The Search for Aliens

Scientists have been searching for aliens in our solar system and beyond, but have not yet found evidence that life exists beyond Earth. SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has been scanning the stars for alien radio beacons for 50 years. Radio and TV broadcasts have been leaking from Earth’s atmosphere for over a century, and these traveling time capsules could eventually reach a broader audience than ever imagined. Neil and Lynne review the methods used to locate aliens, and discuss what to do if you’re ever abducted.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  23.7.6, but I...

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Our universe is filled with secrets and mysteries, leaving us with many questions to be answered.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we find ourselves searching for those answers as the very fabric of space, science, and society are converging.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Here, for the first time, these worlds collide. As we give you the knowledge that breaks the barrier between what is science and what is merely pop culture. This is StarTalk. Now, here's your hosts: astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Lynn Koplitz. StarTalk.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here with my comedian actress co-host Lynn Koplitz. How are you, Lynn?

• 1:21Speaker 03

  Hi, Neil!

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what we're going to talk about today?

• 1:23Speaker 03

  I do, and I'm excited.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, talking about the search for alien life in the cosmos.

• 1:29Speaker 03

  Excellent!

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alien life, nothing like anything we've ever found here on Earth. And, you know, most people don't know that the search for aliens is not a new thing. It didn't start with Steven Spielberg making movies.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  It didn't?

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, it's been going on for centuries.

• 1:45Speaker 03

  Who'd it start with?

• 1:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, I mean, it was, it's been around. People have wondered. They've looked up. We're not the first generation to look up. We see the planets, we see other stars. You wonder, is there any other life out there?

• 1:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they wondered, like, screaming, like, "Hello!"

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, how do you communicate with aliens? You get on a mountaintop and just scream? Or do you like take a torch? Or like, like, what do you do? By the way, one of the most sort of famous crazy people to look for life was about a hundred years ago Percival Lowell, one of the sort of the moneyed New England Lowells. He launched a search for life on Mars.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Is that, I'm sorry Neil, but that is that, that's a science geek name if I ever heard one Percival Lowell.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why, why, what makes that geeky?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Percival, when you name your kid Percival Lowell, you're basically saying he's gonna be looking for scars. Unless he's just Percival and then he's like an NBA player.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I see.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  And then he sounds cool. Percival alone, one name is cool, but Percival Lowell, Percy?

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, he built his own observatory, he's rich enough to build his own observatory in Arizona, and guess what he called the observatory?

• 2:50Speaker 03

  The Percival Lowell Observatory?

• 2:53Speaker 03

  I'm no, I'm no astrophysicist, but I'm guessing.

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, I mean, it turns out he actually.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  What did he say?

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let, let's just give him props where, where, where they need to land. He started the search for Planet X that led to the discovery of Pluto. So that was one successful.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so that was one of his big activities. Another activity was he believed there was life on Mars and drew canals and he believed that there were cities and they were channeling water from one location to the other.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  Why, why do you believe that?

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, be, well.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  I mean, that, I mean, that's awesome, but was there a reason?

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he believed that because he didn't speak Italian. There was an Italian astronomer who believed he saw channels on Mars through his telescope in Italy. And channels in Italian is canale. Not, not a.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  Not cannoli. Did you see the look on my face? I'm like cannoli, yum, canale.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he's got a, so canale, and he sees this research paper, canale on Mars, and he sees it in Italian, thinks it's canals. Now, the difference between a channel and a canal is that nature cars channels. Life, Carl.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carl, Carl's canals.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  But are there canals?

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. He made it all up. He believed, he, he, he wanted to believe so hard.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  Why are we even talking about this guy then? Why is he important?

• 4:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He wanted to believe so hard that in the, uh, in the existence of life out there, that his brain took over his data-taking ability.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  So you say that, and you're saying that's what we do too?

• 4:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, well, if you're, if you're deluded.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  People want so badly to believe that there's life. So we've been searching now.

• 4:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can be, want it so badly that it interferes with your ability to take data. Let's see what our buddy, Bill Nye, has to say in his manic minute that he gives us. Let's check him out.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  Hey, hey, Bill Nye here. And if you're like me, you're human. And there are two questions that come up from the moment you can start to think. How did we all get here? And are we alone? Well, the answers to those questions are what astronomers seek. That's astronomy. Now, I was recently interviewed on an international television show along with four people who really believe that an alien spacecraft came to their air force base in Montana and shut off the electricity. Well, of that, I am quite skeptical. There are billions and billions of digital photographs taken every week, not one of which presents us with a picture of an alien spaceship. But with that said, are there other worlds? Absolutely. Are there other civilizations?

• 5:19Speaker 04

  Almost certainly. Do they come here in spaceships to flip our switches? Probably not. Nevertheless, we keep watching the sky to see if there's someone out there. I gotta fly, Bill Nye the Science Guy.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  I love him.

• 5:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you've got an opinion about whether there's aliens out there, why don't you give us a call at 1-877-5STAR-TALK.

• 5:40Speaker 03

  Or if you are an alien.

• 5:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that too. But then you wouldn't need to use the phone.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  You know what gets me, though? Everybody's talking about, you know, all the time about looking for life on other planets, but my guess is...

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Looking for life in all the wrong places.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. That's my story. But here's, here's what I'm wondering. It's probably not gonna be... Like, an alien life, I mean, at this point, we're just looking for, like, bacteria, right? Like, something that's living.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the old days, when you said, "I'm looking for life," people would assume you're looking for intelligent life, but a lot of the search for life today is just trying to find any kind of life at all.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know, I got a buddy who works for the SETI Institute, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  SETI is, that's the acronym for that. And it's Seth Shostak. You ever hear of Seth Shostak?

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Um, no.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's a, he's a, he's a cool guy. He's a cool guy. He's like, one of the leading alien hunters in the world. He's some committed-

• 6:31Speaker 03

  An alien hunter?

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, actually, that's the title of his-

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Now, he sounds sexy.

• 6:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the title of his recent book, Confessions of an Alien Hunter, just, just released by National Geographic Books. And so, let's get a clip of an interview I conducted with him in my office. Let's check it out.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I'm here in my New York City office with Seth Shostak, an old buddy, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. Seth, welcome to New York.

