The question of whether aliens exist has worried humanity for many years. Enough time has passed since people began to study space, but even today no one is able to definitively confirm or refute the fact of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. If there is no other life outside our planet, then how can we explain the appearance of mysterious objects in the sky? And why are there no photographs and videos proving the presence of aliens on Earth? Today no one can give unambiguous answers to these questions.

The birth of interest in UFOs

They started talking seriously about aliens in XIX century. It was at this time that the first mentions of strange creatures visiting the Earth appeared. However, at that time no one called them aliens, and the cars in which they flew to our planet were UFOs. The question of whether there were aliens was of little concern to people in those days.

What fell near Roswell?

They began to study in detail the question of the possibility of the existence of intelligent life beyond the Earth in the middle of the last century. In 1947, information appeared in the media about the crash of an unidentified aircraft near the American city of Roswell (New Mexico). It was even rumored that the bodies of aliens in the UFO fell into the hands of the military. The news caused an unprecedented stir in society, but the American authorities managed to calm the public by declaring that it was not a flying saucer that fell near Roswell, but a weather balloon. But many were skeptical about this statement, being confident that an object of extraterrestrial origin crashed in New Mexico, and the US government hid this information and classified it from others.

What is behind the Roswell incident?

Was there contact with aliens back in 1947? History is silent about this, but over time, news of the UFO crash has acquired new rumors. Witnesses of the crash of an unidentified object said that they noticed scattered bodies of aliens around the plate. Their number, according to different indications, ranged from three to five. The governor of New Mexico claimed to have seen four small male creatures after the disaster, three of whom were dead. They all had large heads, huge eyes, and thin mouths. The administrator of the Roswell hospital also said that she looked at the bodies of dead aliens and remembers exactly that they had 4 fingers on their hands. There was also an eyewitness who claimed to have personally observed the surviving alien when he was in a military hospital. In addition, some military personnel who took part in cordoning off the disaster site admitted over time that they promised not to disclose to anyone what they saw near Roswell.

The testimony of eyewitnesses to the disaster largely coincided, but the US government never confirmed the version of a UFO crash in New Mexico. People interested in whether aliens exist have not received an answer to their question to this day. It is unknown what happened to the surviving alien, if he actually existed. The story of the fall of the mysterious object was called the Roswell incident and to this day attracts researchers of the unusual.

Contacts of ancient people with aliens: versions

Modern ufologists cannot completely confirm or deny the fact of the existence of intelligent life on other planets. But they have a lot of indirect evidence of the presence of mysterious creatures on Earth. Many scientists today are convinced that most ancient artifacts (Mayan complexes, pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge, huge stone balls in Costa Rica, etc.) are of alien origin. They motivate their version by the fact that in ancient times humanity did not have the technologies and devices that would allow them to create such structures.

Did ancient people have contact with aliens? Ufologists, having examined drawings that are several thousand years old, are inclined to believe that aliens used to actively visit our planet and repeatedly caught the eye of people. Otherwise, why are there so many images of creatures with large heads and short bodies among examples of ancient art? Scientists are sure that unusual people are aliens, because people in ancient times sketched everything that surrounded them. But it is clear that this is only an assumption, since ancient images cannot be direct evidence of the presence of aliens on Earth.

Modern UFO eyewitnesses

If we can only guess about the visits of the inhabitants of other planets of the Earth in ancient times, then how should we treat the statements of our contemporaries who prove that they saw a UFO? News that flying saucers, spherical, cone-shaped or cylindrical objects have been spotted somewhere, constantly excite the minds of fans of the unknown. Could there really be doubts about whether aliens exist after this? Photos of UFOs taken by eyewitnesses are available to anyone today. They recorded mysterious aircraft or an incomprehensible glow in the sky. However, it often turns out that the captured object in the photo is a cloud, satellite or aircraft of an unusual design, and the mysterious light and flashes are ordinary atmospheric phenomenon. But it is possible that some photographs actually contain flying objects of extraterrestrial origin.

Encounters with aliens

What about people who claim to have come into contact with aliens and even been abducted by them? Practice shows that such statements are most often made by mentally ill people and should not be taken seriously. Representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations are usually endowed with great intelligence, so even if they visit Earth, they are unlikely to come into contact with humans and thereby reveal their existence. But even against the backdrop of such disappointing conclusions, ufologists do not cease to carefully study all the information about UFOs and aliens that they receive. It is not known whether there are aliens on Earth, but scientists tend to believe that there are guests from other civilizations on our planet and even have their own bases here, one of which is located in Crimea.

So should you believe in aliens?

