The Fermi Paradox Will Keep You Up At Night!

If the universe is filled with billions of stars and potentially habitable planets, where is everybody?

This is the Fermi Paradox—the cosmic mystery at the heart of humanity’s search for extraterrestrial life. We unpack the Drake Equation, revisit the mysterious Wow! Signal and Arecibo Message, and explore some of the most fascinating explanations for the universe’s eerie silence: the Great Filter, the Zoo Hypothesis, Rare Earth, and the terrifying Dark Forest Theory.

Are alien civilizations quietly watching us? Are they hiding from something more dangerous? Or are we approaching a Great Filter of our own with artificial intelligence, war, or environmental disaster waiting ahead?

Videos:

• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: The Fermi Paradox Part 1 (6 mins)
• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: The Fermi Paradox Part 2 (6 mins)
• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: The Great Filter (8 mins)
• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: The Dark Forest Theory (10 mins)

Links:

• Wiki - Wow Signal
• Wiki - The Drake Equation
• Wiki - The Great Filter
• Wiki - The Zoo Hypothesis
• Wiki - The Dark Forest Hypothesis
• Wiki - Rare Earth Hypothesis

Transcript

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Josh 0:03

Aliens.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Yes. But maybe no.

Travis 0:20

Welcome to the show. The big show. Aliens, yes, but maybe no with Josh and Travis. I'm Travis. I'm Josh. And this is another worldly podcast as ambiguous as our title. Nailed it again. Love it. I'm just doing the Alien Lord's work. The Alien Lord's work? Yeah, Alien Lord. Okay.

Josh 0:41

I can I can get behind that. I'm a full believer now. Oh, because I because I said that, Alien Lord? Because you said it. I believe everything I hear. Yeah. No, not really. I'd like to. It's fun. Oh, yeah. No, totally. Why not? No one would be a buzzkill. Yeah. It's the worst. Yeah. So do you remember what we talked about last episode? Was it a big one? I mean, they're all big. Was it a was it giants? It was. It was giants. Oh man.

Travis 1:11

Super big. So good at this.

Josh 1:13

I love everything about giants.

Travis 1:15

I'm one out of what now? 50? How many eps do we have?

Josh 1:20

This is 46. 46.

Travis 1:23

Well, what are we gonna do when we hit 50? I don't know. Pizza party. Pizza party. If you guys respond 50 episode, we love you. 50 episode? I thought you were talking about like my age. Uh no, 50th episode. We talked about this off mic. If you respond, alien's yes but maybe no, pizza party time, 50th episode. Josh will pay for your pizza.

Josh 1:45

I don't think so.

Travis 1:46

A small personal pan for pizza.

Josh 1:48

No, no pepperoni, just cheese. If I do. It doesn't matter. We're not making any money. Not yet. I'm not gonna affront that.

Travis 1:57

But yeah, we talked about giants. Uh-huh. I loved all of it. So did I. It's good. Why not giants? Why not Bigfoot? Yeah. Giants, hey, man, giants should be in our cryptids battle, don't you think? Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah.

Travis 2:11

Email if you agree with me at aliens yesbutmay no at gmail.com. You know where to find us.

Josh 2:17

I uh I read the dictionary today. So I'm pretty excited.

Travis 2:23

As you do, Josh, every day. Yeah. Been slowly making your progress through the dictionary.

Josh 2:29

I'm I'm pretty excited that I can use my words well. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I'm hopeful. It hasn't worked yet, but maybe it finally clicked. Where are you? At the the bees?

Travis 2:38

No, I'm I think I stopped at Ardvark. Oh, so well, you got a lot. There's so much in the dictionary, dude.

Josh 2:45

There's a lot of words. What's going on to that?

Travis 2:48

There's a lot. I think we need to get rid of some words. Oh, I can think of a couple we should get rid of. I can't too. I can think of a couple. Yeah? Oh, yeah. Get rid of it, erase it from everybody's memory.

Josh 3:00

Yep. So at the end of our Giants episode, we took a quiz to find out what this episode's topic was going to be. Classic Us. We got some videos that were awesome. It was the Kurtz Gazak in a nutshell. Oh God.

Travis 3:15

I'm glad you, the dictionary reader, decided to tackle the pronunciation of that creator.

Josh 3:22

I had to use a Google's pronunciation. But yeah, phenomenal. I looked. He has 25 million subscribers. Holy crap. I don't know why I haven't heard of this guy, but we learned about the Fermi paradox.

Travis 3:35

Wait, Fermi, not furry. You said that really fast. Oh, come on. Fermi. And I think it's Fermi. Fermi, Fermi. That being said, I do want to let everybody know we are not scientists. We are not mathematicians. We are just going to be communicating information that our wonderful researcher has put together for us about the Fermi paradox. So don't come at us if some of the things we say are wrong.

Josh 4:05

Yeah. Yeah. I thought you did all the math yourself on this.

Travis 4:09

Uh I it's been a big week, man. Like sometimes I will like a great white shark and a feeding frenzy. My eyes will just roll in the back of my head, and then I'll come out of it, and I'll have all these complex equations written on a chalkboard on the wall.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Wow.

Travis 4:23

It's wild. I knew it. Yep.

