Continuing our holiday break, we're bringing you some of Carter's favorite episodes from this year! His first Best of 2024 pick re-examines the question that's been debated by scientists and ufologists for decades: Are we alone in the universe? And if not... where are all the aliens? We’ll be back with new episodes of Conspiracy Theories on December 25! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the Fermi Paradox?
If you watched last month's congressional UAP hearing, you're probably asking yourself where our extraterrestrial friends are hiding. In my first best of 2024 pick, we'll revisit the Fermi paradox and attempt to answer that very question. We'll be back with new episodes of Conspiracy Theories on December 25th.
Chapter 2: How many stars are in the Milky Way?
In the Milky Way alone, there are approximately 200 billion stars, around 20 billion of which are Sun-like stars, complete with an Earth-like planet orbiting them. Scientists estimate there may be 11 billion planets orbiting Sun-like stars, just in our home galaxy.
Chapter 3: Why should the universe be teeming with life?
Now if we apply those numbers to the whole universe, where our current estimates approximate about 200 billion or more galaxies, well, the point should be fairly clear. There is an astounding number of Earth-like planets in the universe. Countless planets, billions of years older than our own, that had the very same preconditions for life as Earth.
Chapter 4: Where is everybody?
Even if we use the most conservative estimate for life forming under these conditions, the conclusion is fairly straightforward. The universe should be teeming with life. And given the incredible amount of star systems much older than our own, many of these life forms would have billions more years to evolve, far beyond humanity's wildest dreams.
But if this is the case, if the universe is so incomprehensibly vast and so richly populated with intelligent life, one fundamental question remains. Where is everybody? Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at theconspiracypod. And we would love to hear from you.
Chapter 5: What is the Great Filter theory?
So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Today, we're traveling back to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which we're all very familiar with from Oppenheimer, the best picture from the 96th Academy Awards. But we aren't talking about the Manhattan Project today. We're eavesdropping on a lunchtime conversation that changed UFO theory forever.
Chapter 6: What are Michael Hart's arguments about extraterrestrial life?
In this episode, we're digging into the Fermi Paradox, the scientific formulaic paradox that asks the question, where is everybody? Stay with us.
Chapter 7: How does the Drake Equation relate to alien life?
Hi there, this is Steve Fishman from Orbit Media. Our new series, Season 4 in the Burden Feed, is Get the Money and Run.
Chapter 8: Is humanity unique in the universe?
You'll love it. Here's the trailer.
I'm standing here with Joe Loya. Over 14 months, Joe robbed so many banks, he lost count.
Just terrify these people and get them so scared that not only would they give me the cash, they would give me their terror. It made me feel strong. All I know is we're f***ing helpless. All I know is anarchy. All I know is chaos. I just leaned into that.
Listen to Get the Money and Run on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Enrico Fermi made a career studying things we cannot see. His world was the world of particles, the atomic makeup of the universe. In particular, he smashed these tiny particles together just to see what happened. He was so good at smashing particles together that it earned him the Nobel Prize in 1938 at only 37 years old. And needless to say, Fermi was brilliant.
He was one of the 20th century's most influential scientists, and his work continues to have a profound effect on the study of physics. But on one particular day in 1950, a 49-year-old Fermi was having lunch with his physicist buddies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico when he started pondering the nature of life in the wider universe.
If you're a fan of our show, you'll know that in the 1950s there was a huge spike in reported UFO sightings. With the Cold War in full swing and an abundance of unidentified military spycraft dotting the night sky, many civilians started to wonder if some of these might be extraterrestrial in origin.
But an observational scientist like Enrico Fermi needed something more substantial than lights in the sky. Fermi bemoaned the fact that there had not been any concrete evidence pointing to alien life. And yet, he lamented, given the size of the galaxy, there was a good chance that other planets in the Milky Way could support life.
Fermi was famous for his ability to quickly estimate answers to tough-to-conceptualize questions in his head using speculative data. And so, as he proposed this question of extraterrestrial life to his colleagues, well, that's exactly what he did.
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