NARRATOR: For thousands of years,
humankind has attempted to make contact
with beings from beyond Earth.
GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: Even our ancestors
tried to send messages to the sky,
and we're still doing it today.
NARRATOR: Now, in the 21st century,
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is ramping up
like never before.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: We might find life on another planet
in the next few years.
We might even find civilizations.
We're that close.
NARRATOR: And powerful new technologies
are allowing us to explore trillions of stars
all across the universe.
ROD PYLE: We've never had this many eyes,
this many lenses, this many radio dishes
looking for things at the same time.
NICK POPE: It's now only a matter of time
before science finds other earths,
and where there are other earths,
there'll be other life and other civilizations.
NARRATOR: There is a doorway
in the universe.
Beyond it is the promise of truth.
It demands we question everything
we have ever been taught.
The evidence is all around us.
The future is right before our eyes.
We are not alone.
We have never been alone.
French Guiana, South America.
December 25, 2021.
At the Guiana Space Center,
NASA launches the James Webb Space Telescope,
which is 100 times more powerful
than any telescope that's come before.
It represents an ambitious,
ten-billion-dollar effort by NASA
to see into the deepest parts of the universe.
To many, this highly sophisticated device
will finally enable scientists to answer an age-old question:
Are we alone in the universe?
The James Webb Telescope is our latest
and greatest space telescope,
uh, which has two basic missions.
One is to understand how stars and galaxies began,
and its other mission is to understand
whether there's life out there.
WILLIAM HENRY: The James Webb Telescope has the ability
to detect chemical signatures on planets
that suggest that life is, in fact,
present in those worlds.
TSOUKALOS: We can now look into space
with more clarity
than in all of our previous human history.
And with the new James Webb Telescope,
scientists are looking for extraterrestrial intelligence,
not just extraterrestrial, you know, biology.
The fact that we are investigating is
something very exciting because the search
for extraterrestrial intelligence
is the ultimate quest
of humanity to find out,
how did it all begin?
NARRATOR: With the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope,
astronomers are now able to examine thousands of planets
outside our own solar system,
often referred to as exoplanets.
And they are discovering more and more
that are located within the so-called Goldilocks zone.
There's something called the Goldilocks zone
where everything is just right.
You're just right from the Sun in terms of distance,
in terms of heat, in terms of ecology.
And that's where to find life.
TAYLOR: Now we're discovering
many tens of planets that seem to be
in the Goldilocks zone,
where it-it can have water
and an atmosphere that's warm enough for life.
MICHIO KAKU: We now realize there could be hundreds,
thousands of twins of the Earth in outer space.
This is big news 'cause it may mean that life could be
much more readily abundant in our galaxy
than we previously thought.
DAVID CHILDRESS: These new discoveries
by the Webb Telescope are pretty amazing.
They're finding these exoplanets that can hold life.
And now the search for extraterrestrials is on,
like, steroids.
We've got NASA involved in it.
We've got Chinese
and Japanese scientists who are looking at this.
We have a wide array of international players
who are searching for extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,
our willingness to devote
so much time, energy and resources
towards the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
is firmly rooted in the distant past.
Since the very beginning of human civilization,
we have been looking for signs
of extraterrestrial intelligence.
You go back to the most ancient civilizations--
the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Mayans--
they all track the stars, they track the planets.
They built incredible monuments like the pyramids
that were in alignment with various star systems.
TSOUKALOS: You have multiple ancient megalithic structures
that are in the form of constellations,
mainly Sirius, Orion and Pleiades.
Why those three?
Well, we are suggesting
that that is where the extraterrestrials
who taught us a long time ago came from.
NARRATOR: Could it be that our earliest ancestors
had encounters with otherworldly beings?
And did they align
their most important structures with the stars
because they hoped this would be noticed
by the extraterrestrials who had visited Earth?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest
that support for this notion can be found
by examining the theories
of a prominent 19th-century German scientist
named Carl Friedrich Gauss.
