Invitation to ETI: The 2001 Santa Clara Gathering

The 2001 Santa Clara Gathering
by Albert Harrison

At 2:00 PM on March 1, 2001, an "Invitation to ETI" discussion group assembled at the Biltmore Suites in Santa Clara, California, just prior to the opening of the CONTACT 2001 Conference. The discussion focused on one of the most significant questions of today: "If a highly advanced ETI has reached our planet, as a super-smart probe or in some other form, how can we achieve contact?" Following a procedure that had proved useful in other venues, presenters brought multiple copies of one-page statements. Each paper in turn was read silently by all of the participants and then discussed by the group as a whole.

Chris Jones sought themes from science fiction and SETI to answer the question "If they are here, why have we not heard from them?" Under the "Waiting for Instructions" scenario, the intelligent agents or their representatives require authorization before they can make themselves evident to humans. Instructions might be required, for example, if there were an ongoing investigation of our solar system or if it were necessary to receive approval from superiors or from allies. Under the "Too Early for Prime Time" scenario, ET agents have the authority to make the contact decision, but our society has yet to meet the criteria for an affirmative decision. For example, our science may not be sufficiently advanced, or our penchant for violence or our cavalier attitude towards our own environment may disqualify us from entrance into the Galactic Club. Under this scenario, we would remain under surveillance until we satisfied conditions that may or may not be apparent to us. Under the "Easy Does It" scenario they are biding their time while we ourselves get used to the idea of an alien presence. Finally, under the "Prelude to Invasion" scenario they do not reveal themselves because they are preparing a surprise attack.

Allen Tough elaborated on the "readiness" themes as conveyed in Chris Jones "Too Early for Prime Time" and "Easy Does It" scenarios. Tough surmised that by refusing to make itself evident ETI is doing us a favor because it knows we are not ready! We need to prepare for the chaos, confusion, and "general hell" that might occur during the first few weeks after contact. Only after such safety nets are in place would ETI make itself known.

Tough proposed three major steps for increasing readiness. First, we should create a comprehensive plan for making information immediately available to the mass communications media and to the general public, perhaps using the World Wide Web as well as press releases and media interviews. Second, we should develop a fail-safe plan for keeping at least one rapid communications channel open to SETI scientists and their closest colleagues, a channel that will not be clogged by the media feeding frenzy and the general public. Finally, we must put security measures in place to ensure the safety of SETI scientists and to ensure the integrity of all ETI-human communications. Potential threats, according to Tough, might come from national governments, military leaders, security/intelligence agencies, and extreme religious groups.

Gerald Nordley urged participants to dismiss the notion that aliens are so far beyond us that they are "incomprehensible" with the result that even talking about them is a waste of time. If ETI is watching us now, Nordley posits, it is for the purpose of studying an immature species and to contact us would destroy our only value to them. Even as we dispassionately record the behaviors of baboons clubbing each other to death, ETI may take notes of human shortcomings and foibles. One can cobble together an argument, not unlike that which some believers in the supernatural use to defend the behavior of imagined gods and goddesses, that allowing us to collectively make our own choices and find our own path has more value than intervention to protect individual lives. Perhaps nothing would more convince ETI that we have risen to the level of colleagues as opposed to subjects of studies than to do what we can to "clean up our act" on our home planet.

All of this suggests to Nordley that, like CONTACT, the Invitation to ETI group should emphasize educational outreach. We should look to communicate the facts of life in this galaxy to humans that drop into our Invitation to ETI website, provide a forum for discussing questions of moral evolution in our galaxy, and display to all onlookers of all species terrestrial and otherwise that humans have an intention to grow up.

The readiness theme was also evident in Poul and Karen Anderson's discussion of "Getting Their Attention." In their view, ETI may withhold evidence of its existence because revealing itself could put us at risk: mass hysteria, lunatic new sects, rivalries becoming deadly as governments try to make alliances and get technology before their rivals do. The Andersons described two procedures for signaling readiness for contact. First, whether or not this can be accomplished through the UN, we could establish that humanity could work as a whole. This would signal ETI that humanity is organized and prepared and can be counted upon to proceed in a peaceful and orderly fashion. Second, we could undertake bold new search strategies that signal our earnest interest in finding extraterrestrial life. These strategies might include the deployment of autonomous detection platforms such as advocated by Scot L. Stride, and "active" SETI in the form of aiming microwave broadcasts or pulsed lasers at nearby stars. By signaling from at least three locations we reassert that our search is a worldwide activity.