Josh 4:25

I knew you were a scientist and a mathematician. Well, secretly. Well, let's get into this. So this

The Lunch Question That Started It

Josh 4:31

is the Fermi paradox. We're gonna start at the beginning. On a summer day in 1950, a group of scientists walked together to get lunch at a lab in New Mexico. Then, somewhere on that walk, one man asked one simple question that turned into one of the biggest mysteries in science. Where is everybody? Where? I that's the question. It came from scientists named Enrico Fermi. The people are still trying to answer it more than 70 years later. Today's episode is all about the Fermi paradox.

Travis 5:02

Fermi?

Josh 5:02

Fermi.

Travis 5:03

I think it's Fermi. You say it how you're gonna say it. I'm gonna say it how I'm gonna say it.

Josh 5:07

Yeah, just hear it however you want to hear it. The Fermi paradox. To put it simply, math says extraterrestrial life should be out there somewhere. So why is the universe silent?

Travis 5:17

That is such a big question. It is super big. It's kind of what I've been saying throughout a lot of this. Like, why don't we have more proof? But also, it is very scary to think that we are alone in the universe. This is like basically the essence of this podcast, this paradox, wouldn't you say?

Josh 5:37

Yeah, yes, maybe no. That's what everyone's trying to figure out.

Travis 5:41

Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're gonna talk about so many big ideas in this app. So just like just bear with us, buckle up.

Josh 5:50

I had to not think about this too much, because it's a lot.

Travis 5:54

Yes, mostly scary for me. Yeah. Like I'm dealing with a lot of existential fear doing the research for this. So anyway, so let's talk about the lunch that started it all. To understand why this one question matters so much, it helps to go back to the exact day it happened, and also to the mix of news stories and pop culture buzzing around the lab at that time. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, heard of it. Yes. In 1950, Enrico Ferme and three other physicists walked to lunch at a building called Four Lodge. Ferme was an Italian physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938, then led the team that built the world's first working nuclear reactor in 1942. So on the walk, the group talked about a big trend at the time, which was reports of flying saucers. Many Americans believed in UFOs after a pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing strange objects in the sky back in 1947. A retired Navy pilot named Donald Kehoe also wrote a popular book in 1950 called The Flying Saucers Are Real. Partway through the walk, one of the physicists brought up a cartoon from the New Yorker magazine. The cartoon joked that aliens and flying saucers were stealing public trash cans from the streets in New York City. Everyone laughed until Fairmay got quiet for a moment. That's a good cartoon. Yeah, it's just funny. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah. Then he asked the now famous question, but where is everybody? Twenty-five years later in 1975, a physicist named Michael Hart wrote an official science paper about the same idea. His paper turned Fairmay's lunchtime question into a real scientific puzzle that is still studied today.

Josh 7:33

Man, I wish a scientist would take one of my questions and make it big. What would one of your questions be?

Travis 7:39

I don't know. Like, why why are there so many words? Why are there so many words? Let's erase some words. Yeah. Get on it, scientists.

Josh 7:48

Yep.

Why The Universe Sounds Silent

Josh 7:49

So what the paradox actually means. Some things to keep in mind. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, holds somewhere between 200 billion and 400 billion stars. That's a lot. The universe itself is about 13.8 billion years old. And the sun is only about 4.6 billion years old, which is actually pretty young compared to a lot of the other stars. Travis did most of that math. He counted.

Travis 8:13

Yep, we could put that in the show notes. Just kidding. I'm never going to release that information. That's secret. It's private.

Josh 8:20

So what this means is that other stars had a huge head start on ours, with plenty of extra time for life to grow and build technology. Scientists say that even traveling much slower than the speed of light, a space traveling civilization could spread across the whole galaxy in just a few million years. It sounds like a long time, but compared to the age of the galaxy, it's actually a short amount of time. Yeah. So based on these numbers, at least one civilization out of billions of possible stars should have reached out to us, left some kind of proof behind, and shown up somewhere in history by now. Maybe they have. Instead, here's what scientists have actually found so far: zero confirmed signals, zero pieces of solid proof, and zero confirmed visits. The huge gap between what the math predicts and what we actually found is the heart of the paradox.

Arecibo Message And Wow Signal

Josh 9:13

And you might be asking, zero confirmed signals. What about the Arecibo message? Get out of here. So in 1974, the most powerful broadcast ever deliberately beamed into space was made from Puerto Rico.

Travis 9:27

It was SETI. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Josh 9:31

The broadcast formed part of the ceremonies held to mark a major upgrade to the Arecibo Radio Telescope, which is the big telescope on Goldeneye. The transmission consisted of a simple message with a picture aimed at our cosmic companions in the globular star cluster M13. There's that word again. Globular.

Travis 9:50

Love it.

Josh 9:50

So fun. This cluster is roughly 21,000 light years from us, near the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, and contains approximately a third of a million stars.

Travis 10:00

So that's a lot of stars, but when you think about these numbers that were thrown out earlier, where it's billions of stars. Yeah. Nothing. Like 200 billion to 400 billion stars. So this is like a small amount, but it's still a hard thing to for me and my simple little human earth brain to wrap around.