Thanks to science fiction writers and films, people have formed the opinion that the alien looks like a small man with a large head, huge dark eyes, flabby skin and no genitals. But no one knows who representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations really look like. How can you tell if there are aliens? Photos of mysterious creatures appear in the media every now and then, but the authenticity of these photographs is questioned by scientists.

Many are confident that ufologists today have much more information about aliens than it seems to ordinary citizens. However, all information concerning life outside our planet is classified and therefore not available to the general public. One can only guess about the plausibility of this version. Only one thing is obvious: scientists today cannot or do not want to answer the question of whether aliens exist.

Whether aliens exist or not - almost every inhabitant of planet Earth would like to know for sure. And it must be said that this question did not arise in space age twentieth century, and centuries and millennia earlier. For example, in the Italian Montalcino there is a fresco depicting the crucifixion of Christ against the backdrop of a fortress, above which, in turn, two people are moving in the air. In Florence's Palazzo Vecchio there is a 15th century painting of the Madonna and Saint Giovannio illuminated by four beams from a disc-shaped object hovering above them in the sky. Tapestries from a number of basilicas in French Burgundy, dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, also depict objects resembling flying saucers.

Do aliens exist or not? Photos of ancient paintings testify in favor of existence!

It is interesting that a number of European artists of the 14th century, in their works dedicated to the crucifixion, depicted next to the Son of God. In the work of an unknown artist in 1350, these were also two flying objects on either side of the Cross, and Paolo Uccello depicted them next to each other in a painting exhibited at the Florentine Academy. with a crucifix, a flying saucer in the form it is usually depicted today. Such artifacts make you think about what happens in real life.

UFO paintings were painted in the 14th and 15th centuries

What made artists of past centuries depict such strange objects in their paintings is unknown. What is known is that the approximate period of the appearance of paintings with strange flying machines in Europe coincides with the 14th century. For example, a colorful fresco in the monastery of Visoki Decani, in Kosovo, depicts the appearance in the sky above the city of a luminous disk from which a ray emerges, falling down on a woman bowing before this ray in a respectful bow. In Asia, similar images are found five centuries earlier. In particular, the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit text “Prajnaparamita Sutra” is known, the illustrations of which contain images of flying objects similar to later European images.

Christian scenes with unidentified flying objects

Perhaps the inhabitants of these countries did not even imagine that aliens really existed, but they captured in works of art something that was unfamiliar to them, but which struck them very much with some characteristics. The painting “The Miracle of Snow” by Masolino da Panicale (1383-1440) is quite well known, which depicts the Mother of God and the Son of God seated on clouds, under which there are devices in a row that resemble disk UFOs. Although skeptics believe that in this form the artist depicted simply a ribbon of clouds. In addition, a French medal from a later period (around 1680) is known, where a wheel is depicted in the sky under the clouds, also reminiscent of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

In the Stone Age they met with other civilizations

Most likely, even the primitive peoples of past millennia, in our opinion, did not think about whether aliens exist or not. But it is possible that they saw representatives of other civilizations. This is evidenced by rock paintings in Australia (Kimberley, about 6-12 thousand BC), which depict faces in glasses with a halo-shaped illumination above their heads. Images of strange creatures with one eye and the likeness of breathing tubes on their necks were also found in Africa. They were left behind by the peoples who lived there in the 4th-8th centuries BC, when known ancient civilizations were only in their infancy.

The cave painting in Italy, dating back to the 13th millennium BC, is also very realistic, when the history of mankind ended. It depicts humanoid figures with tools in their hands, on the heads of which there are elements similar to modern illuminated helmets. The proportions of the figures are observed quite accurately, but who made these paintings remains a mystery

The fact that aliens really exist has been repeatedly tried to be confirmed by enthusiasts since the beginning of the era of space technology. Many experts tried to gain access to materials from NASA, which, however, harshly suppressed such attempts. Moreover, one of the employees in the recent past said that for decades the agency had classified as “secret” any signals containing data about unidentified objects in space and on Earth.

But photographs (it is possible that they are fake) were still leaked to the press depicting lunar landscapes, in which the remains of buildings of a strict geometric shape, long “roads” can be traced. It also became known about the attacks of huge flying saucers on an American spaceship in 1968, when a UFO approached it at a speed of 11,000 kilometers per hour, which temporarily disabled all the equipment and significantly worsened the health of the astronauts. Even then the question did not arise: “Do aliens exist or not?” The facts about this event were completely classified for many years.

Attacks on American astronauts on Earth's satellite

The Apollo 11 mission, which landed on artificial satellite from a certain point of flight, was also “escorted” by aircraft of unearthly origin. Astronauts mention what they saw on the Moon various forms, as well as objects with portholes in which shadows of unknown creatures could be seen. The same “attention” was paid to the Apollo 12 mission, which was accompanied by UFOs for three million kilometers. It is assumed that irrefutable evidence that aliens really exist on our satellite has already been collected and kept classified as “secret” in the relevant departments. And perhaps that is why lunar exploration programs were curtailed by both the USA and the USSR back in the 20th century. Rumor has it that earthlings were “asked” from the Moon, so research activities world space powers are aimed at other objects in the sky.

