In recent years, the United States government released information on instances of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) that have been traveling in U.S. airspace. This has caused the topic of aliens to resurface in the media. With balloons from other countries being shot down and mysterious objects photographed, many wonder if the sky is also home to extraterrestrials. Northwood students and staff weighed their opinions on the matter.
Across staff and students, people confidently stated their beliefs, adding their own theories on the otherworldly beings.
“I believe in aliens,” sophomore Raymond Thorne said. “I feel like I’ve seen several UFOs and I think the government is hiding secrets, and they’ve been in cahoots with the aliens since 1947.”
Thorne described how he has seen UFOs multiple times in his life, including one recently. He claimed that he and two other students had been hanging out when they saw the UFO. They went to tell Northwood’s Athletic Director Cameron Vernon about the UFO. When asked about what happened, Vernon cleared up the fact from fiction.
“They were pointing at some star,” Vernon said. “They were saying it was a UFO, but I tried explaining to them it was just a star.”
Others do not believe in aliens at all. English Teacher Jill Jackl claims she does not believe in aliens.
“My take on aliens and UFOs is that it is used a lot like old myths were. We use it to explain the unexplainable,” Jackl said. “I think it’s just us.”
When asked if she thinks there is just space dust and rocks out there, Jackl said that maybe there are smaller forms, rather than the classic green humanoids.
Science teacher Margaret Burns and Assistant Principal John Heath both had similar ideas. Burns said that she thought extraterrestrial life would look more like bacteria. Heath said he didn’t think they look like the green-eyed Martians or movie aliens, suggesting that they may even be invisible to our eyes.
Many of the people questioned had differences in what they thought aliens would behave like or what they would do if they met one. Some had different opinions of if they would be friendly or not.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were foes,” senior Grace Rogan said.
However, science teacher Edward Walgate disagrees.
“If we meet them that would mean they would have to be super advanced and to be able to cross distances,” Walgate said. “[If] they had gotten to the stage of being super advanced, they would have had [to go] peaceful.”
Whether you believe aliens or not, the general consensus is that in a universe as big as this one and a world as young and small as Earth, humanity won’t truly know until extraterrestrials actually make contact.