We’re taking a leaf out of The X-Files’ book, as one top scientist has given his own thoughts on whether little green dudes are out there in the cosmos. The search for alien life continues, and while some remain convinced they’re locked up beneath Area 51, 2025 is supposedly a big year where the truth will be revealed.
Astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg says the only reason we haven’t made contact with aliens is that we might not be able to, and now, it’s over to Tim Coulson, a professor of Zoology at Oxford University, to pass his judgment on whether there’s life up in the stars.
Writing in The European, Coulson says that while we should stop looking for cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster because they’re ‘scientifically impossible’, our search for aliens should continue.
Professor Tim Coulson doesn’t think we’ve made contact with aliens yet (Education Images / Contributor / Getty)
Explaining his musings, Coulson wrote: “The universe is absolutely vast, and we have only explored a very tiny fragment of it. Unlike the forests where Bigfoot is supposed to live, or the mountainous home of the Yeti, we have only explored a miniscule corner of the places where aliens may be found.”
He’s one of the Earth’s foremost authorities on biology and evolution, but similar to Bennell-Pegg, he remains unconvinced that we’ll ever find aliens.
Noting that Guglielmo Marconi’s first radio signal went out 120 years ago, any intelligent life form immediately replying would have to be within 60 light-years of Earth. Even though there are about 3,000 stars that fit inside that parameter, it’s not actually that many.
He points out how we’ve been searching for aliens for around a century, but as the universe is 13.8 billion years old, we’ve barely scratched the surface:
“If civilisations only last for a few hundred or few thousand years, the chances of two intelligent species building civilisations at the same time that are cosmically close to one another is vanishingly small.”
The search for alien life continues (Ray Massey / Getty)
Another problem is a lack of advancements in our own science. Even the fastest probes would take thousands of years to reach the nearest star, so unless we can create wormholes to jump from one part of the universe to another, it’s tough to explore much of the galaxy.
He concludes: “Because we have only explored a fraction of even our local neighbourhood, it is much too early to rule out the existence of aliens, be they simple bacteria-like organisms or little green beasts with long necks and oversized heads.”
Coulson muses that this lack of ability to realistically search for aliens in space is what makes us so obsessed with looking for cryptids closer to home.
The Zoology professor isn’t alone in his belief that aliens exist, with Elon Musk referring to himself as a 3,000-year-old time-traveling alien. Joe Rogan also seemed open to the idea, while President Donald Trump told the controversial podcaster there’s ‘no reason not to’ think there are aliens out there.
There’s a lot still stopping us from getting a live-action reenactment of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but if you believe blind mystic Baba Vanga, aliens should be interrupting the Super Bowl in 2025.
Ask some people, and they’ll tell you they’ve seen a UFO in the sky themselves.
Others will say there’s plenty of evidence of aliens interacting with humans over Earth’s history, such as the pyramids, ancient Sumerian stories, and Atlantis.
For most people, these are just conspiracy theories, although statistics show that more than half of Britons believe there’s life out there, somewhere.
It’s not the craziest idea – after all, the universe is a big place, about 93 billion light years across.
And scientists estimate there could be more than 500 million habitable planets in the Milky Way alone, so it’s not too out there to think some of these could have life.
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But despite these stats, scientists still haven’t found any evidence of extraterrestrial life.
It’s such a mystery in fact, it’s got its own name – The Fermi Paradox, named after the Italian physicist who helped build the atom bomb.
One theory is that humans are the only lifeform advanced enough to send and receive signals into the universe.
Another theory takes the opposite view – that we are so unadvanced and unevolved compared to aliens, they have no interest at all in contacting us at all.
For all we know, we could be in one big space-zoo without knowing it.
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But one American scientist has an even more terrifying theory.
Astronomy professor Dr Frederick Walters believes that alien civilizations have all been destroyed by something called gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).
Although it’s a name fit for a space weapon, GRBs are not some kind of sci-fi technology.
They are in fact extremely energetic explosions that happen when the core of a giant star runs out of nuclear fuel to sustain itself, causing the star to collapse under its own weight.
Due to the huge amounts of energy involved, the implosion emits a massive ‘supernova’ of highly radioactive particles.
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According to NASA, they are the most powerful kind of explosion in the galaxy – one quintillion (not a typo – that’s one followed by 19 zeros) times brighter than the Sun.
Bad news if you’re an alien civilization caught in its path – no matter how advanced you are.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said: “It’s just one of many possible explanations, sort of morbid, I suppose.”
But if you’re worried we’re next, Dr Walter said not to panic due to how rare they are.
He added: “It’s estimated that there is a gamma-ray burst every 100 million years or so, in any galaxy.
Also, thanks to the age of our galaxy, it’s unlikely to ever happen here, as they tend to only affect young galaxies with unstable stars.
Not long ago, scientists declared they were getting closer to confirming potential alien civilisations in space.
Unexpected spikes of infrared beams – showing extraterrestrials could be harnessing the energy of our galaxy’s stars – stumped researchers in finding a natural cause behind it.
Now, no other than Elon Musk has spoken out about what he would do if his SpaceX satellites encountered aliens.
Since founded his space company in March 2002, Musk’s goal has been to advance rocket technology and eventually establish a sustainable colony on Mars.
While still a while off from this goal, the SpaceX team have made significant progress in their long-term mission.
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During a talk at the Global Conference on 6 May, held by the Milken Institute, California, the Tesla CEO addressed the audience about the possibility of discovering alien life.
He mentioned that SpaceX has around 6,000 satellites with the potential to come across extraterrestrial life forms.
However, he admitted that his surveillance tech hasn’t yet detected any signs of alien life.
