“You see, their young enter through the ears and wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex. This has the effect of rendering the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion… Later, as they grow, follows madness and death…”
– Khan Noonien Singh

Anyone who has ever seen Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, the second movie in the series, can still remember the horror of Khan releasing larvae of Ceti eels into the ears of Reliant officers Commander Pavel Chekov and Captain Clark Terrell, where they wormed their way into their brains, wrapping themselves around the cerebral cortex to cause brain control, pain, madness and eventual death. It’s nice to know that’s pure fiction, right? RIGHT?

“Once you consume them, they can move throughout your body — your eyes, your tissues and most commonly your brain. They leave doctors puzzled in their wake as they migrate and settle to feed on the body they’re invading; a classic parasite, but this one can get into your head.”

According to CNN, in 2013 a British man of Chinese was found to have a tapeworm moving inside his brain in 2013 – a parasite known as Spirometra erinaceieuropaei. It’s extremely rare and found mostly in Asia – the adult parasite lives in dog and cat intestines, but the eggs can be spread via fecal matter, particularly in water, which appears to be how the man contracted it. In 2018, a man in India died after his brain, brain stem, and cerebellum were infected by the tapeworm Taenia solium. It’s a good thing these worms are rare and no one is trying to make robotic versions of them, right? RIGHT?

“It could also be implanted into the brain because its high mobility and ability to transform means it can survive in this harsh environment where there are rapid blood flows and tiny blood vessels.”

The South China Morning Post reports that scientists in Shenzhen have developed a tiny robot worm that can enter the human body, swim through along blood vessels and hook up to neurons in the brain. The 1mm-by-3mm (.04 in by .12 in) robots are powered externally by a magnetic field generator and use infrared radiation to contract their size by up to a third to squeeze through tight spots. On the noble cause side, Xu Tiantian — lead scientist for the project at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences – says the robot worms will allow doctors to deliver drugs directly to a specific tumor and then exit the body when done.

“But our purpose is not developing a biological weapon. It’s the opposite.”

Needless to say, using the robot worm as a weapon is entirely possible as soon as a more powerful electric field generator with a longer effective range is available and the robot worms obtain the ability to move while the host human is in motion – they currently have to be lying perfectly still. If he were around today, robot designer Khan Noonien Singh might say: “Piece of cake.”

Xu agrees.

“We just hope that day will never come.”

Or is it already here? Mr. Chekov, care to comment?

Tales of birds and the world of the paranormal are easy to find. Some accounts, however, are far more intriguing than others. Here are a few examples that, for me, stand out. We’ll begin with a man named Elliott O’Donnell, an acclaimed authority ghosts and life after death, and who penned dozens of books on supernatural phenomena. Born in 1872, he continued writing until his death in 1965, at the age of ninety-three. O’Donnell also had a deep interest in reports of strange creatures, as the following 19^th century account demonstrates: “Henry Spicer, in his Strange Things Among Us, tells the story of a Captain Morgan, an honorable and vivacious gentleman, who, arriving in London in 1841, puts up for the night in a large, old-fashioned hotel. The room in which he slept was full of heavy, antique furniture, reminiscent of the days of King George I, one of the worst periods in modern English history for crime. Despite, however, his grimly suggestive surroundings, Captain Morgan quickly got into bed and was soon asleep. He was abruptly awakened by the sound of flapping, and, on looking up, he saw a huge black bird with outstretched wings and fiery red eyes perched on the rail at the foot of the four-poster bed.”

The tale continues: “The creature flew at him and endeavored to peck his eyes. Captain Morgan resisted, and after a desperate struggle succeeded in driving it to a sofa in the corner of the room, where it settled down and regarded him with great fear in its eyes. Determined to destroy it, he flung himself on the top of it, when, to his surprise and terror, it immediately crumbled into nothingness. He left the house early next morning, convinced that what he had seen was a ghost, but Mr. Spicer offers no explanation as to how one should classify the phenomenon. It may have been the earth-bound spirit of the criminal or viciously inclined person who had once lived there, or it may have been the phantom of an actual bird. Either alternative is feasible.

