LONDON, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- A newly-discovered essay written by the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill almost 80 years ago discusses the possibility of aliens in the universe and space travel.
"One day, possibly even in the not very distant future, it may be possible to travel to the moon, or even to Venus or Mars," he wrote 30 years before the first astronaut landed on the moon.
Churchill wrote the 11-page science article in 1939, and the document was unearthed by the National Churchill Museum in Britain.
According to the museum, the essay draft was probably intended for a newspaper, but never published. It was then sent to a U.S. museum in the 1980s until its rediscovery last year.
Churchill's views of potential life in other parts of the universe were very much ahead of his time, such as the intuitive prediction of their existence and the description of their habitable zones.
"All living things of the type we know require water," he said.
Commenting on human civilization, Churchill penned, "I, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time."
"He had a tremendous intellect," Westminster College President Benjamin Ola Akande said about Churchill in a statement.
