Part 2

Is There Intelligent Life Out There?

MAN’S search for intelligent life in outer space has, in a sense, grown up, become an adult. It has been going on in a concentrated way for some 21 years now.

For example, in April 1960 the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia first pointed its cone-shaped ear toward the stars Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani to see if radio communications from them could be heard. In 1968, Soviet astronomers scanned 12 nearby stars similar to our sun. Actually, over 1,000 individual stars have already been examined. And the search is continuing with the massive radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and many others elsewhere.

The search for life in space has proceeded on a different front through numerous rockets launched to the moon and to planets in our solar system​—Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and Mars.

What have been the results so far and what indications are there for the future? Is there a basis for your expecting to wake up some morning and hear a news announcement to the effect that intelligent beings on another planet have definitely been contacted? Or has the search for life in space provided reason to believe that we on earth are unique, that there is no intelligent life out there?

At times excitement has run high among scientists manning radio telescopes tuned to the universe.

Once, for instance, Soviet scientists picked up a signal from space that was not mere random radiation or natural radio noise. It gave evidence of coming from a source directed by intelligent beings. And they were right. It turned out to be a signal from a recently launched American spy satellite.

British astronomers in 1968 were excited about a signal they detected. It seemed to be pulsating from and originating in a distant part of the universe. Could it be a coded signal containing an intelligent message? In fact, they had detected a pulsar, that is, a huge star that spins rapidly and thus seems to flash off-and-on radio signals as with a beam shining from the turning light in a lighthouse. Discovering pulsars was a significant astronomical feat, and now several hundred of them are known. But no intelligent message from extraterrestrial creatures had been found.

Thus with all the variety of signals and noises received by radio telescopes, no messages from intelligent life forms in outer space have been detected. The New York Times of June 26, 1979, observed: “The failure to detect signals and the lack of evidence for long-range colonization by superior civilizations has led some scientists to conclude it is unlikely that such civilizations exist within the Milky Way Galaxy, to which the Earth belongs.”

A fundamental assumption of exobiologists​—those seeking to find life in outer space—​is: There must be millions upon millions of planets around other suns; hence intelligent life surely must have evolved on some of them.

But are there other planets? Maybe yes, maybe no. The fact is that other stars, or suns, are so extremely far away that scientists have not been able to prove whether there are any small planets around them.

David Black of NASA’s Ames Research Center said that “there was still no unequivocal evidence for any planet beyond the solar system to which the Earth belongs.” And Dr. Iosif Shklovsky, a Soviet astronomer and corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, reached a similar conclusion, though having previously been enthused about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. By 1978 he explained: “It looks as though our sun, that strange and solitary star surrounded by a family of planets, is most likely a rare exception in the stellar world.”

One can see, then, that it is certainly unwarranted for persons to speak so positively about advanced civilizations on distant planets. They have not even proved that such planets exist, much less that they have advanced civilizations on them.

Microscopic Life Forms

Though advanced beings have not been located, scientists would draw some relief if they could discover even microscopic life forms on the planets in our solar system. This would give a basis for thinking that if life in any form exists on these planets, then there is still the possibility that beyond our galaxy more developed forms of life could exist. For this reason much attention was focused on the life-detecting laboratories carried to Mars by the American Viking probes.

The two Mars probes, Viking I and II, performed 26 complicated tests on soil samples. For example, one experiment exposed some Martian soil to an atmosphere containing radioactive carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. It was felt that if there were living organisms present, they would convert some of the radioactive carbon into organic material, which could be detected. Another experiment soaked a sample in nutrient solution, monitoring to see if any metabolism took place​—if, as it were, anything ate the food.

Commenting on the overall results, The World Book Science Annual 1978 said: “Despite months of study and attempted interpretation, the results of the experiments were inconclusive.” Why is that position taken? Well, some of the tests gave unexpected responses. The tests did not actually locate any life or even proven organic material. But some scientists have leaned over backwards, clinging to a glimmer of hope that there might be a biological implication to the results instead of these being simply an evidence of unusual chemistry in lifeless Martian soil.

