Appealing conspiracy theories II: UFOs

Okay, okay, hear me out before you roll your eyes. I know that UFO sightings are generally attributed to inbred farmers and tinfoil-helmet wackos, which makes it very easy to write it off. To make sure I'm understood: I don't actually believe that people see alien spacecrafts or are sucked up into ships for experimentation. That said, I find the idea intriguing for a number of reasons.

The evidence in for UFOs
Think about these things: the universe is more than 20 billion years old. There are billions of galaxies like ours, each containing billions of planets with similar conditions to the Earth at the time our oldest ancestor's creation. The odds that ours is the only planet to have produced life is slim (perhaps even in this solar system). Scientifically, it's very, very improbable that we're unique. And if you're still dubious on religious grounds: remember that it was the idea of exceptionalism that fueled the belief that the Earth was the middle of the universe, around which everything else turned. And isn't it just more of a tribute to the idea of a Creator that there are other worlds out there?

So: I don't think there's any way that we are alone in the universe. The question then becomes: where are they? Let's consider just our galaxy for a moment. Say that there are 1,000 other worlds that have life (a pretty conservative guess, based on the previous paragraph). It would be pretty improbable, then, that we would be the fastest-developing world. Perhaps we are one of the faster ones (or slower), but the odds of us being the most developed would be 1 to 1000 against, even in this conservative example.

We now have two premises: 1. There are probably other planets with life in universe, and 2. It is probable that of the planets to have produced life that we are not the most developed of all. If these points are valid, then there are alien societies throughout the universe that have , that reached the stars before us. Now, think about our own species. Once we mastered the use of chemical energy, we have exploded outward, reaching outer space within a century, and to the edge of our solar system within thirty more. Project that exponential expansion forward another several centuries and we'll have reached the nearest stars. A few millennia more, and we'll have spread across the galaxy. The idea at play here is that once a society gets going it can spread very quickly. In a few thousand years, an intelligent race can leap out from their caves and across many light years. In relation to the universe, which as I said before is older than 10 billion years, a few millennia is nothing. It's an inconsequential blink. So the odds are that any society with a head start on us will have reached Earth and beyond, no matter if they're the star system next door, or on the other side of the Milky Way.

An analogy: we've just woken up, explored the bedroom, and found no one there. To assume that we're the only ones in the house or the first ones awake is to jump to conclusions. And if we believe that there are others in the house, the fact that we haven't seen them doesn't mean that they haven't been in while we we sleeping.


Maybe they didn't want to wake us: why I don't actually believe the theory
While I think the evidence is compelling that there is other life in the universe, and even that some of that life is intelligent and star-traveling. But I don't believe in the stories of alien abductions and UFO sightings. Imagine humankind ten thousand years in the future, coming across a planet upon which a species has reached the Industrial Age. Wouldn't you think that we would remain hidden and allow them to develop on their own? I believe that if there are aliens out there, they would keep their distance, and if they chose not to, then they would do it in such a way so that we on Earth would have no clue that they were doing it.