hi i'm jill tarter and today we're going
to do some et support we'll talk about
life beyond earth
[Music]
first question comes from at john mcsuta
if you found intelligent life on another
planet would you tell the public the
truth or keep it a secret absolutely
no way we would keep this a secret john
we are going to tell the world it's just
not possible to keep this kind of thing
a secret and we don't intend to at korak
says extraterrestrial etiquette how
should humanity interact with alien
intelligence i have to say that although
we're really proud of ourselves and we
think that we are the pinnacle of
evolution the top dog on this planet if
someone else
can get from their star
to our planet they are in fact a lot
more technologically advanced i would
say the etiquette is we're going to play
by their rules
antonio paris says
why do we assume et uses radio to
communicate is seti a waste of time and
millions of dollars what do you think
well me i think obviously not that's
what i've spent my career doing trying
to answer this really really old human
question of are we alone in the cosmos
why do we use radio well we use radio
and optical wavelengths particularly
radio travels
across the very vast distances between
the stars in our galaxy without being
scattered or absorbed by the dust so at
least a piece the fairy paradox
mathematically the universe should be
teeming with intelligent life so why
don't we see extraterrestrial versions
in all directions really interesting
question the answer is we've hardly
begun to look let me give you an example
if that volume of space we need to
explore is equal to the volume
of all the world's oceans in 50 plus
years
we've observed
only about one hot tubs worth of the
ocean maybe it's not so surprising that
we haven't detected anything yet we need
to think in terms of cosmic times and
not human lifetimes before we decide
we're alone because we haven't found
anything at ellie maloney fick wants to
know should nato and the us military
develop planetary defense systems in
case of an extraterrestrial threat oh
come on get real i think what we should
develop a defense system against
asteroids near-earth objects rocks that
have our name on it and that in fact
could be big enough that a collision
with earth could be civilization ending
think about the dinosaurs
they didn't have a space program
if they had maybe they wouldn't be
extinct at jody scott info is math a
universal language to make contact with
another intelligence or is this just
anthropocentrism probably if you're
going to be
building any kind of transmitter or
receiver you need math so in that sense
it's universal but now we're thinking
the way that we express math may be
shaped by the very configuration of our
own human brains math may be universal
the function may be universal but it may
be that we will have a difficult time
understanding someone else's expression
of that math don't know love to have
that problem at rachel
847 nine nine nine seven four at what
year do you think we will discover
aliens if ever and rachel i can't answer
that question all i can say is that if
we don't search we won't succeed it's an
open question and one that i think
perhaps the 21st century will give us an
answer to at vinyl on tour aliens will
land on earth you have only five songs
to explain what music means to mankind
what songs would you choose oh well i
think the songs of my youth are probably
totally alien to to you rather than
songs i might go with bach because i
think that is just the most beautiful
music we've ever created um johnny b
good that was on the voyager golden
record as well as as box so music is a
personal taste um i'd send bach and i'd
brag at
a carboni we assume aliens look
different from us what if their
intelligence is unrecognizable how do
you give them an iq test think about how
are we going to interact with them are
we detecting deliberate messages in
optical or radio wavelengths that
they've sent us are they here
looking us in the face that's going to
determine how we interact with them if
they can get here they're a lot smarter
than we are you can forget the test
we'll just follow their rules at skip's
abs even if there is other intelligent
life in the universe is our civilization
even worth contacting yeah i suspect we
are uh we're doing a lot of things that
are maybe not the wisest
but we are
us
we are different than they are i think
the most
interesting thing in the universe
might be
how diverse the laws of physics and
chemistry can make
life
how many different ways
can evolution end up producing creatures
that are intelligent technological even
microbial how many different ways can
you make life that might be
the biggest question of the cosmos and
one that they'll be interested in
finding out what happened here at bobby
wants to know did u.s fighter pilots see
a ufo
i don't know i've seen those videos too
i don't know what they are i don't know
whether the equipment which was in fact
quite new
um was behaving properly all i can say
is that there's no evidence
that indicates that that's spacecraft
from another intelligent species more
than likely we have
some problems with our own equipment
it's going to take more than that to
prove
that aliens are here at will mckim how
