Technosignatures: The Search for Alien Technologies - 3
Biosignatures - It's Never Aliens, Even When It's Aliens
"…research that opposes a consensus is higher risk and more difficult to fund. The consensus can fight back. Especially if it is institutionalised. Individuals will go to their graves believing what they were taught in school to believe. But institutionalised consensus will send others to their graves, to defend the institutional consensus." – Dr Steven Benner, Biochemist
Are scientists biased against the confirmation of extraterrestrial life and alien intelligence?
We previously looked at the concerns around correctly identifying technosignatures, but might there be a more fundamental normalcy bias in the search for aliens? For example, if aliens are inferred to be present, would most scientists bend over backwards to reach a negative conclusion?
We already know that the answer to the above questions is yes.
In 1976, just a few months before I would arrive on earth, the Viking Lander rendezvoused with Mars. Among the various aims of the Viking program was the investigation of potential biosignatures. But, in truth, the search for life on Mars was an afterthought; the primary missions were mapping, imaging, atmospheric sampling, and geological research. There was no expectation that anything might be alive on that barren Martian surface.
Three experiments had been carefully designed to detect Martian micro-organisms in the soil. The first was label release. Feeding radioactive nutrients into any biologically active ground should prompt metabolic processes. Bacteria would then exhibit exhalation of similarly radioactive Co2. The second experiment tested for photosynthesis by seeking O2 production following soil humidification. Finally, the third experiment sought signs of carbon fixation after radiolabelled C02 and C0 were fed into the soil.
All three experiments gave positive results. Yes, you read that right.
In fact, positive results were attained at both Viking lander sites. By the pre-agreed terms of the experiments, life had been identified on the red planet. Of course, we are talking simple microbes, soil bacteria, but alien life, nonetheless. It was an exciting moment for the NASA team, with their shared joy captured forever in the mission logs.
"Remarkably, to the extent that the record showed emotions at all, it did not show happiness or excitement. Rather, it suggested fear." - Dr Steven Benner
A fourth experiment had been carried along to Mars, one that tasked a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) to find the reduced carbon compounds from organic material. This test seemed to give a negative result, which was accepted to show that no organic compounds were present. It was further argued that without organic compounds, there could be no life. As organic materials should be present on Mars, even if only from meteorite impacts, it was taken to infer processes existed that purged all organic molecules. Even at the time, this conclusion seemed dubious.
Today it is known that the GC-MS test was flawed. It is well established that a range of organic molecules is found in the Martian soil and rocks. If the GC-MS test had worked correctly, it would have given a fourth positive result. So how did the Viking team take the bad news that one test might be suggesting life could not be present?
"To the extent that the mission logs conveyed emotion, they now conveyed "relief". The scientists no longer needed to announce the discovery of Martian life." - Dr Steven Benner
You might expect that NASA would immediately plan a new mission to Mars that could carry out additional tests. However, history tells us they went in a different direction; they avoided including any search for life on the Martian surface for the next four decades. It felt safer not to risk another 'unfortunate' positive signal for alien life. The two scientists responsible for the experiments, Gil Levin and Patricia Straat, remained confident that bacteria had been detected on Mars until their respective deaths in 2021 and 2020.
I would love to be able to tell you this is a unique situation, with one NASA team merely panicking and, unfortunately, dropping the ball. But instead, it is part of a trend. One that continues to this day, as we will see.
For several decades Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, a distinguished astrobiologist, has argued for ongoing panspermia, with simple life constantly raining from space. Wickramasinghe hypothesised that abiogenesis occurred close to the Galactic centre. The process of panspermia carried life throughout the Milky Way. Microbes would potentially travel the cosmos carried by cosmic dust, asteroids, and comets. Many predictions offered by Wickramasinghe have been born out, including that cosmic dust includes organic molecules (today, all the ingredients for life have been identified in space). The argument for life arriving from outer space remains highly contested. Still, one of Wickramasinghe's collaborators, Professor Milton Wainwright, has identified seemingly objective examples of both simple and complex life arriving from the cosmos.
Wainwright became a collaborator with Wickramasinghe after being invited to assist him with the microbiological aspects of panspermia. Wainwright assumed that microbiologists would be lining up to work on the panspermia theory. Instead, Wainwright soon discovered that most scientists viewed Wickramasinghe's work as too controversial and feared a negative impact on their promotion prospects or research grant applications. So much for simply 'following the science'.
The most fascinating discoveries made by Wainwright are biological entities he recovered from the stratosphere. This retrieval was achieved with high-altitude balloons fitted with specialised collectors. The entities, composed of carbon and oxygen, displayed morphology, unlike known terrestrial organisms. Due to the size of these organisms being larger than 5 microns, they should not be able to rise upwards to the location in the stratosphere (a height between 23 to 27km). While all of these finds are compelling, one seems to offer conclusive evidence of arrival from space. This biological entity in question is a microscopic sphere that left an impact crater in the collector surface, indicating arrival from space.