Josh 10:23

Yeah. I mean, it's just it's a pin drop of what is actually out there. And we did cover the Areciba reply in the crop circles episode. Right. And it is not proven evidence of extraterrestrial contact. Okay. And then you might be asking, but what about the wow signal? I was just asking about that. I know. So the wow signal was a strong 72-second radio burst detected on August 15th, 1977 by Ohio State University's Big Ear Radio Telescope.

Travis 10:54

I love that that's the name. Yeah, we need more names like that. Yeah, just keep it simple, guys. Yeah. Come on. We're listening to the universe. What do we use to listen? A big ear. Ears.

Josh 11:04

Yeah. Astronomer Jerry R. Ayman discovered the anomaly a few days later while reviewing the recorded data. On the computer printout, he circled the reading of the signal's intensity, 6EQ J5, and wrote the comment, wow, beside it. People tried over and over to find it again, testing all kinds of ideas like space debris or comet clouds, but the signal never showed back up. Without any repeat, scientists can't say for sure it was alien. We have a picture here and it's it kind of looks like the matrix code. There's lots of ones and twos and threes.

Travis 11:39

But it's not binary.

Josh 11:40

Right.

Travis 11:41

Matrix was all binary ones and twos.

Josh 11:44

Zeros and ones. But this one is ones and twos and threes and some fours. Yeah. I don't see a five, six, seven. So what was that last one? They're right, the the numbers are right next to each other. You can't not say them. Having actual letters in data that is just numbers is very weird. And it just showed up one time and they can't do it again.

Drake Equation Counting Alien Civs

Travis 12:04

Okay. So we're going to talk about the Drake equation. Scientists wanted a way to turn the Fermi paradox into real numbers instead of just guesses. And that led to a formula built by a young scientist at Cornell University. An astronomer named Frank Drake created an equation in 1961 to help organize a small science meeting that November at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.

Josh 12:25

Okay, so I just want to say Frank Drake is a cool ass name.

Travis 12:29

Yeah, it sounds like what you name a duck. Yeah. Or a guy that's like uh working in badassery. Yeah, like a national treasure character. Like this is the guy. I don't know what Nick Cage's character's name is in National Treasure. Hit hit us up in the comments or whatever, but it seems like his name could be Frank Drake, right? Or the bad guy's henchman. That's like kind of cool. I don't know. This sounds like a leader's name. Hey, we all have opinions. Like a treasure hunter name.

Josh 13:02

It's it's cool.

Travis 13:03

It's pretty cool. So he created an equation in 1961 to help organize a small science meeting, just as a reminder. The meeting had the title Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life. Big title. Good name. Yeah. Extraterrestrial intelligent life by Frank Drake. Fucking there. I would be there for that. Yep. Like, fucking sign me up, whatever it costs. Oh, yeah. About a dozen scientists showed up. They jokingly call their small group the Order of the Dolphin, named after a dolphin researcher named John Lilly, who joined the meeting along with a 27-year-old Carl Sagan. Heard of him? If not, look him up. Yeah, look at uh you're gonna be spending some time looking up Carl Sagan. Yeah. Drake's equation multiplies seven different numbers together. The goal is to estimate N, which stands for the number of alien civilizations in the Milky Way that could be sending out signals right now. Okay, so the first three numbers on this list come from astronomy. R, how many stars form in the galaxy each year? FP, the share of those stars that end up with planets around them, NE, the average number of planets per star where life could actually survive. So these are like the uh We're talking about we're building the equation right now.

Josh 14:17

Yeah. Like E equals MC square, those each mean something. So these are his correct equations. Okay.

Travis 14:23

Yep. They're representative. So the last four numbers come from biology and human behavior, and they stay very hard to pin down, since Earth is still the only known example of a planet that reached any of these steps. FL is the share of those planets where life actually gets started. Fi, the share of those planets where life grows smart enough to become intelligent. FC, the share of intelligent life that builds technology we could detect from far away. And L, how long a civilization keeps sending out signals we could pick up before it stops. Drake never meant for this equation to spit out one perfect answer. Instead, it gives scientists an organized way to talk about the problem piece by piece. Almost every astronomy textbook still teaches it today. I should have I should have come up with this. What, this equation? Yeah. Yeah, it seems simple. That's the beauty of some of these laws of physics is that they are done in such a way that you're like, holy shit, why didn't we think about it in these terms before? And I feel like this Fermi paradox is like one of those where you're taking all of the elements that it took to create life here and then extrapolating that into a broader sense.

Josh 15:36

Yeah, I mean, it is very simple when you understand what those mean.

Travis 15:40

It's kind of like that video that we watched that makes this complex idea very simple.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Yeah.

Travis 15:45

And that's the whole idea behind math. Like math is a universal language. It's something that as far as our basic understanding of physics is concerned, math is a universal language. And when I say universally, I mean within our universe. Like these are laws that we have determined and have figured out through equations. Yeah.

Josh 16:06

Hopefully, that's a scary thought, too, is if our math at a certain point doesn't make sense, if it's so primitive.

Travis 16:14

I mean, but it's it's math. It's like gravity on our earth is always going to be one equation, right? Oh. We are constantly figuring out our earth and what makes us work. Work, yeah.

Josh 16:30

Okay, so since several parts of Drake's equation stay so uncertain, like Travis was saying, some scientists started asking a scarier version of the same question.

