9 things we learned about aliens in 2021
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A bombshell UFO report, the "alien junk" in our solar system, and more new clues about extraterrestrial life.
Two aircraft pilots reported seeing a bright green UFO over Canada in July 2021. (Image credit: Getty)
A "doughnut UFO" in the skies over Switzerland. Strange green lights vanishing into the clouds above Canada. A saucer-shaped blob plunging suddenly into the ocean.
The year 2021 gave truth-seekers and alien hunters no shortage of mysteries to ponder. But it also gave them answers — from a hotly anticipated Pentagon report on military UFO sightings, to new insights on habitable exoplanets, to the truth about a so-called "alien signal" from the sun's nearest neighboring star. Here are 9 things we learned about aliens (and where to look for them) in 2021.
1. UFOs are real (and the government knows it)
In June, the Pentagon released a highly anticipated report detailing 144 UFO encounters between 2004 and 2021. The report was meant to assess "the threat posed by unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)," and officially confirmed several UFO sightings that had, until then, only been shared through viral media. On one hand, the brief, 9-page assessment confirmed that "most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects," which range from birds and balloons to foreign surveillance equipment and top-secret U.S. government projects. However, anyone hoping for an acknowledgement of extraterrestrial intelligence may have been let down when the report failed to link any of the 144 encounters to alien activity.
2. Black holes could be alien powerhouses
While alien hunters spend plenty of time searching for habitable planets beyond our solar system, a study published in July in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society warns that scientists shouldn't overlook nature's most extreme objects: Black holes. Because black holes can radiate up to 100,000 times more energy than a star like our sun, they may make tempting targets for alien civilizations looking to power their interstellar enterprises, the study authors wrote. To do this, aliens could use high-tech structures called Dyson spheres (giant, energy-siphoning orbs first proposed in the 1960s) to steal energy from the disc of white-hot matter swirling around a black hole's horizon, then radiate that energy outward into space. That re-radiated energy would create a distinct wavelength signature that astronomers could detect from Earth, the study authors suggested. The researchers are currently developing algorithms to search through existing telescope data in search of those telltale signatures.
3. Alien planets may look nothing like Earth
Typically, the search for alien life begins with the search for Earth-like planets — but there may be another class of alien world that is just as conducive to life, a study published in the Astrophysical Journal in August contends. "Hycean" planets, which are up to 2.5 times larger than Earth and sport huge oceans of liquid water beneath hydrogen-rich atmospheres, could be the ideal spot for microbial life similar to the "extremophiles" that thrive in some of Earth's harshest environments (such as hydrothermal vents), the study authors said. Not only are these planets abundant in the Milky Way galaxy, but they are also incredibly diverse, some orbiting very close to their host star, others orbiting far away. Both could potentially host itty-bitty life beneath their waves, the authors wrote, meaning there may be a whole new avenue of exploration for alien planet hunters.
4. One of Saturn's moon still holds potential for life
The methane wafting from Enceladus, Saturn's sixth largest moon, may be a sign that life teems in the moon's subsurface sea, a June study found. In 2005, NASA's Cassini Saturn orbiter discovered geysers blasting particles of water ice into space from "tiger stripe" fractures near Enceladus' south pole. That material is thought to come from a huge ocean of liquid water that sloshes beneath the moon's icy shell — but it wasn't just water the orbiter found