Are we alone?
On 24 Jane 1947 a US pilot called Kenneth Arnold looked out the window of his plane and saw nine silver objects flying close together. They were moving very quickly. Kenneth guessed that their speed was more than 1,600 kilometres an hour. He told journalists throws them across the surface of water. Later one of the journalists called the objects ‘flying saucers’.
This was the first time expression ‘flying saucer’ but people have been seeing UFOs (unidentified flying objects) in the sky for centuries. For example, in the thirteenth century some English farmers saw a flat, silver object in the sky. This is surprising because in those days there were no planes or weather balloons or space stations that could be mistaken for UFOs.
Today, many UFOs turn out to be something quite ordinary. One evening in February 2001, eight coloured lights appeared in the sky above Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia. The lights seemed to float in the air for ten minutes before moving off and disappearing. Many people thought they were UFOs. They turned out to be good luck lanterns that had been released from a temple.
Most UFOs can be explained like this. However there are many that can’t. Surveys show that at least half of us believe intelligent life exists on other planets. Is it possible, therefore, that someone from ‘out there’ is visiting us?