2359: Evidence of Alien Life

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Evidence of Alien Life
Both too cautious AND not cautious enough: "I'm skeptical that those are aliens, so I'm going to try pulling off their masks."
Title text: Both too cautious AND not cautious enough: "I'm skeptical that those are aliens, so I'm going to try pulling off their masks."

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by an APPROPRIATELY CAUTIOUS ALIEN BOT. Needs a table explaining each panel of the alignment chart like other such comics. And more on the bottom panels. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic depicts a table of possible responses to new information on the possibility of alien life. It is presented in table form, with the columns representing three categories of reaction to new evidence, and the rows representing the strength of new evidence, increasing down the table. Each intersection then shows a small scenario of what the response would be. The left and right-hand column scenarios are hyperbolic in either their acceptance or denial. The center column represents a reasonable course of action.

This comic was a reaction to the discovery of phosphine gas on Venus. Phosphine is a molecule whose presence in the Venusian atmosphere came as a surprise. Light breaks phosphine down, meaning something must be producing it. However, there is no known abiotic mechanism on Venus that would produce the gas in the quantities observed. The phosphine could therefore be a sign of life on Venus, but more evidence is needed. Venus was also an unexpected place to find a possible sign of life - although it was a common pulp fiction setting in the early 20th-century , the arrival of the space probe era dashed hopes that the hidden surface might be, say, an exotic jungle. More recent efforts at finding life in the Solar System have mostly focused on Mars and various ice moons with suspected subsurface oceans, but life more-or-less as we know it could exist within the upper atmosphere of Venus, which has more Earth-like conditions than the surface.

The title text refers to an action which is simultaneously too cautious and not cautious enough: the speaker is skeptical that aliens exist, which is usually an appropriate belief, except that presumably Megan and Cueball are in the situation presented in the bottom row, where aliens have landed right in front of them. Rather than modifying his belief (presumably it's Cueball, who was the one to approach the aliens in the other panels), he expresses an intention to approach the alleged aliens and attempt to remove their masks. He believes that he will expose a human wearing a costume, perpetrating a "Scooby-Doo"-style hoax, but no matter what the outcome is, he's acting rashly. If the beings before him are aliens, he will be initiating a very aggressive first contact and will likely receive a violent response, and even if the alien is not violent, Cueball might end up removing an environmental apparatus that is protecting it from Earth's environment (or vice versa). On the other hand, even if the "aliens" really are fakes, Cueball might end up injuring someone who is just playing a harmless joke (and who'd want to keep some kind of mask on to reduce the spread of COVID-19).

The destruction of human governmental buildings is a common trope in science fiction films, as a way of aliens removing the ability of humanity to co-ordinate a response to an attack. The United Nations building is allegedly the co-ordination centre for a worldwide response to an extraterrestrial incursion. However, since popular culture in the USA currently doesn't pay much attention to the United Nations, in American movies it is more commonly the White House that gets blown up by aliens.

The "alien probe" asteroid might refer to 'Oumuamua, which passed through the Solar System in 2017. 'Omuamua's hyperbolic trajectory indicated interstellar origin. Because of the unusual elongated shape suggested by its albedo (the object was never visualized as more than a point source of light) and indications of a slight non-gravity related acceleration, there were many wild speculations about 'Omuamua's origin, including it being an alien probe similar to the one presented in the science fiction classic Rendezvous with Rama.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

The comic is laid out like a grid, with implements down the left-hand side (Weak Evidence of Alien Life/ Promising Evidence/ Definite Evidence) and the type of "reaction" across the top (Not Cautious Enough / Appropriately Cautious/ Too Cautious). The grid illustrates the "match-ups".

From the top left corner, going from left to right, top to bottom, with each first item being on its own line in the grid, the squares are as follows:

Row 1: Cueball, looking through a telescope

Weak Evidence of Alien Life/Not Cautious Enough: Cueball - "That asteroid is probably an alien probe"
Weak Evidence of Alien Life/Appropriately Cautious: Cueball - "This asteroid is weird and we should take a closer look; It's not aliens"
Weak Evidence of Alien Life/Too Cautious: Cueball - "This asteroid appears to be far away, but it could also be nearby and just very small"

Row 2: Ponytail, holding a tablet or pad with "V" on it, approaches Cueball

Promising Evidence/Not Cautious Enough: Ponytail to Cueball - "They found life on Venus!"
Promising Evidence/Appropriately Cautious: Ponytail to Cueball - "Theses molecules might be produced by life or by weird high-heat chemistry"
Promising Evidence/Too Cautious: Ponytail to Cueball - "There is growing evidence that the atmosphere on Venus contains molecules"

Row 3: Flying saucers descend on Earth

Definite Evidence/Not Cautious Enough: Cueball - "I'm going to go give those aliens a hug!"
Definite Evidence/Appropriately Cautious: Cueball - "Oh wow, aliens! Should we try to communicate?"
Definite Evidence/Too Cautious: Megan - "The energy beams vaporizing the United Nations could be a possible biosignature"


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Discussion

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal also did a special issue this morning in honor of this announcement. Barmar (talk) 20:02, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the bottom left panel fits. If you read it as left side is jumping to wild conclusions, center having an appropriate conclusions, and the right said as avoiding coming to any conclusions, then 8/9 panels fit. The bottom left doesn't really fit. 162.158.74.249 20:33, 14 September 2020 (UTC)mcstatz

Definite Evidence means there's no need to be leaping to wild conclusions as to their existence, it's already "definite". In this case, the wild conclusion would be the assumption that they are friendly and that touching them has no potential to be harmful. -boB (talk) 21:18, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Even if the aliens are initially friendly, are they going to interpret a hug as a hostile action? There's no way to know without understanding their culture. 172.69.42.50 22:27, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
I travel 10 parsecs to a planet so primitive that they still think the digital watch is a neat idea and then somebody wraps their body around me, damn right I'm going to respond with force Kev (talk) 00:50, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

BOOK/TV SHOW SPOILER I wonder if the first panel (asteroid is probe) is a reference to the first season/book of The Expanse? Or maybe I'm just thinking that because I've been watching the show myself haha. As an aside, if there is a proper spoiler feature here that will hide the comment, please edit this. 162.158.186.136 23:08, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's a reference to this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/oumuamua-interstellar-visitor-1.4454180#:~:text=%27Weird%27%20rock%20Astronomers%20have%20discovered%20%27Oumuamua%20resembles%20worlds,%27Oumuamua%2C%20for%20example%2C%20has%20a%20significant%20carbon%20content. -monte 108.162.216.148 01:44, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

It's just possible that the top-right panel references the British(/Irish, by setting) sitcom Father Ted, where the eponymous Father is trying to explain to Father "Two aspects short of a Trinity" Dougal that these cows (indicates models of cows) are very small, but those cows (gesturing out of the 'holiday caravan' window) are far away.... And even if it isn't, I commend you to go and watch it anyway as it's a truly classic series... 162.158.154.173 04:22, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Is there a category for "alien encounters"? Should we create one? 172.69.33.29 17:05, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

can someone make the explanation into a table. it is hard to understand .