While a lot of astronomers would say that life is pretty common across the Universe, considering the incredible amount of galaxies and stars, there’s still that uncomfortable question that keeps appearing into the minds of many of us – if aliens exist, why aren’t they here already?
But luckily enough, humanity could soon solve this puzzle once and for all. The New York Times reports that The Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) Task Force is preparing to publish some of its findings. While these findings could mean encounters with alien life forms, it’s also room for simple UFO sightings that we’re all aware of.
UFO’s do not mean aliens automatically
Despite the general perception, a UFO could simply be a phenomenon caused by completely natural and explainable causes. UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, which obviously means that any object that has not been yet identified can qualify for the definition. Over the years, many people reported UFO’s wandering the night sky, although they may have been just meteors, comets, or other usual cosmic events.
But as for the present case, stating whether aliens are indeed real or not is not the main goal. The report says that the main purpose is to investigate “any links [UFOs] have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to U.S. military assets and installations.”
Astrophysically speaking, it would be naive for us to believe that Earth is the only planet from the Universe that hosts life. There are between 100 billion and 200 billion stars just in our Milky Way galaxy, and astronomers predict that most of them have planets that revolve around. There are trillions of other galaxies discovered in the Universe, which means that the theoretical chances for life to emerge elsewhere are sky rocking. Not to mention that astrophysicists are taking more and more seriously the idea for parallel universes to exist as well.
We may not be alone in the Universe, but the question is: are we prepared for an encounter with intelligent species of aliens?
