Aliens Encounters and UFO Files?! with Neil deGrasse Tyson

20:59Wait, wait, wait, wait. But did you talk about aliens is my question.

21:03Neil deGrasse Tyson:Briefly, but nothing substantive. What did you talk about that was substantive? A lot of things. Just the state of the world. I had dinner with him. You met him at Roswell and then you guys... Yeah, no, no. We did not meet at Roswell. Okay. You're correct that. No. And they mentioned Area 51. They mentioned Area 51. And if we did stockpile aliens, that's where we would put them. Because? Well, because it's a top secret facility. With or without aliens, it's top secret. Air Force facility in New Mexico. But I just still have these other questions. Yeah. Like, why hasn't the janitor snuck out a photo of the alien?

21:43Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yes. Because the janitor would lose his job that day. But he would be the most famous, richest janitor there ever was. His stuff, that video would go viral faster than kitten videos. There's a lot of questions out there right now from the tinfoil hat wearers. Okay, I don't have any problems with any of their questions. I'm perfectly happy to believe that there are aliens in the back room. But if you want to turn my sentence from believe to no, you got to bring out the alien. Is that too much to ask? No. I don't think so. Not for... Okay. Did you read this piece in the journal last summer? Certainly not.

22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson:The journal, you mean the Wall Street Journal? The Wall Street Journal. No. Okay. Certainly not. Oh, okay. No, I don't read the Wall Street Journal. I'm sorry. No, there was a story about how... That's how I know. That's how I can answer that in advance. Okay. There was a story about how Area 51, They actually created misinformation about aliens. They sent somebody out to put saucers up in a cafe near Area 51 to distract people from the stealth ship that they were building against Russia. Did you see that? I can believe that. Yeah. Sure. There was another thing where if everyone thinks there are aliens coming, more people will look up and report what they see.

23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yes. And it was the Cold War. So if Russia was testing some new kind of thing, you'd want as much data as you can because the population of the country functionally crowdsources what is happening in the sky. We see the sky more thoroughly than specialized places in the military that are looking up in their location. Now we have satellites, of course, that can do this. I'm just saying that if you say there might be aliens, keep looking up, and then everybody looks up all the time, giving excellent data back to the military, which is exactly what they want. We'll come back to all this, but I want to really get to the etiquette part, the etiquette part, because we don't want to say, if they show up, if they show up, we want to know what to do.

23:47And you've said already, don't grab them by the appendage.

23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson:But if there's an appendage sticking out. Let them sniff your butt. If that's what they want, yes. If that's what they want. Okay. And you also write in the book that we should have a kind of, it's like the opposite of a zombie go bag. You recommend having a prep kit for when the aliens show up because you want to prove we're intelligent. Yes. You have two things in there. Yeah, because I think, unlike what you said, I think if we show that we're intelligent, they might then respect us. Yeah. Whereas if you just lay down dead or do something stupid, the aliens just say, come on. They'll either go back saying there's no intelligent life on Earth or invite all the other aliens to give them another planet to dominate.

24:30Okay. I hope I'm not the emissary.

24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson:Or they might turn us into their pets. Could be nice. We treat our pets well, as you pronounce it. We treat our pets really. We spend 10 times as much money on pet accoutrements than the government spends on homeless people. Yes. Factor of 10. Factor of 10. The real number is in here. It's around a factor of 10. It's factor of 10. So you talk about carrying around two things. The first is the Pythagorean theorem. Yes. Or blocks that could help you demonstrate that you know it. Yes. And the second is a periodic table of elements. Yes. Do you have both of these things right now? No. Is that because you think you're not going to see an alien tonight?

25:11Yeah, tonight I did not prep myself for that possibility.

25:17Neil deGrasse Tyson:But. Explain. Were I to go out alone on the country road? Because I've always wanted to be abducted. Yes. Since childhood. No, I am dead serious about it. Not that I want to leave Earth. I love me some Earth. It's just that I've been a curious, geeky kid since I was nine years old. Ever since I could look up, I've wanted to know the universe. Ever since our first visit to the Hayden Planetarium. Yeah. Where I now serve as director. That was the place that turned me on. And because growing up in the Bronx, we don't have access. Yes. Nowhere in the city does anyone have a relationship with the night sky.

25:59Yeah.

26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson:There were tall buildings, and back when I grew up, there was light pollution, air pollution. So the planetarium was my haven. And I went there, and the first time I saw the stars come out, I said, this is a hoax. The stars? I know how many stars in the night sky. There's eight of them that I saw from the Bronx. So I didn't believe it at first. I thought it was a beautiful hoax, but a hoax nonetheless. But since then, I wanted to become one with the universe. And in fact, dare I say, I think the universe chose me to follow it into the cosmos. So from that day on, so I've been thinking about it ever since.

26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson:So this book came out now, but it's lifelong reflections on what I would say, how I would behave, how would I convince. Because you can't just do math on a page and show that math is our language of the universe, even if it's its language. So you want some symbols. The Pythagorean theorem, you learn that as math, but it's really symbols. If you draw a square off one side of that triangle, its area is A squared. Yes. B squared. C squared. So if you draw a right triangle and three squares coming off the sides, you're telling the alien you know that A squared plus B squared equals C squared. Because those are squares.

27:27Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yes. And it gets exciting. They don't even have to know your symbols. Yeah. They don't have to know what A, B, or C is. But they have to be able to. Or that little two is squared. They don't have to know that. They have to see. So the alien likely can see because sight is something that was developed multiple times independently in the tree of life. Independently. Do mushrooms have eyes? No. Generally things that move want and need eyes. Okay. And mushrooms don't. Okay? So the fly eye, the octopus eye, the echolocation of bats, the mammal eye, the vertebrate eye are completely different lineages with no common origin in the tree of life.