• 6:54Speaker 05

  It's a pleasure to be in the Big Apple, Neil.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm told you have a new book that just came out. What is it?

• 6:59Speaker 05

  It's, uh, Confessions of an Alien Hunter, a Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

• 7:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, is it part memoir?

• 7:04Speaker 05

  Well, there is, yeah, there is some autobiographical stuff in there, and as far as confessions go, I mean, this isn't the kind of confession that you'd have to see a priest about, but-

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I was wondering. What are you confessing that we should know about?

• 7:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, when you're older, I'll tell you. It's, it's, you know, just some of the, some of the email and phone calls I get, there's some of that in there, but there's also some of the, sort of, the behind-the-scenes history of this, uh, the search for, for aliens.

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, again, aliens as anything that's extraterrestrial, meaning beyond Earth?

• 7:31Speaker 05

  Well, not entirely. I mean, there may be aliens on Mars, right? I mean, you know, pond scum aliens, but that's not what I do, so-

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not very nice to call them pond scum, unless it is pond scum, I guess.

• 7:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, and as far as I can tell, they don't object, so it's, it's, it's probably okay. Uh, indeed, I mean, there's, there's a lot in there about, you know, why we think they're out there, and that requires going into the question of, well, could there be life even nearby in our own solar system, some of these worlds that might have liquid water? Mars is an obvious one, some of the moons of the outer solar system.

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we've got real astronomy in here, just to, the reader can learn about how we posed the question in the first place.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, and, and, and why is it that if you grab, you know, ten astronomers off the streets of New York, not that I- Ever recommend doing that, but if you were to do that, you know, what fraction of them do you think would say that it's likely there's life out there? I figure probably 90% of them.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  100% of them. If it's only 10, it'd be all 10.

• 8:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, very likely. You're more optimistic than I am, but yes.

• 8:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't you forget, we see what life looks like in Times Square. That allows all manner of possibility in the world.

• 8:29Speaker 05

  I won't comment on that, but yes.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My big fear is that the aliens have visited us, but they plop down in the middle of Times Square or in Venice Beach, California, and they just went unnoticed. They didn't look different enough from anybody else who's walking by or rollerblading by so that they just went home.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  You know, that, I think that was the premise of Men in Black in a sense, you know, that the aliens were among us, and a lot of people believe that the aliens are among us. I wish someone would bring one into my office. It'd be jobs.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be official, you are not an alien, correct?

• 8:59Speaker 05

  No, and I couldn't tell you if I were, but no.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not authorized to divulge that information. We're gonna hear more from Seth later on.

• 9:10Speaker 03

  I just like the idea of asking, flat out asking people, are you an alien?

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just to double check, you know, you never know. This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by comedian actress, Lynn Copeland.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Ooh, I like that.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have opinions about if there are aliens out there in the universe, I want to know. We want to know. 1-877-5-Star-Talk.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  You just want to talk to someone other than me?

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  I would just like someone else to call in and been trapped with this woman in this room.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Lynn, you're right. Earlier you asked, are we just looking for little green men or could there be microbial life? And we think there might be microbial life on Mars.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  You just made me smarter than I am. I actually asked if we're just looking for bacteria or pond scum kind of thing, but microbial is great.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Microbial is cool, and there's recent evidence that there might be because there's methane emissions from cliff faces on Mars recently found.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Methane's gas.

• 9:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gas. It's the kind of gas that is, that is, you find in your digestive tract, actually.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Like flatulence?

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Flatulence, yes, yes.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  So it might be one of...

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Len, say excuse me.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  I didn't know we had that. It might be one of my ex-boyfriends on Mars. That might be who's there.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why he's an ex, I presume.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, but wait a second. So, what do you mean there? It's like little pockets of it.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, if methane were all over the planet, then you can wonder whether there's some sort of geological origin of methane.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  That's cool.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a pocket of methane that emerged from the side of one of the ravines, right beneath the surface where you think there might be water. Because Mars has all this evidence of one once having had liquid water. And where there's water on Earth, there is life of one kind or another. So, we think the water's beneath the surface of Mars. There's a cut through the landscape. Methane comes out. So, it's not just cows.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Wait, and then there's other little emissions. But what other planets could have life on them, Neil, other than Mars?

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know, but we're looking, we're being guided by the search for water.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Well, I'm gonna ask. Okay, what about Jupiter? Could there be life on Jupiter?

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jupiter, if there's life, it's not gonna be life as we know it.

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Why?

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because it'd be gash, I don't...

• 11:08Speaker 03

  What's wrong with Jupiter? I mean, is there...

• 11:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Jupiter's got moons. Maybe there's life on moons. There's rocky surface moons on Jupiter. There's Europa, there's Ganymede.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  Jupiter's hot too, right?

• 11:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jupiter is warmer than it would otherwise be at that just because it's kind of like a failed star. So, it's got some heat left over, which is kind of cool.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Oh, so it's...

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So, you've got, one of the places I want to go looking.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  But it has, it has moons.

• 11:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's got moons. One of them is called Europa. Europa, which is an icy surface, but there's heat from, pumped in there from Jupiter's gravity that has melted the ice, and there's a liquid ocean of water. It's been liquid for billions of years. So, I want to go ice fishing on Europa, look for any life that might swim up to the camera lands.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Oh, that's really exciting. So Jupiter, now I'm trying to, this is my thing. I was trying to think of this the other day. Jupiter would be, if I tried to compare the planets to real people.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, why would you do that?

• 11:57Speaker 03

  This is how I make things make sense to me. Jupiter's like Puff Daddy.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I need an explanation.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Because it's like a failed star. And it's got that moon that's hanging out with it who's like, um, Farnsworth Bentley. Puff Daddy's little, little manservant who walks around with the umbrella. Who now, that's Europa. Like now that's becoming famous.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jupiter did have manservants in, in, in legends. Well, Zeus had manservants in Jupiter, Jupiter and Zeus.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Who do you think Mars would be?

• 12:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mars. Well, Mars, as you know, we're looking for life on Mars, but I don't know. I, I don't think this way.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  I think Mars is Barbara Walters, because it's like cold and dry.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Isn't it cold in there?

