UFOs, Aliens, Area 51, and arguments from Ignorance
Let's begin with stating some answers/questions. The first is whether or not there is life in the universe aside from Earth life? We would have to honestly answer: probably. I can recall some finds on meteorites that seemed to have fossilized single cell organisms on them, but I do not remember if those finds were confirmed or validated. However, it seems unlikely given the scope of the Cosmos, with a materialistic outlook, that this planet is the only place with life in or on it.
The next question should be obvious: is there intelligent life in the universe other than on this planet. Again, probably. The answer is the same for the same reasoning. Without adopting both a unique and privileged place in the universe it would be impossible to rule out the possibility that there are other intelligent life forms somewhere in the great sky of the universe.
The last question: has intelligent life visited this planet? This answer is more distinct: extremely doubtful. There are a number of reasons for this. The first is the reasoning for the answers for the first two questions: the Cosmos is a big place, and it would take light years to get here from anywhere else. It's also unlikely that such a trip would contain no distinct evidence, no clear proof, of that visit. Since the beings would be able to travel here from their homes it's unlikely they would just abandon this planet. There are a number of reasons to accept that there has been no visit here by extra-terrestrial intelligence.
I guess there is one more question: do UFOs exist? Yes, based on the literal words of the term "Unidentified Flying Object."
Often times conspiracists like to use a lack of evidence as proof of some kind of nefarious plot. We don't know what goes on at secret government installations so there must be something bad happening there. However lack of information does not allow us to fill in whatever our heart desires because there is no counter proof. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the onus of proof is on the assertion. If I claim that there is some kind of alien base on the far side of the moon, I have to show it. I cannot rely on the lack of visibility from Earth as being the evidence.
The most non-political example of this concerns aliens and "Area 51." Officially, Area 51, is a USAF base in the Nevada desert. The moniker comes from the Atomic Energy Commission though there is some debate as to how this happened. If an unauthorized person wanders on to the base, they can be immediately arrested or even shot. This however, is not proof of anything, try wandering on to any military installation without the proper authorization and see what happens. Area 51 is unique in that there is a high level of classification with regard to the base. For decades the government wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of it (this even caused the military to back out of advising 1996's Independence Day as the movie's second/third act takes place there). It wasn't until 2013 that the government officially acknowledged the base.
The primary reason for this is the clandestine nature of the projects being worked on at the facility. The U2 spy plane, the SR-71, and the F-117 stealth fighter all came out of the Nevada facility. Another project the facility worked on was analysis of foreign (mostly Soviet) aircraft that was "acquired" through various means. During the Cold War the secrecy was very important. The Soveits could not know what we were constructing as well as the knowledge of what their force capabilities were.
However those are the official stories. The conspiracy theories allege that, in addition to the normal stuff, this is where the US, UN, or secret world government hides their aliens beings and technology. Most of this is fueled by speculation, photographs of strange lights in the sky not fitting the configurations of known aircraft, and the unwillingness of the government to even acknowledge the place.
Then we have a person like Robert Lazar. Lazar claimed to have worked at both Area 51 and another government installation he called "S4." Lazar first came on to the scene when he contacted in 1989 when he contacted a Las Vegas news station claiming that he was a physicist that was working on something called "Project Galileo." This is neither the space probe sent to Jupiter nor the EU's GPS project. This was, according to him, the project which recovered, transported, and reverse engineered alien space craft. According to Lazar, he was flown to Area 51 and then driven south to S4, where he worked on disc shaped craft of alien origin. He claimed that the craft were entirely smooth, featured no welds or seams, possessed an anti-gravity drive, held seats much too small for an average person, and used an anti-matter engine powered by element-115. According to him he had degrees from both MIT and CIT making him at least superficially qualified to operate in such an endeavor.
The problem here are many. First off, he cannot recall the exact location of S4, because they bused him there from Area 51 with blacked out windows. This, at least seems possible but not plausible. Checks into his background though begin to shed doubt on his claims. Neither MIT or CIT have records of his attendance and no professors or students from that time remember him. To further complicate matters it seems that even Lazar cannot remember when exactly he attended. One claim is that the took a course in physics with a Dr. Duxler at Caltech. Duxler was never teaching at Caltech he taught at Pierce Junior College, at around the same time as Lazar was allegedly taking courses at Caltech. All of this information we might dismiss as the work of bitter skeptics but it comes from famous UFOlogist Stanton Friedman. A person who has every motive to want to believe Lazar.
Lazar's defense of this is that the government erased his records--which apparently included memory erasing anyone that should have known him in the past. This is another example of an argument from ignorance: my claims are true because there are no records of them. However, we must reject them until he provides some tangible evidence, because the only thing we have right now is a UFOlogist who is calling him a liar.
The further claim that Element 115 powers the space craft is another argument from ignorance as well--or at least it was but we'll get to that in a second. Lazar claimed that element-115 was not found naturally on Earth. This much is true, but the claim allows him to literally make up anything that he wants in order to justify how the alien propulsion system works. We can't study element-115 because it's not here in order to debunk the claims. At least it was because in 2003 it was synthesized in Russia by a team of Russian and American scientists. It lasts about 100 milliseconds before it decays into Nihonium. There are other problems with Lazar's claims about the engine of the space craft but they are out of my league and summarized pretty well here.
