‘Alien probe’ conspiracy theory distracts from Rosetta’s ‘huge’ discovery — carbon compounds
THE Rosetta mission has uncovered something huge - carbon compounds that may be the building blocks of life. But conspiracy theorists say there’s more to it.
IS space really that boring? It was a mission to unlock the ingredients that may have led to life on Earth. And like so much major events, it’s been fantastically hijacked by conspiracy theorists
Initial reports suggest the little lander that spent 12 years in space has found what it was looking for: The building blocks of life, organic compounds.
But to many, this isn’t enough.
The conspirarcy theory goes something like this: The Rosetta/Philae mission to Comet 67P is government funded. It also involves scientists. Therefore, what they tell us simply has to be a lie.
“Comet 67P is NOT a Comet,” the declaration by UFOSightingsDaily reads.
That’s right: The comet is actually an alien space craft and the Philae lander is really our attempt at first contact.
“Do not think for ONE MOMENT that a space agency would suddenly decide to spend billions of dollars to build and send a spacecraft on a 12-year journey to simply take some close-up images of a randomly picked out comet floating in space.”
Really?
Dr Malcolm Walter, Professor of Astrobiology at the University of New South Wales begs to differ.
“Space is fascinating. Space exploration is inspirational. People are naturally explorers and we’re interested in what’s out there and whether or not we are alone in the universe,” he says.
“Stories such as these are nonsense of course, but the public have trouble sorting wheat from chaff. That’s understandable. This is hard stuff and how you judge what’s believable or not is always an issue. But we have to confront this.”
The real story is just as exciting, if requiring a little further reading.
Unweaving the tale
We’ve heard it all before. The Moon landing was staged. Elvis is not dead.
In the case of the Philae probe bouncing into oblivion on Comet 67P the conspirators have clearly just discovered the old Arthur C. Clarke novel Rendezvous with Rama — or any number of other ‘first contact’ alien encounter stories.
It sounds good. Which is probably why Rama sold so well.
RELATED: Is there really a secret Nazi base on the moon?
THE SEARCH FOR EARTH 2.0: Exoplanet exploration heats up
“Because of its nature and secrecy, the American space agency made a deal with European government insiders to publicly tout the mission as a search to simply get a close up of one of the millions of comets flying through space. It was the perfect cover and allowed the governments to go about the mission off the ground without the need to hide its launch.”
Of course, such “cover” is the perfect excuse for any lack of substance, logic gaps or even story continuity in such claims. Blaming official secrets has become a default escape clause.
Science doesn’t have such a luxury — which is a tip Dr Walter gives for finding the really interesting stuff.
“You look for evidence. Real evidence,” he says. “Science is based on verifiable observations but the interpretations are never absolutely conclusive — so it’s a matter of judgment based on reality and substance.”
THE SEARCH FOR LIFE: Now not a question of “if”, but “when”.
The Rosetta mission has sent back a wealth of data, he says.
“You have a set of observations here on the comet, and people can make up their own minds — so long as they look at the evidence. That evidence is easily available. From my point of view, it’s clear that the space craft has landed on a comet and has done its job and will probably ‘die’ because of lack of sunlight.”
RT @esaoperations: Our lander's asleep: Good night, @Philae2014 #Cometlanding http://t.co/4LLnno5H2h
— ESA Rosetta Mission (@ESA_Rosetta) November 15, 2014Perhaps it’s just fun. Perhaps they mean it. But are such conspiracy theories damaging real science?
Not so, says Dr Walter.
“Space exploration is inspirational and I think most people are really interested in what’s out there. So there it is not surprising that there are such amateur interpretations, they’re interesting because we all want to know if there is life out there or if we are alone. There are sceptics of course who say we should spend money on other things, but I think it is important we continue to explore.”
Truth more fascinating than fiction
This is the way to discover evidence of alien life.
“Everything we know about comets tells us that they are made up of very primitive materials dating from the origins of the solar system — and includes the delivery of carbon compounds to the early “soup” which formed the origins of life here on Earth,” Dr Walter says.
INTERESTED IN ALIENS? Here’s what you should be looking for
If a probe, such as Philae, was to detect certain substances — that would be a dead giveaway.
“If (the comet) were the product of an alien civilisation, then there would be very complex compounds,” he says. “We call them biomarkers. For example, if we want to trace the history of life on Earth we can look at fossils, but we also look at the complex carbon compounds in fossil fuels that are diagnostic of various forms of life.”
How complex the carbon compounds found on Comet 67P are will not only relate to the origins of life on earth, it will provide relevant observations for the chances of their being life elsewhere.
“If there were on this comet very complex carbon compounds which we couldn’t explain by simple chemistry, that would be very interesting,” he says. “But extremely unlikely.”
