As obsession grows with UFOs on Earth, one group instead looks for aliens across galaxies

At a time of mounting public interest in UFOs, the SETI Institute is looking not to Earth to find signs of advanced alien lifeforms, but to the vast cosmos.

It's been more than a year since Congressional leaders were regaled with public testimony – offered without proof – about shadowy government programs to retrieve and study downed extraterrestrial spaceships. In that time, the hearing has fueled a wave of docuseries, opportunistic marketing campaigns and speculation about UFOs, reigniting a public obsession that some researchers say is spiraling out of control.

The idea that, absent any immediate logical explanation, strange crafts sighted whizzing through our skies must surely be alien visitors seems to only continue gaining momentum.

But researchers at SETI aren't interested in the debate over whether UFOs sighted on Earth could be extraterrestrial in origin. For those astronomers, the best chance for humanity to answer the age-old question of whether we're alone in the universe requires turning our gaze beyond our own planet.

And maybe even beyond our own galaxy.