In the last few years I’ve become a sceptic about all the fantastical things I used to read and watch as a younger man. Tales of Bigfoot, Nessie and Yeti’s delighted me. Off course you reach a point where you realise that almost every claimed witness account of something paranormal phenomena is either drunk, mentally unbalanced or is planning a theme restaurant dedicated to the phenomena.

But aliens... aliens bug me. Unlike all the other crazy crap people claim the logical evidence for aliens is pretty strong. Statistically the chances of intelligent life on other planets is almost definitely in the positive. And yet we remain alone and unprobed, our imaginations and rectums crying out for alien intervention. Stop teasing us with cattle mutilations and just reveal yourselves!

In case you’re not a believer, check out this excellent interactive formula based on the one concocted by astronomer Frank Drake in 1961 which makes a fairly reasoned statistical arguement as to whether or not we’re alone in the universe.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120821-how-many-alien-worlds-exist

Incidentally, Drake’s also one of the founders of SETI and the creator of the Arecibo Message (read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Drake), if anyone can talk with authority of aliens, this is the man.

And finally, here’s a round up of the unusually high number of UFO videos in August. Did, the Curiosity rover incite them to visit? Is it a fly by to honour the passing of fellow space traveller Neil Armstrong? Men in Black 3 promotional activities? Or were there just quite a lot of weather balloons out in August?