Brian Cox Debates If Aliens Have Visited Earth?

If a big UFO appeared, now we walk outside and over Westminster there is a spaceship floating. It wouldn't surprise me in the least. I mean, there are deep questions. Know? are we alone in the universe? I mean, probably not, you'd guess there are. two, two billion galaxies in the observable universe, so you wouldn't expect, what

have

they made of all the recent headlines about knowing someone in the state who says they've seen evidence of extraterrestrial life forms on Earth , something that was collected from the bottom? of the sea, those little ball bearings and they, so this is, it's been formed by life forms outside of our, I mean, our galaxy, like it's a theory, right?

I mean, there's a theory there and you can get the little things and we'll break them down and take a look. I mean, wouldn't it be funny because you mentioned social media. I think you're occasionally on social media. Quite often, I will make something sweet and there will be plenty of it. There are a few people who don't reasonably agree with what I said and one of them is the UFO thing, you know, I mean, there are people who actually believe that there are UFOs visiting the Earth and I always say, you know, I

have

n't seen any. .

I think it's strong evidence of that, it's a great statement that there are other civilizations that are visiting us, but I wouldn't be surprised in a strict sense if I told someone the other day If a big UFO appeared, now we walk outside and over Westminster there is a spaceship. It wouldn't surprise me in the least because I know there are trillions of planets in the Milky Way alone and hundreds of billions of stars, and there have been many over time and one of the great mysteries of physics is why we don't seem to see much. out there, something we don't have, you know, there is strong evidence that there is nothing at all right now, we don't have any strength. evidence of life beyond Earth and that's an enigma and a paradox, so it's about those claims, you don't dismiss them, if someone says well I've got this, I found this thing at the bottom of the sea and I think it's really strange, then the right thing to do is to go, okay, we'll put it in a laboratory, we'll get an electron microscope, we'll poke it and find out how strange it is, and a nature fanatic again said that the thing to remember is nature.

It doesn't care at all what you think, nature just doesn't care who you are or how famous you are, what letters you have before or after your name, whatever, it doesn't matter, nature is just like that if in fact It's an alien spaceship crashed wherever they were where they found these things a billion years ago and they left all the fragments there and we've dug them up so that's interesting, right? But that's very, you know, but, if it wasn't, then That's also interesting because then we have a deep professional conundrum about why there don't seem to be many civilizations around if we don't find a way to not compromise, but understand that the world is very complicated, then it's not just a Just country is all different countries with different cultures and different political histories and different points of view if we don't find a way to stop arguing and try to find a way to make that work.

I just gave everyone the means to destroy themselves, so I personally delivered the atomic bomb, which has now raised the stakes in these arguments, we're in the '50s, we're in the middle of now, we're talking about the AI is kind of the modern version of that Aten bomb every time. I open a newspaper or read on the Internet, it's like AI is going to end civilization, isn't it? We're having the same conversation again all these years later, yeah, so there will be, I mean, if that's the threat or if you know there obviously is. There are threats from everywhere.

I still think the threat is probably human stupidity. I think that's what we just talked about. Well, the possibility of someone just pressing the button still you know what we grew up with. That's interesting, actually, if you grew up in the '70s and '80s, you grew up with the fact that the world is going to be destroyed by nuclear bombs, everyone is there, they're still there, and you still have the same kind of problems. obviously international tensions and they're so so I think you know from all the existential threats that we talked about and we've talked about.

I remember, like on the one hand, I remember my radio show, Infinite Monkey Cage, right before the pandemic, we did a Show It on pandemics before the pandemic and one of the experts said right at the end he said, Les I say the bats are going to get us, it's the bats, something is going to come out of the bats, I bet, I bet you what it is and you know, even that is controversial, there are all kinds of theories about what happened with that virus , but ultimately his point was that pandemics are a really big threat and of course we basically ignore it and think it's funny, right? pandemic, you know, and then about three months later, there's a p, but of all those threats, I still think the biggest problem right now is how to get along as a global society in a world where we have the means to destroy ourselves themselves. so it's not just a fight in a pub it's an exchange of nuclear weapons if we're not careful where are you regarding our future? you're optimistic um yeah uh I we we seem to have avoided obviously we've avoided destroying ourselves until now um, so I think so, I'm worried about that because I'm worried that um, it seems to me that our political debate, I don't know, is has become extremely polarized in a way that really matters, particularly in the United States.

Yeah, it's very important that that country stays stable and so I'm worried about that and I and you see that here to some extent, although I actually know that we seem to be handling it pretty well in this country. I mean we don't normally give credit to our political system, but it seems to be dealing with a lot of upheaval, particularly starting with the Brexit referendum and stuff that it seems to be dealing with, um, so yeah, I'm worried, um and One of the reasons I'm worried, actually, I was asked to give a talk at the Police Climate Summit in Glasgow just by one minute video and it was just a small project and they said could I tell you something. the world leaders there, what would they say?

And I said very simply that given what I know and given the large number of people I've talked to, we may be the only civilization in the Milky Way right now, it's worth it. whereas that might be the case and there are reasons we can look at as to why that might be the case, but it's possible, so if it's true, imagine it's true. I think if we are talking about the meaning of everything like we talk. about what it means to be human in this universe, good intentions are a property of intelligence. I clearly believe that the universe means something to us, so meaning exists here, but if there is no other intelligence in our galaxy and we destroy ourselves, then we could eliminate meaning in a galaxy of 400 billion stars forever. , that's what we could do, so consider the world leaders, that's you, you have a potentially galactic-sized responsibility, wow, maintaining meaning in a galaxy, and that's me, that's why it bothers me, because I think that's true, so I think what we do here will have ramifications in that sense, far beyond the shores of our own planet, because you know you look at me as a world without life, a galaxy without life, it's a galaxy without meaning .

There's something really powerful about that, we like that we were attractive enough to interview Tim Peak who talked about the general effect that many astronauts talk about being able to see the world from outside the atmosphere, it gives you an idea of ​​how small what are we. they are, but also how magnificent life is here, yes, on the planet, you see it with the pendant. I have been fortunate to meet many Apollo astronauts. Astronauts used to be test pilots too, you know, so they used to be. those guys from the '60s and '7s and they tended to be guys at the time when the Apollo astronauts were really focused on flying those things like airplanes, but still you're right, every single one I've been lucky enough to know.

I said the same thing the moment you leave Earth and look at it against the darkness of space, you start to get the feeling that there is something really important here, far beyond everything else, so I think that's powerful, That's why I think I said that once. um I thought it was when I don't know which Prime Minister I think it was B, it was Boris Johnson, I said, I said, I think he should be sent to space and I actually meant no, I meant he should bring it. He would also return, but I think he, as a taxpayer, would pay.

I would be happy to have a portion of my taxes go as soon as you became prime minister, you went up one of those, even the little suborbital jump went up and you have a look and I think it would be a very good use of the money, yeah, and then you come back and you know you could get a fine because it could be a million dollars, it would be a brilliant use of a million pounds, it would be fantastic. because they come back with that in mind: it's not going to fly, it's not going to be a very popular suggestion that we pay the prime minister to go on a trip to space, but I think they should have done it so that world leaders would do it. don't do us any harm