In 1820, Carl Friedrich Gauss was on the cutting edge
of our science and technology.
He's a mathematician and a physicist.
But he has one question:
Can we communicate with extraterrestrials?
He thought it was entirely possible.
Gauss proposed an incredible idea.
He said we need to go out into the Siberian tundra
and create a giant Pythagorean triangle that would be so big,
it could be seen from the Moon
and an extraterrestrial civilization would see it
and know that we were mathematically advanced
and make contact with us.
NARRATOR: While most scientists
regarded Gauss's idea as fanciful,
ancient astronaut theorists suggest there is evidence
that our ancestors used this exact method
to try to communicate with otherworldly beings.
In the 1930s,
more than a century after Gauss proposed his theory,
pilots flying over southern Peru reported seeing enormous shapes
carved into the earth--
the Nazca Lines.
TSOUKALOS: The Nazca Lines are the animals,
the hummingbird, the monkey,
all these different things from the animal kingdom.
And straight lines,
some of which go up to 15 miles.
The Nazca Lines clearly were created by humans
to signal somebody up there, not on the ground.
Why? Well, according to the ancient astronaut theory,
the local population was visited by extraterrestrials,
but at some point, they left.
And so the local population wanted them to come back.
And that is why the Nazca Lines were created on a bigger scale.
The Nazca Lines are a giant signal
to someone up in the sky.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that ancient people
created the Nazca Lines
to attract the attention of intelligent beings,
like Gauss proposed in 1820?
Today, scientists believe
that we will soon have the technology
to see surface features on distant planets ourselves,
and the James Webb Telescope is already allowing astronomers
to observe the universe in greater detail
than ever before.
Our current technology isn't such that we can
truly image Earth-sized planets around other stars.
But we can look at what elements
and what chemical compounds are in that planet's atmosphere.
CHRISSY NEWTON: The James Webb Telescope
has found multiple different exoplanets
that have markers of life, that have markers of carbon.
We see that some of these exoplanets have water in them,
and water is a major marker for life.
So it's exciting to see what the James Webb Telescope is doing
and what else it will find.
NARRATOR: Could it be that in searching
for extraterrestrial intelligence,
we are carrying on the work of our earliest ancestors,
as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?
And might new technology
like the James Webb Space Telescope
help us to finally succeed in achieving this goal?
Many experts believe it will
and suggest there is evidence
that Earth has already received communication
from an alien race.
NARRATOR: Colorado Springs.
July 1899.
Famed scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla
is conducting radio experiments at his laboratory
when he receives an unusual repeating transmission
from an unknown source.
Nikola Tesla believed that
extraterrestrial communication was possible.
And this signal was exactly the type of signal
he would've expected to have seen
from an extraterrestrial civilization
if they were trying to make contact.
And Tesla himself believed
he had received radio signals from Mars.
NARRATOR: More than 5,000 miles away,
Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi
observed similar seemingly extraterrestrial transmissions.
Marconi was the first to really
broadcast radio across long distances.
And he, of course, was also listening.
And he also thought that he might have heard
some radio signals from-from the planet Mars.
HENRY: Nikola Tesla and Marconi were on the cutting edge
of this new frontier of discovery,
believing in their hearts, in their minds
that radio waves would lead to our connection
with an extraterrestrial civilization.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the mysterious transmissions
detected by both Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi
came from an extraterrestrial intelligence?
While the answer will likely never be known,
the observations of these early radio pioneers
had a major impact on humanity's search for alien life.
Marconi and Tesla
kind of got the ball rolling when it comes to
trying to find the aliens by eavesdropping on radio signals.
And it turns out radio waves would be a great way
to communicate over very long distances
from one star system to another.
They're better even than ordinary light,
because there are dusty, dark clouds in the universe
and they can... they can block the light.
So the point about radio waves
is that they would go right through the dust and gas
that hangs between the stars.
NARRATOR: Tesla and Marconi may not have found definitive evidence
of alien intelligence,
but they were foundational in establishing the primary means
by which scientists search
for extraterrestrial civilizations today.
