Dark Alien Technology

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When dozens of postdocs at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian were asked recently: “What do you want to happen first: (i) Find extraterrestrial life or (ii) Solve dark matter?”, about 90% of them selected the option: (i) Find extraterrestrial life.

As soon as I heard about the poll results today, I wondered whether the two questions might be linked and answered at the same time. Below I offer a scenario for how this might happen.

Data on the dynamics of luminous matter inside galaxies and throughout the Universe at large reveals a strong gravitational influence of invisible matter. The nature of this dark matter is unknown because it does not emit or scatter light. In recent decades, laboratories around the world invested billions of dollars in searching for the possible imprints of dark matter on detectors made of ordinary matter. So far, these searches led to stringent upper limits on the interaction of dark matter with ordinary matter, except for one nuclear-recoil event recorded by the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Dark Matter Experiment on June 16, 2023, during an analysis announced in September 2026.

To accommodate all cosmological constraints, the background medium of dark matter particles must be cold, namely composed of particles with negligible random velocities before they cluster to make gravitationally-bound systems like our own Milky-Way galaxy.

Theoretical models of cold dark matter predict density cusps at the centers of galaxies. However, many observations indicate constant-density cores in galactic nuclei, in contradiction with these expectations. One way to resolve the cusp-core problem is to assume that dark matter particles interact strongly with one another despite their weak interaction with the ordinary matter that we find on Earth. Given data on the cores of low-mass galaxies, this “self-interacting dark matter” model appeals to many cosmologists (as reviewed here).

But suppose we take this model to its logical limit and assume that a small fraction of dark matter is made of particles that interact with each other as strongly as ordinary matter particles do. The two sectors of matter are decoupled in terms of all interactions other than gravity but are characterized by strong interactions of particles within each of them. If this small component of dark matter can cool by emitting dark radiation, this could lead to the formation of dense clouds that make dark planets, on the surface of which dark life might emerge. This could give rise to dark aliens who are undetectable by our electromagnetic sensors.

Another possibility is that a sufficiently advanced technological civilization made of ordinary matter, uses dark matter to construct stealth spacecraft that travel between the stars and probe exoplanets made of ordinary matter without being detected electromagnetically. This would constitute ideal probes which face no risk of destruction by weapons made of ordinary matter. Given the small interaction cross-section with ordinary matter, such probes can go through the entire Earth without being slowed down by friction. They serve as the ultimate trans-medium probes through everything made of ordinary matter, being able to pass without a scar through the core of the Sun at ten-million degrees.

In such a case, the answer to Enrico Fermi’s question: “Where is everybody?” might be “We cannot see them.”

If we are being visited by dark matter entities, we would not even notice their gravitational footprint because it would be too weak for our best gravitational-wave observatories. In a paper published a couple of years ago here, I showed that only objects more massive than a hundred trillion grams that move close to the speed of light would be noticed by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA. This implies that dark astronauts on a dark spacecraft of any reasonable mass will pass near us like a ship passing in the night. The experience was described in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1873 poem “The Theologian’s Tale” (written in Craigie House near the Harvard university campus):

“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.”

In such a hypothetical scenario, the discovery of extraterrestrial life could occur once we develop sensors that are sensitive to self-interacting dark matter.

Based on the above-mentioned postdoc poll, it is apparent that most astrobiologists focus on the search for life made of ordinary matter. But even in that case, an alien spacecraft made of ordinary matter could still avoid detection by our current sensors if it employs material science which is even more advanced than our best stealth technology, or if the vehicle is of small size or moves at exceedingly high speeds so that it is recorded as a faint streak in camera exposures.

In these cases, the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) documented in the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (https://www.war.gov/ufo/) might be a mixed bag, including birds (as inferred here), human-made tech and the tip of the iceberg for the most visible alien tech.

The challenge of the UAP Science Advisory Council (https://uapsac.com/) is to separate the wheat from the chaff in UAP and use the scientific method as a reality check on their nature. For that reason, my strategic goal as the Council’s chair is to collect higher quality data in the future by deploying new sensors in partnership with the Pentagon. My gratitude goes to Ross Coulthart for supporting this data collection initiative in his recent comments on the “Reality Check” podcast here.

Yes, science should be guided by evidence, but most often the evidence is limited to regimes where the scientists are searching for it. In the coming years, we might be surprised not only to find out that humans are not at the top of the cosmic food chain but also that many forms of dark alien tech were undetectable by the sensors that we employed to search for them.

