My voyage in search of UFOs with the world’s most eminent scientists

Swan Hellenic’s recent voyage aboard the Polar Class ship SH Vega headed to Chile in search of extraterrestrial intelligence

If ET wanted to phone home, he’d probably do it from Chile. This South American country, narrowly wedged between the Andes, Antarctica and the Pacific Ocean, has been at the centre of the search for extraterrestrial life since the 1960s, when its Cerro Tololo Observatory was established.

Around half the planet’s astronomical observation telescopes are now found here; its clear, high-altitude skies providing the perfect conditions for studying the cosmos. The country is also widely recognised by ufologists as one of the world’s best locations for credible (take from that what you will) encounters with UFOs.

It’s an unusual destination for a cruise, certainly. Nevertheless, inspired by the Artemis II space mission, I’d agreed to go along on Swan Hellenic’s recent voyage aboard the Polar Class ship SH Vega, put together in partnership with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, a heavyweight project dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Two of the world’s most eminent astronomers joined us on board, giving a series of lectures and leading various nighttime stargazing sessions. The first was Dr James De Buizer, a research scientist at the Carl Sagan Centre for Research at the SETI Institute, former aeronaut and assistant director of NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, the world’s largest flying observatory. Joining him was Dr Tom Esposito, a SETI Institute research astronomer focussed on the search for “young” exoplanets (those outside our solar system that are less than 100 million years old).

Aboard the cruise were two astronomers who gave a series of lectures and lead various nighttime stargazing sessions

Our nine-night voyage began in the Chilean port city of Valparaíso, then headed northwards along the South Pacific coastline. Despite the cornucopia of wildlife which populates this southernmost tip of the world (sei whales, bottlenose dolphins, Humboldt penguins – the bucket list goes on), I had my eyes trained constantly upwards, mesmerised by the idea that I was part of a real scientific mission to further the search for life in the stars.

The South Pacific coastline is home to an abundance of wildlife, including penguins - Bjorn Steinbekk

Chile’s Atacama Desert is a hotspot for astronomical research for many reasons, and not just because it’s intensely dry, arid landscape is analogous to the landscape of Mars – both ESA and NASA tested their Mars exploration vehicles there. Low light pollution and a high altitude above much of the light-wave-distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere help make for over 300 clear nights per year on which to scour the heavens for sentient beings.

There’s also the “ancient astronauts” theory that applies to its neighbour, Peru, where the Nazca Lines – a series of 2,000-year-old geoglyphs etched into the desert floor (best admired on a bumpy but breathtaking Cessna flight) – are considered by some, despite scientific explanations to the contrary, to have been landing strips for visitors from other parts of the universe.

A view of the Milky Way rising above the Moai at Ahu Akivi in Easter Island - DAI JIANFENG

Over dinner with James and Tom in the ship’s elegant dining room, I managed to play it cool for a while, before finally hearing myself ask, “Is there life on other planets?” like an excited schoolboy.

Jim’s response was to lead me to the uppermost deck, where other guests were assembled, and confront me with a view of the night sky, the likes of which I had never seen before. It wasn’t just the spectacle of seeing our own Milky Way and two other galaxies (the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds) twinkling with vivid intensity against a deep, inky purple backdrop of infinite mysteries. It was more the fact that the sky was upside down.

Passengers aboard the Polar Class ship SH Vega stargazing - Russell Higham

“Around 88 per cent of the world’s population live north of the equator,” he explained, “and most of them only ever get to see their own hemisphere, filled with the constellations they know, with names from Greek and Roman mythology. But hiding beneath the horizon, blocked by the very Earth itself, is a completely different sky we don’t usually see: that of the Southern Hemisphere.”

Using a high-powered laser to point out the Southern Cross at the southern tip of the Milky Way, Jim reminded us how the Incas believed this iconic constellation – mainly invisible in the Northern Hemisphere – was a portal to another realm in time and space.

It was this cluster of stars, and the southern sky around it, that we scanned for alien life, using Swan Hellenic’s Unistellar smart telescope, which can be linked to SETI via SkyMapper, a global network of telescopes for which Tom serves as chief scientific officer. Even with the naked eye alone, the views were truly breathtaking, although all of Vega’s 76 staterooms were equipped with high-quality binoculars for extracurricular sky-gazing.Yet despite all this, no ET of any kind deigned to show its face.

The club lounge on the SH Vega

A sunset-and-stargazing excursion to the Moon Valley of the Atacama Desert, where the best opportunity might have lain, was cancelled when an overzealous harbourmaster denied our docking at Antofagasta due to high waves. The loss was made up for, though, with a visit to La Serena; officially declared the “Ufology Capital of Chile” by municipal decree in 2002, and also home to the OVNI Museum, dedicated to the area’s numerous UFO sightings. The city sits at the mouth of the pristine-skied Elqui Valley, where the country’s Pisco spirit comes from, an essential ingredient of the famously potent Pisco Sour – a fact possibly not unrelated to the number of spacecraft spottings reported there.

The nearest we came to a close encounter of any kind was when fellow passenger Charles, from Manchester, produced a photograph he’d taken earlier that day, showing it to James and Tom when we were all assembled on the stargazing deck. The picture, clearly showing a bright, shape-shifting mass moving in the sky, caused breathy excitement as Tom initially declared it a genuine UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon, the modern name for a UFO).

The Elqui Valley in northern Chile is where the country’s Pisco spirit for Pisco Sour comes from - Jesse Kraft / EyeEm

Hopes were soon dashed, however, as further investigation by the SETI experts revealed that it was not an ET zipping round the back of the Horsehead Nebula, but was, in fact, the planet Venus, taken with a bit of camera-wobble. A beguiling and spellbinding sight in itself when viewed from the deck of a luxury cruise ship, afloat on a mysterious ocean at the edge of the world. But nothing to “phone home” about.

Not to worry, we still had plenty of penguins and Pisco Sours to keep us company. And over a few of the latter in the ship’s bar, talk soon shifted to a higher plane as Tom explained how it’s in our very nature to seek the answers to the questions of life, the universe and everything.

“We are born of the stars,” he revealed to our wide-eyed group. “The molecules in our bodies are the very same ones forged in the furnaces of dying stars, from elements born during the Big Bang when the universe began.”

It was a sobering thought – or would have been, had the Pisco Sours not been so generously poured.

Essentials

Swan Hellenic has a nine-night cruise to Chile and Peru, onboard SH Vega, from £4,750pp (based on two sharing, on a cruise-only basis). This includes all meals on board, onboard accommodation, 24-hour room service, drinks, lecture programmes by an experienced expedition team and guest speakers, one selected short excursion per port of call, Wi-Fi, onboard gratuities and port taxes. Departs March 30 2027.

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