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This week, Dr Ian O’Neill from Discovery’s Seeker.com returns to the show to talk about the scientific likelihoods of alien invasions such as those in the movies actually coming to pass. Are events in movies like Independence Day: Resurgence are pure Hollywood fiction or even slightly grounded in reality?
As the space science producer for Discovery News, which just launched on the new Seeker.com, and with a Ph.D in Solar Physics and an M.Phys in Astrophysics, Dr. Ian O’Neill has a special love for solar physics, space exploration and investigating the inner workings of our universe.
Although alien invasions have long been a fixture of Hollywood movies and TV shows, are we beginning to see increasing scientific evidence that suggests the likelihood of life on other planets?
Just last month, NASA announced a major scientific breakthrough with the discovery of 1,284 new planets outside the Solar System. Among those are dozens of potentially habitable worlds the same size as Earth, orbiting a star similar to our sun. And in April, NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan was quoted as saying, “I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years.”
Are you going to see Independence Day: Resurgence? Was doing a sequel 20 years later a good move? Tell us what you think! Leave a message at 602-635-6976, or send Summer an email with a comment you’ve recorded!
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Robert Ridgeway says
Given our example of how everything on earth eats and exploits the environment; there is more reason to predict that any visiting extraterrestrial “civilization” is here to take what we have for their use. Also that if discovered they would propagandize the visit as peaceful, while secretly working toward our domination. However, peaceful friendship is still desirable.
Robert W. Ridgeway
Summer Brooks says
That was actually one of the coolest theories mentioned during Season 1 of “Ancient Aliens”, that extraterrestrials came to Earth because they needed gold.
And the “we come in peace” message subverted by needing to keep the masses calm and under control so they could proceed with their real plan… premise of “V” in a nutshell!
Then there are more than a handful of examples where first contact was proceeding peacefully until a mistake based on lack of understanding between two vastly different cultures caused a massacre-like incident which incited a war between worlds. You can almost begin to understand why the less advanced civilization would want decades and decades of conversation and negotiations before acknowledging or admitting anything publicly.
But you’d also hope that conversation would include scientists and philosophers, not just politicians and military. Hate for the aliens to get the wrong overall impression based on eavesdropped transmissions and such a limited representation of humanity.