The UFO Phenomenon

 

SETI isn't looking close-range (even they realise there is little point in doing that). If there were aliens near Earth emitting electro-magnetic radiation of any kind we would have readily detected it somewhere in the EM spectrum without even looking for it.

I believe the original conventions were started by George van Tassel...a self proclaimed contactee.

 

 

I still struggle to see what SETI is actually looking for when it comes to detecting "Intelligence" at cosmic distances. But hey-ho, they do valid work in detecting exoplanets so I guess they can keep the "I" in SETI.

The detection of exoplanets is by passive (ie non-intelligent) perturbation of the star these planets orbit. We can directly observe some exoplanets but at present we can only see massive gas-giants that are orbiting at some distance from the host star. Either way none of these can, or ever will, give any indication of life on those exoplanets, let alone intelligent life.

We know from observations of Mars that occupying the circumstellar habital zone (CMZ) does not automatically mean that water does exist in liquid form on those exoplanets. It is current speculated that Mars has always been too cold for liquid water because its atmosphere has never been thick enough to support it. Similarly, being of Earth-size within the CMZ is also no guarantee that liquid water could exist on the surface, even if it has an atmosphere thick enough for the greenhouse effect to partially regulate surface temperatures between 0°C and 100°C, it also needs a hot liquid core to help regulate surface temperatures and an intrinsic magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere and planet surface. Mars has neither of those for example where as Venus may have a liquid core but since it has an induced magnetosphere it is unlikely. 

We know that Venus is just fractionally outside the CMZ of our solar system, an observer on Kepler-186f using the transit-effect to observe Venus to the same accuracy that we can observe variations in the brightness of Kepler-186 by the transit of Kepler-186f would speculate that Venus is within the CMZ.

Of course that does not mean that Kepler-186f is not habitable, it could be, it's unlikely, but it could be so we can always speculate. Even though direct observation of the only other known CMZ planet within our solar system is gradually moving away from the idea that life could have existed on Mars, we will still get headline-grabbing observations of strange lights and unusually landscape structures in those observations that will spark a wave of speculation that will result in fascinating yet mundane explanations. Again, I find these mundane explanations far more interesting than the speculative theories they generate.