WHETHER it’s Stephen Hawking predicting the certainty of alien life or the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California claiming that we will “find E.T. within two dozen years,” debate over the existence of aliens is as rife as ever.

For those grappling with the Fermi paradox, this year provided a number of seemingly inexplicable cases that were seized upon by believers as prove that ET is out there. We’ll let you decide.

Bones on Mars

With satellites and robots beaming back publicly available images and even live streams from their trips of space exploration, the internet is continually abuzz with material to ignite the age-old debate. Photos from the Mars Curiosity rover put many in a frenzy this year as they claimed one particular piece of surface material bore a striking resemblance to a human thigh bone. So either aliens on the red planet have an extraordinarily similar build to us … or it’s just a rock.

Area 51 deathbed confession

An interview with a man claiming to be former Lockheed Martin scientist Boyd Bushman surfaced shortly after his death in August. In the video interview he goes into intricate detail about his work at the notorious Area 51 site, holds up photos of captured aliens and describes their physical qualities. The authenticity of the video has been widely discredited — the photos bearing an uncanny resemblance to a toy sold at Walmart — but those desperate to meet ET, aren’t so easily dissuaded. The video has since been taken down but excerpts can be seen here.

The mystery of X-37B

The intriguingly long voyage of the unmanned X-37B came to an end in October, but the mystery of the mission lingers on — providing fuel to the fire for Conspiracy theorists.

Most of the public theories about what the US led X-37B did during its continuous two-year flight have to do with spying and national security. But there are also those that think the craft was looking for aliens, commandeering abandoned alien bases on other planets or flying around communicating with extraterrestrials. Only the US government knows.

Is the Rosetta comet really a comet?

It was one of the most impressive and impactful scientific achievements of recent time. For most people, the fact that we were able to land a satellite on a comet in space meant that we might gain a greater understanding of the origins of our own existence. For others, it meant that the government was lying and the mission was about making contact with an alien base. The theory grew out of an anonymous e-mail from a supposed “ESA whistleblower” that claimed the comet was not exactly the auspicious rock form that it was made out to be.

RELATED: ‘Alien probe’ conspiracy theory distracts from Rosetta’s ‘huge’ discovery — carbon compounds

Flight MH370

Missing plane disappearance theories Here are the top five theories circulating on-line, news and social media as to what has happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 provided one of the biggest mysteries of the year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one theory about the cause of the disappearance postulated the involvement of aliens as some claimed that radar readings showed that a UFO interfered with the flight.

Reason.com conducted a poll in the United States and found out that five per cent of their respondents believed Flight 370 was abducted by aliens. Several bloggers also pointed out a number of UFO sightings around Malaysia before the plane’s disappearance. With the international community yet to discover the location of the missing plane, at this point the conspiracy theory continues.

The UFO hiding behind the sun

The list wouldn’t be complete without a token UFO sighting. Those that comb the skies in search for a glimpse of alien activity are seldom short of a good imagination and a smudge or spec can quickly become an interstellar spacecraft.

NASA’s solar observatory catches lots of spectacular solar flares and asteroid activity, and of course, other unidentified flying objects. According to UFO Sightings Daily, the abnormality in the image below is some sort of craft orbiting the sun ... very, very close to the sun. The proximity of the object to the sun would presumably present all kinds of problems, but clearly we can’t begin to understand the transport capabilities of our galactic counterparts.