Is NASA About to Announce an Alien Civilization?


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Is NASA About to Announce an Alien Civilization?


We often wonder if we’re alone in the universe. Is our civilization the only one that’s out there? The statistical likelihood is that the answer is no, that we’re not alone, and that there are countless other forms of organized life in the universe. But, so far, nothing has been undeniably confirmed. With all the most recent advancements in astronomy, from the James Webb Space Telescope to the Europa Clipper mission, however, the hard evidence that everyone craves really might be on the brink of finally being disclosed.


This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; is NASA about to announce an alien civilization?


The search for alien life has been one of NASA’s central missions for decades now, and not just within our solar system but also far beyond. However, while NASA was established in 1958, it wasn’t the first in line for the alien hunt, and much of its early work was either based on or in collaboration with others. For example, one of the first major experiments in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, was conducted by none other than Frank Drake (famed for the Drake Equation) in 1960 - Project Ozma, which was run out of Cornell University.


The Viking Landers in 1976 were a monumental step for NASA, though. These trailblazing rovers famously conducted experiments on the Martian surface, in part in a bid to find microbial life there. The results were… ambiguous… but the Vikings were only ever meant to be the beginning of NASA on Mars and, indeed, in the wider solar system. Jump forward to today, and the Perseverance Rover is still active on Mars, and has phenomenally spent more than 1,300 Earth days there. Its main goals are again to find ancient microbial life, by collecting soil samples and analyzing rock formations in the Jezero Crater - a location which, it is believed, may have at one time harbored abundant water.


There’s no doubt that, when it comes to finding life elsewhere, NASA’s ambitions have now considerably expanded again. The now-defunct Kepler Space Telescope was launched in 2009, and over the course of its run it provided crucial confirmation for thousands of exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than our sun) before it was retired in 2018. Today, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has taken up the mantle for NASA with even greater urgency, detecting thousands more exoplanets to add to our ever-growing databank of possible alien homes.


The key with many of the countless other planets out there is that a certain percentage of them lie within the “habitable zone”, which is a region around their star in which the conditions that are created could (perhaps should) support life as we know it. But it isn’t only the Goldilocks Zone that’s guiding NASA’s eye. Whole teams are also employed to hunt for technosignatures. These are recognisable signs of advanced technology, like unusual radio signals of artificial structures. For example, a Dyson Sphere, a megastructure that harvests the energy of an entire star, would cause a significant increase in the amount of infrared radiation emitted from the star. And, as of writing, we have at least seven observed candidates which could be Dyson Spheres, but further research is needed.


Other technosignatures of note are optical signals, bizarre light signals, which can seemingly only be explained by extraterrestrial activity. Breakthrough Listen is a project working in collaboration with NASA, with more than $100 million in funding. It’s based in Berkeley, California, it began operations back in 2016, and it easily ranks as one of our most comprehensive searches for aliens so far. Both radio and optical signals are the focus, and the initiative aims to scan a huge portion of the sky to find them, continually increasing the chances that we will find alien life. Currently, Breakthrough Listen has access to many of the world’s most powerful telescopes, but for NASA it could well become one of its greatest allies and resources. NASA has eyes on (and in most cases hardware on, or heading to) most of the major worlds in our solar system - from Mars to Saturn, Ceres to Europa. With the Parker Solar Probe, it’s even aiming to touch the sun. But ongoing relationships with further-flung efforts such as Breakthrough Listen are almost certain to be crucial in the near and far future.


That said, if the biggest news doesn’t break over the coming years, then it’s a good bet that one particular bit of astronomical kit will have a major hand in it. The James Webb Space Telescope was famously launched in December 2021, and is held as perhaps the single greatest piece of observational equipment ever crafted by humanity. It has already provided images with never before seen detail, including shots in depth enough to break down even the exact chemical composition of an exoplanet’s atmosphere. The Webb can analyze the light that’s passing through an atmosphere with such precision that it can reveal various key biosignatures, like oxygen, methane, and water vapor. If there are aliens to be found, then this kind of perspective will surely play its role in making us aware.


Elsewhere with NASA, and the Europa Clipper mission set off in October 2024, which will travel 1.8 billion miles to its destination - the Jovian moon, Europa. It won’t arrive at Europa until at least 2030, but when it does it will have infiltrated probably the best bet for an alien home in the solar system that we currently have. Scientists know that Europa has a subsurface ocean beneath its icy ground. They also suspect that this ocean may have similar conditions to what were present on the early Earth… where we know that life really did form deep in the seas. In this case, it won’t be Webb or TESS or Breakthrough Listen that makes the discovery, but a single machine sent all the way to Jupiter. If, of course, there really is alien life there.


So, how well is NASA positioned today to answer one of our oldest questions: are we alone in the universe? On the one hand, it’s never been better placed. There are a fleet of NASA spacecraft alive and well right now, but there are also countless telescopes and private projects that NASA has its eyes and ears to, all in the name of science and the search for alien intelligence. On the other hand, will it ever be quite as simple as NASA finding something, knowing what it is, and excitedly telling the world all about it? Not likely.


Many individuals inside (and outside) NASA are still cautious about the search. Firstly, and as has been repeatedly drawn attention to during recent congressional hearings about UAP, there remains an element of entrenched skepticism and ridicule to rally against. NASA is publicly funded, and so it needs to be seen to be both effective and efficient. In the minds of some, chasing aliens is neither of those things. Therefore, there are still social and financial factors that could yet hold NASA back.


Secondly, however, and more significantly, despite all the advancements that we have made, we still don’t know anywhere near enough about the universe to confidently nor correctly interpret every signal or finding. A so-called “fast radio burst”, for example, which is one of the more inexplicable of all the cosmological phenomena that scientists regularly see, could be aliens… but it might just as well be a simple, natural phenomenon that we’re just unaware of at the moment. A strangely dimming or flashing star might be a Dyson Sphere, but until such day as we can view that star with photographic detail to confirm… it might also be something else.


And, finally, there are of course the ethical considerations surrounding alien contact, which NASA as a public entity is beholden to. Stephen Hawking infamously warned that extraterrestrial contact could be extremely bad, comparing the scenario to humanity’s colonial past. According to these fears, first contact could result in countless preventable problems, including war and disease. In another famous theory as to why we haven’t encountered aliens yet, the Dark Forest theory, the situation is pitched as though the smartest civilizations in the universe are those who demonstrate the most caution. That way, they survive. And there’s an ominous implication here that, actually, with all that NASA and the like are doing to investigate the universe, we aren’t being cautious at all. Which means that, ultimately, we won’t survive.


What’s your verdict on that and on everything else in this video? Do you think the big announcement that we are not alone will ever truly be made? And how would you feel if (or when) it is?