War of the worlds

On 4 February, after days of wrangling and panic, the US air force shot down a balloon that had been making its way slowly over the USA. The USA claimed that it was equipped with Chinese spying equipment. China insisted it was a weather balloon that had gone off course.

It seemed like just another flashpoint in the growing tensions between the US and China. But then the story got strange. 

In the last few days, three more objects have been downed over Alaska, Canada, and MichiganA state in the northern USA.. Reports suggest one of these objects had no means of propulsion or control.

What are all these objects, and where are they coming from? A senior US official claims that they are most likely just weather devices. Politicians in CongressThe legislative branch of the American government, where elected representatives vote on which laws should be passed. Congress is made up of two chambers: the Senate, which contains two members from each of the 50 states, and the House of Representatives, which has representatives from 435 smaller districts. suspect more foul play from China.

But the general in charge of the operations says there is something weirder going on. He says they are not certain where the devices are coming from, or even how they are moving.

And he told reporters that he was not willing to rule out the possibility that they were extraterrestrial objects.

This suggestion would have been met with howls of derision only a few years ago. UFOs were the stuff of conspiracy theoryAn explanation for a phenomenon that centres around the actions of sinister, shadowy groups, where an absence of evidence can be interpreted as evidence of its truth. and science fiction.

But the USA is taking them seriously, after a spate of sightings of unexplained objects in the sky around its territories.

If they are UFOs, think some, then it might be time to worry. It would be very easy for these small acts of aggression to trigger an all-out war.

But others say we have nothing to fear. They think it is hardly likely that these objects are UFOs. The best estimate for the number of alien civilisations in the Milky WayThe galaxy that contains our solar system. It has the structure of a disc, but looks to us like a band because we are inside it. is around 36.¹ In a galaxy with 100 billion planets, the chances of any of those stumbling across us are astronomicalEnormously large or great..

And either way, the closest planet outside the solar system that is capable of supporting life is Proxima Centauri b, which is 4.2 light years away. It would take Earth technology more than 6,000 years to get there.

So even if the aliens are highly advanced, and as close as they can possibly be, we will have plenty of time to prepare for the next assault.

Yes: It cannot be a coincidence that all these flying objects have appeared at once. Their technology is clearly very advanced. We should assume that they come from a more sophisticated civilisation.

No: The world is full of manmade flying objects. Previously, the US would simply have ignored them. We are only hearing about them now because it is taking extra caution after the "spy balloon" incident.

Or... It might be worse news if these objects do come from Earth. It suggests hostile powers have much more developed technology than we thought. Global tensions will only increase.