To accompany ‘Why are scientists suddenly interested in UFOs?’  

SCIENCE

Before Reading:

1. To what extent do you think extraterrestrial life exists? Explain how you arrived at your assessment. Do you feel fairly certain or mostly uncertain about your answer?
2. UFO stands for unidentified flying object. Imagine a close friend tells you they’ve seen a UFO and believe it to be of extraterrestrial origin. To what extent would their claim make you question their credibility? Assuming they did see such an object, to what extent would you question the credibility of this UFO being extraterrestrial? Write two questions that you would ask them to evaluate the credibility of their claim. What evidence could they provide to support their claim?

During Reading:

1. U.S. Navy pilots reported unusual flying objects off the U.S. East Coast in 2015. What year did the public become aware of these sightings?
2. What does UAP stand for?
3. In what U.S. city and state did Mac Brazel find strange debris in 1947?
4. What was the goal of Project Mogul?
5. How did the Air Force explain reports of alien “bodies” people thought they saw at a mysterious crash site?
6. What is AARO tasked with studying? What does this acronym stand for?
7. Approximately how old is the Earth in billions of years?
8. As an astrobiologist, what big question does Julia DeMarines hope to help answer?
9. How does the goal of the Galileo project differ from that of AARO?
10. What does the Drake Equation attempt to estimate?
11. What does the letter “L” represent in the Drake Equation?

After Reading:

1. Astrophysicist Seth Shostak believes we probably aren’t alone in the universe. To support his belief, he points to how the first Earth life probably appeared around 3.5 billion to 4 billion years ago. Why does he believe this early emergence of life supports his belief? To what extent do you agree or disagree with his reasoning?
2. What does historian Garrett Graff think people usually “get wrong” when they think about aliens and UAP? Imagine that he’s right about people usually getting this stuff wrong. How might we change the way we search for alien life?
3. DeMarines points out that there may have been past alien civilizations. But we don’t know about them because they might not have overlapped with our timeline. How would you feel to learn that a technologically advanced alien civilization existed in the distant past? Write three questions you would want to answer about such a civilization. How might answering such questions help present and future humans?