Brane Space: First SETI Searches For Extraterrestrials Included Potential Use Of Nuclear Explosions In Space. WHY?

Frank Drake in 1959 planning to detect evidence of aliens via Project Ozma

Nuclear detonation in Nevada desert of type considered for use in contacting aliens

The Physics Today article (SETI, artificial intelligence, and existential projection) appearing in the February issue touched on a number of key aspects of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Indeed, what was planned at that time (Cold war era, 1950s-60s) may also have a bearing not only on the dramatic efforts undertaken using radio telescopes, but also attempts considered using nuclear weapons exploded in space.

The first serious search for extraterrestrial civilizations is generally regarded as beginning in 1960 by the U.S. astronomer Frank Drake at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. This was by using its new 85-foot telescope in a project nicknamed Project Ozma. It got its name from Princess Ozma, a character in L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels (on which the popular film The Wizard of Oz was based).

At the time Drake explained that Oz was “a land far away, difficult to reach, and populated by strange and exotic beings". In the novels, the fictitious narrator employed wireless radio technology to establish communications with the faraway realm of Oz. Like the books’ narrator, Drake wanted to use radio (specifically from the Green Bank radio telescope) to speak with exotic worlds “somewhere over the rainbow.”

Among its first efforts, Project Ozma observed two Sunlike star systems, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, at a wavelength close to the 21 cm hydrogen line. Drake’s idea was inspired but simple: If there are intelligent extraterrestrials who have developed radio technology just as we have, then we might be able to detect them using radio telescopes on Earth. The results of the project were null, but they led to many subsequent searches by others. A new subfield of astronomy was born: Radio Astronomy, see e.g.

The Basic Principles Of Radio Astronomy

The Basic Principles of Radio Astronomy - Part 2

It's nice to note that at the outset SETI's radio astronomers held a cosmopolitan (and collegial) perspective, with Drake and others like him predicting that the detection of extraterrestrial intelligence might result in a wave of peace and unity on our own planet. In fact, in 1992 he optimistically wrote,

“I fully expect an alien civilization to bequeath us vast libraries of useful information, to do with as we wish. This “Encyclopedia Galactica” will create the potential for improvements in our lives that we cannot predict. During the Renaissance, rediscovered ancient texts and new knowledge flooded medieval Europe with the light of thought, wonder, creativity, experimentation, and exploration of the natural world. Another, even more stirring Renaissance will be fueled by the wealth of alien scientific, technical, and sociological information that awaits us."

Incredibly, other SETI scientists shared that perspective, and they also facilitated collaboration between Soviet and American astrophysicists. But barely a dozen years later serious warnings - from outside the SETI realm - were sounded that it might be folly to allow our radio waves to escape into space with the aim of making extraterrestrial contact.

Physicist Freeman Dyson in a November, 1972 address to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, warned (p. 268, 'Whispers From Space' by John W. McVey):

"We are more likely to discover first the species in which technology has got out of control, a technological cancer spreading through the galaxy. We should be suitably alarmed if we discover it and take our precautions. It is just as well to be warned ahead of time."

Through the 1970s, in fact, similar warnings were sounded. By 1979, Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Ryle showed how advanced alien telemetry and signal recovery of our radio waves would have revealed just how warlike and dedicated to destruction we as a species are. Also the components which rendered us choice targets for a 'hostile takeover'. Sir Ryle's main takeaway was that any potential contact should be assumed hostile and manifest in a need for aggression.

Sir Martin concluded it would be foolhardy to be anything other than passive listeners given we knew nothing of advanced alien intentions. (Of course, it is possible advanced aliens are already monitoring our activities from right here on planet Earth, i.e. as manifested in the assorted reports of military pilots which have come to light, e.g.

What The Pentagon Prelim UFO Report Isn't Saying: 'The Aliens Are Here, We Just Don't Want To Admit It." (brane-space.blogspot.com)

Back to the early years of SETI, we know the Cold War backdrop presented challenges to the new, optimistic science - not yet dunned down by later warnings of Dyson et al. Specifically, Soviet and American SETI scientists discovered that it was difficult to communicate with each other, let alone extraterrestrials, because of political barriers like travel bans, mail interference, and, perhaps especially, interference from the intelligence community.

Drake himself first developed the idea to search for artificial radio signals during a period when, for the first time in our known history, artificial radio signals pervaded outer space. Spy satellites and spacecraft were growing in number, and radio-astronomy infrastructure was being used for both science and military applications. The same telescope that could detect evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence could also track an intercontinental ballistic missile. Ironically, then, by the time of Sir Martin Ryle's warnings concerning escaping terrestrial radio waves, the "horses had already left the barn". Indeed, given radio waves had been spreading out since the 1930s - including from Orson Welles' 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast- any aliens as far out as Tau Ceti, Epsilon Eridani, and even Zeta Reticuli, already knew where we were.

