Cosmic Queries – ALIENS! with Jake Roper

Which Alien movie would be easiest to survive? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice answer Cosmic Queries about aliens in film alongside Jake Roper, host of the YouTube channel Vsauce3 and their series “Could You Survive The Movies?” Originally aired January 13, 2020.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey Startalkians, Neil here. You're about to listen to an episode specially drawn from our archives to serve your cosmic curiosities. Check it out. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk, Cosmic Queries Edition. Chuck.

• 0:31Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil.

• 0:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People love them Cosmic Queries.

• 0:34Chuck Nice?

  They do. We have a lot of inquiring minds.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good thing.

• 0:38Chuck Nice?

  That is a good thing.

• 0:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, actually, in Cosmic Queries, we bring in other people who are the experts, and I just get to sit and listen.

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I learn too.

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  So, there you have it. Who knew you were still capable of learning something?

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kind of, what?

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  The man who knows everything?

• 0:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I never said I don't know everything. Okay.

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  There's very, well, okay.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Today's subject, aliens in film and TV.

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Big subject.

• 1:01Chuck Nice?

  That is a big subject.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Big subject.

• 1:02Chuck Nice?

  Huge subject.

• 1:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For something for which there's no data. Aliens. Now, I got my own thoughts about aliens, but there are people out there who are more alien fluent than I am.

• 1:14Chuck Nice?

  All right, before we get to our alien fluency, do you believe in aliens?

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not about a believe, no.

• 1:21Chuck Nice?

  Okay, do you believe that we are alone in the universe?

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that, is that one of the questions?

• 1:25Chuck Nice?

  No, I just ask, I'm asking you personally.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I, it would be inexcusably egocentric for anyone to suggest that we on Earth are alone in the universe. Given how old the universe is, the prevalence of the chemistry that manifests in life, we see that biochemistry, that organic chemistry, all across the universe, and how long it took life to show up on Earth are pretty quick. About 100 million years, sounds like a long time, but short.

• 2:00Chuck Nice?

  Short in the span of the universe.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And of the universe, so it would be astonishing if we were alone.

• 2:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all I'm saying.

• 2:08Chuck Nice?

  All right, very diplomatically placed without actually saying yes or no. But I, I know exactly what you mean, so it's great.

• 2:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all I'm giving you.

• 2:15Chuck Nice?

  It's a good answer.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all I'm giving you.

• 2:16Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, what we have, who we have here.

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is the one and only Jake Robert.

• 2:21Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jake.

• 2:23Chuck Nice?

  Hello.

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got your resume here. Host of Vsauce 3 Science Channel on YouTube.

• 2:29Chuck Nice?

  Vsauce.

• 2:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could you guess that? He's got a YouTube pillow over his left shoulder.

• 2:33Chuck Nice?

  Good for him.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And you host the YouTube series, Could You Survive the Movies? That is a brilliant concept. Putting people through what goes on in the movies.

• 2:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? That's a brilliant concept. And so do you just never leave home and you're watching movies all the time? Or do you like study this in school?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  I mean, it worked out well because, yes, I, my job is to watch movies and then explore them scientifically.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's his job.

• 2:58Chuck Nice?

  That's a good one. What a great job.

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is, somebody pays you to do that?

• 3:01Chuck Nice?

  Pays you to watch movies.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  I know. I don't know why. Don't tell them.

• 3:05Chuck Nice?

  How do you get my son that job? Okay, this is, he's, he's actually doing it for free.

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in Cosmic Queries, we solicit questions from our audience, and they've been primed on this subject.

• 3:20Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 3:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they're coming in and they know you, but many of them, if not most, are fans of yours. So, and we could do this in a StarTalk way.

• 3:27Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 3:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's do it, Chuck. What do you have?

• 3:29Chuck Nice?

  All right. Well, can I start with my own personal question for you? Uh, is that okay? All right, before we-

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why are you asking him if it's okay? It's my show.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn.

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you caught me off guard, man.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Yes, you have my permission to answer him the first question.

• 3:47Chuck Nice?

  Instead of the people who actually-

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 3:51Chuck Nice?

  All right. So I just want to know, in your estimation, what is the easiest movie to survive?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  The easiest movie to survive? If we're talking physically?

• 4:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  I would say-

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of what, of what genre? Of, of- Alien movies.

• 4:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Like any? Oh, an alien film.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An alien film.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Hmm. The easiest one to survive?

• 4:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'd be E.T.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Well, so, so here's the thing. I would say E.T. That's a really, immediately popped in my head. But then you do have that whole segment where like, oh, we need to quarantine them because who knows what bacteria or viruses he might have.

• 4:24Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 4:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  And that to me is kind of the interesting thing. You have this foreign creature here on Earth.

• 4:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  We don't know what's viral.

• 4:32Chuck Nice?

  We have no idea.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  We don't know what it is susceptible to or what we're susceptible to from it.

• 4:38Chuck Nice?

  So at the end of the movie.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  But in reality.

• 4:41Chuck Nice?

  When the kids get him back to the ship, what they don't show you is five weeks later, when they all have these horrible growths coming out the sides of their faces. And, yeah, but he's already gone.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and the movie ended.

• 4:54Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, then they were like, well, we can't make a sequel because all the kids have horrible tumors, so.

• 5:00Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I have a, I have a, two reflections on this.

• 5:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One, I've had Steven Spielberg in that chair over there in my office. Tell me.

• 5:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Upon being asked something related, that E.T., what he imagined E.T. as a vegetable and not as an animal.

• 5:19Chuck Nice?

  So he's a plant-based life form?

• 5:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plant-based life, that's correct.

• 5:24Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is, which is how he would have that relationship with the plants, remember?

