On our way back from The Peak District the other week, we stopped off at Jodrell Bank and it made me feel lonely.
I know, didums. But you will too, when I tell you this simple fact. We are alone. Alone, I tell you. Alone in the vastness of space.
There are no intelligent aliens. Here’s the proof.
I’m starting way back. You know those people who begin their stories too early ‘So I got out of bed, I think it was a Wednesday, but it might have, no, no, definitely Wednesday and cleaned my teeth with Colgate…’ – get on with it. Well, I can beat that.
13.7 billion years ago, this happened:
Only bigger.
10 billion years ago, (we’re moving fast) planets formed and cells started multiplying.
3.5 billion years later, using Earth as an example, those cells could’ve easily started organizing themselves into the pinnacle of intelligence to rival us.
So 6.5 billion years ago, when we were just single cells flopping around in mud, the first aliens could’ve been ready for space travel.
See this:
That’s a Latte I had yesterday at Costa, but we can say it’s the Milky Way Galaxy.
The average distance between stars in the Milky Way is 30,000,000,000,000 miles. At current speeds, that would take us 400 years to get to the nearest star.
If I was an Emperor Ming-type figure 6.5 billion years ago, this would’ve been my alien domination plan for the Milky Way galaxy.
And repeat.
Sticking with this simple plan would produce a rapid explosion of colonized planets, as depicted in this excellent diagram.
As you can see I’ve made a right mess of that. Spaceships started smashing into each other and planets colliding after about 2000 years, so maybe I’m not the right person for galactic domination. I was okay for a couple of day trips to Bakewell on the hols, but that was a stretch.
The Milky Way is about 620,000,000,000,000,000 miles across, so using the above doubling method it would take 5 million years to colonize the whole of the galaxy.
5 million years might seem a lot, but let’s put it in perspective. A series of Love Island lasts 6 weeks but feels like 5 million years.
(Just to translate, she fancies someone else and he’s thick.)
So if 5 million years is 6 weeks, 6.5 billion years on this scale would be equivalent to 150 years. You could watch 1300 series of Love Island back to back in that time, which means the galaxy could’ve been colonized 1300 times by aliens before today. Millions of times, if these advanced civilizations had sent out probes, or their spaceships could have traveled faster.
But it hasn’t. Not a sausage. Not even a signal or a hint of a far-off intelligence.
So the most logical explanation is – my calculations are garbage – preposterous, the most logical explanation is there’s nothing out there that can travel through space or send probes or sausages.
We are alone.
And that’s that.
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues discussed in this post and are suffering from existential anxiety about your place in the universe, don’t worry. It’s all okay. Because there’s another theory, that I forgot to mention.
In that theory, there’s probably been loads of lovely advanced civilizations throughout the galaxy over the last 6.5 billion years. Millions maybe.
They all destroyed themselves.
Hope that makes you feel better.
Have a great weekend.
Take care and all the best,
Ian
(If you want to leave a comment below, that would be great)
You watch Love Island? Oh dear.
Haha, I have an excuse, a wife and a daughter. Has that boosted my reputation a little?? 🙂
Right… That’s cleared that up!
Thanks 😵💫
Haha, I’m the new Brian. Hope you don’t feel lonely now
My head hurts 🤪
Colonizing the galaxy does give you a headache 🙂
“Ent space brilliant?!”
It is, and there’s a lot of it. We need to get cracking with this colonization, I’ll call Elon
Ha ha, yes, good old Musky. I’ve actually written a song which has a verse about him (I won’t paste it here as that would take up far too much space and also it’s Quite Serious) Every live performance of another song Earthbound I dedicate to him. I have attached a link to it – I think the original drums and bass were recorded the same year “his” first Tesla was released.
That’s a great song, also love the video and the sketches on youtube. Musky is trying is best not to be Earthbound, hasn’t got too far yet, but we’ve got 5 million years so no rush.
Cast your mind back Ten Yea…………. Oh hang on, wrong thread Think back to when the whole world was gripped with “UFO Fever” during the 1970’s and as well as being enthralled by Star Wars, and (to a lesser extent Battlestar Galactica) we all sat utterly stunned by Close Encounters Of The Third Kind – CE3K – (well I was anyway) Remember what the tagline was, “We are not alone.”
So, if somebody as “omnipotent and all powerful” as Steven Spielberg has decreed that something else exisists out there, then who are you to argue with him? eh, eh eh? Also, even more importantly, no less an authority than Mr. Spock himself declared almost every week, “it’s life, Jim, but not as we know it” and also how do you explain Dr Who? I will be quite happy to meet up with you at a pub near you, (or me if you can drive, or fancy risking the trains) to discuss this matter at some length, tomorrow or next week will be good, as there’s no footy on, I would suggest you get there as early as possible, as I reckon it may well be a ( very) lengthy and extremely coherent discussion 😀
Consider the Gauntlet thrown down
Spielberg, Spock, Dr Who, that’s a lot people on your side, which makes it is very difficult for me to argue with. But you do know that Spielberg isn’t real? Spock told me when he came out of the Tardis. Also I get even more coherent in the pub, that’s what Diane says (don’t email her to confirm this).