This effort is led by the SETI Institute,
established in 1984.
SETI is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
And a lot of it has been done by the SETI Institute
based in California.
It is primarily the use of radio telescopes
to listen for a signal from another civilization.
SETH SHOSTAK: The SETI Institute,
its flagship program is to use big antennas,
point them in the direction of other nearby star systems
and, you know, tune over the radio dial to see
if there's any transmission coming from those planets.
POPE: The thinking is that we have been a detectable civilization
for years through our television and radio broadcasts,
and almost any conceivable advanced civilization
will be using that technology
or will have used it in the past--
maybe they've gone on to more advanced things now--
but that will be detectable.
And people look for a beacon, maybe,
to just draw our attention to the fact
that there's life out there.
But also a message.
Maybe there's scientific and technical knowledge encoded
in a signal being sent to us.
Well, if we don't listen, we'll never get it.
NEWTON: The work of the SETI Institute is so important
for the fact that they are a pioneer.
They're a pioneer in the world of academia,
in the world of science
and have pushed the boundaries, I would say,
in the understanding and the acceptance
of looking into extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: But not all scientists were content to merely listen
for alien communication.
A decade before the establishment
of the SETI Institute,
one of its founders, famed astronomer Carl Sagan,
was part of an effort to send a message out into the cosmos.
♪ ♪
Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico.
November 16, 1974.
Scientists, dignitaries
and other public officials gather to watch
as astronomers send out
the first official radio communication
directed to extraterrestrials
using the largest, most powerful telescope in the world.
SHOSTAK: The message was just a series of, you know,
dots and dashes, if you will.
But you could order them into a-a matrix
and actually get a picture
as a way of sending a greeting card, if you will, from Earth.
NARRATOR: Designed by renowned scientists like Carl Sagan and Frank Drake,
the Arecibo message contains binary-encoded information,
including the numbers one through ten,
an image of human DNA,
a human figure
and a graphic of the solar system,
highlighting the position of Earth.
POPE: This was a calling card from planet Earth.
It was really reaching out across the galaxy
and saying, "We're here."
Now, some scientists condemned it.
And, in fact, SETI has been very controversial
when it moves into active-- what's called METI--
"messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence."
Some people have said it's like a suicide note to the universe,
because if there's a super predator species out there,
you were saying, "Come and get us."
Now, SETI scientists say, "Well, it's too late.
"We've been a detectable civilization for decades
because of our radio and television broadcasts."
But it's still controversial.
NARRATOR: In August 2001,
almost three decades after the Arecibo message was sent,
there was an extraordinary development.
Workers at the Chilbolton Observatory
in Hampshire, England,
discovered a mysterious crop circle in a nearby field
that was an almost exact replica of the Arecibo message.
It's actually called sometimes the Arecibo reply,
because it-it's essentially very similar
to the Arecibo message but with some subtle changes.
For example, the DNA swaps out carbon for silicon.
And also, there's a-a representation of a figure,
but it's not a human.
Looks like an alien.
Instantly, the astronomers proclaimed this a hoax.
And as people started to investigate this,
they realized that maybe it was possible
that it came from extraterrestrials.
One reason why was that the message was so perfect.
How likely is it that some crop circle hoaxer
could have duplicated that message in a crop circle?
Crop circles are a very important potential way
that an extraterrestrial intelligence could use
to communicate with us.
They're very public,
and they have caught the curiosity of humanity.
NARRATOR: Was the so-called Arecibo reply a message sent to Earth
by an extraterrestrial civilization?
While its origin continues to be debated,
some scientists suggest
that the best evidence of intelligent life
can be found by simply looking deep into space
for what aliens may have built
in the stars.
NARRATOR: At the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory,
one of the world's most powerful telescopes detects a signal
that catches the attention of scientists
from multiple institutions.
They discover interstellar radio waves
that are reaching Earth every 22 minutes.
