Signs of Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Signs of Extraterrestrial Intelligence

There are not yet any obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and this situation makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours always rush implacably, headlong, toward self-destruction.

There are many worlds on which life has never arisen and there are worlds that have been charred and ruined by catastrophes of cosmic proportions. We, on Earths, are fortunate: the welfare of our civilisation and our species is in our hands and we are still alive are powerful.

If we are not committed to our own survival, who will be? If we don’t speak for Earth, who will? Indeed, the human species in undertaking a great venture that if successful will be as important as the descent from the trees or colonisation of the land.

A day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this Earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars (H.G.Wells, The Discovery of the Future, Nature 65, 326. 1902). Illustration: Copyright © Megan Jorgensen

Today we are tentatively, haltingly breaking the shackles of Earth – metaphorically, of course, in confronting and taming the admonitions of those more primitive brains within us; physically, in listening for the messages from the stars and voyaging to the planets (the two enterprises are linked indissolubly and each is a necessary condition for the other).

Unfortunately, for the time being our energies are directed far more toward war. Which aspects of our nature will prevail in uncertain, particularly when our vision and understanding and prospects are bound exclusively to one small part of our planet. But we must understand the up there in the immensity of the Cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits us.

(Extract from The Rain, the famous SF novel by Elena and George)