Have you ever wondered if there’s life beyond Earth? Government officials have been pushing questions aside and have given little to no answers regarding the conspiracy of aliens. The ongoing discussion about whether we are the only beings in the universe has been going on for centuries. Many different conspiracy theories have been brought to light but no true answers have been given to the public.

Following conspiracy and questioning the chances of other life forms in our universe stems back to the age-old question of whether the government is hiding these phenomena or not.

Judson High School’s very own Astronomy teacher Mr. Travis Lara provides insight into his opinion on whether the government hides aliens from us. “Well, I doubt it really, because we just don’t have the technology. We do know that the government hides different things from us but really, I don’t believe they are hiding aliens from us because even with their top security guarding all of their information, I think somebody would say something by now,” Lara said. 

The U.S. government is one of the world’s enigmas, who knows what they truly do behind closed doors? Whether they keep information to themselves or give the general public all that they know. Aliens or other dark secrets, we truly don’t have an idea what they can really hide.

“It’s all in the interest of allowing for the public to be what the public is, and looking for the general welfare of our nation. For example, the information that was just released was the ability to harness power from the sun. If the government hides stuff from the general public, why didn’t they hide this information? But as for the government not giving us the information, of course, they redact stuff, but they do it for the general welfare of not creating mass hysteria for the public. So of course if we are looking at something that we never really have had much information on, we might all treat it differently because we are all not the same,” Lara said.

At some point in everyone’s life we all sit down and think about whether everyone else goes through the same problems as ourselves  or even if people truly feel the same emotions as us. Maybe not even people but extraterrestrial beings that know how we could feel and have similar experiences to us. The world is too big to only think about yourself let alone other people in it. But thinking about other life forms in different solar systems and far out in space is a totally different ballpark. Truly, if we were created to be on this Earth, who’s to say other planets don’t have any life form at all.

“Teaching astronomy, I get this question a lot. Probably on the first or second day of class and I can say this, if you by yourself can say that we as humans are the only sentient life forms in this universe (this ever expanding growing at a constant rate) that is a very prideful thing to say. Actually, there is an equation that talks about the probability of there being actual intelligent life out there. And so for intelligent life to happen, they have to actually be in the habitable zone like we humans are. And of course there are not many stars that are like our stars due to the fact that most of them are actually binary, meaning that they circle around each other. So it’s very hard to find a singular star like ours and it’s even harder to find a planet far away enough that actually warms but doesn’t kill the life that could potentially live on it. If that planet does exist, there’s an even smaller chance that life too actually has occurred.” Lara said.

In order for a planet to sustain life forms, it would need to have to be the correct distance from their star the way Earth is the correct distance from the sun. The planet would need to have a stable rotational axis. The perfect amount of water, and a magnetic field. These are only a few of the requirements a planet needs to sustain any type of life, let alone intelligent life.

“You may have all the ingredients for life to happen, but nothing happens. And even a smaller chance than that is for life to be an intelligent life form. There is even a smaller chance that intelligent life has created civilizations and finally after civilizations, we learn that there’s a smaller chance that this life is technologically advanced enough to communicate within them. By using the equation we made for determining whether there is intelligent life on other planets, we don’t fall within the fact that we aren’t even intelligent life. So maybe the reason we aren’t actually seeing aliens is because aliens could think we are ants because really, we aren’t up to their level yet.. Aliens are probably looking at us like, “they haven’t learned yet”. And of course for us to actually be intelligent, we must have space travel and we have very rudimentary space travel because we can only go to the moon; Mars takes about 6 months to get there. We haven’t even gotten out of our solar system yet,” Lara said.  

Regarding all this information, aliens are still just a question that no one would truly know the answer to until man creates the correct equipment but for now…. Do you believe aliens are real?