This paper isn't exactly my best work, or on my choice of topics. The topic was suggested by my teacher, and the paper was written in a hurry. I know it seems like you've heard this excuse before, but you just wait until I finish my newest paper I'm working on, it's a scorcher.
Tom Acton
Geography 120
11/14/2000
When people speak of finding life in the universe, they usually are referring to, or at least speculating about, intelligent life, that despite the infinite ways in which a being can evolve, always resemble humans. They talk of flying UFO’s and alien abductions; they dream of making first contact in the ways the movies have portrayed. A more realistic scenario for finding life outside of our planet involves not ray-gun toting Martians but bacteria and viruses this world has yet to know. Some scientists fear that, just as Native Americans had no antibodies to fight small pox or other European diseases, and consequently suffered large-scale plagues, all humans might fall victim to a plague with its origins in another planet, or space itself.
Luckily, NASA is at least trying to get a handle on this potential threat. Though admittedly lax in the past, they currently have staff on hand whose sole job is to ensure that any samples being brought back to Earth are contained in such a manner as to ensure the safety of all the Earth’s creatures. The man in charge of the safety precautions, NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer, John Rummel, has a large weight on his shoulders as he is the first, and only, real line defense against intergalactic plagues, as NASA has a record of not taking the issue with much more than a grain of salt. His job is not only to create the safety guidelines for bringing back samples, but also to make sure NASA follows them. (Pendick)
The chances of a scenario in which mankind is threatened by a virus from another planet, akin to Michael Criton’s Andromeda Strain, taking place is very little, but far from nonexistent. The chances are still large enough to inspire NASA to go to great lengths to ensure that any samples that will be brought back from other planets (especially Mars, which will be the next celestial object to undergo close scrutiny by NASA). The rover which NASA is planning to use to collect samples from Mars will be capable of literally welding the containers filled with dust and rock closed. Even with their budget being cut repeatedly over the past years, NASA claims to spare no expense when it comes to sample containment and study. The complex in which they injected various types of animals with moon dust cost an alarming 100 million dollars. Even though the fish, mice, cockroaches, and birds exposed and inoculated with lunar particles underwent no illness, the cost is still appropriate and warranted.
It is not the talk of extraterrestrial bacteria that excites people though; no Martian virus is going to fulfill the fantasies that science fiction has created through the years. What people want to know is whether or not there exists intelligent life on other planets. Being as though planets in our own solar system appear to be devoid of life, scientists have begun to look farther into the depths of space to find their answers. To do so, scientists taking part in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) projects, have made use of some of the worlds largest telescopes in hopes of listening in on those that could prove to be our alien neighbors. For some forty years, researchers have pointed their radio telescopes to the heavens in hopes of catching any signal emitted from a civilization apart from our own. Currently, SETI has procured use of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and its thousand-foot-diameter dish. Apparently the 140-foot dish in West Virginia (capable of picking up on a cell phone call on Pluto) just wasn’t good enough. (Brown) SETI has developed the means of listening in on 28 million different frequencies at once, which gives them hope that, despite failure so far, someday extraterrestrial intelligence will make contact with we simple humans.
The SETI institute, not happy with the brief time they are allowed at the Arecibo Observatory is currently planning to erect a 10, 000 square meter radio antenna from consumer grade satellite dishes. The One Hectare Telescope, 1HT, for short, will cost only one third of that of a comparable government constructed dish in West Virginia. If the computing power needed to filter out the static that will be received by such a huge array of dishes can be created, the 1HT will be SETI’s most powerful tool in the search of intelligence in space. (Gibbs)
Some would argue that this search for radio signals is pointless, as obviously, aliens have already visited Earth, seemingly at their leisure. To these Close Encounters of the Third Kind buffs, the aliens are so far advanced technologically that they are capable of visiting Earth when they want, and will only be discovered when and if they want to be…unless some accident occurs, like the one in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Ever since that fateful day, July 8th, 1947, speculation has run amuck as to the possibility of a government cover-up regarding alien activity here on Earth, especially the crash of a UFO over the New Mexico desert. With UFO sightings gaining publicity in Washington state just two weeks before the crash, the timing for an alien cover-up conspiracy to take grip on the American public could not have been better.
A local paper in Roswell reported that a flying disk had been recovered after its crash by the 509th Bomb Group, stationed at Roswell Army Air Force Base, but then later printed the story quoting Air Force General Roger Ramey saying the “disk” was merely a weather balloon. (Alien Shipwreck) This change of stories did nothing to sway the public away from their belief that aliens had visited Earth. Not even the more recent claims by the Air Force that the “weather balloon” was actually a balloon intended to spy on Soviet nuclear testing can stop the speculation as to what really happened that night in Roswell. The Air Force still sticks the their guns as to the reality of the situation, and with the only people doing actual research into the topic being sensationalist writers and television producers bent only on making money, it is nearly impossible to argue against the Air Force’s claims with tangible, believable facts. In all likelihood, no aliens have crashed in our desert, or anywhere else on our planet anytime recently.
NASA has since closed their investigation into possible alien activities, being as though it was seen as a huge waste of money and had produced no results pointing at actual alien encounters. NASA does admit however, that there have been certain phenomena reported by astronauts that have gone unexplained, but according to NASA is still not considered “abnormal in the space environment.” (“What is…”) Unexplained but normal events sound to this man like an oxymoron personified and have understandably led some to believe that NASA has something they are not in too big of a hurry to disclose. Does this mean the existence of aliens? Who can know? Maybe someday NASA will come entirely clean about what they’re hiding, or find the answers they are looking for regarding these “unexplained phenomena” and the public will rest easily knowing they know all there is to know about the possibility of intelligent life visiting Earth, but as for now, we just can’t know.
At this point in time, there is no solid evidence that any alien civilization has made contact with earthlings anywhere. The odds are in favor, however, of the theory that somewhere there is life in this universe, be it in the form of a civilization or simple a cluster of bacteria deep under the surface of Mars. In a universe as seemingly endless as our own, one shouldn’t ask if there is life, but rather, “where is everybody?”
“Alien Shipwreck.” Discovery Online. Accessed 11/12/2000. http://www.discovery.com/area/roswell/roswell1.html
Brown, Irene. “Eavesdropping on E.T.” Discovery Online. Accessed 11/12/00. http://www.discovery.com/news/features/seti/intro.html
Gibbs, W. Wayt. “Field of Dreams.” Scientific American. May 1999
Pendick, Daniel. “The Real Men in Black.” Astronomy.com. Accessed 11/12/00. http://www.astronomy.com/content/dynamic/articles/000/000/000/113oolmk.asp
“What is the U.S. Government doing to investigate UFO’s?” NASA FAQ’s. Accessed 11/12/00. http://www.nasa.gov/quanda/nasa_internet.html