Even stranger,
the signals have been sent, like clockwork,
for more than 30 years.
HENRY: Astronomers in Australia made an amazing discovery--
a timed pulse, a radio wave pulse
that went completely undetected.
This was a milestone, a benchmark
in our search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
SHOSTAK: The thought is, it turns on and off every 20 minutes--
a little too regular to be due to nature.
And, uh, you know,
when you find something unexpected,
of course you're excited.
PYLE: Now, normally when you see a repeating signal like that,
you think of either a pulsar,
which is a rotating star that's sending out a radio burst
on a regular schedule,
or a magnetar,
which is a similar kind of star that is...
has a very intense magnetic field that's rotating.
And so you get spikes of a signal from that magnetic field.
The problem is, this signal doesn't match either of those.
TAYLOR: We don't know what this signal is,
but we do know that it seems interesting
and possibly artificial,
which means it was broadcast by someone.
We may find that there's a, uh,
natural phenomena that explains it.
We may not.
POPE: Some people have speculated
that this could mean that extraterrestrials
have been signaling to us
for a very long time.
Now, there's still a lot that we don't know about this,
but there's something very odd about it.
CHILDRESS: This is the kind of thing that we've been searching for
for decades.
It's tremendously important, this discovery.
NARRATOR: Is it possible
that the strange radio pulses detected in 2023
are signals being sent out by alien life-forms?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining another discovery
that some scientists believe
is evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization.
Astronomer Tabetha Boyajian publishes a paper
in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
that captures the attention of the scientific world.
Using data gathered by NASA's Kepler space telescope,
Boyajian documented strange behavior in a distant star.
GIBOR BASRI: The Kepler telescope was searching for exoplanets
by waiting for them to cross in front of their star
and block a little bit of light.
Well, she found a star
where the amount of light that was blocked kept changing.
It was much more light than a planet could block.
So Tabby's Star was-was kind of a...
a surprising discovery at the time.
KAKU: Tabby's Star suddenly diminished in terms of its intensity,
uh, by quite a bit, and then flared up again
and has been doing this for years.
What could cause that?
What is big enough
to diminish starlight by that much?
It must be huge.
NARRATOR: The bizarre dimming led some astronomers to consider
a profound possibility:
that the dimming was caused
by an extraterrestrial megastructure
known as a Dyson sphere.
This hypothetical technology
was first proposed by Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson
in a 1960 Science Magazine article.
TAYLOR: One of the Manhattan Project scientists,
Freeman Dyson, had the idea that a really advanced civilization
could build a sphere around their star
at about an Earth orbit distance from that star.
And it could capture all of the energy
from that star on the surface of this sphere.
SHOSTAK: This idea that advanced societies
will build stuff that they put into orbit
around the star, their sun,
you know, that makes perfect sense.
There's a lot of reasons why you might want to do that.
Maybe just collecting solar energy. I mean, who knows?
But if they built anything like that,
then we would see a star that gets dimmer,
then it gets brighter, it gets dimmer.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that Tabetha Boyajian discovered
an enormous alien spacecraft?
One so big it could block out the light of a star?
It's an idea that seems ripped
from the pages of science fiction.
But not only do NASA scientists
believe such structures could exist,
they are actively searching for them.
The effort that I lead at SETI
is a search for what we call alien megastructures.
These are large panel-like objects
that may have been put in orbit around other stars
by civilizations, um, well beyond Earth.
It would immediately indicate to us
that there are beings out there in the universe
that are more advanced than us.
Alien megastructures should not be that hard to find.
I mean, if they're out there, there are various telltale signs
that a big enough telescope, especially a space telescope,
should be able to spot
if we have an idea what we're looking for.
The problem is going through
hundreds and thousands of hours of data.
So, Ann Marie Cody started a project
specifically targeting alien megastructures
with artificial intelligence, A.I.
TSOUKALOS: The fact that Dr. Cody is getting funding
to investigate this is unheard of.
And the fact that it is happening means
that a paradigm shift has happened.
