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The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence.
My parents, who were already telling the neighbors they were about to have two children over at NASA, have been cycling through the first several stages of grief ever since. Shock. Disappointment. Sadness. Anger. Bargaining. Nearly ten years on, they haven’t reached acceptance, but what can I really expect from two people who fought for twenty hours straight (minus bathroom breaks and time spent ordering food) about crystal growth? Apparently, not a change of heart. It’s been especially hard for my mom, who, let’s face it, as a physicist, barely even believes that chemistry is a pure science. Imagine finding out her youngest child is dedicating her life to the possibility that she’ll have a gab sesh with E.T. one day.
When ‘it first happened’ as she puts it, she was certain I was having a quarter-life crisis. After six years, however, she developed a new theory: I must have suffered a severe, untreated and asymptomatic concussion. She even booked me an MRI. I did not show up.
The truth is, I just really believe in what we’re doing. I love it. I love my team (well most of them—not Chad. He’s the worst, as are most Chads). The rest of them? Chef’s kiss. My boss, Dr. Keenan Edwards, is incredible. Not only off-the-charts intelligent, but kind too. He looks just like Morgan Freeman, and has a deep, rich voice, except with a British accent, since he hails from across the pond. He's also absolutely full of faith in his staff, which makes the entire team want to do our very best.
Us SETI researchers are an odd bunch because, in order to do this type of work, you have to embody a strange combination of logical, scientific reasoning with the utmost in faith—not exactly the usual mix. A lot of the science-minded folks (read: my parents and brother) think what we do is a total joke, which it most definitely is not. The ultra-faith-based people of the world don’t necessarily care about proof (which is something we are rigorously seeking). And of course, they’re not concerned with proof, because faith is all about belief in the absence of evidence. If you had proof, you wouldn’t need faith.
Anyway, the chances of making contact in my lifetime are low (in fact, it’s most likely going to be approximately 400 years from now). I get up every day knowing that it’s a distinct possibility that I won’t actually witness the wonders of that first message from a far-off galaxy. There’s about a 99.999991% chance I’m just a runner who will hand off the baton in the longest marathon in human history—a mere footnote in some textbook written half a millennium from now.
But on the other hand, it could happen tomorrow.
And that is the thought that gets me up every morning, rain or shine. I bounce into the office praying that today will be the day.
In truth, today’s work will likely be far less glamorous. It’s going to be interrupted by a school tour that I have to lead. I drew the short straw. Again. If I didn’t trust my team so much, I’d probably be wondering if the game is rigged because this is the third time this year that I’ve had to host a group of seventh graders—which is widely known to be the worst age. They come in two packages: either completely apathetic or totally rowdy. Any group is better than teenagers, including the California Keenagers (senior citizens who pretty much complain the whole time about it being too hot/too cold/too loud/and, inexplicably, too quiet at the same time), and the ever irritating ‘moms with bright babies’ group that shows up once a year with children under the age of two. Let’s face it—the babies aren’t getting anything out of my talk on radio versus laser telescopes, and neither are their Starbucks-fueled, Lululemon-clad moms who are basically just using us to jockey for the position of ‘best of the best smug moms who will do anything for their little cherubs.’
But I digress, which I better not do when the teens are here, because if you lose them for even a second, anything could happen. Take last month, when my best friend, Allie Camereri, was taking around a class of sophomores from Palo Alto. She lost their attention early on, and when it was time to put them back on the bus again, the teacher discovered that two students were missing. The entire staff had to stop what we were doing and conduct a thorough search of the three-story building until we located them in the custodial supply closet, high as kites. Apparently they brought a dab pen on account of thinking they were going to one of those laser music shows popular at planetariums the world over (which even today, for some unknown reason, go super heavy on Pink Floyd). Let’s just say it was a massive waste of time for everyone and no one was particularly happy with poor Allie.
The kids from Mountain View Middle School will be here for exactly two hours and forty-six minutes, and I have every one of those minutes accounted for with one goal in mind: Keep their minds busy so their bodies don’t start to cause trouble. Each time I do one of these hellish tours, I learn a little something that I can use the next time. It’s still a nightmare of gargantuan proportions, immediately transporting me back to my days of wearing braces, spitting when I spoke, and having one boob significantly larger than the other (the right one was the lag-behind). Kevin Parker, a scrawny bully, nicknamed me Wonder Boob, as in, I wonder when her other boob will come in? But don’t worry, karma got Kevin, who now works as a night shift manager at a twenty-four-hour car wash.