O’Donnell concluded: “I have heard there is an old house near Poole, in Dorset, and another in Essex, which were formerly haunted by spectral birds, and that as late as 1860 the phantasm of a bird, many times the size of a raven, was so frequently seen by the inmates of a house in Dean Street, Soho, that they eventually grew quite accustomed to it. “But bird hauntings are not confined to houses, and are far more often to be met with out of doors; indeed there are very few woods, and moors, and commons that are not subjected to them. I have constantly seen the spirits of all manner of birds in the parks in Dublin and London. Greenwich Park, in particular, is full of them.” Now, moving on…

The Reverend F.G. Lee was the author of a still-acclaimed 19^th century book titled Glimpses in the Twilight. Published in 1888, it is filled with all manner of amazing and chilling tales, including one of a terrible, monster-bird. Lee, who extensively researched the strange story, said: “In the middle of the last century, circa 1749, owing to several remarkable circumstances which had then recently occurred, a conviction became almost universal among the inhabitants of the village, that the vaults under the church of West Drayton, near Uxbridge, were haunted.”

He continued: “Strange noises were heard in and about the sacred building, and the sexton of that day, a person utterly devoid of superstition, was on inquiry and examination compelled to admit that certain unaccountable occurrences in regard to the vault had taken place. Others maintained that three persons from an adjacent manor-house in company had gone to look through a grating in the side of the foundation of the church – for the ventilation of the vault, and from which screams and noises were heard constantly, and there had seen a very large black raven perched on one of the coffins.”

According to the Reverend Lee: “This strange bird was seen more than once by the then parish clerk pecking from within at the grating, and furiously fluttering about within the enclosed vault. On another occasion it was seen by other people in the body of the church itself. The wife of the parish clerk and her daughter often saw it.” Eventually, however, the beastly bird’s reign of terror was brought to an end, as the reverend noted:

“The local bell-ringers, who all professed to deny its existence and appearance, one evening, however, came together to ring a peal, when they were told by a youth that the big raven was flying about inside the chancel. Coming together into the church with sticks and stones and a lantern, four men and two boys found it fluttering about amongst the rafters. They gave chase to it, flinging at it, shouting at and endeavoring to catch it. Driven from hither and thither for some time, and twice or thrice beaten with a stick, so that one of its wings seemed to have thus been broken and made to droop, the bird fell down wounded with expanded wings, screaming and fluttering into the eastern part of the chancel, when two of the men on rushing towards it to secure it, and driving it into a corner, vaulted over the communion-rails, and violently proceeded to seize it. As the account stands, it at once sank wounded and exhausted on to the floor, as they believed in their certain grasp, but all of a moment – vanished!”

In relation to this particularly weird saga, the wife of Reverend R. L. Burgh, who served at the church of West Drayton in the 1800s, wrote the following to Reverend Lee: “It was many years ago; and I had quite forgotten it until I got your note. I can remember feeling persuaded that a bird must have got into the family vault, and in going outside to look into it through the iron bars to try if anything could be seen there, the sounds were then always in the chancel in the same place.”

Now, it’s time to share with you a story that involves me. Just like almost everyone who has lost someone, my family and I mourned a passing and celebrated a life. For me, it was when my mom died of the effects of Alzheimer’s in 2010. There was, however, something very odd which occurred at the time of my mother’s death. It’s something I have never forgotten. On one particular morning, at my dad’s place in England, we were sitting in the living-room when our conversation was briefly brought to a sudden end. By a loud, single thump. It clearly came from somewhere outside. Puzzled, we took a look out back and found that a blackbird had slammed into the kitchen window and was lying on the ground. It had clearly been killed on impact. Then, the very next day, we drove to the nearby nursing-home which my mom had permanently lived in since 2002. The purpose: to thank all of the staff for their help and care over the years. Right outside the main door to the facility was a dead, brightly-feathered, small bird. We literally had to lift our feet above it to get into the building.

About a week later we had my mom’s funeral, and a few days after that it was time to fly back to the United States. Well, on getting home, what was practically on the doorstep? Yep, another dead bird. And again, it was a brightly colored one. Of course, at some point in their lives pretty much everyone stumbles on a dead bird. But, three of them, across less than two weeks? And one at my dad’s place in the U.K., one in Arlington, Texas where I live, and one at my mother’s care-home, all in the aftermath of her death? Could it have been an odd coincidence? Of course it could. I can’t say I’m a full-on believer in the afterlife. I guess like a lot of us, I just don’t know. I sometimes think there’s something on the “other side.” On other occasions, and also like others, though, I think it might be lights-out forever. But, I still occasionally think of those three dead birds after my mom’s funeral.

Scientists have determined that the Earth’s oldest asteroid crater – named the Yarrabubba crater – happened 2.229 billion years ago. The crater, which is located between Sandstone and Meekatharra in Western Australia’s outback, measures 43 miles wide.