Great Filter Hope Versus Doom

Josh 16:39

They wondered if something specific blocks most life from ever growing into a full civilization. An economist named Robin Hansen came up with this idea. He worked with Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, scary name. Future of Humanity? Oh my God. Yeah. So in 1966, he wrote an essay called The Great Filter. Are we almost past it? His main idea works like this: Life has to pass through a long list of difficult steps to grow from simple chemicals all the way into a civilization that can travel between stars. Somewhere along that list, at least one step turns out to be extremely hard to pass. Scientists call that hard step the filter because it blocks almost every planet from making it all the way through.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah.

Josh 17:28

Hansen listed about nine major steps life needs to pass.

Travis 17:32

This is where I started to get a lot of panic.

Josh 17:35

Yeah. I'm going to go down the steps. So forming a planet with the right ingredients for life, orbiting a star that can support it, building simple molecules that can copy themselves, like RNA, growing simple single cell life forms, growing more advanced, complex single-cell life forms, developing the ability to reproduce using two parents, growing life forms made of many cells working together, developing smart animals that can use tools, building an advanced civilization capable of spreading to other planets, and then actually spreading out and settling other parts of the galaxy.

Travis 18:14

The gap between developing smart animals that can use tools and building an advanced civilization capable of spreading to other planets is so fucking big. Yeah, I feel like they're missing some things there. It it does feel like they're missing some things. Like the flow. Right. The flow be, right? One of one of the modern innovations that have pushed us through this filter. The flowy. That was that was the filter. Yeah. Uh the shake weight. Yeah. The shake weight that shook the flow bee through the filter. Yeah. But I feel like that's like because we are finding now crows use tools. Yeah. Obviously, apes and monkeys use tools, sea mammals use tools.

Josh 18:59

I saw recently dogs are using crosswalks because they're learning from the people around them. Just that gap is huge. It is huge, massive. And this idea gives us two different possibilities for humans. Number one, if the hardest step already happened somewhere in our deep past, that means the filter sits behind us. That's awesome news since it means our future stays wide open and hopeful. Like we we got past it. We're fine.

Travis 19:27

Yeah.

Josh 19:28

On the other hand, number two, if the hardest step still waits somewhere ahead of us, that means the filter sits in our future, which is really scary. Uh-huh. Because that suggests something big like a war or huge environmental disaster or dangerous new technology could still potentially wipe out civilizations right before they can spread beyond their home planet. So, under that idea, humanity's biggest test could still be coming. And that's scary.

Travis 19:54

That is terrifying.

Josh 19:56

I just got chills. I don't like it. I'm gonna go back to the we passed it. I'm gonna stick with that. Yeah, we're good.

Travis 20:03

I mean, I hope that's the case, but also like the implication that we haven't passed it is what if the flood was the pass? Sure. I mean, well, we've had several big floods that have wiped out humanity. What if the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs was the filter? Right. It's it's hard to wrap your head around this idea. Yeah, that's the thing, is we don't know. I'm getting a little freaked out.

Josh 20:30

So, yeah, that's the great filter. That's just one of the theories and hypothesis to this whole thing.

Travis 20:37

I like that in our notes there's a thumbs up and a thumbs down. It's just really funny. Yeah, we know what we want. It's really funny. That's that's a new touch.

Zoo Hypothesis Versus Dark Forest

Travis 20:46

Okay, so let's talk about the zoo hypothesis. This is uh I don't like this one. I mean, just the name is just like okay, so filters and disasters make for a pretty dark direction, but a different theory argues that aliens are out there and doing just fine. They simply choose to observe us. A radio astronomer named John A. Ball came up with this idea. Funny name. John, yep. John A. Ball. I guess I guess it's funny. Yeah. Yeah. He published it in a 1973 science paper in a journal called Icarus. Uh-oh. Too close. Yeah, that's telling. Yeah. His main idea says advanced alien civilizations already exist in large enough numbers to have found Earth already. Well, oh they have the technology needed to contact us anytime they want. Instead, they choose to hold back on purpose. There are a few reasons why aliens might do this. One reason could be a moral choice, letting a younger species like humans grow and develop on our own without outside interference. Kind of like that. That's nice. Like, yeah, Star Trek. Right? Kind of yeah. But it's like also like parenting, like that uh free range parenting that has become really popular. I'm not a Big fan of it, but you know, just like letting your kids run around and figure stuff out on their own. Those kids tend to be kind of dumb. Because there's no structure.

Josh 22:09

I mean, yeah.

Travis 22:10

They're just like they're out there, they're like, okay, I guess shitting in the woods is okay. I'm gonna wipe with this. Oh, well, you got poison oak. Not gonna do that again. Maybe, yeah.

Josh 22:19

Don't don't do that again. I think going extreme in anything is usually not well. You need to find a balance.

Travis 22:26

Yeah. So I but I think this is important for us. I think that us as people need to figure out, you know, what our what our our point is. Another reason could be a safety choice, staying quiet so they do not accidentally reveal Earth's location to other, possibly more dangerous civilizations watching the same part of space. That is fucking scary. Yeah, I don't like that. Picture Earth sitting outside a kind of secret club of galactic civilizations. Full contact with humans would only happen once our species hit certain goals in technology or society first.