• 5:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yes.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it would rebloom. And so that was imagined, but since it's walking and talking and has eyeballs and shoulders,

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the natural way to think of him is as living.

• 5:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As, as animal life rather than plant life. So that's my first. Yeah, second point.

• 5:45Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that is a really cool little factoid.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, second point.

• 5:48Chuck Nice?

  That is really cool, go ahead.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I, and you say, what are your sources? Steven Spielberg.

• 5:54Chuck Nice?

  That's like, that is the ultimate cocktail party smackdown. Yeah, well, I don't know if you know this, but E.T. is actually a plant-based, plant-based life. It's like, yeah, where do you get that from? Steven Spielberg.

• 6:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's, I've had people come up to me and say, what, what wiki page did you get that information from? And I, for other calculations, I said, I calculated it. Somebody actually creates information that goes on the wiki page.

• 6:20Chuck Nice?

  I'm one of those people.

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, okay, that's what it. So.

• 6:23Chuck Nice?

  It's called math.

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called math.

• 6:25Chuck Nice?

  It's called math, dude. What wiki page did you get that from? Uh, math.

• 6:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What app? The Brain app.

• 6:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, what, what app? Yeah, yeah, right here. Go ahead.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also, you can ask, what are the chances we would catch an E.T. disease? If he comes to Earth, what's the chance of that?

• 6:41Chuck Nice?

  Contamination.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And here's the problem, the kinds of diseases we think about and know about tend to be very specific to the life forms.

• 6:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about it. So, an oak tree is not gonna get whooping cough.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  Correct. Right. And just like there are certain viruses that, you know, that will not, will not be, what's it transmitted, trans-species?

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, across species. They have to mutate.

• 7:03Chuck Nice?

  They have to mutate in order for that to happen.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the idea that an alien from another planet is, has something that's contagious to us, is kind of, is kind of low.

• 7:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because a lot of things that are contagious to other life forms on Earth with whom we have DNA in common are not contagious to us. That's all I'm saying.

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But still, we gotta be cautious, just as you said.

• 7:24Chuck Nice?

  Excellent. Alright, well, let's get to the queries now. And of course, we always start with the Patreon patron because they support us.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 7:30Chuck Nice?

  And we love them for it. This is JB from Patreon. He says, hi Neil and Jake. This is Jessica from Arizona. In 2005, the movie War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise, these machines driven by aliens start eviscerating people with white laser beams, effectively turning them into ash. Would it be possible to harness light this way into a kind of super laser? If so, where would you go to stay safe?

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which would be in defense against.

• 8:07Chuck Nice?

  In defense against.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, yeah. So Jake, yeah, Jake.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Alright, so just to clarify, they're asking if the weapon that the War of the Worlds aliens use could be possible?

• 8:19Chuck Nice?

  Uh, well, she's saying, yes. Is it possible to use light in this manner? So that is a different way of saying, is that weapon possible?

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in that way, you could, you could fight with a weapon equivalent to what they're using.

• 8:30Chuck Nice?

  Perhaps. Okay. Or you could defend against it.

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Well, actually, this is funny, because if we just, spoilers for everyone that hasn't seen the movie yet. I'm gonna give you a second. Okay.

• 8:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The movie is 14 years old. Forget it. They haven't seen the movie yet. I don't care. Go.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Well, hopefully, they just heard the original War of the Worlds from back in the day when you were a kid, Neil. Anyway.

• 8:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  So. The way that they destroyed the aliens to defeat them is by like a virus. A human virus gets them ill and they all just die.

• 9:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  So this kind of goes back to the ET conversation where we actually are the this contaminant that kills them.

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're the weapon.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  Anywho, yeah, we are the weapon, just us existing. And that's kind of the par for the course for humans anyway. So, I mean, I would say it is possible. You can't, I mean, harness light. Is that what they're harnessing? We don't really know. You could generate enough energy where you could just completely eviscerate a person. I mean, that's possible.

• 9:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  True. Well, I mean, if it's just a matter of energy, right? Light is a form of energy. Right. Now, laser beams are kind of cooler than other forms of it, but it's just energy. Right. So, you know, a bow and arrow is putting energy here and taking energy over here and putting it over there. Right. A laser's got energy here, put it over there. Right. A bullet, I got energy over here, it's in the gunpowder and now the energy's in there. So if you can abstract this question to just say, what are the ways you can have energy over here and put it over there? And you have more energy than they have? That's kind of what that comes down to. Right. But I wonder maybe the question, what do you think the question was? What does it take to turn them into a pile of ash? Well. Do you think maybe that was the question?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  So that's what I'm thinking right now. In that regard, I mean, it would have to be whatever this beam is, let's say this energy beam, it would have to encompass the entirety of the person's body for all of them to instantaneously turn to ash.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  So you just focus here, well then, boop, it would just pop a hole right through you, the same way that a bullet, when it impacts, it doesn't blow apart your whole entire external body, internal just boop. So I guess it would be so, if we just go by heat, so hot that it would immediately vaporize all of the moisture in your body. Right? It would just completely dry you out to such a degree that you are just dust afterwards.

• 10:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Absolutely, yeah. Right, so Jake has mentioned an important point because it's hard to burn something that has a lot of liquid in it. Right. The liquid, you got to first get rid of the liquid, then you can burn what's left, right? So you're talking about ash, if you're gonna be a pile of ash, your blood had to evaporate in some way before you even get to the ash. So, so the instantane- instantaneity, is that a word? Nice. It's. It is now.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  It is now.

• 11:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The instantaneity. Sounds like a great, a great Quaker Oats commercial.

• 11:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Instantanaity.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  Instantanaity. It's delicious. All right, go ahead.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it would require enough energy to instantly take your blood to a rolling boil and then evaporate it. Get rid of all the liquid and then.

