Winston Churchill Believed In Aliens, Lost Essay Reveals

[uk666 5,298]

Winston Churchill Believed In Aliens, Lost Essay Reveals

 

 

Churchill pinpointed issues dominating today's debate about extra-terrestrial life.

 

The hunt for life on other worlds has taken off in the last 20 years as observations have suggested the Milky Way alone may contain more than a billion Earth-size planets that could be habitable.

 

Churchill was already thinking along similar lines nearly 80 years ago, writing, "With hundreds of thousands of nebulae, each containing thousands of millions of suns, the odds are enormous that there must be immense numbers which possess planets whose circumstances would not render life impossible".

 

He also honed in on the importance of liquid water for life, saying that a suitable planet would have to be "between a few degrees of frost and the boiling point of water".

 

Modern scientists are busier than ever looking for signs of life in such environments, both in our own solar system and in the wider universe. So far, they have found nothing.

 

Churchill's essay was probably intended as a popular science piece for a newspaper, although it never appeared in print. The famous polymath had already written similar science articles for newspapers and magazines, including one on fusion power in 1931.

 

The typewritten essay entitled 'Are We Alone in the Universe?’ was uncovered last year in the archives of the U.S. National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, and passed to astrophysicist Mario Livio for expert examination.

 

In his analysis in Nature, Livio praised Churchill's clear thinking, as well as his support for science as a tool of government policy. Churchill was the first prime minister to employ a science adviser.

 

"At a time when a number of today’s politicians shun science, I find it moving to recall a leader who engaged with it so profoundly," Livio wrote.

 

Churchill's vision of life on Earth in the first half of the 20th century, however, was far from rosy.

 

"I, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time."

 

Dr Livio told BBC News that there were no firm plans to publish the article because of issues surrounding the copyright. However, he said the Churchill Museum was working to resolve these so that the historically important essay can eventually see the light of day.