A Nobel prize-winning astronomer has predicted that humans will find evidence of alien life in the next 30 years.
On Tuesday, Professor Didier Queloz, from Switzerland, said he was “convinced” of the existence of extraterrestrial life after winning the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.
“I can’t believe we are the only living entity in the universe,” the Cambridge University professor said while speaking at the Science Media Centre in London, according to The Telegraph. “There are just way too many planets, way too many stars, and the chemistry is universal.
“The chemistry that led to life has to happen elsewhere. So I am a strong believer that there must be life elsewhere.
“Life doesn’t just mean a green man coming to you, life started way before animals were crawling on the surface of earth.”
1/10 The Blob (1958; Irvin Yeaworth)
So eager are we to plant metaphors onto alien movies that The Blob has been referred to as everything from an analogy for the Cold War to a grim warning against the perils of capitalism. But it’s also very much about a giant blob of goo that consumes everything in its wake. A pre-fame Steve McQueen in his feature film debut is the preppie high-schooler facing off against the aggressive alien entity. Burt Bacharach sings the film’s theme song¬ – driving home The Blob’s kitsch, drive-in-movie charm.
2/10 The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976; Nicholas Roeg)
If the experience of being abducted by aliens was translated into a cinematic mood, it would result in something like The Man Who Fell to Earth. It dispenses with all logic and concept of linear time, and instead takes place in a kind of unmoored netherworld (Nicholas Roeg fans will recognise and appreciate it immediately). And its power is punctuated, of course, by the presence of David Bowie, who is beautiful and uncanny, and perfectly cast.
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3/10 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978; Philip Kaufman)
We’re long-overdue a new remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The pod-people premise is effortlessly translated into new decades, and spun into powerful new metaphors for modern threats. But of the many incarnations of Jack Finney’s novel, it’s Philip Kaufman’s 1978 adaptation that remains its most terrifying and daring, exploiting the Cold War paranoia of the era and building to a devastatingly brutal final twist. Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy and a young Jeff Goldblum are among the stars confronted with an alien invasion that replaces the world’s populace with mindless doppelgängers.
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4/10 Alien (1979; Ridley Scott)
The original and still the best. And not just in terms of the long-running Alien franchise, but the alien genre as a whole. Chilly and sparse, with moments of languid contemplation interrupted by bloody carnage, Alien is both a haunted house movie and delicate meditation on life, power and authority. HR Giger’s ubiquitous design work remains terrifying, and Sigourney Weaver is an instant star as the compassionate and smart Ellen Ripley.
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5/10 ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982; Steven Spielberg)
A film that taught a generation of children (and, if we’re being honest, their parents) the importance of friendship, whether shared with an intergalactic gremlin or not. ET is magical cinema and the finest distillation of Steven Spielberg’s power as a filmmaker – emotional but never cloying, otherworldly but always resolutely human, and with a deep understanding and respect for child-like wonder. Anyone who isn’t in a puddle of tears by its conclusion is, I think according to international law, an irredeemable monster.
GETTY IMAGES
6/10 Liquid Sky (1982; Slava Tsukerman)
Liquid Sky is a fluorescent revenge tale, a hyper-stylised fever dream, and the most vivid depiction of New York’s underground no-wave scene in the early 1980s. It sees aliens arriving in New York in search of heroin, only to discover better highs via the human orgasm. Meanwhile an aspiring, put-upon model learns that alien powers can be a tool to rid the world of bad people. Liquid Sky touches on sex, drugs, art and androgyny, with eye-candy set design and a transfixing lead performance from Anne Carlisle.
7/10 Starman (1984; John Carpenter)
Starman is ET if ET was an incredibly handsome 30-something man who looks uncannily like your dead ex. A radical departure for John Carpenter, this 1984 romantic drama sees Karen Allen’s grief-stricken widow spooked and then saved by the arrival of an alien who takes the form of her dead husband. An Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges stars as the Starman of the title; he is astounding, tasked with embodying something odd and otherworldly yet warm enough to be loveable. The film’s climax, in all its aching, deeply romantic glory, is a tribute to maintaining hope in the face of grief, and proof that Carpenter is no one-genre pony.
