There's a war in my head.
You see, I wasn't introduced to extraterrestrial wonderment by George Lucas or Steven Spielberg like a good citizen. Instead, I shook hands with the conspiratorially playful ethos at the heart of the 1999 blink-182 song "Aliens Exist." The writer of that late 90s pop triumph, Tom DeLonge, has built pretty much an entire extension onto his career using that song as a foundation, most recently in this interview.
As equally committed to the idea of wonder as I am, I am also certain there is no greater wonder known to man than the possibilities allowed by science and its noble attempts to explain without resorting to fabrication. Neil deGrasse Tyson once said that he feared we had already been visited by intelligent aliens but they "chose not to make contact, on the conclusion that there's no intelligent life on Earth." Neil is right, though we certainly shouldn't misconstrue his statement to imply that he is ruling out the future possibility, but simply reinforcing a forgotten truism. Conspiracy theorists and real life Independence Day-era Randy Quaids (including, sometimes, the actual Randy Quaid) aside, this war could reach some sort of a truce as early as 2025.
According to recent remarks from NASA's chief scientist Ellen Stofan, we should have "strong indications of life beyond Earth in the next decade" and "definite evidence" of such life within the next 10 to 20 years. Stating that NASA knows exactly "where" and "how" to look, Stofan also added that these strong indications and definite evidence would have absolutely nothing to do with "little green men." Instead, Stofan and people who don't watch Ancient Aliens agree that this will likely have something to do with microbes.
But don't invite me to your 2025 We Found Microbes party unless you're making vegan-friendly space cake.