In summary, while we can assume the existence of extra terrestrial intelligence without offering too many allowances for fanciful thinking it is a much greater leap to assent to the veracity of that existence. It is not reasonable, as of the writing of this post, to make claims that alien intelligence has been here and that we have made some form of contact. A hole in knowledge does not allow us to plug whatever we wish to be true in it.
The next question should be obvious: is there intelligent life in the universe other than on this planet. Again, probably. The answer is the same for the same reasoning. Without adopting both a unique and privileged place in the universe it would be impossible to rule out the possibility that there are other intelligent life forms somewhere in the great sky of the universe.
The last question: has intelligent life visited this planet? This answer is more distinct: extremely doubtful. There are a number of reasons for this. The first is the reasoning for the answers for the first two questions: the Cosmos is a big place, and it would take light years to get here from anywhere else. It's also unlikely that such a trip would contain no distinct evidence, no clear proof, of that visit. Since the beings would be able to travel here from their homes it's unlikely they would just abandon this planet. There are a number of reasons to accept that there has been no visit here by extra-terrestrial intelligence.
I guess there is one more question: do UFOs exist? Yes, based on the literal words of the term "Unidentified Flying Object."
Often times conspiracists like to use a lack of evidence as proof of some kind of nefarious plot. We don't know what goes on at secret government installations so there must be something bad happening there. However lack of information does not allow us to fill in whatever our heart desires because there is no counter proof. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the onus of proof is on the assertion. If I claim that there is some kind of alien base on the far side of the moon, I have to show it. I cannot rely on the lack of visibility from Earth as being the evidence.
The most non-political example of this concerns aliens and "Area 51." Officially, Area 51, is a USAF base in the Nevada desert. The moniker comes from the Atomic Energy Commission though there is some debate as to how this happened. If an unauthorized person wanders on to the base, they can be immediately arrested or even shot. This however, is not proof of anything, try wandering on to any military installation without the proper authorization and see what happens. Area 51 is unique in that there is a high level of classification with regard to the base. For decades the government wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of it (this even caused the military to back out of advising 1996's Independence Day as the movie's second/third act takes place there). It wasn't until 2013 that the government officially acknowledged the base.
The primary reason for this is the clandestine nature of the projects being worked on at the facility. The U2 spy plane, the SR-71, and the F-117 stealth fighter all came out of the Nevada facility. Another project the facility worked on was analysis of foreign (mostly Soviet) aircraft that was "acquired" through various means. During the Cold War the secrecy was very important. The Soveits could not know what we were constructing as well as the knowledge of what their force capabilities were.
However those are the official stories. The conspiracy theories allege that, in addition to the normal stuff, this is where the US, UN, or secret world government hides their aliens beings and technology. Most of this is fueled by speculation, photographs of strange lights in the sky not fitting the configurations of known aircraft, and the unwillingness of the government to even acknowledge the place.
Then we have a person like Robert Lazar. Lazar claimed to have worked at both Area 51 and another government installation he called "S4." Lazar first came on to the scene when he contacted in 1989 when he contacted a Las Vegas news station claiming that he was a physicist that was working on something called "Project Galileo." This is neither the space probe sent to Jupiter nor the EU's GPS project. This was, according to him, the project which recovered, transported, and reverse engineered alien space craft. According to Lazar, he was flown to Area 51 and then driven south to S4, where he worked on disc shaped craft of alien origin. He claimed that the craft were entirely smooth, featured no welds or seams, possessed an anti-gravity drive, held seats much too small for an average person, and used an anti-matter engine powered by element-115. According to him he had degrees from both MIT and CIT making him at least superficially qualified to operate in such an endeavor.
The problem here are many. First off, he cannot recall the exact location of S4, because they bused him there from Area 51 with blacked out windows. This, at least seems possible but not plausible. Checks into his background though begin to shed doubt on his claims. Neither MIT or CIT have records of his attendance and no professors or students from that time remember him. To further complicate matters it seems that even Lazar cannot remember when exactly he attended. One claim is that the took a course in physics with a Dr. Duxler at Caltech. Duxler was never teaching at Caltech he taught at Pierce Junior College, at around the same time as Lazar was allegedly taking courses at Caltech. All of this information we might dismiss as the work of bitter skeptics but it comes from famous UFOlogist Stanton Friedman. A person who has every motive to want to believe Lazar.
Lazar's defense of this is that the government erased his records--which apparently included memory erasing anyone that should have known him in the past. This is another example of an argument from ignorance: my claims are true because there are no records of them. However, we must reject them until he provides some tangible evidence, because the only thing we have right now is a UFOlogist who is calling him a liar.
The further claim that Element 115 powers the space craft is another argument from ignorance as well--or at least it was but we'll get to that in a second. Lazar claimed that element-115 was not found naturally on Earth. This much is true, but the claim allows him to literally make up anything that he wants in order to justify how the alien propulsion system works. We can't study element-115 because it's not here in order to debunk the claims. At least it was because in 2003 it was synthesized in Russia by a team of Russian and American scientists. It lasts about 100 milliseconds before it decays into Nihonium. There are other problems with Lazar's claims about the engine of the space craft but they are out of my league and summarized pretty well here.
In summary, while we can assume the existence of extra terrestrial intelligence without offering too many allowances for fanciful thinking it is a much greater leap to assent to the veracity of that existence. It is not reasonable, as of the writing of this post, to make claims that alien intelligence has been here and that we have made some form of contact. A hole in knowledge does not allow us to plug whatever we wish to be true in it.
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