ALIENS AREN'T REAL
A couple weeks ago there was an eerie blue light in the clouds visible all around the NYC metro-area. Literally everyone who saw this phenomenon thought it was aliens coming down. DYM did for sure, we think everything is aliens, but it never is. Turns out the light show was actually created by an explosion at a ConEd power plant in Queens. Damn.
At DYM we’ve been big SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) enthusiasts for a long time.
The Arrival with Charlie Sheen was one of our favorite movies back in the day. We always liked how the aliens’ knees turned backward like dogs’ legs. Anyways, just like our guy Ma-Sheen, we’re always on the look-out for funny business up in the skies. Nowadays it’s easier than ever to research and follow-up on claims of close-encounters and there are more enterprising reporters out there than ever before. Yet none of the recent seeds we’ve found in the media have bore fruit. In the last year alone we’ve tracked several potential aliens stories that we intended to write about in this space:
That ConEd kerfuffle
That weird dong-shaped meteor
New planets discovered around Proxima Centauri and TRAPPIST-1
Just this week scientists detected new “unexplained” radio wave bursts emanating from another galaxy
And of course all those pilots who saw something weird outside their planes.
But it’s not aliens. None of these things were actually aliens. We really wanted every one of them to pay off, but they never do.
The general consensus when it comes to aliens is that they definitely exist but people have probably never seen them. That’s kind of common sense right now, where most people are aware of how big the universe is, so they figure “there would have to be another civilization out there somewhere.” But this assumption is currently being challenged* by Philosophers like Anders Sandberg from Oxford University. Sandberg and his cohort have recalculated the formula most often used by scientists to assert the certainty of alien civilizations’ existence in light of recent extraterrestrial discoveries (or lack thereof) and our currently emerging understanding of abiogenesis and prebiotic substrates. By their estimation there is no more than a 47% chance that an alien civilization exists in our galaxy.
More likely than not, we are alone.
There ought to be inspiration to be found in the idea that we are God’s only children - that we alone will write our own history and that no one will save us but our selves. Within the idea that we are alone in the universe is an imperative for us to protect the Earth and care for one another. Still, we can’t help but feel profoundly disappointed. There’s something sad about how clinical Sandberg's theory is. Not just because it’s a philosophical argument about a math formula (borrrrrring) but because it destroys all the magic and mystery around SETI. Moreover it does nothing to resolve any of the UFO sightings, extraterrestrial energies, and other weird spectacles that we reflexively attributed to aliens.
We need mystery. The quest for the unknown is what has driven mankind’s advancement for all of time. If we believe there are no aliens travelling the stars we may never be able to do it ourselves. But DYM hasn’t lost hope for mankind yet. We think we’ve found another way. You see, folks, if Earth is the only planet with life, then it’s also the only planet with GHOSTS. That’s right, ghosts. It's 2019 and DYM is here to say: Ghosts are real, and we need them now more than ever. Without aliens, how else can we account for all the strange phenomena in this world?
Ghosts, of course:
Were you abducted by aliens? No. You were haunted by a ghost.
See a wingless aircraft traveling at a physically impossible trajectory? Ghosts can fly.
Radio waves from space? Space Ghosts.
Those weird blue lights in Queens? Ghostbusters crossed the streams again.
The tastemakers here at DYM think ghosts are gonna be the new hotness for 2019. Call this our New Year's Resolution - we're turning the page this year - Aliens are OUT!! Ghosts are IN!!! To help you guys catch up with this HOT new trend we put together a handy Ghost FAQ:
What is a ghost?
Ghosts are the spirits of dead people. Most ghosts are folks in purgatory who need to repent before entering heaven. That's good new for us since, incidentally, you can avoid becoming a ghost by observing Yom Kippur.
Are Angels ghosts?
Kind of! Angels are spirits that can appear on Earth in human form. They are not technically ghosts because they’re not dead people. But friendly ghosts, like the ghosts of Saints, behave very similarly to Angels.
What about Demons?