28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson:So important is sight that it arose in multiple ways. Because sight is your sense that allows you to know the farthest of what's happening in the world. to warn you against a predator, to see where there might be food. So I'm going to say the aliens can probably see, but they might not see in visible light. So, okay, this is what we want to show them. We have the periodic table. We got the pie bag with them. So anyway, so, okay. No, no, no, no. So, so, the periodic table? Neil, don't read us the whole periodic table. No, no, I'm not. I'm not. Periodic table? Yes. Okay? They won't have the symbols we have.

28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson:Of course they won't. Okay? We have some interesting symbols, by the way. Okay, we can't discuss them.

29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson:These elements exist on Earth as in the heavens. Okay. We find them across the universe and across time. And it's the organization of the table that reveals that we know quantum physics. Because that's why some elements are above others. It's not just throw them in a table. Do you realize in science fiction, they always try to find life forms based on what other element? Hydrogen. No, we're based on carbon. Give me another one. Silicon. Silicon. Real sci-fi fans there. So we heard about silicon. You know why they come up with silicon? Silicon sits directly below carbon on the periodic table, and all elements in a column make the same kinds of molecule.

29:54Neil deGrasse Tyson:Oh. So, thank you for the Twilight Zone music there. So, do it in the microphone so we work it out of the cord.

30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson:So, every molecule in your body that's based on carbon, swap it with silicon. And so the idea is maybe we can make silicon-based life on the blueprint that we already have. This is the creativity of science fiction writing. Point is, these elements are across the universe. If they know anything about the elements, they would organize them in the same way. So we would show a chart of boxes and they will know immediately it's a periodic table, even if our symbols don't match. I love it. So this is all the stuff that we can use to prove that we're intelligent. What if we wanted to not let them see how dumb we are?

30:43So what social media phenomenon would you most want to hide from the aliens?

30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson:All of them. Our belief in manifestation, gender reveal parties, or DJ as a viable career path for a millennial man? Yeah, each of those would be too complicated for them to... I mean, listen, they're really, really smart in our culture. Yeah. So you said gender reveal parties. Yes. And what's the... Manifestation. I don't... What is manifestation? When you can manifest, like, I just thought of having Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Comedy Cellar. Now it's happening because I thought of it. Oh, but you didn't produce me out of thin air. But manifestation means, like, you want it there for... You want it to win an Oscar, therefore you win an Oscar.

31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson:Right, so what happens is they don't interview all the people that wanted to win an Oscar and didn't. Yes.

31:34That's what happened.

31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson:They need to be in the data set as well. Okay. Well, can I give an example? Sure. Okay, so let's say I get 1 ,000 people, and I give everyone a coin, and I say, flip the coin. If you have tails, just sit down. So now how many are left? Approximately 500. Yeah, half of them. So flip a coin, half sit down. Flip a coin, half sit down. It's 500 sit down, 250, 120, 60, 30, 15, 8, 4, 2. And there's one person standing at the end. Okay? Do you realize in this experiment, that last person standing flipped heads 10 consecutive times? What does the press do? The press goes to that person. They say, how do you feel about this?

32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson:Did you know you would win? I felt heads energy halfway through, and I just knew, and all kinds of bullshit comes out of their mouth that they believe for themselves. Yeah. But the other people who felt heads energy, who didn't make it to the end, are not interviewed by the press. So you don't get the full hammer of the statistics of the failure of everybody who wanted to flip heads 10 consecutive times. This is probability and statistics, and the human mind is woefully inept at thinking statistically about the world, and that saddens me. And it's no one's fault. It's not your fault. Do you know that— I probably don't.

33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson:Do you know that arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, calculus— Yes. were all invented before the first person thought that it might be a good idea to take an average of numbers. Probability is the last of the branches of math. And how can that be with all these brilliant thinkers that came before us? There must be something about our brain wiring that is incommensurate with thinking that way. And there's an entire industry that exploits that weakness and they're called casinos. Okay? Yes. They, I'm in a casino. There's someone betting on a seven in the roulette table. I say, why do you keep betting on seven?

33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson:They say, it's due. And I say, it's not due. And they show the previous role. Yes. And there's no seven there. You say, see, it's due. No, it's not due. Yeah. They're exploiting our weakness. Do you know? Wait, wait, wait. Do you know? Yes. The American Physical Society. I don't. We are a, so the physicists of the country. Yes. We were going to have our annual conference in San Diego. There was a hotel snafu, and we had to pivot. And the MGM Grand, then the MGM Marina, one of the biggest hotels in the world in Vegas, said, we'll take you. Oh, God. Because it's on the spot, last minute. Yeah. So all the physicists went to Vegas.

34:43And what happens in Vegas? A week later, there's a newspaper headline,

34:47Neil deGrasse Tyson:physicist in town, lowest casino take ever. The American Physical Society was told to never return to the city. Oh, that's why. It's not that we knew the odds, it's we just didn't play. Will you give me one conspiracy theory? I will later. Cliffhanger, we'll be right back. With Plan B Emergency Contraception, we're in control of our future. It's backup birth control you take after unprotected sex that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. It works by temporarily delaying ovulation, and it won't impact your future fertility. Plan B is available in all 50 U.S. states at all major retailers near you with no ID, prescription, or age requirement needed.