Welles' 1938 fictional Mercury Theater broadcast, indeed, would have arrived at Zeta Reticuli (39.17 LY away) by 1978. Assuming a technological civilization in the form of Freeman Dyson's supposition - and leaving a planet in that system within 2 years - they'd arrive at Earth within 40 more years - or by 2020. Might some of the UAP observed and recorded by Navy pilots be from that system? Well, assuming they attained a technology capable of near light speed craft, maybe. (The constraints of time and distance would be less severe for any advanced aliens from Tau Ceti planets, 12 light years distant).

What might the technology be to accomplish this? In a December, 2022 post I suggested a craft composed of D2 branes.

In this depiction, each D2 brane panel has the capability of extracting zero-point energy via instantonic D(-1) branes to access a higher dimensional D5 brane. This would then comport with the late physicist David Bohm's hypothesis (Wholeness and the Implicate Order, pp. 233- 242):

DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf (gci.org.uk)

I.e. that a higher dimensional order can be accessed to enable transition to another coordinate region in 4D space -time.

In effect, this 'brane' craft uses no fuel (chemical or nuclear) as such, but a collection of malleable branes that alter their local properties (electric, magnetic, gravimetric) to that of a distant target region. When the complete synchronization of the properties is effected an instantaneous linkage is forged so the localized brane hole expands and then detaches in the distant space-time, e.g.

X(B) -> X(B') and represented:

This makes much more sense than trying to use chemical or nuclear fuel rockets to achieve interstellar travel, though I admit most conventional thinkers will dismiss it or try to debunk it.

Back to the Cold War SETI efforts. The tension between the aggressive and peaceful applications created a challenge for SETI. Indeed it also spawned a duality, i.e. between a science rooted in both internationalism and one rooted in warfare. This may be what prompted SETI’s consideration of existential threats, first raised in the book Intelligent Life in the Universe, which he coauthored in 1966 with Igor Shklovsky. A copy of which I have, and which I've referred to repeatedly over 5 decades.:

They wrote: “Another question of some relevance to our own time, and one whose interest is not restricted to the scientist alone, is this: Do technical civilizations tend to destroy themselves shortly after they become capable of interstellar radio communication?” (reference 11, page 358).

Drake had similar concerns. At a conference in Green Bank in 1961, he revealed the now-famous Drake equation, which was designed to help SETI specialists organize discussions on the number of extant extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. His equation’s final variable L stands for a civilization’s longevity. Drake grasped that it was important to calculate not only how many intelligent civilizations might arise in our galaxy but also how long they would survive.

When Drake presented his equation, the nuclear arms race was reaching a head; less than one year later, the Cuban Missile Crisis would bring the world to the brink of disaster. The longevity of intelligent technological civilizations was a pressing question.

Following along the lines of other - later - research (i.e. Newman and Sagan, 1974), it seems plausible that any given civilization that has reached its atomic age will either soon extirpate itself (likely within 100-200 Earth yrs.) or - if it surmounts the existential threats- prosper and survive possibly with the use of AI. The positive use of AI in my opinion could also be of use in the design and construction of advanced light speed craft, perhaps along the lines of the D-brane vehicle I noted.

But for sure, the destruction of millions of civilization by their own (nuclear) hands cannot be discounted - as we humans have faced the same recurring threat since the first A-bombs were dropped in 1945. The nuclear nations of our planet now possess enough nuclear firepower to wipe out the species twenty times over. China alone has an estimate 200 thermonuclear warheads - of the 1- 2 megaton range- mounted on ballistic missiles that could reach the U.S. These alone could make North American inhabitable for thousands of years. Add in the missiles of the U.S., Russia and Israel (also 200 nuclear 1 MT warheads) and you get the picture.

That other civilizations reached the same point and failed to pass it, is one likely explanation for the Fermi Paradox. I.e. Enrico Fermi in 1951, in response to the apparent cosmic silence greeting the SETI teams, famously asked, “Where are they?” Indeed, the Fermi paradox, as it is now known, refers to the seeming contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life existing in the universe and the lack of evidence for alien civilizations. In a post from June, 2019 I addressed this paradox and noted:

"Well, flashing forward from Fermi's era, the military pilots I cited may well have shown us 'where'. Maybe, just maybe - 'they' are using our skies as their personal playground but we are too dumb, arrogant or mentally myopic to see it. Or admit it, out of a sense of cosmic inferiority. "

Referring of course to the sightings (and video recordings) of Navy pilots in our own time of obviously advanced craft:

https://youtu.be/Ce6ZevfbIK0

If, by a process of elimination, these objects are not: a) exotic (rare) atmospheric phenomena (e.g. Kugelblitz) which I had identified with one earlier UFO sighting in Barbados,

Transient Optical Phenomena of the Atmosphere - a Case Study

Or b) misidentified planets (e.g. Venus, Jupiter), or c) other aircraft, then the only hypothesis left is one of extraterrestrial origin. That is what the military pilots observed and which were entered into the Defense Department's 'Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program' Catalog- conceding these were actually intelligently directed craft.

