Through the Wormhole

Human civilization

everything we can know, feel and hope for

is for us here on Earth.

A ball of rock, just 8 thousand miles wide.

But out there, across the vast heavens

there could be countless other civilizations

each with knowledge, history, and ambition vastly different

from our own. And one day, perhaps sooner than think

humanity and alien civilization will collide.

How will that day change us?

Will it be our greatest leap forward?

Or the end of everything we know?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos lie through the wormhole.

== sync, corrected by elderman ==

Think of everything you learned in school.

Think of everything that Einstein, Buddha and Shakespeare knew.

The entire experience of humanity

is overwhelming to a single mind.

But if aliens are out there,

all that is nothing

compared with the sum total of knowledge in the galaxy.

The day we make first contact with an alien race

will be the dawn of a new era for humanity.

It could spur a renaissance that will change us utterly.

Or it could be the darkest day in human history.

Most kids in the '40s and '50s

grew up reading tales of adventure on other worlds.

And most of us imagined we were Earth's first line of defense

against alien invaders.

These days, I would like to think we were wrong,

that extraterrestrials might be friendly.

But many scientists believe basic forces of biology

make aggressive aliens a safer bet.

Charles Cockell is a Professor of Astrobiology

at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

He thinks deeply about alien life

and how evolution might determine their actions

at first contact.

It's not clear that a civilization

just because it can travel through space

would be altruistic.

Humanity, for example,

landed spacecraft on the freezing moon of Titan,

and yet we still go to war.

So it's not the case that technological advancement

necessarily is -- comes hand in hand with altruism,

and it's possible that an alien civilization

could actually be quite dangerous.

Freeman: Charles studies the forces of evolution

that gave us the intelligence necessary

for an advanced civilization,

forces he believes could drive aliens to tear ours apart.

It's a question of autotrophs or heterotrophs,

or in layman's terms...

What's for dinner?

An autotroph is a type of life

that uses light as a source of energy.

For example, the grass here is an autotrophic organism.

It's using sunlight from the sky

to power itself and to grow and reproduce.

Autotrophs generally are not intelligent.

Gathering sunlight is a very good way of gathering energy,

but it never really gathers sufficient energy

for a creature to become intelligent.

Freeman: Autotrophs have another weakness.

They're easy prey for heterotrophs.

Cockell: These sheep behind me,

these are heterotrophs,

but they're feeding off autotrophs.

They're feeding off the grass in this field.

Freeman: Charles believes that the food chain is just as real

of a force for alien life as it is for terrestrials.

The smarter the creature,

the more food it must consume to keep its brain working.

All right. Thanks. Just what I ordered.

You can see the hors d'oeuvre I have here,

and you can get some idea of the amount of grass

I would have to eat a day to power a sheep's brain.

But it's a completely different matter

when you need to power a human brain.

Freeman: If we spent all of our waking hours

eating the pounds of grass

it takes just to power our brain,

we would have little time for the imagination and ambition

that sent us to the Moon.

But nature provides a solution.

It's not pretty, but it is a fact of life.

Cockell: Lamb.

Thank you.

Freeman: Our massive brains

require colossal amounts of energy.

And being a predator is the cleanest, quickest,

and most effective way to acquire the energy necessary

for advanced intelligence,

whether human or alien.

Intelligent creatures,

particularly very intelligent creatures, would be predatory.

They would be at the end of a food chain,

and they would eat other creatures

that would eat other creatures.

So they're bound to be predatory in some way.

Freeman: Charles is confident that at first contact,

we will meet an intelligent race of predators,

predators that most likely developed a war-like culture

just like ours.

Cockell: Conflict in human beings

is definitely linked to predation.

It's all about grasping territory.

It's all about having resources and commanding those resources

in times of a famine or in times of difficulty.

Freeman: Predatory aliens who show up on our doorstep

may well be in need of new resources.

If so, the existence of humanity could be in jeopardy.

If they need oxygen to burn their food,

just as in the same way we need oxygen to burn our food,

they might find the environmental conditions

on this planet very conducive for their civilization.

And oxygen-bearing planets like ours

with high levels of oxygen in the atmosphere

might actually be quite rare in the universe.

And when you find them, they might be good places to go.

Freeman: It is a scenario we usually see in the movies.

Aliens arrive as a conquering armada,

and mankind engages them in a desperate battle for survival.

But one scientist begs to differ.

Let's say that a civilization is hostile.

Hollywood has brainwashed us into thinking

that it's gonna be a Titanic battle

between David and Goliath.

I mean, give me a break.

More than likely, it's gonna be between Bambi and Godzilla.

Freeman: Physicist Michio Kaku of the City College of New York

tries to be more scientific

about mankind's relationship to alien civilizations.

We physicists like to classify alien civilizations

in outer space by energy.

A type-one civilization harnesses planetary power.

They can, for example, control hurricanes,

control volcanoes.

Type two can control an entire star.

They play with stars.

Type three controls the power of an entire galaxy.

On this cosmic scale of energy, what are we?

Do we control hurricanes and volcanoes?

Do we play with stars?

Do we roam across the space lanes of the galaxy?

No. We are type zero.

We don't even rate on the scale.

Freeman: But we may have a chance to survive

in the galactic jungle after all.

Michio believes that we can rise in the ranks of civilization

by learning from our superior neighbors.

And the safest way to acquire their knowledge...

Is eavesdropping.

Even aliens have to obey the laws of physics,

and the laws of physics tell us that electromagnetic radiation

is the fastest, most convenient way

to communicate between stars.

Freeman: The heavens are buzzing with electromagnetic radiation.

Almost all of it occurs naturally.

And around Earth, most is manmade.

But buried in all that static could be some radiation

that aliens are using to send a message.

Finding such an alien signal is really tough,

like looking for a single car

in the swarm of traffic that clogs the streets

of New York City.

We send messages by electromagnetic radiation,

whether it's in the form of e-mail, radio, radar,

microwaves, F.M., or A.M.

Let's say that this car represents a message

that we send into outer space.

Most messages are sent by you and me, by the human family.

However, what I'm looking for is much more rare.

I'm looking for this --

a message sent by an alien civilization

using electromagnetic radiation.

Freeman: For the past 40 years,

armies of large radio telescopes

have tuned into the frequencies of the Universe,

just like turning the radio dial to find a station.

So far, scientists have heard only empty static.

But Michio believes that is because they have been listening

the wrong way.

Kaku: We are only listening

to one frequency at a time

among an infinite number of possible frequencies.

It's like trying to find this alien decal

on a car on a freeway by taking pictures.

How long would it take for me

to finally identify that alien decal?

A week? Months? Years?

Maybe even never.

Freeman: Michio believes

that even if we stumble upon an elusive alien message,

we might not even recognize it.

There may still be hope

to discover these rare signals, however,

if we broaden our perspective.