[0:00]Are we alone in the universe? The debate over the existence of extraterrestrial life has been raging for many, many years.
[0:10]>> Do you believe in flying saucers? Have you any convincing reasons why science fiction shouldn't one day become reality? >> For believers, there is no doubt alien
[0:21]life exists. They just can't quite prove it. The reason? alleged government coverups and concealment of closing counters in classified documents. But could the White House be about to blow
[0:32]the lid off the entire thing? US President Donald Trump has now ordered the release of government files on aliens and UFOs just days after former President Barack Obama said aliens are
[0:44]real. But is Trump himself a believer? >> Well, I don't know if they're real or not. I can tell you he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that. >> He made He made a big mistake. He took
[0:55]it out of classified information. No, I don't I don't have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it. >> Let's welcome Ali Loe. He's a Harvard astrophysicist and one of the world's
[1:07]most prominent voices on the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence. His most recent book is Interstellar, the search for extraterrestrial life and our future in
[1:18]the stars. It explores the scientific case for searching for life beyond Earth and why becoming an interstellar species might be important for humanity's
[1:28]future. Such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Let's dive right in. The US president says he wants alien and UFO files released because of public interest. Are you excited about this
[1:39]announcement? What would you hope these documents bring to light? >> Well, thanks for having me. Are we alone is the most romantic question in science
[1:50]and I'm very excited about it because maybe we will find a dating partner. You know my colleagues in astronomy are seeking microbes. Uh so you can either
[2:00]aim low finding a dating partner that is lower intelligence than you are or aim high finding someone more intelligent than us more accomplished than us
[2:10]because there were 13.8 8 billion years since the big bang. And just thinking that Elon Musk is the most accomplished space entrepreneur that was ever born over these 13.8 billion years is in my
[2:21]mind unreasonable. And so we should be open-minded to the possibility that they might arrive to our backyard because it takes less than a billion years to cross
[2:31]the Milky Way galaxy and most stars form billions of years before uh the sun. And and so what I'm hoping for is to check if the US government collected any data
[2:43]that is of scientific quality that can indicate that because they keep monitoring the skies, the oceans and you know that's not what my colleagues are
[2:52]doing. Uh you know astronomers are focused on very distant sources of light most of the time and so if there is something there I'm ready to help
[3:03]government to figure out what it means. You're of course a scientist and not a political commentator, but I do want to ask you whether the fact that the president right now is someone who has in many ways waged war on science in
[3:15]academia. Does that factor in here for you? >> Um I see it as an opportunity to perhaps
[3:25]learn something new. Um I don't get into politics. I think science is better than politics in in the way that science brings us together. If we discover that
[3:35]there is another species out there, my hope is it will bring people together. We spend $2.4 trillion dollars every year on military budgets worldwide just either to protect ourselves from others
[3:47]trying to kill us or to kill others. This seems to be very narrow-minded to, you know, thinking about the earth as a small rock that was left behind from the formation of the sun. There is far more
[3:58]real estate out there and we should be inspired if we find something beyond us. You know it uh I think it will bring humanity together. We will realize we are all in the same boat and the
[4:09]politics of the past will not be relevant anymore. So this is really why I believe science can bring us to a better place. >> Let's listen again to what kicked off
[4:19]this conversation. Here's former President Barack Obama speaking last weekend. >> Are aliens real? Uh they're real, but I haven't seen them. And and and uh
[4:30]they're not being kept in uh what is it? >> Area 51. >> Area 51. There there's no underground uh facility unless there's this enormous
[4:40]conspiracy and they they hid it from the president of the United States. >> Now Abby, after that, Barack Obama had to come out and clarify that he was referring to statistic probability of us
[4:51]not being alone in the universe. What do the numbers actually tell us? Well, there is something really clear here. Uh the US president is being
[5:02]briefed about things that are not fully understood by the intelligence agencies. And there are two possibilities. Either these are gadgets produced by adversarial nations. The US is not doing
[5:11]its job in protecting uh you know the the skies uh and in that sense it's an embarrassment and that's why much of this data may be classified. But um there is another possibility that maybe
[5:23]it's beyond this world. Uh and to figure it out, we really need access for scientists like myself to the data to see what it means. But it's clear that there are things that are not fully
[5:35]understood. And you know, government is the organization that monitors the sky all the time and the oceans and they may very well have found something. We just are not privy to that information. And
[5:45]if it's 50 years old, you know, some of this information, then there is no reason to keep it secret because the technologies 50 years ago are not relevant to the battlefield today.
