The Great Reveal?

A recent post on this site (Aliens & The Great Reveal by David P. Bugay, PhD) argued persuasively that we may finally be on the cusp of acknowledging contact with ET - intelligent extra-terrestrials.  Dr. Bugay has amassed evidence that government agencies may be about to release data that will confirm ‘close encounters’ once and for all. If so, it will be most welcome. Talk about your October Surprise! But I remain skeptical.

Lump me in with those who thought the automobile was a fad, who were certain that TV would never surpass radio as a communications medium; and please, tell me, why would anyone ever want or need a personal computer?

I have no quarrel with any of Dr. Bugay’s data; my reservations run deeper. The famous Drake Equation notwithstanding, I question the topic’s basic premise: that life ‘must have’ evolved independently elsewhere in the Universe and, if so, that we would be able to recognize it.

My reticence appears ridiculous on its face. There are approximately 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, and they have an average of 100 billion stars each. That’s 10^22 possible staging grounds for living organisms. It would be absurd to think that life evolved only once and we just happen to be ‘it’. 

But IMHO, this argument has a ‘probability problem’ of its own. Consider what we know about life on Earth:

1. Earth is less than 5 billion years old but it took a mere ½ billion years for the first unicellular life forms to emerge. This suggests that the probability of abiogenesis is fairly high, given a reasonably hospitable environment.

   
   

2. Yet, abiogenesis appears to have occurred on Earth only once in nearly 5 billion years. Every cell alive on Earth today (there’s 10^30 of them) is descended from the one primordial cell that evolved 4.5 billion years ago. Note: There are 100 million times more cells living on Planet Earth today than there are stars in the observable universe. 

   
   

3. As far as we know, the RNA/DNA molecule critical to all terrestrial life evolved only once. Of course, it is possible that life evolved more than once on Earth but was snuffed out by the existing germ line. Possible? Yes. Likely? Not so much. Here’s the problem:

If RNA/DNA or a functional equivalent did evolve more than once, there is no reason it should have stopped twice…or thrice. Counterintuitively, it is more likely that life evolved a million times than it is that it

evolved exactly twice. But the more often novel lifeforms appear, the more likely it is that some novel

molecule will manage to survive and reproduce to critical population density. 

Or not. But even if no competing molecule ever secured a beach head, tiny bits of its failed code should

still show up in today’s bacterial genome…and as far as I know, that is not the case, at least not yet. Bottom

line, multiple occasions of aborted abiogenesis on Earth is not a probability that keeps me up at night.

4. “Given a reasonably hospitable environment.” We use actual conditions on Earth as a model of hospitality. We use ‘Earth-likeness’ as the measure of extra-terrestrial habitability. But this too is a problem:

   
   

Conditions on Earth have varied drastically over 4 billion years. When life first emerged, there was no free

oxygen in the atmosphere, just nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and ammonia, toxic to life

as we know it. The lack of an ozone layer meant the surface was bombarded by intense ultraviolet

radiation.

The crust had only recently solidified the molten magma of Earth's earlier phase. The surface was thin,

unstable, and highly volcanic, with widespread lava flows. Some estimates put average temperatures

between 122–176°F (50–80°C)…and AC wasn’t invented yet. (Climate doomsayers, take note.)

The young sun was only 70% as luminous as it is today and the Moon was much closer to Earth — perhaps

2–3 times closer — causing enormous tides, possibly hundreds of meters high. 

Question: Would the crew of Artemis II have even recognized this planet as Earth?

These conditions hardly seem ideal for the synthesis of life as we know it. And yet it happened, leading

Lisa Minelli and Frank Sinatra to croon, “Make it there…make it anywhere (New York, New York),” giving

rise to the idea that life is a fairly common phenomenon throughout the universe.

5. Ok, so life likes a witch’s brew…no problem, different strokes. But that same life form thrives on Earth today in totally different conditions. And what are those conditions? Well, what are the limits of your imagination?

   
   

Question: What do underwater hydrothermal sea vents, volcanic rims, Himalayan mountain tops, and polar

ice caps have in common? Answer: Life. 

The ‘original’ RNA/DNA molecule, as it has evolved, thrives in each of those conditions and more,

surviving ice ages, pandemics, meteor strikes, and other mass extinction events. 

“Give me carbon, I’ll give you plants; give me oxygen, animals; methane, methanotrophs. You make it, I’ll

breathe it. Shoot me into empty space…I’ll hibernate; encase me in glacial ice…I’ll thaw. You may pick us

off one by one with your antibiotics, pollutants, etc. but we are legion. Catch us if you can; kill us you can’t!”

A recent (4/21/2026) headline in Popular Mechanics caught my eye: “Scientists are figuring out how flora

bounced back from the only nuclear attacks in human history.” Not to mention Chernobyl. Life – you just

can’t kill it. 

So let’s apply these tools to the question of life on Mars. One of four things must be true: (1) there are no indigenous organisms living on Mars today and there never were, (2) there was life on Mars once but now it is extinct, (3) there are primitive life forms alive on Mars today, (4) there are complex life forms on Mars today.

Let’s review each in turn:

1. How come? Mars is not all that different from Earth, even today. Heck, the wife and I were just looking at a time share there. But once upon a time, Mars was very much more like Earth. So if life evolved so easily on Earth, why not on Mars?

   
   

2. Even today, Mars is borderline habitable. Much of the planet is more hospitable than certain areas on Earth that teem with life. And nothing has happened in Martian history that the adaptive ability of a robust biosphere would not have been able to accommodate, IMO.

   
   

3. So far, all our Mars probes have been unable to uncover evidence of a single living microbe. Of course, that may change as we ‘dig deeper’ so to speak. But there is a bigger problem: if unicellular, prokaryotic life does exist on Mars, why hasn’t it evolved more complex structures as on Earth?

   
   

4. Which leaves us with the obvious logical conclusion: Mars is teeming with complex life forms. Glad we finally resolved that one after 10 millennia of speculation! Just one more question: Where are they?

So we are left with three options: (1) there is something wrong with our chain of reasoning (above); (2) there are complex life forms on Mars that we are unable to perceive, or (3) the universe is playing silly buggers. 

#3 is always an option. It is perhaps the one option that potentially applies to every question. So let’s focus on #2. How could there be complex life forms on Mars without our being aware of them? Are they hiding in underground bunkers? Probably not.

What if we don’t see them because we’re looking for the wrong things? All speculation about extraterrestrial life assumes that life will closely resemble our own. We are looking for RNA/DNA-like organic (carbon based) molecules, organized in cells, breathing some sort of atmosphere, craving an aqueous environment. But what if life exists that is entirely unlike this prototype?

The best efforts of Gene Rodenberry notwithstanding, our sci-fi writers give us only thinly disguised versions of ourselves. Sci-Fi and SETI have something in common: they both implicitly assume that all life is like terrestrial life. And that gives them a lot to work with! From slime mold to coral reefs to plankton to pachyderms, life on Earth is a many splendored thing; who could ask for anything more?

But what if there are life forms that more closely resemble clouds, or rocks, or vortices? What if there are life forms that do not resemble anything I can name or even describe? Then we probably wouldn’t know they exist. At least not until they tap us on the shoulder and according to Dr. B. they may have done just that. 

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This evocative painting by Luděk Pešek depicts a sprawling alien civilization nestled within a craggy landscape, characterized by organic, towering architecture and a vibrant green-hued atmosphere. The foreground features a sleek, gold-colored spacecraft hovering above a dark, textured valley where bizarre, insect-like lifeforms interact with a glowing river and crystalline flora.