Futurist Michio Kaku has released a new book that is making some fascinating claims about aliens, who he believes are somewhere out there in this universe. In his book, “The Future of Humanity,” he claims that aliens probably share many characteristics with humans, and there could be untold number of societies in our universe.

In the last few decades, mankind has advanced by leaps and bounds with new technologies, and within our lifetimes we could set up colonies on the moon and on Mars. In addition, we’re discovering billions of Earth-like planets just within the Milky Way galaxy, let along all the many billions of other galaxies out there in our universe.

Even if only a small percentage of those Earth-like planets are hospitable to life, that could represent countless alien civilizations in our universe. And Kaku thinks that these aliens all likely share three features, including stereo vision like humans, opposable thumbs in order to create tools, and language.

Kaku believes that if circumstances were slightly different here on Earth, other creatures could have developed into the advanced species rather than humans.