According to the British journal New Scientist, one experiment employed a gas spectrometer that is so sensitive it could detect organic molecules even if there were only a few among a million other molecules or even among a billion. Yet, the test failed “to detect organic molecules in the [Martian] soil.” Klaus Biemann, spokesman for the team analyzing the results, said that “the absence of organic compounds . . . makes it unlikely that living systems that behave in a manner similar to terrestrial biota exist.” Putting it more simply, Newsweek reported that the test “could find no evidence of organic molecules, an essential for the life process on earth and, presumably, anywhere else.”

Consequently, the 26 varied and intricate tests failed to prove that there is even microscopic life on Mars.

Some Are Concluding . . .

Back in 1976, before the Viking probes landed on Mars, astronomer Clay Sherrod observed: “If there’s no life on Mars​—which is so very similar to our planet—​then we very well may be alone. We may be unique in the universe.”

Now that Viking I and II are past history, more and more scientists are reaching that conclusion. Dr. Iosif Shklovsky wrote in the Soviet magazine Sputnik: “[The evidence] suggests that the assumption that we are the only civilization in our galaxy or even the local system of galaxies, if not in the whole universe, is now much more​—not less—​valid than the traditional concept of the plurality of inhabited worlds.”

Also, astronomer Dr. Michael H. Hart described a computer analysis he made of “hypothetical planets, sketching in the features they would seem to require to produce advanced civilizations like our own.” He concluded that, “far from being common, civilized life must be exceedingly rare and the one we have on earth may even be unique.”

Are we to conclude, then, that scientific evidence clearly points away from the possibility of any other intelligent life in the universe?

[Blurb on page 9]

“It looks as though our sun . . . is most likely a rare exception in the stellar world”

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Twenty-six varied and intricate tests failed to prove that there is even microscopic life on Mars

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“We very well may be alone”

Part 3

Evidence Is Available!

IN LISTENING to the natural radio noise coming from outer space, scientists have detected something that has caused a great upheaval in their thinking.

We can trace the matter back to 1965 when Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were working with a 20-foot (6-m) horn antenna at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. While studying radiation that might affect communications via satellites, they detected dim microwave signals coming from every direction in the sky. In time it was appreciated that they evidently were listening to leftover radiation. Left over from what? The prevailing theory is that the universe originated in a huge explosion​—a “big bang”—​and that the radiation all around is a faint glow from that fireball explosion.

‘But what bearing does this have on the question of whether there is intelligent life out there?’ you may wonder.

This discovery, for which Penzias and Wilson won the Nobel Prize, convinced many scientists that there was an instant of creation. Noted astronomer Dr. Robert Jastrow explains: “Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proved that the Universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter and energy into the Universe?”

Many now admit that science alone will never be able to provide the full answer. But Jastrow and many other scientists grasp the implication: “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”

But the Bible does more than ask ‘Who put matter and energy into the Universe?’ It points to the reasonable answer​—the Creator, God. And consistent with Einstein’s discovery that energy and matter are interconvertible, the Bible testifies that the Creator is a source of tremendous “dynamic energy.”​—Gen. 1:1; Ps. 90:2; Isa. 40:26-29.

Jastrow concludes: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”​—God and the Astronomers.

Yet there really is nothing bad about coming to accept the evidence of a Creator. A person who is open-minded enough to admit the possibility of intelligence beyond the earth should find no major difficulty in admitting what the Bible says about the living Creator. For example, the Bible informs us that rather than his having a material body of flesh and blood as we do, the First Cause is a spirit. (John 4:24) Thus, even though we cannot see him we can note what he accomplishes, even as scientists cannot see with their eyes the natural radio waves from space but still can receive and measure them.

Moreover, the existence of an intelligent Creator agrees with the wisdom and design manifest in the universe​—from the awe-inspiring stars and galaxies to the incomprehensible intricacies of the atom.

Life on Earth​—From Intelligence

If there were ‘intelligent life out there’ in the form of a living, wise Creator, that would help to explain significant things about our life here on earth.

The more that scientists learn about other planets in our solar system, and about the universe as a whole, the more they appreciate how precisely designed our earth is for life. In the lengthy article “Life May Exist Only on Earth, Study Says” the New York Times pointed out: “At a distance of 93 million miles from the sun, earthly temperatures have supported life. But if our earth had been slung into an orbit only 5 percent closer to the sun, a runaway greenhouse effect would have turned the planet into something like Venus​—a cloud-shrouded planet with temperatures close to 900° F.

