The Beacon Hypothesis

(Location of the repeating fast radio burst that has recently been discovered, titled FRB 180916.J0158+65 – on the outskirts of a spiral Galaxy 500 million light-years from Earth. Image via B. Marcote)

When Enrico Fermi the famed Italian physicist was discussing the issue of UFOs with colleagues in 1950 he asked in a simple yet poignant question. “Where is everybody?” It was later known as the Fermi Paradox on the premise that there is can be no immediate answer and why a relatively young planet, like Earth amongst the trillions of stars and planets, still in its infancy, seems alone as an evolved civilization, in comparison to an expanding Universe that had a head start of billions of years.  The FERMI PARADOX, as an open ended question has spawned the later statement such as the Drake Equation by Frank Drake in 1961, which quantifies in a mathematical description that in lieu of what is now known as exoplanets, like the Earth, with an abundance of energy giving stars and the billions of solar systems.  Drake allowed the formulation to conclude that if civilization does makes it through its self destructive and possibly go-extinct stage, its signal emitting communications would still be traveling throughout the Milky Way and Universe.  It was then in 1964, the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed the Kardashev Scale, as a way of measuring in a hypothetical criterion of energy use by civilizations in the Universe, which was marked by three Types of technologically advanced societies, to which Earth is not even considered to be of the lower Type I stage.

The Fermi Paradox has given rise to explanations for this dilemma, with a plethora of speculative concepts which have attempted to solve the paradox.  Ranging from, Humans reside within a cosmic 'zoo', zoned off to monitor primate lifeforms, while advanced civilizations choose not to interfere or that an ancient alien race became home bodies, without the need to travel into space, knowing that they've created suitable virtual realties and other worlds with a godlike computation.  Have already attained a cosmic presence within their Galaxy, there could be a disinterest to explore on the most part what could be deemed a hostile space environment. Maybe there is a malevolent civilization that colonizes and takes over inhabitable worlds, so it would be wise, like other civilizations that have remained quite, to refrain from any communication into the stars.  Hence the radio silence out there.

There can be countless manifestations of the Fermi Paradox, all leaning more onto a philosophical understanding of why there is such an overwhelming quietness throughout the cosmos, except, we have only been studying a fraction of the observable Universe for signs of Extraterrestrial intelligence, it therefor would be of an arrogance to assume that life on Earth, which is a ting spec of a planet within our own Galaxy, let alone the Universe, harbors the rarity of life.  To understand our insignificance, in a sense, that humanity as a civilization is – we can see with hyper giant stars such as Antares that by its sheer size would engulf all of our Solar System.   Despite the advancement of knowledge with physics and astronomy, we are still learning in regards to our place in the cosmos, if there is actually one.  Yet, we require to need to know, to understand. Hence our search and the questions continue.

One of the most intriguing mysteries of the Universe is the phenomenon known as Fast Radio Bursts, although discovered in 2009 these high energy radio pulses have been around for billions of years.   The origins of these intense, yet brief signals are still unknown.   Theories range from exploding black holes, colliding neutron stars to highly magnetized and dense stars erupting into a speculative concept known as a 'star quake.  In February 2020,  the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment  otherwise known as the CHIME radio telescope, based in in Okanagan Falls, Canada.  Whilst monitoring a Galaxy 500 million light years away, detected a rhythmic FRB pulse with a precise pattern.  Most deep space high energy pulses occur once without a repeating signal.   The latest discovery  shows that the signal detected runs over a 16 day period, with four days of pulses then silence for 12 days, repeating all over again in a 500 day observational period.

The usual suspects are the various natural assumptions mentioned,  however the tantalizing idea is that it could be advanced alien civilization.  Which will explored further in part 2 of the Beacon Hypothesis.

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(A.Glass 2020)