7 Reasons Why You Can Believe in Aliens

No one knows if aliens really exist. But there is a lot of circumstantial evidence, rumors and unexplained events that hint that everything is not as simple as it may seem to us. Popular Mechanics magazine talked about the reasons why it makes sense to believe in the existence of aliens.

The incident on the USS Nimitz

On November 14, 2004, during a training mission near San Diego, the pilots of the deck aircraft of the USS Nimitz noticed an unidentified object. According to eyewitnesses, it resembled a "Tick-Tock" in shape, but it moved at a speed exceeding all known weapons of that time. It was white, had no wings or propeller, and moved erratically under the surface of the water. The US Navy declassified the recording of what happened only in 2020, after it leaked online.

"Some fighters"

In November 1944, U.S. Air Force fighters witnessed a phenomenon that later became known as foo fighters—or "some kind of fighters." UFOs that emitted red light and moved through the air faster than anyone else. They were noticed not once, and at first they tried to explain the mystery by overwork of the soldiers. However, no one still knows what "certain fighters" really were.

1I/Oumuamua

Renowned Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb believes that the asteroid Oumuamua may actually be a fragment of an alien structure or a failed spacecraft. From any other source, this hypothesis would sound strange, but Loeb is an experienced specialist in his field. Although his colleagues disagree with this guess. A more mundane theory believes that this object is a nitrogen iceberg that broke off from a Pluto-like planet in a distant star system.

The Fermi Paradox

If there are so many planets in the universe, then where are the traces of other intelligent civilizations? About this question was put forward by the legendary physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950: his thought experiment is known as the "Fermi paradox". In short, he argues that, given the existence of humanity and the age of the universe, alien civilizations are certainly real, although we have not found any evidence of this. Later, Fermi's theory was partially confirmed by other scientific studies. However, it may take from 2,000 to 400,000 years for humanity to potentially communicate with aliens.

The Pentagon and UFOs

In 2007, the US Department of Defense created an initiative called the Advances Aerospace Threat Identification Program — or AATIP. The purpose of the program was to study "unexplained cosmic phenomena usually associated with high-speed UFOs." The secret program was led by military official Luis Elizondo: it was he who first confirmed the existence of AATIP after his resignation.

Many exoplanets

On March 21, 2022, NASA confirmed that the number of exoplanets exceeds 5,000, and we can expect that this figure will only grow as technologies capable of exploring the lower regions of space improve.

This means that there are thousands of known planets that have not yet been thoroughly explored, and several more awaiting discovery, on which an environment capable of supporting life may exist.

SETI Institute

The Institute for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) was founded Carl Sagan and Jill Tarter, two astronomers who believe that interplanetary life is something more than us.

SETI's mission is to "explore, understand and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe, as well as the evolution of the mind." The Institute is working with NASA and the National Science Foundation as a research contractor to pool resources and explore the possibility of intelligent life on other planets. In addition to optical and radio wave signals, SETI uses a laser detection system to search for signs of alien technology.

Yes, an entire scientific organization that seeks to find other intelligent life in the universe does exist.