• 11:37Chuck Nice?

  And then consume the rest of the material.

• 11:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that seems to me, it had to take a little longer than how long that took in the movie.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:44Chuck Nice?

  Right, because, and the other thing too is, if you're talking about that kind of energy, it only did that to the person. The beam didn't, as it continued, it didn't like shoot holes into the ground. It didn't take out buildings.

• 11:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, or, or the plant life.

• 11:58Chuck Nice?

  Or the plant life behind it. Only the people, so.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  So maybe it was attuned to human chemistry then.

• 12:07Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's a good, that, I see you think about this stuff.

• 12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is very evident that you think about this crap all day long, okay? Because, well, no, okay, I got one for you. So, the military and large municipalities have what's called non-lethal weaponry.

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay, yeah.

• 12:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the taser is an example of one.

• 12:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But another one is this truck that rolls around with this huge beam and sends microwaves into a crowd. And.

• 12:37Chuck Nice?

  You feel like you're burning.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You feel like your skin is burning, so you want to get out of that beam. And basically, they aim it for the focus points wherever people are gathering and getting the most ornery.

• 12:48Chuck Nice?

  So they can disperse the crowd.

• 12:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Disperse the crowd. So, the cool thing about microwaves is water responds to microwaves, which is why your plate doesn't get hot, but your food does in the microwave oven. So if you have one of these weapons that targets human molecules, then you could have a beam that's sort of wide enough to just enclose you.

• 13:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That could, that could vaporize you, but not the stuff behind you.

• 13:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, excellent.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Would you, how, what do you think of that?

• 13:17Speaker 02

  I mean, I think that, that sounds fair, because they do have those specific things. They have the microwave weapons that you're talking about. I mean, I remember reading an article years ago about how in the UK to stop teens from loitering in stores, stores could play this frequency that only teenagers could hear, because they still had those hairs in their hair, right?

• 13:34Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  So you can still hear the frequency.

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I forgot about that.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  It would be annoying to them.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, old folks just don't even hear it, and so we can chill.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, what?

• 13:41Chuck Nice?

  Well, exactly.

• 13:44Chuck Nice?

  The same way we are with teens.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why they don't listen, they don't hear.

• 13:50Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's great. All right, well, that's a great question, uh, Jay, Jessica. That was really cool. Are you ready for another one? Here we go.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 13:58Chuck Nice?

  Uh, this is Shivang, Shivang, Shrivastava. Shrivastava. Yes, Shivang, Shrivastava.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shivang, Shivastava.

• 14:11Chuck Nice?

  Shivastava. Oh, so, so, oh, so you're gonna, you're gonna, uh.

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 14:16Chuck Nice?

  I put the wrong phasis on the syllable. All right, here we go. Uh, she says, hi, Dr. Tyson. Do you think, uh, an organization such as M I B, or Men in Black, can be established secretly if the government finds aliens? I'm also really eager to know what changes will you and Jake, would you and Jake like to make in the movies so they are more bound to reality? Ooh, thank you both for your encouraging science education.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jake, can M I B be real? Would it, would it be real? First, is it real? Second, would, would the government do it? If in fact, we were sort of shielding aliens? What, what's your?

• 15:02Speaker 02

  I would say yes.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't really have, I mean, everything right now is just hypothetical, but I would assume that, yes, they would create an organization. Would it be as cool and sexy as Men in Black? Probably not.

• 15:18Chuck Nice?

  Here's what I want to know from both of you. Do you think the government, uh, the scientific community especially, would shield the public from the knowledge that we are not alone?

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna ask Jake about this.

• 15:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  I, I mean, I think, this is a tough one because we are hunting for life out there in the universe, right? That's what we're actively doing when we go to Mars, when we just are trying to go to Europa, all these different missions. That is kind of the point. But that is a different kind of life than I think what most people assume life to be. We think of life as sentient human beings that can walk around, move around, have conversations, think for themselves, not microorganisms.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  So when it comes to that level of, I assume an alien is this living, breathing thing that can move around and shake my hand, that I would kind of assume that the government, if it did, if it were happening now, they would hide from us. Because it kind of is a disruptive thought or disruptive information to know.

• 16:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So with an MIB kind of, uh, uh, uh, secret keepers?

• 16:27Speaker 02

  To a degree, not, not as cool as MIB. I don't think they have like fancy alien weapons and like cool cars and, you know, they're going on all these actions, giving birth to aliens on the like

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  Side of the road.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Long expressway or whatever, but like, I do think if aliens, well, you're, okay, aliens exist, I think.

• 16:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, just a quick thing, in Men in Black, one of the aliens was, he was like bug life, right? I mean, he was like roaches. So it's not, not all of them were fully manifested as humanoid forms. I mean, he was humanoid, but he was still made of bugs or, or

• 17:07Speaker 02

  If we're just throwing a theory, it's like, I have a strong theory that if we go to the deep ocean, that ultimately is alien. It looks so foreign from what we experience here in our world of on land, that it is so different. Like, that could be aliens for all we know.

• 17:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  It's a totally different environment.

• 17:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Okay. I'm, I'm gonna say no, but, but I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say, no, they're not aliens.

• 17:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's very testable. You look at, you check their DNA, overlapping DNA, but otherwise it's fun to think about it.

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take a quick break. When we come back, more with Jake on Aliens in the Universe.

• 17:46Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  This is Ken, the nerd neck zebra from Michigan, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 18:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk, Cosmic Queries, aliens in the movies and TV.

• 18:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A subject as big as the universe itself.

• 18:15Chuck Nice?

  You know what? It probably is.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I got Jake Roper on.

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  Thank God we got Jake Roper on.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, right? Because he thinks about this stuff.

• 18:22Chuck Nice?

  All the time.