CODY: We need to know who is out there possibly
so that we can learn more about ourselves
and what sort of course humanity is going to take.
Right now, we are dealing with
unprecedented problems on Earth.
If we found beings out there that were
more intelligent than us,
they may offer useful information
if we were ever to learn from them.
NARRATOR: Might strange radio pulses
and the mysterious dimming of stars
be evidence that we are not alone in the universe?
According to some scientists,
the best evidence of alien technology
can be found closer to home,
right here on Earth.
NARRATOR: Ever since the first radio telescope
was invented in the 1930s,
astronomers have listened to the heavens
for signals from extraterrestrial beings.
But in 2021,
Harvard professor Avi Loeb breaks with tradition
and sets out to find alien life
not by scanning for radio waves
but by looking for physical evidence.
He calls it the Galileo Project.
KAKU: Professor Loeb says, why not monitor
meteors and things in outer space?
Perhaps one of them is remnants of an advanced civilization.
For example, if an advanced civilization is like us,
they would leave Coke bottles everywhere,
and why not search for them?
The previous paradigm was: sit, wait, open your telescope,
open your computer and cross your fingers.
That's the way science is usually done in astronomy.
Now he's saying, "Why not reach out?"
LOEB: All we need to do is search around
and we might find objects
that were sent by civilizations.
Those civilizations, they could have launched probes
to interstellar space that would have populated
the entire Milky Way galaxy by now,
and the only question is: Do we live in such a reality?
NARRATOR: According to Dr. Loeb,
if alien civilizations do exist...
...their spacecraft might appear to us
as something as simple as a meteor.
POPE: The Galileo Project involves the idea that
alien probes may have visited our solar system
and possibly crashed on
the Earth's surface or the oceans in the past.
NARRATOR: If extraterrestrial craft have landed on Earth,
is it possible that the Galileo Project could find them?
While the idea of a Harvard scientist
searching for a crashed UFO
struck many in the scientific community as laughable,
in 2023, Dr. Loeb shocked the world
when he announced he found one.
June 2023.
100 miles north of Papua New Guinea.
Dr. Loeb and members of the Galileo Project
are combing the Pacific Ocean in search of a meteor
that exploded over the region ten years earlier.
LOEB: I came across a meteor catalogue
that the government compiled
using its missile warning system.
The meteor, uh, burned up
about 100 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea,
and it released a few percent of the energy
of the Hiroshima bomb when it exploded.
The government released data of the explosion,
and from that, we inferred that the object
has material strength that is very unusual.
It's made of some alloy that is much tougher
than iron meteorites,
and that raises the possibility
that it may have been a spacecraft.
NARRATOR: For two weeks, Dr. Loeb and a team of scientists
drag a large magnetic sled along the ocean floor.
And then they make what could be an extraordinary find.
PYLE: Loeb did find a number of beads,
little spherules, not much bigger than a BB,
that they were able to dredge up.
Upon first glance, they look kind of exotic.
They have little swirls in them.
They're almost perfectly round.
HENRY: The spheres are sub-millimeter size.
When they get back to the lab and they put these spheres
underneath a microscope,
they describe them as beautiful metallic marbles.
This suggests, in a preliminary way,
that we're dealing with perhaps an extraterrestrial technology,
something that was not made by nature.
PYLE: Just finding little metal beads
isn't proof that they're ball bearings
for an alien spaceship or something,
but they could be, and that's the exciting part.
You can't prove it yet, but you can't disprove it, either.
NARRATOR: Initial testing showed that some of the spherules
had an unusually high concentration of beryllium,
lanthanum and uranium in a composition
that is unlike anything found in our solar system.
CAROLINE WHITEHILL: That composition
does not exist in any known
mineral or rock that we know of,
which would imply something about the conditions
under which it was formed-- the temperatures, the pressures.
And when you combine that with the spheroidal shape,
it does speak to his hypothesis
that they were manufactured extraterrestrially.