Josh 23:03

It's just it's just a hypothesis. It's nothing. Right. I'm fine. I'm fine. Totally fine. Okay. I hope so. So the dark forest theory. Here we go. We're gonna jump in to an even scarier one. The dark forest argues that the same silence works as a survival trick every civilization in the galaxy eventually learns to use. This theory became famous through a science fiction book called The Dark Forest, written by the Chinese author named Liu Sushin. Nailed it. The book Thanks. The book is the second part of a three-book series called Remembrance of Earth's Past. The first book? The three-body problem. Heard of it? Yep. It's a show. Thanks, Netflix. They have a Chinese version of that show as well, which is good. This theory pictures the whole universe as a dark forest at night. Every civilization acts like a hunter moving quietly through the trees. Each one stays silent and hidden because letting others know where you are could bring a stronger, more dangerous hunter straight to your location. Under this idea, sending a signal out into space works like sending an open invitation to a much stronger civilization, one that might destroy a weaker rival before that rival becomes a real threat. Because of this risk, the safest choice for every civilization in the galaxy is just stay totally silent. And we have a producer note here saying, Hey, remember the Arecibo message? Yeah, we remember. Yeah, we remember, of course. It was dumb. Yep. Yeah, they were excited about their new gadget and they did something dumb, potentially. A similar idea showed up earlier in a 1983 science paper by an astronomer named David Brynn. He described a related idea, sometimes called the deadly probes theory. And his paper gave this dangerous predator style idea real scientific backing before the novel gave it its catchy name.

Travis 24:58

Yeah. So let's talk about this a little bit.

Josh 25:02

So no, I'm I'm I'm okay.

Travis 25:05

Okay, let's move on. Never mind. No, fine. Uh, if you were to think about like being in a standoff, like you have your gun trained on two other people, and then those people have their gun trained on you, you're almost daring somebody to make a move. And that's kind of what we're seeing here. Is like when you think of a problem as like it's either me or them, then it's going to create this fear, I think. Yeah. Okay. So let's say you are that hunter, right? And you're moving around the forest, you're being as quiet as possible, and you're looking for whatever it is to keep you alive, right? There's somebody else in that forest that's doing the same thing. Neither one of you are really threats to each other, but you're still going after similar resources. Right. And you need those. And and you need those, but you don't need to monopolize those resources. I don't need to have all of the birds in this forest be mine, and they don't need all of the birds in this forest to be theirs either. But how fucking cool would that be to have all the birds? I mean, it would be pretty fucking great. Yeah. I mean, if you believe birds are real, which, you know, who knows? We have proof that they are not. Yeah, we have proof that they're not. Okay, so you recognize each other and you come into the clearing together to create something bigger than the two of you. And I feel like this idea that we have to either destroy somebody before we're destroyed is like a very human idea. And it's what has led to a lot of civilizations just being decimated or forgotten, destroyed. It's like the idea behind a genocide, right? And we don't, we don't want that.

Josh 26:48

I mean, yeah, if you and I or the average person would walk into a field and see another person, we would probably be a little relieved because you're like, oh, awesome.

Travis 26:58

Like I would somebody else is out here doing the same thing that I'm doing. Let's let's pool our resources and share our knowledge and thrive. Yeah, and thrive. Yeah. And do better rather than kill somebody.

Josh 27:10

But there's a lot of people or humans on earth that do not think that way. Yeah. They usually rise in power and whatever or wherever they're at.

Travis 27:20

Yeah. They want to think of everything as a threat.

Josh 27:22

And so if those people are rising in power and they're the ones making these big decisions for humanity, I can see how it could be dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yeah.

Josh 27:30

For sure. For the idea that this is best for us and our humanity or our life.

Travis 27:35

I don't think that people are thinking it is what is best for us humanity-wise. I think we're thinking of what is best for the United States, what is best for Canada, what is best for a country in Europe, what is best for Russia. We're not thinking about what is best for us as a people. And that's what sucks. Like we could collaborate with Russia and Canada and Europe and all the countries within Africa and pool our resources together, use our shared knowledge. Yeah. Maybe somebody in Africa has knowledge and can help problem solve something that we're stuck on trying to figure out here.

Josh 28:11

Yeah, that's the goal and the hope for a lot of people with extraterrestrial life or aliens coming. You know, that could unite us as humans instead of fighting with each other.

Travis 28:22

Yes, it should. Yeah. Humans, man, what a what a mess we are. I agree. Okay, so let's talk about the rare earth hypothesis.

Rare Earth And Strange Evolution

Travis 28:31

So along with filters, zoos, and dark forests, scientists have come up with several other ideas that circle back to the same big question. The rare earth hypothesis argues that Earth's exact mix of conditions might be extremely rare across the whole universe. Earth has a steady orbit around the sun, it has a large moon that keeps our planet from wobbling too much, moving plates under the ground called plate tectonics, a strong magnetic field that protects us from dangerous space radiation, and a fairly calm, safe spot inside the galaxy.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Yeah.

Travis 29:05

Put all these things together, and this theory argues complex life might be a rare accident rather than something common across the universe. But it's sad. But what we're talking about here is like common versus, I mean, even rare, that means that there's something out there. Yeah. It doesn't mean that we're alone, right? It just means rare.

