by Liam Otero and Xian Jim Magnaye (7th grade)
Now I’m no conspiracy theorist, I don’t really hang around the dark web, but I know that at some point in everyone's life, people wondered if there are more organisms other than us out in space. I know that I’m not the only one who thinks that the government is hiding something from us in the infamous Area 51. And I know that I’m not the only one who has seen clips across the internet of so-called “real” UFO sightings. What am I talking about? Aliens. Are They Real? Xian and I, Liam Otero, shall dive into this long-lived possibility.
What exactly defines an Alien and a UFO?
This infamous term has been used since the egyptian times. The first time it was ever used as a word was in 1382, in the Wycliffite Bible. The definition of an alien isn’t exactly a creature that doesn’t live on earth, although that is when the term is mostly used. The real definition of an alien is more of something that is foreign, new, something that is different, whether it looks different, sounds different, etc. An Alien could be anything different, it could be a cat in a room full of dogs, it could be an American in England. Now, a UFO is an acronym for Unidentified Flying Object. A UFO doesn’t have to be an alien ship. The direct definition of a UFO is something that you see flying in the sky that you don’t know what it is. Literally anything could be a UFO as long as it's flying and in the sky, and you don’t know what it is.
What developed this belief?
The idea of aliens being real have been around since the bible, in Ezekiel's vision. Earliest written records of aliens were in an Egyptian papyrus that showcased the pharaoh's army defending against many fire spheres coming from the sky. Since then, alien sightings have happened all around the world, during the medieval times, Egyptian times, and a lot in World War II. In fact, during World War II, a group of UFO’s or mysterious aerial phenomena were seen in the sky in European and Pacific theater operations. Allied aircraft pilots had nicknamed them the Foo Fighters.
Why do people believe that aliens are real?
Once again, dating back to the Egyptians, people can believe that aliens are real either because of sightings, religion, and even because of personal experience. That's right, there have been people that have claimed that they have been abducted by aliens. Ever heard of Close Encounters of the Third Kind(Seeing a pattern?)? Not the movie, but the actual story. Back in the 40-50’s, a man, last name Higgins, had experienced alien life. The aliens had landed on the ground, and stepped onto earth curious. They met with Higgins. They almost tried to get Higgins on their ship, but he managed to get away. He witnessed the aliens playing with the rocks on the ground, before leaving earth. This story alone could show what alien life is like. People could also believe aliens are real because of movies. They might assume movies as reality, I did for 2 years. The reason people believe aliens are real is all matters of opinion. It could be because of your religion, maybe it suggests that there are aliens that exist. Or perhaps you have seen a UFO, All of that matters on what your background is and your opinion. You could also be a person who saw it on social media,cough cough Tik Tok and Youtube Shorts cough cough.
What could they look like?
The possibilities of alien description are ENDLESS. I mean, whenever you think of an alien, you might think of a movie design. When I think of aliens, I normally think of a movie design. There are thousands of designs from movies, like ET, the XenoMorph, The classic Big Black-Eyed, humanoid, long limbed design, and so much more. Even the bible has given their design of space life, with them having four wings and four faces, with disc-shaped circular vehicles with eyes that followed them wherever they went. They could not be humanoid. It could be an invertebrate. They could be microscopic, anything really. We all have a biased opinion based on this topic. Do we even know what they look like? No.
So, are they real?
So now, we have all this information given, so it's time to answer our question: Are they real? Well, unfortunately, we don’t know. It is very possible, we’ve only explored 5% of space. But, a study from Neil Degrasse Tyson shows that if space life were to exist, there would be about a 0.0001 percent chance that they would interact with us. How do we know that alien life is intelligent enough to surpass us? How do we know whether or not they are real, considering that the only real evidence we have is from written records, communications and people from the past. Nothing in the present has turned up so far. Speaking logically, the belief isn’t entirely impossible, but we just don’t have enough evidence to know yet. In the future, who knows what will happen, maybe there will be extra-terrestrial creatures that reach Earth, perhaps we will have to live on Mars and that's when we meet a person who's been stranded there for 100’s of years and mutated into an alien, but for now, all we can do is just sit back, and wait.