Is it possible some UAP are extraterrestrial craft? Is it reasonable to think there is intelligent alien life visiting earth?
Scientists still debate whether the universe is infinite, but at a minimum, our visible universe contains trillions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of planets and moons. As best we can tell, the same laws of physics apply everywhere, and the heavy organic molecules that form the basic building blocks of life are abundant. In short, from the nearest solar systems to the most distant edges of space and time, we are surrounded by endless opportunities for life. Amidst these endless opportunities, intelligent extraterrestrial life is a near mathematical certainty. But what about the prospects for intelligent life to evolve in Earth’s galactic neighborhood? Although estimates vary considerably, many indicate we are probably not alone in the Milky Way.
Duncan Forgan, a Ph.D. Candidate in astronomy at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland, carefully evaluated data on the composition of the Milky Way and concluded there should be over 360 stable, advanced civilizations in our galaxy. He also believes that if microbial life can spread via meteors, we may be sharing the Milky Way with tens of thousands of technologically advanced civilizations.
In 2020, astronomers Tom Westby and Christopher Conselice, researchers at the University of Nottingham, performed an extensive assessment of the latest astronomical data and concluded, within a band of uncertainty, that we share the Milky Way with dozens of other technologically advanced alien civilizations.
Astronomers Adam Frank and Woodruff Sullivan took a somewhat different approach but reached similar conclusions. According to co-author Adam Frank, “Even if you are pretty pessimistic and think that you’d have to search through 100 billion planets in habitable zones before you found one where a civilization developed, then there have still been a trillion civilizations over cosmic history!” Even if life arises on habitable Earth-like planets only once in 60 billion opportunities, we are still not the first civilization in the Milky Way.