May 8, 2004: Are We Alone - Guillermo Gonzalez
Podcast: The Art Bell ArchivePublished On: Sun Aug 17 2025
Description: Art Bell opens with co-author Whitley Strieber discussing their book The Coming Global Superstorm and the upcoming film The Day After Tomorrow. Strieber describes newly discovered evidence of flash-frozen plants in Peruvian ice cores dating back 5,200 years, pointing to a catastrophic climate event that unfolded in minutes rather than decades. The two discuss the urgent need for paleoclimatology research and practical steps to reduce carbon emissions.Art then welcomes Professor Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomer at Iowa State University, to discuss his book The Privileged Planet. Gonzalez presents a modified Drake equation with twenty factors instead of the original seven, arriving at an upper limit of less than one percent probability that another civilization exists in our galaxy. He shares his personal belief that intelligent life on Earth may be unique in the entire universe, a position he reached after years of study despite early enthusiasm for SETI.The conversation covers panspermia, the transfer of life between planets via asteroid impacts, and the controversial Allan Hills meteorite from Mars. Art reports picking up a strong signal at 1420 megahertz, the protected hydrogen frequency, and describes his attempts to reach SETI for confirmation. Gonzalez discusses how Earth's rare conditions for supporting life also make it ideally suited for scientific observation of the cosmos.
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