8/10 Contact (1997; Robert Zemeckis)
Worth revisiting in the wake of the Amy Adams vehicle Arrival, Contact finds Jodie Foster communicating with aliens and fighting for the right to meet them. It is a still, thoughtful movie, interested in bureaucracy and misogyny in a way that sci-fi movies so often aren’t. But it also recognises the emotional power of marvelling at something extraordinary, and the sheer wonder of cracking open a door to the previously unimaginable. Robert Zemeckis hasn’t done anything of a similar quality in the decades since.
Getty
9/10 The Faculty (1998; Robert Rodriguez)
A genre-splicing teen thriller that could only have been birthed in an era of Scream and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Faculty sees a cluster of disparate high schoolers (Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett and Clea DuVall among them) become convinced that their teachers have been replaced by aliens (the likes of Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen and a scene-stealing Robert Patrick having been transformed into pod-people overnight). Sweet, pulpy and dripping in Gen-X cool, The Faculty is Body Snatchers by way of The Breakfast Club, with the cheery spookiness of an RL Stine book you loved when you were 13.
10/10 Under the Skin (2013; Jonathan Glazer)
Alien movies are unusual in that they’re always driven by outsiders and extra-terrestrials, yet almost always anchored by us, the humans. Under the Skin, a characteristically trippy experiment from visionary filmmaker Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Sexy Beast), is us as seen through the eyes of a beguiling and curious alien played by Scarlett Johansson. She marvels at human idiosyncrasies and our faces, or else delights in our chocolate cake. And in a further twist, she finds that she likes us. Under the Skin is uncomfortable and horrifying yet also unusually tender, and proof that we haven’t yet run out of new ways to depict alien visitors.
Under the Skin
1/10 The Blob (1958; Irvin Yeaworth)
So eager are we to plant metaphors onto alien movies that The Blob has been referred to as everything from an analogy for the Cold War to a grim warning against the perils of capitalism. But it’s also very much about a giant blob of goo that consumes everything in its wake. A pre-fame Steve McQueen in his feature film debut is the preppie high-schooler facing off against the aggressive alien entity. Burt Bacharach sings the film’s theme song¬ – driving home The Blob’s kitsch, drive-in-movie charm.
2/10 The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976; Nicholas Roeg)
If the experience of being abducted by aliens was translated into a cinematic mood, it would result in something like The Man Who Fell to Earth. It dispenses with all logic and concept of linear time, and instead takes place in a kind of unmoored netherworld (Nicholas Roeg fans will recognise and appreciate it immediately). And its power is punctuated, of course, by the presence of David Bowie, who is beautiful and uncanny, and perfectly cast.
Rex Features
3/10 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978; Philip Kaufman)
We’re long-overdue a new remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The pod-people premise is effortlessly translated into new decades, and spun into powerful new metaphors for modern threats. But of the many incarnations of Jack Finney’s novel, it’s Philip Kaufman’s 1978 adaptation that remains its most terrifying and daring, exploiting the Cold War paranoia of the era and building to a devastatingly brutal final twist. Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy and a young Jeff Goldblum are among the stars confronted with an alien invasion that replaces the world’s populace with mindless doppelgängers.
Rex
4/10 Alien (1979; Ridley Scott)
The original and still the best. And not just in terms of the long-running Alien franchise, but the alien genre as a whole. Chilly and sparse, with moments of languid contemplation interrupted by bloody carnage, Alien is both a haunted house movie and delicate meditation on life, power and authority. HR Giger’s ubiquitous design work remains terrifying, and Sigourney Weaver is an instant star as the compassionate and smart Ellen Ripley.
