THEY’RE WATCHIN’
Earth visible to 29 other worlds
ALIENS may have been spying on us for 5,000 years.
An estimated 1,715 stars have been in a position to see Earth since civilisation blossomed.
At least 29 potentially habitable worlds orbit them – and they may have spotted our planet.
Study co-author Dr Jackie Faherty, of the Museum of Natural History in New York, said: “Our solar neighbourhood is a dynamic place where stars enter and exit that perfect vantage point to see Earth transit the Sun at a rapid pace.”
The research was based on data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite.
Dr Faherty added: “Gaia has provided us with a precise map of the Milky Way galaxy. It has allowed us to look backward and forward in time – and to see where stars had been located and where they are going.”
The analysis found 2,034 solar systems within the relatively small cosmic distance of 326 light-years. Earth will come into the sight lines of the other 319 systems over the next 5,000 years.
Meanwhile a telescope, expected to launch this year, is set to search for extra-terrestrial life.
Dr Faherty said: “One might imagine worlds beyond Earth that have already detected us are making the same plans for our planet.
“One of our neighbours might be able to find us.”
PHAROAH FRIGHT: As far back as 1450 BC, during the reign of Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III, mysterious “fiery discs” are said to have been seen in the sky, which returned over several days.
GENERAL MAYHEM: While invading India in 329 BC, military genius Alexander the Great saw “gleaming silver shields” hovering over a battlefield. He also wrote of inexplicable flying objects assisting him when laying siege to the city of Tyre in 322 BC.
E.T. PHONE ROME: In 214 BC top Roman historian Livy reported seeing “phantom ships” which were “gleaming in the sky”. Fellow scribe Plutarch records that in 74 BC, during a battle between the Roman army and King Mithridates in modern-day Turkey, a “flame-like” body came between the two armies. It was shaped “like a wine jar” and had the colour of “molten silver.”
MAIDEN VOYAGE: The brother of Pope Pius I reported seeing a UFO land in Italy in 150 AD. He described it as being like a “piece of pottery” and shooting out “fiery rays” and said when the dust settled a “maiden” clad in white had emerged.
ALIEN ALARM: In 840 AD, Agobard, the Archbishop of Lyon in France, reported how locals wanted to stone three mysterious people who were said to have fallen from a “cloud ship.”
ALL AT SEA: In 1492 famous explorer Christopher Columbus
and another sailor on board the ship Santa Maria saw a strange light glimmering in the sky. According to the account, “it vanished and reappeared several times during the night” and also moved suddenly up and down.
SKY SAY: An extraordinary mass sighting took place over the city of Nuremberg, Germany, in 1561 where residents reported seeing spheres and cylinders battling in the sky above. One large black triangular object was reported to have crashed outside the city.
FORTEAN FIND: In 1783 multiple witnesses at Windsor Castle saw a puzzling, luminous oblong shape moving parallel to the horizon and then change direction.
STARRY EYED:
Famed English astronomer Edmund Halley, who gave his name to Halley’s Comet, also had some spooky encounters. In March 1676 he observed a “vast body apparently bigger than the Moon.” He reckoned the object was moving at 9,600mph while making a noise “like the rattling of a great cart over stones.” He saw another mystery object in 1716 which hovered over London for two hours. EERIE ECHO: The Roswell incident in 1947, where a UFO supposedly crashed in New Mexico, triggered the modern flying saucer debate. But in 1897 in Aurora, Texas, locals made a similar claim about aliens crashing on a farm. They claimed to have discovered a dead pilot who was “not of this world” – burying the “extraterrestrial” in the local cemetery.