Hoe zou religie reageren als we buitenaards leven zouden ontdekken?

Naarmate wetenschappers dichterbij komen om bewijs te vinden voor het bestaan van buitenaards leven, begint de vraag te rijzen: hoe zou onze religieuze wereldbeeld veranderen? Wat zou de impact zijn op de grote wereldreligies als we daadwerkelijk zouden ontdekken dat we niet alleen zijn in het universum? Deze vraag raakt aan diepgaande kwesties over geloof, wetenschap, en de plaats van de mens in de kosmos. In dit artikel onderzoeken we hoe verschillende religies mogelijk zouden reageren op de ontdekking van buitenaards leven, en welke implicaties dat zou hebben voor onze spirituele overtuigingen en onderlinge relaties.

De vooruitgang in de zoektocht naar buitenaards leven

De afgelopen decennia hebben wetenschappers een stevige basis gelegd voor het zoeken naar leven buiten onze planeet. Dankzij technologische innovaties en astronomische observaties kunnen we nu beter dan ooit detecteren of er andere werelden bestaan die mogelijk leven herbergen. Hoewel we nog niet direct met buitenaardse wezens kunnen communiceren, is de verwachting dat we aan het einde van deze eeuw weten of we echt alleen zijn in onze Melkweg of dat er biologische gezelschappen bestaan. Een ontdekking dat wij niet de enigen zijn, zou een van de meest ingrijpende gebeurtenissen in de menselijke geschiedenis zijn.

Bron: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library

Wat betekent het bestaan van buitenaards leven voor onze religieuze overtuigingen?

Het feit dat we buitenaards leven kunnen ontdekken, zal ongetwijfeld invloed hebben op hoe gelovigen hun eigen geloof begrijpen. Het is belangrijk op te merken dat de aanwezigheid of afwezigheid van buitenaards leven niet per definitie een bewijs is voor of tegen een bepaald religieus systeem. Toch kan het weten dat er andere bewuste wezens bestaan, de manier waarop wij onze religieuze overtuigingen interpreteren, ingrijpend veranderen. Bovendien kan de ontdekking van intelligent leven elders in het universum onze houding ten opzichte van mensen van andere religies op aarde beïnvloeden.

De laatste grote theorie die religie uitdaagde was de oerknalcosmologie.

Bron: BSIP SA / Alamy Stock Photo

Hoe zou een buitenaards wezen religie begrijpen?

Stel dat er één almachtige god is die het hele universum bestuurt. Zou die god hetzelfde zijn op elke planeet? Zijn de regels voor het leven volgens goddelijke principes universeel? Wat als het leven op een andere planeet ontstaan is via panspermie, waarbij organismen door het heelal zijn verspreid? Zou mijn religie nog steeds logisch zijn voor een buitenaards wezen dat geen kennis heeft van onze aardse cultuur en geschiedenis?

Veel christenen geloven dat de God die zij aanbidden, de schepper is van het hele universum. Het idee dat Christus het hele heelal heeft getransformeerd en verheven, impliceert dat ook buitenaardse wezens kunnen worden betrokken in dat kosmische heilverhaal. Guy Consolmagno, een Amerikaanse astronoom en directeur van het Vaticaans Observatorium, stelt dat “het hele heelal door Christus is getransformeerd en verheven.” Dit betekent dat niet alleen mensen, maar alle schepselen in het universum, een rol kunnen spelen in het goddelijke plan.

Maakt het dopen van buitenaardse wezens theologisch gezien zin? Zou je een alien kunnen dopen?

Bron: Kseniya Ovchinnikova / Getty Images

De uitdaging van communicatie en begrip

Stel dat we buitenaardse intelligentie ontdekken. Hoe zouden wij hen vertellen over Jezus, zijn geboorte en opstanding, die ongeveer 2000 jaar geleden op aarde plaatsvonden? Zou het mogelijk zijn om dit in een redelijke tijd over te brengen, bijvoorbeeld via berichten met de snelheid van het licht? Of zouden we high-tech raketten sturen met de boodschap van het evangelie?

De wetten van de fysica maken het moeilijk om snel en effectief te communiceren met buitenaardse beschavingen. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, een Franse jezuïet en filosoof, stelde dat “de aarde niet willekeurig gekozen is voor de verlossing,” en dat het universum niet beperkt is tot onze planeet. Toch is het vragen of buitenaardsen kunnen begrijpen en accepteren dat Jezus de verlosser is, een grote uitdaging.

Voor katholieken en protestanten ligt de nadruk op de menselijke ervaring en de geschiedenis van Jezus op aarde. Als we buitenaards leven ontdekken, zou dat betekenen dat onze verhalen en geloofsbelijdenissen mogelijk niet relevant zijn voor andere bewuste wezens die geen aardse geschiedenis delen.

Hoe zou nieuws over de geboorte van Jezus christenen op andere werelden hebben bereikt?

Bron: iStock

Hoe reageren andere religies op buitenaards leven?

1. Christendom

Het christendom, net als de andere Abrahamitische religies, ziet de schepping als een door God geschapen universum, waarin de mens een bijzondere plaats inneemt. Volgens de Bijbel, met name in het boek Genesis, is de aarde het centrum van Gods schepping en is de mens bedoeld om over de aarde te heersen. De gedachte dat buitenaardse wezens mogelijk bestaan, roept vragen op over de universele aard van Gods schepping en de rol van de mens daarin.

