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Science

The Case for Life Beyond Earth

David Langness | Nov 25, 2016

PART 5 IN SERIES The Galaxy of Mind and Soul

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

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David Langness | Nov 25, 2016

PART 5 IN SERIES The Galaxy of Mind and Soul

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

In an infinite Universe, there must be other life. There is no bigger question. It is time to commit to finding the answer. – Stephen Hawking

I saw something fly by in the sky, and I immediately thought: that’s not an airplane.

On a cloudless, bright summer day in central Washington state an eight-year-old boy named David played out in the yard. That boy was me, sometime long ago in the last millennium. My brothers and sisters had gone into the house to watch cartoons, but for some reason I was content to stay outside in the sunshine. Then a bright sliver of reflected light caught my eye, and I looked up.

I couldn’t quite comprehend what I was seeing. My family lived near an Air Force base, and my father was a pilot, so I had a natural interest in everything that could fly. Even at eight, I could identify several different kinds and classes of military, commercial and private aircraft. But I had never seen anything like this aircraft, moving very fast across the sky. It made no sound and had no wings. Just a silvery disc, it flew faster than anything I had ever seen, even the fast-mover Air Force jets I saw speeding past every day.

A chill went down my spine. I realized, as the disc quickly moved beyond my vision, that I had just seen something I didn’t understand and would never forget.

ufo

The next day the local newspaper had a story about it, along with a blurry snapshot someone had taken. Many other people had seen it, too, but the Air Force base said nothing had shown up on their radar.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I have no idea what I witnessed. Was it an unidentified flying object, a UFO? It most definitely fit that definition—because it flew, and because I couldn’t identify it, and neither could anyone else who saw it. Was it some new experimental aircraft the military was testing? Very doubtful, and they denied it. Did it come from another planet, another solar system somewhere? That’s a tempting conclusion, but I truly don’t know, because the only evidence I had was a fleeting glimpse, and my own unfounded suppositions.

That experience has always stayed with me, and made me ask whether life exists anywhere else beyond the Earth. Are we alone in the universe? As Stephen Hawking says, “there is no bigger question.” Amazingly, science cannot yet give us an answer:

Here we are, sentient beings on a planet seething with life (although perhaps not as seething as it could be) that’s been busy sculpting and re-sculpting the physical and chemical environment for much of the past 5 billion years. And now we’re confident that there are lots of planets out there, and that many of them could have an equal shot at playing host to life. But we still don’t know whether or not we’re alone. No clue. That’s quite a problem. – Caleb Scharf, This Is What We Don’t Know about the Universe, Scientific American, May 12, 2014.

Among all the major mysteries of the universe, this one ranks right up there. We’ve all thought about it, but as far as we know no one has any actual scientific proof one way or the other. It certainly makes sense scientifically, now that we’ve actually discovered so many exoplanets in our galaxy, that a significant percentage of them could support life. Theoretically, science has begun to realize, the chances of extraterrestrial life are astronomically high (apologies for the bad pun…).

But we still don’t know with any certainty. So to seek answers to this big mystery, we may want to turn to the mystics and the prophets, those whose sight and insight exceeds our own. The Baha’i teachings offer us some of that insight. In fact, an early Baha’i asked Baha’u’llah about the universe, and this is what he said:

Thou hast, moreover, asked Me concerning the nature of the celestial spheres. To comprehend their nature, it would be necessary to inquire into the meaning of the allusions that have been made in the Books of old to the celestial spheres and the heavens, and to discover the character of their relationship to this physical world, and the influence which they exert upon it. Every heart is filled with wonder at so bewildering a theme, and every mind is perplexed by its mystery. God, alone, can fathom its import. The learned men, that have fixed at several thousand years the life of this earth, have failed, throughout the long period of their observation, to consider either the number or the age of the other planets. Consider, moreover, the manifold divergencies that have resulted from the theories propounded by these men. Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, pp. 162-163.

“Every heart is filled with wonder at so bewildering a theme, and every mind is perplexed by its mystery,” Baha’u’llah said about the heavens. Those who study the universe, the scientists and astrophysicists, will likely agree. Each day, they gaze into a fathomless and mysterious reality, with few ways of knowing what it all means. For every new discovery, we unearth new mysteries. For every new theory, we open the way to another insight and a thousand more puzzling questions. Want humility? Study the universe.