35:33Together, we've got this. Follow Plan B on Insta at Plan B One Step to learn more. Use as directed. Guys, today's sponsored dumb question is from me. I'm going to take the next minute to tell you a little bit about Smart Girl Dumb Questions and to ask you for your help in continuing to make independent, fact-based, and curious journalism. No, I'm not going to ask you for money. Here's what I need. I would love you to tell 10 of your friends about the show. Or 100. I don't know. Blast that reunion group that you muted. And definitely tell your mom. And tell your mom to tell her friends, too. Even if you don't like the show and you're just, like, hate-watching it or listening to it, tell 10 of your friends to hate-watch it, too.

36:10Numbers are numbers, people.

36:15Speaking of Vegas, if you were an alien, where would you first show up? Because Vegas seems like a good place for camouflage.

36:21Neil deGrasse Tyson:No, no. So here's where the aliens should not show up. Okay. Okay? Or maybe they should. If the alien lands at Comic-Con... Problem. They'll go back home saying, they're just like us. Yeah. I kind of like Comic-Con people. Yeah. The biggest fight they'll ever get into is, like, with lightsabers. in the cafeteria over whether their costume is more accurate. Yes. Okay? You cannot imagine Comic-Con nerds in a geopolitical armed conflict. Yes. That's not how that works. Okay. Okay. What about New Jersey? There were all these sightings, people said. There was. I was interviewed on CNN when that happened because there were these sightings.

37:10Neil deGrasse Tyson:Maybe some were drones. Maybe some others were airplanes coming in to the two airports.

37:18Neil deGrasse Tyson:The Newark Airport and Teterboro. Yes. There's a rich person who knows Teterboro. Get a ride with that person on the way out. Ma 'am, you didn't even pause. Teterboro. What is the name? Oh, Teterboro. I think it's here. Teterboro, yeah. That's where private jets land. Yes. Only private. Teterboro. Oh, and take off. Yes, thank you. so and some might have been drones but there were some that were not explained okay and so they asked lawmakers to and the pentagon commented and they said uh i pentagon said we don't know what they all are but we know they're safe yeah those two phrases do not belong in the same sentence and i said this on cnn yes i said it is not comforting for the government for the for the Pentagon to say you do not know what they all are, but then you're going to tell me that they're safe.

38:11Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah. That does not work with me, okay? But what I did tell them was, you know, I'm an Earthling, so all I really know are Earthling values. But if I were an alien, and I'm visiting Earth, I'm thinking the first place I visit would not be northern New Jersey. I'm just, no offense to New Jersey people, but of all the places to visit, Tahiti, the Great Pyramids, you know, the Barrier Reefs, you're going to go to New Jersey? Really? So that's why I found the alien. The Alien Hypothesis, incredulous in that example. So not Northern New Jersey, not Vegas, maybe Comic-Con. We'll see. Comic-Con, definitely.

39:02I like the title of your book. Neil, take me to your leader. And I know we imagine this is what... Oh, we got put up like this. Yes.

39:07Neil deGrasse Tyson:So people take a picture. Yes, so I probably share. Neil, by the way, felt this for the first time backstage. Yeah, it just came out like Friday. And this is the first book I've been able to touch. Let's get philosophical for a second. Love it. There's some tension in your book, Neil. Did you feel the tension? Like you felt the tension in their marriage? Do you feel the tension in your book? No. There's a tension in your book. I know what the tension is. It's the urge to want to believe all the eyewitnesses juxtaposed with my natural skepticism as a scientist. Oh, no. Is that not the tension that you felt?

39:40What is the tension you felt? The tension I felt is a tension about all of us, not you specifically, but all of us, which is that there's this desire, but I do want to hear about that one. We're going to get to that one. There's this desire, like we're very self-centered. We think the Earth revolves around us. We think the hottest chick on our planet is Miss Universe, as you point out.

39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah, it is weird. Did they check Mars? You know? Anything that's Earth-wide, we say it's universal. No, it's not. It's Earth-wide. Get your language straight. Totally. Miss Universe is Miss Earth, okay? Way to demote Miss Mexico, I believe it is right now. And then on the other side, there's also... Is that right? Miss Mexico is Miss Universe? Right now, yeah. Cool. But we also have, at the same time, what you have called the gap of the gods. God of the gaps. God of the gaps. This desire to like, so we think we're the center of the universe. At the same time, we feel powerless. We want to explain things by God, by aliens, by simulation theory.

40:36I'm just curious how you think we hold these two irreconcilable truths and what percentage is the right percentage for each of us to have inside of us?

40:43Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah, I don't want to prescribe in a free country how people should think about any of this. I help you out, giving you some platforms to stand on that have some firmness to it. But you go back in the day when a storm would ravage the coast, and they say, oh, Poseidon is angered. We must sacrifice something at Poseidon's temple. So Poseidon explained that, and everybody was just fine. That lightning bolt would strike. Oh, Zeus was angry. Later on, Jupiter is angry. So philosophers call this God of the gaps, where you don't quite understand something in the natural world. You invoke the wrath or the grace of God as an account.

41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson:God of the gaps. What I have noticed in recent years is now if somebody sees something in the sky they can't explain, it's like alien of the gaps, except that doesn't have the same resonance. So I changed it to aliens of our ignorance. There's a light in the sky moving in a way I don't understand. Must be aliens. There's something, there's a glow in the horizon. Must be aliens. You don't understand it. Rather than I have no idea what I'm looking at and then just move on with your life. So we require of scientists, generally not so, but everybody else requires that every question have an answer.

