AEE: Do Aliens Exist? How to Connect Over Extraterrestrial Life

This is the All Ears English Podcast. Do aliens exist? How to connect over extraterrestrial life. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.

Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android.

Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app. Have you ever had a conversation about aliens from outer space in English? Today, find out why this is a hot topic in the US right now and how to approach it to strike up a great conversation.

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Take our free two-minute fluency quiz and discover your English level today. Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hello, Lindsay. How are you?

Hello, Aubrey. How are you doing today? I'm excellent. I'm excited to talk about extraterrestrials with you today, Lindsay. Do you believe in aliens? Do I believe in aliens?

I really don't know what my belief is there. I went to Roswell once in New Mexico, which is a place where, I don't know, they're claiming to have seen a lot of crash sites.

Yes. And I left feeling like I did, but now I'm not so sure. I've seen several documentaries where I finished it out like convinced. Like someone will be talking about being abducted or something and they seem so believable.

But then I get on with my life and I'm like, no. No, you're like, no. It's really tricky. So a little wishy-washy. We're both a little wishy-washy, it sounds like.

But this is really a fun and common topic of conversation in American culture. I talk to people about this a lot and a lot of people have – A lot of people have some kind of experience or know someone who has seen something. My father saw a UFO when he was young, and my husband and I saw something.

Because really, UFO, we're going to talk about what it means. It just means something unidentified. You don't know what it is. So it could actually be a military aircraft or something from another country that you're just not familiar with.

Who knows? There's probably an explanation. Right. But maybe not. It reminds me of the conversation that you might have about ghosts. Do you believe in ghosts?

Because I feel like some of those sightings also could have been paranormal, right? Exactly. Very possible. Yeah, for sure. So these are conversations.

Yeah, these are, you know, do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe in aliens? These conversations definitely come up in American culture with native speakers. So we're going to learn how to have this conversation today, Aubrey.

Exactly. But first, we want to thank some reviewers. We are so grateful for everyone who rates and reviews the podcast. It's like a thank you letter to us.

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Huge thank you to these amazing listeners for reviewing our show. So thank you. Yes. And guys, leave your review for the show. If you want to hear your name announced out loud, we'll do our best to call you out on the show.

All right. Absolutely. Yes. Leave us a review, rate the show. It also helps others find the show. And yeah, it's always nice to hear that great feedback when anyone leaves a comment.

For sure. All right. So there've been some big Steven Spielberg films, Aubrey. We wanted to mention a few. So a lot of movies have come out recently that have been really big about aliens, basically.

Disclosure Day. Steven Spielberg did this film that topped the global box office earlier this summer. And Steven Spielberg also did E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is an older film from 1977.

Have you seen both of those, Lindsay? Oh, I've seen E.T. I remember watching E.T. as a kid. It's so sweet. It's so sweet. And it holds up. I watched it with my kids.

They loved it. Of course, it looks older, right? But they still loved it because it's a human interest story. Yeah. Oh, and then Project Hail Mary. That one was also yes, that was a big film in the springtime with Ryan Gosling.

And that also was you this is not a really a spoiler because you see in the preview that he meets this alien. And a lot of the story probably by now you've all seen it. If not, you really should. It's so great.

And it's about how they figure out how to communicate and save the world together. And it's really sort of an updated ET. It's so good. Love it. Love it.

So why is this kind of a hot topic right now, Aubrey? Yeah, this is interesting. So in the United States, in May of this year, the US government began releasing previously classified files related to UFOs. And this was following through on an order from President Trump to make public government documents about unexplained phenomena and

So they had created a government site where you could see a lot of these, you know, previously classified military documents, videos. And there was an article in CBS News about this and about if this is making people believe more in aliens, right? And had opinion polls. So what were some of the stats from that article, Lindsay?

Yeah. So we read that one third of Americans believe that aliens exist, which is pretty high. It is pretty high, yeah. 17% of Americans report having seen a UFO or something they think is a UFO, right?

Right. Well, and that's what's interesting. We're going to get into the vocab here. But so UFO just means unidentified flying object. So we also refer to these informally as a flying saucer.

But anyone, you could see a plane and call it a UFO because to you it's unidentified. You can't look into the sky and know what it is, right? But if it's like a government document and they're calling it a UFO, then it's like, okay, this is officially, if the American government is saying they don't know what that was and it's not military spacecraft, then it's like no one in this country knows what this was. Right.

