ᴄʟᴏsᴇ ᴇɴᴄᴏᴜɴᴛᴇʀs – ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴀʟɪᴇɴs ᴀʟʀᴇᴀᴅʏ ʙᴇ ᴀᴍᴏɴɢ ᴜs?

Has planet earth ever had a close encounter with a̳l̳i̳e̳n̳s?

While U̳F̳O̳s and their occupants have been part of our culture for more than a century, and people from many walks of life claim to have seen them, we have no indisputable evidence that they’re fact rather than fiction, or do we? Naked Science speaks to witnesses of two of the most controversial U̳F̳O̳ sightings, the Rendlesham Forest incident in the UK and the Phoenix Lights sighting in the US, as well as the most famous U̳F̳O̳ incident of all time, Roswell.

If unidentified flying objects did come from space, how could they have travelled to earth? And how could they survive in our atmosphere? We talk to leading physicists and astrophysicists about the viability of interstellar travel and whether worm holes and warp drives could make it possible. Or perhaps extra-terrestrials will send tiny self-replicating nanobots to explore our Earth?

Close encounters originated with reported sightings of a̳l̳i̳e̳n̳ craft, but in the last few decades a̳l̳i̳e̳n̳ contact has taken a new and more terrifying twist, a̳l̳i̳e̳n̳ abduction. We talk to a so called ‘experiencer’ who claims to have been taken from her bed and experimented on. She believes her claims but could there be another, scientific, explanation for what she remembers? We talk to a neuroscientist who thinks he has the answer.