Nearly half of humans believe in alien life and want to make contact.

This is according to a survey in 24 countries which found we would welcome ET, despite warnings it could wipe out humanity.

Researchers say the results help to explain the lasting popularity of the 'Star Wars' franchise 40 years after the first movie was screened.

But making contact could be dangerous for humanity. Physicist Professor Stephen Hawking has previously warned if aliens discovered us, it could 'end life on Earth'.

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Nearly half of humans believe in alien life and want to make contact, a survey in 24 countries has found. Researchers say the results help to explain the lasting popularity of the 'Star Wars' franchise 40 years after the first movie was screened. Pictured is the Yoda puppet

WILL WE FIND ALIEN LIFE? Nasa scientists have claimed alien life could be found within the next few decades. Experts say the search is heavily guided by characteristics of our own planet, helping scientists to weed out inhospitable worlds from those that may have promise for life, such as the icy moons Enceladus and Europa. Nasa scientists are looking for environments that contain both oxygen and methane. When these two gases are found in the same atmosphere, 'you've got something special,' the space agency says. 'There are ways to build up oxygen and methane in a planetary atmosphere, but the only way you could have both in the same atmosphere at the same time is if you produce them both super rapidly,' said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Advertisement

Researchers published findings that 47 percent of more than 26,000 respondents believe 'in the existence of intelligent alien civilizations in the universe'.

An even greater 61 per cent said 'yes' when asked if they believe in 'some form of life on other planets', researchers at Amsterdam-based research program Glocalities found.

Roughly a quarter said they do not believe intelligent life exists beyond Earth, they found.

This is not the first survey to collect views on extraterrestrial beings - questionnaires in Germany, Britain and the United States have found similar rates - but researchers said this was the largest poll of its kind with such global reach.

'The high score on the belief in the existence of intelligent alien civilisations and the distinct profile of these people partly explains the immense popularity of space movies such as Star Wars,' said research director Martijn Lampert.

'People who believe in the existence of intelligent alien civilisations are not a marginal minority,' he said.

The most believers in intelligent alien life were in Russia, at 68 per cent, trailed closely by Mexico and China, with the down-to-earth Dutch bottoming out the list at 28 per cent, the poll found.

The interviews were conducted in 15 languages between December 2015 and February 2016 in countries representing 62 per cent of the world's population and 80 per cent of the global economy.

However, some experts believe we should be extremely wary about answering alien signals.

If there are any intelligent alien life forms out there Professor Hawking thinks we're playing a dangerous game by trying to contact them.

The physicist believes if aliens discovered Earth, they are likely to want to conquer and colonise our planet.

'If aliens visit us, the outcome could be much like when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans,' he said in an interview.

making contact could be dangerous for humanity. Physicist Professor Stephen Hawking has previously warned if aliens discovered us, it could 'end life on Earth'

Last week psychologists also revealed that if we did discover alien life most people would still be happy about it.

Michael Varnum, a psychologist at Arizona State University was trying to anticipate how humans would react if a discovery like this came back positive.

The paper looked at the psychological reactions to extraterrestrial life in a 'systematic, careful way'.

In the first experiment Dr Varnum and his colleagues looked at five key events; the discovery of pulsars in 1967; the detection of the 'Wow!' radio signal in 1977; the announcement of fossilised microbes on a Martian meteorite in 1996; the behaviour of Tabby's Star in 2005 and the discovery of exoplanets within the Goldilocks zone in 2017.

'The reaction seemed to be much more positive than negative,' found Dr Varnum.

Researchers also got 500 people to describe how they would feel if aliens were discovered and how they thought people more generally would react.

Participants said they themselves would feel positive but felt most people would not be so excited about the discovery.