Is the truth out there? Are we alone?
And how on earth will we be able to actually tell our alien invaders that, despite the wars and bombs and a climate crisis, we actually do come in peace?
They are questions that not so long ago may well have been mocked, filed alongside Hollywood movies of little green men and Death Stars, with blurred photographs of mystery objects and strange tales of close encounters.
And yet, in a small corner of Fife – a tiny speck on what Carl Sagan referred to as the pale blue dot called Earth – a team of scientists is trying to, if not exactly come face to face with ET, at least figure out how we might one day communicate.
At St Andrews University, Dr John Elliott, Coordinator of SETI Post Detection Hub and chair of SETI Research Network (UKSRN) a global network of science-based researchers, heads a team exploring methods for detecting life beyond Earth and developing capabilities to enable it.
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Their work is rapidly moving from the fringes of science fiction to mainstream, boosted last week by space agency NASA, when it threw the covers off some of its work into the mysteries of UFOs, aliens and life on other planets.
At a public event in Washington, 16 experts from its independent task force - from physicists to astronauts - shared thoughts on everything from the hunt for alien artifacts to harassment faced by some who dare suggest that, indeed, the truth is out there, and it’s alive.
Read more: Scot recalls his first UFO sighting over Glasgow sky
After decades of NASA shying away from the topic, the new group has called for more resources to enable serious examination of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).
While among its more intriguing revelations was confirmation that the US military is tracking strange ‘metallic orbs’ spotted all over the world, and that up to 5% of the Pentagon’s total database of UAP sightings, of which there are up to 100 every month, are so far inexplicable.
Back in St Andrews, Dr John Elliott and the recently formed SETI Post Detection hub team are preparing for when a signal does arrive from another world.
Scotland, he says, has an increasingly important role in the search to find what is out there.
“Traditionally, this focuses on listening for signals from distant star systems in our galaxy, as presently this gives us our best chance of detecting an intelligent extra-terrestrial civilisation,” he says.
“Scottish researchers have contributed to this endeavour over the years in areas such as methods for listening (radio astronomy) and exoplanet hunting.
“However, St Andrews is now the home of the SETI Post Detection hub, which is a recently formed international centre for multidisciplinary research, looking into what we do next, when life is discovered: from message decipherment and data analytics to development of regulatory protocols, space law and societal impact strategies.
“The complexity of such a task makes it one of humanities most multidisciplinary endeavours ever undertaken… and Scotland is at the heart of it.”
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The SETI Post Detection Hub, which was officially launched last year, comes as new discoveries from ever-increasingly powerful technologies arrive thick and fast: last week the James Webb Space Telescope detected a 'surprisingly large' plume of water vapour coming from the south pole of Saturn's sixth-largest moon, Enceladus.
“I would say that the most significant finds are the number of planets we are now discovering around other stars in our galaxy, which has vastly increased the likelihood of life being out there,” Dr Elliott adds.
While Stanford University’s Professor Dr Garry Nolan recently suggested extra-terrestrial life forms have visited Earth and continue to be present today, he is less certain.
“This idea is not a new one,” he says. “Books like the Chariots of the Gods claim that some of our ancient civilisations were influenced by extra-terrestrial beings and their technology.
“However, I can see no evidence or convincing arguments that any of this is true.
“We are always hopeful that a significant breakthrough is imminent - it’s what drives us on,” he adds.
“The discovery of extra-terrestrial life will be a profound moment in human history - maybe the most profound. It will confirm that we are not alone, with many implications for humanity, including our belief systems and perceptions of our place in the universe.”
The idea of extra-terrestrial life is no longer sci-fi fantasy: in 2013, European Space Agency astronomers estimated up to 50% of Sun-like stars in the Milky Way galaxy could have Earth-sized planets within their habitable zones.
The scale of that can be hard to grasp. So, in Edinburgh’s Dynamic Earth, Dr Alastair Bruce, a former Royal Observatory astronomer, uses powerful Planetarium presentations like ‘You are Here’ to give visitors a flavour of just how tiny – and precious – planet Earth is, and why it’s unlikely that we are completely alone.
“I think if you are a researcher and you suspect that something is very interesting and worth looking into - regardless as to whether or not you think aliens are visiting earth - it can be a tricky thing to say it out loud,” he says.
“For some, it was fun for a while to bash that as nonsense.
“But there are now new technologies, new aircraft in our skies and it’s not surprising reports of unknown things in the sky are going up.
“I like that NASA is changing tack, he adds. “Instead of trying to debunk things, they are saying we should have a look at those that are compelling with good evidence.
“But here’s also a massive gap between ‘we don’t know what it is’, to ‘there are intelligent people visiting us from other worlds’.”
He points out that one mystery debunked during the NASA group meeting was the object reported by two US jet pilots which turned out to be a Bart Simpson balloon.
“There’s a whole bunch of people seeing things, but when you look deeper you can rule out lots.”
Debunking myths and prompting visitors to consider our fragile planet feature in Dynamic Earth’s summer programme, often prompting visitors to ask the key question: is ET and intelligent life out there, and should we be worried?
“I reply ‘do you think there’s intelligent life on earth?’,” he says. “Because we are not really looking after the place right now, science is clear that we’re on track for the next great extinction.
“It’s not an asteroid impact that we need to worry about, it’s us changing the world and doing it fast.
“Intelligent people watching us from affair might be wondering just how intelligent we are on this blue marble called Earth.
“Maybe we’re not ready for aliens.”
SETI Post Detection Hub: https://seti.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/
Dynamic Earth www.dynamicearth.co.uk
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