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I find other ways to remember my planets, Lynn, so I can't comment one way or another. But I'll give you other spots. Venus, you're not gonna find life on Venus. It's 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Oh, it is?

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. 900 degrees, that's hot enough, it breaks apart any biological molecules you would plop down there. You could cook a 16, I did the calculation, you could cook a 16-inch pepperoni pizza on your windowsill in nine seconds.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Are you kidding? So Venus is like Miley Cyrus, like, hot, hot, hot.

• 13:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then one of Saturn's moons, Titan, which is the largest moon in the solar system, one of the several largest moons in the solar system, that's a fascinating place. It's one of the few moons with an atmosphere, and it's really, really cold, so water is like boulders and bedrock on that moon.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Bedrock.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bedrock, yeah, water is the rocks. And methane, it is so cold that gaseous methane has liquefied. There are rivers of methane flowing on the surface of the moon Titan. And so we think it might resemble Earth in our early days.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Do you think that we could, like, I was watching Total Recall the other day.

• 13:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah?

• 13:40Speaker 03

  There are people now, right now, listening to the show going, "Why are these two people together talking?" Because she sounds like some hooker they found on the street, and he's a genius.

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I must remind people, Lynn Kopplick is a comedian, thank you.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  And that's the joy of the show, people, that's what I'm saying.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  This lets you, you yourself, it's kind of like when you were watching Sarah Palin in the debates. I make people feel like they themselves could do this. They could sit with an astrophysicist and talk. So, anyway, now I forgot what I was even gonna say to you.

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we were talking about, where were you? Well, we left Puff Daddy long ago.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Oh, we were talking about Saturn.

• 14:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Saturn's moon.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Saturn would be Madonna, because it's like, you know, because it's the center of its own universe.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's true, actually. Saturn has its own ring system, and it's got countless moons. I've lost count, beyond 60, I stopped counting. 60 moons. It's its own mini-solar system.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Total Recall, that's what I was gonna ask you.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what?

• 14:36Speaker 03

  Is there a way that we could create like a pod that we could live in on another planet?

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't see why not, but then what's the point? Just, just like...

• 14:45Speaker 03

  I don't know, just to get out for a while. Like, I mean, I'd be happy just to go to Puerto Rico. I just need a break, but to be able to go to Mars for a week?

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. We've tried to make these kind of pod places on Earth, and it just doesn't work. People smuggle in potato chips and Cheetos and things, it just doesn't work. I think, do we have a call? Our phone number is 1-877-5-Star-Talk, if you have an opinion about aliens. Let's take our first call. Hello?

• 15:14Speaker 06

  Hello?

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, are you there? You are live on StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 15:18Speaker 06

  Hi, this is Chris from Southampton. I was wondering if you could solve the Drake equation for me?

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, he's calling me out, right?

• 15:25Speaker 03

  I know, it's not me, he's calling. Um, I would say no, Chris, I can't.

• 15:30Speaker 06

  Oh, come on.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  No, no, Neil can. Neil, I don't even know what it is, actually. Is it, to me, the Drake equation would have to do with some sort of tasty cake thing? So, what's Drake? Drake, what's Drake?

• 15:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Drake, Drake as in the bakery, Drake, Drake Yodels or whatever.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Tasty cake, yeah, right, exactly.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. No, this is, this is fun, calling me out. This is like, yeah, you know, come outside.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, come outside and tell us, what's he talking about?

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Frank Drake was a famous astronomer, he's still alive, and he wanted to organize our understanding of the likelihood of finding intelligent life in the universe. So he assembled these terms of an equation, which when you multiply them all together, at the end, the number you get is the number of intelligent life forms you would find in the galaxy. So you first have to start out, for example, with how many stars are there? And then how many of those stars would have planets? And how many of those planets would have life? And how many of those planets with life would have intelligent life? And how many of those planets with intelligent life?

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. So then what?

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So by the time you're done...

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Neil, can you tell Chris that Neil's trying to distract, so he doesn't have to solve the equation? Yeah, we just want a number, Neil, come on. The guy's gotta go, he's got things to do.

• 16:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got people to... So you're plugging all your best estimates for these probabilities, and at the end, you get, a number pops out. And depending on how pessimistic or enthusiastic you are, it could be low or high. We don't have a handle on all those numbers. The last two are the most mysterious of them all to us.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  What are the number?

• 16:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, I'd have to build it up. So, so the, the last number is, what is the lifetime of a civilization that has the capacity to talk to us? Because we were intelligent, we would tell ourselves 200 years ago, but we couldn't have had a conversation with another SETI searcher because we didn't have radio telescopes. So, what, the, the, the most uncertain part of this equation is, how long is a civilization capable of actually sending radio signals out into space? And if you do that, the, I'd say maybe there could be anywhere between 20 and 100 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, that we could communicate with.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Chris, did you hear an answer to your question?

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Twenty to a hundred.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  I didn't hear one.

• 17:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, 20 to 100, that's my guess.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Oh, 20 to 100?

• 17:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that, that would imply that the, the lifetime is pretty short, then. Indeed, because, uh, I, you know, I, do we, how much confidence do we have in our own civilization? That's kind of discouraging there, Neil. It means when we, if you could be so smart that your industry actually kills you because you're, either you bomb yourself into oblivion, or you pooch your environment so that you, in the old days, it would have been like pooping in the cave. That you, nowadays, we are destroying our environment. I'm just trying to say.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  You mean where you sleep?

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes. Chris, thanks for your call. Uh, you, this is StarTalk. Our phone number's 1-877-5-Star-Talk. We love to hear whether you think there are aliens out there and what you think we should do about it if there are. We're taking a break.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Whether you're a space cadet or a rocket scientist.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  We want to hear from you. The phone lines are open. Call now. This is StarTalk.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with my co-host, comedian actress Lynn Copeland. Lynn, how are you?

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Hi Neil.

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our toll-free number is 1-877-5STAR-TALK if you have an opinion about our subject today, which is the search for extraterrestrial life, in particular, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Aliens.

• 18:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aliens, aliens. You know, it's SETI, that is an actual funded program that's going on today, and there are some serious scientists.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  But the government doesn't fund that, right?