42:12Neil deGrasse Tyson:that they can go home with. But as a scientist, you must learn to love the questions themselves. Mm. Lest your bias influence the answer that you derive just to make you happy to go home with an answer rather than to be steeped in the ignorance that we actually cherish. I cherish ignorance. Ignorance is not a bad word. It's just a place I have yet to tread. Yes. And not only that, As the area of our knowledge grows, so too does the perimeter of our ignorance. I love that. So I don't see any ending here between what we discover and where we might ultimately land. You have wanted to be abducted.

43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson:All the time. But it hasn't happened for you. I'm sorry. It hasn't. There's even a book written by a UFO expert called How to Avoid Being Abducted by Aliens. And I violated every suggestion in that book. You know, Neil, they say that if you're like a single woman dating in New York, they say like it will happen for you when you least think about it. So maybe tonight. Wait, what will happen? You'll meet an alien? You'll meet the man. You'll meet the alien. You'll meet the alien. Wait, she said that right after we're talking about aliens, right? Yes, that's true. Hey, they could have a Captain Kirk proclivity.

43:32I'm not judging. Teterboro over there. But have you ever, we've seen all this evidence, not evidence. Sorry, I want to correct myself. I saw you getting on it. Well, there's testimony. There's testimony. No end of testimony. Yeah, and some of that testimony comes from like, you know, a commander, David Favre, who spent 18 years up there, the skies flying around. U.S. Air Force, David Grush testifying before Congress. Did you, at any point, did you feel tempted, interested, intrigued, or were you skeptical throughout? I'm curious, when you're watching that happen, what is happening to you? that testimony are you watching the testimony yeah so yeah most of it yeah i watched a lot of it so what what is happening inside of you when because i imagine you like on a blackboard proving that it's not true what they said no no i'm not here to say that people's testimonies

44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson:are false i'm here to say this is intriguing let's investigate it further but until you fork up the alien it's just a matter of whether we believe you or not it's like do you believe in elephants well if you've never seen an elephant you'd have to line up all the people testifying you know they have a big rubbery hose coming out the front and they breathe through it they eat through it they pick stuff up with it then they have this ivory thing sticking out these two teeth they got big big ears and big old tree trunks for legs you say this person is crazy plum crazy You gotta believe me. And then, so that's a two-hour documentary.

45:04Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah. Lining people up, testifying. The age of disclosure. Testifying that they're witness to elephants. Did you? Whereas, if they brought out the elephant in the first five minutes, it's a ten-minute documentary. Five minutes to bring out the elephant and five minutes for the rolling credits. What I really like about this book is it's also like cultural criticism about Hollywood. Do you ever, did you watch Age of Disclosure? Did you watch it from like start to finish, that movie? I watched every moment of it, yes. Okay. And it's a parade of highly convincing, highly decorated, highly, and people giving calm testimony.

45:47Of all the things that people talk about, the Tic Tac incident, the hellfire. The Tic Tac. The Tic Tac.

45:54Neil deGrasse Tyson:The Tic Tac. Yeah. It was like this fuzzy Tic Tac in the monochromatic screen of Navy pilots that they could not explain or track. And I just thought, you know, we all have a smartphone that can take high-resolution color images. So why is our best image of an alien a monochromatic Tic Tac in a Navy screen? So it would mean the aliens went to restricted naval airspace. Oh, here's what. Maybe the aliens are actually fuzzy. They could have a lot of hair and be very fuzzy. We've got to allow that possibility here. Is there any one that you found more convincing than the others? I found they were all convincing.

46:36Neil deGrasse Tyson:One of them said he encountered an alien and the alien had some infrared ray and that he was harmed by it. Oh. And had to get medical attention. So I don't have a problem with any of their testimonies. Yeah. You asked me for a conspiracy theory. There is one. 11 scientists, they say, have gone missing or disappeared dead in the last 2022 to 2026 era. Okay. And this is... So the... Here's another one. People are worried. So the absence of evidence is not the same thing as the evidence of absence. Hmm. But if everything is... So someone goes missing... Yeah. Have you... Do you have their body? That would be evidence of absence.

47:19Yes.

47:20Neil deGrasse Tyson:But otherwise, you have an absence of evidence. If they're just missing, maybe they're in the Bahamas. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. Or maybe the aliens took them. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, we had all these stories about military pilots disappearing. Yeah. And the aliens, apparently, aliens had them. And they brought them back and they got repatriated, or whatever the word is, back to American soil. Okay. So I like the title, Take Me to Your Leader. Thank you. I like that. I think this is what we think they would say to us. But also, I have seen the film Love Actually. Have you seen the film Love Actually?

47:56No, I have not. Here's a scoop on the story. A British guy comes to America. He has a lot to do in America. He doesn't say, take me to your leader. He comes and he hangs out in a hot tub with hot American chicks. So why do you think an alien would want to see our leader versus explore? Oh, that's an alien? No, he's just a person in that movie.

48:14Neil deGrasse Tyson:Oh, okay. Now he wanted to see the movie because he thought it was nerdy. Okay, so what? So you're asking would the alien want to go into a hot tub with hot women? Yeah. I mean, they might meet our leaders there actually these days. That, by the way, is a... Did you see what she did there? That's a nonpartisan joke because we now know that hot tubs are an equal opportunity employer. But you really think they would want to go to our leader? No. I think they want to go to the person in charge whether or not it's our leader. Yeah, you... And their judgment, they will see our radio waves passing through space.

48:56Neil deGrasse Tyson:Our cultural emissaries are early TV shows whose radio waves have escaped Earth and are now like 70, 80 light years away. Yeah. So some of the early ones are the Howdy Doody radio show. Another one might be the Honeymooners. You'll learn how men and women treat each other. They'll see Ralph Cramden say, To the moon, Alice! Gesturing with his fist. People used to laugh at that back then. What is that? Where's that from? What planet are you from? I don't know that. I grew up in Indonesia. Last time, Neil taught me about Rick and Morty, so I'm getting my fill. Oh, I visited Indonesia for the first time recently.