The sphere's structure is quite remarkable. Although the internal mucoid material is composed of carbon and oxygen, as are the filaments of biological material beneath the surface, the shell is primarily titanium with a bit of vanadium. This metallic alloy shell would offer considerable protection for an organism that traversed space. While it is reasonable to think an organism produced this protective shell, it is worth considering the possibility it might represent biotechnology. Dr Wainwright noted that the ball, about the width of a human hair, could be an example of directed panspermia. Speculative as that angle may be, we can likely imagine an advanced civilisation sending out seeds of life across the cosmos.
Wainwright's organisms are all extraordinary, but the most visually impressive is a strange horned creature. Wainwright describes it as an 'amorphous form attached to a grain of salt, discovered along with rare elements including dysprosium, lutetium, neodymium and niobium.
"As far as we can tell the particle has no relation to anything found on earth. These particle masses are too big to have been carried up from earth and, like the alien life forms we find, must be incoming to earth from space." – Professor Milton Wainwright
I have heard Wainwright speak in interviews. The most shocking thing he explained is the academic community's reaction or lack thereof. While the mainstream media widely reported on his finds, he has been met by silence in his scientific community. Attempts he made to communicate with NASA went unanswered, despite simply wanting them to attempt replication of the finds detailed in his peer-reviewed papers. Something is very wrong with that picture.
Finally, let's consider the perplexing case of the Orgueil meteorite. The Orgueil meteorite is a tremendous example of a rare chondrite type of impactor, found in France in 1864. Chemically, the composition is slightly anomalous, with high mercury levels and the unexpected isotope xenon presence. The latest development in the story involves high-resolution photos taken through an electron microscope. In addition, a team of international scientists collaborated under the auspices of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research Astrobiology Centre to investigate apparent fossils inside the rock. This claim was highlighted in 2011 when the respected NASA astrobiologist, Richard Hoover, published a paper on fossils he identified in the meteorite.
The fossils represent multiple species of bacteria, preserved deep within the space rock. The presence of fossils within the rock support claims they were present before impact and do not represent later surface contamination by terrestrial microbes. The scientists suggest that "indisputable" evidence of alien life has been identified. The fossils were imaged inside a meteorite that is suspected to be even older than our planet.
The initial description of the finds points to the stone having broken away from a lake or seabed, as the organisms include a possible seaweed, an amoeba and so-called magnetic bacteria that orient themselves to a planet's magnetic field. Such life forms are typically found in water environments here on earth. So this could tell us a little about the background on the planet of origin – should the finds be verified.
"The images we've made are clearly interpreted. One cannot argue with them now." - Aleksey Rozanov, chief research officer at the JINR Astrobiology Centre
Indeed, having the findings of a top NASA astrobiologist validated by an independent expert study run in Russia should be satisfactory. However, it would seem not so, as little response has been offered. Would there be equivalent controversy and scepticism over an exotic mineral rather than alien fossils? Are there two different evidential standards at play, one for alien life and another for all other phenomena?
Let me be clear here. The positive tests for life on Mars are not proof it is there. The organisms found in our stratosphere are not unquestionably extraterrestrial. The fossils in the Orgueil meteorite might still be misidentifications. None of these is proof of alien life. Remember the words of Satoshi Kanazawa that we encountered previously:
"The primary criterion and standard of evaluation of scientific theory is evidence, not proof. All else equal (such as internal logical consistency and parsimony), scientists prefer theories for which there is more and better evidence to theories for which there is less and worse evidence."
In these cases, there is more and better evidence for theories involving alien life than for those where it would be absent. In the everyday workings of the scientific method, a more substantial view would be selected, and efforts would be made to strengthen the case further. If eventually evidence accrued that disputed the theory's core, the existence of alien life, the model would simply be rejected. Instead, however, we see a rejection of ever accepting any view where alien life is seen as objectively validated. Rather than working to strengthen the theories, scientists actively evade any support for additional efforts to gather further positive data. The search for life on Mars is postponed, requests to scour the stratosphere ignored and fossils in meteors met with silence. The ultra-conservative scientific bias at play here can be summed up with the phrase, it's never aliens. Confirmation of aliens in our solar system is meant to stay as a noble aim, a valid hypothesis, an inspiring dream – but never to be treated as sound science.
To quote the master of human dramas, William Shakespeare, "something is rotten in the state of Denmark".
Note: A biosignature is a signature of alien biological processes. Abiogenesis is the emergence of the first biological processes from inert matter (geological and chemical processes).
Part 2 - Part 4
I recall at the later part of the 19th century when electrical experiments were the rage.
Several cases of electric current being fed into a sterile flask of inorganic compounds, and
voila, strange organisms would emerge. Some fairly sophisticated forms swimming around.
It would seem, hence the electric nature of solar/planetary systems, life is going to pop up everywhere.
Technical augmentation is another layer on top of what already exudes from tectonic ooze to interstellar tube worms. This is the ultimate zoo. Thanks Bruce!