People should stop looking for Bigfoot, the Yeti and Nessie because they don’t exist – but we should keep looking for aliens.
That’s the verdict from Tim Coulson, a professor of Zoology at Oxford University, who knows more than most about the weird giant beasts that may roam the edges of the wild.
He said this week that most cryptids (animals reported to exist but without proof) are scientifically impossible.
On the other hand, there’s a ‘good possibility’ that aliens exist.
‘The universe is absolutely vast, and we have only explored a very tiny fragment of it,’ he wrote in The European.
‘Unlike the forests where Bigfoot is supposed to live, or the mountainous home of the Yeti, we have only explored a miniscule corner of the places where aliens may be found.’
The existence of aliens is often put in a basket with fabled creatures on Earth, but the likelihoods of life on other planets is vastly more likely, he said.
Professor Coulson is widely considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on biology and evolution, so if he thinks aliens could be out there, we’re listening.
If they are, however, he isn’t confident that we’ll find them.
We first sent out radio signals into space around 120 years ago, so even if an intelligent alien was listening and immediately replied, they would have to be within 60 light years of Earth for us to hear it.
‘There are about 3,000 stars within 60 light years of Earth,’ Prof Coulson said. ‘That might sound like a lot, but it’s not.’
We’d have to have totally new technologies allowing instant jumps ‘through worm holes’ to allow us to ‘explore much of our galaxy, let alone the universe’, he added.
So it is ‘much too early’ to rule out aliens, ‘be they simple bacteria-like organisms or little green beasts with long necks and oversized heads’.
When it comes to cryptids, he said we have been searching for Nessie and Bigfoot for decades, and they would almost certainly have been picked up by camera traps programmed to take photos when a sensor is activated.
Additionally, fossil records would indicate how such creatures evolved – unless they somehow existed alone with an infinite lifespan and no need to breed, which would be beyond the scope of science.
According to Google, there are around 200,000 searches each month for the Loch Ness Monster alone, which is said to be worth £30m to the region.
But Professor Coulson said photos of Nessie indicate it would have a long neck and a small head, suggesting it is similar to a plesiosaur.
But these marine dinosaurs died out with their relatives on land 66 million years ago, and have never been recorded since.
Professor Coulson said that for one to have somehow survived until now, there would have had to be millions living across a wide range, which we would have noticed.
He added: ‘I apologise to all cryptozoologists for placing this big and very final nail into cryptids’ coffins but it’s time to find another hobby.’
Like maybe finding aliens – and you could start by reading this the alleged retrieval of mysterious orbs in a secret UFO operation.
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