The Earth as we know is a tiny little planet in a corner of this vast universe. To give you a fair idea of the vastness of the universe, consider Earth as a grain of sand on the beach that we call the universe. That is the scale of our insignificance. There are worlds that are yet to be discovered, to be thought of. Have you ever looked at the night sky and felt that someone might be looking back?
Throughout history, we have come across incidents that suggest the existence of extra-terrestrial life or ‘aliens’ as they are more popularly known and their visits to our home planet. Here are some of the famous incidents that have been documented.
Perhaps the most common occurrence of all are Crop Circles. A crop circle is a large pattern of lines and shapes that occur overnight in fields throughout the world. While some of the crop circles are as simple as an oval or a pyramid, others are complex designs such as the Yin-Yang, the jelly fish or a six-sided triskelion. The size of these patterns is recorded to be as large as 780 feet long. Many people believe these are messages sent by aliens to communicate or warn us of an impending danger.
A similar phenomenon to crop circles, called the Nazca Lines, is observed in the deserts of southern Peru in South America. The Nazca Lines are series of large figures, such as a monkey, a spider and even an astronaut, etched in the desert thousands of years ago by the Nazca people. The figures are so large that to view them entirely, one needs to fly over them in an aeroplane. To construct them in 400 AD without extra-terrestrial help is considered impossible by many believers. It is also speculated that these lines were used as landing sites for UFOs.
Alien abduction is another interesting phenomenon. Many individuals have claimed on several occasions that they were kidnapped by aliens. The victims claim that they were taken hostage onto the alien spacecraft, where probatory tests were carried out on them by the aliens. The most widely known case of alien abduction happened in Arizona, US on November 5, 1975. The abductee, Travis Walton was seen taken by a blue-green beam of light emanating from a silvery disc by his accomplices in the forests surrounding Turkey Springs, Arizona. The local police searched for Walton high and low but found nothing. Five days later, Walton reappeared and claimed that he had been taken hostage on an alien aircraft. His accounts have been the source for a book and a movie both named Fire in the Sky.
And finally, no story about alien encounters can be complete without the mention of the Roswell incident. The Roswell incident is considered by many believers to be absolute proof of alien existence. It is considered that a UFO crash took place in Roswell, New Mexico, US on July 1947 and an alien aircraft and alien bodies were recovered was from the crash site. The US government later dismissed the report saying that the debris recovered were of a high altitude helium weather balloon. Hordes of people are of the opinion that this was just a cover-up story and the spacecraft and the bodies were taken to the secret military research facility known as Area 51. The original official reports of the incident have not been released yet by the American government.
Like the two sides of a coin, each of the above discussed events, have their believers and their sceptics. Believers advocate on the base of circumstantial evidence, video recordings and personal experiences while sceptics demand absolute scientific proof which is mostly not available in these events. The search for alien life form is not limited to alien encounters. NASA has launched many missions to search for life on other planets. SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is a non-profit organisation that is trying to search for intelligent alien life by continuously sending radio signals into space and listening for a reply. They are hoping for an answer.
As for you, keep your mind receptive to new ideas. Many discoveries in the world were considered impossible when they were first thought of.