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, they used to actually, but then they pulled the funding because they were worried how that would look in the governmental annual report where tax money's going to look for little green men.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  So now it's like rich people like in Contact?

• 19:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, just like in the movie Contact, yes.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  But if they found something, wouldn't the government swoop in and take it from them?

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, probably.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  That's annoying to me.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I would want them to like reimburse me if I were the rich dude.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Seriously, you put that much money in, I want to be the first one, they're like, no, I will let you know what they say, Barack.

• 19:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, we, a good friend of mine, who's a leading scientist at the SETI Institute, which is in California, we interviewed him for the show, I grabbed him and snatched him into my office here in New York, and Seth Shostak.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Oh, this is last.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, let's see what else he's got to say about the search for life. Is radio now the leading way to look for intelligent life elsewhere?

• 19:59Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, you know, that depends on whom you ask.

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm asking you.

• 20:02Speaker 05

  Well, well, I, I-

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I thought, I was asking you.

• 20:06Speaker 05

  Well, there's this guy behind me. I, I thought, yeah, no, I think radio probably is the best bet. On the other hand, I have to say, thinking about things recently, I think that there's also quite a bit of merit in looking for flashing lights in the sky, simply as a signal-

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, visible light, visible light?

• 20:20Speaker 05

  Well, visible light, if they're not too far away, as you know, you know, visible light eventually gets absorbed and scattered by dust that hangs between the stars. So if they're very far away, they might use infrared, but that, that's a technical point.

• 20:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's my question. We think sending radio waves is kind of the, you know, as they used to say, the bee's knees, because that's a way to communicate at a distance. Radio waves are not absorbed by the gas clouds, not as much as other bands of light. But suppose a truly intelligent civilization found a much cleverer way to communicate with aliens of their own intellect, and would rank us so far below that we're not even worth their interest. Is that possible?

• 20:57Speaker 05

  Well, of course, it's possible, but it sounds like a call to inaction, right? Because that's saying, well, look, they may be using technology that's so far beyond ours that, you know, what we're trying to do is communicate with the equivalent of smoke signals. But then what are you gonna do? Just, you know, you just give up?

• 21:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he doesn't want to give up. The guy is on it.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  The smoke signal thing, I mean, again, I'm no astrophysicist, but I'm guessing smoke signals is a bad idea, a bad way to try and get a...

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so the way we do it now is we use electromagnetic energy to communicate with aliens.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  What's electromagnetic energy?

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's code for light, light of any kind.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Like X-rays?

• 21:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  X-rays is a form of light. Radio waves, X-rays is a form.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  So like my mammogram could go out there by accident?

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hadn't thought about that, but if they beam it, they could...

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Because, believe me, Neil, I've thrown these girls out before, and they have brought back some interesting stuff. I would not be surprised if aliens would respond to my right breast. My left one, not that interesting, but the right one, it gets lots of attention.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is like way too much information for me.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  No, I'm just kidding, but tell me...

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's light. X-rays is light.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  But they go out by accident?

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, so the ones we want to send out on purpose, the radio waves are one way to do it, because they pass through the gases of the interstellar clouds, and your mammogram would go a certain distance if you sent out the X-rays. But, so, so there's certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that are more useful in this exercise than others. And so this is how we now do it. Looks like we've got another call.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  We do?

• 22:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. Matt from Southern California. What's, uh...

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Hi, Matt.

• 22:38Speaker 07

  Hey, guys.

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Matt, what do you have for us here on StarTalk?

• 22:41Speaker 07

  Um, I, like, I guess a whole bunch of people were fans of Star Trek growing up, so I always just thought it was weird that they would always show up at this planet and be able to breathe and walk around with no problems at all. Um, although you're talking about life on other planets, how many different kind of life-sustaining ecosystems can there be out there? How difficult is it gonna be for us to get to another planet and for us to them to enter our atmosphere?

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent question. You know what's going on there is, well, first, something that is behind the question you asked, whether or not you were thinking of it, if they just plop themselves down here on Earth, they're actually contaminating our biosphere with their biology. They could be, like, they could be, like, infected with something.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With airborne viruses emanating or oozing from them. And so, actually NASA has a funded branch of itself that prevents us from contaminating other planets that might have biology we're interested in, and it protects anything that we bring back that has visited a place that itself might have had biology. So you don't want...

• 23:38Speaker 03

  So no one takes contraband? You can't drop, like, a Snicker wrapper on the, on Mars' surface?

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But our history of life on Earth and of civilizations on Earth tells us that the invading species, the species that is the first to visit a new place, takes over. And whoever was there that got visited gets the short end of that encounter. It's, it's, it happens...

• 23:59Speaker 03

  No, but it's true, because we did it all throughout history, like, you know, with American Indians. We do it to ourselves, like...

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Spanish did it to the South American native peoples? I mean, it's, and you have invasions, what's the...

• 24:10Speaker 03

  We did it to Indians, like, "Oh, yeah, they showed us how to make corn, and we were, "Here's 25 bucks for New York, beat it."

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So we, so, so we have to, it's a fascinating sort of geopolitical question. What happens if aliens visit us first? It means they're more advanced than us.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  But you also have to believe if they're more advanced than us, they've been studying us the way we are trying to study them, so they probably already know, "Oh, we've got, like, in order to enter the atmosphere, we better not get out right now, because we'll contaminate, they'll contaminate us."

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is very wishful thinking, because military forces invading other countries never gave that much thought to their, to their mission plans for what they were doing.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  I mean, that is if they're friendly. Or they'll just come here and shoot at us with whatever they have.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thanks, Matt, for that excellent question.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 24:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk. And our toll-free number is 1-877-5-Star-Talk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I'm here with Lynn Koplitz.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Comedian and

• 25:03Speaker 03

  Buffoon.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actress.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Professional buffoon.

• 25:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can also track these shows on StarTalkRadio.net if you're sitting in front of your computer. So Lynn, you know, we've been trying to send signals out there and we've, radio signals are one of them, but we're not the first to have thought up a way to communicate. Two hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of them all, a guy named Carl Gauss, he.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  Honestly.