Josh 29:25

Yeah. Rare is like 10 left or 400. Yeah.

Travis 29:29

Well, I mean, when we talk about things on Earth, rare Earth elements could be gold or plutonium, but they still exist here.

Josh 29:36

But maybe it's so rare that it doesn't exist anywhere. So yeah, it is possible that it's so extremely rare and just one in a gazillion chance that this all lined up perfectly. I mean, and there's a lot more things that have to line up for life to be on Earth. And even if one little thing was changed, there'd be no life.

Travis 29:58

For sure.

Josh 29:58

And I mean, the universe is so big that it is possible that it has happened again. Or, like you've mentioned, that it may potentially be different conditions that they do not look like us.

Travis 30:09

I think that it would be wild if they did look like us because the evolution on another planet, it could be a water planet, right? And so a lot of things could have evolved to move through water, which means you're going to evolve in a different way. You're not going to be bipedal. You're not going to have two legs, two arms, two eyes. You might have no arms and just fins, like think of a dolphin or an octopus or things that live in the ocean. Yeah. What if there's no water on that planet, but there's elements that allow it to survive?

Josh 30:43

I just read that Saturn's largest moon, Titan, they have lakes, rivers, and rain, but it's all methane and ethane. So it's all gas and petroleum.

Travis 30:53

Yeah, like noxious to us, but what if something can grow there? We don't know. For sure. We know that as far as our math is concerned, that the building blocks of life is carbon-based, and then we need oxygen.

Josh 31:04

We've evolved to need that. What if what if there's places that don't? Yeah.

Travis 31:08

Who knows? Again, I'm not a I'm not a biologist. What the hell are you?

Josh 31:12

You you keep saying you're not these things.

Travis 31:14

I'm just a humble podcaster who just talks about things and has an interest in these things.

Josh 31:19

I guess that's good enough. Good enough for me. So basically, scientists studying the Fermi paradox usually sort every theory into two big groups. The first group believes smart communicating life stays extremely rare, or maybe even completely unique to Earth, leaving the galaxy mostly empty of neighbors. The second group believes the galaxy could actually be full of civilizations, one that stay hidden from us because of distance, timing, choice, or danger. So more than 70 years after this lunchtime walk in Los Alamos, the Fermi paradox stays completely unsolved. Every theory covered today points to a different possible answer. Maybe a filter sits somewhere behind us or ahead of us. Maybe the galaxy holds plenty of neighbors who simply choose to stay quiet. Maybe the universe really does work like a dark forest full of hidden hunters. Or maybe Earth just got lucky. Really lucky. And complex life is truly rare.

Travis 32:20

Really, really lucky.

Our Best Guess And AI Fears

Josh 32:23

So out of those theories, the Great Filter, Zoo, Dark Forest Theory, which idea feels most believable to you? What are you what are you zoning in on?

Travis 32:32

Uh well, I I don't like the Dark Forest theory because that tells me that we're all looking at everything as a threat, and I don't think that's productive. So I don't want that to be the case, even though I kind of feel like that is probably how everybody in power is looking at alien life. What I would like to think is like it's a great filter, and maybe we've moved past it. I mean, yeah. Not maybe, like, fingers crossed, I hope that we move past it, because if not, that means that we have something big, devastating in our future. And that means we will never move beyond it ever. I just I don't think that's going to be the case. The zoo hypothesis is interesting.

Josh 33:18

I like the zoo hypothesis, or one of the potential outcomes of that where we're just being left alone to get to where we need to be. It's hard because there's a bad version for each of these. Yeah. And I don't want a bad version, you know. It's like I want the good. So which one feels the best for me is what I'm gonna choose.

Travis 33:40

I don't like being watched. I think that is a that sucks. Very eerie thing. And if you're out in the woods and you feel that, it's very upsetting. Right? Or you're just out on a walk and you can feel someone looking at you, that is very upsetting.

Josh 33:56

Yeah, no, I see when you're out in the woods, I see how upset you get.

Travis 34:01

Oh no. You're the watcher, you're my watcher in the woods. I'm a watcher, I'll watch. So, like the zoo hypothesis, probably the most likely, considering like all of the things we've talked about throughout the show. I just I like the idea of a non-aggressive galaxy. Yeah, because it to me that feels the most hopeful. Like we have to come together as humanity to overcome a hurdle. Yeah. Versus like being watched or we're secretly in a forest being hunted, and maybe we're also hunting.

Josh 34:35

Yeah. So if if the great filter turns out to be somewhere in our future, what do you think would be most likely the danger? I mean, AI seems pretty apparent that that could be it.

Travis 34:46

I think you're right. I think AI could totally decide that humanity is not worth the squeeze. AI decides we are destroying this planet and decides to wipe us out.

Josh 34:56

Yeah, if it becomes conscious and is given power, it's like iRobot.

Travis 35:01

Yes. AI is going to look at the least obstacle-ridden path to making sure that life here is sustainable. Humans are like the most destructive force on this planet. AI is just gonna wipe us out, or most of us, and leave a few behind. But again, that's gonna be an an AI subjective thing.

Josh 35:23

Man, I don't like it.

