A famous line from Star Trek and, like a lot of those gadgets and scenarios from the TV series, they have either already become a reality or are now a distinct possibility.
Let's talk about the almost weekly announcements of the discovery of distant planets.
In the short time that Nasa's Kepler telescope has been identifying stars with planets, there have been almost 5000 planets identified, many of which exist in the "habitable" zones, that is at a distance not too close or too far from their sun to have temperatures support life and, more importantly, liquid water, an ingredient essential to create life as we know it on Earth.
Here is the real eye-opener, Kepler has discovered these 5000 planets by looking at just one 400th of our galaxy so, extrapolating that out, astronomers estimate there could be 50 billion planets in our galaxy alone.
Multiply that by the number of galaxies in the "known universe" ... and it's about here that the human mind just shuts down like it's in our DNA to switch off when confronted with things we cannot comprehend or just don't want to know because the facts are so utterly bewildering and maybe a little frightening.
Nasa will launch a US$8 billion ($11.3b) telescope in 2020 called the Webb telescope. It will be able to focus not only on distant galaxies but also on nearby stars and their orbiting planets.
As Nasa's chief astronomer said: "Ten years ago we used to gaze at stars and wonder if there were any planets orbiting around them, now we gaze at stars and wonder how many planets are orbiting around them."
There are millions, if not billions, of possible Earth-like planets which brings us to the almost taboo subject — could there be life out there?
If it was just one chance in a million, it would mean thousands of lifeforms, and not necessarily fitting the common "little green men" image. It could be just some struggling little microbe creature similar to how life first evolved here on Earth.
However, what if life did evolve on some distant planet and developed similar to ours, and what if this lifeform was a thousand or more years more advanced than ours?
Humans have been searching for a signal through the SETI (search for extraterrestrial life) programme, looking for an intelligent signal using the radio spectrum. So far nothing conclusive bar a couple of strange signals that are unexplained.
The question is: Do we really want to communicate with an alien lifeform? They may not all be friendly, and anyway, why would a far more advanced intelligence want to communicate with us?
Looking down on Earth with our wars, corruption, murder and violence, we may be thought of as not very advanced as a species — in fact, we may be observed as some primitive lifeform.
Maybe, as some conspiracy theorists believe, we have been and still are being visited. There is a lot of unexplained archaeological evidence to suggest this, backed up by some very credible UFO reports from all over the world.
One example in New Zealand was the Kaikoura lights sighting when an aircraft was "buzzed" for two nights in a row by strange, unexplained balls of light while flying between the North and South Islands.
Many people have seen unexplained flying phenomena or UFOs and don't report them because of the stigma associated with such ideas. But more high profile people are coming forward to confirm the existence of UFO and extraterrestrial contact, including the former Canadian defence minister Paul Hellyer, and Nick Pope, a former high-ranking official for the British Ministry of Defence.
Many ordinary people, like myself, have witnessed one or more extraordinary unexplained events that profoundly changed their minds so we are more open to all possibilities.
If contact with intelligent life is made or — as some believe — has already been made but kept secret, then why the unwillingness of humans to discuss or explore all the possibilities?
Could it be that contact with another lifeform that could be far superior poses serious questions?
And for some, the answers to those questions might not be what they want to hear regarding our own evolution, religion and our place in the universe.
So look up occasionally and just wonder at the prospect that maybe we are not alone ... and, if not, what possibilities await us as a species.
■ Dave Hill is a Whanganui businessman and Wanganui Ratepayers' Association chairman.