[5:56]>> How disappointed would you be if these files were released heavily redacted like we've seen the US government do before?
[6:06]>> Um, I don't know. Let's uh hope for a better u kind of disclosure and I will do my best to help government figure out what they may have found. Uh you know
[6:16]it's a scientific matter that should be at the mainstream of science because the public cares a lot about this question and the public funds science and so I think it's inappropriate for academia to
[6:27]ignore this question and avoid dealing with it. We can use the tools of science to figure it out. Mhm. Just to be completely clear here, when scientists talk about life beyond Earth, what do
[6:36]they actually mean by life because it is a vast concept. >> Yeah. All we can do is use the experience we have on this earth and talk about life as we know it. But uh it
[6:48]may well be life as we don't know it. And by the way, we are creating AI agents right now that are in a way life as we don't know it because they are
[6:58]thinking differently. They have silicon chips. So that's an example. I mean, it may look like putting lipstick on a pig, trying to make these AI systems trained
[7:08]on our content, and they seem to be similar to us, but they're not really. Uh, you know, one day they might do something crazy cuz they're made of silicon chips, not flesh and blood. And
[7:20]who knows what the visitors from other stars look like, what how they think. Um and I think you know the best approach for a blind date uh and that is an
[7:30]advice that I give often to young people is to observe the the other side not to have a prejudice not to assume that you can guess what the other side is like
[7:39]just observe it and figure it out. >> Now in 2024 I believe it was that the Pentagon said it had found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology. But do
[7:49]we really need evidence of technology to proof extraterrestrial life? No. Um, well, we can, for example, find evidence for microbes uh in distant
[8:01]planets, for example, by the molecular fingerprints that they produce in the atmospheres. We can also potentially find living organisms in objects that
[8:12]arrive into the solar system from outside, such as the latest interstellar object 3i Atlas. there were organic molecules that were detected by the
[8:21]Spherex Observatory observing the u the plume of gas around it. So clearly it's possible in principle even to land on an interstellar object and check whether it
[8:32]has uh organisms on it uh microbes that survive the the journey. Uh but uh in principle technology is not a
[8:43]requirement for finding life. uh and microbes may be far more abundant than intelligent beings. Uh but we don't know what is easier to detect because if we
[8:54]for example find a gadget near earth and it has buttons on it, it's clearly not a natural object, not a rock, uh the only question that would arise is whether we should press a button.
[9:04]>> What would you do? I would I I actually asked student Yeah, I would because I'm curious, you know, but um I asked students in my class and
[9:15]half of them said they're worried about the implications so they will not press a button. Uh, you know, I would also take a one-way trip if a spacecraft were
[9:25]to land on Earth and uh I would be offered that because I'm quite frustrated by the geopolitics of today here on Earth >> and happy to take some risks in the name
[9:36]of science. I'm sure you have said it many times, the sky is not classified in and of itself. So, if signs of extraterrestrial life were to be discovered by scientists like yourself,
[9:47]would that information go to the Pentagon before it's made public? >> Um, I hope not because this this is not a national security matter. Anything
[9:58]that lies outside the the solar system uh is knowledge that should be shared with humanity at large. And by the way, I should make a statement about the scientific community. Whoever is
[10:10]dogmatic uh within the scientific community must be a mediocre scientist because a highquality scientist, a genuine scientist driven by curiosity
[10:21]knows how much we don't know. We don't know what most of the matter in the universe is. We don't know what most of the energy in the universe is. We call it dark matter, dark energy. We don't know whether we are alone. We should be
[10:33]humbled by our ignorance and be open-minded to discover new things. And of course, if you don't admit that, you can be dogmatic because you base everything you say on past knowledge.
