The Concept of Aliens and Finding Them

For over a half-century, a small number of scientists and astronomers have conducted searches for alien signals that would indicate the presence of intelligence elsewhere in the cosmos. The hunt continues because it is difficult to believe that Earth is the only world where life and intelligence have arisen. The search for them is not easy. It needs a lot of funding as it is a very expensive project. 

Source 1

Summary: “An alien Concept”, a peer-reviewed article is legitimizing the idea that we might not be alone in the universe. We as human beings might soon discover our cohabitants. This article basically keeps track of how scientists keep track of the signs which indicates the presence of life forms. They also talked about how they got the funds for the project.

Rhetorical situation: If some life were founded, us and the aliens would have a hard time communicating because we don’t have a common language. Scientist came up with the idea of finding the aliens with radio frequencies because most celestial bodies emits them and they assumed that they would find one. Even if we had a way of understanding them, scientists in the article also pointed out that it would take a century or more to conduct the most basic exchanges because even the nearest stars to us were 3 parsecs away. 

Audience: “An alien concept” written by Fred Kaplan, was targeted for scholars, astronomers and educated-college students who would fully understand what the report is about. It uses some technical language which can’t be fully understood by the general public. This is supported by “The search for extraterrestrials focuses less on interstellar communications than molecules and microbes, a hunt more mundane but more likely to bear fruit in our lifetime.”

Purpose: The obvious thing was to inform other professionals that there are people and organizations who are searching for alien life outside of earth. Scientists came up with the idea that we might be able to find some life using radio signals. The author described how professionals found its way to communicate with aliens and some organizations might actually be funding them. 

Genre: This article is from Nature which was first published in 1869. Nature is the world’s leading multidisciplinary science journal. It has all the finest peer-reviewed researches and perspective articles in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its importance and conclusions. They also provide news and interpretation of topical and some trends affecting science and the public. The author specifically chooses this topic to explain other professionals informatively with lots of topics inside the article. It is also a very long article. 

Stance/tone: The author basically informs the audience on what several articles have to say about the topic. We could see some citations in the article, basically using them as a reference. It is not clear which sides does the author takes but he makes a good job describing what several sources has to say about the topic. Fred uses a positive tone hinting that if we do not stop searching for aliens, we might get lucky and found one. Hopefully in the future, there might be a way to actually communicate with them. He is also a little promising in saying that there could be living things or celestials living on other planets.

Source 2

Summary: “Aliens must be out there” was published in February 11, 2021 by the New York Times. In this Article, the writer, Farhad Manjoo, states his opinions on the reasons why we haven’t found aliens or other living beings outside of earth. Life exists on Earth, so there is no reason to not suspect that life exists elsewhere too.

Rhetorical situation: The reason this article exists is to show that believing in aliens is normal and they might actually be out there. We as human beings exists because our planet is livable. There could be billions of the Milky Ways’s stars orbited by planets with the similar ideal conditions to support life. There could be millions of livable planets around—we just haven’t found them yet. For more than a decade, researchers and scientists have been searching for the answer, but nowhere near them yet.  The article describes how it’s possible that we might find aliens in the future with all the technology that’s developing. 

Audience: The New York times article is an American daily newspaper indicated to the American general public and educated college students. Since this article is about aliens written in a very easy language without much technological terms, the intended audience is to the general public worldwide. 

Purpose: The main purpose of the article is to inform the public, not to think that we’re the only life around. It’s not wrong to believe that there are other ordinary beings around the galaxy. The scientist in the article, Loeb, said that we just need time and the right equipment to find them. Finding them is a pretty expensive projects and he pointed out the fact that a lot of funding is needed for those projects. The absence of evidence regarding life elsewhere is because we are not looking hard enough. We’re just simply skimming the surface. He also said that with enough funding, academic respect and more scientific research, aliens can be found. 

Genre: This magazine article “ Aliens must be out there “ is digitally online on the New York Times website. It is also available in a printed form. Since it is targeted to both the general public and educated students, the author specifically chooses this genre because newspaper articles has brief explanation and it is very informative.  

Stance : Manjoo enthusiastically agrees with the scientist/researcher in his article. This is evidenced by “I found myself cheering for Loeb’s proposals. Aliens are almost certainly out there, and finding even circumstantial evidence of other beings — even long-dead civilizations — would alter humanity in deep ways, almost certainly for the better.” He was obvious since the beginning of the article that he believes in the concept of aliens and a livable environment exists outside of earth. 

Tone/author:  : Farhad is somewhat practical in explaining why the aliens haven’t been found. He uses an encouraging, positive tone not to stop believing in them. He’s positive that if we spend a right amount of time researching, we will find something. We exists so why not them. Filtering just the author’s opinion on this topic, he is not that credible as he is just a opinion communist writer in the New York times. But since he cited famous scientist and researchers in the article and the article itself is published by the New York times which is known to be a reliable website, I would say it’s believable regarding the topic.  

Source 3

Summary: This blog stated some strategy to find aliens. Compared to the technology and science we had in the 1900s and now, the speaker spoke confidently that we will find aliens in the next 2 decades. The blog also hints on Oumuamua, the first interstellar visitor which might be a sign of extraterrestrial life but it is hard to draw conclusions very fast because no one can collect more evidence. On the other hand, if we spend more time looking for evidence, we might actually proves that there are livable planets in our cosmic surroundings.  