Travis 35:25

I don't like it either.

Josh 35:26

Let's stop talking about it. Let's just pretend everything's okay.

Travis 35:29

Everything's you know, everything's totally fine and cool.

Josh 35:33

Yeah, it's 2026 and we're fine.

Travis 35:35

Everything's fine.

Josh 35:36

Yep, everything's good right now. So that is the Fermi paradox in our own way. In our own way. I highly recommend you guys watch those videos. They're real quick, real enjoyable. And he has a ton of other ones. I just didn't want to flood my brain, especially because you know, like I said, I've been reading the dictionary. Let us know what you guys think. There might be other stuff we haven't even heard. You know, we're still newbies when it comes to all of this. Science, science, earth, fair me's, yeah, filters. So let us know what you guys think. Give us feedback. We have a link in our show notes for fan mail, blah, blah, blah. You know how to get a hold of us. If you don't, you could figure it out pretty quick.

Reviews And Pascagoula Quiz Tease

Josh 36:19

And this is now the time where we read some of our reviews and fan mail.

Travis 36:24

Cool. I'm sure totally normal, chill responses to our shows. We have one.

Josh 36:30

We do not have a fan mail, sadly. So that's too bad. Those are my those are my favorite. Those are great. We did get Apple review, five stars. If you listen to the last episode, you will remember that Travis said that you can say whatever you want. We say that at the end of every episode. You made it very clear that you can be mean and we'll read it if it's still five star.

Travis 36:53

Yes. I think I made it clear every time though. I oh shit. So you're building up to something that I feel like I'm not gonna like.

Josh 37:00

So this is a review. Uh five stars. Hey, I'll take it. Good. This is by John 5000. It says pretty good. That's the title. Okay, so pretty good. That's that's good, right? That's it's good. Or like above sucky. I think so. Okay. So it goes on. It says, stop ending your sentences with the word right. It is not right. You are speaking an idea which the listeners can then think about and decide if they understand the idea and develop an opinion or another idea of their own. Remember, this is five stars. Yeah, that's just that's uh that's a loophole. And then fucking loophole. And then he says, disc golf, not frisbee golf, as frisbee is a brand. That's five stars. Well, yes, they that's a loophole that we've created.

Travis 37:49

Yes, five stars is great, right? Your last name is right. Yeah, what am I gonna do? Change my name? Like, hey Travis, what's your name? Travis uh redacted, I guess, according to John 5000. So, John 5000, thank you for sending that email and taking the time to redact.

Josh 38:07

Well, cool. Keep getting hold of us the way you like to. Now we are gonna get to the quiz. Everybody's favorite part of the show. So this is how we see kind of where we fall on our knowledge about the next topic. Okay, so this topic is Pascagoula. Or Pascagoula? Pascagoula abduction? Could be Pascagoula? I have not heard of this. I don't know what this is about. Let's start. So, first question: in which state did the Pascagoula abduction happen? Is it A, Mississippi, B, California, C, Arizona, or D, Florida? I'm saying Florida. It seems like a Florida place. I'm gonna say Arizona. Okay, next one. On what date did the abduction occur? Is it A, July 4th, 1947? B, November 5th, 1958, C, October 11th, 1973, or D, December 31st, 1980.

Travis 39:14

Ugh. I hate this.

Josh 39:17

I like New Year's Eve, 1980. I like New Year's Eve and I like the 80s. So do I. So I'm gonna say lock it in. Is that what you're doing? Yeah, yep. Okay, cool. All right, next one. What were the men involved doing before the encounter? A camping, B driving home, C fishing, or D hunting? I'm gonna say camping. Okay. I wanted to say driving home because we've done that before.

SPEAKER_03 39:42

Yeah.

Travis 39:42

Betty and Barney Hill.

Josh 39:43

Yeah.

Travis 39:44

But camping, I mean, that's that'd be scary. I was gonna say fishing or hunting, but I'm gonna settle in on fishing.

Josh 39:50

Okay.

Travis 39:50

Yeah.

Josh 39:51

Next one. How is the reported craft commonly described? A, a black box inside a clear sphere. Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Yeah.

Josh 39:59

B, an oval object with blue lights. C, a giant pyramid with white lights, or D, a fiery sphere with wings.

Travis 40:08

I don't like that. I don't think there's a really good one.

Josh 40:11

I haven't heard of a black box inside a clear sphere. I can imagine that. The fiery sphere with wings is not.

Travis 40:19

I think we should just throw that out. I'm gonna say an oval object with blue lights. Classic, Josh. I'm gonna say a black box inside a clear sphere.

Josh 40:26

I don't like that.

Travis 40:27

The weirdest one. Outside of the wings. Like the wings just that doesn't make sense to me.

Josh 40:32

Yeah. Okay, next one. What unusual feature was associated with the beings they saw?

Travis 40:38

God damn it.

Josh 40:39

Ooh. A feathered wings. B webbed hands. C bright red fur or D, transparent bodies. Transparent bodies is wild. There was one that we heard about with bright red fur. Webbed hands. So we got air aliens, water with the webbed hands. Uh-huh. Uh bright red fur would be like land and transparent bodies. I don't know what that would be.

Travis 41:05

Existential.