NARRATOR: Could the strange spherules found on the ocean floor
really be of alien origin?
While more tests are underway,
Dr. Loeb continues to recruit experts to the Galileo Project
like renowned UFO researcher Jacques Vallée,
retired intelligence officer Christopher Mellon
and former British Ministry of Defence UFO investigator
Nick Pope.
POPE: Now, I'm not a scientist,
but I'm one of a number of people who are involved
and actually part of Galileo Project
as a research affiliate.
So, people like myself, with government backgrounds,
who can perhaps help the science team with this,
we've come on board, and-and it's fascinating work.
And think about this-- Harvard alien hunter?
This represents an enormous step forward in humanity's quest
for extraterrestrial intelligence because
we're-we're seeing signs and signposts of academic acceptance
of the reality that we are not alone.
Just the fact that Harvard University
has the Galileo Project,
this shows that we're in a brand-new era
where prestigious universities
and scientists associated with them
are trying to find extraterrestrial life.
NARRATOR: Will the Galileo Project find irrefutable proof
that we are not alone in the universe?
Only time will tell.
But while researchers like Avi Loeb
are making great strides in the search
for extraterrestrial intelligence,
some believe even more exciting evidence
is being discovered by NASA scientists,
who recently found strong indications
of a planet inhabited by alien beings.
NARRATOR: A team of astrobiologists
at Washington State University
complete an analysis of more than 4,500 exoplanets.
After combing through the data,
they are surprised to find 24 planets
that fit the classification of "superhabitable."
TAYLOR: Very recently, we have discovered many planets
that might be better for life than Earth is.
Earth is still in an ice age right now.
We have polar caps on both sides of the planet.
So, these planets might be even more habitable
or-or better for life to spring up on than here on Earth.
PYLE: For the most part, they're larger than Earth.
They tend to be older.
The longer you give life to evolve,
the more likely you're gonna see advanced life-forms there.
NARRATOR: The first exoplanets were discovered in the 1990s,
and since then, scientists have been astounded
by the number of potentially habitable planets
they have found throughout the universe.
Before 1995, we didn't know whether
there were other planets out there.
Today, we know that the majority of stars
have planets orbiting them.
And, you know, one in ten of those
have a planet that's at the right distance
from that star so that the temperatures,
you know, are agreeable for life.
And there might be liquid water on the surface
and that sort of thing.
So what we're finding is that the Earth
may not be unique, that there are other planets
that also have things like atmospheres and oceans.
And if you're looking for E.T., well, it's good to find
that there are other locales that might at least have life.
NARRATOR: It's only recently,
with the launch of the James Webb Telescope,
that scientists have been able
to study nearby planets for signs of life.
The James Webb Telescope is now powerful enough
to pick out some of those planets
and actually measure their atmospheric composition.
And then we'll-we'll be a step closer
to-to actually knowing whether there's life out there.
HENRY: The James Webb Telescope has the ability
to peer into the infrared level,
where it can detect heat signatures
and also chemicals on exoplanets that
previously have gone undetected.
Early results are astonishing.
It's already made major discoveries
on two planets that are suggestive that life
might actually be present on these planets.
PYLE: The Webb allows you to see things that tell you
whether or not there might be life there.
And more excitingly, might tell you
that there's been technology there.
When you start seeing radioactive isotopes,
now you've got a better idea that there might be technology.
It's probably high technology,
and that's what we're looking for.
NARRATOR: In September 2023,
scientists found what many consider to be
the best evidence yet that life is not unique to planet Earth.
In the atmosphere of a planet
124 light-years from Earth called K2-18 b,
the James Webb Telescope detected the presence
of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide.
TAYLOR: Dimethyl sulfide is created through
organic processes only, as far as we know.
Meaning some living creature,
during its life cycle, secretes or excretes this material.
KAKU: The very fact that that chemical is there
indicates there's a high probability
that a life-form was responsible for creating it.
In other words, this could be the first sign
of life in outer space.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that NASA has finally discovered
life on an alien planet?