• 18:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Professionally.

• 18:24Chuck Nice?

  Professionally.

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If somebody pays him.

• 18:26Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you, your parents should be so proud of you. I'm telling you right now, I'm proud of you. I am proud of you, Jake. You are what America is about. I want to be able to save somebody at a cocktail party. So what's your son do? My son talks about aliens on YouTube and they pay him. Defensively.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he bought my house.

• 18:47Chuck Nice?

  And he bought my house. My son, who does not play basketball, bought my house on YouTube. Love it, bro. I love it.

• 18:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so what's your question? You got a next question?

• 18:59Chuck Nice?

  We got the next question.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 19:01Chuck Nice?

  Let's keep going. This is, um, Jason Mogridge. Jason says, hey, what's up, guys? What's yours, Neil's, and Jake's favorite fictional alien movie or game? And why?

• 19:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 19:18Chuck Nice?

  Nice question. That's a good one.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, go on, Jake.

• 19:23Chuck Nice?

  Jake, this is going to put pressure on you.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  No, Chuck, you go first on this one. So I can think.

• 19:30Chuck Nice?

  So you can think. You got me. Okay, so I'm gonna give you my favorite movie alien.

• 19:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me hear it.

• 19:35Chuck Nice?

  And it's gonna be very pedestrian because you're gonna say it's just the oldest trope ever.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't tell me what I'm gonna say about your alien.

• 19:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay, you're right. You're right about that.

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 19:46Chuck Nice?

  All right. The alien. The alien.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the movie?

• 19:50Chuck Nice?

  In the movie, the alien. That is my, that thing is amazing. First of all, it's super cunning and intelligent, okay? Secondly, we don't know what motivates this thing. It kills everything, but why? Why is it doing it? Third, it loves to fight. Why are you so angry, bro? Calm down. Third, it's got a mouth in a mouth in a mouth. That is amazing. What is that tiny little mouth for? Why? Why do you have a tiny little mouth?

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know. You felt this way.

• 20:22Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute. He ain't done. That's not it. I'm not done yet. Wait a minute. Here's the, eh, you cut it and it bleeds acid.

• 20:32Chuck Nice?

  Come on, this thing is awesome. Whoever thought of this alien, I'm telling you, they put a little bit of time in, that's all I'm saying.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it scurries when it escaped down the hallway.

• 20:41Chuck Nice?

  No, forget it.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was scary.

• 20:42Chuck Nice?

  Look how fast it is.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 20:43Chuck Nice?

  Right, and by the way, look at its transformation. It's, it goes in you as who knows what.

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're just host.

• 20:50Chuck Nice?

  A little crab monster actually grabs you by the face and puts the baby alien in you, and then it comes out as a little snake man. It's crazy. It's crazy.

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jake, have you had enough time to think now? Or are you so distracted by Chuck's?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm really amazed. Like, that was, that was great. That was a good monologue.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, okay, so Alien is fantastic. I'm wearing an Alien hat, um, Mustromo the Ship from the first one.

• 21:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  I do love Alien. But actually, in a similar vein to Alien, because I think, I would think of Alien as a parasite, right? The whole entire way that it gestates and bursts out, it is this parasitic relationship. So with that in mind, The Thing is my favorite Alien.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  The Thing?

• 21:35Speaker 02

  From the movie, The Thing.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I forgot what The Thing was.

• 21:38Chuck Nice?

  Is The Thing like the Blob? What is The Thing?

• 21:41Speaker 02

  No, so The Thing is...

• 21:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But don't get, and don't confuse The Thing with Them, because Them were ants.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 21:47Chuck Nice?

  Them were the ants?

• 21:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were ants.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Them is ants.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Them is ants.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  That is something entirely different.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  The Thing, all right, so back on track, Chuck, come on.

• 21:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay, sorry.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  So The Thing is a, uh, well, the remake was, which is the one that's most popular, is this 1980s movie with Kurt Russell, directed by John Carpenter, and The Thing is this organism that takes the shape...

• 22:09Chuck Nice?

  I saw it.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Of whatever the host is.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  I didn't realize that that was what I was watching, but it's a shapeshifter, and you don't know who it is, because it can be anything, and then at one point it became the dog or something like that, right?

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 22:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, okay, I forgot I saw that movie.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  It can take any form, and it's, the thing that scared me about it is, one, it's, it really is a parasite, but an intergalactic parasite, and it just takes upon, like, you have things like the jewel wasp here on Earth, right, which is more similar to the xenomorph in Alien, where it impregnates the cockroach, basically, and then the larvae bursts out and becomes a full-on wasp, flies away. But The Thing, I love, because it brings up this conundrum where, does the person who it took the body of, the form of, is it aware that it's not human? Or does it think that it's human? But it has something else controlling its mind? And I think that's a really nice conundrum.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you look in the mirror, the mirror tells you you're human, right?

• 23:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. So, so you like the fact that you could be infested with this parasite? Or occupied by this parasite and still think you are you, but just going about your life. But really, you're just a puppet of a galactic parasite.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  And you have no idea, potentially, the people around you have no idea that you are no longer you.

• 23:28Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  That's pretty cool. And I think that's pretty spooky, whereas with like traditional aliens or an alien, you know it's an alien. Like, okay, you're terrifying. You're not, you're not friendly, but if it was just Neil, we're like, oh, Neil, how you doing? And for all this time, he's been this parasitic alien.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I am fine.

• 23:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the difference between them and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, fundamentally?

• 23:53Speaker 02

  So, that's a great question. There isn't much.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  It is similar.

• 23:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  I think it's just in the style and... Yes, they're both these alien creatures that take over humans. I think in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, its motivation is much more clear. It's there to take over the planet.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  And the thing, they just find this crashed spaceship from like thousands of years ago. And there's no reason as to why it's there or what the purpose of this alien is. The alien never expresses its intent. It's just this vicious force.