Manifestations of other civilizations on our planet

But the presence of alien creatures has been discovered not only in space. There is a lot of evidence that people in different parts of our planet have encountered supernatural phenomena of clearly unearthly origin in our days. What is the current evidence about whether aliens exist or not? The year 2014 was quite rich in events that testify in favor of the presence of alien civilizations. In particular, in March 2014 in St. Petersburg, many residents recorded on photos and videos the appearance of a luminous spot, which through binoculars appeared as several pulsating points within one boundary. The light object hung for several minutes and went out, after which it appeared in another area of ​​the Northern capital.

Aliens saved us when a meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk

Some ufologists believe that the manifestation of extraterrestrial technology was present during the fall Chelyabinsk meteorite in February 2012. When examining footage from the scene of the event in slow motion, it was noted that shortly before contact with the ground, a small body of unknown origin seemed to fly up to the meteorite at a speed that could not be achieved by terrestrial aircraft or projectiles, and contributed to its destruction. Perhaps aliens are among us, and their high technologies are helping to save the planet from destructive external influences that could bring death to the alien creatures themselves.

At the end of 2014, in Mexico, a positive answer was once again found to the burning question: “Do aliens exist?” Photos and videos from the small city of Guadalajara, provided by ufologist A. Ibarra, who deals with the problem of searching for extraterrestrial civilizations, were found to be authentic. The footage shows several disc-shaped silver objects hovering over the city during the daytime for 2-3 minutes, which then suddenly disappear. This region is generally rich in UFO manifestations, and experts believe that alien objects are attracted by numerous volcanoes, the vents of which, allegedly, can be the entrance to alien bases.

They were examined by aliens

Unexplained events that have happened to thousands of people indicate that aliens exist. Or not? However, it is difficult to find explanations for cases when “implants” that appear from nowhere are found in the body of some people, which often consist of metals not found on Earth. As a rule, foreign bodies do not give any unpleasant sensations and do not affect physical health. However, people who received such a “gift” belong to a neurotic personality type and often talk about being abducted by aliens and subjected to experiments. In their descriptions, representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations often appear as unsympathetic creatures with green, gray or brown skin, both smaller and larger than the standard terrestrial one. Communication often occurs telepathically, and the attitude of creatures from other worlds towards people is often aggressive, since they are many times superior to us technically.

can develop rapidly next to us

Do aliens live among us? After traces of amino acids were found in the Murchison meteorite, which fell in 1969, including about fifty of which were not found on Earth at all, it can be assumed that some living units (and perhaps most) have alien origin. For example, bacteria living in a salt lake in California (Mono) use arsenic in the water to chemical reactions to maintain its own life activity instead of phosphorus, which is used for the same purposes by the rest of the living world of the planet. Such organisms could survive on other planets. Or they once lived there, and perhaps still live there.

Are there aliens near us? Photos from the works of A. Bokovikov and B. Fomin may indicate that for many millennia we have been living side by side with a civilization that has silicon, not carbon, as its basis. The above-mentioned enthusiasts believe that next to humanity there is a civilization of stones, among which the group of agates is primarily distinguished. These stones, according to the authors of the method, have such important organs as a kind of skin; they reproduce by “seeds” that arise in the female part of the stone.

Other civilizations may live in your jewelry

What they have in common with humanity is that agates can heal wounds (they heal like wounds on resinous trees), and also that the level of silicon in a person’s blood increases sharply during fractures to ensure successful healing of bones. If you have ever encountered an agate druse, you can pay attention to the presence of a striped (male) part and a crystalline (female) part, from where the embryos of future new stones emerge through peculiar “channels”.

This hypothetical process takes hundreds and maybe millions of years, so people paid attention to it only with the development of science and technology. In addition, it must be taken into account that stones can have a certain effect on a person’s health and destiny, which gave rise to such a science as lithotherapy. Based on the above, it can be said that the problem of whether aliens exist or not can most likely be resolved positively. But the question arises: do we exist for aliens as a civilization worthy of contact?

There is no more mysterious story in the world than the story of flying saucers. I don’t know whether the great Shakespeare would have signed up to this clumsy paraphrase if he had lived to this day, but millions of believers in space aliens Earthlings would definitely sign up.

