Are aliens trying to contact us?

By: Josh Leach


Are alien’s trying to contact us?  Three burst of extremely powerful radio signals could be their communication technique.  This phenomenon has sparked the debate all over again.
The UFO craze has existed for several decades.  However, the question of whether other planets may contain life, even intelligent life, has been asked for over a thousand years.  In an article by Michael Schirber, a journalist on space.com, he said, “Galileo, Kepler and others considered the inhabitability of the planets, while being careful not to upset Church authority.”  Even the Greek philosophers debated the presence of extraterrestrials.  Josh Kurosz, a senior at Seckman High School was asked if he believed in extraterrestrial life.  He responded, “Of course there’s life on other planets.  The question is whether we’ll ever be able to prove it.”  Logan Smith, another senior, says, “Aliens aren’t some little green men visiting earth.  They’re probably just microorganisms off on a distant planet somewhere.”  Most scientists agree life on other planets is a strong possibility, but their distance from Earth would make travel and communication impossible.
The energy bursts were actually discovered a while ago but were being careful analyzed before being official reported.  Fox News declares, “Astronomers in Australia have picked up an “alien” radio signal from space for the first time as it occurred. The signal, or radio “burst”, was discovered on May 15, 2014, though it’s just being reported by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.  Emerging from an unknown source, these bursts are bright flashes of radio waves that emit as much energy in a few milliseconds as the sun does in 24 hours.”
Were the radio waves sent from aliens?  Well, according to Emily Petroff, a doctoral student from Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology, “We're confident that they're coming from natural sources, that is to say it's probably not aliens, but we haven't solved the case completely. The two most promising theories at the moment are that these bursts could be produced either by a star producing a highly energetic flare, or from a neutron star collapsing to make a black hole. Both of these things would be from sources in far-away galaxies just reaching us from billions of light years away.”  Since these radio waves have traveled such a long way, they must have been released billions of years ago.  If intelligent life did send these signals, they are likely long dead.
Unfortunately, mankind will most likely never know for sure if life exists on other planets.  Occasionally, a radio signal is picked up and sparks the public’s imagination, but no real evidence has ever been discovered.  All we can do is look up at the stars and contemplate an unsolvable mystery: Are we alone?