Hunting for aliens isn’t easy. We’re confident that statement is true. The SETI Institute has spent the last 50 years searching for signs and signals of aliens in the Goldilocks zone (regions of space just right for human life), and have turned up nothing except for the apocryphal WOW signal, which never repeated.

Now, a gaggle of astrophysicists and exobiologists, including the preeminent author Paul Davies, is suggesting we widen and diversify our search. Here’s what’s on the table:

SETT – Searching for Alien Megastructures

The Search For Extraterrestrial Technology is a relatively new scientific venture, but a very promising one. Kardashev Type II or III alien civilizations would invariably leave behind evidence of their existence, even if they flourished and died billions of years ago. This evidence might come in the form of a Dyson Sphere, an artificial matrix of orbiting solar power panels that surrounds a star. We could be talking a Matrioska Brain, a series of sphere layers–like the Russian doll–that combined act as a Class B stellar engine. A run-of-the mill ancient starship is another possibility.

The problem with these objects is that they would likely be so far away in space that it would be difficult to ascertain their existence. Astrophysicists say they would be looking for a unique signature of infrared heat waste in faraway stars.

The Colossus Telescope and Exoplanet detection

The most incredible telescope ever could be finished in five years with a price tag of $1 billion. The Colossus will do something that no telescope has ever attempted: actually see alien cities. Its 250 foot aperature (over twice the size of its predecessors) will be able to see exoplanets that are as far as 60 to 70 light years from Earth. That’s approximately 4.11494987 × 1014 miles away!

The Colossus will also be able to search for the signature of synthetic gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons, in the atmospheres of Earth-like planets. In other words, they will be able to look at a planet and determine whether its emissions are the result of volcanoes or industrial detritus.

The shadow biosphere

A controversial subject in biochemistry, the “shadow biosphere” theory proposes that microbial or other alien organisms may already live among us. We don’t notice them because they are radically different from us on a molecular level. They may be comprised of arsenic or another substance altogether. One can extrapolate from this theory an even more outlandish scenario in which intelligent alien life lives among us in a shadow biosphere.

Alien code in our DNA

Paul Davies supports what is popularly known as bio-SETI–a topic the Ghost Diaries covered in our webcast with UFOlogist Micah Hanks–which is looking for messages from extraterrestrials embedded in our DNA. If the notion of panspermia is true and human life originated elsewhere in the universe, it’s conceivable that our creators used the human genome as a message carrier.

Signs of Alien Nuclear Technology

The element plutonium-244 only appears in trace amounts on Earth, with a half-life of 80 million years. The discovery of a substantial amount may indicate alien nuclear technology.

Aliens Made of Plasma

Another new theory is the idea that plasma formations could be a form of alien intelligence. UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) plasmoids is the name given to a concept that couldn’t be more speculative. Plasmoids can fly in formation and arrange themselves in geometric patterns and could help explain some of the more puzzling UFO cases.

ET Chat Via Quantum entanglement

‘Quantum supercomputers’ is a popular catchphrase right now, but we still don’t have a prototype that has been peer-reviewed by actual quantum physicists. Nonetheless, it is believed by many technologists that in the future we will use quantum entanglement for advanced computation. When we do, we may find that communication with aliens from another star system or galaxy is best accomplished with quantum post-it notes.