Does an Alien Zombie Apocalypse Solve the Fermi Paradox?

It seems like the possibility of a Zombie Apocalypse gets just as much attention from the media as the UFO phenomenon. Shows like the Walking Dead and movies like World War Z have certainly made the concept more popular than it once was. I’m not immune. A copy of Max Brooks’ essential reference book, The Zombie Survival Guide, sits on my shelf.

Of course, zombies and UFOS have been combined in (mostly) campy scifi films, but, believe it or not, that strange association has filtered into the real world.

For example, on April 16, 2013, FEMA carried out a “zombie ufo crash exercise.”

Given the fact that in May 2011 the Centers for Disease Control had introduced the idea of zombie apocalypse preparedness as a tongue-in-cheek method of informing people how to be prepared for other disasters, the FEMA excercise was probably innocent. The concept was the brainchild of Dave Daigle who headed communications for the CDC’s preparedness department. While it has been a pretty effective way to teach disaster preparedness, it came with two definite downsides. The Atlantic pointed out the most ironic problem with the CDC’s Zombie Preparedness materials:

“The one palpable downside to the CDC’s warning is its obvious inadequacy as a real plan for zombie preparedness. If a zombie apocalypse does happen — and this is important — DO NOT follow the CDC’s guidelines as your only course of action. The CDC zombie plan includes no mention of shotguns, torches, hot-wiring cars, seeking high ground, traveling at night vs. day, or really any worthwhile strategy for keeping zombies out of your house. Parts of it are good, but it probably would serve the public better in the event of, for instance, a hurricane.”

The other problem was that conspiracy theorists would not accept the CDC’s disclaimer that the materials were tongue-in-cheek. The very fact that the CDC chose to put out zombie preparedness materials suggested to them that the possibility of a zombie apocalypse was very real.

This appears to be the same problem the FEMA exercise created. The trouble started when David Lory VanderBeek, who was running for Governor of Nevada in 2014, posted a screenshot of the FEMA exercise on his website, NevadaGovernor2014.com, on March 3, 2013.

He also wrote the following fine piece of conspiracy theory involving an alien false flag event and a virus that mimics a zombie epidemic in some way. And President Obama.

Why is this important? Because it raises serious questions about what our government believes about the fundamentals of our human reality. Do the leaders of our nation believe in UFOs and zombies really? If so, what is their proof? They must have proof in order to spend money on drills? If they have proof, they must provide it to the general public? What is the threat? How imminent is it?
NOW THE MUNDANE TRUTH
Personally, I do not believe in UFOs or zombies and neither does anyone in the federal government. It is quite likely that our government has a created a bio-chemical weapon that can induce zombie-like behaviors in humans and therefore assist in a mass murder event to promote global depopulation without taking the blame. In fact Dr. Steven Schlozman, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School has made public statements stating how a contagion event could result in a zombie apocalypse. But because of government/elitist propaganda in the media and Hollywood, millions of people will accept it as a zombie event from aliens rather than a chemical weapon attack by other humans. The UFO piece of the propaganda is to induce the public to accept the depopulation event as a culling of the human herd by a higher intelligence life form that has been watching earth. These alleged UFO aliens will be executing judgment as they see fit because they feel that we are destroying our earth and therefore many of us need to die in order re-balance nature. This is the emerging earth-worship religion combined with the new UFO-alien/ufology religion. Both are promoted by the elite who have take over our government and feed this propaganda to us through popular culture movies and video games. Of course, these are silly stories, but through the use of technology, media, science, and even holograms, it will be possible for world governments to convince large sectors of the general public that these events are real. My position is and always has been that these events are HUMAN CONSPIRACIES. The fact that the federal government is actually noting these events on official websites and generating events for drills in response for these events is an indication that they are ready to move. These events will cause global chaos to which the only solution proposed by the elite will of course be global government. In the bigger picture, these events will be used to justify the final surrender of our national sovereignty as the dictators of the earth including Obama claim we must form a global government to combat this alien invasion. Yes, it is insane, but then the elite of this earth are insane people. Surrendering our national sovereignty will conveniently include paying global taxes and forming a global army. One reason they believe this will work is because they want to convince religious people that these UFOs are the messiah event long awaited. I can agree with the elite on one thing, this FEMA event of their is certainly a sign of the times.

[To be fair, even the article he linked to Dr. Steven Schlozman (included in the quote) admits that his expert is of two minds on the subject and actually finds a zombie pandemic unlikely for several reasons.]

David Lory VanderBeek did NOT go on to become the governor of Nevada. He garnered only 2.7% of the vote. My guess is that nobody wants a conspiracy theorist in office.

In the interests of fairness, any good conspiracy theory must have a nugget of truth at its core. Dr. Schlozman’s scifi speculations aren’t an isolated thing. In fact, if you want to blame someone for the idea that a zombie apocalypse could really happen, don’t blame FEMA or the CDC. Blame those lousy Canadians!

You see, in 2009 a group of mathmeticians from the University of Canada and Carleton University wrote a paper called “When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical modelling of an outbreak of zombie infection.” The paper was included as Chapter 4 of a book published by Nova Science Publishers Inc. called Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress. In “perhaps unsurprisingly, the first mathematical analysis of an outbreak of zombie infection,” Philip Muntz and his mathematical lackeys found:

“In summary, a zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation, unless it is dealt with quickly. While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most effective way to contain the rise of the undead is to hit hard and hit often. As seen in the movies, it is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble.”

Hardly an earth-shattering conclusion, but the fact that scientists were seriously considering the ramifications of a zombie epidemic… and then the CDC was issuing zombie preparedness materials… and then FEMA was doing Zombie UFO exercises… I think we can see where that train of thought could lead to one doozy of a conspiracy theory.