Instead, the ingredients revealed to be inside the comet may point to how the original basic carbon compounds — the building blocks of life — formed.
Today we know carbon compounds were found by the Philae lander before its batteries went dead — a great step forward in proving life here was seeded by materials out there. This tantalising data is now the object of intense study.
Debunking the bunk
“Whatever this object is, it did not ask to be found or scrutinised,” the “whistleblower’s” email reads ominously.
But it has, apparently, been broadcasting out loud for the past 20 years.
Conversely, this “whistleblower” email did seek to be found — so can it stand up to scrutiny?
Blogger Scott Waring, of secret alien moonbase and alien structure on Mercury notoriety, has plenty to gain from such a story.
Clicks on his website and videos mean cash.
As the sole bearer of such earth-shattering news, it’s natural he would want to keep the conversation alive.
“I believe the landing of the ESA craft was the equivalent of a first handshake,” he states on his blog. “They will make another move soon probably. Alien structures are on the comet. I don’t believe it’s natural. ”
RELATED: Is this Mars rock evidence of aliens?
Nobody had heard of this “First Contact” conspiracy before his September blog post. So it is with some wonder that we learn the whole scheme was cooked up decades ago.
It took a single secret email from someone claiming to be an ESA “insider” to spill the beans.
“Some 20 years ago, the NASA space agency began detecting radio bursts from an unknown origin out in space. It would later be known that these bursts had likely come from the direction of the now named comet67P,” the mail reads.
SCREAMING ALIENS: Well, one “WOW!” signal is real. It is an exciting — but unverified — broadcast detected in August, 1977. That’s 37 years ago. Apparently coming from the direction of the Chi Sagittarii star group, It was heard only once by one research station. That a man-made source of interference that may have produced the signal has never been ruled out.
Any continuous stream of transmissions would be detectable all over the world — even by amateur astronomers. What are the chances, really, of getting the likes of China and Russia to take part in a conspiracy of this scale?
Immensely more likely there was no such signal to receive.
But a public-relations directed announcement by the EA that Comet 67P was “singing” only fuelled the flames of speculation. Space is full of such “sounds”. It’s a shame that the evidence of ionised particles being naturally emitted by the comet was deemed “too boring” for public consumption.
Can’t astronomers have a little fun, weave a bit of artistic licence? As the NASA team who jokingly referred to a “Face on Mars” found in July 1976, clearly not.
“Once the technology progressed, it was confirmed that not only were these signals coming directly from the comet itself but that the comet had seemed to change trajectory at will, which to any scientist is an obvious impossibility for any rock confined to the physics of space.”
But these details do not match the sentiments of the original “leak”: “Whatever this object is, it did not ask to be found or scrutinised,” remember?
Singing isn’t welcoming? Not even for True Beliebers?
FLIGHT PLAN: What about the supposedly wandering course of Comet 67P? There is no mystery. It was actually discovered in 1969.
“This is not an unusual object,” Dr Walter says. “There are billions, literally billions of comets that orbit the sun in one way or another. They’re in fact quite common objects.”
Comet 67P has been calculated to follow a predictable elliptical orbit over a course of every 6.45 years. Without such predictability, we would never have been able to “shoot” the Rosetta probe into space 12 years ago with such accuracy it was able to bullseye the comet in August.
“It takes very precise understanding of the trajectory of the comet, and it takes a very precise targeting and years of travel to rendezvous with such an object,” Dr Walter says. “It’s not the sort of thing you do overnight.”
Despite the free-flight shown in the movies such as Star Wars, space travel is a finely calculated obstacle course of gravity and momentum. A 90 degree turn is not easy. Such manoeuvring involves a lot of energy — something that is not easy to hide.
ALIEN STRUCTURES: As with Mars, the Moon and Mercury, Comet 67P (what, not “M”?) seems to have fallen foul of alien development plans. Is no space sacred?
The usual blurry, over-magnified photos have been rolled out to “prove” the presence of UFOs drifting about structures built on the comet’s surface. Despite their apparent earlier failures, not one such alien object slipped past the hordes of supposed censors scouring the millions of high-resolution images constantly being beamed back “live” by Rosetta and its lander.
Seeing shapes in pixels is as old pat as finding a rabbit in the clouds. Conspiracy theorists are going to have to work harder than that now high definition, multi-spectrum images are the norm.
Aussies capture incredible footage of meteor
Aussies have captured footage of a meteor blazing through the skies, with people reporting massive booms and even their houses shaking.
How to catch tonight’s meteor shower
Here is where, when and how to catch the spectacular Lyrid meteor shower for an incredible astronomical experience.
Mysterious skull-shaped object found on Mars
NASA’s Mars rover has spotted something out of this world — sitting on a slope where stargazers say it doesn’t belong.