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The leaders of the USAThe United States of America is a country in North America. It has a population of 329 million. are taking aliens seriously. Last year, it set up a group of scientists from NasaThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration, responsible for the US space programme.. Their goal was to find out everything possible about Unidentified Flying Objects - UFOs.

This week, the group of scientists reported what they have found. But it turns out they have more questions than answers.

They looked at around 800 reports of UFOs - or what they now call "unidentified anomalous phenomena", UAPs.

Some of them had simple explanations - one turned out to be a Bart Simpson balloon. But they could not find answers for between 2 and 5% of reported sightings.

This does not mean the UFOs were definitely alien ships. But there are some reports that make alien hunters very excited. For example, one person saw an object that moved in ways nothing on Earth can.

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Experts say we need to start preparing for contact with aliens. This raises big questions for philosophersPeople who ask big questions about the meaning of life and how we should live..

Some think that if we are the only speciesA set of animals or plants with similar features. Members of the same species can breed with each other. that can think and feel, then we must make sure that humans live on other planets too. This would bring meaning to more parts of the universeEverything. Including all of time and space and its contents. .

But others say that living on other planets would be wrong, because we might stop other species from learning to think and feel.

Some think a bigger problem would be finding intelligentHaving a great ability to reason and understand things. alien life. Most humans on Earth follow basic rules: no killing, no stealing, no hurting others.

But aliens might have very different rules for life. They might even have no rules at all. This would make us question what we know and how we think.

Yes! Philosophers have always thought that aliens probably do exist. Some have spent their entires lives working out what we should do if we find them.

No! It is interesting to think about what we should do if aliens land on Earth. But it is scientists who will tell us whether aliens exist, not philosophers.