Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?

One of the great unanswered questions may soon be answered when a government report on unidentified flying objects is released sometime this month: Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?

First of all, given all the crazy conspiracy theories rattling around these days, I think we have the wrong question. Maybe we should be asking: Is there intelligent life here on the earth?

Second, since I was an 8-year-old child I’ve been fascinated by the idea that aliens actually have been visiting us for some time, perhaps even living among us.

I read Project Blue Book, the first report about so-called Unidentified Flying Objects when it came out. I even bought binoculars to watch the skies at night. I perched on the roof of my third-story house. I could have fallen and died if I had slipped.

What fed my excitement at the possibility of extraterrestrial life was curiosity, the source of all philosophy and science. I started reading the great science fiction writers from H.G. Wells to Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. Sitting up on that roof also led me to look upward to a sky full of stars. Sometimes one of them shot across the sky. leaving me wondering about it all.

It’s the why question that begins in childhood which is the harbinger of most human advancements.

The great questions of life such as why anything exists at all or if there is life after death (or birth), give rise to wonder.

And wonder is what we creatures do best when we pause to think about who we are and is our place in the universe.

We are wonderful animals when we take the time to consider the magical cosmos in which we exist, one small part of an expanding universe.

The U.S. government is releasing a study of findings of UFOs, which are now called UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). I am sure there will be much discussion of this report but I suspect we will be left with many unanswered questions.

My opinion is that whether or not we are being visited by aliens, it seems rational to believe that in a cosmos as vast as this one, other life forms exist.

What I’ve been thinking about lately is if life is found inside or outside our solar system what that will mean to our current scientific and religious views of who we think we are, perhaps more impactful than when Europeans encountered other civilizations, most older than their own.

Once upon a time, people believed the earth was the center of the universe until it was discovered we were one planet among others circling the sun.

Will our understanding of our world expand if life is discovered outside our solar system, or will we deny any new truths and retreat into what we know now? This is a recurring theme throughout human history—the birth of new knowledge and the resistance toward its emergence.