Are Aliens Watching Us? Scientists Discover Nearby Stars That Most Likely Serve as Watch Posts

Humankind had been looking for life on other planets for as long as history itself. From the moment the ancient people looked at the stars and gazed at the moon, they most likely wondered whether there was life there, to the same degree that they were curious of the people in the next village.

What we should remember, however, is that while we are actively looking for life on other planets, if there is indeed alien life out there, they might also be looking for us. Some even speculate that they visited us at one point in history, citing the Greek civilization and the technologies they used at that time as evidence, considering that they would not have been capable of building the great pyramids. Some historians gave credits to alien astronauts for allegedly shaping Earth civilization in ancient times, with a few of them pointing to the Bible for references to Nephilims, which they took to mean as aliens. There is still a significant amount of debate on these matters, and these are usually not taken seriously by peer-reviewed scientific publications, but it is still worthwhile to take a look at their theories.

Exoplanets

So far, astronauts have found more than 4,000 exoplanets using the transmit method where it detects the brightness dip caused by an object crossing the host star from Earth’s perspective. They have used the Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for this purpose.

Soon enough, space scientists would be able to scan the atmosphere of the nearby transiting planets and analyze not only the gas mix of their atmospheres but also whether they could sustain life. This is one of the projects to be undertaken by the James Webb Space telescope, with NASA pouring in $9.8 billion into the initiative. With a target launch of late 2021, we can expect some news in the future. Complementing the space telescopes are ground megascopes like the Giant Magellan Telescope.

A New Study

Lisa Kaltenegger, an associate professor of astronomy at Cornell and director of the university’s Carl Sagan Institute, shared the findings of a new study where they took the data from TESS and Europe’s star-mapping Gaia and looked for nearby stars falling within about 326 light-years from Earth. They narrowed the search to those aligned with the Earth’s ecliptic orbit, where the planet would be visible from their perspective. We can only appreciate the degree of detail-orientedness and focus these scientists put in.

The scientists found that there are up to 1,004 qualifying stars. This means that if there were living things in those systems, they could observe us transiting through our own sun. The study’s findings were published on October 20, 2020, in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, which gave credit to the authors for doing the research.

The Moon

When taken from another perspective, it is scary that another civilization is out there studying us and thinking of exploring our own planet someday. Will there be an alien invasion at one point in the future? Whether that may be the case or not, we have to be ready and make the necessary investments, and the best way to do that is by expanding our own space programs. How can we do that? One potential option is putting an observation post on the moon. The only disadvantage is that alien life may have already set up shop on our tiny satellite without even paying a monthly mortgage. In 2016, Geri Vigil uploaded a video on YouTube titled “Large Group of UFOs Leaving the Moon”. The footage showed what appeared to be a fleet of alien ships leaving the surface of the moon. Many scientists have debunked the video and said it was an optical illusion, but the possibility is still there.

There have also been numerous sightings of UFOs on Earth, with some of them being confirmed by the US military. While we should take everything with a grain of salt, we should never discard the notion that E.T. or other life forms might be out there, in one of the 1,000 or so stars, pointing their crude or advanced telescopes at us. The Earth should start making investments or ramp up its efforts to make space travel a possibility soon.