Veel christenen geloven dat Gods schepping oneindig groot is en dat er mogelijk meerdere werelden of levensvormen bestaan buiten onze planeet. Sommigen zien buitenaards leven niet als een bedreiging, maar als een uitbreiding van Gods scheppingskracht. Anderen vragen zich af of buitenaardse wezens, die misschien geen kennis hebben van de Bijbel of menselijke religieuze tradities, zich toch kunnen verbinden met God op hun eigen manier. Het idee dat God universeel en alomtegenwoordig is, ondersteunt het geloof dat ook buitenaardse wezens door God gekend en geliefd kunnen worden.

Daarnaast wordt er binnen het christendom ook nagedacht over de mogelijkheid dat Jezus Christus mogelijk een universele verlossingsboodschap bevat, die niet beperkt zou zijn tot de aarde. Sommige theologen stellen dat Gods plan voor de schepping veel groter en complexer is dan wij kunnen bevatten, en dat het mogelijk is dat buitenaardse levensvormen onderdeel zijn van dat goddelijke plan. Dit opent de deur naar een brede interpretatie van de universele liefde en verlossing, waarin alle schepselen, ongeacht hun locatie in het heelal, een rol kunnen spelen in het goddelijke verhaal. Kortom, het christendom biedt ruimte voor het idee dat buitenaards leven mogelijk deel uitmaakt van Gods schepping en dat de liefde van God zich uitstrekt tot het hele universum.

2. Islam

De islam benadrukt dat alles in het universum onder de soevereiniteit van Allah staat. Volgens de Koran “zijn alles in de hemelen en op de aarde van Allah,” wat betekent dat alle schepselen onderworpen zijn aan zijn wil en controle. Deze overtuiging wordt ondersteund door de islamitische theologie, waarin wordt gesteld dat geen enkel wezen buiten de invloed van Allah valt. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, een vooraanstaande islamitische filosoof, legt uit dat “alle wezens in het universum moslims zijn, dat wil zeggen, zij onderwerpen zich aan de wil van Allah.” Dit impliceert dat niet alleen mensen, maar alle levende wezens en zelfs niet-levende dingen de schepping en de wil van Allah erkennen en naleven, op hun eigen wijze.

De vraag rijst hoe buitenaardse wezens, die mogelijk geen kennis hebben van menselijke religieuze praktijken of islamitische tradities, hun religieuze of spirituele overtuigingen kunnen uitdrukken. Het is mogelijk dat zij hun eigen profeten, leiders of gidsen hebben die hen helpen hun weg te vinden in hun wereld en hun relatie met het goddelijke te definiëren. Dit zou betekenen dat het universele concept van onderworpenheid aan een hogere macht niet beperkt is tot de mensheid, maar een universeel principe kan zijn dat overal in het universum bestaat.

De islam zou hierdoor kunnen verruimen en verdiepen, door te stellen dat elk wezen in het universum, ongeacht zijn vorm of intelligentie, een relatie heeft met het goddelijke. Het idee dat alle schepselen onderworpen zijn aan Allah en dat zij hun eigen weg vinden naar zijn wil, opent de deur naar een kosmisch perspectief waarin religieuze overtuigingen universeel en inclusief worden. Dit zou de islam niet beperken tot de menselijke ervaring, maar juist uitbreiden tot het hele universum en haar mogelijke bewoners, waarmee de religie een bredere, meer universele dimensie krijgt.

Zouden buitenaardsen de islamitische godsdienst kunnen beoefenen zonder in staat te zijn de richting van Mekka te bepalen, of de vereiste pelgrimstocht te maken?

Bron: iStock

3. Jodendom

Het jodendom is een oude religie die nauw verbonden is met de geschiedenis van het Joodse volk en de stad Jeruzalem. Deze band met de aarde en zijn tradities vormt een kernaspect van het geloof. Veel joodse geleerden vragen zich af of buitenaardse wezens, die mogelijk geen toegang hebben tot onze religieuze rituelen en tradities, zich toch kunnen identificeren als joods. Dit roept vragen op over de universele aard van het jodendom en de manier waarop het zich zou verhouden tot andere levensvormen in het universum.

In de praktijk speelt gebed een centrale rol in het dagelijks leven van orthodoxe joden. Zij geloven dat het drie keer per dag bidden essentieel is voor het naleven van hun religie. Dit ritueel helpt hen verbonden te blijven met God en de gemeenschap. Echter, op een planeet met een dagduur van slechts 90 minuten, zou het praktisch onmogelijk zijn om deze gebeden volgens de traditionele tijdschema’s uit te voeren. Dit benadrukt de uitdaging van het aanpassen van menselijke religieuze praktijken aan buitenaardse omstandigheden.

Rabbi Norman Lamm, een invloedrijke joodse denker, suggereert dat de menselijke rol in het universum breder is dan alleen de aarde. Hij stelt dat God groot genoeg is om zich met al zijn schepselen bezig te houden, en dat menselijke missie niet beperkt hoeft te blijven tot onze planeet. Volgens Lamm kunnen mensen mogelijk een belangrijke rol vervullen in het universum, zonder dat zij de enige schepselen zijn die door God bedoeld zijn. Deze visie opent de deur naar een bredere interpretatie van het jodendom, waarin de relatie tussen God, mens en de gehele kosmos centraal staat.

Een voorouderlijke band met Jeruzalem is een belangrijk onderdeel van het joodse geloof.

Bron: Ilan Rosen / Alamy Stock Photo

4. Hindoeïsme

Hindoeïsme is een van de oudste en meest complexe religies ter wereld en onderscheidt zich op verschillende manieren van de Abrahamitische religies. Een belangrijk kenmerk is dat het hindoeïsme niet gebonden is aan een specifiek land of geografisch gebied. In plaats daarvan beschouwt het hindoeïsme de kosmos als een immens, dynamisch en ingewikkeld systeem waarin de aarde slechts een klein onderdeel vormt.

