Do you believe in aliens?
Hey everyone and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast, where we explore interesting themes and topics in clear and simple English for learners.
And today's episode is going to be out of this world, literally.
We are going to be asking, why are we so fascinated by aliens?
Why are we so amazed and interested by aliens?
Do they really exist?
Why are they so common in books and movies and lots of media that we consume, and what might actually happen if we one day meet them?
Before we get into today's episode, as always, we are going to learn five pieces of key vocabulary that you should listen out for in today's episode.
As always, there will be a link in the description with the full vocabulary list, alongside some exercises and tasks to do with this episode.
Completely free, and if you want to check that out, the link is in the description.
Okay, so today's words.
Let's take a look.
The first word, of course, is an alien.
Alien.
And that is simply a creature from another planet.
It is something from outside of Earth.
For example, people have always wondered if aliens are real.
The next word is extraterrestrial.
Extraterrestrial.
And that is something that comes from outside of Earth.
So we often use alien and extraterrestrial the same way, which is why I'm introducing both of these words today, so you can learn both words for basically the same thing.
An extraterrestrial you might have heard being referred to or called an ET.
Before the letters ET, for example scientists search for extraterrestrial life using telescopes and other technology.
Okay, our third phrase is one you've probably heard of too, and that is ufo.
Ufo, and this is an acronym, so it's letters that mean something.
UFO unidentified flying object.
It's something that is in the sky that people see flying, but they can't explain it.
They don't know exactly what it is.
For example, many people claim to have seen UFOs, especially in some rural or remote areas.
Okay, our fourth word today is conspiracy theory.
And that is a belief that some event or situation is secretly controlled or covered up.
A conspiracy theory.
For example, some conspiracy theories, they suggest that the government hide alien contact.
So governments around the world hide alien contact.
And that is a conspiracy theory.
And our final phrase for today is first contact.
First contact.
When we talk about aliens, this refers to the first meeting between humans and an alien species.
It's the first contact.
And science fiction films often show dramatic scenes of this first contact.
So listen for these words and phrases during the episode.
And I will also explain many others as we go.
So you're bound to hear you're definitely going to hear lots more words and phrases that you probably haven't heard before.
So let's get started into the main episode.
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There's over, I think, almost 40 different episodes, including News in Easy English and Bonus Episode Series 2.
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Let's get started into the main episode.
Okay, we've learned our words and now let's look at the history of alien fascination, our interest with aliens.
Humans have been imagining life on other planets for centuries.
And in ancient times, people often looked up at the stars and they imagined what was out there.
They used to think that maybe there were gods or different spirits and there was lots of different ideas, almost religious beliefs created from this idea.
And in modern times the idea of intelligent alien life began to grow through science fiction stories.
And it started to become even more popular.
And you might have heard of a very famous writer who was one of the first popularized science fiction writers HG.
Wells.
And he wrote a very famous book, which I have actually, I think I listened to it.
I didn't read it.
And it's called The War of the Worlds.
And I listened to the audio book of this and I thought that it was very good.
It was a very enjoyable story.
And there is, of course, multiple movies made about this book.
There is a more modern one and an older one.
And this book was released in 1898, so a long time ago.
And it imagined what would happen if aliens invaded Earth.
Since then, there have been many more science fiction writers and stories.
He's not exactly the first, but one of the biggest at that time.
But there have been more in the 20th century with films like ET Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, And more recently in our time, we've had big hits like Arrival and Interstellar about making contact with aliens.
And these have showed us aliens as dangerous, friendly, or even as way more intelligent than humans.
But why do we love these stories so much?
And maybe it's because they help us answer some big questions, or at least they help us to imagine the answers to such big questions.
Like, are we alone in the universe?
What does it mean to be a human?
And what would we do if we met someone else or another species from a different world?
These are all big topics to think about.
And these stories also.
Let us imagine a future where space science, space travel and discovery are all a big part of our lives.
It's exciting.
It's something that a lot of people dream about or imagine.
And this also changes through time.
I've noticed recently.
I really love going to the cinema, I love movies and I've noticed a lot more movies over the last five years about artificial intelligence.
Because of course, at the moment, lots of people are thinking about AI.
They're maybe concerned about what it means for the future.
What will happen with the development of this technology?
And it's becoming a more popular focus for science fiction movies.
Maybe a little bit less of a focus on aliens in the future and more of a focus on computers, on artificial intelligence.
But regardless, the alien topic is still huge and it will always, i think, be a big, big part of our imaginations and our scientific imaginations too.
So, could aliens actually exist?
Let's talk about?
Well, maybe not the science, but about some of the theories, or looking at the facts of the universe.
So if we look at the universe, it is huge.
Unbelievably huge.
Which means very, very large.
So much so that we can barely believe it.
There are more stars than grains of sand on the Earth.
And most of those stars have planets.
And astronomers have already found over 5000 exoplanets.
An exoplanet is a planet that orbits another star.
So the planet orbits other stars.
And some of these are considered to be in a habitable zone, which means that water could exist there and therefore life.
So if life happened on Earth and we look out at this big, vast universe with lots of stars and planets, surely life could happen somewhere out there too, right?
The famous scientist Carl Sagan, he once remarked that the universe is a pretty big place.
And if it's just for us, it seems like an awful waste of space.
We still have no real strong evidence about alien life, but some scientists believe that it's just a matter of time.
Others believe that intelligent alien life might simply be very rare.
It could be very hard to find in such a big, vast universe.
Or if it exists, it's way too far away for us to currently find with our technological abilities.
So what if?
I mean there's a few questions you can even come up with, like what if aliens don't use radio signals like we do?