• 24:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that's a good one. All right, Neil.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I have a, a good answer and then a cop out answer.

• 24:31Chuck Nice?

  Uh oh.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My good answer is I think the Blob is the best alien ever.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  The Blob?

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it didn't walk, it didn't talk, it didn't have two eyes, shoulders, mouth, nose, feet. You know, as much as we like alien versus predator.

• 24:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The predator was great, right? But it's still very humanoid.

• 24:49Chuck Nice?

  Yes, right.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's even the approximate height of a human. You could look, you know, Arnold stared him straight in his eyes. Kill me now, right here, right, kill me. If it bleeds, we can kill it. Okay, so I'm, I'm thinking this was the most creative alien Hollywood has ever come up with. Because it was not an actor in a costume.

• 25:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And people forget, what color is the Blob? Do you remember? Red. Red, except when it first landed. It was completely transparent. Oh. After it ate its first person, then it was red. Oh, I gotta go back and check that out. Yes, yes. Did you, Jake, did you know that?

• 25:26Speaker 02

  I did know that.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, I can't, I can't stump, I can't stump. Unstoppable, Jake.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, well, I just showed my girlfriend the blog because she'd never seen it. So we just watched it the other week.

• 25:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it's fresh, it's fresh, it might, it might have been Steve McQueen's first movie or very early in his, in his repertoire. Anyways, that's my, I think that's the most imaginative. Plus, it comes through the grill. Right, it comes through everything. Of the, of the air conditioning ducts. Any, any opening. Any opening. Any opening, it can ooze its way through. Under the door. Yeah. Yeah. Ew. So that and, uh, favorite alien, I think is from, uh, Contact. Contact with Jodie Foster? Yes. Wait a minute, so you mean when she was inside of that, that portal? You never see the alien. That's why it's my favorite alien. Right, because he says, "I've taken on this for him to make you comfortable."

• 26:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, well, that's, yes, yes, sir. But the alien, you do not know what the alien looks like. The alien exists in some way that is not material, that does not lend itself to material presence for your eyes. Okay. So I, and that way, and by the way, 2001 and its sequel, 2010, neither of those showed the alien either. Right. So I like it when they don't show it to you. Okay. That's all.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  I like that. This actually brings up, I love your thoughts on this. I always like to think that if we were to see an alien, that we wouldn't really be able to comprehend it, which is why I always think that the old school look of like the, the gray alien, you know, big head, big black eyes. Because we only understand things in the shapes that we can currently comprehend. But if something we're not bound by our understanding. Of the world, could it look entirely different in a form that we just don't understand? Have to put it into a form that we do understand?

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I don't think so. If you're open enough to what can be, it's just a thing that now, no, you don't have a reference for it, but it's a new thing that you make new references for. So for example, in Star Trek, you have the Horta. The Horta is basically a rock.

• 27:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's alive as a rock.

• 27:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That doesn't look like any alien anyone's dreamt of before.

• 27:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it can move through silicates like we move through air because the rock is silicon based, most of them. So I thought that was cool. Would you agree that was a creative attempt?

• 27:47Speaker 02

  That is really creative.

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to think outside of the box, the Horta.

• 27:50Chuck Nice?

  Cool, cool, very cool.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  No, that is, sorry, just back to the blob though, real quick. I know we got more questions, but that's to your point, what makes the blob so great? Is that it isn't this traditional flesh and blood, looks like a, has legs and arms kind of character. It's this blob, this shapeless form that just moves around and go through objects or things that we can't physically or that a physical being couldn't.

• 28:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus a bullet doesn't stop it, right? It's not because it's impervious, it's just irrelevant.

• 28:21Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly. It is like shooting water.

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 28:25Chuck Nice?

  Or shooting air.

• 28:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's my vote. So we got our three votes there.

• 28:29Chuck Nice?

  Nice stuff, good stuff, guys. All right, so shall we move on to Ryan Ramboer? And Ryan wants to know this. In the movie Arrival, the government sends two different scientists from two different fields of study. If you had to choose two people, who would you send into an alien spacecraft? Interesting.

• 28:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to remind people, in Arrival, the recent Arrival. Recent Arrival.

• 28:53Chuck Nice?

  Recent Arrival.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Sorry, I just got here.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they sent a physicist, a particle physicist and a linguist. Okay, would you, Jake, would you have sent different people in? I totally would have sent different people in. Who, what would you have sent in other than yourself? Who would you have sent?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  I mean, I think, but that was also a very specific thing where they, they chose a linguist because they knew there was some kind of communication happening and they needed someone there to help decipher it.

• 29:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, after the fact.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  So if we're starting.

• 29:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a tune in after the fact.

• 29:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  But when you said.

• 29:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So first.

• 29:29Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 29:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm, I'm, I'm gonna let you.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Oh, I was gonna say, but if we're starting from that point, then I think that can make, a particle physicist doesn't seem, like, wouldn't you want some sort of biologist?

• 29:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think so too.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  To be there.

• 29:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why I would have sent an astrobiologist.

• 29:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a cryptographer.

• 29:44Chuck Nice?

  And a cryptographer, right, right, right. That makes sense. See, I, I agree with that and/or I would have sent like a theoretical mathematician. What's, what's wrong with that? He's like, what's wrong with that?

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fine.

• 30:00Chuck Nice?

  Because, I mean, listen, if, for them to get here, they had to use math.

• 30:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sure.

• 30:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sure.

• 30:08Chuck Nice?

  And I think that math would be the same for us.

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but, but astrobiologists, no math, so we're good here.

• 30:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright.

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's part of our curriculum.

