Where is ufo come from

Are they visitors from another world? Where have famous sightings happened? Keep reading to find out! Image via Pixabay. Although people have claimed to see strange objects in the sky for much of human history, UFO is a fairly new term.

The term first appeared in the s, and up until then these weird objects were known by another name: flying saucers. This is because many of the sightings described floating, disc-shaped objects.

Air Force studies of UFOs have been going on since the s. Most UFOs have mundane explanations. Over half can be attributed to meteors, fireballs and the planet Venus.

Such bright objects are familiar to astronomers but are often not recognized by members of the public. Reports of visits from UFOs inexplicably peaked about six years ago. Many people who say they have seen UFOs are either dog walkers or smokers. Sightings concentrate in evening hours , particularly on Fridays, when many people are relaxing with one or more drinks. Most astronomers find the hypothesis of alien visits implausible , so they concentrate their energy on the exciting scientific search for life beyond the Earth.

While UFOs continue to swirl in the popular culture , scientists are trying to answer the big question that is raised by UFOs: Are we alone? Astronomers have discovered over 4, exoplanets , or planets orbiting other stars, a number that doubles every two years. Each of these Earth-like planets is a potential biological experiment, and there have been billions of years since they formed for life to develop and for intelligence and technology to emerge.

That feeling is obvious in recent news coverage, as Adam Kehoe, a software engineer and freelance writer, points out. Read: How would people react to news that aliens exist? I understand the appeal of the mystery.

In , when astronomers announced that a distant star in the Milky Way was flickering strangely, as if something nearby was taking in its light—perhaps a giant contraption built by advanced beings to harness energy?

Last year, another team picked up a radio signal coming from the closest star to the sun. Researchers warned that it was probably terrestrial interference and it was , but how lovely might a different result have been? At this point, an alien visit might seem like a believable plot line.

Humanity may indeed uncover compelling evidence for extraterrestrial existence in our lifetime, but it will very possibly come in the form of microbes. Such life might have existed on Mars, where a rover has been dispatched to search for tiny dead beings in the rock, and may exist now beneath the icy surfaces of the moons Europa and Enceladus. Astronomers could even detect promising signs on worlds beyond our solar system, in the mix of chemicals in a cloud of exoplanets so striking that something alive must be responsible for their presence.

Those distant atmospheres are better places to look than our own. The findings, in this case, will be less internet-worthy, less titillating—no grainy footage, just a bunch of squiggly lines on a graph. To paraphrase Wright, why drag aliens into it? Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword.