds funny, but it is a difficult choice. It would be a sort of apology, I suppose. We say we really, really tried our best and our intentions were good, but unfortunately our brains went wrong. An apology.

By the time you receive this, we are more than likely already extinct. Thank you very much for your interest. I was laughing partly at the comedy of the sketch and partly at the look of pain on Seth's face. But I think when you do finally hear from them, they might well sound like that. I'd be surprised, but yeah.

But Seth, the very British answer to what would we send out into the cosmos is an apology. You, being an American, probably wouldn't apologise immediately. What would you think was the correct message to send out and what would we do if we decided to do that now? Well, I think one of the problems is to assume that the message has to be very short, that somehow we only have, you know,

one sheet of paper on which to put the message, so what are we going to do? And then we, you know, sort of beat ourselves up about what would be the right thing to send, you know, one record, whatever it is. I mean, if you're going to send a message into space, if you're going to use some big transmitter somewhere, you know, and just beam to the stars, why not send a lot of information?

There's a much better chance that they can figure some of it out if you send a lot. The Rosetta Stone, you know, at least had a lot of text. I mean, it helped. So I don't worry too much about the content. But ask yourself, what would you, if we suddenly got in touch with some aliens, what would you ask them? I mean, you'd probably ask, well, what do you look like? What's your world like? Do you have religion? Do you have music? Some questions like that, I suppose.

I'd say, what's the origin of mass in the universe? But there we go. I'm a particle physicist. That's to aliens. That's to anyone that he bumps into in any canteen. And then they'd short-circuit your career by sending you 5,000 reprints of advanced physics. That's what I'd ask them for their pre-print server. My one fear, what you were talking about, Seth, is about the fact that we are sending out signals. And there is, in fact, again, we keep talking about contact, but that is used in contact. The opening sequence is the signals of radio and television going out across the universe, and therefore any aliens who might be initially interested,

once they pick up some of the programmes, especially television programmes that are coming out of us now, may well change their mind. So they're listening to the 1950s and the 1960s, they're excited by the ascent of man and Kenneth Clarke's civilisation, then they hit Loose Women and I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, and they might go, turn our signals off, we don't want to be found by these idiots.

Well, what they'll think when they watch current programmes is that the world is populated by people who are mentally ill in just the right sort of entertaining way. Seth, do you think, as Carl Sagan often wrote, that the interest in the existence of life on other planets shows that everybody has a sense of wonder about the universe? It's one of the great questions. And the problem with our civilization

is that that sense of wonder is not channeled very well. It seems to get channeled into an explosion of conspiracy theories. Well, no, I think people are hardwired to be interested in the possibility of alien intelligence in the same way you're hardwired to be interested in predators. There's survival value in it. But let me point out something here. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence

is almost exclusively an American endeavor. And I would ask you why that is, because that's a cultural problem, I think. All of Europe could do this, Asia as well, many countries in Asia, and yet it's still an American project. And to me, that's very puzzling. John, do you find that when you work in America and you interview the conspiracy theorists or the

just interesting people in America, is there a real cultural difference in asking and trying to answer these questions? Oh, yeah, very much so. I mean, you know, the biggest difference I saw, in fact, was when I was writing The Monasteric Goats, that the American military had the self-imposed mandate to journey to the furthest corners of their imagination to kind of try stuff out. And quite often the stuff that they tried out was nonsense, like trying to learn how to become invisible, which after a while they downgraded to just trying to find a way of not being seen, which eventually turned into camouflage. But they were kind of unashamed to do this stuff because they figured that, you know,

on our way to the impossible we might find something wonderfully doable. Do you know, that thought could sum up what I think about the endeavour of science. On the way to the impossible, we might find something eminently doable. I might take that as a motto

converted into Latin. Well, maybe science and pseudoscience aren't so far away from each other then. Oh, no! I just saw Brian's face. That is the interesting thing. If that's what we've reached, this show has led us to that point. That might be the point to sum up on. Seth, if I was to give you one final message to the listeners

about the value of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence in one second or so? What would it be? Well, you're a member of the first generation that could do this, so let's try. Seth Shostak, John Ronson, thank you very much. Well, last week we asked you to get in touch with your thoughts on the meaning of our title, Infinite Monkey Cage. This is the first answer that I saw. Monkeys and cages are both defined by their physical form. Both must have an edge, and so neither can be infinite.

Their form is defined by their finiteness. Maybe your show is just theoretically impossible. An excellent answer, I thought. My favourite was based on the fact that he appears to portray scientists as being willing to cage monkeys for no good reason. I think the clue is in the use of the word infinite rather than finite. Does an infinite cage have a boundary? So if you would like to send in more of your ideas

of what infinite monkey cage means, please do. Goodbye. If you've enjoyed this programme, you might like to try other Radio 4 podcasts, from Friday night comedy and daily drama from the archers to a range of news, discussions and documentaries. For a full list of available podcasts, visit bbc.co.uk slash radio4.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating wendys until may 5th terms and conditions apply in our new podcast nature answers rural stories from a changing planet we are traveling with you to uganda and ghana to meet the people on the front lines of climate change we will share stories of how they are thriving using lessons learned from nature.

And good news, it is working. Learn more by listening to Nature Answers wherever you get your podcasts.