What if they have very different technologies?
And what if they exist in ways that we can't even begin to imagine?
And that brings us to the fermi paradox, which is something often talked about with this topic.
So i think it's important to mention so.
The fermi paradox simply states that if the universe is so big and so full of life, why haven't we seen any aliens yet?
There are a few potential solutions or answers to this paradox the fact that you know, if life is so abundant, if the universe is so big and should have so much life, why can't we see it?
And one answer is that uh, there is a great filter.
So essentially, it means that when life develops, once it reaches a certain point, something stops it from developing any further or completely eradicates it.
So something which stops it to develop and can eventually, I guess, get rid of it or kill it and reaches perhaps self-destruction or other factors which cause big issues.
Another popular theory is the dark forest theory.
And I actually remember this from the three body problem, which is a science fiction book series that I absolutely love.
And with the dark forest theory, it essentially says that once civilizations reach a certain stage, they have to hide themselves in order to avoid conflict and in order to avoid being destroyed by other, more advanced civilizations that see them as a problem.
Okay, this might all sound like complicated theories and language, But let's go back to Earth for a little bit, back to something a bit more simple or easy to understand and talk about.
So on Earth, many people believe that aliens have already visited the Earth.
I'm sure that you have watched documentaries or seen movies about this.
And I think especially that in the United States of America there are thousands of reports of UFO sightings, unidentified flying objects that people think are aliens.
And some people.
There are large numbers of people that believe that the government is hiding alien contact, that the government have made contact with aliens and know that they exist.
And even in 2023 and I believe 2024 as well, the US government, through Congress, even held hearings, which were kind of like big meetings and debates, where military pilots had said that they had seen UFOs.
So the US government was releasing information about these UFOs.
So does this mean that aliens are actually real if the government says they have seen UFOs?
Not necessarily, because it could be something else.
There could be other explanations for these flying objects.
But what it does show us is that we as humans love mystery.
I remember when I was at university myself and one of my best friends, Lorenzo.
We were sharing accommodation and in the evening times we used to watch lots of random documentaries.
And as part of that process, some of the documentaries that we watched had a lot of conspiracy theories about secret government operations and contact with aliens.
And to be honest, we loved that kind of stuff.
It's very exciting, and it's very exciting to imagine that it's real.
But if I look at it quite...
Maybe skeptically.
If I'm critically thinking about it and I'm watching these programs often, they don't provide a lot of evidence, a lot of proof.
There is a lot of claims when people say that something happened but they don't have anything to prove it.
But it doesn't mean that these movies or documentaries or series are not very enjoyable.
They're definitely entertaining, but there are a lot of conspiracy theories.
And just because it's a conspiracy theory doesn't mean it isn't true.
But to my knowledge and to what I have seen, I don't think there is a lot of evidence or proof yet for most of these theories.
But perhaps I am wrong and I'm always open to see and learn more about these different things.
But anyway, let's pretend that none of that stuff is real and that perhaps in the future we will meet aliens.
Now what would actually happen?
Let's use our imagination.
What if aliens came to Earth?
What would happen?
Now here are a few fun conditional questions that we can think about.
So if aliens visited the earth tomorrow, how do you think people would react?
Now I'll answer these from what I think, just my opinion, but I want you in your head to also try and answer these questions.
So you can pause, you can try to answer or just think about it.
It's fine, too.
So if aliens visited Earth tomorrow, how would people react?
I think people would probably panic.
They would panic and be concerned because our ideas of aliens.
Particularly in science fiction, through movies.
We see them as these big evil things, these strange, mysterious evil things which usually come to attack.
So I think that we might panic.
And governments would not know what to do.
And perhaps they would try to organize a meeting with these aliens.
But I do think there would be some chaos.
So people would maybe run to the supermarkets like they always do, like in COVID or other world events.
Lots of food and water and supplies.
People might even rob stores like steal items.
I think it would be quite chaotic.
What do you think?
Okay, the next one is if they were more peaceful, or if they were peaceful, would we invite them to stay with us?
What do you think?
I think that we wouldn't.
I think that mankind and most of our countries are quite aggressive.
Although we like to say that we are peaceful and yeah, we would make contact with these peaceful aliens, I think that we would not trust them.
We would think hmm, they're here for some kind of bad reason or we need to get rid of them, get them away from Earth.
I don't think that we would be so welcoming and so peaceful.
Which is sad, because if they were peaceful, it would not be the best outcome.
Okay, so...
And why does this all matter?
My last section here.
So, even if aliens don't exist, thinking about them or their possible existence can help us to reflect on ourselves.
So, for example, when we talk about these alien stories, ask questions like what does it mean to be human?
How do we treat strangers, someone that would come to this planet?
And how would we react to the unknown?
I think it's a very worthwhile question about aliens because it introduces and almost shines a reflection on ourselves as humans.
Would we be proud of what we've done on Earth if another civilization came here and looked at what we've done?
Would they think that we are great people, that we are peaceful, that we are kind, that we are satisfied and happy?
I don't think so.
I think that they might look at us and think, wow, these guys have a lot of problems.
They can't seem to get along.
They cause a lot of issues and they're not very nice to one another.
But I'm curious what you think.
What do you think that aliens would say or what they would think about us if they came to our planet?
So today we explored why humans are fascinated by aliens or extraterrestrials, from both science fiction stories to real scientific searches.
We've looked at keywords like alien, extraterrestrial, and this idea of first contacts as well.
And we've asked some of those big what-if questions which also used conditionals as well, if you noticed.
But I want to know what you think.
Do you think that aliens exist?
And how do you think they would react to us?
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Goodbye.