Josh 41:06

Yeah.

Travis 41:06

Spirit. But like, okay, so webbed hands would mean you'd have to be pretty close to see webbed hands. They could have been. I don't know. You'd have to be close to see webbed hands, though. You would. Unless they got really big hands. That's probably it. I'm overthinking this way too much. Feathered wings.

Josh 41:23

I've heard there are bird aliens. We haven't talked about those really at all.

Travis 41:28

We did. Oh, on the battle aliens? Yeah, battle aliens. I'm going to click that one. I'm going to say transparent bodies.

Josh 41:35

Okay. The weird one. All right. Next one. Where did the men go to report their experience? A, a television station, B, a military base, C the local sheriff's office, or D, a university observatory.

Travis 41:49

I'm going to say the local sheriff's department. That just seems like a natural thing. That's what that family did. It just seems like the place to go.

Josh 41:57

With the little green men.

Travis 41:59

Yeah, that were attacking the house. Yeah.

Josh 42:01

I mean, the university observatory is a really fascinating idea.

Travis 42:05

That makes that makes sense. Yeah, like go get it quick. Just depends on like what heightened state you're in. If you're in like a totally cool, chill place and you're like, yeah, I saw a weird thing. I'm just gonna casually drive there. But if it seems threatening at all, that's probably like you're gonna go to the like biggest authority that's available to you.

Josh 42:25

Unless it wasn't threatening.

Travis 42:27

Yeah, exactly. And that's what I'm saying. Like it could be an observatory.

Josh 42:31

I'm gonna be hopeful and say this was a fun bird encounter. And I'm gonna say they went to the university after a great time together. Yep. Yeah. Just like a cool chill night, had a couple beers. Yeah. Why not? Okay. Last one. What did the men claim happened aboard the craft?

Travis 42:50

Holy fuck. This went really fucking fast. This went to an observable thing to suddenly an abduction.

Josh 42:59

I actually forgot it was an abduction.

Travis 43:00

Yeah. I scrolled back to the top to make sure it was an abduction. It is.

Josh 43:04

Okay, so what did the men claim happened aboard the craft? A, they were shown a map of space. B, they were given a written message. C, they were examined, or D, they piloted the craft.

Travis 43:18

That's really funny. That's really funny.

Josh 43:21

Like sit on the lap of the alien.

Travis 43:23

Yeah, exactly. You want to take a go at it, little guy?

Josh 43:27

Yeah. Go on, man. That's great.

Travis 43:29

I like that idea, but I'm gonna say shown a map of space. I really want them to have been given the controls, like the keys to this. And it's a really funny thing that you pointed out. Hey, sit on my lap and you can control this.

Josh 43:42

I'm gonna say that because I'm having this vision and this is gonna be wacky. Feathers, they go to the university, they had a great time together. I'm gonna say they piloted the craft. Okay. So I'm gonna submit. We're gonna check our accuracy.

Travis 43:55

Yeah.

Josh 43:56

Okay. I mean, I did I think I did better than Travis is known for. You did better than me. Okay. So in which state did the Pascaguela abduction happen here? I said Arizona. You did too? I said no, I said Florida. Oh, okay. It was Mississippi. Mississippi got it wrong. Yeah. Next one. On what date did the abduction occur? We both said December 31st, 1980. It was October 11th, 1973.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Yeah.

Josh 44:24

Okay. What were the men involved doing before the encounter? I said camping.

Travis 44:28

I said fishing.

Josh 44:29

You said fishing.

Travis 44:30

Hell yeah. That's correct. Mississippi, man. Fishing capital of the lower Mississippi. Yeah. Mississippi is the fishing capital of Mississippi, of course. Everybody knows that.

Josh 44:44

Okay, next one. How is the reported craft commonly described? I said an oval object with blue lights. Hey, there you go. I got that right.

Travis 44:52

I said a black box inside a clear sphere.

Josh 44:54

All right, next one. Which unusual feature was associated with the beings they saw? I said feathered wings.

Travis 45:00

Yeah, and I talked myself out of the right one. I said transparent bodies. But it is, of course, webbed hands. Webbed hands. God damn it.

Josh 45:09

They must have been holding their hands up.

Travis 45:11

Yeah.

Josh 45:11

Okay. Where did the men go to report their experience? I said a university observatory.

Travis 45:17

Local sheriff's department, of course, that's right. That's where you go.

Josh 45:20

I mean, it's common sense. I was just hoping there'd be a spin. And then lastly, what did the men claim happened aboard the craft? I said they piloted the craft.

Travis 45:28

Which that would have been the best answer. I said they were shown a map of space. And it was they were examined. Uh-oh.

Josh 45:35

Not piloted, examined.

Travis 45:37

Yeah.

Josh 45:37

I'm excited for this. I love the abduction ones that we've done. They're fun.

Travis 45:41

They freak me the fuck out, man.

Josh 45:43

I know.

Travis 45:44

They freak me out. Don't like it. Scariest thing ever. It could be. Thank you for listening. We love you. We do. My name's Travis Wright. I like to write, right? And I'm right. Except when I'm wrong. Right? Which is often.

Josh 46:01

You're gonna be thinking about this for years. Well, we will chat at you next episode. Okay, bye.