With days left on Baba Vanga’s 2025 alien prediction, scientists explain what first contact would look like

A new hypothesis from Columbia University astrophysicist David Kipping suggests humanity’s first sign of alien life won’t be a greeting, but evidence of collapse. Drawing on astronomy’s detection bias, he argues we’re most likely to notice civilisations at their loudest and most unstable moments, not at their peak, a bleak twist on decades of first-contact expectations.