Dit wereldbeeld benadrukt dat het universum uit meerdere lagen, werelden en dimensies bestaat, waarin de menselijke ziel, of atman, niet beperkt is tot één aardse incarnatie. Volgens hindoeïstische leer is de ziel eeuwig en onverwoestbaar en ondergaat zij een voortdurende cyclus van samsara, dat wil zeggen geboorte, dood en wedergeboorte. Deze cyclus strekt zich uit over alle werelden en dimensies, niet enkel de fysieke planeet aarde. De ziel kan in diverse vormen van leven reïncarneren, inclusief mogelijk buitenaardse levensvormen, wat het universele en kosmische karakter van hindoeïsme onderstreept. Het geloof in de verbondenheid van alle levende wezens met het goddelijke en de voortdurende spirituele reis zorgt ervoor dat hindoes het wereldbeeld niet beperkt zien tot de aarde, maar dat het zich uitstrekt tot het heelal en mogelijk daarbuiten.

Deze universele visie onderstreept dat de zoektocht naar spirituele verlichting en verbondenheid met het goddelijke voor iedereen toegankelijk is, ongeacht hun locatie in het universum. Het hindoeïsme erkent dat de kosmos een oneindige en mysterieuze plaats is waar de ziel zich kan blijven ontwikkelen en reïncarneren in talloze vormen en werelden, waardoor het een spirituele traditie is die zich niet beperkt tot een geografisch gebied, maar universeel en kosmisch van aard is.

5. Buddhisme

Het boeddhisme is gebaseerd op de leringen van Siddhartha Gautama, die bekendstaat als de Boeddha. Een kernaspect van het boeddhisme is de zoektocht naar nirvana, een staat van ultieme bevrijding waarin het lijden dat inherent is aan het bestaan wordt beëindigd. Volgens boeddhistische leerstellingen is het universum enorm, oud en gevuld met talloze bewuste wezens die elk hun eigen pad naar verlichting volgen. Ondanks dat de menselijke positie binnen deze uitgestrekte kosmos soms als klein en onbeduidend wordt ervaren, blijft de zoektocht naar verlichting universeel en voor iedereen toegankelijk.

Het boeddhisme benadrukt dat het lijden en de weg naar het beëindigen daarvan niet beperkt zijn tot de aarde, maar zich uitstrekken tot het hele universum. Bewuste wezens, ongeacht op welke planeet of in welke dimensie zij zich bevinden, kunnen door meditatie, ethisch gedrag en inzicht de verlichting bereiken. De principes van mededogen, inzicht en ethiek zijn universeel toepasbaar en bieden een spiritueel pad dat zich niet beperkt tot één locatie, maar zich uitstrekt tot alle uithoeken van het kosmos en mogelijk verder.

Deze universele benadering onderstreept dat de zoektocht naar verlichting en het bevrijden van lijden voor alle bewuste entiteiten mogelijk is, ongeacht hun plaats in het universum. Het boeddhisme ziet het universele karakter van het lijden en de mogelijkheid tot verlichting als kernwaarden, waardoor het een spirituele weg is die zich niet beperkt tot de aarde, maar openstaat voor alle wezens in het kosmos.

Wetenschappelijke revoluties en religieuze verandering

Historisch gezien heeft de wetenschap grote invloed gehad op religieuze wereldbeelden. De copernicaanse revolutie bijvoorbeeld, ondermijnde de opvatting dat de aarde het centrum van het heelal was. Later zorgden de ontdekkingen van de evolutietheorie en de Big Bang voor nieuwe inzichten die het religieuze denken uitdaagden.

In de 21e eeuw staan we op het punt van mogelijk een nieuwe paradigmashift, nu door de ontdekking van buitenaards leven. Het is belangrijk te beseffen dat de wetenschap en religie niet per definitie in conflict hoeven te zijn. Veel gelovigen zien wetenschap als een manier om de schepping beter te begrijpen, en het bestaan van buitenaards leven zou dat inzicht kunnen verdiepen.

Wat betekent dit voor onze toekomst?

De ontdekking dat we niet alleen zijn in het universum, zou onze kijk op het leven fundamenteel veranderen. Het zou vragen oproepen over de aard van onze relatie met andere bewuste wezens, over onze plaats in het kosmische geheel en over de universele geldigheid van onze religieuze verhalen.

Het is essentieel dat we ons voorbereiden op deze mogelijke realiteit door open te staan voor nieuwe ideeën en door onze geloofsovertuigingen te heroverwegen. Of we nu christen, moslim, jood, hindoe of boeddhist zijn, de universele zoektocht naar waarheid en begrip blijft centraal staan.

Conclusie

De ontdekking van buitenaards leven zou een transformerende gebeurtenis zijn voor de mensheid en haar religies. Het zou ons dwingen om onze overtuigingen te herzien en nieuwe manieren te vinden om ons spirituele pad voort te zetten. Hoe we daarop reageren, zal bepalen hoe wij als mensheid verdergaan in een universum dat mogelijk veel groter en complexer is dan wij ons ooit konden voorstellen. Wat zeker is, is dat wetenschappelijke vooruitgang en religieuze overtuigingen elkaar kunnen verrijken, mits we bereid zijn om open te staan voor de mysteries van het heelal.

• OPMERKING PETER2011 - it artikel bevat een uitgebreide verkenning van hoe verschillende religies mogelijk zouden reageren op de ontdekking van buitenaards leven, en benadrukt het belang van openheid en dialoog in het licht van nieuwe kosmische ontdekkingen.