• 25:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Hold on a second.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just telling.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Boy, emails sometimes you really cure my insomnia. Thank you so much.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, this is good. I promise this is good.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, Gauss, go on.

• 25:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He remembered his Pythagorean theorem from like middle school.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  You just pulled out the Pythagorean theorem, honestly.

• 25:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the Pythagorean, you remember that was a squared plus b squared equals c squared?

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, I remember.

• 25:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're shaking now from the memory of it. So what he thought to do was create a forest, plant a forest in the shape of a triangle and put squares off of each of the sides of the triangle big enough so that an alien on another planet could look down with their telescopes and see the Pythagorean geometry on the surface of the earth and that would be evidence that intelligent people populated the surface of planet earth.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  Or weird log gathering freaks.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, another guy thought, another guy thought.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  But because is this way, is this because he thought math was the only way we'd be able to communicate?

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we could put like a 1970s smiley face, but they won't know what.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  But we've done that, haven't we?

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They won't necessarily know what a face is. That assumes they even have a face.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  Didn't we put plaques on the side of spacecraft or something?

• 26:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, yeah. So another effort was we put our first spacecraft ever to leave the solar system. There's, there are five now. Four have already left. The fifth one is on its way out. All the others, by the way, that we've ever launched did not have enough energy to leave. They all, they're stuck. They're going to come back. They're going to land on a surface. Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2. They each had plaques attached to the side. They were kind of cute. They're etched gold. One of them is like a nude man and a woman. They're holding hands together.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Hilarious.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And well, they're not holding hands. They're standing next to each other. The man is the only one waving to the reader, by the way.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  It's waving. Love is planets getting along with one another.

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And on there is like a map of, uh, there's like a vocabulary of science that they would then decode to learn where the spaceship came from, what our biology is based on, and what the coordinates of the sun is in our galaxy.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Whose idea was that? That is so desperate. It makes earth look like a big old cougar.

• 27:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What cougar?

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Hey, please call me. Here's how you can reach us. Here's what we look like. If I'm not at home, we might be at NASA. If we're not at NASA, try us here.

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just trying to make nice with aliens.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  Or just plop down in Arizona somewhere, Oklahoma, and visit us. Come on over.

• 27:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got an issue with this. I'm just saying, if it's your first attempt to communicate with aliens, you might as well put some... And by the way, the Voyager 1 and 2 not only had this sort of iconography, they had, uh, there's a record album on it with etched in it, or is music, that, uh, Beethoven, um, heartbeats from, uh, an unborn child and, I mean, the things that are very human.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Biggie smiles?

• 28:08Speaker 03

  He had a lot of important things to say.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of my favorite comics of all time, uh, because Chuck Berry is even on, in this, in this recording, that the aliens actually captured the spacecraft and sent back a message to us, and it said, "Send more Chuck Berry."

• 28:20Speaker 03

  Oh, that's hilarious.

• 28:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, one of them is you send-

• 28:23Speaker 03

  But who decided what to put on there? Because that's just hysterical. That's just somebody's opinion.

• 28:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, actually, Carl Sagan was part of a group of people who thought long and hard about what basic information you might send aliens. One of my concerns about it is, that map gave coordinates of where the sun is in the galaxy. It gave a return address. And I'm thinking, do you, walking in the street, give a total stranger of your own species your address? I don't think so.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  No.

• 28:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the audacity to do this with aliens you never met, I just thought that was kind of bold.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  It's kind of like going on Facebook and, uh, eHarmony and all that. I'm telling you, that's what it's like. It's like just going out there and striking up a conversation when you can't really see them and you don't really know who they are.

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got another question on our StarTalk hotline, 1-877-5-Star-Talk. Luke from LA. Luke, what have you got?

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Hi, Luke.

• 29:13Speaker 08

  Hello.

• 29:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, you have to say it right. Luke.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  Luke.

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, okay.

• 29:16Speaker 08

  Hi, Neil. Uh, I was just wondering, uh, with the recent Kepler telescope that we sent into space, I was wondering why we chose the area of the sky that we did to search for habitable planets?

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent question. So, the, uh, Kepler telescope is a special telescope specifically designed to look for Earth-like planets in orbit around nearby stars.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  That's cool.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if you're just looking for Jupiters, we don't know how you'd put life on Jupiter. It's a big ball of gas. So, you want to find Earth-like planets.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Luke's question's great then. So, why did we send it where we sent it?

• 29:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So, what you have is, it's going to search 100,000 stars in the solar neighborhood. And you want to be able to look in a zone of the sky where the sun is not in the way. So not all parts of the sky are equally sort of accessible to you if you're a telescope and you're not in deep, deep space.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  But what are we hoping we're gonna see? Because we're, I mean, honestly, like, what, what's the dream we're gonna see with the Kepler telescope?

• 30:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's an important question.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Somebody waving? Little green guy?

• 30:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's an important question. And so, you gotta crawl before you walk. We don't even know if such planets are out there. The Kepler mission is going to be an inventory of their existence. Then, when we've get the, when we get the catalog of those stars with Earth-like planets, we then get the next round of telescopes that target those objects, those planets orbiting those stars. And when you do that, then you look for what's called biomarkers. These are signals, signatures in the atmosphere of those planets that tell you that there may be life operating on its surface.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Like methane emissions?

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like methane emissions, which would tell you not necessarily that there was, yes, they are flatulence, as the sound effects tell us.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  I didn't do that. That was not me. That was our producer.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will protect you. I will protect you, Lynn. You are not flatulent today.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so anytime you have spacecraft that are going up, the sun is, is in the way, the earth can be in the way, depending on whether you're looking for radio waves or what other form of light. So that predetermines what swath of the sky you're gonna end up looking at. So, look, that was a great question. Thanks for bringing that in.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  Thank you, Luke.

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Lynn.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  Neil?

• 31:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me just say, we're, you're listening live to StarTalk. Our toll-free hotline is 1-877-5STAR-TALK. I'm here with Lynn Koplitz, and I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. We're gonna take a break. We'll be back.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Unlocking the secrets of your world and everything orbiting around it.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  This is StarTalk.