This brings us to an idea called "the great filter" which some theorists began to propose to explain the dearth of alien civilizations in radio contact. According to this speculation, the 'great filter" acts as an obstacle preventing intelligent civilizations from establishing contact with one another. One can think of the filter as a probability barrier— one replete with hurdles (e.g. respective nuclear eras, climate change) that life forms have to face at various points in their development. If they fail, they get "filtered out" of contention for any contact.

The great-filter idea also posits that highly unlikely evolutionary transitions must occur for an Earthlike planet to generate an intelligent civilization capable of being detected by our current technology. The great filter can then either be behind us—implying that we have already surmounted a highly improbable event that enables our civilization’s development—or ahead of us. In the latter case, it might come in the form of potential disaster, such as self-destruction by our own technology. Or our failure to take climate change seriously, which more and more appears to be the settled case. What this "great filter" cannot do is forecast the likelihood a successful civilization has already passed through all the hurdles and actually designed craft capable of reaching us in the here and now on this Earth - not via radio waves.

In this regard it is interesting to me - as reported in the Physics Today article - that in a U.S.–Soviet conference in 1971, ideas for contacting extraterrestrials were mixed with solutions for the nuclear arms race. Thus (ibid.):

"James Elliot, an astronomer at Cornell University’s Laboratory for Planetary Studies, presented a paper called 'X-Ray pulses for interstellar communication,' a benign title for a radical idea. He proposed that nuclear weapons could serve as an announcement message from Earth when attempting to contact extraterrestrial beings."

Nuclear weapons used to contact extraterrestrial beings? WHY? And what IF such beings had already been in our proximity (i.e. the 1947 Roswell crash) and noted the nuclear threat our species posed already? This telegraphs to me that from 1971, and more than likely even before that, we had adopted an aggressive stance toward any potential alien life in our vicinity. It also explains now the yen to try to re-engineer such craft, to use for our own military benefit in case of any alien invasion.

Recalling how much furor and hysteria the Orson Welles' fictional radio broadcast set off in 1938. This was for those millions who had not tuned from the beginning when Welles stated clearly that the broadcast was fiction. In the words of author Aja Raden (in her book, 'The Truth About Lies', p. 202):

"They believed that what they were hearing was real news. And they lost their fucking minds. Looting and rioting ensued. Accidents proliferated and hospitals were jammed with people injured or killed by other people, hysterical people, people in shock, stroke and heart attack victims. People scared stiff, as well as others who harmed themselves rather than be captured or killed by the Martians.

In San Francisco, people overwhelmed army headquarters looking to fight. In Birmingham people overwhelmed churches, certain the world was ending. A woman in Indiana burst into one crowded church and screamed 'New York is destroyed! It's the end of the world! You might as well go home and die! I just heard it on the radio!"

All of this hysterical reaction would have confirmed for the then U.S. military and governmental powers that any reports of potential alien craft (UFOs, now UAP) had to be throttled and debunked at all costs. It was essential for two reasons: 1) to prevent public mass hysteria and the necessity to impose martial law, and 2) to preserve the myth of human sovereignty over our world and that it wasn't being used as an amusement park or worse, a sounding area for future colonization.

As for James Elliot, he even went further and "suggested the US and the Soviet Union combine their nuclear arsenals to create a single large explosion far from Earth, so the emitted x rays could potentially be detected at a significant distance by intelligences on other worlds."

Thereby, in this genius's estimation: "nuclear disarmament and extraterrestrial contact could be handled at the same time".

Righto! Send up a massive combined nuclear explosion out in space, to show these aliens just how friendly a species we are! This after we already carved up a number of their compadres' in autopsies at Wright-Patterson Air Base. What a boffo idea! That it was never done is small consolation. Our combined and continued actions since have disclosed to whatever alien species visiting we cannot be trusted, and perhaps - just perhaps - the best move is just let this aggressive and arrogant species off itself. The Physics Today piece ends by noting (ibid.):

"SETI Institute scientist Seth Shostak has made the point that any aliens humanity should expect to encounter are likely past the point of AI development, considering that humans were able to accomplish the feat so quickly after inventing radio technologies."

I agree with Seth's assessment but also that such aliens likely used superior constructive AI development to push their own interstellar aspirations and likely reached our world having done so. Hence, the Navy pilots recordings which they also discussed in a 60 Minutes episode:

Navy pilots describe encounters with UFOs - YouTube

This despite the fact Seth isn't buying that this was feasible, an argument I already addressed and shot down in a previous post, e.g.

Anthropocentric Parochialism Defines SETI Scientist Seth Shostak's Skepticism Over Aliens & UAP (brane-space.blogspot.com)

Let's also note the late Carl Sagan - early SETI stalwart and once a debunker of UFOs as alien craft - did finally come around to accepting the validity in a one-on-one with Northwestern University astronomer J. Allen Hynek, e.g.

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=76926

Excerpt: "The pillar of modern space science Dr. Carl Sagan revealed to Dr. J. Allen Hynek, that he knew UFOs were real but could not talk publicly about the matter and possibly risk the loss of academic funding."

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