49:42Neil deGrasse Tyson:I did. Oh, I know what you thought. I went to Bali. Very nice. Yes. We like. Did you fly from Teterboro, Neil?

49:51Neil deGrasse Tyson:No. Okay. Okay, so tell us. So would the alien want to go to a hot tub? Yes. Or to our leader? And so all I'm saying is that in these waves of radio, they would see people who we thought were important in an interesting sequence. They'll see, like, Clark Gable, that everyone was talking about in the 1930s and 40s. Then they'll see like Marilyn Monroe. They'll see people who are cultural icons. Why wouldn't they assume that those are our leaders? There's way more content of them in these escape radio waves than any elected official or any king or queen. And so you just follow this in right on up to Taylor Swift today or even athletes like Michael Jordan.

50:38Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah. Or, you know, so I'm thinking if they come and they ask, take me to your leader, they might be expecting us to take it to one of them. I just want to keep that open. You know where I'm taking it? Where? To you. Oh, yes, definitely. I'm definitely calling you. We're going to bring him to you. Call me. Call me. Now, as whether they'd want to go in the hot tub, so here's the thing. Oh, no. You remember Captain Kirk. Well, you're from Indonesia. Do you remember Captain Kirk? I know Captain Kirk. But do you know his habits, his galactic habits? Okay? Yeah, yeah. They go to some planet. He loved the alien aliens.

51:17Neil deGrasse Tyson:They love him some aliens. And she'd be like blue or green, very shapely. Yeah. And he would kiss them. He would kiss them and they'd say, what is kiss? Oh, that's an earth emotion. And then the camera would drift away and you wouldn't see them for the next scene. So my man is getting alien booty across the galaxy. Woo-hoo! Okay? Now, here's an interesting fact. Please. The very first kiss between a black person and a white person was with Lieutenant Uhura and Captain Kirk in a single episode of Star Trek. she is brown skin and 100 % human and the show got hate mail from southern states they cared more about it being a black woman than a blue woman or a green woman oh that was fine that was fine yeah an actual woman so what I'm saying is if the aliens come to us yes maybe they don't care who they jump in the pot tub with yeah just the way Kirk didn't Is there a map?

52:30Neil deGrasse Tyson:Going the other way. That's what I'm saying, right? Yeah. Another thing where we take our humanoid self-centricism and implant it onto robots. We don't think robots should be squares or whatever. We make them look like us. That's odd that we make robots that look like us because there's nothing enviable about the human form. Speak for yourself, Neil. No, no, no, no, no. I'll show you. No, no. So if I want a robot that will drive my car, I'll just make the car the robot. Yeah. So people talk about a robot doing everything. No, I'll get a robot that is specific to my task. Yeah. And it'll do it perfectly and brilliantly.

53:11Neil deGrasse Tyson:I don't need something that has arms and legs and feet. But who says five fingers is the best? Maybe eight. Maybe, you know, an octopus. Here's what you should fear. an octopus captures you from earth and imprisons you in a room that has a door with three doorknobs fuck no lock required you're done you cannot open that door okay yeah yeah you know your two knees so So... Posable toes. Our... Yeah. Yeah, but you'd have to, like, do it. Yoga. And then, oh, what are you doing? No. So, but whereas an octopus can just do it like that. So you take our bodies as though it's something special. Yeah. But it's not.

54:06Okay. At all. I'm going to have two AI questions for you, then we're going to open it up. Could we ever become alien ourselves by putting so much silicon inside of ourselves? I say this because we are at a point where...

54:18Neil deGrasse Tyson:Your anatomy, are you putting the silicone? Any orifice? No, I'm kidding. So the, but honestly, we're on the precipice of AI. We're talking about Neuralink. We're talking about cyborg human. Is it possible that we will become alien to ourselves, as you write, alien to us, one of your chapters, through the amount of technology that we're allowing and imbuing into ourselves? So it wouldn't even have to be technology. If we master the genome, we can just splice stuff into us that the human species had never had before. In here, I talk about what might be possible. What are the ways of being alive in the universe?

54:54Neil deGrasse Tyson:Earth has an excellent sampling of this. 90-something percent of all species on Earth that have ever lived are now extinct because they didn't make it through some transition in the ecosphere. So there's a place called, it's in Canada, called the, what's it called? The what? Thank you. The Burgess Shale, we got a nerd in the back row. So there's a place called the Burgess Shale that has extinct microscopic tiny life forms that would not have otherwise been preserved as fossils were it not for the very special geologic conditions where they all were dead, died. and you can just, life works with all manner of appendages and eyeballs in places.

55:47Neil deGrasse Tyson:And you look at that and say, wow, this is a template for life to imagine ways of being alive. And so if you need to do that, check it out. And if you're going to create the next alien in the next alien movie, you should look at that first. Or look at all the aliens in Rick and Morty. Yes. Okay. Wait, I got to interrupt you though. Because you said next alien movie. I don't know, Neil, if you know that you are the star of a movie trailer that has gone viral on the internet these days. Are you aware? This is not that movie trailer made completely by AI? Yes, this is it. Okay, so if that's the one I'm thinking, it is made without my permission, without my consent, without my knowledge.

