Yes, there was the UFO sighting that closed an airport in China recently and last month alien-loving crowds congregated at the annual UFO Festival in Roswell, N.M. We are, at once, fascinated by the question: Are We Alone?, and yet, we’re also a little bit scared, too.
But, Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in Mountain View, Calif. has faith in two things: first, that we will likely find proof of extraterrestrial intelligence within the next 25 years and secondly, that it’s unlikely any aliens know we’re here on earth.
Shostak bases his estimation on the powerful search technology that is SETI picking up a ET signal on the Drake Equation, a formula arrived at by SETI astronomer Frank Drake that calculates the number (N) of alien civilizations with whom we might be able to communicate, based on the rate of star formation, fraction of inhabitable planets, percentage of those that develop intelligent life, the fraction that could broadcast their presence into space and the length of time it would take to receive those signals. The late astronomer Carl Sagan estimated that number to be 1 million, while Drake himself estimated it to be only 10,000.
“These people may know what they’re talking about. If they do, the point is we trip across somebody in the next several dozen or two dozen years,” says Shostak. To the audience at the SETIcon convention on Sunday, he said, “Young people in the audience, I think there’s a really good chance you’re going to see this happen.”
At the same time, Shostak says that our ability to send out signals via FM radio, television, radar signals and satellites has only happened over the last 50 to 70 years and that those transmissions haven’t traveled very far into the universe and are barely a blip.
Photo by Sarai?Beloved Fotography via Flickr.