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{  PETER2011 }

01-03-2026 om 22:34 geschreven door peter  

Barack Obama says aliens are real. This scientist agrees with him

More on alien life

• Places close to Earth where alien life could exist
• Aliens' technology could be giving them away
• Why E.T. life might not be so 'alien' after all

Popular interest in the topic of alien life rarely wanes, but it certainly got a boost in the headlines this week after former US President Barack Obama said aliens "are real".

To clarify, what the former president actually said was "They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51. There’s no underground facility"

Obama was speaking to American podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, and responding to a simple question: "are aliens real?"

The idea of a former US President publicly declaring "aliens are real", unsurprisingly, took the internet by storm.

It precipitated a surge in online debate as to whether or not Obama was confirming the existence of a government conspiracy to keep secret the existence of intelligent alien beings.

Unsurprisingly, Obama felt the need to clarify, once the podcast had aired, and subsequently posted on his official Instagram channel:

"I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify.

"Statistically, the Universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.

"But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!"

Is alien life really likely?

Obama, it seems, was referring to some pretty startling statistics that have been concluded by scientists and astronomers over the past few decades.

Firstly, we know that life does exist in the Universe, in the form of us, human beings, and all our co-inhabitants of planet Earth.

And if life does exist on one rocky world orbiting a very ordinary star, couldn't life exist – or once have existed – elsewhere in the Galaxy, let alone the wider Universe?

Since the field of exoplanet study exploded in the 1990s, astronomers now have confirmed over 6,000 exoplanets: planets orbiting stars beyond our Solar System.

In fact, scientists now say that, for every star you can see in the night sky, there's likely at least one planet in orbit around it.

There could be up to 400 billion stars in our Galaxy alone, and ours isn't even a particularly enormous galaxy.

Some scientists say this makes the chances of life existng beyond Earth – even if it's simple, microbial life – quite high. Others say no conclusions can be made unless direct evidence is found.

But one astrophysicist has weighed in on the debate following Obama's comments, to say she does think it likely that alien life could exist out there in the cosmos.

Could Obama be right about aliens?

Dr Sara Webb is an astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.

"I agree with Barack Obama, and I immediately understood what he meant," she says.

"As a scientist, I’ll say this with confidence: I think aliens exist. Not because we’ve seen them. Not because we’ve met them. And not because we have direct, tangible evidence (yet). But because of the odds."

Dr Webb points to the fact that the observable Universe contains at least two trillion galaxies.

Each of these galaxies has hundreds of billions of stars, and most of those stars very likely host planets.

So if life could flourish on Earth in extreme environments at the bottom of our oceans, in Antarctica, within acidic lakes and even in nuclear reactors, couldn't life have evolved on other temperate, rocky planets?

Even in our own Solar System we find habitable conditions in liquid oceans beneath the frozen surface of icy moons, such as those orbiting Jupiter and Saturn.

So while there's been no confirmed detection of life elsewhere in our Solar System, astronomers have found that conditions for life do exist beyond Earth, even within our minuscule corner of the Galaxy.

"If life happened here, in this vast cosmic lottery, it feels statistically improbable that we are the only winning ticket," Dr Webb says.

"The Universe has had 13.8 billion years to run that experiment over and over again."

Making contact

Finding microbial life in on an icy moon is one thing, but could we really expect to ever make contact with intelligent life?

Some astronomers use enormous radio telescopes to search for signals from technologically advanced alien species across the Galaxy. It's known as SETI, or the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Dr Webb notes the vastness of the Universe, and how our communication with any potential intelligent alien species is restricted by the speed of light.

That makes receiving and sending communications very difficult, and likely impossible to do within one human lifetime.

"Do I think we’ll shake hands with extraterrestrials anytime soon? Probably not," she says.

"Do I think we’ll find evidence – microbial, atmospheric, or something unexpected? I hope so. Maybe even in our lifetime.

"Somewhere, under another sky, orbiting another star, there may be a civilisation looking up at their version of the night sky… wondering if they are alone too."

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{ https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/ }

01-03-2026 om 21:35 geschreven door peter  

A US historian looked at the history of UFO sightings. This is what he found.

BY Iain Todd

• Find out why people believe in UFOs and the objects commonly reported as UFOs.

So what happens when you take a scientific, empirical look at reports of UFOs and flying saucers?

What patterns emerge, and do they tell us anything about the cultural or geopolitical trends at the time the reports were made?

Greg Eghigian is Professor of History and Bioethics at Penn State University in the United States and has written a book called After The Flying Saucers Came.

It's just that: a history of UFO reports and what they can tell us about belief in the extra-terrestrial.

We spoke to Greg to find out more about the flying saucer craze.

What made you decide to look into the history of flying saucers?

I’m an historian of science and medicine by speciality, and over the years have looked primarily at the history of how scientific and medical establishments and governments have understood ideas, feelings, people and thoughts that were marginal, or deemed to be outside the mainstream.

I was led to the topic of flying saucers and UFOs in part by those interests, though it does deviate from what I normally work on.

I was always fascinated with this stuff when I was growing up.

I was a really voracious reader and consumer of anything about aliens and outer space visitors and things like that, though that interest waned as I got older and I grew interested in lots of other things unrelated to this.

But I was talking with a colleague of mine, an historian who was working on a book project that involved looking at the renaissance of the occult right after World War II in Europe.

I asked her: “was that whole flying saucer thing a craze in Europe at the time?”

She said “I don't know, you ought to look into it and write something about it.”