I haven't heard the term flying saucer in so long. I feel like that term was used a lot in, I don't know, in the 80s, the 90s. But I haven't heard it in a while. That's so funny.

It is funny, right? A flying saucer. We hear this in older movies about extraterrestrials' life on other planets. But yeah, it's very informal, right?

You would never see in these official government documents, they would never be called flying saucers. Yeah. It's like a term we used as kids more, right? Yeah, for sure.

So some conversation starters, have you ever seen a UFO? I mean, let's just be direct and obvious about it, right? Exactly. Yeah. So when my husband and I were just dating, we saw this row of lights in the sky, like hovering at a distance.

It would have had to be something very big. And we were headed to his parents' house. So we wanted them to come out and see it. And see if we could, you know, we're like, this may be military, but nothing we know of that could have, that could just be hovering like that, right?

Interesting. And in Arizona, there have been a lot of sightings and photographs of, they call them the like Sonoran lights or something, I don't know.

And then when we went in, there were these military jets that flew overhead, more like the Top Gun jets, right? Those jets. And then it was just gone. So it was just strange, like to us, definitely a UFO because we could not identify what that is.

Like we don't know of any military aircraft that is that big or capable of just hovering like that, right? Yeah. It's of course always possible that there's just some kind of military intelligence that we don't know about. Sure.

Well, it's funny because I feel like I recently saw someone being interviewed about this and he was like a NASA scientist or something. And I feel like what he said was,

it's possible that they exist because you know when you know so much about space and science and things you know enough to know you can't know everything there's so how vast it is and how little we can actually know about the vastness what's actually out there he's like i'm not about to make any kind of comment about what's out there in the unknowable space right exactly yeah that was kind of what he said so yeah interesting Yeah. And so then it's also an interesting conversation to talk about whether, you know, aliens, extraterrestrials have potentially visited Earth. So you might want to ask if someone has ever seen a UFO or if they've seen, you know, anything they couldn't explain.

But you might also want to ask if they believe aliens either have visited our planet. Some people believe they are here living among us, hidden, like on Men in Black. Right. right hiding as humans yes yes yes so what does this mean alien lindsey that alien kind of um we use the term extraterrestrial like et the movie right um basically just a being from outside of the earth um that might show up on earth or may not may remain in their their place um in outer space uh yeah

Yeah, so relating to life beyond Earth, right? And so, for example, you could ask someone, do you believe that aliens have visited our planet? And you could say extraterrestrial or you could say just do you believe aliens exist, right? Yes.

It has historically been used to refer to immigrants, to anyone to – and this is really – as language has evolved, we have started to believe that this is problematic because it is used to create – to make someone other, right? A being from outside earth to increase the gap of difference. So more and more, that's not really considered correct to call a person –

you know, an illegal alien, for example. And we use terminology that is more inclusive now. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good point, Aubrey. And often you'll, maybe you'll have an intergenerational conversation.

Someone our age might be talking to our parents or grandparents or something, and they might use the term illegal alien and we'd correct them. We'd say, you can't, you can't say that anymore. Give them a better term, right? Yes.

Yes. So that's not what obviously that's not what we're talking about here. Completely different. But I'm glad it is interesting when people hear the word alien.

Right. We're talking about extraterrestrials that you may have heard the word alien used that way as well. And you might have been wondering, like, why don't we use it that way anymore? Right.

Yeah. Good point. There's a big difference between understanding English and participating in English. Understanding means you follow the conversation.

You participate by adding your ideas, reacting naturally, and keeping the conversation moving. Many English learners are strong listeners, but hesitant speakers. Once you know your current fluency level, it becomes much easier to close that gap. Take our free two minute quiz to discover your level and what to focus on next.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. All right, Aubrey, we're back from break. Let's go into a role play here.

In this role play, we are friends and we're chatting at a party. So aliens are going to come up. Exactly. I'll start us out. Have you seen Disclosure Day?

I did. It was fascinating. I couldn't stop thinking about it afterward. Same here. It really made me wonder if there's life on other planets. Honestly, I think it's plausible.

The universe is enormous. It seems unlikely that Earth is the only planet with life. I agree. What I'm not sure about is whether aliens have visited Earth.

