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Looking for Little Green Men at Area 51 87

Alien Hunter Explains

Why He Won't Be Going

to Area 51 to Look for

'Little Green Men'

By Jason Wright,
Pennsylvania State University

Editor's note: What started as an internet joke
has generated a stern military warning after
more than a million people "signed up" to "raid"
Area 51 — a secretive military installation in
Southern Nevada long fancied by conspiracy
theorists to be hiding evidence of a crashed
UFO with aliens. The purpose of the planned
raid is in order to "see them aliens." In the
following Q&A, astronomy professor Jason
Wright discusses the public's interest in
answering the age-old question: Are we alone?
because the science-fiction-inspired "aliens" discipline, and to persuade Congress, NASA and
Interviewer - Since you have a longstanding conspiracy theory is — from my standpoint — the public that it is worthy of public investment.
scholarly interest in extraterrestrial life — and so much less fascinating than the story of the It is, after all, the scientific approach to
even wrote about the possibility of advanced research that was going on then. answering one of the most profound questions
civilizations in the distant past on Mars or Venus ever asked: Is Earth life unique? Or are there
— I presume you've canceled your classes for Interviewer - There was a time when the federal other beings like us out there in the universe?
Sept. 20 and signed up to go to the "raid" on government provided researchers with money to
Area 51? search for — and teach about the search for — Jason Wright, Professor of Astronomy and
extraterrestrial life. And you've lamented that Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University
JASON WRIGHT - To be honest, I was that is no longer the case. If you had your way,
completely unaware of this "raid" until you how much money do you think the federal
brought it to my attention! I work in SETI, the government should give America's researchers The local ghosts of
scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence, to search for aliens or evidence of aliens?
and believe me, no one wants to find evidence of Hamilton and area.
extraterrestrial life more than those of us in this JASON WRIGHT - The search for life in the
field. We scour the skies for evidence of such universe is a major priority for NASA and
extraterrestrial technologies with some of the American science. Many of our missions to
most advanced equipment in the world for Mars and our space telescopes are designed with WILLIE THOMPSON, who worked
understanding what's going on in the sky, and the detection of biosignatures in mind — in the Pigott Bldg. all his life as an
we haven't found anything compelling yet. But "biosignatures" being signs of life like elevator operator told the Hamilton
we're not paying much attention to what happens microfossils or evidence of metabolism in the Spectator once ...."Now, one night I
in Area 51. atmospheres of distant planets. But despite the was in the elevator at about 11
billions of dollars spent on these missions, I o'clock. Just me alone, and all of a
Interviewer - Do you think the public knows think many members of the public would be sudden I hear this voice coming up
enough about Area 51? Or is the widespread surprised to learn that NASA and the National
interest in this raid a good barometric read on Science Foundation spend next to nothing the elevator shaft and it says, 'Wait
how frustrated people are that the government looking for intelligent life in the universe, for me, Willie, I'll be there in a
appears to be hiding something there? including technological life that might, after all, minute.' And you know, it was the
be easier to find. I think the level of funding for voice of a man who had died in the
JASON WRIGHT- I don't know very much the field should be determined the way the rest building a year before."
about Area 51, but I can say that the intense of science is, by competitive peer review of
interest in the goings on there related to aliens proposals for research. So, I don't know what the According to late local
reveals a deep public interest in what kinds of "right" level is, but I know it's not zero. historian who now resides on “the
life might exist elsewhere in the universe. other side”, Margaret Houghton,
Interviewer - You're the winner of the 2019 "Willie vowed that he would stay in
Interviewer - Have you yourself ever tried to do Drake Award. What is the Drake Award, why did the Pigott building forever, even after
any real research into the happenings in Area you win it, and what do you plan to do in order he died."
51? to advance what the award is about?
A local self proclaimed ghost
JASON WRIGHT- Not Area 51, exactly. The JASON WRIGHT - The Drake Award is named hunter and local tour guide believes
closest I've come was a talk I heard by a after its first recipient, Frank Drake, who more that Willie may have succeeded in
physicist describing the fascinating science than anyone launched the field of SETI in the his wish after dying a while back.
carried out by the military back in the late 1940s, early 1960s with his pioneering radio "People who live in the
especially Project Mogul, which launched experiments. He also made the first calculation building often tell us that they are all
microphones on balloons to see if they could — using what today we call the Drake Equation
detect nuclear testing going on in the Soviet — of the number of alien civilizations in the too familiar with Willie. He has been
Union. It's an amazing story of physics and Milky Way that might be trying to contact us. spotted walking through the halls,
engineering ingenuity. When one of those The Drake Award is awarded occasionally by the perhaps still residing at the place he
balloons with its disc microphones and radar SETI Institute, a research center dedicated to loves."
reflectors landed in a farm in Roswell, New understanding humanity's place in the universe. Believer or Skeptic - you be
Mexico it helped fuel the whole alien craze I see this award as validation of my work to help the judge. (HS) []
we're still living with today. It's a shame, elevate the field of SETI as an academic