And I just dismissed it out of hand.

But one summer I was ill, so I couldn't do traveling as I normally do, and I started going through digital databases of newspapers in Germany in the late 1940s and 50s.

And bam: all these headlines about flying saucers.

I wrote an article on it and I thought there must be so many historians who have done work on this.

I found one. One sole book on the history of the subject in 1975 by a historian who, by the way, later becomes a subject in my own book because he becomes a true believer and a major figure in the alien abduction phenomenon.

And that's how I got hooked. I thought, okay, I'm diving in.

You don't have to believe the reports are true in order to  factually catalogue the history of it, do you?

No, I come at this from that very perspective.

I make it very clear from the start, I'm not here to try to present evidence that aliens have been visiting us.

But I also don't come from the perspective of the debunker who's here to tear down every opinion.

I wanted to take the general ethos of most historians and say, I'm here to chronicle the way we've come to think about and talk about and debate this subject.

Especially in this day and age with a lot going on when it comes to discussions about exoplanets and SETI and things like that.

It seems to me it's the time to revisit that history and think about how we got to the point where we are now.

Does it all begin with Roswell?

No, it doesn't begin with Roswell! In fact, Roswell is a blip, a really minor blip. It's a very tiny footnote.

When you look at it in the wider perspective, it actually starts a little earlier than that with a private pilot by the name of Kenneth Arnold, who's flying around Washington State, around Mount Rainier, looking for a crashed plane.

And he sees these strange pan-shaped objects flying at high speeds.

He comes back, lands on the ground and tells people he’s seen some weird stuff, and reports it to the authorities and also the media.

And the media starts asking him questions about it. They ask him, how did these things fly? How would you describe it?

He said they flew like a saucer might if you skipped it over water.

And a very enterprising journalist knew a headline when they saw one and called them flying saucers.

Within 6 weeks, a survey said 9 out of 10 Americans had heard the term flying saucer.

Roswell pops up as a story for about 2 days and then disappears and is never heard of again, until you get into the late 1970s and early 80s.

When you hear a report like that from a pilot, someone who’s an expert in aviation, do you find yourself struggling to remain neutral?

Yeah, reports like that pop up all the time and there are lots of head scratchers.

And there are times you read something and you say, this doesn't pass the sniff test.

When you're talking about historical cases where you can't talk to anybody anymore, you're left saying, geez, I wish there was a little more information about this, or I wish somebody had a camera at the time.

But when you hear seasoned pilots, for instance, who are very knowledgeable, talk and describe things that they see, that is really arresting and it makes you pause.

The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung put it really, really well. He said "things are seen in the sky, but we don't know what".

And even the authorities, whether it's the UK Ministry of Defence or the United States Air Force, all have historically fully admitted there are cases we can never explain.

They make us scratch our heads; we're sort of left with a big question mark.

How do you approach a topic like this as an historian?

There are a couple of things that it's important to keep in mind.

One is that the language that's often used in the UFO world, if you will, is often very sloppy.

Just think of something like the term ‘UFO’: Unidentified Flying Object.

Even though it sounds precise, it was meant to replace ‘flying saucer’, because ‘flying saucer’ was seen as a kind of biased term.

‘UFO’ is biased in its own ways.

Is that really an object? Flying implies piloting and it implies design.

It's fair to say the same thing holds true with the distinction between sightings and reports.

A sighting is an experience that someone has, but we know that the vast majority of people who see something odd never say anything, not to officials, to the media, the police or the Air Force.

Something has to lead somebody to actually report it to some institution – it might be a UFO group, it might be authorities – and they then write it down in some form.

It could be in a messy form, it could be a police officer who's ho-humming it all the time.

So what I'm interested in is reports, these documents that we have.

They oftentimes aren't very detailed. So as an historian we are ultimately left with trying to work with records and documentation.

That can be a recording, that can be an interview, but it oftentimes it’s self reports and also reports by others.

How do we discuss reports of flying saucers? How have different institutions and different groups grappled with it?

And how have they made that into something that they see as worthy of a conversation, and sometimes worthy of some sort of action on the part of people who can take action?

Do you find any narrative consistency throughout reports of UFOs?

What's interesting is that's one of the things that changes.

When you look particularly in, say, the first decade or decade and a half of the phenomenon, there is a lot of diversity, in terms of what's reported.

The most common thing that people see are lights. Maybe it's different colors. Maybe they flash off and on, but lights: very vague, very blurry.

Not much more detail than that.

You hear people talking about cigar-shaped things, saucer-shaped things, globes, hexagonal objects.

But you really see the diversity when people say they actually saw the occupants of these vehicles.

In the 1940s and 50s into the early 60s, it's a very wide range, very diverse group of beings that are talked about.

Everything from little men under four feet tall, sometimes as small as under 12 inches.

Other times they're large, hairy monsters that sort of look like Sasquatch.

There are robots, there are males, there are females, there are androgynous beings, there are bulbous heads.

Some are absolutely gorgeous and look like fashion models, all sorts of things.

What happens over time, and this is what's interesting to me, is that those images start to winnow down, and there becomes a kind of a homogeneity to it all, kind of a standardisation, if you will, in descriptions.

And that to me, in part, is something that signals a role that culture is increasingly playing in terms of helping to shape those images into images that are familiar to everyone.

Did you find correlation between the language that's used at the time of a report and current movies, songs, popular culture?

Well, again, what I love about this history is it confounds every preconception I had.

I, like most everybody else, was ready to think there must be so much influence of pop culture on UFO sightings and reports and the way people describe things.

