The event was originally conceived as a tribute to the Alien sci-fi franchise, starring Sigourney Weaver – but these days it is often an excuse to celebrate all things extra-terrestrial.
And with the successful launch of NASA’s TESS Planet Hunter satellite, which will actively look for planets which could be capable of sustaining life, all eyes are on the stars it seems.
The idea of proclaiming April 26 as Alien Day was inspired by the name of the moon on which the first movie is partly set - LV426.
The event is typically marked by exclusive announcements about the acclaimed franchise, as well as screening of the various Alien movies in cinemas around the world.
In 2016, contestants took part in The Ultimate Trivia Challenge, a 24-hour Trivia contest via Twitter, while Reebok produced the limited edition Reebok High-Top Stomper trainsers, modelled on footwear worn by Weaver's character Ripley.
And last year an immersive Alien Day celebration in London run by 20th Century Fox saw fans getting the chance to dress up in costumes from Alien: Covenant, the latest in the series, as well as tucking into Alien-themed snacks and drinks.
This year's event will see a publicity stunt by Swedish beauty brand FOREO, whereby they will launch "UFOs" into the skies next to landmarks across the UK, including St Paul's Cathedral and Brighton Pier.
Scientists are extremely excited at the potential offered to them by TESS, which stands for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which will allow them to seek out new worlds, although not boldly go to them.
Jennifer Burt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has estimated within the first two years it will add thousands of previously undocumented planets to the record, most smaller than Neptune.
She added: “So, the kind that have the potential for being the terrestrial-type worlds that we're most interested in.”
According to a YovGov survey in 2015, more than half of the UK population (52 percent) believe there is intelligent life out there in the universe, and it’s a sentiment echoed across the world, with similar stats in the USA (54 percent) and Germany (56 percent), to name but two.
Nor is this limited to us mere mortals – bona fide celebs also believe in little green men and women, it seems.
Khloe Kardashian, for example, has tweeted about seeing strange lights in the sky while Hillary Clinton wanted files about UFOs to be made public during her presidential campaign.
Fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter went one better, claiming to have seen one - albeit seven years before he was elected President in 1976.
Meanwhile, former One Direction-er Zayn Malik told Glamour that his decision to leave the boyband came after an alien spoke to him in a dream, and Ariana Grande and Katy Perry both freely admit to being obsessed with aliens.
Even Winston Churchill penned an 11-page essay entitled “Are We Alone In the Universe?”
In the past UFO sightings have often been shrugged off, with 17 percent of us apparently believing we have already been contacted but that the government has covered it up, much like what happened in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
However, attitudes seem to be changing, and the New York Times reported recently that the Pentagon has invested $22M in investigating UFOs over the last five years.
NY Magazine also commented: “Just 30 years ago, we had not discovered a single planet outside our solar system.
“Now we know of more than 3,000 of them, and we know nearly every star in the night sky has at least one planet in its orbit.”a
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