much do we think all this recent ufo
news is prepping the public for a
discussion of actual contact i think
that like many things
our interest in this question
is cyclical we get really hyped up about
it somebody makes a claim
people discuss it and then after a while
the kardashians do something else and we
lose interest what if we are the aliens
that we seek and earth was once
populated by a much more intelligent
life force until we destroyed it well
think about that the planet is really
quite active about the oldest rocks we
can find are
a little bit more than four billion
years old and the planet we think formed
about four and a half billion years ago
now these rocks produce the stones
called zircons and the zircons sometimes
have inclusions that have biological
ratios of light carbon to heavy carbon
so we're thinking maybe life went back
that far but we don't find any huge
trash heaps
we don't find any evidence of foundries
or
large structures or roads let's just say
we don't see any evidence for that
intelligence is proportional to the
number of thoughts we can simultaneously
call and hold in our minds as we explore
new ideas so what would we look like to
an alien species who could juggle 10 or
20 times as many thoughts
as our smartest human we wouldn't look
very intelligent would we we have to ask
questions not in our language but in
their language we have to try and
interact with non-human intelligence in
ways that they perceive and we're
beginning to do a little bit of that
with whales and with dolphins and with a
number of other species we can actually
understand
that prairie dogs
standing up in the field are saying to
one another hey there's the big guy over
there in the yellow sweater he's back
other intelligence is going to have to
speak to us in our language if
we're going to have any ability to
communicate at gd bassett thought
experiment if rai could lead to an
existential threat and there may be
other intelligent life in the universe
what about their ai yeah good question i
think it's quite likely that what we
will encounter is their artificial
intelligence it can
be propagated in so many different ways
between the stars as we built artificial
intelligence and hopefully as they built
their artificial intelligence they're
going to be constraints that build in to
the structure goals that remain
consistent with goals that we have for
ourselves if it's rogue
game over what is the organizing
principle behind intelligent life whoa
what a question
we can't define intelligence what we
have done to make progress in this field
is to use technology as our proxy for
intelligence so if we detect evidence of
someone else's technology out there we
will assume
that at some time
there was an intelligent entity that
created the technology best we can do at
z sha if there's a new planet
who'll own the real estate will nasa get
into the property development business
great question we have confirmed over 4
000 other planets around other stars the
question of who owns them who can mine
them is
you know a work in progress the un
treaty of the outer space says that it
is possible
to benefit from
an extra
terrestrial body
without owning it that no one owns it
basing this metal law if you wish on the
law of the seas no one owns the ocean
but people can in fact salvage and fish
and benefit from the oceans
that's kind of the playing field that
we're dealing now with extrasolar bodies
it's
a work in progress
we'll see how it plays out at code is
broken oh yeah my code usually is if
aliens exist who could be far far older
than humanity and have used similar
comms text to us
how come we've not heard a thing because
the cosmos is pretty damn big we're
talking about signals here for
communication maybe
we need to look for something else maybe
we're doing an absolutely exquisite job
and looking for just the wrong thing
maybe we haven't figured out that the
thing that intelligent advanced
societies use to communicate
is zeta rays
and we haven't discovered them yet at
k-8 mommy lisa what if they are trying
to communicate but we just don't realize
it yet yes
absolutely what if they're using some
technology
some physics that we haven't yet
invented
we could be missing a signal the only
strategy
is to stay around
long enough so that we get smart enough
that we invent the technology and then
we can find the signal at captain fish
mugs do aliens have belly buttons yes
well that's a good question i'd love to
know the answer to that we look at
various forms of life on this planet not
all of them have belly buttons
so it's possible that aliens don't
either at et exists oh i like that when
will we hear from e.t and there are lots
of hashtags here i don't know the answer
to that question i don't know if et is
out there
i think it's likely the universe appears
to be relatively bio-friendly we know
about lots of planets around other stars
we now know about lots of life forms on
this planet that exist in extreme
extreme for us environments there's a
chance
and the only way that we'll know is to
look and when
can't answer that question talk to my
great granddaughter she may have an
answer for you that was et support
that's what i know and mostly what i
don't know but i'm looking forward to
learning more with all of you