A team of experts from Curtin University in Perth were able to determine the exact age of the crater by using isotopic analysis of the minerals found at the impact zone. They studied zircon and monazite minerals that were found at the bottom of the Yarrabubba crater and were “shock recrystallized” because of the impact. Their study was published in Nature Communications and can be read in full here.

Australian outback

It was always agreed upon that the Yarrabubba crater was one of the oldest on Earth but scientists weren’t able to determine its exact age until recently. In fact, it’s so old that it happened 200 million years before the next oldest impact zone that’s located in South Africa and called the Vredefort crater.

What’s even more interesting is that this impact may have helped lift our planet out of an ancient ice age called “Snowball Earth”. Curtin University Professor Chris Kirkland explained, “Now we know the Yarrabubba crater was made right at the end of what’s commonly referred to as the early Snowball Earth – a time when the atmosphere and oceans were evolving and becoming more oxygenated and when rocks deposited on many continents recorded glacial conditions.” “This twist of fate suggests that the large meteorite impact may have influenced global climate,” added Associate Professor Nicholas Timms.

The Yarrabubba impact may have helped lift our planet out of an ancient ice age.

Half a trillion tons of water vapour would have been sent into Earth’s atmosphere with such a large asteroid hitting a continent covered in ice, therefore, possibly causing changes to our climate. “This finding raises the question whether this impact may have tipped the scales enough to end glacial conditions,” said Timms.

Their study is very important in properly dating ancient craters, some of which may even be older than Yarrabubba. “Yarrabubba is about half the age of the Earth and it raises the question of whether all older impact craters have been eroded or if they are still out there waiting to be discovered,” stated Dr. Aaron Cavosie from Curtin University. As a matter of fact, materials that came from an ancient impact crater have been found in Africa and Australia and they date back to over 2 billion years old, however, the craters in which they came from are still unidentified.

For as long as the UFO phenomenon has been around there have been those cases of people who claim to have actually been physically whisked away by these entities. What happens after they have been captured varies from report to report, with some speaking of gaining amazing new knowledge, to more cryptic encounters, to truly terrifying ordeals. The case we are looking at here is of the latter variety, and revolves around a group of men who just wanted to have a peaceful vacation in the wilderness, but who would experience what is considered to be one of the most intense and scariest alien abductions on record.

It all started as just a camping and canoeing trip with a group of buddies up in the remote wilderness of Allagash, Maine, in the United States back in the summer of 1976. The plan was for the group, composed of brothers Jim Weiner and Jack Weiner and their friends Charles Foltz and Charles Rak, who had all met at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, to go canoeing down the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, camping out and fishing along the way, and it was supposed to be a great week-long adventure for them. The first day and night went as well as they could hope for, but things would start to get strange from the second evening of their brave excursion, when Weiner noticed a very strange light in the sky, of which he would say:

It was just floating above the treetops, didn’t seem to be moving in any direction. And I looked at it through the binoculars for maybe 15 seconds, 30 seconds, and it suddenly just winked out from the outside edges inward. I mean, it literally just went whooht, like that, and it was gone. There was something about this thing that left me with an odd feeling that wasn’t quite right, but I really didn’t dwell on it.

He tried to just write the strange incident off as an aircraft and get on with his trip, but it would not be long before weird phenomena started up again, this time witnessed by the entire group. On the fourth day of the trip, the group was out night fishing on their canoe at a place called Big Eagle Lake. On the shore they had lit a large bonfire, which flickered eerily out over the black water below them and was meant to give them a sense of direction in the darkness, but even as that beacon sat there on the shore, another light entirely caught their attention, this one in the star flecked sky above them. Rak would explain of it:

I had a feeling there was someone staring at me from behind me. I turned over my right shoulder like that, and I saw this large, round globe of light that looked exactly like what we had seen two nights previously. It had this roiling effect to it, like a miniature sun, very, very bright. It lit the treetops up like daylight, and it was absolutely silent. After looking at it for what seemed like several moments, we decided to signal this thing. That’s when Charlie picked up the flashlight and squeezed off a message–s.o.s.

The plan to signal the object was in retrospect probably not such a good idea, as it then reportedly changed course to head directly towards them. Alone in the wilderness, with no civilization for miles around and bobbing about in the middle of this darkened frigid lake, the sight of this intimidating otherworldly bright object, estimated as being around 80 feet in diameter, caused them to panic and start rowing for shore as fast as they could even as the object drew up upon them. Jim Weiner could not help but look behind him at the inexorable approach of this odd light, and could see that it would soon be right on top of them. He recalls:

I remember looking over my shoulder, trying to keep an eye on this object as it was coming up behind us. It was getting very close. It was almost on top of us at this point.  I remember thinking that we’re not going to outrun this thing. I remember thinking, ‘I could pick up a stone and bounce it off this thing’s side.’ That’s how close it was. And then, all of a sudden, it just streaked away very, very fast, and within a few seconds, it was like a star, just another light in the sky.