Incredible phenomena in heaven that have become obvious to many witnesses have been “hanging” on the waiting list for many years in the hope of being somehow explained. Residents of the English town of Bonnybridge in Stirlingshire stubbornly refuse to believe their eyes, claiming that since 1992 they have been visited by over 500 UFOs. They are supported by 13.5 thousand residents of Belgium who observed mysterious celestial objects in March 1990, and thousands of Kharkov residents who observed “something” hovering overhead for a long time in the early 80s. And what can we say about airplane pilots, many of whom more than once encountered on their heavenly path a mysterious accompaniment glowing with an unearthly light.

What was all this?

Only the weather is to blame

A few days ago, the British Ministry of Defense declassified a UFO report. The document, compiled in 2000 by experts from the military department, received such high category secrecy, that it was reproduced in only a few copies, and the name of the compiler was kept in the strictest confidence. The MoD report was based on a 4-year study called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK.

Making such a closely guarded document public might never have happened. But the Freedom of Information Act in Britain forces secret holders to release their secrets to the light of day after a certain time, especially if there is a public request for this. In this case, the request came from Dr David Clarke, a scientist at the University of Sheffield.

The verdict of the four-hundred-page report is essentially clear: no one came to us, there is no evidence of extraterrestrial life forms. Here is how this verdict sounds in the language of a specialist from the Ministry of Defense: “There is no evidence that would allow us to judge that the phenomenon (we are talking about a UFO) is of a hostile nature or is under any control other than forces of natural origin.. "There is no evidence that there are 'solid' objects that could pose a collision hazard."

What then provoked the “clash” between earthlings and celestial aliens? Nothing other than attacks of mass psychosis, or maybe hypnosis? And what kind of control of “naturally occurring forces” is the report talking about? Here's what it's about.

The experts who compiled the document believe that we are talking about unidentified... weather phenomena. About such specific tricks magnetic storms or atmospheric body movements that can create a kind of Fata Morgana effect. That is, to make a person see a mirage.

Here's what the document says about this: "It can be assumed that some unidentified aerial phenomena are caused by well-known and probably little-studied effects of meteors ... A significant amount of evidence supports the thesis that the events (UFOs) are almost certainly caused by physical, electrical and magnetic phenomena in the atmosphere, mesosphere and ionosphere They manifest themselves in the presence of certain weather conditions and conditions. electric charge and are observed very infrequently, which allows those observing them to talk about their uniqueness."

A person who finds himself at the epicenter of the above-described “magnetic phenomenon” is exposed to a direct effect on the brain, experts conclude: “Proximity to the plasma field can have a harmful effect on mechanisms and even people...

Medicine has proven that this kind of local field can cause a reaction in the temporal lobe of the human brain. As a result, a person has a very clear idea of ​​​​events that actually did not take place."

However, the weather is not to blame for everything. Sometimes earthlings mistakenly mistake airplanes with especially bright side lights or unusually shaped balloons for an alien ship. Or the reflections of a powerful lighthouse. But you never know these days there are so many technical gizmos in the world that can confuse an observer, especially if he suffers from a vivid imagination.

The main thing is that from now on, clarity has been brought to all this insanity: there are no UFOs above the Earth. Which is what needs to be taken as a basis.

Why did the British hacker go to NASA and the Pentagon?

The “legend” of the British Ministry of Defense regarding UFOs is fresh, but it’s hard to believe. Commentators of all stripes, including pundits, paid tribute to the proposed theory of "disturbances" in the atmosphere, mesosphere and ionosphere affecting the temporal lobe of the brain. But such an explanation obviously did not cause complete satisfaction. For a variety of reasons. Firstly, according to the theory of probability, someone would obviously have to observe us, or visit us, or contact us. The universal “communal apartment” looks too crowded for its residents to not run into each other over such a long period of proximity. Secondly, there are too many inconsistencies in this whole mysterious story. Finally, there are too many bold “secret” stamps on thick folders of documents about “flying saucers”, carefully collected and protected by the security agencies of the leading powers. And this in itself inevitably leads to suspicion.

My father-in-law, who worked in a responsible position in the Ministry of Defense, once told me that it is better not to poke your nose into these matters. This advice was given at that time in the mid-80s, when the story of a UFO sighting by the crew of a Tallinn passenger plane became a sensation. Due to someone's oversight, one of the most newspapers read country (Trud) managed to make this story public. However, I was no longer able to get to the Tallinn crew to take more detailed “testimonies” for my own newspaper: the UFO story was taboo. Meanwhile, the author of these lines was given to understand that the pilots could most likely observe a secret military development present in the sky. And that it was precisely this kind of test objects walking in the sky that more than once or twice were mistaken by witnesses for a UFO.