So does life exist anywhere else? Baha’u’llah, the founder and prophet of the world’s newest global Faith, says every planet has its own creatures. For now, without scientific verification, that’s as close as we’re likely to come to understanding something so far beyond our grasp:

Gaze upward through immeasurable space to the majestic order of the colossal suns. These luminous bodies are numberless. Behind our solar system there are unfathomable stellar systems and above those stellar systems are the remote aggregations of the Milky Way. Extend your vision beyond the fixed stars and again you shall behold many spheres of light. In brief, the creation of the Almighty is beyond the grasp of the human intellect. – Abdu’l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, pp. 168-169.

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Comments

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  • Mark David Vinzens
    Jan 3, 2020
    -
    What would they say to us? Maybe something like that: “You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other. ”
    - Carl Sagan, Contact
  • Mark David Vinzens
    Jan 3, 2020
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    The primary work at this stage of the development of humanity, is to create a peaceful and unified world. We will naturally grow into contact with other civilizations, step by step, if we develop in this direction. My guess is that they are just waiting for us to reach maturity. It makes no sense for more advanced civilizations to communicate with us openly if we can't even be at peace with ourselves.
  • Sam B
    Jan 21, 2017
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    Hi All, Baha'i from New Zealand here. :D
    I had my first contact experience in 2012 which changed my life, super greatfull to be a Baha'i and not be afraid of contact.
    :D We are being visited, there are hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who have had experiences, but are scared, unsure and don't want to share their thoughts for fear of being looked at weird. I Couldn't care less.
    The subject of Disclosure and Extra terrestrial existence is all part of becoming an ever advancing civilization. When there is a need on an individual level they ...show up. I would say the subject is extremely complicated from our perspective, and global disclosure is going to happen sooner rather than later :D
    Read more...
  • Nov 28, 2016
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    I am happy to leave the question of extraterrestrial visits to Earth unanswered, for now. There are certainly a lot of UFO sightings - I have seen them too, although I was able to identify all but one. I suspect that if extraterrestrials are visiting us, they are showing the flag by letting us see something, but are taking care not to give us enough evidence to know what they are. If they are advanced enough to come here, they are probably advanced enough to remain undetected if they wish to.
  • Hooshang S. Afshar
    Nov 27, 2016
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    David, were you interviewed by the media at the time? Very interesting as this is a great instance of claim to fame on your part. Glad you did not follow your father's path but became a wonderful teacher - your calling you might say!
  • Terry Tibando
    Nov 26, 2016
    -
    Hi David,
    I read the latest Baha'i Teachings article by you regarding "The Case for Life Beyond Earth" and found the topic a timely subject as it is a matter on the minds of many people, especially scientists.
    As a fellow Baha'i, I would like to share with you some insights and some additional Baha'i writings on this subject from my book "A Citizen's Disclosure on UFOs and ETI" on this subject.
    If you would like to receive a 13-page discourse of other Baha'i quotes on this topics, you may contact me at [email protected] and I will send it ...to you via email.
    All the best in all worlds,
    Terry
    Read more...
    • Foad Farhoumand
      Jul 3, 2017
      -
      Terry, can you send me the 13 page discourse too?
  • Terry Tibando
    Nov 26, 2016
    -
    Hi David,
    I read the latest Baha'i Teachings article by you regarding "The Case for Life Beyond Earth" and found the topic a timely subject as it is a matter on the minds of many people, especially scientists.
    As a fellow Baha'i, I would like to share with you some insights and some additional Baha'i writings on this subject from my book "A Citizen's Disclosure on UFOs and ETI" on this subject.
    If you would like to receive a 13-page discourse of other Baha'i quotes on this topics, you may contact me at [email protected] and I will send it to ...you via email.
    All the best in all worlds,
    Terry
    Read more...
  • James Turner
    Nov 26, 2016
    -
    I'm a Baha'i and have had experience in this area I was going to talk to Peter khan about it but I'm willing to share my experience with interest Baha'is I have been censored by Baha'is in the past about talking about this Subject some have been open with me including Stephen Hall
    • Foad Farhoumand
      Jul 3, 2017
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      Jim, I would love to hear your story.
    • Sam B
      Jan 21, 2017
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      Sorry those replies are for James Turner. Not sure why it keeps posting to you Terry :D
    • Sam B
      Jan 21, 2017
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      Don't be afraid to share your experiences, i know many Baha'is who have had contact experiences. Peoples presupposition to being uncomfortable shouldn't stop you from sharing the truth. :D <3 The more people that know about these things, the less they freak out when they see it themselves.
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