Though if it did, X (formerly Twitter) would be the first to hear about it.
He said: ‘I have seen no evidence of aliens. If I did, I would 100% post about it on X instantly!’ Although, I think that goes without saying.
‘SpaceX has almost 6,000 satellites in orbit and not once have we ever had to move around aliens. Never. So I’m like, okay, I don’t see any evidence of aliens.’
In the conference, Musk also went on to pull apart a seemingly contradictory opinion by some: ‘And for some reason, a lot of the same people who think there are aliens among us don’t think we went to the moon, which, I’m like: ‘Think about that for a second.”
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However, he stated that he is open to the idea of alien visitation to Earth if there is concrete evidence.
‘If somebody has evidence of aliens, you know, that’s not just a fuzzy blob, then I’d love to see it, love to hear about it. But I don’t think there is,’ Musk claimed.
The tech billionaire then shared his worries about the future of mankind.
He described that if an ancient society could have survived for a million years, it would have likely explored the whole Milky Way galaxy by now.
‘So, they haven’t, so why not? I think the answer might be, probably, is that that civilisation is precarious and rare. And that we should really think of human civilization as being like a tiny candle in a vast darkness. And we should do everything possible to ensure that that candle does not go out.’
Scientists say there is a ‘100 per cent chance’ of life somewhere beyond planet Earth.
While the idea’s exciting that we could share our universe with another species – potentially as intelligent as ourselves – why is it taking so long to communicate?
One theory is due to the ‘Dark Forest Hypothesis.’
This theory suggests that civilisations stay silent and hidden to survive, with weapons at the ready, much like a tactic used in The Hunger Games trials.
Professor Frederick Walter, a galactic astronomer from Stony Brook University said: ‘You have no idea if other civilisations are friendly or hostile and remember, you’re the new kid on the block.
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‘They’ve been around for thousands of millions of years and are probably much more advanced, you don’t know what to expect so the safest thing is to remain silent.’
Maybe there are powerful civilisations out there, watching us silently, waiting for us to make the first move.
Another explanation for the Fermi Paradox comes from a 2022 paper suggesting that humanity might simply be uninteresting to aliens. And they’re in fact looking for signs of higher intelligence beyond our beings.
If not boring, our behaviour and history paint a bleak picture of what the extra-terrestrial beings are up against.
In their eyes, our planet has succumbed to the devastations of ongoing wars, pollution and destruction.
‘If [alien life] exists it may have found us by now and discovered that humans are dangerous, violent and ceaselessly engage in endless bloody conflicts and war,’ explained Dr. Gordon Gallup, a biopsychologist at the University of Albany, in the Journal of Astrobiology.
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Alternatively, the ‘Great Filter’ theory proposes that we might have already missed the chance for any interaction.
According to the theory, civilisations tend to wipe themselves out before reaching out. And we could very well be on the tightrope ourselves as technology like AI advances and the possibility of human extinction intensifies.
But hey, maybe we’re just impatient!
Compared to the universe’s 14 billion years, humanity is but a blip. So, it might just be too soon to tell.
However, the final and most ‘simplest answer’ to this head-scratching debate is simply that no one else is out there. Disappointing, I know.
It ties back to the Drake Equation, a formula proposed in 1961 by Frank Drake used to estimate the number of communicative civilisations in the Milky Way.
It calculated that the number could be anywhere from ‘zero to millions,’ so not much to go on.
The professor points out that even if intelligent populations do exist, however, there’s no real reason form them to spark a conversation with us as far as we know.
But it would be a dull answer to an age-old questions.
UFOs, or Unidentified Flying Objects, have long been one of the most fascinating rabbit holes you can fall down as you start to look into conspiracy theories.
There are vast communities out there who remain convinced that we have had contact with alien life in the form of these flying vessels, but that this has been consistently covered up by world governments.
This thinking has fuelled decades of speculation about places like Area 51, but most governments are actually quite keen to be more communicative about the whole question.
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Take the US Department of Defense, which has reportedly released a lengthy report about its work to explain UFO sightings over the years.
The report comes out of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, and concerns itself with a wide range of historical instances where the Government might have looked into UFO sightings.
In fact, it doesn’t call them UFOs anymore – that term has fallen out of use and has been replaced officially by Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (or UAP). Whether this is just because of the history of theories around the term UFO is anyone’s guess.
Regardless, the report has sections on a whole heap of old cases where the US looked into UAP sightings and reports. As it explains in its introduction: “Since 1945, the USG has funded and supported UAP investigations with the goal of determining whether UAP represented a flight safety risk, technological leaps by competitor nations, or evidence of off-world technology under intelligent control”.
Those are three pretty obvious reasons for the government to be interested in sightings, and the report is also quite clear-eyed about people’s interest in the topic.
It also acknowledges “a particularly persistent narrative that the USG – or a secretive organization within it – recovered several off-world spacecraft and extraterrestrial biological remains” and that it kept this secret from the public for decades.
X/All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
The key conclusions of the report are not a huge surprise, either, including the top-line summary that: “AARO found no evidence that any USG investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.”
Still, the report seems to forensically and quite respectfully argue that most theories about these UAPs are founded on biases that individuals have – beliefs that make it hard for them to discredit apparent sightings, or to believe official explanations for them.
So, while the vast majority of these sightings are explained by test flights, drone outings, early secretive missile projects and environmental factors, the theories persist.
The full report is a fascinating read, unsurprisingly, featuring many snippets from interviews and cataloguing some episodes and arguments that might be new to you, so check it out if you’ve got a bit of a UFO or UAP fascination of your own.
