The Universe Is Populated by Peaceful Civilizations

Charles Langmuir belongs to the first generation of scientists who accepted the idea that life exists elsewhere in the universe. It was no small feat to bring forth what is, in truth, self-evident—though not for those who have only just emerged, who lack a clear understanding of things, being but babies who understand nothing (as Langmuir puts it), especially when compared to the advanced—and therefore far older—civilizations that populate the universe. Accepting the existence of intelligent life beyond our planet requires a great deal of effort, not to say inner struggle. The reasons for this resistance are entirely psychological.

But as is too often the case, an inner demon clouds the path—one that René Descartes once invited into his Meditations, though it usually invites itself in, or more accurately, takes up residence altogether. This demon goes by a more familiar name: intellectual dishonesty—a condition that has done us great harm. In this case, it has masked itself in the guise of reason—supposedly disinterested, purely scientific reason—to deliver resounding denials of the possibility of intelligent life beyond our beautiful planet, so exemplary, peaceful, and poetic!

At its core, much of this resistance stems from our attachment to the idea that we are unique, “special,” as the Anglo-Saxons like to say. And yet, how can one, with even a bit of distance and perspective, look upon the vastness of the universe and seriously believe that in this infinite space, we are alone? Simply because we haven’t seen others? But who, really, would want to visit us? The argument “we’ll believe it when we see them” is hardly scientific—or rather, it belongs to a narrow kind of science, one that has severed all ties with philosophy. For one must be at least somewhat philosophical to grasp what this supposed absence might actually mean—an absence that, in truth, is not an absence at all.

And so, when they appear, when they leave traces—through direct sightings, recorded testimonies, images captured by our cameras or described across centuries—these sightings are systematically dismissed based on the inferred assumption that their creators do not exist. The scientist’s bad faith takes the following shape: “Their existence cannot be demonstrated because we cannot observe them. And if we do observe something, it cannot be them, since our core premise—based on their supposed unobservability—already denies the possibility of their existence.” This suggests illogic and dishonesty, which often go hand in hand. And beyond this first wave of denial, many more explanations—primarily psychological—could easily be added to the list.

Charles Langmuir thus belongs to those who have managed to silence that mischievous inner demon and who dare to ask the real questions—at least the most important ones, if we go by what La Libre Belgique reported on April 2nd. And we shall begin with the most striking of them all:

“For this reason, I believe that if other civilizations do exist, they are not like Star Wars. They are harmless. They are harmless because they have become wise. If they hadn’t, they would have destroyed their own planet.”

This is simply a matter of common sense—that essential common sense through which intelligence flows—yet it is the very first casualty of the age of the man who believes himself intelligent, an era in which we are deeply immersed. Ironically, it corresponds to the most foolish type of human since the beginning of life on Earth, especially when one considers the sheer volume of accumulated knowledge and the tools available for its dissemination.

This foolish man—homo ineptus—is torn between a superiority complex inherent to his species and its mirror image, the inferiority complex. This internal conflict drives him to distance himself from common sense, until a truly superior intelligence—one that operates from elevated perspectives it has learned to attain—reminds him of the beauty found in simplicity. For common sense is, in essence, the higher ability to extract simplicity from complexity, without relying on elaborate mechanisms that, while useful in many circumstances, only become meaningful once the fundamental principle of the matter at hand is understood. And when a truly gifted scientist appeals to common sense, a light is cast upon those fortunate enough to witness it.

There is nothing but common sense in what Langmuir expresses here—a common sense that stands in stark contrast to the narrow-mindedness of Hollywood and mass culture, which—regrettably—has become nearly the entirety of what we now call “culture.” He refers to a film that reflects a widespread belief: that civilizations could simultaneously develop advanced technologies and harness powerful energy sources while maintaining extreme aggression and barbaric, brutal behaviors—sometimes surpassing even the worst atrocities witnessed here on Earth (and that is no small statement!). Even more absurd is the notion that such civilizations could not only survive but often thrive and expand through campaigns of conquest or the destruction of more peaceful worlds.

Pop culture has so heavily emphasized the image of the barbarian in a supersonic spaceship that it comes as both a surprise and a relief to hear, beyond that cacophony of dissonant and incoherent noise, voices that speak clearly—voices that call us back to order. That is, the order of a universe in which barbarism can only exist in limited and embryonic conditions—conditions unworthy of the mature civilizations that, in truth, thrive peacefully and joyfully throughout the universe.

To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t the first time I had come across the idea that intelligent life may self-destruct due to technologies that become too advanced for a civilization whose level of consciousness remains semi-barbaric. However, I didn’t first encounter it in a scientific article, but rather in a book written by Rael in the mid-1970s, where he referred to this apparently well-established principle as the “immune system of the universe.” According to him, any civilization that reaches our current level of technological advancement—particularly mastery of atomic energy—but fails to master its own aggression is inevitably doomed to self-destruction before it can contaminate other worlds. Once again, science and Raelism converge.

Among the other fundamental questions raised by the North American scientist are those concerning the duration of life, its origin, and entropy. If the scientific community—those who have only just begun to acknowledge the possibility of extraterrestrial life—were willing to take one step further, we would suggest they consider the concept of infinity. Indeed, many questions that remain unanswered—or whose answers are overly convoluted and untenable without the aid of mathematical straitjackets—take on an entirely new dimension when we accept the premise that the universe is infinite, and therefore eternal. An infinite universe is necessarily filled with, or traversed by, matter in all its forms—including conscious, intelligent, and creative matter. It is this higher form of matter that imposes the laws of entropy upon all life, wherever it exists—including, of course, the life we observe here on our beloved Earth.

The day we will accept that the universe is infinite—and it is indeed a matter of acceptance, for it can neither be definitively proven nor refuted—will be the day we embrace a view far more reasonable than the claim that everything emerged from nothing, which, in all fairness, belongs more to the realm of magic or mathematical smoke screens and scientific shortsightedness, which are, in the end, much the same. From that point on, life elsewhere in an infinite universe will explicitly and necessarily mean life on Earth came from elsewhere.

Everything will then take on a new and profound meaning—one that a group of courageous women and men has been striving to share on Earth for the past fifty years*, despite the sarcasm and ridicule of those who are neither true scientists nor guided by common sense. Thank you, Professor Charles Langmuir, for your contribution to this pursuit! Whether intentional or not, your work brings us closer to those civilizations that have learned the art of wisdom.

*The Raelian Movement was founded in 1973 by Rael with the mission of spreading the idea that all life on Earth was scientifically created by an extraterrestrial humanoid civilization that ultimately created “man in its own image and likeness.”