And in part there is. There's no question that the pulp science fiction of the first half of the 20th century had a direct impact on the early alien visitor story, the way people engaged with it.

It's not a surprise that most all of those first few years of people pushing the UFO narrative, there seems to be inspiration from the pulp science fiction world.

But where you see something that doesn't quite connect that way is with film.

The idea has been always that films must have a real profound influence on, say, upticks in the number of sightings.

And that doesn't really bear out. You have a very big wave of sightings and reports in the United States, for instance, in 1952.

But there's no major big UFO film from that time period that takes place.

Or you could take something like Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters.

I talked to one of the folks who leads one of the big organizations that were looking into UFOs at the time, and I asked him about it.

And he said, what we saw at the time was not an uptick in new sightings.

People weren't seeing UFOs right after the film, but what they did see an uptick in was the number of people coming forward saying "five years ago, or three years ago, I saw something that seemed like that".

So it triggered that.

And we know from the UK, for instance, that following Spielberg's film E.T., there was actually a downward movement in the number of UFO sightings.

So it doesn't neatly map on to popular culture as much as we like to think at times.

You hear people say it's not a coincidence it all kicked off during the Cold War and Space Age.

I definitely would argue that the Cold War plays a critical role in this.

The UFO as we know it is unimaginable without the Cold War, and it's a spectre that haunts the entire history.

People are constantly making references to UFOs.

For instance, in those early years, one of the questions that comes up is, okay, the flying saucers are here, they're aliens.

Why are they here in 1947, 1948? Why now and not five years earlier, 500 years earlier?

And the argument that starts being put forward is, well, the aliens have seen the atomic bomb explosions.

They've seen that we have unlocked the key to atomic energy and they are scared.

They're either scared for us or they're scared of us, but they realise we have reached this level of civilisation that makes us a qualitatively different species.

What I don't see is a lot of what some people have argued is the case, that bad times promote more flying saucer panics or flying saucer reports.

That seems to me a bit of a problematic argument because it seems to me prone to cognitive bias.

Pick up a newspaper from any time period you like, and outside of maybe when the Berlin Wall fell, you will see mostly bad news.

Journalists are very good at reporting bad news and sometimes have a hard time knowing how to make good news interesting!

Do you find a large majority of sightings and reports are from the US? And does that suggest it's to do with the culture of the society?

I would say the evidence shows that the United States plays a very critical role. It's a hub.

It's a hub in that the news emanating out of the United States is what triggers the UFO phenomenon.

Throughout the history of flying saucers and UFOs, whenever there's a new development, like the events occurring since 2017, it is something that gets reported everywhere else.

That said, it's very clear within a few years that there are hubs popping up throughout the world and other places, and the influence actually goes in the other direction at times.

There are places in Europe, in South America, where you see a really pronounced concentration, not only of sightings and reports, but also activities by UFO organisations.

So I would say in Europe, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain all played a very, very big role.

Whereas in Germany, for instance, it was a much more muted phenomenon.

In South America, Brazil and Chile, Argentina play major roles.

And my argument would be, it has to do with whether or not you have a civilian UFO organization infrastructure.

In places where that gets built up and is sustainable, that's where you see this ability to articulate these narratives and lay out these programs to study the phenomenon, but also to have an impact worldwide on how these things are understood and viewed.

Did you come across attempts to  explain the strangest cases away?

Oh, I see that all the time.

Over the years I've been working on this, I've gotten to know lots and lots of 'ufologists', as they're called, UFO researchers of various kinds, and talked with people who say they've had experiences having contact with aliens or other kinds of beings.

It's a pretty diverse group of people.

I think there's a lack of appreciation just how many diverse perspectives there are when it comes to the flying saucer and UFO phenomenon in terms of how people approach it.

A lot of folks I know are not really altogether different from the people, say, over in the UK defence ministry who were very sceptical about this.

They themselves will tell you 95% of sightings, if not more, are easily explained.

And in fact, many UFO investigators I talk with, this is one of the things they do all the time.

They get a phone call or they get an email, they look into the case and they find out it's a rather mundane explanation.

Somebody was floating Chinese lanterns or somebody saw Starlink satellites which, if you see those things in the sky and don't know what that is, I would call that a UFO sighting.

One of the things I talk about in the book is the motivation for why people get involved in this stuff.

It’s that ability to be a detective, to crack a case.

It's really not altogether different from your favourite true crime podcast where everybody's invited to chime in and crack the case.

It keeps you going in the hope that maybe one day, a case is going to come along that makes you think “this is not going to go away”.

After you finished the book, was it hard to leave the subject alone?

Yeah, it is hard to leave it alone. I won't be leaving it alone because now I get a lot of people wanting to talk with me and contact me about discussing it.

And I'm going to be working on a new project, writing a book about the controversy surrounding the alien abduction phenomenon that was particularly lively in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

So no, once you've met the UFOs, they don't leave you alone!

What do you think about the argument that smartphones mean we should have irrefutable proof by now?

The ‘everyone carries a camera now’ argument is one I've heard a lot, and it's actually convinced some old-time UFO investigators that maybe there is not much to this anymore.

I've gotten a response from other UFO researchers who say, we know our smartphones are good at taking a picture of nice food at a restaurant or your friends at a party.

It's not a very refined or precise instrument for tracking something as complicated as a UFO.

How do you feel about more recent reports like those that have occurred since 2017 with the US Navy footage and Pentagon briefings in the US?

First of all, the fact that intelligence officials in the United States have come forward to say unequivocally, these pilots saw real objects, these are not computer glitches, these are not optical illusions, something is there.