“If, on the other hand, we had been only 1 percent farther from the sun when the earth came into being, runaway glaciation would have enveloped the earth, and 1.7 billion years ago our planet would have become a barren desert similar to Mars.”​—April 24, 1979.

Nor is it simply a matter of proper temperature. There are many other necessities for life, including water and the proper atmosphere. A group of 30 scientists attending a University of Maryland meeting on advanced civilizations focused in on what is needed to support life. After admitting that ‘no planet outside of the solar system has yet been discovered,’ they noted: “Even if another planetary system is formed, there is no certainty it will produce a solid planet like Earth, which contains nearly 100 elements, including those essential to life.”

Also, even if the right conditions prevail, which is so on the earth and no other place that is known, life does not exist automatically. In fact, scientists cannot really explain how life on earth appeared, that is, other than draw the conclusion that it was produced by an intelligent Creator.

The August/​September 1979 issue of Technology Review called attention to this fact. It admitted that there is “a major gap” between chemicals needed to support life and even the simplest “living systems that could be called protocells.” Some scientists, employing their intelligence, skills and advanced laboratories, have been able to suggest how “prebiotic organic chemicals” (the chemical compounds needed for life) could be present on a primitive earth. “But,” the article said, “how to get from there to a living system which can translate, transmit, and act upon information . . . is what M.I.T.’s Alexander Rich called ‘the big intellectual stumbling block in the synthesis of life.”’

Where Did Life Come From?

As additional research is done on life, the question looms ever larger, ‘How did life originate on earth in the first place?’

Some scientists faced with this problem are reviving a theory presented in 1908 by Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius. It is called the “panspermia theory.” Basically, it holds that the earth may have been accidentally seeded by living cells that are wandering through the universe. Modernizing the idea a bit, Leslie Orgel of the Salk Institute and Nobel Prize-winner Francis H. C. Crick have suggested “directed panspermia.” Their idea is that an advanced civilization elsewhere in the universe deliberately may have “infected” the earth with life as an experiment. What do you think of that possibility?

It becomes clear, does it not, that such theories really do not solve the question of life’s origin. They just sort of avoid the question by transporting the problem off into the distant universe, despite the fact that scientists have not established: 1) that there are planets elsewhere, much less any qualified to support life, 2) that there are civilizations beyond our solar system, and 3) that there is microscopic life on other planets within our solar system.

Furthermore, the modern form of this theory illustrates that, consciously or not, many serious scientists realize that the existence of life must have resulted from the act of an intelligent Being, whom the Bible identifies as God.

In this regard, science editor Albert Rosenfeld relates: “I was chatting about all this with a non-scientific friend, who finally commented: ‘As an early reader of the Book of Genesis, I’m somehow not surprised at the idea that Someone Out There put us here. And if such a magical, mysterious, and powerful intelligence exists that is utterly beyond human imagining, can you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t call it God?’ I could give him no good reason why not.”​—Saturday Review/​World.

Benefiting from the Intelligence Out There

Earlier we noted a prime motive underlying the search for intelligent life in outer space: Many who are engaged in this search feel that if they could make such a contact we on earth would be in position to benefit. Recall that astronomer Carl Sagan said that extraterrestrial intelligences might help us to end food shortages, war and pollution. It is suggested that even death might thus be conquered. This is most interesting, for the Intelligence, the Creator, to whom the evidence points, has communicated his purpose to end those very things.

Astronauts on the moon have sent messages, even television pictures, back to the earth. So it is not surprising that the Creator can communicate information to humans and has done so in the past. These communiqués have been written down for preservation and wide distribution; they are found in the Bible.

We noted earlier that Dr. Robert Jastrow concluded that information in the Bible is consistent with recent discoveries made by astronomers. Nor is such harmony between the Bible and science limited to the creation of the universe. (Compare Job 26:7; Isaiah 40:22.) So we have good reason to examine what the Bible says as to when and how the Creator will end pollution, war and even death itself. We urge you to treat your examination of the Bible’s information from the Creator just as seriously as scientists have treated their search for life in outer space.

[Blurb on page 12]

“Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world”

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‘No planet outside of the solar system has yet been discovered’

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We have good reason to examine what the Bible says