We"ve been listening for the signs of extraterrestrial civilizations for nearly 50 years - and if E.T.s are out there, they just might have picked up on the radio signals that we"ve been transmitting for even longer. More recently, some broadcasters have been sending intentional shout-outs to the aliens. Is that so wrong? Yes, in the opinion of physicist-novelist David Brin and other scientists who say such transmissions could bring unwelcome consequences. For years, Brin has been concerned abou...

Former us president Jimmy Carter is famous for having seen a UFO in October 1969. During his presidential election campaign of 1976, he told reporters: "It was the darndest thing I"ve ever seen. It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors and it was about the size of the moon. We watched it for ten minutes, but none of us could figure out what it was. One thing"s for sure, I"ll never make fun of people who say they"ve seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become president, I"ll make e...

Genetic material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, according to a study to be published Sunday. European and US scientists have proved for the first time that two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial. Previous studies had suggested that the space rocks, which hit Earth some 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon impact. Both of the molecule...

A Johns Hopkins astronomer is a member of a team briefing fellow scientists about plans to use new technology to take advantage of recent, promising ideas on where to search for possible extraterrestrial intelligence in our galaxy.Richard Conn Henry, a professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins" Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, is joining forces with Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute and Steven Kilston of the Henry Foundation Inc., a Silver...

Jeff Peckman, a Denver resident and believer in alien life, has begun the work of putting a ballot initiative to the city's voters that would, if passed, establish an "extraterrestrial affairs commission" made up of 18 members appointed by the mayor to ensure public safety in the event that aliens -- or their vehicles, according to the ballot language -- were to arrive in the Mile High City. Peckman has already met with the city council in a fact-finding question-and-answer meeting...

Secret files on UFO sightings have been made available for the first time by the Ministry of Defence. The documents, which can be downloaded from the National Archives website, cover the period from 1978 to 1987. They include accounts of strange lights in the sky and unexplained objects being spotted by the public, armed forces and police officers. One man explained in great detail his "physical and psychic contact" with green aliens since he was a child. The writer said that o...

Anthony North: You"re driving along and suddenly you"re abducted by aliens. It goes like this. You are "captured" by a bright light. Your car experiences technical problems. Suddenly you find yourself on a table in an alien spacecraft. Small, blubbery, bug eyes Greys are staring at you. Soon, they begin experimenting on your body. Finally, Zap! -and you"re back in your car, driving. But you have lost time, and you are many miles from your last recollection. You may not realize what"s happened at...

Alien life may well exist in a primitive form somewhere in our corner of the galaxy, famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Monday. Given the size of the universe, it is unlikely that Earth is the only planet to develop some sort of life, Hawking told an audience at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He added that humanity must embrace space exploration, if only to ensure its long-term survival. "While there may be primitive life in our region of the galaxy, there don"t seem to ...

The campaign to put a measure on the November ballot to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission in Denver is being put on hold. "We"re targeting the 2009 ballot," said Jeff Peckman, 54, who"s been backing the initiative. He said once the signatures have been gathered, an intensive public education campaign on the subject will be launched. "We want to go deeply into this topic," he said. Peckman made his comments as part of his introduction of Steven M. Greer, the founder of The Disclosure ...

Japan"s biggest astronomical observatories are teaming up for an unprecedented quest to find out whether there is life in outer space. The project, led by Japanese astronomers, will bring together a dozen or more observatories from all over the country to study one star that researchers see as a potential home to an extraterrestrial civilization. "Everyone wonders at least once in their lifetime whether space is infinite and whether aliens really do exist," said Shinya Narusawa, chief researcher...

Brandon Keim: Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers. That"s what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L"Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory. His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn"t this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn"t the Bible say that God created man -- not...

Erik Sofge: If real life were anything like a sci-fi movie, Stan Romanek might just hold the future of mankind in his hands. Judging from his own (now very public) accounts, Romanek has had a staggering amount of contact with extraterrestrials. He has photographed a so-called flying orb emblazoned with what appears to be a face. He has met aliens in person, and drawn sketches of their vast eyes and swollen craniums. And late last week, Romanek stirred up a Web frenzy by showing a room full of re...

Mac Tonnies: If our galaxy is home to advanced ET civilizations, it would be helpful if we knew what we were looking for.  For instance, how do we define "advanced"--and might a civilization"s level of development make it easier (or harder) to detect? In 1964, astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed that ET societies fall into three fundamental categories, each based on environmental resourcefulness.  A hypothetical "Type I" civilization, for example, effectively conquers all available resources o...

Kevin Randle: Starting in the mid-1960s, UFO research found a new category of sighting. The first indication came from South America where a Brazilian farmer (who later became an attorney) told a tale of abduction at the hands of alien creatures. Antonio Villas-Boas claimed that he had been forced into sex on board a flying saucer; some suspected that it might have been some kind of interplanetary breeding experiment, though one that was fairly crude. A few years later, in 1961, Barney and Betty...

Long before the invention of agriculture or the domestication of animals, the Japanese already lived on villages and cooked their meals on pots. Ten thousand years before the Christian Era, possibly even earlier, the inhabitants of the eastern islands had already developed the art of ceramics, which would arise on the “Cradle of Civilization”, western Asia, three thousand years later. Reason for the Japanese to yell “Banzai!“, which actually means “ten thousand years”. Such ancient c...

The odds of intelligent life arising on another Earth-like planet are low, a British scientist has calculated. He argues that humans evolved via a series of four "critical steps" and that the likelihood of all these occurring elsewhere is less than 0.01%. Discoveries of new planets outside the Solar System, has boosted the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Professor Andrew Watson has published his findings in the academic journal Astrobiology. "Complex life may be...