While scientists need more evidence
before they can be certain, the presence of dimethyl sulfide
suggests this is a strong possibility.
If proven true, the next question is:
Are these life-forms intelligent?
Could it be that planet K2-18 b is home
to an extraterrestrial civilization?
TSOUKALOS: The fact that they've discovered DMS on a planet out there,
and if this can be corroborated, well, there you go.
And now the next step will be, we now know E.T. exists.
Number two will be, not only are we not alone,
but they've been here.
TAYLOR: We are right on the edge
with our modern-day technology that we might find
life on another planet in the next few years.
We might even find civilizations that have
sprung up on these planets in the next few years.
We're that close. Our technology is there.
NARRATOR: Could advances in human technology,
like the James Webb Space Telescope,
be the key to finally discovering life
and maybe even intelligent life beyond Earth?
Some scientists predict our search will end
with direct contact from advanced alien civilizations
not at some distant point in the future
but any day now.
NARRATOR: Astronomers at the University of Toronto
announce that they are using artificial intelligence
to search for evidence of extraterrestrial technology
from 820 nearby stars...
...and have detected some highly intriguing signals.
HENRY: Astronomers have used a machine-learning algorithm
to sift through 480 hours of tapes,
and they found eight signals
that they believe potentially could be a techno signature.
A signal suggesting an advanced extraterrestrial civilization
might even be inhabiting these planets.
NARRATOR: While more research needs to be conducted
to determine exactly what is producing
these mysterious signals,
many experts believe the use of A.I.
will astronomically accelerate
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
CODY: Artificial intelligence is playing
an increasingly important role
in the search for extraterrestrial technology
and intelligence,
simply because there is so much data
coming through astronomers' telescopes nowadays
that we need help with our needle-in-the-haystack searches
to find the most unusually behaving
stars and signals embedded in that starlight.
BASRI: What A.I. is particularly good at
is it's really good at recognizing patterns,
and patterns are really what we're looking for in SETI.
So, we want to find patterns that we don't think
nature would produce.
Feeding all the radio signals that we...
that we receive from the stars
into the right A.I. system would help enormously
in identifying patterns that humans might not find.
NARRATOR: While scientists are excited
by the prospect of humankind's first encounter
with an advanced alien civilization
in the near future,
ancient astronaut theorists view this possibility
through a different lens.
To them, such an event would not be first contact
but a reunion.
TSOUKALOS: Does official contact mean
a signal that has been received through SETI?
Or will it be, you know,
a validation of the ancient astronaut theory?
That, you know, hey, not only are we not alone in the universe
but they've visited in the past and they've been here.
In my opinion,
the E.T.'s are here, they're observing us,
and SETI is one way
with which to prepare the masses.
POPE: It may be at the moment that civilizations
are aware of us, visiting us, but don't make open contact.
But all that secrecy will end the day we find out about them,
because the cat will be out of the bag
and we'll have open first contact.
Up close and personal interaction between
extraterrestrials and humanity.
And that will tell us something interesting
about the extraterrestrials, but it may also tell us
something rather interesting about ourselves.
MAN: Look at it fly!
TAYLOR: It's very likely that we're right at the edge
of the next era for humanity
when we realize we're not alone in the universe.
Extraterrestrials make contact with us,
that's gonna change humanity more than you can imagine.
HENRY: We need protocols in place.
We need to begin to prepare
human civilization for this reality
and the transformation that will result
once contact is established.
CHILDRESS: I think planet Earth will be ready for it
and we will hopefully rejoice
in the fact that we are in contact with extraterrestrials
and that we are not alone in the universe.
NARRATOR: Now that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
has been taken up by top scientists
and academics all over the world,
are we on the verge of making contact
with an alien race?
Could powerful new technologies detect life
and even civilizations on other planets?
Or might we even uncover an otherworldly presence
right here on Earth?
Perhaps one day soon,
we will learn the truth that we have been seeking
since the beginning of humankind.
We are not alone.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS