I've been a science guy all my life. A little over 20 years ago I worked the Drake equation with numbers that seemed pretty reasonable to me and came up with N a bit less than 1, meaning that the odds were, we were alone in our galaxy and that other life probably exists in other galaxies, but we're alone here.
I caught the David Fravor episode of Joe Rogan Experience and that really kinda did it for me.
The thing about this documentary is that the vast majority of the witnesses are sober, serious, credible people. Generals, naval aviators, presidents, senators, defense department officials, missile launch officers, etc. These are not easily excitable whack jobs.
What is abundantly clear is that they are out there. They are also, for the most part, not interfering. Here's my theory on it: They made a huge display of force and a "hey, here we are" back in the early 50s. Then Roswell happened, and the government started trying to suppress discussion of it to the point where it became fringe, "whack-job" seeming territory. The "visitors" probably decided that we're not ready for them and backed off.
Here's the thing: I think as a species, we're desperately in need of help. I think we're on the fast track to extinction. According to a 2010 Nature article, since 1950, 40% of the phytoplankton in oceans has disappeared due to ocean heating and acidification. Phytoplankton accounts for half of our oxygen supply and it's quickly disappearing. The other half of our oxygen supply is rapidly being burned to the ground and we have an addiction to oil that's making all this worse. And this isn't our only problem. We have lots of them. Nuclear waste, biological weapons (and the capability now for anyone with a few tens of thousands of dollars, to build custom viruses. How long until an psycho biologist wipes us out?). We're doing a lot of things wrong and I think most of us feel overwhelmed by the problems and I think as a species, we're overwhelmed and don't know how to fix these things.
We should ask them for help. They're clearly not here to hurt us. Maybe they're just waiting for us to ask the question. I think the UN should send a signal out, doesn't matter where. Just broadcast. They'll get it. If they're inclined to help they will. If they don't, we're no worse off.
But if nothing else, maybe us asking for help will also be us admitting we have a problem and that may be a big help too.
