This is the second story in a series exploring the possibility of alien life visiting earth. To read about NASA, Harvard, and the Pentagon’s assertions, start by reading The UFO Question Part 1: NASA, Harvard, and the Pentagon are all taking UFOs seriously now.

As discussed in Part 1 of this series, the resurgence of interest in the UFO phenomena throughout the USA over the past year or so has been informed, to a great extent, by the revelation that respected and legitimate organizations like NASA, Harvard, and even the U.S. Defense Department have devoted considerable resources and brain power to solving this mystery in recent years. These endeavors compound longstanding civilian led initiatives like the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and the like… and a number of interesting ideas have been floated by experts hailing from these and any number of other organizations willing to work in the outskirts of what the scientific community deems socially acceptable.

So as we begin to recognize prominent organizations shifting their scope to include investigations into the possibility of alien life visiting earth, the question we have to ask ourselves is: why haven’t we found anything yet? In the interest of full disclosure, that’s where this exploration into the topic will need to diverge into assertion, rather than an objective reporting of facts.

There are two competing schools of thought when it comes to the belief in galaxy-hopping extraterrestrials, and each can be summed up (to an extent) using math. The Drake Equation, which is often cited by alien-believers, was developed by Dr. Frank Drake in 1961 as a means to predict the number of intelligence species that can be found within our galaxy. The equation relied on a number of educated guesses, and has since been recomputed countless times using new data, but the bare bones of it include the following:

(SETI)

N = The number of civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.

R* = The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.

fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.

ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.