Reaching the shore, the group of men was surprised to see that the robust bonfire, which should have been blazing strong after so little time had passed, had been reduced to mere smoldering embers. This suggested that several hours must have passed, yet each of the men agreed that they had only been on the water for less than half an hour, making the dying fire a puzzling conundrum. Even so, they found that they were all extremely exhausted and tired out for some reason, and so just wanted to get back to camp to get a good night’s sleep and continue on with their trip. In fact, at the time they didn’t even really talk about the strangeness that they had just seen, the overwhelming fatigue taking over. This might have been the end of it, and for several years it was, until Weiner began having very vivid, horrific nightmares that would invade his sleep nearly every night and leave him waking up in a cold sweat and state of absolute terror. The content of the dreams was always the same and very specific, with Weiner stating:

I was starting to have nightmares, really terrible nightmares that I could not explain. I found myself in a very brightly lit room. I had no idea where I was or why I was there.  To my left, I could see my brother Jim, Chuck Rak, and Charlie Foltz sitting on some type of bench, and they were all naked. I was wondering why they weren’t helping me, because I felt like I was in danger, and while I’m trying to figure this out, I notice this figure or a dark, shadowy-type figure emerging from this light– this bright light in front of me. I would wake up, uh, uh, sweating and breathing heavily and just in a– in a state of terror and shock.

These bizarre nightmares got so bad that they started to affect his waking life, and it would get stranger when he discovered that the other men who had been with him on that trip were having similar nightmares as well, all of which had shared elements of a feeling of helplessness and of an unknown entity present in the shadows. It did not take long for them to connect these strange nightmares to the incident they’d had out at that remote lake with the mysterious light, and this caused them to contact a UFO researcher by the name of Ray Fowler, of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), who speculated that they might have been abducted by unknown entities and were having suppressed memories bubbling up to the surface in their dreams. He arranged to have the men hypnotically regressed in order to see if their memories could be dug up, and this is where the story would get even weirder than it already was.

The hypnotic sessions were conducted by an Anthony Constantino, and each man was hypnotized separately, with no interaction between them in the meantime, and the stories they had to tell are terrifying to say the least. In every instance, the men described being taken aboard a strange craft at the time of the lake incident, where they were put into a diffusely lit room that looked, according to one of the witnesses, “like a vet’s office.” Here they were approached by grey, long-necked entities with large bald heads, metallic, lidless eyes, and four skeletal fingers, which approached them and proceeded to carry out a series of humiliating medical experiments on them, including taking bodily fluid and tissue samples, as well as performing painful procedures with silvery machines. Foltz in particular was described as being especially subjected to various strange probes and painful scans with a metallic, curved machine, which apparently caused him to scream out in agony. Weiner would say during his session:

They’re–they’re– they don’t know what to do. I think they think I’m going to come after them. I feel like I want to. I feel like I want to– the first one that comes near me, I’m going to throttle him. I don’t like these things. I don’t care where they come from. They shouldn’t be doing this to people. They’re right there. Their face is right in my face. I don’t know why. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what they want. They’re saying things. In my head they’re saying, ‘Don’t be afraid. They say, ‘Do what we say. Just do what we say.

Interestingly, although the accounts were independent, all of the men involved described the exact same thing, right up to Foltz’ bizarre body scans. Being artists, they were able to draw detailed sketched of the entities and the room they had been in, all of which looked the same, and additionally they all passed psychiatric evaluations and polygraph tests with flying colors. It was all very harrowing and frightening, with Constantino himself saying of it all:

It was the most intense experience I’ve had as a hypnotist. After working with those guys, I was scared. I still am. I think it’s true. I think they were being tagged — the way we tag and study sharks and bears and then release them.

For all appearances it seemed as if they were telling the truth, or at least strongly believed they were. Fowler was so excited about the case that he would go on to write a whole book on it, called The Allagash Abductions, but over the years there would appear some cracks in the story. It all started when Charles Rak began to fall unusually silent on the matter of the abduction, even as the other men freely discussed it with researchers. He would finally come forward to make the claim that, although the lights in the sky had been real, the abductions had been entirely fabricated by the group for the purpose of making some money. Pretty much the only thing he agreed really happened was that they all saw anomalous lights in the sky, but according to him the missing time and the eerie alien encounters they all described were a load of bunk and had never happened, and that on top of this they were all stoned at the time. Yet, the other three men adamantly stuck by their story, with Weiner saying:

Jack, Charlie, and I, after all these years, are still in agreement with the Eagle Lake event as we (three) remember it. We also accept the results of the hypnotic regression sessions and subsequent polygraph tests as supportive of an abduction scenario.

To make matters more complicated still, they and Fowler believe that Rak was intentionally trying to destroy their credibility after a falling out, interestingly because they say that he was the one trying to make money off of it and the rest of the group did not agree with that. They are also quick to point out that Rak was always a bit of a wild card and had long had temper issues, essentially painting him as someone who had lost control and then flown off the rails. Weiner would tell Fowler of Rak:

We definitely steer clear of him because the guy is a loose cannon and a mental disaster area. I personally believe that Mr. Rak’s self-aggrandizing rationalizations and disparaging accusations are simply the rantings of an angry and resentful individual, on whom his former friends have turned their backs.

So what is going on here? Was Rak just fed up with his friends and wanted to spoil the party? Are the other three correct in their assessment of what went on? The case of the Allagash abductions has gone on to become quite the classic case, and has been debated and discussed to this day. What happened to these men out there in that remote land? Was this a genuine UFO abduction or is there something else going on behind the scenes? The three witnesses other than Rak have continued to stand by their story, and the truth of the matter is that we will probably never know, and this just serves to be one more weird case to add to the many.

“The center of the galaxy is where extreme astrophysics occurs — the X-sports of astrophysics.”

If that description of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way doesn’t get more young students interested in astrophysics, nothing will. Andrea Ghez, UCLA’s Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Astrophysics and director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group, used those words in a press release to describe a new discovery concerning Sagittarius A* — the supermassive black hole that the rest of the Milky Way revolves around and tries to avoid being sucked into. Unfortunately (well, not for the black hole), Ghez and her team have discovered four mysterious objects that may belong to a new class that will soon (in space terms) be a lost class.

“One of the things that has gotten everyone excited about the G objects is that the stuff that gets pulled off of them by tidal forces as they sweep by the central black hole must inevitably fall into the black hole. When that happens, it might be able to produce an impressive fireworks show since the material eaten by the black hole will heat up and emit copious radiation before it disappears across the event horizon.”

Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and co-author with Ghez of the new study published in the journal Nature, sounds equally excited as he describes the discovery of G3, G4, G5 and G6 – strange objects joining G1 and G2 in orbit around Sagittarius A*. Ghez also discovered G1 and both were puzzling because they “look like gas and behave like stars.” The new four also appear to be the same but have very different orbits. Ghez now believes that all of this strange behavior and appearance is due to these G-objects once being binary stars that have been forcefully merged together as they approach the supermassive black hole.

“Mergers of stars may be happening in the universe more often than we thought, and likely are quite common. Black holes may be driving binary stars to merge. It’s possible that many of the stars we’ve been watching and not understanding may be the end product of mergers that are calm now.”

“Blame the black hole” could become the new catch-all excuse for strange occurrences around the universe, but in this case it sounds plausible. Of course, everything is ultimately about us, so Ghez addresses the inevitable question of how this discovery will affect Earth – even though our Sun isn’t a binary.

“The Earth is in the suburbs compared to the center of the galaxy, which is some 26,000 light-years away.”

That sounds somewhat comforting … except discoveries like these keep making the universe seem smaller and supermassive black holes, wandering black holes, supernovas and other destructive space objects and events seem so much closer. Perhaps it’s inescapable (just like the gravity of Sagittarius A*) that young astrophysicists will continue to make these kinds of discoveries and scare us with more stories of the extreme sports X-sports going on int the not-so-distant supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

A couple of nights ago I was asked for my thoughts on the hugely controversial Project Blue Beam. If you don’t know about it, read on. Within the field of conspiracy theorizing, there are few greater controversies than Project Blue Beam. Allegedly, it is the brainchild of a secret group of powerful figures in, among many others, NASA, the United Nations, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Vatican. Project Blue Beam, so the story goes, will be at the forefront of a program to create a new society dominated by martial law and a ruthless world government. And how might such a government come about? By faking the second coming of Jesus Christ, specifically by using sophisticated hologram-type technology to project huge images of the Son of God across the skies of the United States, Canada, Australia, and much of Europe. Other parts of the world will see massive images of Buddha, of Allah, of Krishna, of Mohammed, and of multiple other gods, depending on the regions, the people and their cultures, and the beliefs of the relevant nations.

In mere days, however, each and every one of those images will merge into one far more sinister and terrifying image: that of the Anti-Christ, who will inform the people of Earth that not a single one of the world’s religions has the correct version of events. Only that of this nightmarish entity is the accurate version. As a result, the entire human race will be expected to bow down and worship the Anti-Christ. Such a thing will result in worldwide chaos, disorder, and anarchy – which the people behind Project Blue Beam shrewdly know only all too well. With the world plunged into states of fear and mayhem, this terrible ruse will then allow the United Nations to coordinate a planet-wide program to enslave the Earth’s entire population. The story is as fantastic as it is terrifying. But is it true?

The source of the Project Blue Beam story was Serge Monast, a journalist from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Although Monast began in his career in regular journalism, by 1994, he was focused almost exclusively on conspiracy theories, including matters relative to Masonic-based conspiracy theories and matters relative to the one world government scenario. It was at this time that Monast claimed to have uncovered massive amounts of secret information on Project Blue Beam, and how it would be utilized to enslave all but that aforementioned elite. That Monast died in December 1996, of a heart attack, and at the age of just fifty-one, has led to suspicions within conspiracy-driven realms that he was murdered by agents of this dangerous program. The reason: to prevent Monast from blowing the whistle, big-time, on the project.

The story has provoked numerous questions: Are our gods about to be brought before us, but in a fashion few could scarcely imagine? Does such sophisticated holographic technology really exist? Could such an incredible ruse fool the entire Human Race? What are the long-term goals of Project Blue Beam? Who was Serge Monast? Who were his sources of information? Was he murdered for what he knew? Is Project Blue Beam looming just around the corner? Or, is the Project Blue Beam saga nothing more than one of the most outrageous hoaxes of the modern era?

There’s no doubt that government and military agencies have worked hard to perfect the ultimate holograms – chiefly to use them on battlefields. When it comes to the matter of Project Blue Beam, I can sum up my views in four, concise words: “Give me a break!!!” It’s one thing to develop advanced holograms for military purposes. It’s quite another, however, to have the entire planet and everyone on it controlled by secret societies and government agencies – and all in a matter of just weeks, which is what Monast suggested. As our technologies develop, so will our holograms; that is all but inevitable. But, a holographic Anti-Christ and a one-world government, one that we all accept and don’t stand up against in our billions? Don’t worry: it’s garbage. Entertaining garbage. But, still garbage.

The question of whether we are alone in the universe has swirled around our consciousness since as long as we were able to even comprehend the concept of a universe at all. We have long reached out to the stars, looked out over that vast sea of cosmic mysteries, and wondered if there might be anyone else out there doing the same, looking right back at us. Is there other intelligent life in the universe, or are we truly alone in this cold expanse? There has never been an answer to this, and we continue to try and find one, yet as time goes by it sometimes seems that for all we know there is no one looking out, and that we are the sole consciousness of this universe of ours. We throw out our radio signals, announce our presence, and scour every corner that our technology will allow, but there is nothing, only silence. There have been many ideas on why this should be, and some are far more ominous and sinister than others.

The main problem we face in the end with regards to other intelligent lifeforms is that, although the universe is vast, with the Milky Way alone composed of around 200 billion stars and billions of planets, if even a tiny faction of those have produced intelligent, spacefaring civilizations, then it has been reasoned that we should have definitely heard from them or at least detected them by now. This conundrum was perhaps best illustrated in what has come to be called the Fermi Paradox, which I have covered before but which probably deserves a refresher here. In 1950, influential and notable physicist Enrico Fermi was working for Los Alamos National Laboratory, and one day while having lunch with colleagues Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York, the conversation came around to UFOs and alien life. The group began discussing the possibility of other alien civilizations out there scattered across the galaxy, and that was when Fermi simply and bluntly asked “Where are they?” This generated a bit of laughter around the table, but he was perfectly serious. When the others asked exactly what he had meant, Fermi explained that if there was another civilization or civilizations that had developed out there with the technological ability to traverse space, then eventually they should have already spread out all over the galaxy, and we should have had some brush with them by now in some form.