So whose secret developments are the defense industry of all countries protecting? Aliens or your own? And - take it higher! - Is there a conspiracy of world governments leading " star Wars"secret from the people of earth? The British computer ace Gary McKinnon, whose excessive curiosity made him a hacker and for whom the prison is now crying, tried to answer these questions. Gary McKinnon was arrested by the British police in 2002, after he managed to hack into the computer networks of NASA and The Pentagon. Just the other day, hearings began in an English court on the extradition of McKinnon to the United States, where the virtual hacker, excommunicated from using the Internet, is expected to be sent to prison. American prison could be 70 years for a British hacker.

On the eve of the trial, in a sensational interview with the BBC, Gary McKinnon revealed what exactly he was looking for in the secret files - photographic evidence of the existence of aircraft and extraterrestrial energy sources. Judge for yourself how serious evidence the British hacker managed to obtain. This is the interview.

BBC: Here is a list of your charges: you hacked army systems, navy, Air Force, Department of Defense, NASA and others. For what?

Gary McKinnon: I was looking for hidden technologies called UFO technologies. I think this is the most big secret in the world because people usually laugh at it, but it's a very important thing. Old people don't have enough money to pay their bills, countries are being invaded in the name of Western oil contracts, and yet backrooms of the government are hiding free energy technology.

BBC: How did you get to what you were looking for at NASA, at the Department of Defense?

G.M.: Contrary to what the press is feeding us, none of this was very smart. I was looking for blank passwords, I wrote a tiny Perl program that connected the programs of other people who were also looking for blank passwords, and in just eight minutes you could scan 65 thousand machines.

BBC: So you found computers that had administrator status, in which passwords were not set, that is, they were left the same as they were by default?

G.M.: Exactly.

BBC: For how long were you on these computers? Was this a one-time event or did it last for a week?

G.M.: No, a couple of years.

BBC: And no one noticed you for a couple of years?

G.M.: No. I trained myself to do this at certain hours... I was constantly juggling with time differences. I went in at night, hoping there weren't too many people there. But there was one time when a Network engineer saw me and asked me a question, and we talked to each other through WordPad - a very, very strange way of communicating. He said, "What are you doing?" - and it was amazing. I said I was from military computer security and he truly believed it.

BBC: Did you find what you were looking for?

G.M.: Yes. There is a group called Project Exposure. They published a book containing accounts from 400 eyewitnesses - from civilian air traffic controllers to military radar operators to the guys deciding whether or not to launch nuclear missiles. These are very responsible people who can be trusted, and they all say: yes, there is UFO technology, there is anti-gravity, there is free energy and it is extraterrestrial in origin, and we caught the ship and studied it inside and out.

BBC: What did you find at NASA?

G.M.: One of these people is a NASA photography expert, and she said that in Building 8 of the Johnson Space Center they regularly "corrected" images of UFOs taken by high-resolution satellite cameras. She said this: they had folders called “filtered” and “unfiltered”, “processed” and “raw” - something like that. I pulled out one picture from the folder, but the connection was through a telephone line, the speed was 56 kilobits per second, that is, a very slow Internet connection, this was in the days of telephone modems, and using a remote control program I changed the color palette to 4-bit , and switched the screen resolution to a very, very low mode, but even with all this, the picture shook on the screen.

But when it did appear, it was a miracle. The culmination of all my efforts. It was a picture of something that was definitely not made by man. It hung over the earth's hemisphere. It looked like a satellite. In the shape of a cigar - and such geodesic domes above, below, to the left, to the right and on both sides of it, and although the picture was of low resolution, it was clearly taken from a very short distance. This thing was dangling in space, with the earth's hemisphere visible beneath it - and no rivets, no seams, nothing that is associated with normal human production.

BBC: Could it be a drawing and not a photograph?

G.M.: I don’t know... For me it was more than a coincidence. This woman said: “This is exactly what is happening in this building, in this space center.” I walked into this building, this space center, and this is exactly what I saw.

BBC: Do you still have a copy of the photo? You downloaded it onto your machine.

G.M.: No... When they cut me off, the picture disappeared.

BBC: Were you cut off at the exact time you were uploading the picture?

G.M.: Yes, I saw someone's hand moving.

In response to Gary McKinnon's statements, representatives of the American aerospace agency denied that they edited the images to mislead the public and emphasized that NASA's policy is openness. In addition, the agency added, it does not have direct evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life.

In 2002, the world's oldest society of ufologists announced its self-dissolution. Experts from the British Flying Saucer Bureau regretted the lack of concrete facts and evidence indicating that such a phenomenon as a UFO really exists. At the annual conference of ufologists held in London, which was held by the English magazine of paranormal phenomena, the Fortin Times, a most regrettable statement was made for all “expectants”: ufology has been given a long life.