I get it. Some of those military sightings are super compelling, though. I'm sure there's an explanation for all of them, though. You're definitely more skeptical than I am.

Nice. This is interesting. I love a conversation like this. Rarely will two friends be exactly on the same page about something like this. One might be more skeptical than the other.

And we do need this language to be able to respect and recognize validity in each other's beliefs. Yes, for sure. So what were some of the phrases that we used here, Aubrey? Where should we start?

So first of all, we're just kind of sharing. And I love this way to start this conversation. You can ask just like, do you believe in aliens? Or do you think there's life on other planets?

But you can also enter the conversation this way, like I did. I said, Did you see Disclosure Day or have you seen Disclosure Day? And this is a movie that's about aliens.

And if they haven't seen it, then you could ask one of these other questions like, oh, it's actually about aliens visiting Earth. And then you could ask, like, what do you think? Do you believe in aliens? But if they've seen the film, then you already have this in common, this foundation to build on.

Yeah. It's a little weird if you just completely cold start a conversation by saying, do you believe in aliens? I guess you could with like a close friend, right?

Usually it will have led in from something like this, right? Someone's mentioning a podcast or a film or something and then you'll ask. Yeah, exactly. Any other phrases we want to point out here, Aubrey?

Yeah. So when we start talking about our beliefs, about whether, you know, there's my first, I said, it seems unlikely that Earth, or you said, it seems unlikely that Earth is the only planet with life. And then I said, what I'm not sure about it is whether aliens have visited Earth. So this is interesting.

This phrase that we use at the beginning of an opinion to say what I'm not sure about is, and then because I don't know your beliefs yet, right? Yeah. So I'm throwing out something that I know a lot of people believe, but I'm not sure about. And that's such a respectful way to get into that.

And I'm opening it for you to share your opinion, but without directly asking for it. Right. And you're not definitively saying, I don't think this could be true, or I think it's true. It's just kind of testing the water.

Exactly. Because I could instead say there something like, I really don't think they've visited Earth before though. And then I've created awkwardness if you believe really strongly that they have. Or maybe you like wrote your dissertation on it or something.

Exactly. And we will make this sort of faux pas sometimes at parties. Well, it comes out strong with an opinion, then find out the other person disagrees. And if we had known that, we probably would have phrased things differently or come in a little softer.

Yeah, I think this is good advice. It applies to this topic and a lot of other things. Definitely. Maybe it's not the best thing to always come in super strong if we do want to build connection, right?

Exactly. And then I love the phrase you used at the end to say, well, you're definitely more skeptical than I am. This, I feel like, is such a great phrase for showing respect and acknowledging that you and I clearly see this very differently. We're being polite.

We're having a friendly conversation about it. But the more we say, the more we're realizing that we're not really on the same page and And this is a great way to say that. And then from there, we can pivot to something else or we can continue sharing our opinions, but we're respectfully acknowledging the difference and saying that's okay too.

It's okay to not agree about this. Oh my God, there'll be so many things that we won't necessarily fully agree with people on, but we could still find that moment of connection despite that. Right? Absolutely.

Good topic today. Now I'm going to go back and rewatch ET. I'll have to go to the movies and watch Disclosure Day. I have a lot to do now, Aubrey. You do.

We've given you a laundry list and Project Hail Mary. You've got a whole list of movies you need to see. All right. Good stuff. Guys, go over to 2689.

Don't want to sound harsh. Soften the blow with these phrases. So get some great phrases to not sound too harsh. Aubrey, any final takeaway? I think we hit some important stuff here.

This is a cultural topic. And what else? Anything else that comes up? to acknowledge and recognize from the outset that you might not agree, you can still have the conversation.

But we do want to be careful to, like we said, don't come in too hard and fast with opinions that sort of stop the conversation before it can get started.

I also think we could do another episode one day on how to articulate that you don't quite have – you're not quite sure about something, right? It's a complex topic. Maybe this could be for another day. So guys – I love that idea.

Yeah. Like you started where you're sort of saying like, I'm not sure. I'm kind of undecided. And that happens, right? You need phrases for that as well.

So we don't want to have to just go silent. We want to say something. We'll come up to that episode. We'll come out with that episode soon, guys. So hit the follow button and Aubrey, I'll see you another day.

All right. Awesome. See you guys next time. All right. Take care. Bye. See you next time.