Humanity has been trying to locate extraterrestrial civilisations for more than a century, but so far our search has been a failure.

Now scientists have published a paper which suggests alien life could be out there somewhere, although finding it is like searching for ‘a needle in a haystack’.

A team from the Centre for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at Pennsylvania State University said we haven’t spotted traces of extraterrestrial organisms because we haven’t looked hard enough.

It says the easiest way to find ‘technological life’ is to look for radio ‘beacons’ which produce transmissions that are clearly artificial in origin.

 

Our inability to detect these signs has led scientists to describe to talk of a ‘Great Silence’ or ‘Eerie Silence’ gripping our universe.

 

But this doesn’t necessarily mean we are the only intelligent lifeforms to have evolved to the point where we can use sophisticated technology to communicate or travel through space.

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