Rhetorical situation: With the technology advancement, we might find something in the next 20 years. Furthermore, the speaker said that the only way we can communicate with them is if we look in the right direction and knew the right spot. We didn’t know that there’re planets around us until our technology developed. Other planets might be more advanced than us because the planets are founded way more ahead than us. Even if we find them, it’s expected to be very hard to communicate with them because they’re light years away from us.

Audience: The blogs from Ted are free, and intended for the general public as everyone can watch one easily. People who have interest in astronomy and alien life might find this blog interesting. 

Purpose: The purpose of the blog is to inform the public that with technological advances, we have a chance that we will find extraterrestrial life within 24 years. Compared to the 1900s the search for aliens has become much faster. In addition. Billions of older planets might develop some intelligence and is sending some signals that we might pick up in 2 decades time but it would take all the funding and hard work because such kind of projects can be expensive.

Genre: TED Blog shares news about TED Talks and TED Conferences. TED is an American media organizations that posts short talks online for free. Their website is highly popular when it comes to the spreading of ideas, introducing new concepts and motivating people. The conversation in the blog was from TED Blog. The author uses this genre to catch people’s attention on the topic and to make the audience of the article easy to read. 

Stance/author/tone: The author of the blog is Yasmin Belkhyr who interviewed an astrophysicist and astronomer Seth Shostak. Seth is a credible speaker because he specializes in astronomy.  The speaker obviously has high hopes and is convincing the audience that there are civilizations out there living in space. With the right technology, we might actually find them. The author simply wrote back the interview with Seth so the stance of the author is unclear. 

Source 4

Summary: A Harvard astrophysicist believed that ‘Oumuamua’, a weird object that passed through our solar system could be an alien spacecraft or something related to aliens. Although the object was only seen for a few minutes, he have a feeling, it could be a proof that there’s life outside of our planet. 

Rhetorical situation: We as human beings have missed so many things in life and who’s to say alien life isn’t one of them. Seeing a weird shaped object in space proved that there are extraterrestrial civilizations out there because the object didn’t obviously come from us or is around here. Research was made and its trajectory indicated that it came from another star system. 

Audience: The audience of the article is mainly to the general public or people who are interested in astronomy. The report was clearly written in a interviewed type. There are questions followed by their answers which makes it easier to read and understand. The answers are short to the point too. 

Purpose: To let the public know that something strange have been found in space, and it was clear that the object was not from Earth. It could be some alien technology, specifically stated “an alien spacecraft,” wandering around our planet. This report basically pointed out the positivity of extraterrestrial civilizations and that there are a lot of unexplainable objects in our cosmic neighborhood. We could have  missed the opportunity to search for more weird objects because people simply do not have enough interest in them. If we help each other out, we could have achieve something with the technologies that we don’t possess yet. It also said that space exploration can lead to better future for humanity overall because it can unify us. 

Genre: This report is from EBSCOhost which is an intuitive online research platform used by millions of users worldwide. It has all the quality databases and search features. The webpage seems to cover information and content to corporation through research databases, books and periodicals. The information provided by the website is mostly science-related content. The author uses this genre (popular magazine) written in a common language, so that the general public can read easily without having any difficulties understanding what the topic is about. 

Tone: The author is so confident that there are aliens outside of our planet. Not regular aliens, but aliens who are evolving, similar to us. The author also believed that it’s possible for aliens to develop tech like us, searching for life outside of their planets like us too. 

Stance/author: This report was reported by Leah Crane, the result to her encounter with the Harvard Astrophysicist, Avi Loeb. Leah may not be credible due to her being just a reporter but Avi, on the other hand seems credible. He seems to learn and know a lot about astronomy as he is an astrophysicist. Leah simply just write a report on what Avi said. Overall, I think it’s a trustworthy report. Avi is so positive that there are aliens and other being in the galaxy, trying to search and communicate with us.  

Comparison on all the sources: All four sources have similarities in explaining that there are extraterrestrial life outside of our planet, Earth and in our cosmic surroundings. All of them are hopeful to find life outside of earth with our advancement in technology. Not only locate them, but to communicate with them using our developed equipment. They also hinted that even now, we have found some unexplainable objects near our planets. With some time, efforts and funding for the projects, those things might actually be explainable. They tried to explain that  it’s not wrong to believe that aliens are real. 

Works cited:

Kaplan, Fred. “An Alien Concept.” Nature (London), vol. 461, no. 7262, 2009, pp. 345–46, https://doi.org/10.1038/461345a.

Farhad Manjoo. “Aliens Must Be Out There: Op-Ed.” The New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast), New York Times Company, 2021.

Belkhyr, Yasmin. “Contact with Aliens by 2036? Astronomer Seth Shostak Wants to Believe -and Does.” TED Blog, 26 Feb. 2019, https://blog.ted.com/contact-with-aliens-by-2036-astronomer-seth-shostak-wants-to-believe-and-does/.

CRANE. “‘Contact with Intelligent Aliens Would Have Dramatic Implications for the Psyche of the Human Species.’” New Scientist., vol. 249, no. 3321, New Science Publications, 2021, pp. 46–49, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(21)00243-8.