the possibilities of extraterrestrial life

Commenting on the possibility that there could be intelligent life on other planets, reknowned physicist ENRICO FERMI once remarked: "Where is everybody?"

According to JEFFREY BENNETT, astrophysicist, educator and author of the deeply scientific BEYOND UFOS: THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE AND IT'S ASTONISHING IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR FUTURE, there are three possibilites of life elsewhere in the universe:

 1.WE ARE ALONE. Bennett does not believe this is possible, given the number of other habitable worlds in the rest of our galaxy alone. But if it were found to be true, the implications are profound because we humans would be the only sentient creatures around to contemplate the universe. We would essentially be the universe's "consciousness".

2. CIVILIZATIONS ARE COMMON, BUT NO ONE HAS COLONIZED THE GALAXY. What this could mean is that though there are/were other civilizations out there, they likely all destroyed themselves in war or environmental degradation and therefore never matured enough to develop interstellar travel. This could be our fate too.

3. THERE IS A GALACTIC CIVILIZATION. see: CONTACT, the book by Carl Sagan.

Jeffrey will be a guest on an upcoming Inquiry.