• 31:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm your host, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, with my co-host, actress-comedienne Lynn Copeland.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Not astrophysicist.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. My co-host, not astrophysicist Lynn Copeland. A toll-free number is 1-877-5-Star-TALK.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lynn, our subject today, as you know, is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And there was a search that was conducted back in the 1960s that led into an actual signal being sent out. Normally, the people who hunt for aliens are listening for signals that might be sent our way. But in the 1970s, Frank Drake, who's a colleague of mine, a scientist, an astrophysicist...

• 32:28Speaker 03

  And the guy called earlier and asked about him.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  The equation.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of his equations, which just got invoked a few minutes ago. So, he actually said, "We've done enough listening. Let's try to, let's try to send out a signal." And so, in the 1970s, he commandeered the Arcebo telescope in Puerto Rico, the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world, and sent a signal back out through the telescope. He used the telescope in reverse and beamed it to a cluster of 100,000 stars called Messier 13, a cluster of stars in orbit around the center of the Milky Way, in the hope that, when the signal got there 25,000 years later, some-

• 33:07Speaker 03

  It took 25,000 years for it to get-

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  25,000 years for the signal to get to the cluster. And then, of course, if it's received, then they, they, they have to, like, send a signal back. That's another 25,000 years. It's radio signals traveling at the speed of light. So, you're not gonna have witty repartee here.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  No.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's, it's, but actually-

• 33:28Speaker 03

  And Neil, I don't mean any disrespect, but that sounds like the worst dinner party ever to sit with Frank Drake and listen to that science geeky, like, "I sent the globular cluster Messier 13, uh, in 25,000 years." Hey Frank, get over it. They're just not that into you. You're not gonna hear back from them. 25,000 years. They're not calling back.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, here's what makes it worse. Lynn, here's what makes it worse. The entire Milky Way galaxy rotates. So, while we aimed at the globular cluster, Messier 13-

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Please stop saying globular cluster.

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's what it's called. It's a cluster of stars.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  It's hysterical. It's just so funny.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, our- So we aimed the signal at the cluster, but 25,000 years later, the cluster is not going to be where the signal arrives.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  And we're not going to be here to get the message.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That too, that's a problem. So, here we go. So now, second best is, we've actually been leaking television signals, radio signals, it's all the same thing. By accident, from our communication that's been going on ever since-

• 34:26Speaker 03

  It's all like in Contact.

• 34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, like in the movie Contact. That's an example of the leaked signals that got sent out.

• 34:33Speaker 03

  The Hitler thing was going out.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Hitler thing went out in the 1930s, if you remembered the film. If you haven't, I strongly recommend, like, you Netflix that tonight. Contact, based on the story by Carl Sagan.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  But like weird stuff accidentally that doesn't go together can be getting out, right? Like I Love Lucy episodes in Nazi Germany. So, the aliens could be like, mm, there's something for everyone down on that planet. If you're anti-Semitic, or you're just like a quirky redhead.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, or The Honeymooners, there's all this information, our culture, or at least our sense of what we-

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Can we block that? Because that's dumb.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is what it is, there's no bringing it back. There is no bringing it back.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, and now, like, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here, like now all the reality TV that's going out, that's embarrassing.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's there, except you'll come in way behind I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Howdy Doody, and all the early shows that are on the leading edge of what we call the radio bubble, which right now is about 70 light-years out. It's an entire sphere of radio chatter, that with aliens with strong enough detectors, and if they know how to decode our signals, could deduce the nature of our civilization.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  I hope we get that from aliens, like Alien TV. How cool would that be? All of a sudden we just get some weird, alien news show. Who's that?

• 35:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you know, Seth Jostak, who was visiting me recently, he had a few things to say about Hollywood depiction of aliens. Let's check him out.

• 36:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I was never been impressed by aliens in the movies. Because they always have a head and two arms and two legs and they walk and they've got a mouth and most life on Earth has none of these features.

• 36:13Speaker 05

  Well, that's true, but suppose that the aliens look like, you know, I don't know, ground squirrels or insects or something like that, you know, you couldn't read them in the movies. You couldn't tell, is this guy trying to kill me, try to eat me, or is he just trying to abduct me for breeding experiments? So, they have to sort of look like us, I mean, that's a requirement.

• 36:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, there's an actor inside the costume.

• 36:31Speaker 05

  In the old days, for sure. Yeah, that's right, but they've gotten away from that. It's a labor-saving maneuver, but...

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, the rubber lizards.

• 36:38Speaker 05

  Yes, it's all, it's all computer animation now, which is good because, you know, they don't ask for residuals.

• 36:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta admit, some of the best aliens we've ever seen were inspired by sort of insect forms, right?

• 36:47Speaker 05

  Well, there have been. I mean, Hollywood knows what we don't like. Inherently, we don't like, you know, arthropods, so we don't like insects because they're annoying, they're vectors...

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, even though I work in a natural history museum, when you say "arthropod", nothing comes to mind, I'm sorry.

• 37:02Speaker 05

  Well, you know, like lobsters or...

• 37:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bugs.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, bugs, bugs, if you like. I mean, these six-legged guys, we don't like them very much and Hollywood knows that, so they figure if you don't like little bugs very much, imagine if they put something on the screen that was a bug that was 10-foot-high at the shoulder...

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That could eat you.

• 37:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, you probably would like them even less, so...

• 37:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm told that in, in the movie Predator, the evil creature in that was inspired by some kind of bug or insect.

• 37:29Speaker 05

  Uh, I don't know the answer to that, but it sounds reasonable. I mean, I don't know.

• 37:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was completely creepy-looking and Arnold had the best line in the movie when he removes the helmet of the Predator and says, "You are an ugly mother..." You just see him mouth these words.

• 37:46Speaker 05

  Well, that sounds like Will Smith when he took after the aliens in Independence Day. Same sort of line.

• 37:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My favorite scene in Independence Day was when Will Smith finally pops the hatch of the alien craft and punches the alien in the face and says, "Welcome to Earth."

• 38:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, that's not really good diplomacy, but given their intentions, probably justified.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. You're listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson, your astrophysicist host, along with Lynn Koplitz. Our toll-free number is 1-877-5-Star-Talk if you have a question, comment, or an opinion about the search for alien life in the universe. You know, Lynn, I want to give away one of Seth Shostak's books. He's written a book called

• 38:25Speaker 03

  He's really interesting.

