Are there Aliens in outer space?
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Psst. Hey, Smarty Pants, question. Has this ever happened to you? It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining. So you decide to ride your bike to the park.

Along the way, you pass a friend. Hey, caveman Grog. Mmm, umka-bumka. Nice wheels. Maybe you stop and grab a quick bite to go. Who wants meat cake? I do. Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. And you're just about at the park when you see an alien spaceship and a space alien. Take me to your leader. Not today, little green guy. The weather is gorgeous, and I just want to ride my...

Oh, drats. The alien beamed me aboard his spaceship. So, show of hands, smarty pants, has this happened to you? No one? Really? Not one?

Interesting, because things like this seem to happen to me all the time. Earthling, why won't you take me to your leader? Well, for one thing, you didn't say the magic word. Please. Earthling, take me to your please. No, you're not getting it.

What is that smell? Give me that food stuff! Hey, that's my meat cake! Nom nom nom nom nom! Great! Now I'm on an alien spaceship, and I'm hungry!

Who are you space aliens and what do you want? We come from beyond the Booty's Void and this is an alien abduction. Trusty narrator, things are about to get real. Yeah, that's just the thing. How can things get real if I don't even know if you're real?

Smartypants, what do you think? Do aliens really exist? If so, why haven't we met any yet? Or have we? What are scientists doing to find life on other planets? And is looking for life elsewhere really a good idea? Quiet, Earthling, or I will zap you with my... With my...

Damn. Boy, has anyone seen my ray gun? Oh, boy. Hang on, smarty pants. It's time for a far-out whiff of science on... Who's Smarted? Who's Smarted? Who's Smart? Is it you? Is it me? Is it science? Or history? Listen up, everyone. We make smarting lots of fun on Who's Smarted?

This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Smarty pants, it's quiz time. If you wanted to start a business, share your ideas with the world, or finally launch your site about history's weirdest inventions, what is the smartest way to do it? Is it A, shouting your message from the top of a volcano? B, training an army of synchronized skywriting parrots? Or C, building a sleek professional website with Squarespace?

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Start your free trial today at squarespace.com slash smarted. And when you're ready to launch, use code SMARTED to save 10% on your first website or domain. Now, who's ready to make history? Okay, smarty pants, I am still on an alien spaceship going who knows where with who knows who. Please me to your leader. You're still not getting it.

Anyway, even if I did take you to a world leader, he or she might not believe you're a space alien. Smarty pants, would you believe it? Take a guess. How many people worldwide believe intelligent life exists on other planets? Would you say most people? About half? Or just a quarter of all people?

Well, a recent survey found 47% of all people believe that intelligent aliens exist. That's close to half.

Of course, that means that more than half believe they don't exist. Ha ha ha, silly earthlings. I exist. But you might not be intelligent life. If you were to include life of any kind, it jumps up to 61% of all people believing that some form of life exists somewhere else. Hey, I'm very intelligent. I flew this spaceship here, didn't I? Did you? It could very...

very easily be made up. Just like you. Careful, Earthling. I found my ray gun. Yeah, I'm not worried. You asked for it.

Like I thought, just a sound effect. Face it, you're not real. M2, why won't you believe I'm real? Humans have always believed in space aliens. Smartypants, is that true? When do you think humans first thought life existed on other planets? A, in ancient times. B, in the early 20th century.

B, in the 1600s with the invention of the telescope, or C, less than 100 years ago? You better not answer C, Earthling. It's not C. Phew. Of course, if you did pick C, smarty pants, you may have remembered from our episode on Nikola Tesla that he believed he received radio signals from outer space in the 1890s. Ooh!

A little later, in 1924, a group of scientists used a radio receiver to conduct one of the first searches for space creatures, also known as extraterrestrial life. E-T-V-O-M.

These scientists tried unsuccessfully to get messages from Mars. But while that was one of the first projects to look for extraterrestrial life, humans have believed in space aliens since ancient times. So the answer is A. Aha! So you have been searching for us for, like, thousands of years. Quite. Throughout the Middle Ages, people thought the Earth was the center of the universe, so there was no more alien talk.

But in the 15 to 1600s, people discovered that the Earth revolved around the sun. And once again, they imagined life on other planets. Some proposed ways to reach out to extraterrestrials by using big mirrors or lamps. Some suggested setting huge trenches in the Sahara Desert on fire.

hoping someone from outer space would see the message. Hmm, sorry, I never saw any giant fiery messages from space. Probably because all of those silly plans fell apart. But others succeeded, especially in the past century. Many years after scientists used a radio receiver to look for space aliens on Mars, other astronomers discovered that it is possible to pick up radio signals from planets outside of our own solar system.

So if there is an advanced civilization out there and it's using radio to communicate, we might be able to find it, even if it's light years away. Whoa. Scientists have focused massive antennas on different parts of the sky to try and pick up those signals. They've been searching for signs of extraterrestrial life for over 60 years. And you know what they found?

Uh, cool alien radio stations? Nothing. Nothing? Not a thing. While they've detected some signals from space objects, there's been no signals from anything that we'd consider intelligent beings.

Scientists have also sent some radio signals out into space, too, hoping that space aliens would find us. Of course, some say that's not a good idea, and scientists are careful about that, since we might accidentally contact unfriendly extraterrestrials.

Like you. But we come in peace. You tried to zap me with a ray gun. Sorry, please. Anyway, despite years of listening, scientists have not yet discovered any life outside Earth. Maybe we're just good at hiding our signals so you can't spy on us. I could be radioing my mom something embarrassing like how I forgot to put on underwear this morning before abducting humans.

