The Missing Piece

Are Aliens the Answer to the World’s Mysteries?

L. D. Banks

I REFUSE TO BELIEVE ALIENS AREN’T OUT THERE. Despite there being little to no readily available evidence, surprisingly convincing conspiracy theories are everywhere. Although these theories provide me with momentary solace, they are, ultimately, without merit. Thus, I was delighted when I heard the United States Congress recently held a hearing into US government information regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).

This hearing is the result of Trump’s final sly stint in office as he attached a small subsection to a 2020 Covid Relief Bill, right before being removed from office. The bill detailed US intelligence organisations producing a report within 180 days, which was finalised in June of last year. This is particularly interesting for a number of reasons. Trump’s motivations for doing so are unknown, which is suspicious in itself, but the rushed nature of this decision and its significance, given the declassification of three US navy videos of UAPs only weeks prior. These aforementioned videos were washed over by Covid media coverage at the time (interesting…), but are confirmed to be UAPs. Although the navy has confirmed these objects were unidentifiable, we cannot be sure they are aliens. Another line of thinking is that they could be technologies developed by foreign adversaries, which if so, would be of great concern. This alternative almost makes less sense. If foreign powers have such technology, why have they not used it against America yet? There have been many disagreements that could have been settled with such technologies, even the war now in Ukraine.

Regardless of what the true story is, I’m a firm believer in transparency from the government. But unfortunately, the American government does not have a particularly good track record of transparency (think Snowden). Thus, I think it may be a very long time before we hear any news about aliens. It would be plausible to conclude that even if aliens have visited earth, and were even in contact with government officials, we may not hear for a very long time (which is very disappointing).

In absence of any further solid evidence, I find it fitting to discuss some of my favourite conspiracy theories. Firstly, Mars Gorillas. The following photo of the Martian landscape, discovered by NASA’s Curiosity rover, sparked debate in the world of conspiracy loonies. The picture which obviously depicts a large rock is claimed to be a martian whose form is that of a gorilla. This conspiracy is particularly close to my heart, as it is a constant reminder that when I feel intellectually inferior, some Americans are whole-heartedly convinced that this is a space gorilla. A slightly more convincing theory is the world leaders = reptiles theory. I find this one somewhat persuasive. The motivations of world leaders are clearly not aligned with those of the people, but I’m not sure, as much as I might say it, they are all slimy reptiles. This theory also encapsulates the world’s elite. Similar to the Illuminati, the theory states there is a collective of the world’s elite working to suppress the masses. That is what makes this theory so convincing, as many of the world’s problems come down to the greedy and corrupt decisions of world leaders. It seems almost intuitive that many of the conventions of politics are backward, yet there is no clear or logical reason why. 

You may have heard of the Fermi Paradox, which states that intelligent extra-terrestrial life is extremely likely to exist. Thus, there is a discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence and the high likelihood of its existence. The chain of reasoning is as follows;

• There are billions of sun-like stars, which are billions of years older than our sun.
• There is a significant probability that many earth-like planets orbit these stars in the habitable zone.
• Since these systems are so much older, they may have developed life billions of years ago.
• These civilizations may have developed interstellar travel, a step humans have nearly conquered in a short 50 thousand years.
• Even at the current slow pace of travel, the milky way could be completely traversed in a few million years.
• Since these civilizations may have had billions of years to do this, surely, they or their probes would have reached us by now.

Unfortunately, there is no publicly available convincing evidence that this has occurred. Thus, sadly, it remains speculation. I conclude with a final thought from Dennis Overbye’s 2015 New York Times article “If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now.”