• 38:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is, Confessions of an Alien Hunter, published by National Geographic. And in fact, why don't I give that to the very next caller? How about that? Let's try that.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  How about you give it to me?

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, you like work here.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding.

• 38:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that a Ronaldo, Long Beach, California? Is that you on the line?

• 38:42Speaker 09

  Yes, hi, Dr. Tyson. I've seen you many times on the History Channel and some of these scientific shows.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. Thanks for following me.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Hi, Ronaldo.

• 38:51Speaker 09

  Hi, how you doing?

• 38:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you say that like a New Yorker.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  He totally did. How you doing, Ronaldo?

• 38:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you're how you doing? Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 09

  Yeah, yeah. And I'm not an astrophysicist either. I'm just a longshoreman down here. But I'm very interested in some of these, I like the universe shows and all that. They show on the History Channel and other knowledge-based channels.

• 39:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're gonna get a book no matter what question you have, so go for it.

• 39:15Speaker 09

  All right, outstanding. Well, I, you know, I read science fiction and just wondering, when is the scientific community's gonna demand that they put out more movies that concern like, that have authors like Arthur C. Clarke, like Rendezvous with Rama, which is long overdue.

• 39:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, excellent point.

• 39:31Speaker 09

  Would be a fantastic movie, you know?

• 39:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, thanks for that question. We'll respond to that, and you stay on the line, and they'll get your address that we can then beam to the alien.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  Thank you, Ronaldo, and you get more reading material. We're giving you the book.

• 39:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, yeah. We'll answer that, and you'll give your address to the, to our producers. Thanks, Ronaldo, for calling in. So, yeah, so he gives a very good point. There's a lot of movies that are not yet made into science fiction, into, a lot of books, science fiction books, not yet made into science fiction movies. Among them is Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, one of his best stories he's ever written. And I don't have an answer to that. I think the producers are afraid to be subject to the laws of physics as they are known in their storytelling.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  I don't understand what the question is. What you're saying is, is Why haven't all the science fiction movies been made into movies?

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's crappy science fiction books out there, and quality science fiction books, and not enough of the quality books are getting made into the movies.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Oh, I see.

• 40:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the quality books actually care about the laws of physics as we know them, and then take intelligent steps beyond that.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  And they're real things that could really happen?

• 40:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That could, well, yeah.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  I'll tell you why. I'll give you the answer.

• 40:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 40:37Speaker 03

  It doesn't take an astrophysicist to figure it out.

• 40:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Because the people who are smart and read the intelligent books don't have the money to make the movies.

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's all the dumb people who make the stupid movies?

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Dumb, it's just, you know, like, the books I would read wouldn't be the ones that were, had all the proper astrophysicists. It would be the stuff that you read on the side of the, you know, in the Hamptons.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, do you know, there's a place called the National Academy of Sciences, some of the smartest people in the world are members of this. Do you know, recently, they have a collaboration with Hollywood? That's just started.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Really?

• 41:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just started, eight months ago. Just started.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  That's interesting.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's trying to get Hollywood people to become more fluent in scientific ideas, so that they can storytell with scientific fluency. And so, we may see a change, Ronaldo, in what future movies will bring, just based on this collaboration.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  The way they use real policemen now to consult on, like, Law & Order.

• 41:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, and so...

• 41:27Speaker 03

  Imagine that. We really use scientists to consult on science fiction movies. What an idea.

• 41:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and so, you know, that would be, and one of my worries, though, is if aliens come, what would they do to us? Are they there to make peace, or are they there to enslave us?

• 41:41Speaker 03

  They're gonna make us their prison, their prison girlfriend. If they get here first, we are going to have to bite the pillow and take it like a prison girlfriend.

• 41:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk. 1-877-5-Star-Talk is our toll-free number if you have an opinion on aliens. We're gonna take a break, see you in a moment.

• 42:00Speaker 10

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• 42:25Speaker 10

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• 42:48Speaker 11

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• 42:59Speaker 12

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• 43:52Speaker 14

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• 43:55Speaker 13

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• 44:01Speaker 01

  Whether you're a space cadet or a rocket scientist.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  We want to hear from you. The phone lines are open. Call now. This is StarTalk.

• 44:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, with my co-host, Lynn Koplitz.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  Hey, I resent that. Did you hear our thing?

• 44:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 44:28Speaker 03

  The intro to our show?

• 44:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 44:30Speaker 03

  Whether you're a rocket scientist or a space cadet, eh, which one am I?

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you could be a rocket scientist.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  And a space cadet.

• 44:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we're talking about alien sightings, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and what aliens might do if they visit us. You know, I kind of, I think it'd be great if they visited us, but we always hear these reports about people getting abducted, you know?

• 44:54Speaker 03

  I don't think it's gonna be great if they visit us. I think they're coming for our resources. I think the best thing to do is live simply. Go back to like Amish life, so we have nothing that they want. Just like, be done. So there's nothing the aliens could find attractive. They'll fly over, it's just a dark little planet, they go, oh wow, there's nothing there. Just leave us alone. I don't, I just, let's stop.

• 45:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, so...

• 45:16Speaker 03

  That's what I think.

• 45:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think they're coming for our technology. If they flew here on a flying saucer, they, I assure you, they will not need or want our technology.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  No, not our technology. I think it's gonna be like some gas or plant or something we have that they need, or our blood or something, and I just think it's better if we...

• 45:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or the military guys are worried they'll be coming for our women.

• 45:35Speaker 03

  Well, they're attractive aliens with good guns. I might be interested.

• 45:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time to go back to Seth Jost.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  All right, yes.

• 45:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he's actually thought about this problem. Just what, you know, what do you do if, if people see, visit, visitors from space? Are they real? Do we believe them? Let's see what Seth has to tell us. So, what does the book leave you? Hopeful or doubtful?

