Aliens may contact Earth by 2029, according to a group of scientists at the University of California Los Angeles who have been studying a NASA probe traveling through space, currently 27 light years away. The researchers speculate that extraterrestrials might have intercepted a signal sent to the probe in 2002 and subsequently returned a signal expected to reach Earth by 2029. In 2002, as part of a routine procedure to transmit data and establish communication, NASA sent a radio wave transmission to the Pioneer 12 probe. This signal also reached a star located approximately 27 light-years from Earth, as transmissions tend to spread out upon contacting an object.