Jim Dator identified another type of readiness: evolution of humanity into a radically different life form. Dator built on the increasingly widespread idea that ETI may be something other than flesh and blood. The only hope that Dator sees for humanity, and thus for contact, is if artificial intelligence and genetic engineering make Homo Sapiens give way to more intelligent, less emotional, and ultimately trans-organic life forms. As Dator looks around our solar system and contemplates the cosmos, he sees less bright futures for Earthlike life forms than for intelligent life that can thrive in a vacuum, thrive in gravity greater or lesser than that of Earth, and receive nourishment from unbuffered solar flares and cosmic radiation.

If humans have any duty towards the futures (for Dator insists that we must envision more than one future) and any hope of establishing contact, then it resides largely in our ability and willingness to participate in the creation of our successors. This could require shedding our carbon containers and moving on to life forms that can thrive on a future Earth or anywhere in the Universe, unprotected by Earth's biospheres or by space suits or other prosthetics. For meaningful contact to occur, humans must transform themselves into the intelligences they are likely to meet.

Don Scott hypothesized that, without making its existence known explicitly, ETI might reveal its presence by influencing our culture through teaching. In these efforts, ETI would help us improve ourselves as a species and qualify for entry into the Galactic Club. There are two ways that ETI could do this. First, ETI could take the form of exceptional humans who, through their actions, re-direct our culture in ways that ultimately prove to be positive. Second, ETI could create or encourage "prophetic" works that lead to significant and positive cultural change.

This intervention could have taken place, or could take place, at almost any time. Christ, Lao-Tzu, and Buddha taught at roughly the same period but at different places. Their teachings were put into books, and culture changed slowly but in a particular direction. Two millennia later DaVinci, Verne, Tsiolkovski and Roddenberry produced works of literature and art that set us on the course for particular space technologies. Some of these were realized in a relatively short time. Scott asks, "Are there benchmarks that might make sense as contact points? If there are contact points, how can this be determined?" If we were able to determine how extraterrestrial intelligence had influenced our culture, we might gain insights into its interests and values and how we might communicate with one another.

Scott added that technology and religious understanding might bring us to a point where, in a cooperative and peaceful way, we can travel into the universe. In Star Trek mythology, humans are contacted when advanced species have developed the ability to travel fast enough to reach other intelligent species and interact with them. Similarly, in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "2001" it seems that the development of nuclear weapons and space travel could be benchmarks that encourage ETI to reveal itself. The ability to move beyond the bonds of our solar system may tell observing ETI that it is time to begin communication.

Reed Riner assumed that, if present, ETI would want information about human civilization without intruding upon it. Thus, to follow human activity, they would have to be out in the open, although they may not be readily apparent to us. Riner suggests using electromagnetic and other detection devices to look for an unusual "presence."

Mark Lupisella noted that both biology and technology require energy. This means that we might look for telltale patterns of energy consumption. This energy use could take one or more forms including that of a small "Dyson Sphere" surrounding the sun but still allowing radiative energy to pass through to Earth. If we detect a Dyson sphere or any other extension of an advanced civilization, we might be able to make contact with the "home world" by interfering with its operations or its transmissions home.

Barbara Joans developed the thesis that even though ETI might be able to disguise itself as a mundane terrestrial artifact, we could still uncover evidence of its existence by looking for changes in our environment. For example, a nanoprobe might take the form of a simple artifact such as a street light. People with excellent visual memory would notice the appearance and disappearance of an extra "street light" or other planted artifact. Joans adds that children are excellent observers of things that are out of the ordinary.

Al Harrison pointed out that if we assume intelligent life is abundant and that intelligent organisms everywhere rejoice in their own existence, ETI may choose to communicate principles of biology. On Earth, DNA is the main carrier of genetic information, and most DNA molecules take the form of a double helix. In his recent book The Cosmic Serpent (Tarcher/Putnam 1999), anthropologist Gerald Narby argues that DNA imagery often in the form of intertwined snakes - permeates cultures both ancient and modern and with varying levels of technology. This imagery has a close tie to origin or creation myths and beliefs and a fascination with the cosmos as a whole. If the double helix plays a crucial role in replicating life beyond Earth, a double helix could be made evident in many different ways, and could convey both global and detailed insights. Thus double helix imagery on an oscilloscope screen, in sky writing, or on artifacts might be suggestive evidence of extraterrestrial life. As we consider sounds, sights, and architectural elements that are suggestive of double helixes or intertwined snakes, we must remember Sigmund Freud's caution that "sometimes a cigar is a cigar." Applied to Narby's anthropological insights, "Sometimes a snake is a snake."

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