That's unusual. That you didn't tend to get over the decades, that kind of admission.

And also their admission that they have maybe been derelict in taking seriously the reports of pilots, that they've ridiculed them, that a certain amount of peer and hierarchical pressure has really influenced people not to report things.

From my position as an academic, what I really find exciting and interesting is NASA's intervention.

NASA getting this independent UFO panel and saying okay, we think this deserves and warrants investigation, let's go about this in a serious fashion.

Because, you know, NASA is about civilian science, it's not about classified projects.

So adding that legitimacy to me seems to be the really unprecedented step.

That's the thing that I think opens the pathway for people from all sorts of disciplines to begin having conversations about what research projects might look like.

I think we'll see over the next, say five to 10 years, where this takes us.

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{ https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/ }

01-03-2026 om 21:03 geschreven door peter  

Is space really silent? Turns out the answer's not as simple as you think

We're told there's no sound in space; that it's silent. But is that strictly true?

Is space silent? Well, you’re not going to need ear-defenders, put it that way!

The simple answer here, of course, is yes: space is silent because it’s a vacuum.

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After all, what our ears perceive as 'sound' is just a pressure wave that passes through a medium, be that medium a solid, liquid or gas, and agitates the molecules within it.

When that pressure wave hits our ears, it causes small hairs and bones within them to vibrate, which sends an electrical signal to the brain that we interpret as sound.

But in a vacuum, where there are no molecules of liquid, solid or gas to agitate, that can’t happen – so there is no sound.

But when you’re talking about space, the simple, easy answer is seldom entirely correct – and that’s the case here, too.

That’s because space isn’t actually a vacuum at all.

Yes, huge regions of it are, particularly in interstellar and intergalactic space.

But within galaxies and nebulae are huge, swirling clouds of gas and dust, and the molecules within those clouds are just as capable of being agitated and so passing on a pressure wave – ie, sound – as their counterparts here on Earth.

As if to prove the point, in 2022 NASA released a sound recording of a black hole, extrapolated from observational data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

It turns out black holes make a low-pitched warbling sound that sounds (appropriately enough) like something from the soundtrack of a 1950s sci-fi B-movie.

It’s such a low-pitched sound that your ear wouldn’t be able to hear it naturally, so NASA used a process called ‘sonification’ to render it audible.

Gravitational waves and plasma waves (such as the solar wind, the stream of charged particles that’s constantly being emitted by our parent star) also present a medium through which sound is able to travel.

Not loudly enough that you’d be able to hear it were you there, but clearly enough for it to be detected by Earth-based radio telescopes.

So yes, space is mostly silent – but not truly silent.

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{ https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/ }

01-03-2026 om 20:31 geschreven door peter  

Artemis 3 Won’t Land Astronauts on the Moon as NASA Shifts Lunar Mission

NASA has canceled the Artemis 3 moon landing, shifting its focus to testing key technologies and aiming for a safer, more reliable return to the Moon in 2028.

Written by Lydia Amazouz

© Credit: SpaceX

NASA has decided to revise its Artemis program, significantly altering its mission architecture and delaying the anticipated Artemis 3 astronaut landing on the Moon. The decision follows concerns over the readiness of key spacecraft components, such as the Human Landing System (HLS), as detailed in a report by NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP). Space.com reported this groundbreaking update, noting that NASA aims to reduce mission complexity and avoid rushing the process. As a result, the first crewed lunar landing is now expected with Artemis 4 in 2028, rather than in the originally planned Artemis 3 mission.

NASA’s Shift in Strategy: A Move Toward Simplicity and Safety

NASA’s decision to cancel Artemis 3’s astronaut landing marks a significant turning point for the Artemis program, which was initially designed to return humans to the Moon by the mid-2020s. One of the main reasons for this shift is the need to reduce the complexity of the mission architecture, according to NASA officials.

“We want to reduce complexity to the greatest extent possible,” said Isaacman during a briefing. “We want to accelerate manufacturing, pull in the hardware and increase launch rate, which obviously has a direct safety consideration to it as well.”

This change in approach will help ensure that NASA can meet its goal of returning astronauts to the Moon safely, without compromising mission objectives.

One of the most important aspects of this decision is how it addresses the concerns raised by the ASAP report, which flagged issues related to the readiness of the Human Landing System (HLS) vehicles. These vehicles, which NASA had contracted from private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, are not yet ready to safely transport astronauts to the lunar surface. The delays in meeting critical milestones for these spacecraft, particularly SpaceX’s Starship, led to the decision to reevaluate the timeline and mission structure. The upcoming Artemis 3 mission will now focus on testing key technologies in low Earth orbit, setting the stage for a future crewed lunar landing with Artemis 4.

What Does This Mean for Artemis 3 and the Future of Lunar Exploration?

The cancellation of Artemis 3’s planned Moon landing has serious implications for the overall timeline of NASA’s lunar exploration ambitions. As originally envisioned, Artemis 3 was meant to be the first mission in the program to land astronauts on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. However, NASA’s new strategy aims to take a more cautious, measured approach to ensure that the technology and hardware are fully ready before they are used in a high-stakes mission. In a briefing with Space.com, Isaacman expressed his confidence that this approach is aligned with the recommendations from the ASAP report:

“I think what we’re doing is directly in line with what ASAP asked us to do,” he said. “I think it should be incredibly obvious you don’t go from one uncrewed launch of Orion and SLS, wait three years, go around the moon, wait three years and land on it.”

By emphasizing incremental testing and readiness, NASA hopes to avoid the pitfalls that could undermine a mission of this magnitude.

