There is adoughnut in the sky. There are strange green lights in the sky above Canada. A blob plunges into the ocean.
There were many mysteries to ponder in the year 2021. It gave them answers, from a Pentagon report on military UFOs, to the truth about a so-called "alien signal" from the sun's nearest neighboring star. We learned a lot about aliens in 2021.
1. The government knows that ufos are real.
The image is from Bettmann/Getty Images.
The Pentagon released a report in June detailing a number of encounters. The report was supposed to assess the threat posed by UAP, and officially confirm several of the UFOs that had been shared through the internet. The brief, 9-page assessment confirmed that most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects, which ranged from birds and balloons to foreign surveillance equipment and top- secret U.S. government projects. The report failed to link any of the encounters to alien activity so anyone hoping for an acknowledgement of extraterrestrial intelligence may have been let down.
The long-awaited 'UFO report' has finally been released. It's not aliens.
There are some good videos for you.
2. Black holes are alien powerhouses.
The image is courtesy of Stocktrek Images/Getty.
A study published in July in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society warns that scientists shouldn't overlook nature's most extreme objects, such as black holes. Black holes can be up to 100,000 times more powerful than a star, which may make them attractive to alien civilizations. Aliens could use Dyson spheres to steal energy from a disc of white-hot matter swirling around a black hole and then send it into space. The study authors suggested that the re-radiated energy would create a wavelength signature. The researchers are working on a way to search through existing telescope data in order to find telltale signatures.
Alien 'Dyson spheres' could be using black holes to harvest power.
3. Earth may look nothing like alien planets.
The image was taken by Amanda Smith.
A study published in the Astrophysical Journal in August suggests that there may be another class of alien world that is just as hospitable to life as Earth-like planets. "Hycean" planets, which are up to 2.5 times larger than Earth and sport huge oceans of liquid water beneath hydrogenrich atmospheres, could be the ideal spot for life similar to the "extremophiles" that thrive in some of Earth's harshest environments. The planets in the Milky Way are abundant and diverse, some of which are very close to their stars. The authors wrote that both could potentially host itty-bitty life beneath their waves, meaning there may be a whole new avenue of exploration for alien planet hunters.
Alien life could thrive on big 'Hycean' exoplanets.
4. There is still a chance for life on one of the moons.
The image is from NASA/JPL-Caltech.
A June study found that the methane coming from Enceladus may be a sign of life in the moon's sea. Water geysers from the "tiger stripe" fissures of Enceladus were discovered by NASA's Cassini in 2005. The material is thought to come from a huge ocean of liquid water, but it wasn't the only compound found; there were other compounds as well.
The models were used to determine if the compounds were evidence of the microbes that eat dihydrogen and produce methane as waste. Life can't be ruled out on the icy moon because the team found that methane-farting microbes could be contributing to the planet's gassy geysers.
A study suggests that methane could be a sign of alien life.
5. Scientists may be ignoring junk in our solar system.
Credit goes to Victor habbick's vision and science library.
The cigar-shaped object 'Oumua', which passed through our solar system in 2017, is almost certainly a piece of it. According to his book, the object's unusual shape and bright appearance suggest that it may have been an alien technology that was accidentally thrown into our solar system.
A buoy. A grid of Pods for communication. "These are plausible explanations for the 'Oumuamua mystery' because we are already doing these things here on Earth, albeit on a far more limited scale." A majority of the people who have studied the object favor natural explanations, such as a comet or a dust bunny.
Harvard astrophysicist still contends that an alien machine already visited us.
6. Humans could have watched alien worlds grow up.
The image is from EyeEm.
More than 1,700 alien civilizations could have been watching us for thousands of years prior to the last century or so when human efforts to find alien civilizations among the stars began. Over the last 5,000 years, 1,715 nearby star systems have had a perfect viewing angle of Earth, and more than 1,400 of them still have a clear view today.
All of these stars are within 300 light-years of our planet, and 75 of them are less than 100 light-years away. Lisa Kaltenegger, an associate professor of astronomy and director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, said that the 75 star systems that humans have been sending radio signals to for about 100 years would have washed over them already. The question is whether or not any hypothetical civilizations want to communicate with us.
Aliens in 1,700 star systems could have seen civilization.
7. There is no best way to communicate with aliens.
The image is from the Getty.
What is the best way to tell aliens where we live? In December, Live Science writerJoanna Thompson investigated the question and found that no one method is perfect. On the other hand, radio waves are a good way to communicate with extraterrestrials because they fit in a gap in the spectrum called the "water hole" that's free of background noise.
As radio waves travel, they broaden, meaning that any message we send will become less relevant to us as we travel farther from Earth. Laser light does not have this problem, and is unlikely to reach any alien observers unless we target our message directly to their star system. Both methods have advantages, but neither are perfect.
How would aliens find their way to Earth?
8. Our own technology is getting in the way.
The image was taken by M. Kornmesser.
Astronomers detected a signal from Proxima Centauri, the nearest star system to our sun and home to at least one potentially habitable planet. Researchers interpreted the signal as a sign of alien technology because it fell into a narrow band of radio waves that are rarely made by human aircraft or satellites. The signal was actually coming from a malfunctioning computer or cellular device that was located near the telescope that detected it.
The researchers looked over the data again and found several "lookalike" signals that seemed to be missing components of the alien transmission. This alien message seems to have been a human computer on the fritz, but studying and identifying it still gives scientists valuable experience in separating real deep-space signals from Earthly noise.
The 'Alien' signal was probably a broken computer on Earth.
9. Alien abductions could be dreams.
David Wall is the photographer.
A study from July suggests that lucid dreaming, in which people are partially aware and can control their dreams during sleep, could explain alien abduction stories. The circumstances of the kidnappings are often frightening and evoke feelings of terror and paralysis. Russian researchers wondered if dream experiments could provide clues about alleged extraterrestrial experiences, since certain dream states are known to produce such feelings.
A number of people reported dreams that resembled actual descriptions of alleged alien abductions, after the scientists prompted 152 people to dream about encounters with aliens. Of those who described their dream encounters as realistic, 24% experienced sleep paralysis and intense fear. The study authors reported that people who experience abductions by aliens are likely to experience an extraterrestrial meeting while in a dream.
Study hints that 'Alien abduction' stories may come from dreaming.
Live Science published the original article.