Explaining the draconian verdict, magazine editor Bob Rickard said: "Unidentified flying objects controlled by aliens have not revealed their existence. We had hoped that the development advanced technologies and the widespread use of video cameras would lead to concrete evidence of alien activity, but nothing of the kind happened."

Therefore, there is no irrefutable evidence and material evidence that aliens flew to Earth.

Or they are hidden and destroyed. And it turns out that we are still alone. All we can do is wait and hope. The remarkable scientist Academician Ambartsumyan once said stunning words in defense of our most daring hopes, directed upward: a person differs from a pig in that sometimes he takes his head off the trough and raises it to the stars.

1. September 20, 1977 - mass UFO sighting in Petrozavodsk and the surrounding area. Hover over the city center for 10-12 minutes.

2. October 7, 1977 - 9 UFOs “attacked” a floating base in the Barents Sea Northern Fleet"Volga". Radio communication was disrupted and restored after the UFO departed.

3. January 29, 1986 - accident or landing of a UFO in the area of ​​Hill 611 near the village of Dalnegorsk. Material fragments of scientific interest were left behind.

4. September 27, 1989 - UFO landing in Voronezh in a park on Mendeleev Street. Mass surveillance. Landing marks were left.

5. August 16, 1991 - the city of Yeysk. Meeting in the air of an airplane piloted by cadet M. Churbakov with a UFO. The pilot ejected. The plane is destroyed.

6. 70s - repeated intelligence reports from the Pacific Fleet about the observation of UFOs over water, as well as those “diving” into the water or “emerging” from there into “space”.

7. December 1968 - Steppe station near Chita. Temporary paralysis of engineer Mironov, who fell into the “irradiation” zone of a UFO.

8. March 1983 - UFO sighting in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Material fragments of the span remained.

9. 80s - repeated flights of UFOs over the submarine bases of the Northern Fleet.

11. June 1977 - city of Derzhavinsk, Kazakhstan. "Meeting" of pioneers from a pioneer camp with a giant humanoid from a UFO.

12. July 1947 - Roseville, USA. The version about a crashed “flying saucer” and the death of 4 humanoids. There is no scientific evidence yet.

13. June 24, 1947 - Seattle, USA. While flying over Mount Rainier, Kenneth Arnold encountered a "squadron" of UFOs. The beginning of the flying saucer boom.

14. January 1961 - Fort Knox, USA. The commander of the fighter flight sent to intercept the UFO, Captain Thomas Mantell, took the lead, and his plane disintegrated before the eyes of his wingmen.

15. October 30, 1989 - New York, Federal Highway. The appearance of a UFO in front of many witnesses.

16. December 7, 1990 - observation of a UFO by cosmonaut Gennady Strekalov, flying on a Soyuz over Greenland.

17. October 27, 1954 - Florence, Italy. A group of UFOs fly over the stadium during a football match. Fans were doused with a snow-like vaporous substance called “angel hair.”

19. 1980-90s - mass UFO sightings in Belgium (the so-called “Belgian Triangle”).

20. 70s - frequent appearances of UFOs in the area of ​​​​the island of Grenada, which forced the Prime Minister of Grenada to raise the issue of UFOs at the UN.

21. 1985 - the mouth of the Amazon. Active manifestations of UFOs that caused injuries to the aborigines.

23. 90s - Kalahari Desert. Version about a UFO shot down during an air battle. There is no scientific data.

24. 1978 - Bass Strait, Australia. The death of pilot Valentich, who encountered a UFO in the air.

26. 1979 - Kuwait, Asia. The landing UFO temporarily blocked the entire country's radio communications with the outside world.

27. 1976 - Iran. Unsuccessful attack of "phantoms" on a UFO. The aircraft's electrical system is blocked.

A little over 80 years ago, humanity first began broadcasting radio and television signals with enough strength to leave Earth's atmosphere and travel deep into interstellar space. If someone living in a distant star system vigilantly watches for these signals, they will not only be able to catch them, but will immediately identify their sender as an intelligent species. In 1960, Frank Drake was the first to suggest looking for such signals emanating from others. star systems, using large radio dishes, leading to the SETI initiative: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But over the past half century, we have developed much more efficient means of communication for everything. globe than radio and television signals. Does this mean that searching for aliens in the electromagnetic spectrum no longer makes sense?

This question is, of course, extremely speculative, but it gives us an opportunity to look at our own technical progress and consider how it might take place in other places in the Universe. After all, if someone from a society that communicated through drums and fires found themselves deep in the forest, they might come to the conclusion that there was no intelligent life around. But give him a phone and he can contact his relatives. Our conclusions can be as biased as the methods we use.

The mechanism of electricity began to be understood only in the late 18th century, thanks to the work of Ben Franklin. The power of electricity began to power our wires and other devices only in the 19th century, and the phenomena of classical electromagnetism began to be understood only in the second half of this century. The first transmissions of electromagnetic signals did not take place until 1895, and radio broadcasting did not take us into the interstellar medium until the 1930s.

