Brazilian Senate UFO Hearing Part 2

Speaker 1:

So, I'm going to call upon him now. I give the floor to Mr. Wilson Picler - feel free to use any of the Senate podiums -, a former Federal Deputy for the state of Paraná, an expert in scientific methodology, co-founder and President of Grupo Uninter.

Thank you very much. You have the floor.

Speaker 2:

Honorable Senator Eduardo Girão, I wish to greet you and, through you, extend my greetings to the other Senators of this House. I also want to greet my colleagues from the Chamber, as I was a Deputy in 2009 and 2010. I greet the present audience, the Brazilian people, and - why not? - acknowledge the cosmic intelligences that may be watching us at this moment, especially considering that we are broadcasting this conference.

I've prepared a slide - I'll be very quick because I have only 15 minutes to provide context - about life in the galaxy, the possibility of life in the galaxy, and then I'll present an opinion survey with 2,000 respondents. The sampling plan is similar to the ones used in election polls, covering the entire country, all states, and genders, well-balanced, just like an electoral opinion poll, but this one includes questions related to ufology.

I'll display the first slide.

We have the Milky Way here.

Well, there was a video here, but we're going to skip it, we need to skip this slide.

Here we have the Milky Way. The Sun, where we are, is indicated there. You can observe that we are distant from the center of the galaxy and also from the edge of the galaxy, we are right in the middle of the galaxy. This is very important. Here, in a vertical cross-section, you'll notice that we inhabit the disk. This is quite significant from an astrophysical standpoint because scientists define this green region - look, this is a moderate view - as the habitable galactic zone, as it's distant enough from the center of the galaxy to avoid nebula explosions, high-energy events that could sterilize all life and a region of the galaxy. We're also distant from the edge because there needs to be material density, what astrophysicists call metallicity - metals being elements heavier than hydrogen and helium - in order to form planets. In a more conservative view, these would be the most suitable regions in our galaxy to potentially harbor life like ours, carbon-based life forms.

Currently, there has been a revision, and scientists are constantly debating this; they find it challenging to delineate - as in the previous slide, that circle - a very specific region. Some argue that this entire green region is suitable for life.

There's another school of astrophysical thought that claims Earth is a very rare event. It's rare, but given the vastness of the galaxy, millions of Earth-like planets could exist.

Recently, scientists have found - I'll have to quickly move through these slides, or I won't be able to present the most important part, our opinion survey - a planet more habitable than Earth, categorized as a superhabitable planet. They suggest that life there might be more pleasant than here on Earth.

So, all these limitations that people talk about, saying it doesn't have this or that, it's not possible, are being shattered as technology advances. Based on these premises, we're here today discussing this topic, and I made it a point to show these astrophysics slides to the general public so they can perceive that we're not dealing with matters that are mere inventions or baseless speculations.

I also want to express gratitude and recognition to all astrophysics and astrobiology scientists for their important contribution. They explore the universe out there for signs of life. Ufology, on the other hand, aims to understand whether these strange objects that the Pentagon is now investigating - and has been investigating for a long time - might be related to potential extraterrestrial phenomena. These objects challenge global leadership, the entire defense system; our aircraft are powerless against such advanced technology. As a result, in the majority of cases, this topic is held under state secrecy. Now, they're gradually releasing information due to societal pressures, including those from ufologists who have been engaged with this issue, advocating for the disclosure of findings and the opening of this agenda.

Very well, based on this, we conducted an opinion survey with 2,000 Brazilians aged 16 and older. I've provided a breakdown here by religion for you to see that it's well-balanced. Currently, Brazil has a percentage of 53% Catholics, 23% evangelicals, 9.7% with no religion, 7.4% Spiritists, 1.8% adherents of Afro-Brazilian religions, and so on. There are also spiritualists, the Jewish religion with 0.3%, Buddhists with 0.3%. Why am I showing this slide? Because religion is important; there are religious concepts that compel citizens to believe that we are unique. So, in a certain way, this has a significant impact on people's responses according to their religious beliefs, and we will observe this in the survey.

So, the first question posed to the Brazilian population, balanced by gender, age, income, and education, a very well-designed sampling plan discussed with three statisticians - this institute conducts electoral opinion polls, and we have solid experience - the first question asked was: "Do you believe in extraterrestrial life, in UFOs?" And 67% of the population said they do not believe, while 32.6% believe.

Senator Girão, I find this to be quite a significant number. Considering a country with over two hundred million inhabitants, 33% of the population has an interest and belief in this subject. Therefore, I want to congratulate you for your initiative. The Senate, as well as the National Congress, is the temple of democracy and welcomes all thoughts. I am demonstrating through this survey that they are not a minority, because a minority would be far less than 33% of the population. Obviously, it's not the majority, but it's still quite substantial.

Then, we stratified the data by age. We observed in this slide that among young people aged 16 to 24, 46% believe. As the population ages, the percentage of "yes" responses gradually decreases. So, it was a revealing finding that the youth are more optimistic about this matter.

From a gender perspective, it's somewhat balanced: 31.9% for women and 33.4% for the male gender. Another relevant piece of data is that as income increases, the "yes" responses also increase. You can see here that for those earning more than ten minimum wages, 45.5%, almost half of Brazilians in this higher income bracket believe.

From a religious standpoint, the first slide of religion presented the sampling profile; this slide shows the results. We can observe that among Catholics, 30%; among Evangelicals, 27%; among Spiritists, 48% - Spiritists are more proactive in this aspect; among Afro-Brazilian religions, 27%; and interestingly, atheists and agnostics, 61% and 65% respectively, believe. According to the research, atheists believe more in extraterrestrial life than in God, Senator.

