How much time do we have before catastrophic disclosure occurs?

TL;DR

This paper estimates the time until a catastrophic disclosure of non-human intelligence evidence occurs, using statistical analysis of claims, population, and technology trends, suggesting it could happen around 2040 if NHI exist.

Contribution

It introduces a novel statistical framework to estimate the timing of accidental disclosure of non-human intelligence evidence based on public claims and technological factors.

Findings

Expected disclosure around 2040 under default assumptions

Higher public claim frequency accelerates disclosure likelihood

Technological adoption rates influence timing estimates

Abstract

Claims of the retrieval of crashed craft or vehicles from non-human intelligence(s) (NHI) abound in the popular culture and media. For this article, the number of unsubstantiated claims is utilized to estimate the time expected until a "catastrophic disclosure" occurs. The term was defined at the 2023 Sol Foundation's inaugural conference as an accidental disclosure of strong evidence of the existence of NHI. The phrase refers to this occurring outside the control of major human institutions, such as governments and militaries. One possible example of this is the crash of a piloted (space)craft or ET probe in the middle of a busy metropolis (such as the New York City Times Square). The distribution of humans across the Earth's surface, the population as a function of time, and the fraction of individuals owning a camera-phone, also versus time, are each taken into consideration as a foundation for a rigorous statistical analysis. This author adopts a skeptical and agnostic approach and does not conclude NHI or ET are real, but applies standard statistical distributions as educational examples of critical thinking to an issue which captures the imagination of the public as almost no other issue does. Making the extraordinary assumptions that sentient species other than humans exist, are capable of constructing vehicles for transportation, and are sufficiently fallible that their technology can malfunction, it becomes possible to quantify some potential answers to the question of how long it might be before smartphone imagery and/or video evidence appears on the web and becomes irrevocable via classification in the modern era. Results of simulations of numerous potential scenarios with varying degrees of optimism indicate that, if NHI are real, catastrophic disclosure may actually happen accidentally rather soon, with the mean expected year being 2040 +/- 20 under the default assumptions.