Also very limited: if our radio signals travel through interstellar space for only 80 years, this means that only civilizations within a radius of 80 light years can pick up these signals, and only civilizations within a radius of 40 light years can catch the signal and send back a response, which by today would have come already. If the Fermi Paradox asks the question “where is everyone?”, the answer is “not within 40 light years of us.” But what does this say about intelligent life in the Universe? Never mind.

Although there may be hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and about two trillion galaxies in the observable universe, there are fewer than 1,000 stars within 40 light-years of Earth.

In addition, electromagnetic signals traveling from Earth into interstellar space are decreasing, not increasing. TV and radio broadcast signals increasingly travel through cables or satellites rather than broadcast towers on Earth. Another century will pass, and, most likely, the signals that we sent throughout the 20th century will stop leaving the Earth altogether. Perhaps an alien civilization will conclude that this blue, watery planet with life reached a certain stage of development, and then was destroyed, and signals stopped being sent.

In other words, inferring what is and isn't there from a particular electromagnetic signal waveform is a completely flawed strategy.

If we looked at the Earth up close in visible light, we would undoubtedly think it was inhabited: the glow of cities at night is an unmistakable sign of activity. But such light pollution is a relatively new phenomenon. We are constantly learning and investing money, effort and time to get rid of it. There is no reason to believe that by the end of the 21st-22nd century the Earth will look the same as it does now, and not as it looked billions of years before: dark, sometimes illuminated by auroras, thunderstorms or volcanoes.

But if you are not looking for electromagnetic signals, then what? Everything in the Universe is limited by the speed of light, and any signal created on another planet must manifest itself somehow in order for us to notice it. These signals fall into four categories:

• Electromagnetic signals, including any form of light of any wavelength that could indicate the presence of intelligent life
• Gravitational wave signals, which - if they belong to intelligent life - we can detect with sufficiently sensitive equipment from anywhere in the Universe
• Neutrino signals - which, although extremely scattered over large distances - could become an unmistakable signature in certain conditions
• Finally, macroscopic space probes, robotic, computerized, autonomous or inhabited, that approach Earth

Surprisingly, our fantasy imagination focuses almost exclusively on the fourth possibility, which is the least likely.

When you think about the vast distances between stars, how many stars have potentially habitable planets (or even moons), and how much resources it takes to physically send a space probe from one planet to another planet on another star, this method of communication seems completely insane . It is much easier to build a detector that could explore different regions of the sky and find signals that would absolutely indicate the existence of intelligent life.

In terms of the electromagnetic spectrum, we know how our living world responds to the seasons. In winter and summer, our planet “glows” differently. As times change, so do the colors in various parts of our planet. With a sufficiently large telescope (or array of telescopes), it would be possible to discern individual signs of our civilization: cities, satellites, airplanes, etc. But perhaps the best we could find would be changes in the natural environment consistent with what only an intelligent civilization would create.

We haven't done this yet, but perhaps large-scale modifications to the planet are what we should look for. Don't forget that the civilization we find is unlikely to be a technological baby like us. If she survived and survived all the catastrophes, she will be tens or hundreds of thousands of years older and more advanced than us. Just remember what we were like just 200 years ago.

Perhaps, as our gravitational wave technology becomes advanced enough to detect the first signals from the Universe, we will begin to discover more subtle manifestations of activity in the cosmos. We may be able to identify a planet with tens of thousands of satellites in orbit by its unique gravitational wave signature. The field is very young right now, so it has a long way to go. But these signals do not disappear the way electromagnetic signals do, and there is no way to hide them. Perhaps in a hundred or two years this will be our main tool for space exploration.

But there is another option. What energy source will a sufficiently developed civilization use? Maybe nuclear. More likely it will be fusion energy, a special type of it that is different from what flows in the cores of stars, and emits a very, very specific neutrino signature as a byproduct. And these neutrinos will directly indicate that energy is created not in a natural, but in a man-made process.

If we can predict what that signature is, understand it, build a detector for it, and measure it, we can find a fusion civilization anywhere and not have to worry about whether it's transmitting radio signals or not. As long as it generates energy, we can find it.

People have been debating whether aliens really exist or are just fictions and misconceptions for decades. But the search for extraterrestrial life does not stop. We collected 20 unusual facts, which could become confirmation of the existence of aliens, of course, for those who take such facts quite seriously.

1. Insurance against alien abduction

More than 20,000 people have purchased alien abduction insurance. There are insurance companies that are willing to pay $1 a year for the next million years to anyone who is abducted by aliens. If desired, you can insure yourself against alien abduction, extraterrestrial pregnancy, alien rapists and death caused by aliens.