[10:45]But the beauty of science is the ability to learn something new. And you know, usually we are engaged in exploring the known unknowns. These are things that we
[10:55]know that we don't know. But I'm most curious about the unknown unknowns. These are things that we don't even know that we don't know. H you say you're frustrated with the geopolitical state
[11:07]of this planet. How could our world be improved by the discovery of extraterrestrial life? >> Well, it first of all will teach us a sense of humility. You know, traditional
[11:18]religions talked about a divine entity God that is superior to humans. But then Fred Niche came along and argued in 1882
[11:27]that God is dead. And that gave a lot of people the hubris to think that we are at the top of the food chain uh you know of of the universe cosmologically. Uh
[11:37]and that's an illusion. And so if we find a a sibling in our family of intelligent civilization that is more accomplished than we are, it will bring
[11:46]a sense of humility to us. It's sort of the the traditional sense of oh that people who used to be religious had
[11:58]towards God except that is you know a another being uh it's sort of like a smart student in our class that we will admire uh and then we will try to
[12:08]emulate to imitate. So um uh we will try to visit their backyard if they come to visit our backyard. We will learn about new science and technology and it will
[12:20]change our religious and philosophical beliefs. Uh I don't expect the Vatican to put me in house arrest if I'm part of the discovery u because we we live at a
[12:30]different time right now. >> That was Harvard's Avi Lobe an advocate for interstellar dating and curiosity. Thank you so much for your insights today. For more on the story, I can
[12:41]speak now to Keith Cowing, editor of NASA Watch and a friend of DWS, of course. Keith, Trump wants to release files on aliens and UFOs. If you could dream up a scenario, what would we
[12:52]discover upon publication? >> Uh, well, not this. Okay. I always have this at hand just in, you know, I mean,
[13:02]it's the it's the question everybody wants to know. I mean, is life out there? And this question has been brought up before in 1996 when a meteorite supposedly had evidence of
[13:13]life from Mars. Then a few years back another president said, "Let's release all the UFO stuff." And so I don't know if there's anything left that has not been released. And to be honest with
[13:24]you, if we had discovered life from another world, you can't keep these scientists quiet. We we trust me. >> So no mind-blowing revelations coming
[13:35]our way. You're expecting pretty down to earth stuff then. >> Uh not this week, not next week. But you know at the same time, you know, at the same time I track at I have a website
[13:45]called astrobiology.com and I track this every day. And you know, we're getting closer to maybe answering the question. We've discovered stuff on Mars that you can't explain by nonbiological
[13:56]processes. Does that mean there's life there? Well, we haven't proven that, but it it's kind of perplexing. So, you know, will will this be somebody landing in a spaceship on the White House lawn?
[14:07]I don't think so. But might it be a chemistry that is indicative of life on another world? Maybe. >> But it is the UFO stories that have long
[14:17]gripped public imagination. How do you think the fantasy around alien life and flying saucers shapes expectations around disclosure?
[14:28]Well, you know, I I just turned 70 and as a boy back in the 60s, there was the Project Blue Book and it was a big deal back in the 60s. It, you know, it it speaks to, you know, if you look at the
[14:39]movies that are popular about, you know, either it's either evil aliens or being saved by good aliens. There is a, you know, sort of a need on people to want to know that like there's a Star Trek future, that there's something out there
[14:50]that's exciting, that's bigger than us. And you know, some people project those desires on things that they may see that they can't explain. And you know, it you know, for all I know, there's an alien
[15:02]parked in front of my house. I I don't see him or her or it. But you know, until you get proof of this, you're just speculating. And again, like I said,
[15:11]with the stuff on Mars, we have rovers there with chemistry that can test this. And we know that for a fact that something's going on there or went on there, but we don't know what. But it
[15:22]might be life. Sure could be life, but we haven't proven it's life. It's all about proof. >> Yeah. And the president is is selling this move as a way to put an end to speculation following these remarks by
[15:33]former President Barack Obama. What do you make of this decision? Is it a transparency initiative? Is it a political strategy? Is it a mix of both?
[15:43]What is he actually after by publicating these by publishing these documents? Well, if you listen to what he said on the Air Force One, first he said, "Oh, Obama shouldn't have talked about it.
[15:55]It's secret." And then, oh, let's tell everybody. I I don't know, you know, and and and again, this is the sort of thing that has been mined and looked at.
[16:04]Again, NASA has been asked nonstop for half a century to reveal everything, as has the Air Force. And all that's come out is a lot of we don't know. Uh a lot
[16:15]of smart people sit and think about this and it does prompt discussion but at the end of the day you know why is it that you know videos show up on YouTube seconds after things happen around the
[16:26]world and yet anytime we there's a UFO it's always fuzzy and you can't quite see it. What's what is it with that? >> That was Keith Cowing editor of NASA Watch. Thanks so much. Always great to
[16:38]have you on the program. >> My pleasure.