Extraterrestrial beings are on people’s minds as the Pentagon prepares to deliver a report on UFOs to the United States Congress.

Officials say the report will not rule out the chance that Unidentified Flying Objects (or Unexplained Aerial Phenomena) spotted by US Navy pilots come from somewhere else in the universe – but they are also not ruling out that they come from other nations, rather than other planets.

The Conversation quizzed five experts on their belief in intelligent aliens – not necessarily flying the UFOs, but out there. Somewhere. Four of them think they exist.

Astrobiologist Jonti Horner, from the University of Southern Queensland, says it is a “definite yes” because of the sheer number of galaxies in the cosmos.

“I find it impossible to believe Earth is the only planet that has life – including intelligent and technologically advanced life,” he says, adding that finding proof of it in that vast expanse will be “astonishingly hard”.

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