56:30Neil deGrasse Tyson:My phone blew up like 12 hours after this posted. Neil, did you know? Have you seen this? And then I saw it. And I found it disturbing, disturbingly entertaining. All right. It's called, it's a trailer for a non-existent movie and it's called Pie Hard. Yes. Not to be confused with Pie Hard with a vengeance. Let's play it. What if I told you the laws of physics were literally being destroyed? I'd say you were going crazy. Maybe I am crazy.

57:20Neil deGrasse Tyson:This was supposed to be our timeline. And somehow we ended up over here. This isn't a glitch. Let it go. I'm going to need someone who isn't afraid of risk. Frank! Listen to me. Very carefully. I'm gonna get you out.

57:39The scientists are now saying that there are a series of baffling incidents that appear to defy the known laws of physics.

57:46Neil deGrasse Tyson:The math doesn't add up anymore. Which means someone, something, is changing the math. It's like they built a back door into the universe. Uh-oh.

58:08Hello, Neil.

58:13Time to divide everything by zero. Ha ha ha ha ha. We were gonna die! Let me think, mother.

58:24Oh, shit. Stop them.

58:29Neil deGrasse Tyson:They're getting away. To be honest, this whole theory sounds pretty out there. You really shouldn't have called me, Neil.

58:40You don't understand.

58:41Neil deGrasse Tyson:He's collapsing the goddamn multiverse. I'm not going back, Neil! Send in the fucking drones. So it was all a big, fat lie. I thought I told you to shut him down.

59:04Neil deGrasse Tyson:It's not what you think.

59:31Neil deGrasse Tyson:Is that not completely off the chain? It had... It didn't leave any trope unturned. Yes. It's got an alien, a black hole, a wormhole, and I didn't know initially until it was explained to me what I was doing in the sauna with Bill Gates. Oh, that was a COVID vaccine. That's the COVID. The COVID vaccine. Not the vaccine, no. Oh, the chips. The microchips. Oh, the microchips. That he's injecting into it. No, no, but that was what they, the conspiracy theory was that this, the vaccines contain the microchips. So was there, can you find, this is like a spot the difference or like a, can you find one truism in that whole trailer?

1:00:12One thing that would hold true according to the laws of physics or Neil deGrasse Tyson?

1:00:17Neil deGrasse Tyson:I think the whole point is that nothing. Yeah, it was. So what I noticed, you know, because if I'm represented, I'm a little more sensitive to how I'm represented. Yes. I'm taller than the person representing me in that. Very much. Yeah, because I have a little middle-aged man belly, but the way... Stand up, Neil, so people see. Tall. I'm proud of my room. Oh, yeah, no, I'm... And this is me without heels, see? That's the... Oh, okay. Gives you a sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a tall man. He's a tall man. So, so, oh, can I show you something real quick? Yeah. This is... We're going to dance?

1:00:54Neil deGrasse Tyson:Just a little bit. Bill Nye gave me a dance lesson. Ballroom dance lesson. Let's see. So you didn't ask me to give you ballroom dancing? No. I was on a competitive ballroom dance team. Bill Nye did it after. Okay, I'm sorry. Wait, wait, wait. I didn't learn a lot. He taught me the shoulder, the thing. Okay, so what are we doing? The physics. Okay, oh, so take your shoes off. Okay. I did this with Diplo. Okay. Yeah? Okay, stand next to me. Yes. Do we see this height difference? Okay? Okay. So now sit down in a chair. Yeah.

1:01:27I'm Sam. It's an equalizer.

1:01:30Neil deGrasse Tyson:Most of people's height is in their legs. That's why chairs in a car, the driver's seat, moves a lot forward and back and very little up and down. It just doesn't have to. Okay, so my point is... Yes, tell us more. The way I was running like a chubby little kid in this. It was like waddling as I ran. But you had that flip. That was still kind of a clumsy flip. I can flip way better than that. so it was good it was a good maneuver yeah but i'm just saying i that was a chubby short meal yeah and at with my little uh middle-aged man belly at my height i would still look a little more graceful than what was shown is what was all i'm saying yes i think you would yeah would you want to make that movie if approached to make pie hard with that particular past of character Do you have permission to the AI to create me for it?

1:02:26Neil deGrasse Tyson:Is that what you're asking me? No, like if you were offered a role in a Hollywood film with this kind of premise where you would bond with Sam Bankman-Fried against Elizabeth Holmes. After I bust him out of jail. Yes. With my Neal's ice cream truck. Did you see? It was an ice cream truck. Yeah. You're rich in that trailer. So I don't have Hollywood ambitions. Okay. Although I have a cameo in six Hollywood feature-length movies. Give me a high four now.

1:02:59Neil deGrasse Tyson:But I have a very low bar for what I'll agree to. Very low bar. I can tell because you're here for Smart Girl Dumb Questions. That's a comedy seller. No, no. So I have a cameo in Sharknado 6. I don't even think Mark Cuban went on Sharknado 6. He was an early one. And I have a cameo in Ice Age 5. You probably didn't know that there were four others of those. No. Is that a cartoon? No. No. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, it's a cartoon. So I'm an animated character in that. I don't know if that counts, Neil, but keep going. Well, except it counts because I'm the only animated character drawn to look like the person voicing it.

1:03:42Neil deGrasse Tyson:So it has a little astronomy vest. Okay. and it's got my hairline and a mustache so it's the only whereas none of the other characters look like their voices so I'm kind of in it but point my point is both of those franchises ended with that number oh you're you think this is going to be my last episode of smart girl dumb questions okay I hope not should I go back to where I was well no no I like okay now we have some time for audience questions well I love that I'm going to go back over there for questions Okay. Great. Who wants to go first? Melissa, take us in. Take us to someone. Yeah, thank you.