Speaking of conspiracy theories…

The anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory has been targeted by Dr. Kumanan Wilson, an immunologist in Canada (CANADA!). In early 2017, he launched Immunity Warriors: The Invasion of the Alien Zombies. The web comic was designed as a way to combat vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy is the occurrence of parents who delay or refuse vaccinations for their children and has been identified as a public health risk responsible for an increasing number of vaccine-preventable outbreaks and epidemics. Many anti-vaxxers erroneously link vaccinations to autism spectrum disorder.

Since we’re back to discussing those blasted Canadians (and I’m out of background material), let’s discuss the reason for this post.

On March 31, 2014, Stephen R. Kane and Frank Selsis wrote a paper called “A Necro-Biological Explanation for the Fermi Paradox.” This paper was rather tongue-in-cheek (in fact it was allegedly submitted to the Necronomicon for publication) but it made rounds nonetheless and garnered some very serious discussion.

The paper submits that:

“Spontaneous Necro-Animation Psychosis is undoubtedly the most dangerous viral condition to infect living organisms. The infectious nature of the condition is maximized by bestowing upon the host an insatiable desire to spread the virus at all costs. This ensures that it will spread quickly and, usually, uncontrollably.
Although there have not yet been documented cases of SNAP outbreaks on Earth, the reality of the condition has been extensively depicted in both literature and cinema.”

It then goes on to paint a pretty grim picture of our chances of survival in teh event of a zombie pandemic, citing the study by Canadians Philip Muntz, et al., as proof of “the likely outcome of a complete extinction event occurring.”

In order to estimate the number  of worlds where a zombie apocalypse has occurred, over numerous drinks they came up with the Zombie Drake Equation, describes as follows:

“a modified version of the well-known Drake Equation, the original of which takes the following form:
N = R⋆ × fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L (1)
where the purpose is to calculate N which is the number of advanced civilizations in the galaxy with radiocommunication capability. The other variables include R⋆ (average rate of star formation), fp (fraction of stars with planets), ne (average number of life-capable planets per star), fl (fraction of planets with life), fi (fraction of planets with intelligent life), fc (fraction of civilizations that develop radio technology), and L (length of time such civilizations communicate). For a zombie outbreak to occur, there is no reason to a priori assume that intelligent life is required. Thus the modified Zombie Drake Equation is as follows:
Nz = R⋆ × fp × ne × fl × fz (2)
where Nz is the total number of SNAP-contaminated planets and fz is the fraction of planets where an outbreak has utterly destroyed the local population.”

Shamelessly, they then produce a histogram that claims to project the presence of at least 2500 SNAP-contaminated planets within a close proximity to our Solar system:

” If that doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of you then you may need to check your pulse!

Furthermore, the projected frequency of SNAP planets explains a contradiction which has long troubled the proposition that intelligent life is common: the Fermi Paradox. This premise of the paradox is that the timescale for extraterrestrial civilizations to spread throughout the galaxy is small compared with stellar lifetimes and so we should have encountered our neighbors by now. Our work here shows the resolution of the paradox to be quite simple. The desolation of a civilization requires only that they encounter a case of SNAP during their exploration phase and their entire civilization will collapse.”

Before you completely dismiss their tongue-in-cheek, inebriation-inspired answer to the Fermi Paradox (and you eventually should dismiss it), you should be aware that it’s simply a restatement of the Gaian Bottleneck hypothesis. This, like other versions of the Cosmic Filter Hypothesis, the Zoo Hypothesis. Simulation Hypothesis, the Interdimensional Hypothesis and even shoulder-shrugging Multiverse Hypothesis, is an attempt to explain why there is such a thing as a Fermi Paradox in the face of the expectation of the prevalence of extraterrestrial life. Simply put (in Appalachian), they’re explaining why what ain’t oughtta be and why it ain’t anyway.

The reason for the Fermi Paradox might be very, very simple: they don’t exist because microbes-to-man evolution isn’t true and God didn’t create life elsewhere.  It might also be that God created life elsewhere and we just haven’t detected it yet. Maybe CS Lewis was right and we’ve simply been quarantined away from unfallen species for their benefit.

All I can really say at this point is that my guy tells me that this alien zombie apocalypse stuff is B-movie scifi stuff, and that scientific considerations of such are tongue-in-cheek for that very reason. As far as the Fermi Paradox goes, Kane and Selsis themselves admit that zombie-ism only exists in fiction here on Earth, so the principle of mediocrity which predicts that life should be common in the universe and which makes an answer to the Fermi Paradox necessary also predicts that zombie pandemics throughout the cosmos should likewise only exist in fiction. More importantly, in eliminating civilizations and their radio signals from the Drake Equation to form the Zombie Drake Equation, they’ve actually eliminated any chance of confirming that intelligent civilizations form only to be silenced by zombie pandemics…. in other words, it’s patently useless, except as fodder for drunken musings (which is where the paper admits it’s inspiration came from).

Rather than solving the Fermi Paradox, the Alien Zombie Apocalypse Hypothesis only underscores the fact that a rescuing device is needed to explain away the Fermi Paradox. Creationists have no such problem. We believe that God created everything that exists. If aliens exist at all, God created them. Supernatural acts transcend the principle of mediocrity. Our Creator could have made life as common or rare as He so chose. He could have made life the exclusive property of one planet. He could likewise have distributed life in such a way that they would be safe from the creature He made in His own image whom He foreknew would fall. 

Either way, the Fermi Paradox hold no contradiction for Biblical creationism.