Extraterrestrial Life
The ancient question “Are we alone?” has graduated from being a philosophical musing to a testable hypothesis. We should be prepared for an answer - Cathal D. O'Connell
HWN Suggests
Why the idea of alien life now seems inevitable and possibly imminent
Extraterrestrial life, that familiar science-fiction trope, that kitschy fantasy, that CGI nightmare, has become a matter of serious discussion, a “risk factor”, a “scenario”.
How has ET gone from sci-fi fairytale to a serious scientific endeavour modelled by macroeconomists, funded by fiscal conservatives and discussed by theologians? Because, following a string of remarkable discoveries over the past two decades, the idea of alien life is not as far-fetched as it used to seem. Discovery now seems inevitable and possibly imminent.
Featured
If Aliens Are Out There, They’re Way Out There
Real evidence of extraterrestrial life will come from a distant corner of space, not UFOs in our sky.
Stanford prof Garry Nolan says aliens are ‘100%’ living among us
Dr. Garry Nolan, a professor of pathology at Stanford’s medical school, made the stunning claim during last week’s Salt iConnections conference in Manhattan at a session titled, “The Pentagon, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Crashed UFOs.”
Articles of Interest
If we discover extraterrestrial life, what happens next?
The search for extraterrestrial life is seen as one of pure curiosity. But, as in other areas of science, we should worry about the consequences of success.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life as We Don’t Know It
Scientists are abandoning conventional thinking to search for extraterrestrial creatures that bear little resemblance to Earthlings.
Aliens Must Be Out There
Why aren’t we looking for them?
Area 51 and aliens: the myth, the meme, and the strange reality, explained
It’s been 30 years since the public first heard about Area 51. Here’s why UFO hunters are still obsessed.
But, Seriously, Where Are the Aliens?
Humanity may be as few as 10 years away from discovering evidence of extraterrestrial life. Once we do, it will only deepen the mystery of where alien intelligence might be hiding.
From chemicals to life: Scientists try to build cells from scratch
It’s an idea that’s been bandied about for decades, but scientists say recent technological advances have rendered viable what was once a pipe dream.
Has Nasa found aliens? They’re already here
My first alien encounter came at a gathering for the great and the good. And if you look at the state of the planet it’s clear creatures from outer space are running things.
How scientists hope to find alien life, in 7 steps.
Scientists are closer than ever to finding extraterrestrial life. Here's how they hope to do it.
How the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Helped Make Your Smartphone’s Screen Possible
To peer deeper than ever into space, NASA needed optics of unprecedented size; the technology to make them was later repurposed to manufacture the display you might be looking at this very moment.
How to improve the search for aliens
For decades, astronomers searching for life beyond humanity’s home planet have had a simple strategy: follow the water. Water is the sine qua non of terrestrial life and as thousands of new planets have been discovered orbiting faraway stars, the greatest levels of excitement have usually been reserved for those in the “habitable zones” of their systems—in other words orbiting at a distance where liquid water could exist on the planet’s surface.
How We Could Discover Alien Life
Space reporter Marina Koren on NASA’s plans to travel to the moon, Mars, and Europa—and why it is now studying UAPs.
Is the truth out there? How the Harvard-based Galileo Project will search the skies for alien technology
The project is far from the first attempt to detect signs of civilisations beyond Earth. Loeb has been criticised in the past for his dismissive approach to previous efforts to find extraterrestrial life and his argument that an alien artefact passed through our solar system in 2017.
Is there anybody out there? The search for extraterrestrial intelligence
WILL HUMANS ever discover intelligent life in space? Since the 1960’s, scientists have been working on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. They have not found it yet but their research is moving up a gear.
Is there life beyond Earth?
Scientists could be about to answer that question.
NASA is looking for a framework to better help you understand its deep space finds
Is there life on other planets? It's a simple question without a simple answer.
Scientists Have Identified 24 Possible 'Superhabitable' Planets
"We are so focused on finding a mirror image of Earth that we may overlook a planet that is even more well suited for life,” said the lead author of a new study.
Should We Be Searching for Smart Aliens or Dumb Aliens?
There are two ways to look for extraterrestrial life. We’ve been focusing on only one.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life as We Don’t Know It
Scientists are abandoning conventional thinking to search for extraterrestrial creatures that bear little resemblance to Earthlings.
The Search for Intelligent Life Is About to Get a Lot More Interesting
There are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe, home to an unimaginable abundance of planets. And now there are new ways to spot signs of life on them.
There Won’t Be a Single Moment When We “Discover” Alien Life
That’s not to say we’ll never find evidence of life, but rather that there’s a long, difficult road between suggestive evidence and established fact. We’ve been collecting and critically examining the former for more than four centuries, and we’ve still never reached the latter.
This Stanford Professor With CIA Ties Says Aliens Are ‘100 Percent’ Already Here
Extraterrestrial intelligence hasn’t just visited us, he says: “it’s been here a long time, and it’s still here.”
When Did Humans First Consider the Possibility of Alien Life?
So both ancient and medieval scholars speculated about “aliens” in some sense, though it was only in the later Middle Ages that the first speculation about inhabited extraterrestrial worlds in our cosmos appeared.
When Will We Discover Alien Life?
Most of us are reserving judgment on whether there is intelligent life on other planets; we haven’t even found bacteria yet, much less a race of aliens with Internet service and takeout food. But Drake, an astrophysicist and chairman emeritus of the California-based SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, has no such doubts.
Wild New Paper Suggests We Could Detect Gravitational Waves From Alien Megacraft
The question of whether intelligent alien life exists out there in the broader Milky Way galaxy could be answered by gravitational waves.
Yes, I’m searching for aliens – and no, I won’t be going to Area 51 to look for them
I don’t know very much about Area 51, but I can say that the intense interest in the goings on there related to aliens reveals a deep public interest in what kinds of life might exist elsewhere in the universe.
Resources
SETI Institute
Leading humanity's quest to understand the origins/prevalence of life/intelligence in the universe.