1:04:19I need that. Very important. I feel better. I'm a skeptic. I feel that if there were aliens of the universe, they would have certainly visited by now. And I think maybe it's a homo sapien narcissism, but we must be the only ones out there because where the heck are they? Can you explain why they aren't walking among us if they're a necessary part of the cosmos?

1:04:43Neil deGrasse Tyson:Well, we're not walking among them. So maybe they have the same space travel challenges that we do. Okay. Why put the onus on them to visit us when you should ask, why haven't we visited them? Will the day arrive where we become the aliens to other species and become the stuff of their legends? So, yeah, it could be that aliens are everywhere in the universe, but no one knows how to travel through the depths of space. That could be it. Or perhaps the most terrifying possibility is that we are alone in the universe. The real question is, if aliens have arrived, why aren't there any good photos of them?

1:05:37Neil deGrasse Tyson:Do you realize a million people are airborne at any given moment? Yeah, we just open up the window. Don't open the window. The shade, the window shade. The window shade, thank you. And if there's a mothership or there's an alien invasion, we would know. We would know. But here's what worries me. You know, the evil alien trope, which I talk about, is deeply with us. You know, from Independence Day, evil aliens. and what's that other campy movie? Mars Attack. Mars Attack. Yes. The evil. They don't even want to talk. They're just evil. Then I thought about it and I said, we are supposing that aliens we've never met would want to harm us with their higher technology.

1:06:24Neil deGrasse Tyson:But maybe instead, it's not based on what we suppose aliens would have, but on what we know we do to one another. Oh, I like that. In the history of civilization. It's not nice. We've had branches of our species with higher technology encounter other that have lower technology, and it has never boded well for the lower technology part of us. And so maybe these alien scenarios driven by Hollywood are simply mirrors to our darkest conduct. Oof. Okay. That's a segue to the next. Yes. Okay. Next question. We have one right here. This is actually a former guest of Smart Girls and Questions. And he's actually underage to be at the Comedy Cellar tonight.

1:07:16Saborno Bari is 13 years old. He is a sophomore at NYU. He went from third grade to being in his penultimate year at university because he might graduate early.

1:07:27Neil deGrasse Tyson:Okay, well, I have a question. So are you 13 or 14? Yeah, I turned 14 like two weeks ago. You turned 14 two weeks ago? Yeah, I paid attention to that and you didn't. Because he celebrated his birthday. He was on my show when he was 13. That's okay, but right now he's 14. That's all I'm saying. Okay, Sabarna. So did you tie your own bow tie? No. You're in college. At age 14, the least you could do is know how to tie. I'm going to tell Bill Nye on you. Okay? Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. So you got a question? Oh, if you've ever seen like the video game Half-Life, right there, like the main plot is some secret government scientists accidentally open a portal to another multiverse.

1:08:05Love it. And some evil aliens come out. And, you know, the scientists are obviously interested, just like you, and asking them questions first. But, you know, the aliens do not care. The Combine, which are what the aliens are called, just immediately merc them. They kill them all. And then they take out—

1:08:22Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah, that's what we did to each other. Yeah, go on. Yeah. They take out the rest of the world's governments in seven hours and enslave everyone who's left. That sounds like a very short video game. Well, no, because you play as someone who tries to, like, infiltrate the alien city and save everyone. Okay. So here's the thing. The question. So I read your book, Take Me to Your Leader, and I try to do the same thing when I see a flying saucer come out of the sky. And so I pull out my Pythagorean blocks, and they take out their quantum railgun and shoot a two-centimeter hole for each of them on brain.

1:08:54I sacrificed myself for you, Neil. Now what do we do? Okay, so... This is like nerd-on-nerd action. Drop that mic, Zaborno, 14.

1:09:08Neil deGrasse Tyson:Okay. I think there's a good chance, based on no evidence, But I think there's a good chance the aliens will not behave the way Americans would. Remember what happened to Marty when he landed in Farmer Peabody's barn? What's the first thing the farmer did? Shoot him. Because America, you shoot, and then if you survive, then you can ask questions. That behavior, let me shoot you first, is very human. Why should we presume it would be as alien as it is human? So that's A. B, if he puts a rail gun through your head, you're just first. Okay? They're not going to be the only one, you're not going to be the only human they do that to.

1:10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson:They'll do it to everybody else, and we're hosed regardless. So your best chances, I think, are to make the best impression on the alien or pretend like you can be its pet. You want to be useful to them, like AI. You want to make sure AI doesn't decide that you are not only useless to Earth but dangerous to it, and AI decides that it should exterminate us all. Yes, okay, we have time for one more question. I absolutely loved the movie Project Hail Mary. I wonder what you thought of it. And specifically, do you think that if we were in that same situation, would the world come together as it did in that situation where we were able to fight back and so on or not?

1:10:52And then my question for Naima is what's next for Smart Girl Dumb Questions? Oh, thank you. Thank you.

1:10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson:Okay, okay. Ooh. You go first now. Okay. So I happened to be friends with Andy Weir, and he handed me the second highest compliment I ever got, which is when he was writing The Martian. Because he's a software engineer turned novelist. He wanted to play loosey-goosey on some physics. He said, I better not, because what would Neil say if he was looking over my shoulder? And so I took that as a very high compliment that he didn't want me tweeting about his errors later on. It took me about 20 minutes to shed the identity of Ken with Ryan Gosling. Because he was such a convincing Ken. Oh, my God.

1:11:47I had to peel that onion to get to Dr.