• 30:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh, see, you know, you just think that physicists are so damn great.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, but I just, I just, I just removed the physicist from that equation.

• 30:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put in an astrobiologist. And a cryptographer. The cryptographer's gonna know math too, right Jake? Cryptographer knows some math.

• 30:32Chuck Nice?

  Yep, of course.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's my question to you Jake.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do they know that the septopod, or whatever it's called?

• 30:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that, the thingy thing.

• 30:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was communicating in the direction they are looking, rather than in his own direction, and they should then be studying the mirror image of it?

• 30:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, flipping it.

• 30:57Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Well, I think.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You thought too hard about that. You just ruined the movie.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  My.

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My answer. What you saying?

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The thing is writing on transparent glass.

• 31:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's writing what it thinks and everyone is thinking it's its own.

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Somebody's got to, we need a mirror in there at some point. Jake, what's your, what's your take?

• 31:18Speaker 02

  My opinion is that the aliens are very considerate. So they were like, we're gonna make it easy for you guys. We traveled all this distance. We are smart enough to know that we're gonna flip it for you. We're gonna draw.

• 31:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Backwards.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will tell you this, wait, wait, if aliens come up to me and they put it as a glass window.

• 31:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I ain't writing shit backwards.

• 31:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'm not writing. But here's my point, and this is my only.

• 31:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Making faces.

• 31:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, my, my only problem with the movie is this.

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 31:45Chuck Nice?

  If you are smart enough for intergalactic travel, are you going to tell me that you can't learn English in a few days? I'm just saying.

• 31:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I, I, I agree.

• 31:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was, that was my problem. That was my problem with, with, with, um, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Do you remember that scene where they figure out where they're gonna land? Do you remember that scene?

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The teletype gives the, the, the, the, the longitude and latitude. It's like, wait a minute, that's a coordinates on Earth. And then they go get the map and if it's Devil's Tower, it's like, oh my gosh. And I'm, you know my issue here, Jake? It's our latitude goes from zero to ninety. Who thought that up? Okay. And between zero and one and one and two, it's split into sixty parts. Okay. And the longitude is an act of politics that put the prime meridian through Greenwich. So if you were an alien and you know our coordinate system, you come up upon Earth, there's no grid lines on Earth, right?

• 32:53Chuck Nice?

  Hey, look at that. It's a planet made by world map.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no grid lines. So if you come up to the Earth, you have to understand our weird sexagesimal counting system for angles. And you have to know the politics that put the prime meridian going down through Greenwich. And if you knew that much about human culture, you'd just say, hey.

• 33:14Chuck Nice?

  What's happening?

• 33:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's happening? I'm landing to the left of Devil's Tower.

• 33:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At four thirty this afternoon. See you then. Boom.

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  Now, did you tell Steven Spielberg that when he was here?

• 33:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what's the next question? Go. Go.

• 33:32Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 33:33Chuck Nice?

  Next question? Here we go. All right. This is... Oh, I like it. This is 72 underscore O5 underscore 72. And thank you so much for that name, by the way. If our planet was being attacked by aliens, what's the first thing you would do? Now, this is an attack, guys.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Attack.

• 33:52Chuck Nice?

  Not a visit. An attack.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 33:54Chuck Nice?

  What's the first thing you would do?

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't have time in this segment.

• 33:57Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, we're gonna find out what's the first thing Jake is gonna do when aliens attack when StarTalk returns.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk, segment three of Cosmic Queries, Aliens in the Movies.

• 34:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 34:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With Jake Roper.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, this is what he does.

• 34:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, awesome. It's a great job.

• 34:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not only what he does, that's all he does.

• 34:30Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my goodness. I'm so jealous.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's actually sitting on a toilet right now. He never leaves.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He just never leaves that space.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  He said you wouldn't tell.

• 34:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's too funny. Okay. So, before we went off, here's the question. 72 underscore O5 underscore 72 says this. If our planet was being attacked, guys, by aliens, what is the first thing you would do? Not a visit. An attack.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jake.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  First thing I would do is probably just, uh... Relax, you know? What could I do to help stave it off? I'm just gonna chill. Turn on some StarTalk radio. Pour a nice Merlot.

• 35:16Chuck Nice?

  Very nice.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Is that a wine? I think that's a wine. And then just...

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's a wine.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Wait for death.

• 35:21Chuck Nice?

  Glass of wine and chill. Yes, instead of Netflix and chill, alien attack and chill.

• 35:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting.

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  I'll tell you what I would not do, which is what they do in the movies.

• 35:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shoot your gun at it.

• 35:37Chuck Nice?

  Go outside and start shooting at the sky.

• 35:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's a mothership.

• 35:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you think, you think, you think.

• 35:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Neil, what would you do?

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jake, you have, you have, you have surrendered to them, correct?

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Well, if they're attacking, like, I'm sorry, so I guess my assumption was that it's the ship that's attacking us. If they sent ground troops and were going like house by house, door by, door to door, then yeah, I'd probably fight back. But if there's just a giant mothership blasting Earth, similar to Independence Day, then I'd just hang out and hope that it all clears.

• 36:14Chuck Nice?

  Man. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm kind of with you.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  What am I supposed to do?

• 36:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I mean, listen, like, you know, I'm not go, like, when you brought up Independence Day, the scene that really burned my shorts was when all the people got on top of the Capitol Records building to look at the aliens.

• 36:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get a better view.

• 36:32Chuck Nice?

  To get a better view of the aliens. And then, of course, they were all incinerated by a, a particle beam that wiped them. Like, I don't get that. What, what, I don't, I don't, I don't want to meet aliens that bad.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You realize Independence Day is War of the Worlds?

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 36:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do we attack, how do we triumph over the aliens? With a virus.

• 36:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, look at you.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh!

