A metallic sphere zooms across the flight path of a military jet. A mysterious signal in the world’s largest telescope sparks international alarm. And scientists discover that potential Martian life wiped itself out years ago. It’s been a busy year for all things out there. Here are the world’s seven discoveries about aliens from 2022.
In May, during the first public hearing on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) — also known as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) — since the 1960s, Pentagon officials zipped across the flight path of a military jet. Unveiled previously classified footage of a metallic sphere. Recorded for just a few split-second frames in a video taken through the cockpit window of an FA-18 fighter jet in 2021, the strange object was also seen by a Navy pilot flying the jet and picked up by the plane’s sensors. C — but military experts say they have no clue what it was.
Officials were questioned by lawmakers about the findings of a June 2021 report that detailed 144 UAP scenarios. They were also asked about a rumored incident at Malmstrom Air Base in Montana in which 10 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were disabled while a glowing red orb was seen above. He did not give any details to confirm or deny the story.
Credible claims are very high that most UAPs are Prototype US, Chinese or Russian surveillance drones; hypersonic test vehicle; Or even airborne debris. Both the Pentagon and NASA have announced New tests which would attempt to distinguish these earthly objects from anything that might defy earthly interpretation. Watch this space.
read more: Footage of strange metallic UFO shown by Pentagon officials at historic hearing
2. LIGO’s search for an alien mother ship
It’s one thing to search for strange objects in our own skies, but scientists have also proposed a way to find them far from home. Using one of the world’s largest lasers, the US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), scientists said in December that they could scan the sky for waves. Space-time Abandoned in the wake of large alien spaceships.
And by “big” they mean really big – a spacecraft would have to weigh roughly the same as Jupiter, travel at one-tenth the speed of light, and be close to Earth to make the waves strong enough for LIGO. must be within 326,000 light-years of pick up If that seems a bit absurd, consider that scientists also think that a ship with an advanced warp-drive engine could produce detectable gravitational ripples and even leave a signature for us to reverse the technology.
read more: One of the world’s largest lasers can be used to detect alien warp drives
Despite all this talk of looking for aliens, scientists are still puzzled over what we should do if we find them. That’s why, in November, a group of policy experts and scientists announced the establishment of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Research Hub, an interdisciplinary organization that will establish a new alien contact protocol.
An earlier contact protocol was written by the SETI Institute in 1989, but the protocol focused primarily on how discoveries should be shared with the public and other scientists, and only a realistic international response to external communications. Presents a vague sketch – telling scientists. To seek advice from the United Nations.
The new protocol will attempt to give humanity a bit more inter-life social skills, helping scientists pick up potentially intelligent signals in space and decipher their meaning, while building on the protocols implemented by the treaties. How should the ET respond, should it call Earth. .
read more: Scientists are working on an official ‘alien contact protocol’ for when ET calls Earth
4. Alien Signals… or not
For just one day in June, the moment of first contact with intelligent aliens looked as if it had already arrived, when scientists at China’s massive Five Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope claimed it was “probable” that they had had picked up trace signals from an extraterrestrial. civilization The claims quickly went viral, spreading across Chinese state media and Chinese social media platform Weibo before being reported by the international press.
But disappointment soon followed when Dan Wertheimer, a SETI scientist and co-inventor of the project who observed the signals, announced that they were almost certainly of human origin. Wertheimer told Live Science that the narrow-band radio signal, at first most exciting to scientists because it usually comes only from artificial sources, originates from Earth-based interference that can be seen inside giant telescopes such as That there is an alien signal. It’s not the first time alien signal spotters have been falsely warned – another famous set of signals detected between 2011 and 2014 was created by scientists microwaving their lunch – and it will almost certainly be the last. will not happen
read more: Project researcher says China’s ‘alien’ signal almost certainly came from humans
5. A possible solution to the Fermi paradox
Perhaps the most difficult part of alien contact is convincing them that we are able to talk. In December, a new paper proposed an interesting solution to the so-called Fermi paradox, or the apparent lack of other intelligent beings despite the nearly infinite number of other worlds: perhaps, to a distant observer, we look pretty boring.
Advanced aliens, the study argues, may be more interested in signs of advanced technology than life itself and could have visited Earth before humans evolved. It was only with the advent of radio technology in the 1930s that humanity would produce a technological signature for intelligent aliens to pick up on our existence, and even then, these messages were usually unsubstantiated after traveling a light-year. become
Perhaps it is that there are no intelligent civilizations within 1 light-year of our planet but far away. Or perhaps they picked up our radio signals years ago and their response, traveling at the finite speed of light, is on its way.
read more: Aliens didn’t contact Earth because there’s no sign of intelligence, new answer to Fermi paradox suggests
6. Collapsed alien civilization?
In May, scientists came up with another solution to the Fermi Paradox, this time suggesting that advanced aliens could never contact us because they completely rejected the evolution-based system.
Their new hypothesis proposes that, as space-faring civilizations grow in scale and technological development, they eventually reach a tipping point where innovation no longer meets energy demands. What comes next collapses. Rejecting a model of “adaptive evolution” in favor of maintaining balance, but at the expense of civilization’s ability to spread across the stars and come into contact with humans, is the only alternative path.
read more: Why have aliens never visited Earth? Scientists have given a disturbing answer
7. Martian microbes destroyed by climate change
Finally, it is possible that most life obliterates itself before it is even recognized. In October, a climate modeling study of early Mars proposed that Mars and Earth once had similar atmospheres and were home to similar early microbes that consumed hydrogen to produce methane.
But because Mars is farther from our star than Earth, it was more dependent on a haze of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and hydrogen to maintain temperatures inhospitable to life. So, as ancient Martian microbes consumed hydrogen (a potent greenhouse gas) and produced methane (an important greenhouse gas on Earth but less potent than hydrogen), they were more likely to heat their planet than their cousins ​​on Earth. There were severe consequences for eating into the trapping blanket. , eventually making Mars too cold for complex life to develop.
The scientists’ proposal, if correct, could suggest that life cannot be self-sustaining in every favorable environment in which it arises, and that it accidentally destroys the foundation of its existence. can easily erase itself – an alarming thought. Our time of biodiversity loss, irreversible resource extraction and climate change.
read more: The first Martian life likely toppled the planet with climate change, making itself extinct
