Hello, beyond

Has everyone heard about the, what they are calling a comet, 3I/ATLAS? 3I/ ATLAS is an interstellar object that has been hurdling through our space region at a speed that is faster than anything we have observed (over 210,000 km/h recorded late in July) in our own universe before. Every other day the scientists who are watching 3I/ATLAS discover more and more about the possible molecular makeup of it. Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb “along with a small team of scientists from the UK's Initiative for Interstellar Studies — proposed that 3I/ATLAS could potentially be a technological artifact from an advanced alien civilization.

“The hypothesis in question is that [3I/ ATLAS] is a technological artifact, and furthermore has active intelligence. If this is the case, then two possibilities follow. First, that its intentions are entirely benign and second, they are malign,” Dr. Loeb, Adam Drowl, and Adam Hibberd, wrote in a paper published on July 17. The proposed hypothesis is such, a hypothesis, an exercise if you will, a theory. If this theory or hypothesis is true it would land more credence to the Dark Forest hypothesis.

The Dark Forest hypothesis, aka the Fermi Paradox, speaks of our universe like a dark forest. Nothing but black and yet the entity in the dark forest must persist, slowly and with the sight of the darkest you have ever seen. Are there bears, the bow of a fellow hunter, or even something more sinister waiting and watching us? So in this hypothesis we are the entity in wadding through this dark forest, searching for anything to call a friend.

Dr. Anna Lisa Varri, theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Edinburgh and Researcher at the Higgs Centre, summarizes the problem perfectly: “If intelligent life is common in the Universe, where is everybody? This simple statement actually hides a deep problem that sits at the very heart of modern astrobiology: the existence and likelihood of life beyond Earth.”

As astrophysicists and scientists debate and talk over what [3I/Atlas] is - what if this is the response from the many messages we sent out into space. What if our messages and radio signals that escape our ‘radio bubble’ actually are being heard by other intelligent species? And whoever heard it is on its way to interact with us.

I also like to keep the optimistic view like Dr. Daniel Jackson on Stargate: SG1. If we decide to shoot first and ask questions later, are we not as primitive as whatever is out there possibly claims us to be? In a mindset that everyone else is out to get you, it’s easy to fall into the belief that violence is the most accurate answer to get what you want. Let me leave you with this thought: Love and compassion will get you farther along than having a heart full of ego.