The new timeline, now targeting Artemis 4 for the first crewed landing in 2028, reflects NASA’s focus on thorough preparation rather than rushing through steps. This delay, while disappointing for some, could ultimately lead to a safer, more successful return to the lunar surface. NASA’s decision underscores the need to ensure that the various components of the mission, including the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, work seamlessly together. With these changes, NASA hopes to replicate the success of previous space programs by increasing the launch cadence and gaining more experience before landing astronauts on the Moon again.

{ https://dailygalaxy.com/category/space/ }

01-03-2026 om 19:09 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Caught Crackling Sounds on Mars. Researchers Think It Was Electricity

Two separate NASA missions detected unusual signals on Mars, a strange sound on the surface and a rare reading from orbit, and scientists are still trying to understand what they mean.

Written by Melissa Ait Lounis

© Credit: Shutterstock

Two NASA spacecraft have detected different signals that point to possible lightning on Mars. One clue comes from orbit, the other from the planet’s surface, together strengthening the case that electrical discharges flicker through the Red Planet’s dusty skies.

Lightning has already been observed on Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. Mars, by contrast, has remained ambiguous territory. Its atmosphere is thin, and its magnetic field exists only in small, scattered patches, conditions that make any lightning harder to detect and likely very different from the bright bolts seen on Earth.

Scientists have long hypothesized that if lightning occurs on Mars, it would resemble faint electrical sparks generated by swirling, electrostatically charged dust. Now, recent findings based on data from NASA’s MAVEN orbiter and the Perseverance rover suggest those sparks may indeed be real.

A Rare Radio “Whistler” Detected by MAVEN

The most recent evidence comes from a study published on February 27 in Science Advances. According to the research, scientists identified a possible lightning signature in data collected in June 2015 by NASA’s Mars atmosphere and volatile evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft.

Schematic representation of the conditions and processes that produce a whistler signal.

Credit: Science Advances

The team, led by Ondřej Santolík of the Czech Academy of Sciences, searched for radio signals known as “whistlers.” When lightning strikes, it heats and ionizes surrounding air, allowing radio waves to travel through the atmosphere and into space. On a receiver, these waves produce a characteristic whistle-like tone. Researchers reviewed 108,418 data snapshots from MAVEN. Santolík explained that:

“That needs to be done visually because it’s very hard to do it by a machine because of the noise features in the data”. Out of that extensive dataset, the team identified only one candidate signal. “It’s very surprising that we found it at all.”

The scientists then spent a year confirming that the signal matched what would be expected from lightning. NASA has reportedly been out of contact with MAVEN for nearly three months, leaving open questions about whether similar observations will be obtained in the near future.

Perseverance Hears Crackling During Dust Storms

A few months earlier, a separate group of researchers presented another form of evidence based on recordings from a microphone aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover.

The team identified dozens of crackling sounds produced by small electrical discharges during dust storms near the rover. These sounds likely reflect localized electrical activity within charged dust clouds rather than large-scale lightning bolts.

Spectrogram showing the frequency evolution of electromagnetic waves detected by MAVEN.

Credit: Science Advances

Karen Aplin, a space physicist at the University of Bristol who was not involved in either study, said the two findings together give “a feeling that we’re closing in on Mars lightning.” She noted that on Earth, different types of electrical discharges exist, ranging from thunderstorm lightning to the glow known as Saint Elmo’s fire, suggesting that Mars could host varied electrical phenomena as well.

A Discovery With Bigger Implications Than It Seems

Electrical discharges also influence atmospheric chemistry. As reported by Scientific American, lightning has been shown to spark chemical reactions that may contribute to the development of life. Understanding whether similar processes occur on the Red planet could help scientists interpret the planet’s chemical environment.

For Santolík, the findings are bittersweet. He was part of a team that developed a dedicated lightning detector for the Russian-made lander of the Rosalind Franklin rover, part of the European Space Agency (ESA) program. The mission, initially planned for 2022, was disrupted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

ESA is now building its own lander for a 2028 launch but chose not to include instruments on the platform to speed construction. The lightning detector has since been returned to its creators and is not expected to fly to Mars.

At this stage, a single orbital “whistler” and crackling sounds detected at the surface stand as the strongest hints yet that the Red Planet may host elusive, dust-driven sparks in its skies.7

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{ https://dailygalaxy.com/ }

01-03-2026 om 18:50 geschreven door peter  

Researchers have identified powerful Martian electrical discharges, similar to lightning, and strong enough to be observed from orbit, in new research bringing this extraterrestrial phenomenon to light.

Mars and Earth feature very different environments—namely, the Red Planet lacks a global magnetic field and possesses only a thin atmosphere. As a result, lightning does not form in rain clouds as it does on Earth; instead, intense activity in dust storms and dust devils produces the electrical charge that generates Mars’ lightning-like electrical discharges.

MAVEN Observes Martian Lightning

NASA’s MAVEN orbiter made the crucial observation a decade ago, but only in December 2024 did the significance of the signals become clear. Recently, Czech researchers completed their analysis and revealed the findings in a new paper published in Science Advances.

“I went through data from the beginning of the mission, and after automatically filtering records measured outside areas of strong magnetic fields or at excessively high altitudes,” František Němec of Charles University said in a press release. “I found only a single electromagnetic lightning signal—a so-called whistler—among thousands of possible records.”

“Based on previous calculations, laboratory experiments, and observations of lightning in the dust plumes of terrestrial volcanoes, we all expected electrical discharges in the Martian atmosphere, but until that moment, no one had recorded them,” said Ondřej Santolík of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

01-03-2026 om 16:30 geschreven door peter