• 36:58Chuck Nice?

  That was good.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck!

• 36:59Chuck Nice?

  You got me. I'm gonna tell you, that was good.

• 37:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck!

• 37:02Chuck Nice?

  So a biological virus and a cyber logical virus.

• 37:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so I, I'd like Jake, and I like keeping him around, so I'll put him in with his bottle of Merlot.

• 37:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll get him a good bottle of Merlot.

• 37:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get you a Chateau Petrus, okay, from maybe.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Mercy.

• 37:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, 1989 would be a really good bottle of Merlot for you, okay?

• 37:22Chuck Nice?

  Very nice.

• 37:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And look that one up. And so then, I, I like him, we'll keep him around, and I'll go out and try to figure out how to kick some alien ass.

• 37:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay, Neil is full of it.

• 37:34Chuck Nice?

  Because what you don't know Jake is that Neil has many government connections. Many, many government connections. He will be in a bunker, safely secured, drinking that Chateau, okay? Who's sharing it with a couple generals who will be consulting him on what we should or should not be doing with these.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  Chuck, you can't let people know that.

• 37:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  I don't think Neil was lying when he said that he would, you know, check on me. And then when he did leave though, yes, he would go to his bunker. I'll be right back. No, no, of course I'll be right back. In the bunker, hanging out, smoking cigars, living his best life.

• 38:12Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, what's the next one?

• 38:14Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Zevi coming to us. She's a YouTube fan. What is the most believable depiction of aliens you've seen in modern sci-fi? Good question. What's the most believable alien?

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go modern. Let's define it 1980s onward.

• 38:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, let's say 1980s onward.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  I mean, the first thing that pops my head, I think, would be arrival.

• 38:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  I think the way that they handled it, the way that they interacted with the aliens, the way that the aliens interacted with us.

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How about the fact that it was a septupod that didn't disturb you at all?

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Because I think, no, the issue that I have with most, not an issue because I do enjoy them, but with most alien invasion films when they come to Earth, is why do they always want to destroy us? Why is it their immediate instinct is like, let's just kill everybody?

• 39:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's because that's what we would do if we landed on their planet. In fact, that's what we've done to each other when we land on each other's continents.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  So that's why I think though we write it that way. Because that's what we would do. So we put our own self in those scripts when we write aliens. But if they were smart enough, if they could traverse these incredible distances, would their first action be aggression?

• 39:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I, I think only if we were food would there, because otherwise

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To serve man.

• 39:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. You, you got, you got the Twilight Zone episode.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To serve man.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  What is it, there was like, it's resource gathering, they do a lot of that. But I feel like Arrival had a pretty, in my mind, good depiction where, obviously it took liberties with some of the science, but it felt still in this world of science realism, or at least they were trying to obtain that. And I, I really appreciated that.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What about the day the earth stood still?

• 40:00Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 40:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Keanu Reeves one?

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Sort of the new one with Keanu Reeves?

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Either, well, either, I mean, there was the robot in the first one, but that wasn't really the alien.

• 40:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? There's something else controlled something else. So, uh, because you, you're trying to, oh, I, I got it. I got you here. Okay. In that same vein, I'm gonna go back to Contact. Because it was, I thought that was an authentic representation of how we as a society would react to the knowledge that there's an intelligent species out there. So I agree with you. You want some authenticity that isn't always violence.

• 40:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? But then, if you're creative enough as the screenwriter or as the storyteller, you would put some of those authentic reactions in it, as I agree they did with Arrival.

• 40:50Chuck Nice?

  See, I think when you said the day the earth stood still is even, even more so, because it is, it is a non-biological life form. Like, I think our first contact, if we send something out, it's not gonna be a human being. We're gonna send something out that might make contact.

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I see.

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  So that would be the first encounter that, from, from the opposite way.

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, next question.

• 41:12Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Uh, this is Wes Miller. Would you rather aliens be far more intelligent than humans or far less intelligent than humans?

• 41:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's the thing, if aliens visited us, they're clearly more intelligent.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's what I'm trying to, because I guess, again, we're assuming aliens are these life form style creatures.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  And we're not finding them, to your point, Neil, they're like coming to find us. So, yeah, I guess they just intrinsically would be more intelligent. But then, I guess, sorry, now I'm just being pathetic, but like, what is intelligence? Do they, they'll know more than us about certain things, but I'm sure there'll be different verticals of information that we are much well versed in than they are.

• 41:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jake, if they got here in a spaceship across intergalactic space, they know more about everything than we've ever known about anything.

• 42:05Chuck Nice?

  That's probably the case, unless of course-

• 42:07Speaker 02

  But are they gonna know about delicious tacos and nachos, Neil? Will they know that?

• 42:13Chuck Nice?

  They will, once they take over the Earth, that's for sure. But what if they're like, what was the movie, Wally?

• 42:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wally?

• 42:25Chuck Nice?

  Well, and they were escaping a planet, put on a ship that was run by an AI that took care of their every knee, and they just became dumb fatties floating around on chairs. Right? Then they arrive someplace-

• 42:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn, you just ruined that whole movie. Dumb fatties riding on chairs.

• 42:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's what that's what they- But then, instead of trying to wait until their planet was healed, it just takes them on an intergalactic mission. So here are people living in this enclosed society for all these, like, it could be millennia if you wanted it, then they get someplace, which is Earth, they find us, and what we end up seeing is incredible technology with a bunch of dumb fatties flying around on chairs.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  True, well, I'm sorry, last thing I wanna say about really smart aliens. I will go back to ET, though, as a consideration where ET was able to get to Earth, yet didn't even know what Reese's Pieces were. What an idiot.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What an idiot.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  What a dumb alien.

• 43:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Idiot.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  ET's an idiot.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  That's funny.

