RESEARCHERS have been employing new methods to fuel the search for extraterrestrial life.
In a new article for The Conversation, Beatriz Villarroel, an assistant professor of Physics at Stockholm University, talks about unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
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For decades, the search for extraterrestrial life has captivated both scientists and the public.
This has promoted years of research and the creation of many new organizations – including a new elite UFO hunting group run by Nasa.
The US space agency announced in June 2022 that it plans to conduct a study on UFOs – now referred to as unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP.
Nasa defines UAPs as observations of events in the sky that “cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena – from a scientific perspective.”
“I am interested in searching the sky for alien, physical objects which may one day tell us whether we are alone in the galaxy,” Villarroel writes.
“Consider this: within our own Milky Way galaxy, there are 40 billion Earth-sized, potentially habitable planets,” she adds.
She poses the question, if mankind can send probes to another star, why couldn’t an extraterrestrial civilization send a probe to our Solar System?
To answer this, Villarroel lays out a few ways scientists could analyze whether there are extraterrestrial probes near Earth.
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“Analyzing materials from potentially crashed UFOs could give irrefutable proof,” she writes.
“This would require state-of-the-art techniques to determine if these wrecks exhibit exotic or distinctly different characteristics of manufacture.”
In the projects she leads, the scientist says her team searches for artificial non-human objects by looking for short light flashes in the night sky.
She explains that short flashes typically occur when a flat, reflective surface reflects sunlight – but they could also result from an artificial object emitting its own internal light.
“Historical photographic plates taken before the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 have revealed the presence of nine light sources (transients) that appear and vanish within an hour in a small image, defying astronomical explanations,” Villarroel says.
“In some cases, the transient light sources are even aligned, just like when short flashes come from moving objects,” she adds.
Relatively recent findings of this dating back to 1952 show three bright stars that were never seen again.
“Searching for alien probes in the modern night sky presents a serious but necessary challenge,” Villarroel notes.
However, a new research program, known as ExoProbe, may help.
The program searches for short light flashes from potential alien objects by utilizing a network of telescopes around the globe.
Using the instruments in conjunction may help scientists observe potential transient events.
To confirm sightings, any detected flash must be independently verified by at least two separate telescopes.
“The ExoProbe project also uses its own methods to filter out light flashes from the millions of space debris fragments and thousands of satellites cluttering the sky,” Villarroel says.
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“By adding a telescope taking real-time spectra (the wavelength distributions of the light) of the objects in a wide field, you can analyze the transients before they vanish into nothingness.”
“Ultimately, the goal is to identify any potential alien object and bring it back to Earth for further study,” she concludes.
