Scientists consider whether we’ve been visited by aliens or their technology.
When I was growing up, I watched a lot of sci-fi movies about aliens that come to Earth. The extraterrestrials in popular culture, however, always looked so familiar that I found them far-fetched. What are the chances that E.T., the Predator, or ALF would develop arms and legs, a humanlike face, and opposable thumbs? Perhaps as a result, I associated alien life more with fantasy than with science, and I never gave much thought to what a visit would really look like. But my attitude started to change in 2020, when I read Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem” and its two sequels. In Liu’s books, creatures called Trisolarans send a scouting mission of supercomputers to spy on and subtly disrupt human affairs. Although Trisolarans could do seemingly impossible things, such as program protons, Liu’s rigor got me thinking about aliens from a scientific perspective. Suddenly, I could imagine a sophisticated civilization coming into contact with humanity, perhaps in ways that we don’t immediately understand.
Not a bad piece by the New Yorker. We’ll see if the on again off again Sept 9 congressional hearing offers more than the usual vague findings.