Fermi reasoned that there had been plenty of time for them to do so, and utilized complicated equations to illustrate that over millions and millions of years, just a drop in the bucket compared to the age of the universe, these hypothetical alien civilizations should have at least found us by now. Fermi explained that with so many stars and potential planets in the observable universe, then if even a fraction of those had produced intelligent, spacefaring life then they would have exponentially broken their barriers and moved out into the galaxy, colonizing new worlds, and we would have surely known about them by now. By Fermi’s various calculations, the probability for intelligent life somewhere in the universe was high considering the sheer scale of it all, and if such advanced societies had developed, then after so much time aliens should be everywhere by now, or at the very least given us some sort of sign of their existence, even if such societies are rare. Yet there is no one, no evidence of such a thing, not a single sign that there is anyone else out there at all. Essentially, like Fermi asked, where is everybody?

This is the main gist of what has gone on to become known as the “Fermi Paradox,” and although it has been criticized by many as being perhaps too simplistic and making too many assumptions based on our own ideas of life, it has nevertheless gone on to become a major cornerstone for debate on the topic of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and has inevitably hung over most discussions on the matter. This offhand lunchtime remark has propelled the imagination and driven the efforts of organizations like SETI. No matter what one thinks of the veracity of Fermi’s question, it is a compelling one to say the least, and there have been many numerous and varied theories that have come forth to try and explain just why we have not found anyone else out there in this cold universe of ours.

This is all backed up by what is known as the Drake Equation, which was conceived of in 1961 by a Dr. Frank Drake, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. Drake wished to come up with a mathematical formula for calculating the number of possible technologically advanced civilizations in our galaxy and takes into consideration various factors such as the number of stars and their rate of formation, the number of possible planets around these stars, the number which might be inhabitable, and many others. When all of this is plugged into the formula, the result is that there should be around two dozen spacefaring civilizations in our galaxy, yet we have not heard a peep. There have been many reasons for why this might be, some of which I have covered here before, but one of the more sinister and grim of these is what is rather ominously known as the “Dark Forest Theory.”

The depressing idea more or less boils down to that every alien race would naturally put its survival above that of another species, and that considering the chaotic nature of the universe and innate problems with trying to communicate with a completely alien civilization, compounded by the fact that we can never know what the intentions of such a race would be, the best bet is to stay quiet and hope no one finds you, or conversely wipe them out before they do the same to you. The theory was best laid out in the 2008 science fiction novel The Dark Forest, part of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by author Lui Cixin, in which the argument is presented that A) All life seeks to ensure its own survival, B) There is no way to know if another lifeform will try to destroy you, and C) Without an assurance that this won’t happen, the safest logical way to avoid termination is to stay hidden or destroy them before they can do the same to you, a sort of preemptive attack. In essence, any alien races that haven’t annihilated each other already are maintaining “radio silence” so to speak, hiding away in a state of paranoia and fear, and so are loathe to make their presence known. Lui would write of this:

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life — another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod — there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

Lui also mentions that resources in the universe would be finite and limited, and so for a civilization to expand across stars they would necessarily have to consume as much as they could and eliminate any competitors. In other words, any other alien race other than one’s own is an unknown competitor at best, and a catastrophic threat at worst. Between members of one species, such as between humans, this might be resolved through diplomatic solutions, although even that doesn’t work out a lot of the time, yet with a completely alien race all bets would be off, so the best solution to ensure survival is to hide or destroy the other before they have a chance to pose a threat. This theory was touched on and supported by science fiction writer David Brin as well, of which he rather darkly writes:

It is consistent with all of the facts and philosophical principles described in the first part of this article. There is no need to struggle to suppress the elements of the Drake equation in order to explain the Great Silence, nor need we suggest that no ETIS anywhere would bear the cost of interstellar travel. It need only happen once for the results of this scenario to become the equilibrium condition in the Galaxy. We would not have detected extraterrestrial radio traffic- nor would any ETIS have ever settled on Earth- because all were killed shortly after discovering radio.

If this theory has any merit at all, then it is probably not a good idea that we have been relentlessly announcing our position and existence into the frigid void of space through decades of radio transmissions and space probes, something that has alarmed the more negative of the scientific community. The late physicist Stephen Hawing notoriously opposed contact with extraterrestrials, often lamenting that to make contact would be a death sentence for us, and he once said:

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

Many other scientists have shared this sentiment. This fits in very well with the Dark Forest Theory, and if it is an accurate solution to the Fermi Paradox, then we are very lucky that no one has been listening, or perhaps there are alien races cowering in the shadows who are indeed listening, and just wishing that we would shut up. Even if the other civilization knows that we are technologically inferior and not a threat now, the distances and time frames involved make sure that there are no guarantees. As one commenter on the site Quora puts it:

You might be thinking that if an advanced civilization detects the radio signals from Earth then they would know that we are less advanced and therefore not a threat. But again you have to consider the vast distance and time it takes for those signals to travel. Even if a nearby civilization (only 10 or 20 light years away) detects us, it would take hundreds or even thousands of years for them to reach us and that is plenty of time for a technological explosion. If they don’t attack us at once, then we might develop technology fast enough to catch up and threaten them.

