Tight makeup budgets justified!: Russian says alien first contact due by 2131—with bipedals!

I know we've had some loopy surveys and opinion pieces from Russian pols and scientists in the past...

But here comes one, Andrei Finkelstein, who predicts that Earth humanity will have "real" alien first contact far ahead of Cochrane's with Vulcans in 2063—32 years or more earlier, to be exact.

And stop pooh-poohing the bumpy-headed aliens, while you're at it:

"The astronomer added that 10 percent of known planets circling suns in the galaxy resemble Earth, making life on such planets highly likely, and that aliens are most likely to resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head, per Reuters."

Finkelstein's remarks came Monday during an international SETI conference in Russia. Ironically, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in Mountain View, Calif., is suffering from funding cuts and a trimmed budget that has left its ATA program unable to scan the stars for life, even as this bold pronouncement is being made. You can help out by giving what you can to its $200,000 fund drive here.