Klaatu Barada Nikto

Nowadays UFOs are often called UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). Why? Did ETs complain that UFO was an offensive term? To whom did they send the memo? I think it should be released to the public. Until then I’ll stick with UFO. By whatever alphabetical designation, the investigation of UFOs known as Project Blue Book was closed as long ago as 1969, officially because the US Air Force determined there was no evidence of a threat to national security even in the case of unexplained sightings. The Air Force also noted (as UFO skeptics always have) that the failure to determine a mundane explanation in some particular case doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Times have changed, but we’ll return to that in a bit.
 
As a kid and throughout my teens I loved books, magazines, and movies about UFOs. Even though I was in fact skeptical of them being extraterrestrial vehicles, I enjoyed imagining what it would be like if they were just that. So did many of my friends. I knew at least a few of them were true believers – or purported to be – but just how many surprised me. I found out my senior year of high school when I was sure a teacher had overreached. Students in the class were pooh-poohing some old superstitions (I no longer remember which ones or in what context) and disdaining the previous generations who believed them. The teacher Mr. Drew countered by saying that every generation has its own mythology and superstitions, and that he easily could provoke an emotional reaction from us by questioning one of our own. He took a deep breath and said simply, “UFOs.” My initial assumption was that he had made a bad gamble and that (barring one or two outliers) the class would respond with a collective shrug. I was wrong. Mr. Drew was right. A cacophony of challenging voices immediately arose citing evidence of aliens-among-us. Apparently, after high school folks grow only marginally more skeptical. Today, according to an Ipsos poll, just under half of American adults believe that at least some UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft.
 
The notion of ETs has long fascinated people. The Roman author (writing in Greek) Lucian in the second century CE wrote about a battle among extraterrestrials in his tall tale A True Story. Voltaire wrote of them in the 18^th century in Micromegas. HG Wells’ War of the Worlds continues to be reimagined. ER Burroughs fantasized about Martian princesses. TV shows keep returning to the premise, such as People of Earth, which deserved a third season. Documentaries and pseudo-documentaries abound.
 
UFOs are back in the news this year with the release of footage from naval aircraft of objects that seem not merely to fly but to flit. In a replay of the “flying disc” moment (an ill-considered press release) in the 1947 Roswell incident, the Pentagon said it couldn’t rule out aliens. (BTW, about a decade ago I blogged about the iconic Roswell incident: Sip from the Saucer.) The Pentagon is being (what a surprise) disingenuous. “Can’t rule out” is deliberately near-meaningless. The phrase doesn’t mean the top brass is concerned that the objects are extraterrestrial. I regret that. I really do. I want them to be aliens. But the very fact that they are so obsessively cozy with US aircraft carriers in particular makes it far more likely they are drones: spy drones for some other military, false flag drones for our own, or both. Astrophysicist Adam Frank, whose job is to search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence for NASA, agrees, saying the “UFOs don’t impress me.” He adds, “if the mission of these aliens calls for stealth, they seem surprisingly incompetent.” Civilian military analyst Tyler Rogoway reached the same conclusion. He notes that drones can do things piloted aircraft cannot (pilots prefer to survive their flights) and that the footage in any event is less impressive than much of the popular press suggests. Apparently bizarre maneuvers become nothing of the kind when taking into account motions of the chasing aircraft and the camera equipment. The crafts’ persistent interest in naval assets and disinterest in pretty much anything else is a major clue. If any members of my old senior class are reading this, some are probably shouting at me through the computer – maybe even reciting the Drake Equation (a way of guesstimating the probability of alien civilizations). Nonetheless, the mundane explanation just by being possible can’t help but also be more probable. It’s a shame though.

Just in case I’m wrong, however, I’m glad that Nabisco has taken a friendly approach to the matter. The company is offering Oreo cookies to the aliens. I don’t think that has been tried before. It would work for me. Were I an interstellar traveler, I'd be much more comfortable with it than with the kinky invitation etched on the Pioneer probes.