It won’t be like Star Trek. Without faster than light travel, there won’t be any communication, diplomacy or trade with alien races. It’s kill or be killed. So that’s why we haven’t heard a peep from other civilizations. The universe is a dark forest where every civilization is a silent hunter. They desperately try to stay undetectable while hunting for other planets to colonize and threats to destroy.

It is all about the best interest of one’s own race, every man for himself, and in this theory this is the only way to guarantee that we survive this morass of bleakness. The Dark Forest Theory has drawn comparisons to a thought experiment known as “The Prisoners’ Dilemma,” a paradox in which two individuals acting in their own self-interests do not always produce the optimal outcome that is most beneficial to both. Basically imagine you have two criminal accomplices to a crime being interrogated in two separate rooms, with no way of knowing what the other is up to. Each one is told that if neither of them rats the other out, and they both remain silent, then they will both go to jail for one year on a lesser charge. However, if one of them is to implicate the other, he will walk free while the other does a 3-year sentence, longer than they would have done otherwise. If both of them point the finger, they will both get 2 years. The best outcome for both is obviously to keep quiet, but not knowing what the other will do and without faith that the other will also stay silent, the safe bet is to incriminate the other as soon as possible and avoid jail time altogether just to be safe. This is the general gist of the Dark Forest Theory in essence.

It is all rather pessimistic and morbid for sure, and paints the universe as an innately unfriendly place and all intelligent species as ruthless predators looking to exploit, hide, or kill. It all seems actually pretty possible just from looking at life on earth. Humans have long subjugated and wiped out other tribes and species in an attempt to expand, so mightn’t an alien race be prone to the same sort of behavior, as Hawking pointed out? There seems to be no universal moral code that other cultures must abide by, so in this way of thinking, if we can’t even follow our own moral rules on this planet, then how could we ever expect a positive outcome from an alien race?

In some ways it makes sense, but never fear, because there have been a criticisms aimed at the idea of the Dark Forest as well. The main problem with it is that it takes a very narrow and human-centric view of what an advanced civilization should be like. Who is to say they would have to be aggressive and looking to destroy, or that they would think in any way like us at all? Indeed, there have been a lot of scientists who support the idea that any spacefaring civilization would be hundreds or thousands of years more advanced than us, and so would by definition have by necessity learned to overcome such self-destructive behaviors such as war and murder, and to have mastered universal empathy. One scientist who believes this is Seti’s former director, Jill Tarter, who thinks that such a civilization would have risen above such things and that the very fact that they are advanced enough to come to us means that they would be sophisticated, peaceful, and benevolent. Tarter said of this to Business Insider:

The idea of a civilization which has managed to survive far longer than we have…and the fact that that technology remains an aggressive one, to me, doesn’t make sense. The pressure of long-term survival — of limiting population…I think requires that the evolutionary trends that ratcheted up our intelligence…continues to evolve into something that’s cooperative and take on global scale problems.

With regards to a species hiding out and lying low in the hopes that others don’t come for them, there is the criticism that it would be very hard to advance to this stage of development by remaining completely silent and meek. To reach a state of advanced technology and the ability to cross the sea of stars would be very difficult to do while remaining completely invisible to other such races, so there would be no guaranteed way for them to totally cower in the shadows while simultaneously reaching such a pinnacle of civilization. There is also the fact that for as much as other powers might be a threat, there has always been value in trade, cooperation, and forging alliances as well, which would not be possible in this climate of extreme paranoia. Yet another fact is simply that we cannot possibly know how an alien species would perceive threats or risks, so assuming what they should do is over anthropomorphizing them.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it, we have not yet made alien contact as far as we know, and so the question remains: where are all of the aliens? One would like to think that they are out there and we simply, for some reason haven’t found them yet, and one would also hope that if we ever get the opportunity to make their acquaintance that they will be benevolent and friendly. The Dark Forest Theory is in the end just one idea, and one that was originally posited as fiction, so perhaps we can look forward to a more positive outcome, and have hope that the universe is not an inhospitable enemy. Only time will tell, and perhaps one day we will know the answer to the question of whether it was a good idea to shout out our presence, or if we should have hidden in the shadows like everyone else.