Between the holidays, surging COVID-19 cases and a deluge of political news here in the U.S., aliens may not have been top of mind for many of us over the past month.
Fear not, however, because we have compiled all of the biggest alien and UFO news that you may have missed over the past several weeks in one convenient spot. Surprisingly enough (or maybe not, with this crazy year), the aliens have still been quite active over the past few weeks.
Here’s the three biggest pieces of coverage you should keep on your radar this week and beyond:
1. There Used to Be Aliens in Our Galaxy, but They Killed Themselves Off, Popular Mechanics
This article covers an academic paper published in mid-December that suggests any alien life in the Milky Way -- or elsewhere in the universe, for that matter -- is likely very young. That's why we haven't heard from them, researchers say, because they're too young to have adopted the technology to communicate with us.
But there's a twist. The paper has come to this conclusion after using a statistical model, which suggests that once intelligent life reaches a certain threshold in their civilization, they tend to “self-annihilate”. Sound familiar, 2020?
If these researchers are right, that means hyper-intelligent life, likely more advanced than our own, has existed in the past and, for one reason or another, already burned out. One limitation of the paper, however, is that they don’t quite outline how civilizations self-destruct. Which means, unfortunately, we can’t look into a crystal ball of our own future.
Not exactly the news we wanted amidst this unpredictable year, but can we really be surprised?
2. Alien hunters detect mysterious radio signal from nearby star, National Geographic
In a possible contradiction of the Popular Mechanics article above, this NatGeo feature suggests that astronomers searching for signs of life beyond earth may have just found the evidence they’ve been looking for: an unexplained radio signal from space.
The signal comes from Proxima Centauri, a small red star roughly 4.2 light-years away that is rumored to have at least two temperate and rocky planets -- which is a good sign for the potential of life. While researchers are still analyzing the signal and believe it may be “human in origin”, it’s nevertheless a landmark find in the hunt for extraterrestrial life.
Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist, is set to blow out his “unconventional” views on extraterrestrial life in a breakthrough book on January 26. According to Leob, a strange cigar-shaped object zoomed across our solar system in 2017, but few scientists paid attention. Now, four years later, armed with an arsenal of new research and theories, Leob is set on convincing you and the entire scientific community that this object was actually technological trash or debris that an alien civilization had thrown out into space.
Leob cites the object’s strange shape and movement as evidence that it was no normal asteroid, as other researchers in the field have contested. Who would’ve thought that instead of discovering aliens through a dramatic invasion, they actually just care so little about us that they’re throwing their trash our way?
If you're interested in purchasing his book, "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth", you can preorder it here.
While many of us may have (understandably) been focusing on life here on our own planet over the last few weeks, it’s clear that things on the other side of the universe are just as active as ever. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled as these stories evolve over the new year!