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最近，哈佛和史密森尼天体物理中心的数十名博士后被问及： “你想首先发生什么： （ i ）寻找外星生命或（ ii ）解决暗物质？”时，大约90 ％的人选择了以下选项： （ i ）寻找外星生命。

当我今天听到民意调查结果时，我想知道这两个问题是否可以同时联系起来并得到答案。下面我提供了一个可能发生这种情况的场景。

关于星系内部和整个宇宙中发光物质动力学的数据揭示了不可见物质的强大引力影响。 这种暗物质的性质是未知的，因为它不发射或散射光。 近几十年来，世界各地的实验室投入了数十亿美元来寻找暗物质在由普通物质制成的探测器上的印记。 到目前为止，这些搜索导致暗物质与普通物质相互作用的严格上限，除了2023年6月16日LUX-ZEPLIN （ LZ ）暗物质实验在2026年9月宣布的分析中记录的一次核反弹事件。

为了适应所有的宇宙学约束，背景媒介暗物质粒子必须是冷的，即由具有可忽略不计的随机速度的粒子组成，然后聚集成像我们自己的银河系一样的引力束缚系统。

冷暗物质的理论模型预测了星系中心的密度峰值。 然而，许多观测表明银河核中的恒定密度核心与这些预期相矛盾。解决尖核问题的一种方法是假设暗物质粒子彼此强烈相互作用，尽管它们与我们在地球上发现的普通物质的相互作用很弱。 鉴于低质量星系核心的数据，这种“自交互暗物质”模型吸引了许多宇宙学家（如这里所述）。

但是假设我们将这个模型带到它的逻辑极限，并假设一小部分暗物质是由粒子组成的，它们之间的相互作用与普通物质粒子一样强烈。除了重力之外，物质的两个部分在所有相互作用方面都是解耦的，但其特征在于它们各自内部的粒子之间存在强烈的相互作用。如果暗物质的这一小部分可以通过发出暗辐射来冷却，这可能会导致稠密的云层离子，形成黑暗的星耀，其表面可能出现黑暗的生命。 这可能会导致我们的电磁传感器无法探测到的黑暗外星人。

另一种可能性是，一个由普通物质组成的足够先进的技术文明，利用暗物质构建隐形航天器，在恒星之间行进，并探测由普通物质构成的系外行星。而不被电磁探测到。这将是理想的探测器，不会面临被普通物质制成的武器摧毁的风险。考虑到与普通物质的相互作用截面很小，这种探测器可以穿过整个地球，而不会因摩擦而减速。它们作为最终的跨介质探针穿过由普通物质制成的一切， BEI能够在一千万度的温度下无伤疤地穿过太阳的核心。

在这种情况下，对恩里科·费米（ Enrico Fermi ）的问题： “每个人都在哪里？”的答案可能是“我们看不到他们”。

如果我们被暗物质实体访问，我们甚至不会注意到它们的引力足迹，因为它对我们最好的引力波观测站来说太弱了。 在一篇论文中发表了一场政变几年前，我在这里展示了只有质量超过一百万亿克的物体才能被LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA注意到。这意味着，任何合理质量的黑暗宇宙飞船上的黑暗宇航员都会像夜间经过的船只一样从我们身边经过。这一经历在亨利·沃兹沃思·朗费罗（ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ） 1873年的诗歌《神学家的故事》（ The Theologian's Tale ）中得到了描述。n位于哈佛大学校园附近的Craigie House ） ：

“船只在夜间经过，彼此说话，只有黑暗中显示的信号和遥远的声音；所以在生命的海洋上，我们通过和说话，只有一看和一个声音；然后又是黑暗和沉默。”

在这样一个假设的场景中，一旦我们发展出感官，就可能发现外星生命。或对自交互暗物质敏感的暗物质。

根据上述博士后调查，显然大多数天体生物学家专注于寻找由普通物质构成的生命。 但即使在这种情况下，由普通物质制成的外星航天器如果采用比我们最好的隐形技术更先进的材料科学，仍然可以避免被我们的电流传感器探测到。逻辑，或者如果车辆尺寸小或以极高的速度移动，以便将其记录为相机曝光中的微弱条纹。

在这些情况下，总统开封和UAP遭遇报告系统（ https://www.war.gov/ufo/ ）中记录的不明异常现象（ UAP ）可能是一个混合的包，包括鸟类（如这里推断的那样） ，人造技术和最引人注目的外星科技的冰山。

UAP科学咨询委员会（ https://uapsac.com/ ）面临的挑战是将小麦从UAP的糠中分离出来，并使用科学方法作为对其性质的现实检查。 因此，我作为理事会主席的战略目标是通过与五角大楼合作部署新的传感器，在未来收集更高质量的数据。tude在最近对“Reality Check”播客的评论中感谢Ross Coulthart对这一数据收集计划的支持。

是的，科学应该以证据为指导，但大多数情况下，证据仅限于科学家正在寻找它的制度。 在未来几年，我们可能会惊讶地发现，人类不仅不在宇宙食物链的顶端，而且我们用来搜索它们的传感器无法检测到许多形式的黑暗外星科技。

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原文链接：https://avi-loeb.medium.com/dark-alien- ... 118b17c694
作者：Avi Loeb（哈佛大学天文系教授）