Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

by Avi Loeb

I have often used the analogy of cave dwellers discovering a modern cell phone. It aptly applies to the possibility that soon humanity may discover a piece of advanced technological equipment developed by an extraterrestrial intelligence. If we do not prepare ourselves, if we have not allowed for the science of space archaeology, we could act much as these cave dwellers would, imagining the phone to be nothing more than an exotic, shiny rock. And with that shortsightedness, those dwellers would miss the chance to take that million-year leap forward. One fact is clear. If we assign a zero probability for finding evidence of artificial objects, as some scientists did in the case of ‘Oumuamua, if human civilization organizes its efforts and its funding and its scholars by declaring, “It’s never aliens,” then we guarantee that we will never find evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations. To move forward, we must think outside of the box and avoid prejudice about what we expect to find based on past experience.