1:11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson:Grace. for me it was like a buddy movie between a human and an alien so I would have preferred more focus on those issues rather than on the building of their relationship because once I established that they have a relationship I don't need to continue to see that so what Andy Weir did was blow open the Hollywood trope of the alien with the two eyes neck, shoulders, mouth, ears nose and made a completely different alien as Hollywood should be doing if they want to have any sense of imagination and creativity in that space. So I applaud Andy Weir for doing that. So to answer your question of what's next, tomorrow we're interviewing one of the peace negotiators, the lead peace negotiator for the original Iran deal to talk about what it takes to have peace in this day and negotiations.

1:12:46Yeah, you didn't answer that. Do you think it's plausible? I got it right there.

1:12:50Neil deGrasse Tyson:Okay, ready? The question was about would we come together? I think in the face of limited resources without hope of a solution, no. We, of course, will not behave. We will, of course, compete for the limited resources as we have done since the beginning of civilization. We fight over who you pray to and we fight over access to limited resources. That is the origin, the taproot of most of the bloodiest wars ever fought in civilization. If they had certainty that Ken would come back, that Ryan Gosling's character, Grace, would come back with the solution, then I don't see why we wouldn't we had constant monitoring of this that people would know how to how to ration food until he returned so but without that knowledge I don't give us a chance at all.

1:13:56Can we give a three word question a three word answer? Yes three words go

1:13:59Neil deGrasse Tyson:What's with anal probing? Okay so Three words How big is your ego that you would think aliens would come from across the galaxy to probe your ass. Okay, that's it. Mic drop. I think that is the end of it. All right, I want to say a huge thank you to my guest, Neil deGrasse Tyson, coming here tonight.

1:14:31I know I forgot to ask Neil for a dumb question, but I wanted to yield my time to the fans, to you guys, to ask questions too. I didn't forget. And actually, last time he was here, he asked a very good question, which is, how do construction cranes get up there? And we went to find a great construction worker named Brandon Hernandez who actually answered that question for us on a past episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions. But speaking of questions, someone in the audience asked one. Her name, I found out later, was Cassie because she emailed me. She's a fan, and she wanted to know what's next for Smart Girl Dumb Questions.

1:14:57And I didn't finish answering that question. But one of the things is more live tapings. We absolutely loved being at the Comedy Cellar in New York. We're going to do more stuff there. Probably at the end of May is the next one. So follow us on Instagram or TikTok at smartgirldumbquestions. You will find out about live tapings there or on X if you prefer it there. It's at Naima on X. Also, what's next for the show is just more great episodes. Neil's been back for his second episodes. You got to go back and listen to his first one. Jim Sexton, the divorce attorney, is back. We released that episode with the peace negotiator I was talking about.

1:15:27So if you want to know what's happening in Iran or not happening, you should totally check out that episode as well. and the number one thing that you guys can do to support Smart Girl Jump Questions is actually to keep tuning in. I'm so grateful for that. To like, to comment, to leave a review, obviously a five-star review and to share it with humans you love. Take one episode you love, share it with a person you love or an alien you love. You know, that would be a huge help because what's next for the show is not some like marriage to a huge podcast network. It is still an independent bootstrap podcast and you guys as part of the community are what makes it work and what makes me keep doing it.

1:16:00Anyways, back to Neil and this question of aliens. I don't know. Do they exist or not? I'm definitely going to carry around a Pythagorean theorem set, a periodic table, and a copy of Take Me to Your Leader, as well as an aluminum hat in case they can do the mind reading thing. And I'm going to look out for like really hot, really smart people because maybe they're aliens. That's what I've learned. But in all seriousness, I have a skepticism about not whether they exist because the universe is so vast, as Diplo and I discussed, they must exist, but whether they have actually made it here and how that would work in terms of the time of travel and the speed of travel.

1:16:34But when it comes to do aliens exist or aliens real, like, yeah, I agree with President Obama that they are real. They exist somewhere in the world, in the universe. Where they've made contact on that, I don't know. Jury's out. And I'm curious what these UFO files will say if ever we get to see them. But I will say that I want to remain more fact-based than skeptical. I think skepticism is a good word, but also implies like a set of resistance to new things. And I also want to remain more open-minded than naive. I think open-mindedness implies probably like a narrower aperture than simply naive.

1:17:07And that kind of balance, that open-minded fact-basedness is what I'm going for when I'm carrying around this Pythagorean kit that I'm going to get. That's it for this episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions. It was produced with Desta Wondrad, Melissa Lee Gibson, Santana Nigam, and Aisha Jordan, who actually made those awesome tinfoil hats. And it was Mel's idea to make them. And Neil loved it so much that he actually took them to The Late show with Stephen Colbert the next day. We love that. This episode was edited by the awesome Davy Chin. It was mixed by Johnny Simon and engineered by the amazing Peter at the Comedy Cellar.

1:17:37I owe Peter and Liz and Noam and the whole team at the Comedy Cellar a huge thank you for letting us do Smart Girl Dumb Questions there. It is so fun. I love working with those guys. And thank you to all the staff who served us that night. Thank you to my friend Jason Chatfield who introduced me that night. Yes, he was my fluffer. Jason is an amazing cartoonist whose His work appears in The New Yorker, and he has a great substack called New York Partoons. You got to check it out. It's my favorite, favorite thing. And a huge thank you also to my friend, Neil deGrasse Tyson, my alien whisperer, as well as Cliff Fuller and the team at Simon & Schuster for making this happen.

1:18:06The book is called Take Me to Your Leader. And please, please hit follow on the show. You can get the show anywhere, but you can watch it on Spotify. And if you have Spotify Premium, you can see it without any ads and probably without any aliens. That's it. I'll see you next week for an all-new Smart Girl Dumb Questions. com