• 43:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right, next.

• 43:32Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 43:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Run it short in time, see if we can get a couple in here.

• 43:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay, go. This is, uh, Prabhanjan Telang says this, "If we ever contact an alien species, is there a first contact protocol? A true-to-life first contact protocol?"

• 43:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jake, I don't know if there is, but if there was one, what would you want it to be?

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Ah, I mean, I, you know what?

• 43:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who'd you say?

• 43:58Speaker 02

  I never even thought about this question before.

• 43:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, we stumped Jake.

• 44:01Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jake?

• 44:02Speaker 02

  Well, because I always assumed, because you have the light cone, right? We shouldn't have to go into detail, but information, unless we can figure out tachyons or anything, there's a speed limit to how fast information can travel.

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tachyons travel fast and move backwards in time.

• 44:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Far enough away to send us a message. By the time we were able to send anything back, whoever sent it is probably long gone.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  So I've never really thought about the idea of what would we say? There has to be a protocol.

• 44:29Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 44:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, why does a protocol for what? You would send a radio signal if we communicated that way. But if they just showed up, do you send your diplomats? Do you send your diplomats? You send your head of state?

• 44:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, let's hope not.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  No, I'd send like, I'd send Paul Rudd. Everyone likes Paul Rudd.

• 44:49Chuck Nice?

  That is an excellent answer.

• 44:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you need likable people. Very good. If you send the most likable human, then that's your best chance.

• 44:58Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Let's send the delightful Paul Rudd.

• 45:03Chuck Nice?

  How could we go wrong?

• 45:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's a brilliant answer.

• 45:05Chuck Nice?

  I like it.

• 45:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Send the most friendly among us.

• 45:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if they think he's evil in some way, then we're in big trouble.

• 45:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're bummed.

• 45:15Chuck Nice?

  If we send Paul Rudd and they kill Paul Rudd, the rest of us are doomed.

• 45:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When there's no hope for humanity, we're done, we're cooked.

• 45:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, give me another question. Last one.

• 45:28Chuck Nice?

  Last one. Okay, here we go. Hi, Dr. Tyson and Mr. Roper. Ooh, look at that. This, this is-

• 45:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got a mister out of this.

• 45:36Chuck Nice?

  This is Elias from London, and I wanted to ask your thoughts on aliens like replicators from the Stargate series, robots who replicated themselves using available resources on every planet. Do you believe this is the most probable form of alien life that we will ever encounter? Wow, what a-

• 45:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, excellent question.

• 45:54Chuck Nice?

  What a real good question.

• 45:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Jake, what do you have on that?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  I mean, this brings up what kind of Chuck mentioned earlier, that it does seem more reasonable that if we were to get a first contact moment, it would be with some sort of machine, some sort of non or inorganic built thing. And then also, when it comes to replicating it, this is the whole idea about the singularity that I always love, or just advanced AI, where if you were able to create an AI, like a machine that is so advanced, it no longer needs you to create it. It can create itself now.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  So I do think that could be a very real possibility. Because I mean, I'm still stuck on that brilliant idea that Chuck had because Chuck is a brilliant, attractive, smart, humble person. Which is that it would be some sort of robotic creature would probably be the first contact.

• 46:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Chuck, very nice there. Well, thanks, yeah. He complimented you. He did, yes. Twelve ways from Sunday, and I'm gonna use every day I can. So I wanna, I just put some emphasis on that. So the Fermi paradox, which is how come the aliens haven't been here? Well, why would we expect that to happen? Because in the lifetime of the universe, they would have colonized every planet in the galaxy. Well, how do you justify that? Well, if you send a robot that can duplicate itself, then it goes to a planet, and then it makes two of itself, and then they go to two planets. And then they make two of themselves, and they go to four planets, and then eight, and then 16.

• 47:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't take many doubling times to have a robot on every single habitable planet in the galaxy. That will take much less time than the amount of time the galaxy has been around. So either you bring humans there and duplicate themselves, or you bring robots, but there would have been some evidence if they really were of a colonizing species. Right. So, so, yeah, this idea that you can duplicate yourself, that's really the only realistic way. That is the most realistic way. Most realistic way. Fantastic. Right. We speak English in the United States because England sent a colony that spoke English. That's right. Right? So now, we went to the moon, not England. Right.

• 48:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? England sent the colony that then went to the moon. So that's, you wanna think about... What you've actually put into motion. Right. And so, yeah, yeah, that's good. Good stuff, man.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Great way to think about it.

• 48:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Jake, love you, man. Hey, that was fun, Jake.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you, guys, so much. This is great.

• 48:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta do this. We will. We're gonna find a way to get your ass back on here. Do Matrix.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Do it. I'm done.

• 48:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do a whole thing on just a Matrix? Well, yeah, well, because there's three movies. No, no, there's only one Matrix. Okay, I'm gonna agree with you. I don't know what the hell the other two movies were. I'm gonna tell you the truth. I don't know what happened the other two. Something happened there. I'm not sure. I'm gonna be honest. I'm gonna be honest. But the first one was great. I can overanalyze Matrix, okay? Okay. I've seen that movie. How many times have you seen The Matrix?

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Too many.

• 48:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Too many. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I'm kind of there, too.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Well, actually, you know what? I shouldn't say too many. That sounds negative. Not enough.

• 49:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh! Wow. Okay. Okay. All right. Matrix of this. The question is, are you a virus on this earth? Ooh. A virus.

• 49:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Jake, we gotta call it quits there. Chuck, thanks for being on. Always a pleasure. Jake, we'll find you again. I don't know where you're hiding, but we'll find you. All right. This has been StarTalk, Cosmic Queries Aliens Edition. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, as always, bidding you to keep looking up.