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The animated film 'Treasure Planet' imagined
many space-faring creatures based on Earth life.
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So what is the story with life in the universe? Is it there or not? And if there is life elsewhere in the universe, what do we have to do to "see" it scientifically? That's a question demanding a long, complicated answer. And I'm not the guy to provide that answer. I know we are scanning for radio signals. And I know we are finding planets circling other stars. If only we could skip ahead to the future and use the advanced censor arrays from Star Trek!
Well, let's assume that science and engineering will eventually give us the ability to study planets in other solar systems. I am sure we're working on ways to detect water, oxygen, and other important chemicals. And we're always looking for better ways to detect radio signals. But what if there are aliens out there that haven't invented radio? Maybe electricity terrifies them too much to experiment with it. Maybe they don't have enough of the right minerals to build transmitters. Here are a few types of alien civilizations that might exist right now somewhere in the nearby universe and we would never know it.
An Insectoid Civilization
Science fiction writers used to love this idea. They would base stories on Earth's own social insects (ants, bees, wasps) and imagine what real civilizations might look like. Social insects are clever creatures. They can count, pass on information to each other, take care of their sick and wounded, and build farms. Ants will dam water, dig tunnels, raise fungus farms, enslave other ants, and even fight wars.
Ants have been a favorite species among science fiction writers for decades. Several movies have been made about intelligent ants. But even though they number in the hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions, ants do not have a space faring technology (that we know about). Their tiny civilizations are not very human-like at all. I've ready about "super colonies" that run for hundreds of miles. I think ants are smart enough to survive 100 million years of change on Earth and to build their own civilizations, but they don't appear to be building rockets and radios.
Hence, even if you don't imagine gigantic ants thriving on some alien world, there is every possibility that a nearby solar system has a planet that is dominated by social insects. Maybe there is a species of social insect that has become the top predator in that planet's food chain. But we would never be able to detect them because they don't use electricity or send out radio waves. Maybe they would leave a biological marker that super-powerful telescopes of the future can read.
An Undersea Civilization
One of the interesting points of the fourth Star Trek movie, "The Voyage Home", was that a space-faring civilization might only be interested in a non-human intelligent species on Earth. The writers chose humpback whales for their oceanic civilization. In the novelization of the movie humpback whales are so smart they have been communicating with advanced aliens for thousands, maybe millions of years. They try to ignore mankind but mankind won't leave them alone.
Cetaceans include whales and dolphins. We now know these are highly intelligent social creatures. We know they work together in groups, have culture, and they communicate with each other in what appears to be real (if non-human) language. What cetaceans do not do is build spaceships and radios.
Hence, imagine a world where mammal-like creatures arose as they did here, but for some reason only the sea-faring animals evolved to become highly intelligent. They would not have to become the tool-makers that apes and humans are. We know that cetaceans can use tools but they don't build factories and cities. They live a very different lifestyle than we do.
If a cetacean-like species became dominant in the oceans of another world, would they try to look for life elsewhere in the universe? Would they care? They might see the stars in the night sky and wonder about them, but how would they study those stars? I imagine they might have to evolve a living computer network to analyze the light from the sky. Maybe they would develop insights we cannot, but I don't think such a civilization could develop radio or rocket ships.
A Flying Civilization
Birds have been on Earth for tens of millions of years longer than humans. Some birds are very smart. We have learned they can count and make thoughtful choices about things. Some species of birds are now believed to have some sort of language. Each bird has a unique song that identifies itself in some unique way, almost like a name. But birds can also warn each other of danger and they may communicate with each other in more ways.
Birds are social creatures. Many species of birds live together in great flocks, hunt together, and/or migrate together. There is safety in numbers but do the birds accomplish things we don't see because of their great numbers? Sadly, modern technology has not been kind to birds. Even as we seek to develop new forms of power we are endangering our feathered friends with massive wind turbines and deadly chemicals.
Imagine a world where bird-like creatures become the dominant species. Since they already know how to fly, why would they try to build airplanes and spaceships? Unless they become tool-makers and need to haul large amounts of raw materials around their planet, they'll probably never try to travel to the stars. They won't think about flying above the sky because they can already go wherever they wish to.
Like use, bird-like creatures might look up into the night-sky on their world and wonder what is out there. But they might not have the need to evolve tool-making skills like ours. Without a mineral-based technology that includes mining and smelting ores, I don't believe a sky-faring civilization would be able to leave its planet. And I doubt they would invent a radio network, either.
There Could Be Intelligent Life Everywhere
We have tried to imagine many different ways that intelligence might evolve on other worlds. Most science fiction stories assume that those civilizations become space-faring civilizations. We have only just reached the moon, which is a mere 2 light-seconds away from Earth. Our most distant probes only left the Solar System a couple of years ago. We ourselves have yet to achieve true interstellar travel comparable to that in the stories we make up. If space aliens need us to find them on their own worlds before they can move out to the stars, we are not yet ready to help them make that leap.
We now know that humans are not the only intelligent species on Earth. Only a few years ago scientists formally declared that some groups of chimpanzees have entered the stone age on their own. That means they are intelligent enough to have become tool-makers. Chimps may have one or more languages. They have culture, too. But they may not survive much longer because we have endangered them.
And other animals have proven they possess greater intelligence than we previously imagined. Dogs, pigs, horses, elephants, and many other animals possess at least a rudimentary intelligence that allows them to be self-aware, to experience emotion, and to be able to solve problems. Beavers build dams and change the environment. Elephants dig water holes and change the environment. There are many burrowing creatures that develop colonies and clans which follow social rules similar to our own.
Humankind is not alone in the universe, but Earth-life may be unique. I hope not. I hope that some day we meet friendly, curious aliens who want to learn about us as much as we learn about them. And I hope we form great friendships and go forth into the universe, discovering new things together. Life should not be confined to one planet, nor doomed to end with mankind's silly mistakes.
