Sunday Times 2
ET a far superior being and could be a danger to mankind
View(s):By Alvin Sallay
We are not alone. And we could be courting danger if we go in search of extraterrestrial life, according to Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe, an eminent astrobiologist whose views on the origins of life has vexed religious traditionalists who believe in creation. The Sri Lankan-born British astronomer and astrobiologist whose unconventional approach to the origins of life has also been scoffed by his scientific peers is adamant that there are more intelligent species than man out there and if discovered one day, could be a threat to mankind.
Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe
“We have been sending signals and probes (to Mars, etc) and we could be courting danger in the same way that the Spanish conquistadors went to America and posed a huge danger to the indigenous civilisations. In this same way, if these advanced civilisations were to come down to the earth and interact with us intimately, we will have to worry about it,” Prof. Wickramasinghe said.
Speaking at the Eisenhower Day Conference in Colombo this week, the Cardiff-based scientist, whose controversial theory that life on earth originated from microbes which fell from cosmic dust, was also adamant that extra-terrestrial life was far more advanced than mankind.
“There is no question that there is extraterrestrial life, and I don’t believe the level of intelligence we have reached is anywhere close to the end of the road for us, probably it is the beginning of the road. There are many civilisations and many places that have gone way beyond the level of human intelligence.
“All indications are that extraterrestrial life is extremely common in the universe, in our galaxy certainly. The whole sequence, of life from simple bacteria to complex animals with consciousness like us, has taken place over 4.1 billion years on the earth. We have only now reached a level of intelligence that enables us to communicate with other creatures in the cosmos.”
“There have been two or three recent developments that are indicative of superior intelligence not so far away from the sun and that is due to a star which is emitting strange signals which still hasn’t been completely understood. It could be the evidences is there and not interpreted yet. This is my take on it.” A student and collaborator of the late Fred Hoyle, a British astronomer, the pair had advanced the theory that various outbreaks of diseases like mad cow, the bird flu, and even the 1918 flu pandemic which killed millions of people were of extraterrestrial origin and brought to earth by cosmic dust which had also transported “living seeds” which they labeled panspermia.
“Microbes can survive the harshest conditions and it has been found that cosmic dust matched the properties of bacteria. The genetic building blocks of life are out there in space and earth was just a building site. If the development of life on earth was essentially the accumulation of genes everywhere in the cosmos then that same assembly process must be repeated many times (elsewhere). There are at least 140 billion planets in our galaxy so we are just one of 140 objects where the same gene fragments are raining down and were assembled,” Prof. Wickramasinghe expounded.
Recent analysis from missions to Mars and other comets has left Prof. Wickramasinghe excited and strengthened his belief that ‘we’ are not alone. Last year NASA confirmed that there was water and water flows on Mars prompting him to say “an announcement of life on Mars is overdue”. The Rosetta Mission launched by the European Space Agency in 2004 to land on a comet (it landed last month), and which he was a part of “also produced tantalizing evidence of life”.
But he believes there is a “covert conspiracy” by the West to keep the truth and the fact that life exists in space hidden and under wraps. “The evidence for life existing outside earth is really very powerful at the moment but whenever the evidence is discovered there is a tendency in the West to degrade that information. I don’t believe it is an overt conspiracy but certainly there is a covert conspiracy.”
“The Rosetta Mission which I was involved in had extremely powerful plans to put a life detection experiment at the cost of 7,000 dollars on it but that was rejected. Now we are finding indirect evidence that there is life on the planet. Similarly in 1976 there was evidence that there was life on Mars (Viking Rover) with a few missing components. We found metabolism in the Mars’ soil. Organics were not detected because the instruments were not good enough and water could not be detected so they thought all the components for life were not there.”
“I think people are afraid, it is a European, Aristotlean philosophy that life has to be special to Earth. Ultimately the objections were due to religion. There is no question that in the ancient traditions of India and even Sri Lanka, the Vedic writings have stated there is life in the universe. Bruno (Giordano Bruno, a 17th century Italian friar and mathematician) was burned at the stake for saying there were planets with life. That same mentality persists today. I think we have a psychological barrier.”
“Western science opposes it but it will have to be accepted one day because evidence is mounting. It is going to happen.” He points to an experiment in 1985 carried out by him to find out if microbes were present in the stratosphere as an example of Western reticence.
“The Indians collaborated with us. When this was mooted by us, we approached the ESA, and the British, and they said that this was not a project they wanted to be involved in – to send balloons into the atmosphere to search for microbial life. We then approached the Indians and they engaged with us and we had two balloon flights and we recovered microbial particles from 40 kilometres, high enough to say confidently to say these are not contaminations from the ground.”
“We are now trying to get the Chinese and Japanese involved. The breakthrough to find the mission of life outside earth will not come from the West but from places like China and India,” he added.