Alien

Alien life, such as microorganisms, has long been hypothesized to exist in the Solar System and throughout the universe. This hypothesis relies on the vast size and consistent physical laws of the observable universe. Such life might range from simple prokaryotes (or comparable life forms) to beings with civilizations far more advanced than human beings.

Aristotle and Plato both opposed the idea of extraterrestrial life.

Not only did 17th-century astronomer Christiaan Huygens contribute to our knowledge of the planets; he speculated about the extraterrestrial life on them. In the 1690s, he wrote, "It's not improbable that the rest of the Planets have their Dress and Furniture ... and their Inhabitants too." To critics who might have called his ideas blasphemous, he pointed out that if God made the stars, it's likely he also populated the planets of the universe with "Planetarians."

In the late 19th century, telescopic observation of apparent Martian canals increased speculation about life on Mars. In 1895, American astronomer Percival Lowell published his book Mars, followed by Mars and its Canals in 1906, proposing that the canals were the work of a long-gone civilization. The canals however, turned out to be optical illusions.

Artificial Martian channels, depicted by Percival Lowell

The idea of life on Mars led British author H. G. Wells to write The War of the Worlds, an 1898 science fiction novel about Martians attacking Earth. The book's plot arose from Wells wondering "if Martians did to Britain what the British had done to the [indigenous] Tasmanians?", which most modern scholars characterize as a genocide.

Sightings of UFOs (sometimes called flying saucers) date to ancient times, but they only became widely discussed only after the first highly publicized U.S. sighting in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico.

According to theology, human beings may exist on other planets then the Earth, the Vatican stated on November 1, 1952. Roman Catholics are free to accept or deny the existence of space dwellers, in line with their own points of view, it said. The last word is up to experimental science. There is nothing else to do for the theologians but wait.

During the space race, the director Stanley Kubrick was so worried that humans would soon make first contact with aliens that he tried to buy an insurance policy for his 2001: A Space Odyssey movie in case audiences found his depiction of aliens ridiculous.

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States. The signal appeared to come from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and bore the expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin. The signal was 72 seconds long and had a narrow bandwidth of about 10 kHz. It was about 30 times stronger than the background noise at that frequency. The signal was not detected again, and its origin remains unknown.

Ronald Reagan was deeply affected by the film The Day the Earth Stood Still, to the point that at his first meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, on November 19 and 20, 1985, he suggested that the world might put national differences aside in in the case of an alien invasion.

The U.S. city of Boston held the world's first convention for people who said they had been abducted by aliens. The convention took place at the Sheraton Commander Hotel on May 7, 1988 and was organized by Budd Hopkins, a renowned psychotherapist from New York City. Hopkins, who had authored the book Missing Time exploring the topic of alien abductions, played a pivotal role in bringing together approximately 100 participants.

The Boston alien convention was met with mixed reactions. Some people were skeptical of the stories, while others were intrigued and wanted to learn more. The convention helped to raise awareness of the issue of alien abductions and to create a community of people who shared these experiences.

Tom Delonge quit the band Blink-182 not because of artistic differences, but because he wanted to research the existence of aliens.

Ozzy Osbourne was named on March 21, 2004 the UK's favorite ambassador to welcome aliens to planet earth. The rock vocalist came top of a poll as the face people want to represent them to alien life.

Fermi's Paradox proposes theories as to why we haven’t heard from or seen any aliens. One of which being that they aren’t communicating because of an impending threat they know about, that we are not aware of.

Alien abduction insurance is only redeemed if the insured person can prove they were abducted by aliens and returned to Earth. Some insurance companies offer policies for alien abduction, alien pregnancy, alien examinations, and even death by aliens.

Alien abduction insurance has been available in the United States since 1987.