Very well. Do you believe in extraterrestrial life, ETs, UFOs? The question is posed according to the level of education. So, here we have: for illiterate individuals, those with a complete elementary education (middle row), 30.6%; for those with a complete high school education, 31%; and for those with either an incomplete or complete higher education, 40% of Brazilians believe.

This is another survey, Senator Eduardo Girão, that I conducted in 2017 with around 700 samples - 691, 700 approximately, in 2017. Notice that the result is the same. It's important to keep repeating, as it builds a degree of confidence in the survey. The same profile: at the time, 36% responded "yes," and 64% responded "no."

Now, you can observe in these bar graphs that as the level of education increases, the "yes" responses rise significantly. Look at the last graph on the right: the blue represents "yes." Among those with a postgraduate education, 73% of Brazilian postgraduates believe in this topic, believe in extraterrestrial life, believe that we might be visited, believe in UFOs.

Very well. For those who responded...

Do I have time, Senator? How many minutes do I have?

So, for those who answered yes, we asked more questions, because if they don't believe, there's no point in continuing with the questions. For those who answered yes, we asked other things.

In your opinion, does intelligent extraterrestrial life developed technologically exist in the universe? We have 78% saying they believe that there is life in the universe. When we talk about the universe, we're talking about other galaxies, the billions of galaxies that Senator Eduardo Girão mentioned. We are one of the galaxies, there are billions of galaxies; 78% say yes, they believe that there is technologically developed life in the universe. When we ask about our own galaxy, the same question, 64.9% say yes, they believe that there is technologically developed life in our own galaxy. The galaxy is very vast, very vast. I think for us to discuss extraterrestrials, we don't even need to leave our own galaxy; it's vast enough to support all these theories.

Do you believe that technologically advanced extraterrestrials observe us from a distance? 68.7% answered yes. Do you believe that extraterrestrials visit us and observe us closely? Senator Eduardo Girão, 61.6% believe that they are visiting us. Among those who answered, of the 33% who answered yes, more than half of them believe that extraterrestrials are visiting us.

I want to tell the audience watching that this is the people responding. The interviewers don't interfere at all, as it should be; they simply ask and tabulate the response. It's the people, not Prof. Picler speaking, not Gevaerd, nor anyone from our presenters; it's the people here expressing their opinion.

Very well. The question was asked: in the hypothesis that extraterrestrials are visiting us, do you believe that they would be technologically more advanced equivalent to how many years ahead of us? Thousands of years ahead won with 21.6%; then came hundreds of years ahead, 19.8%; hundreds of thousands of years ahead, 16%; millions of years ahead, 15.5%; don't know, 15.1%; billions of years ahead, 12%. It was somewhat distributed, but now... Did you feel the weight of this question? I think this question sent shivers down the spines of many people watching now, including scientists. This means that the Brazilian people believe that, if we are being visited, these technologies and beings are thousands of years ahead of us. Can you imagine what our science will be like in a hundred years? We're already planning to go to Mars, there are plans to go to Centaur - Alpha Centauri, Proxima Centauri - a constellation beyond the Solar System, quite close. There's even a planet there that could potentially host life. And all of this now, in the next 20, 30, 50 years, at most. Now, imagine a thousand years ahead. And what if they are a million years ahead of us?

So, this is the response, in my understanding, as to why this topic is so delicate and why they don't interact with us so easily: it would provide a very significant technological leap for humanity, and unfortunately, we are at war, and the nuclear threat is very high - very! - experts are saying. We have here Captain Salas, who was a Minuteman nuclear missile launcher in 1967. He will present his approach. He himself is concerned about the level of nuclear war threat. Obviously, we are not mature enough to obtain technology far beyond what we already have. We need to improve ourselves ethically, spiritually, and - why not? - democratically, because we are also facing a crisis of democratic representation.

So, Senator Eduardo Girão, I want to tell you that, unfortunately, as humanity, we are lagging behind in mastering technologies that could be a million years ahead of us. That's what's preventing it. And it's very important... In my opinion - I'm expressing my opinion here - I think that's a hindrance. We need to improve, and improve a lot, to be able to advance in this agenda. But you, Senator, deserve congratulations because we are doing our job: we are discussing this today in the Senate of the Republic - that is very important. And it's a topic of interest for 33% of the Brazilian population.

I want to express my thanks here - I think my time has ended. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm glad I stayed within the time, so I set an example for the others.

I want to say this: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." We are dealing with different things, with the unknown. This generates fear in some people. But don't be afraid, have faith: we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Speaker 1:

I want to extend my sincere thanks to Mr. Wilson Picler for his participation. He came here all the way from the state of Paraná to honor this session.

At this moment, I would like to express my gratitude. We have the auditorium here almost full, practically full, in the Senate Plenary. I thank each and every one of you who came here to honor us. We will pass around a list for you to possibly write your name and the entity you represent or not, so that we can mention it at the end of the event, alright?
I also want to thank the visitors in the gallery of the Federal Senate. I am very pleased. Every day, in the morning, afternoon, and evening, we receive more and more Brazilians here, especially those who are interested in politics, who are following, let's say, this vigorous moment of the country, the awakening of citizenship, demanding from their representatives. And your presence here is very important, because this House belongs to you; we are here to serve. So, you are very welcome!

In a moment, I want to mention the group that is here. I see everyone with... I don't know if you are part of a group.
They are spontaneous visitors, who have come here individually. You are very welcome!

I would also like to thank the presence of Mr. Caio Mário Pereira Brasil, who is a Lieutenant Colonel of the Parliamentary Advisory of the Brazilian Air Force, and Lieutenant Colonel Rodrigo Fernandes Nascimento, who is the Institutional Relations Advisor of the Brazilian Air Force. Is that correct? I greatly appreciate your presence here at this event marking the 75th anniversary of World UFO Day.