Green flashing lights, spinning, flying saucers, all sci-fi indications of extraterrestrial life. But does it exist? Even if it may not be a green entity with an oblong head and big bulging eyes, there could be some kind of intelligent or microbial organisms living in space. While there are very few confirmations of life beyond Earth, there is a possibility of life beyond our existence.

Think about it. The universe is humongous, including several planets and millions of stars, no person in their lifetime could travel the whole thing and live to tell the tale. So why not believe that other life can exist in another solar system, somewhere far far away? Somewhere we have never, and most likely will never travel to anytime soon. 

Take into consideration the technology and tools we have now, The Curiosity rover has been on Mars and recorded an almost habitable place with a warm climate and traces of ingredients for microbial life. Other artificial intelligence technologies such as the James Webb Space Telescope or the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite have also aided in the collection of data sets in harsh and difficult fields of space. 

Consider too, all the exoplanets and exomoons discovered since the 1900s. Since ancient times, philosophers and others have assumed that thousands of other planets orbit those stars. By now, thousands of exoplanets have been identified, and many more await discovery in our Milky Way. 

Creations on earth such as the eerily standing circle of rocks, Stonehenge, located in Salisbury Plain, England, led many people to believe that aliens have visited our Earth in the past, and left a mark to prove that they were once here. Author Erich Vaun Daniken believes that the ancient technologies and religions to build things such as Stonehenge was a gift from civilizations such as ancient astronauts, and even gives them credit for the formation of the Egyptian Pyramids.  

Men and women of science have instinctively believed that other planets exist beyond ours, and only found it was true when our technology and thinking were advanced, seeming to believe that extraterrestrial life is awaiting us the same way. 

Though one day we might find the components of new life, it would take even longer for NASA to release that information to us. According to “NASA Astrobiology,” missions such as these normally take years of conceptual and lab work, once the data is collected more laboratory work is done, and then it would be assessed by a group of colleagues before it could be released as a discovery.

We as an intelligent species are only a few centuries away from the industrial voyage beyond our solar system, and upon finding civilizations that are more or less advanced than ours. With all of this information, and the facts that are constantly pouring in, I find it hard to believe that alien life doesn’t exist.