Same deal as with Angels - Demons are also spirits who can appear in human form but they’re also not ghosts. Demons are easily confused with poltergeists but the difference is demons can posses you, ghosts can’t.
Are there different types of ghosts?
Yes, there are many. The top five ghosts are:
1 Full Body Apparitions: The classic ghost. You see a person in full, sometimes slightly transparent. Sometimes they speak. Possible Angels.
2 Orbs: A floating light or translucent sphere. Difficult to video since they can move very fast.
3 Shadow People: A dark silhouette of a person. They are usually nefarious and may harm you. Possible Demons.
4 Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP): Anytime a ghost's voice is recorded. Ghosts always have spooky voices.
5 Doppelgängers: A ghost who looks exactly like someone alive today (maybe YOU!). They are often reincarnated historical persons but sometimes are actually vampires.
Are there animal ghosts?
Yes. Most commonly people will see apparitions of dead family pets in their home. Chicken ghosts haunting a farm are called poultry-geists.
I saw a UFO, what type of ghost is that?
Probably an orb. Orbs are the soul of a person that is usually seen while travelling from earth to heaven. They are ghosts in transition, so they may appear to move or “fly”.
How fast are ghosts?
They move at the speed of freight.
Are there really ghosts in space?
Yes. Three Russian astronauts died in space in 1971, and space is scary, so we’re saying yes.
Are there any other famous ghosts?
The ghost of Abraham Lincoln and his son Willie Lincoln have haunted the White House since 1865. Witnesses include Winston Churchill and the family of Lyndon Johnson.
Can a living person have sex with a ghost?
Yes. It's a bigtime fetish among mediums, so it's not weird at all. Very normal people like Anna Nicole Smith and Ke$ha have reported being visited by sexy sexy ghosts
Got any more ghost jokes?
Where do ghosts go on vacation? Lake Eerie
What kind of horse does a ghost ride? A nightmare
What kind of street does a ghost live on? A dead end
What does a ghost do to stay safe in a car? Put on his sheet belt
Did you find anything weird on the internet while looking for ghost facts?
Ah man, sooo much. You don't even wanna know.
OK. One thing. This isn't ghost related, but we found out last night that a polar bear mated with grizzly bears in Canada and there are hybrids walking around in the wild up there right now. True story, they call em Pizzly Bears and they're the cutest.
Have a Great 2019 Everybody!
* More from Sandberg et.al. (2018):
"The key assumption of the Fermi paradox is that the number of sites where alien civilizations could emerge is so large that for any reasonable probability of emergence, some would have emerged and we should expect to have detected one or more of them. This sites × probability approach fits within the well-known Drake equation framework, which we shall take to be the paradigm example of this form of reasoning about the prior probability of ETI. The Drake equation was intended as a rough way to estimate of the number of detectable/contactable civilizations in the Milky Way (N), phrased as a product of seven factors.
N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L
Where: R∗ is the rate of star formation per year, fp is the fraction of stars with planets, ne is the number of Earth-like (or otherwise habitable) planets per system with planets, fl is the fraction of such planets with life, fi is the fraction with life that develop intelligence, fc is the fraction of intelligent civilizations that are detectable/contactable, and L is the average longevity of such detectable civilizations in years.
...
When we take account of realistic uncertainty, replacing point estimates by probability distributions that reflect current scientific understanding, we find no reason to be highly confident that the galaxy (or observable universe) contains other civilizations, and thus no longer find our observations in conflict with our prior probabilities. We found qualitatively similar results through two different methods: using the authors’ assessments of current scientific knowledge bearing on key parameters, and using the divergent estimates of these parameters in the astrobiology literature as a proxy for current scientific uncertainty. When we update this prior in light of the Fermi observation, we find a substantial probability that we are alone in our galaxy, and perhaps even in our observable universe (53%–99.6% and 39%–85% respectively). ’Where are they?’ — probably extremely far away, and quite possibly beyond the cosmological horizon and forever unreachable."