Not that I did that, of course. Of course. Smartypants, what do you think? Could aliens be hiding? Are we searching for the wrong radio signals? Or is there really nothing out there? These are all possibilities. But scientists looking for extraterrestrial life simply say, the sky is too big? ♪

Too big? Yeah, just look at all the stars that you see on a clear night. That's only a tiny fraction of the universe. And we're constantly discovering not just planets, but entire galaxies. Smarty pants, what's the name of the new telescope NASA recently launched into space? Is it A, the Hubble Space Telescope? B, the James Webb Space Telescope? Or C, the super-duper space thingy?

If you've been paying attention to the news lately, you probably know it's B, the James Webb Telescope. One of the first amazing images from the telescope shows thousands of galaxies, each of which may contain billions of planets.

Smarty Pants, after the episode, ask an adult if you can check out the James Webb images on NASA's website. But first, tell me this. How much of the sky do you think was captured in the image showing thousands of galaxies? Half of the sky? A quarter of the sky? Maybe the size of a basketball? Nope. Smarty Pants, imagine you're at the beach. If you picked up one itty-bitty grain of sand, you'd barely be able to see it.

Well, that's how much sky the telescope captured. Whoa. You'd have to point an antenna at a teeny tiny spot in the sky to find alien signals in all those galaxies. What if they're actually somewhere else?

There's a huge amount of space that we haven't searched yet. So even though scientists haven't found anything, they won't give up. As the famous astronomer Carl Sagan once said, The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.

Uh-huh. So you do believe space aliens are real. Well, it's easy to believe life's out there. I'm just not sure you're real. But surely you've heard of UFOs and alien abductions. Explain those, Earthling. Oh, I will. Right after this quick break. This episode is brought to you by IXL.

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Smarty pants, it's quiz time. If you wanted to start a business, share your ideas with the world, or finally launch your site about history's weirdest inventions, what is the smartest way to do it? Is it A, shouting your message from the top of a volcano? B, training an army of synchronized skywriting parrots? Or C, building a sleek professional website with Squarespace?

If you said C, congratulations, you win the internet. With Squarespace's design intelligence, you can build a beautiful website in minutes. No coding, wizardry, or secret handshake required. Want to sell stuff? Squarespace Payments lets you accept Apple Pay, Klarna,

and even credit cards. And because social media runs the universe, Squarespace seamlessly connects your site to Instagram, YouTube, and more so your fans or future customers can easily find you. Start your free trial today at squarespace.com slash smarted. And when you're ready to launch, use code SMARTED to save 10% on your first website or domain. Now, who's ready to make history?

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Hey, smarty pants, true or false? Scientists believe there is no life in our own solar system besides Earth.

The answer is false. Huh? That's right. Scientists actually believe that life might exist within our own cosmic neighborhood. And you're looking right at it. No, not little green guys like you. That's been ruled out. With all our telescopes and space probes, intelligent life in our solar system would likely have been found by now. So, what life are you talking about?

Tiny life forms, ones you can't even see without a microscope. Scientists have found evidence of water on Mars and on certain moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Where there's water, there may be life. Microscopic life? Who cares about that? Actually, it's super exciting. If scientists discover any kind of life on another planet, that means that Earth is not alone. It also means there's a greater chance that life may have formed on some of the other billions of planets in our universe.

And maybe intelligent life does exist out there. Um, hello? I'm right here. Sorry, you're not real. Oh, yeah? Let me show you something. Hold on, Earthling. Whoa! Sometimes I'll park near an airplane like this, and then I listen to the plane's radio transmissions. Uh, air traffic control, are you getting this?

Looks like a UFO. Smarty Pants, do you know what UFO stands for? Yep, Unidentified Flying Object. A.K.A. me. Sometimes I do a little stunt flying to show off. Uh, passengers, this is your pilot speaking. Please buckle your seatbelts. We're going to lower our altitude to get past the stunt flying alien ahead of us. And then I do this. Shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo.

Woohoo! I am out of here. Later, Earthlings. They don't even know what they just saw. Yep, there's plenty of reports of strange objects in the sky acting bizarrely, but scientists usually dismiss these as misidentified objects like weather balloons or drones. Not many believe that alien spacecraft are actually here. But there have been some UFO sightings, mostly by military pilots, that have yet to be explained.

Okay, but how do you explain alien abductions? How did you get here? Oh, scientists say that so-called alien abductions might just be dreams. Dreams? Yep, a specific kind of dreaming that feels very real. When sleepers have these intense abduction dreams, they sometimes forget that they're not real. They truly believe they were abducted by aliens, but scientists say nothing really happened. So, I'm probably dreaming right now. So...

You want to wake up, then? Nah, not yet. After all, it's been a beautiful day, and dreamy or not, I'd love to ride around the cosmos. Then you'll take me to your leader, please? Better yet, why don't you take me to yours? Silly Earthling, you asked for it. Um, why won't my spaceship fly? Oh, sound guy, play the alien spaceship sound. ♪

Smarty Pants, would you do me a favor and leave us a great review right now on Apple Podcasts? If you leave us a five-star review, not only does it help the show grow, you might hear it read on an upcoming episode. An out-of-this-world shout-out to superfans Knox and Lennox and their mom, Britt, in Madison, Indiana. Thanks for being such an awesome Smarty family and for smarting with us every day on the way to school.

This episode's Space Aliens was written by Dave, Beam Me Up, Beaudry, and voiced by Justin, Death Ray Dodd, Max, Cosmos Kamaski, and Jerry Colbert. Technical direction and sound design by Josh, Humanoid Han. Who Smarted is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios. Our associate producer is Max Kamaski. The theme song is by Brian, Flying Saucer Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam, Darkstar Davis.

Who Smarted was created and produced by Adam Tex Davis and Jerry Kolber. This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.