Rex Features
5/10 ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982; Steven Spielberg)
A film that taught a generation of children (and, if we’re being honest, their parents) the importance of friendship, whether shared with an intergalactic gremlin or not. ET is magical cinema and the finest distillation of Steven Spielberg’s power as a filmmaker – emotional but never cloying, otherworldly but always resolutely human, and with a deep understanding and respect for child-like wonder. Anyone who isn’t in a puddle of tears by its conclusion is, I think according to international law, an irredeemable monster.
GETTY IMAGES
6/10 Liquid Sky (1982; Slava Tsukerman)
Liquid Sky is a fluorescent revenge tale, a hyper-stylised fever dream, and the most vivid depiction of New York’s underground no-wave scene in the early 1980s. It sees aliens arriving in New York in search of heroin, only to discover better highs via the human orgasm. Meanwhile an aspiring, put-upon model learns that alien powers can be a tool to rid the world of bad people. Liquid Sky touches on sex, drugs, art and androgyny, with eye-candy set design and a transfixing lead performance from Anne Carlisle.
7/10 Starman (1984; John Carpenter)
Starman is ET if ET was an incredibly handsome 30-something man who looks uncannily like your dead ex. A radical departure for John Carpenter, this 1984 romantic drama sees Karen Allen’s grief-stricken widow spooked and then saved by the arrival of an alien who takes the form of her dead husband. An Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges stars as the Starman of the title; he is astounding, tasked with embodying something odd and otherworldly yet warm enough to be loveable. The film’s climax, in all its aching, deeply romantic glory, is a tribute to maintaining hope in the face of grief, and proof that Carpenter is no one-genre pony.
8/10 Contact (1997; Robert Zemeckis)
Worth revisiting in the wake of the Amy Adams vehicle Arrival, Contact finds Jodie Foster communicating with aliens and fighting for the right to meet them. It is a still, thoughtful movie, interested in bureaucracy and misogyny in a way that sci-fi movies so often aren’t. But it also recognises the emotional power of marvelling at something extraordinary, and the sheer wonder of cracking open a door to the previously unimaginable. Robert Zemeckis hasn’t done anything of a similar quality in the decades since.
Getty
9/10 The Faculty (1998; Robert Rodriguez)
A genre-splicing teen thriller that could only have been birthed in an era of Scream and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Faculty sees a cluster of disparate high schoolers (Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett and Clea DuVall among them) become convinced that their teachers have been replaced by aliens (the likes of Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen and a scene-stealing Robert Patrick having been transformed into pod-people overnight). Sweet, pulpy and dripping in Gen-X cool, The Faculty is Body Snatchers by way of The Breakfast Club, with the cheery spookiness of an RL Stine book you loved when you were 13.
10/10 Under the Skin (2013; Jonathan Glazer)
Alien movies are unusual in that they’re always driven by outsiders and extra-terrestrials, yet almost always anchored by us, the humans. Under the Skin, a characteristically trippy experiment from visionary filmmaker Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Sexy Beast), is us as seen through the eyes of a beguiling and curious alien played by Scarlett Johansson. She marvels at human idiosyncrasies and our faces, or else delights in our chocolate cake. And in a further twist, she finds that she likes us. Under the Skin is uncomfortable and horrifying yet also unusually tender, and proof that we haven’t yet run out of new ways to depict alien visitors.
Under the Skin
According to the professor, he is certain that humans will have detected alien life in 100 years’ time.
However, he is convinced it will happen much sooner than that, once we have built more advanced technology capable of detecting life on distant planets.
Professor Queloz, who discovered the first planet outside our solar system while still a PhD student, won the Nobel Prize alongside fellow researcher Michel Mayor, his PhD supervisor at Princeton.
In 1995, Professor Queloz and Professor Mayor discovered the exoplanet 51 Pegasi b using the Doppler spectroscopy technique, which measures wobbles of a star as a planet orbits around it.
Since their initial discovery, more than 4,100 additional exoplanets have been found.
The Nobel Prize was awarded to the scientists for “contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos”, with half of the prize awarded to James Peebles, for “theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology”.
