EDMONTON - After spending years laboriously searching for the faintest speck of evidence of life elsewhere in the universe, astrophysicist Jaymie Matthews says he wants far more than most to believe that aliens live among us.
"If they've come here, it means they've gotten here from a planet around another star, and that's my life's passion - I spend my life studying the light, the photons, coming from these distant suns, with telescopes, with instruments," said the University of British Columbia professor. "If I had the chance to go there and visit one, see it close up, and confirm or deny ideas I've had and expand upon them - hey, I'm first in line."
Researchers who study sightings of unidentified flying objects will get the chance to try to convince Matthews and members of the public that aliens have already made contact at a conference starting Friday called "UFOs and Intelligent Life in the Universe: Who's Out There?"
Speakers at the Telus World of Science include people who analyze UFO sightings from across Canada and the United States, as well as Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist who has lectured on the issue for 40 years.
"There's an enormous amount of evidence with which most people, especially the noisy negativists, as I call them, aren't familiar," says Friedman. He cites physical traces collected from the ground after sightings of flying saucers and instances where many people in planes and at airports all saw the same unidentified objects.
But Matthews, the self-professed "party-pooping scientist" of the bunch, says he has heard these arguments before and is going into the conference a little like Daniel into the lion's den, ready for a tussle.
"I think it's important for me to convey the scientific perspective for this, and I will not be hiding my skepticism about what the other speakers are presenting," he said, adding with a laugh that his stance might not make him the most popular person there.
"But really I'm the only person that's presenting the 'scientific' perspective in this."
These divergent opinions are exactly what Frank Florian, director of space science, and others at the Telus centre were after when they came up with a sort of "science on the edge" series that will soon become a regular feature.
"We have to realize that science is an evolving thing. It's not static - we're always learning new things," he said, adding the science centre staff will stress such critical thinking at the conference.
"Science doesn't have all the answers, and any scientist that says we know everything already, they're not going to be doing good science."
Florian said they're expecting about 200 people to take part in the two-day conference. Various polls have suggested that many Canadians - ranging from 40 to 60 per cent - believe we're not alone in the universe. Even Matthews acknowledges that most astronomers, himself included, believe life exists elsewhere in the universe - they just don't believe it has made its way here yet.
Another speaker, Winnipeg's Chris Rutkowski, tries to walk the line between the divergent opinions held by Matthews and Friedman. He helps compile a yearly UFO sighting count for across Canada, and while he hasn't found any definitive evidence for aliens, he isn't ready to discount the more than 5,000 reports they've compiled over 20 years.
Between three and five per cent of the reports can't be explained, he says.
"These reports are not necessarily proof that the aliens are invading, but it is definite proof that there are some very puzzling cases that deserve further investigation and study."
This won't be the last look the centre takes at a controversial topic from a scientific perspective, said Florian.
They're planning similar seminars on topics such as ghosts and Bigfoot over the next year, in which they'll bring together both believers and those who say the science isn't there.
"We just want to take a look at these things from a scientific perspective, and just say 'What if?' "
"We really want people to scrutinize this stuff."
