Are we Alone ? : An intersection of faith and logic

Human beings seem to hold an innate desire to believe in things beyond our scientific understanding of the world and often even our corporal reality, whether that is an almighty creator or ghosts – a high proportion of the human population hold some irrational belief which holds no scientific veracity.

However, there is a category of paranormal belief that crosses the wires of the two opposing ideologies of science and faith – the idea that we are not alone in the universe.

Regarding the paranormal, believing in aliens is a unique position as it does hold some reputable support. The existence of extraterrestrial life is coincided to be possible by the scientific community which has soundly debunked most other paranormal theories like the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot.

The famous Nazi/ NASA scientist (yes you read that right) Wernher von Braun made a very profound statement regarding the possibility of alien life elsewhere in the cosmos “Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of the billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity.” This is a credible statement however just saying that universe is a big place ain’t much to go on – with all our space faring and astronomy have we seen any hint of aliens?

Well – possibly, the Kepler telescope recently picked up a sun that has an unusual amount of objects blocking it and although proposing that this is an alien structure was at the bottom of the list of explanations it still made it to the list. In fact, it actually jumped up a spot because the most likely explanation of an unusual formation of comets has been ruled out. Some scientists have proposed that the anomaly may be some type of extraterrestrial solar panel to harvest energy from the sun.

It is important to remember that this theory is still at the bottom of the list and we have been in these waters before -when Neutron stars were first discovered the scientific community put aliens down as a possible explanation source of their origin, however, this was discarded after further study.

Below is a photo of NASAs new gangster space telescope named the James Webb and its due to go up into space in 2018 (unless Trump wins then he will probably strip if for parts to build his wall or lend it to Putin to pose topless on).


As far as telescopes go it looks pretty bling.

It has been said that collectively the Hubble and Kepler space telescopes have lead us into the “Golden age of astronomy”.If that’s true, the James Webb will take us is into platinum age as it will utilise a staggering upgrade in technological prowess and enable us to peer into the distant cosmos like never before. This all does depend on a successful launch and after the Philae comet landing fuck up you probably shouldn’t let yourself get excited until it’s actually up there and doing its thing – but once that happens it could bring us closer to puzzling out the “are we alone” question.

In the spirit of equality lets hope they enlist a female scientist geared up for the media interview in whatever the Top gun volleyball inverse of this shirt is and enjoy the inevitable twitter meltdown.

Strong wardrobe choice.

The universe is unfathomably vast and I think Wernher von Braun was right; one of those distant planets and must either have life as we know it or maybe life as we don’t but, saying our chances of finding it are slim is a dramatic understatement. We know that our solar system will only be able to support life for another 1.75 Billion years and in the cosmic scale of time this relatively short period, so we are looking for another planet that can support life and happens to have it at this point in time, the odds of finding life elsewhere in space are immeasurably stacked against us. Life in space may be a rare flash of sentience in the vastness of space – this is elegantly explained by this potent mix up of Carl Segan and Grand Theft Auto.

Now for the fun stuff – has earth been visited by extraterrestrial beings?

A colossal disaster in the art of espionage/cover ups is the ‘top secret’ airbase Area 51, as it’s probably the only American air base you have ever heard of due to its infamous link with alien technology. The truth is probably less sensational as Area 51 was the base where they test flew the B2 stealth bomber pictured below.

You have to admit that if you saw that giant black Tetris block shaped motherfucker flying overhead before the US air-force officially released its existence You would probably think it was an alien craft too, or maybe Batman.

My point here is that you can understand the origin of the aliens/Area 51 connection.

UFO sightings remain a common phenomenon in modern culture, and some can be explained but some can’t, for example, this one captured over Norway looks legit.

Sorry to disappoint, but it was just an out of control satellite leaking pressurised gas which caused the spiral effect. The internet is awash with supposed ‘proof’ of aliens visiting earth, but it is telling that these images surfaced around the same time as Photoshop software was made available to the public – I was surprised to learn that Hitler and ET where tight.


However, UFOs are a real phenomenon and have been the subject of governmental investigation and their have been some fascinating cases that remain unexplained, a good example of this is the incident in Glasgow in 2013.

A fun theory I’ve heard is that UFOs are not aliens but are human craft piloted by us time travelling from the future but I think you need to take a scarface portion of narcotics before you actually believe it.

Something that has slid off the radar in the world of popular paranormal belief is alien abductions as they can be easily explained by sleep paralysis and other sleep disorders. An interesting theory claiming to explain them speculates that people who claim they have been abducted are actually remembering being born and the doctor wearing a face-mask is the alien examining you and cutting the umbilical cord under the bright hospital lighting. There is no real evidence to support this, but it is entirely plausible – at least in the anecdotal seance.

Overall there is no real proof that aliens either have visited earth or even exist, although many scientists consider the latter to be likely and we are on the cusp of drastically increasing our knowledge of the universe around us.

I am going to finnish this post by taking my sceptical hat off and embrace our innate desire to believe in the extraordinary by leaving you with a surprisingly profound quote regarding our understanding of the universe from the summer blockbuster Men in Back (before Will Smith went all Scientology batshit crazy on us).


And also this because it’s funny.