• 45:57Speaker 05

  Well, I hope it leaves people with a, you know, sort of a sunny view of this enterprise, and that they understand some of the issues. But it ends up actually with a sort of speculation about what the aliens might be like, and the fact that they might not be biological, we always tend to think of, you know, little soft, squishy aliens. I don't think that that's very likely. I think we'll find something that's, you know, synthetic. Because, you know, you invent radio transmitters so that you can go on the air and we can find you, but you know, within a couple hundred years, you probably invent your successors, and that would be machine intelligence. So, they'd probably be machine intelligence, and they're not likely to want to eat us, if that's any consolation. But it, but it kind of ends up there.

• 46:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's a big leap to say we'll find intelligence, but it's not biological, but it once was, but it made its technological emissary, and we're discovering basically their their silicon-based descendants.

• 46:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, that's, I think that that's a likely scenario.

• 46:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Lynn, it might be machines.

• 46:54Speaker 03

  That's interesting.

• 46:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would that make them less?

• 46:56Speaker 03

  I don't think so. I think they're gonna look like Michael Jackson. He looks like such an alien to me now. He doesn't even have a nose, really.

• 47:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I...

• 47:03Speaker 03

  All right, so they might be machines.

• 47:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They might be machines, and...

• 47:07Speaker 03

  Creepy.

• 47:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think, I think about it. If you're first emissary to some uncharted place, are you gonna send yourself, or are you gonna send a machine that'll then report back to you? So machines are our robotic emissaries of what it is to be human.

• 47:19Speaker 03

  Now, this whole, you know, I'm from the south, so people are always claiming they see a UFO.

• 47:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, on their back porch.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, when really it's just a jug of something they've been drinking. But, um, but the UN UFOs for unidentified.

• 47:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, how deep south are you?

• 47:35Speaker 03

  Uh, Virginia.

• 47:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Virginia, that's not, that's south, that's not deep south.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  Um, no, but my point is, is that eyewitness testimony isn't really, I mean, I don't believe, for you and me, and you would think that I would be the one who was totally into UFOs and believed it, but I don't believe, I think that it's kinda crazy, the UFO sightings, because there's a lot of stuff up there right now, like...

• 47:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, this, this...

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Like, it's silly to think you really seen it.

• 48:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All manner of things are up there, and if you don't know what you're looking at, and you're prone to believe in fantasy, you could think maybe you saw aliens.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  Eyewitness testimony is not, doesn't mean anything.

• 48:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it wouldn't, because in fact, it means high, it's high evidence in the court of law, but in the field of science, it is the lowest possible form of evidence you could bring forth.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Oh, it is.

• 48:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whether or not you were looking at aliens.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  In law and order, it's very important.

• 48:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have a test tube, and you say, "This test tube turned red," I'm saying, "I'm not gonna trust you. I need some evidence."

• 48:27Speaker 03

  So what's the best way, you're saying, if you're abducted, if you claim to be abducted by an alien, you should bring something with ya?

• 48:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, first of all, the best thing would be club it on the head and drag the alien carcass into a lab. That's the best, best way to do it. If you can't do that, you can't overpower the alien.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  Because people claim that they were abducted.

• 48:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're up there on the slab, and they're poking at ya... I need, I need something better than just you telling me you got poked. So, here's what you do, here's what you do.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  You clench.

• 48:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, wait, no. You point, you, you point up, you, you distract the alien, you say, "Hey, look over there." And then you snatch something off the shelf, like an alien ashtray or something.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  And eat it.

• 49:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, no, no, you, you, oh, okay, or slip it into your pocket. And then, when they release you, you have something to take to the lab that they can analyze.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  They're not that intelligent if you can like, five finger discount something out of there. But here's my, what if the aliens have been here already and they've grabbed something of ours? And they have it in one of their alien museums? I hope it was something good and not like a Joanie Loves Tati lunchbox or something ridiculous that they're showing as like, the thing from Earth?

• 49:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, everything that anybody loses, they're gonna blame it on aliens having taken it. We've got a, we've got a call, we've got Mustafa from Brooklyn, New York.

• 49:38Speaker 15

  Hello, how are you?

• 49:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brooklyn in the house.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  Hi, Mustafa.

• 49:40Speaker 15

  How are you?

• 49:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How you doing?

• 49:42Speaker 03

  Fine, how are you?

• 49:43Speaker 15

  Well, I was just wondering, if you had to bet, which galaxy would these aliens be coming from? And which direction can I look in the sky toward them or away from them?

• 49:53Speaker 03

  Messier 13.

• 49:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Messier 13.

• 49:55Speaker 03

  Globular cluster 2000, Messier 13.

• 49:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, thanks, Mustafa. And by the way, we're feeling book giving mood again, so why don't you hang on and we'll get your address? And we'll send you an autographed copy of Seth Shostak's Confessions of an Alien Hunter, who graciously gave his time for me to interview him for this broadcast here on StarTalk.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  His big confession is, "I haven't found one yet."

• 50:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, where might it be coming from? First, I don't believe it would come from another galaxy, because it wouldn't have to. Our own galaxy's got 300 billion stars in it. So, from the Milky Way, for sure. Now, what part of the Milky Way? Likely in the plane of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a very flattened spread of stars. It's like a pinwheel. So, it'd come within the plane. And I would say maybe the Orion complex of stars.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Oh, good God, Neil, he just wants to know which way to look. Should he look towards the East River? Which way? The guy just wants to know which way.

• 50:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He should look up if he wanted to get a direction. I would say Orion. Orion is a region of freshly formed stars and it's great. That's where you should, uh, that's where you should be looking.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  This is a fun show, Neil.

• 50:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it is. I'm loving it. So Lynn.

• 51:01Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 51:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lynn, I've introduced you as an actress. So what is it? I only know you as a comedian.

• 51:08Speaker 03

  I'm an actress comedian and I have a show that's on tonight on IFC Channel, Z-Rock. Please watch it at 11 o'clock.

• 51:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On Sunday nights.

• 51:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's my backup job in case you get rid of me.

• 51:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sunday nights. Excellent. You have been listening to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your astrophysicist host. And it's a program funded by the National Science Foundation. And joining me all this time has been...

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Lynn Koplitz.

• 51:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lynn, thanks for joining me.

• 51:32Speaker 03

  Thanks, Neil.

• 51:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll see you guys next week.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  Look up.