2. Firefighters against UFOs

Some firefighters in the United States are trained to provide first aid in the event of a UFO accident or invasion. What's even more interesting is that they are also trained to help injured aliens.

3. They look at the Earth and see dinosaurs

If aliens 65 million light years away look at Earth through a telescope, they see dinosaurs. True, this will require a giant super-powerful telescope.

4. Aliens have already made contact with humans

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, claimed that "extraterrestrials have made contact with humans several times." The lunar module astronaut also claimed that the government is still hiding the truth from the people.

5. Mathematical probability of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life

There is a 2% chance that alien life will be discovered within the next 10 years. The mathematical probability of intelligent life existing on other planets has been calculated by scientists from the University of East Anglia.

6. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is kidnapped by aliens

The Chairman of the International Chess Federation believes that chess was invented by aliens. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov from Kalmykia claims that he was abducted by aliens wearing yellow spacesuits on the night of September 17, 1997.

7. UFO Landing Pad

In an effort to attract tourists (and possibly aliens), the world's first UFO landing site was built in St. Paul, Alberta. It is a platform with a map of Canada painted on the wall. Below the platform are stones, with each stone taken from a specific Canadian province.

8. Apollo 11

On the third day of the Apollo 11 mission, its crew reported a strange flying object not far from the ship. Initially, the astronauts assumed that it was a stage of the SIV-B rocket. But later they received news that this stage was located 10,000 km away from them. NASA still can't explain what kind of object it was.

9. 17,129 nearest stars

Astronomers Margaret Turnbull and Jill Tarter from the Carnegie Institution in Washington have compiled a list of 17,129 nearby stars that should have planets suitable for highly organized life. Margaret argues that the planet must be at least three billion years old for intelligent life to evolve on it.

10. The first scientific attempt to contact extraterrestrials

Astronomer Frank Drake made the first scientific attempt to contact extraterrestrial beings in 1960. In his experiment, he used a 25-meter dish antenna to pick up signals from two nearby stars that resemble the Sun.

11. Egyptian frescoes

Some researchers claim that aliens visited the ancient Egyptians, telling them about future descendants. A number of Egyptian frescoes feature images of helicopters, submarines and jet aircraft.

12. Alien radio interception

Since 1995, the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California has been working on a project to scan more than 1,000 stars for alien radio communications. The cost of the project is $5 million per year, and it is financed from private sources. They hope the giant Allen Telescope Array will help pick up the signal by 2025.

13. Underground shelters on Mars

The most likely locations for alien life in solar system: underground shelters on Mars, hot spots on Saturn's moon Enceladus (whose South Pole dotted with geysers), and Jupiter's moons Europa and Callisto (whose icy crust may hide oceans of water). And scientist David Grinspoon from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science believes that aliens could theoretically inhabit Venus during its average temperature at 454 degrees Celsius.

14. Light circles in the sky

The earliest UFO sighting dates back to 1450 BC. The Egyptians noticed strange light circles in the sky.

15. Napoleon Bonaparte claimed that he was abducted by aliens

Napoleon Bonaparte claimed that he was abducted by aliens. He actually disappeared for several days in July 1794, and later said that he was kidnapped by strange people. It's hard to believe, but scientists have discovered tiny foreign objects in Napoleon's bones and said they could be microchips.

16. Barking Aliens

In 1957, Brazilian farmer Antonio Villas-Boas claimed that he was abducted by barking aliens who covered his body with gel and then mated with him. This was one of the first kidnapping stories to become known to the general public. Antonio was 23 years old at the time of his abduction.

17. Sexual experiments of aliens

In a 2003 Harvard study, 7 out of 10 people who claimed to have been abducted said they had been used for sexual experimentation by alien abductors after being put into a hypnotic trance. Susan A. Clancy published a book in 2005 that attempts to explain scientifically what makes people truly believe in abductions.

18. People could scare aliens

Scientists attempted to describe humans to aliens in 1972: Carl Sagan and Frank Drake made a drawing of a naked man and woman. The drawing was placed on board spaceship Pioneer 10.

19. Airbase, anti-aircraft guns, UFO

On February 24, 1942, Los Angeles Air Force Base received hundreds of reports of a UFO seen in the air. The UFO was repeatedly fired upon by anti-aircraft guns, but it remained undamaged.

20. Martian rock in Antarctica

Researchers recently discovered a Martian rock in Antarctica that contained fossilized traces of nanobacteria. There really could be life on Mars. Huge amounts of methane have been discovered on the planet. At the same time, on Earth, almost all methane is produced by living organisms.

We have collected especially for our readers who are interested in the unknown and unknown.