I’m a Physicist Who Searches for Aliens, and UFOs Are No Big Deal

I’m a Physicist Who Searches for Aliens. U.F.O.s Don’t Impress Me.

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This month, the TV news program “60 Minutes” aired footage of “unidentified aerial phenomena” filmed by Navy pilots, along with the pilots’ vivid eyewitness accounts. It’s astonishing. So does that mean UFOs and aliens exist?

UFO sightings—even videos or photos of UFOs—cannot serve as proof that UFOs and aliens exist. A UFO sighting is not evidence of aliens. That way of thinking isn’t scientific. No matter how mysterious the maneuvers an unidentified object in a video appears to perform, what was captured on film could be some other phenomenon. To prove that UFOs exist, you need measuring instruments far more precise than video footage. And needless to say, personal testimony has low reliability.

Let’s think about it more sensibly. If aliens really do exist, why don’t they land on the White House lawn and announce themselves? Do aliens have some hidden agenda? A purpose that requires concealing their identity? Do you really think aliens that flew here from across the infinite cosmos would be so incompetent?

Of course, I’m not dismissing the UFO videos. They too will undergo scientific and thorough investigation.

Shall I offer a more fanciful explanation? The UFOs could be Russian or Chinese drones. They could be an attempt to test the electronic warfare and target-detection capabilities of U.S. Navy aircraft. In the past, the U.S. did similar things to test the sensitivity of Soviet radar systems. Such hypotheses are far more plausible than assuming the existence of aliens.

Aliens aren’t something you find through this kind of sensationalist story. We scientists are already preparing for important discoveries far out in space—things like the city lights or industrial chemicals on a distant world. Extremely rigorous scientific methodology will be what verifies such discoveries.

Scientific work—even a discovery thrilling enough to be earth-shattering—is for the most part painfully systematic and tedious. But that is the price we pay. What we want is not mere belief. We want to know.

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