Anyway, even though this tour will be a sweaty, soul-sucking endeavor, I always go in hoping for at least one promising young mind to be among the group. So far, I’m 0 for 27 tours, but that’s no big deal because I know those minds are out there, just like I know for certain there is other intelligent life somewhere in the universe. They just don’t come here. They visit NASA instead.
I usually have my routine down, but today, because of an important event in the auditorium, we won’t be able to watch a thirty-two-minute video on Frank Drake (the father of SETI). Dr. Drake, of the Drake equation (which is the second-most famous mathematical equation, right after Einstein’s E = mc2), isn’t exactly a household name, even though he absolutely should be. The reason he’s not is because a lot of people dismiss anything to do with the search for extra-terrestrial life to be a bunch of nonsense. We’ve gotten a lot of bad press throughout the years because of all the crazies out there running around claiming to have been abducted and probed. (Why always the probing, people? Why couldn’t at least one of them say they were subjected to a Rorschach test or a lovely four-course meal and some friendly chit chat?)
But I’m off topic again, which tends to happen when I feel passionately about something. I was talking about Frank Drake and the video I usually show students. Truth be told, they couldn’t care less about him, but if there’s one thing I’ve figured out about this next generation, if you stick them in front of a screen, they’re helplessly frozen in place like Han Solo in carbonite. Just stuck there with their mouths agape until I shut it off and turn on the lights.
Lucky for me, I can bring the class to today’s big event. There’s about a sixty-one percent chance they might even enjoy it, although I’m guesstimating a ninety-four percent chance that even those who do find it fun will pretend they thought it was ‘the worst.’ At exactly 2:00 p.m. P.S.T., our major financial backer, bio-tech billionaire Dr. Dick Napper, is going to be attempting to set another world record, so at exactly 1:54 p.m., I’ll be herding the class into the auditorium for freeze-dried ice cream while they watch the video on the Dick Cam (an unfortunately-named live-streaming video feed that Dr. Napper uses whenever he’s out doing something daring). Apparently, he’s volcano surfing today, which sounds terrifying enough to keep the kids quiet for a good fifteen minutes.
The bus is going to be here in two minutes, which gives me just enough time to run to the ladies’ room (a must on account of my nervous bladder). Who knows? Maybe today will be the day when I meet the promising young mind who will one day take over our very important project…
Newp. Not one promising child in the bunch. We’ve pretty much completed the entire tour and not even one measly question. Very little eye contact either. I feel like the weirdo boy with chronic halitosis at the prom trying to get someone, anyone, to show even a tiny hint of interest. But the floor has become suddenly fascinating to all the girls.
“No one? Not one question for Gwen?” their teacher, Mrs. Jones, asks.
“I’ve got one,” a kid in a Metallica hoodie says.
I smile at him, hope building in my chest. Maybe I’m wrong about this group.
“Have you met any little green men?” he sneers.
I weep for the future.
“Dillion! That’s not polite,” Mrs. Jones says. “Gwen has given up a lot of her time today to share her knowledge with us. We owe her our respect.”
“That’s fine, Mrs. Jones,” I say, keeping my smile in place. “Dillion, here’s my answer. Not yet, but with persistent application of our knowledge, someday, we will definitely make contact with intelligent life on another planet. Consider this: In all the years that SETI research has been happening, it’s the equivalent of taking a close-up photo of a single leaf in the Amazon rain forest and determining from that picture that there are no animals living there.”
“Ooh! Really?” Mrs. Jones exclaims. “Did you hear that, children? Write that down in your notebooks because that is a very interesting fact.”
Tilting my head a little, I say, “It’s not a fact so much as an analogy.”
I should not have said that. The excitement in her eyes just dies completely. Stupid, Gwen. Stupid. You know teachers do not like being corrected in front of their students. “But … an important analogy. Definitely worth writing down because it really illustrates just how narrow our search has been so far.” I smile at her but she’s not having it. Glancing at my watch, I see we’ve got another five minutes to kill before we can swing by the lunch room for the snacks. “Any other questions?”
A girl in a half shirt (or is that a sports bra?) and baggy pants holds up her hand. “My dad says this isn’t a real science and that the money you get for your fake research should be given to some better cause.”
Your dad should shut the hell up and stick to things he knows like watching football and finally fixing up that old Trans-Am he bought when he was sixteen. You know, the one he knocked up your mother in on his parents’ driveway. “Interesting take. What does your dad do for a living?” Come on, Gwen, do not go down this road. It will help nothing.
“He owns a lube shop,” she says, snapping her gum at me.
