ByAARON REICH

Is mankind alone in the universe? A majority of Americans don't think so, with a new Pew Research Center poll finding that around two thirds (65%) of all Americans believing life exists on other planets.

The findings also come ahead of the Pentagon's release of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) report, revealing 144 different UFO sightings by the military, with 143 of them being unexplainable. 

Are these reports evidence of alien life? Again, a majority of the American people think this may be the case, with the Pew poll finding 51% of Americans believing it could be a sign of intelligent life in outer space.

The existence of extraterrestrial life is something that has captivated popular culture for centuries, and has become even more prominent in recent years. UFO culture remains popular worldwide, and not just among conspiracy theorists, as it is especially popular among science fiction, where it has been a staple of the genre for well over a century.

While many popular culture depictions of aliens coming to Earth have been positive, such as the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the more recent Arrival. However, arguably more popular is the presentation of alien life as a dangerous invasion, such as War of the Worlds, Independence Day and more. The image of the alien invader has become a staple of pop culture.

However, despite this being such an iconic image, only a minority of Americans actually believe UFOs pose a major security threat to the country, with a wide majority (87%) thinking they would be, at best, a minor threat or more likely none at all.

That is not to say that many believe aliens would be outright friendly. In total, 17% of respondents said they would be friendly, 7% said unfriendly but the vast majority (74%) believe they are neither.

The study also found that men are more likely than women (70%-60%) to believe in the existence of life on other planets, and white adults and college-educated Americans are more skeptical than others.

While the release of the UAP report had been considerably hyped up in the media, the Pew report found it impossible to determine from their survey alone if the report's then-impending release actually made people more open to the existence of alien life.

Despite long being considered a fringe aspect of science, the possible existence of alien life has gained more credibility in recent years. Experts like Avi Loeb, former chair of Harvard University's Astronomy Department, have long advocated that the possibility of alien life existing isn't something that can easily be discounted. Initiatives like the Breakthrough Listen project and Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute show that as mankind becomes more advanced and our understanding of space improves, the scientific community has become more eager to explore the universe and find out if humans are, in fact, alone.

The idea of aliens also gained significant popularity when former Israeli space security chief Haim Eshed disclosed the existence of a "Galactic Federation," with which he said the US, Israel and other countries have been in contact with for years.

While most scientists discount the possibility that aliens have secretly been in contact with world leaders, the idea that alien life itself exists is another story – especially intelligent civilizations.

One way to detect these life forms, as proposed by Loeb, would be to use special telescopes to analyze the atmospheres of other planets to detect certain chemical compounds and pollutants that could only be created artificially.
“By studying the light when a planet is in front of its star, you can detect the atmosphere’s impact on the light, meaning you can determine the chemicals in the atmosphere,” he told The Jerusalem Post at the time. 

“That includes molecules that are produced like carbon dioxide and water vapor, and ones like oxygen or methane. That could be indicative of primitive life, though on Earth for the first two billion years there wasn’t much of an atmosphere. For the first half of Earth's history there were microbes but no oxygen, so a lack of oxygen is not necessarily indicative of no life, and oxygen could also be naturally produced.”

And these ideas are becoming more popular, as if aliens did exist, how could we find them?

Another recent proposal, put forth by scientists from Penn State and Colombia University and published by the American Astronomical Society, suggested using computer models to determine how alien life might spread and to determine likely areas that could be home to advanced civilizations.

But as popular as this is getting, there is still a ways to go, Loeb explained.

“There are all kinds of things that could be found, but the field is still in its infancy.”