Extraordinary Evidence

I



It was the same old argument.  Extraterrestrial life.  Intelligent extraterrestrial life.

"Billions of galaxies," he said. "Hundreds and hundreds of billions of stars.  At least as many planets.  At least 40 billion habitable worlds per galaxy.  How can ours be the only one sustaining intelligent life?  You have to admit that there must be others."

We had hashed this over at least as many times as there are stars in a galaxy.  Or at least it seemed like it.  There's your relativity lesson for the day.

"And yet," I replied (again), "we have zero evidence of extraterrestrial life."

"You can't say zero," he insisted.  "Not zero.  Not all the reports are from crackpots."

"Jake," I replied (again), more patiently than he deserved, I think, " you know the maxim: 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.'  To be taken seriously, claims of extraterrestrial life require compelling evidence."

He eyed me quizzically.  "Doesn't it bother you that every little thing our species has ever accomplished ... everything that our species has ever done ... from great art to stupid puns, from sublime music to obscure in-jokes that maybe only two individuals get ... will some day boil away into space?  And that there may be no one else in the entire universe to know or care?  Doesn't it bother you that this may already have happened to some other intelligent species?  Maybe thousands of others?"

Hmph.

Well, that's the kind of thing you talk about when you've been cruising the cosmos together for thirty years.  Jake and I are kind of the advance guard of Galactic Mining Operations, Inc.  We lead the first eyes-on reconnoitering of likely candidate planets, see if they're worth the trouble of setting up a mining operation.  And no, we have never encountered any alien life.

So we were on another exploratory mission to another alien planet.  But with one difference.  And what was that? Wherefore was this expedition different from all previous expeditions?  Well, it seems that our target planet ... sort of ... exploded before we arrived.  Better than after, huh?

Still, we hung around for a while, seeing if there was anything salvageable, maybe some biggish, mineable hunk of planet.  We pulled in some promising-looking samples, but there were no remnants of significant size.

I do have one little Jake story, however.  Good example of his pollyannic world view.

"Look at this!" Jake gushed, shoving a rock under my nose. "It's a sample we picked up from the detritus of that planet."

"It's a rock," I said.

"No," he said, "or rather, yes, but not only a rock.  It's an artifact!"

"It's a rock," I repeated.

"No, no!"
 He was very excited.  "Look at the tip!"

I looked.  There was a bit of metal smushed onto it.  "So?  A bit of tin probably.  Nothing unusual."

"No," Jake insisted.  "Somebody made this.  Someone took this little sphere and attached it to this rock.  It looks like it was hollow before it got crushed."

What an imagination.

"And there was ... there could have been ... like, a little ball inside ... I see a little bump ... right there.  So if you shook the rock, the metal sphere would make a jingling sound ... like a bell!"

Jake went on in this wise for quite some time.  "And what would be the point?" I asked.  "Assuming that some intelligence was brought to bear on this tin-bearing rock, why would any sapient being do that?"

"For ... fun?" Jake suggested.

"Hmph," I scoffed.  "Rock.  Bell.  Jingle.  Makes no sense."

"Maybe not," Jake agreed, "but I'm keeping it!"

"Remember," I said.  "Extraordinary evidence."