We Should Take UFOs Seriously And Here's Why

Are we alone in the universe? Either Yes or No is not a satisfactory answer. To think that we’re the only in the boundless universe sounds lonely, but to think there’s someone or something else (like UFOs) out there is scary.

In 2002, NASA held Contact Conference discussing opinions about extraterrestrials. As the meeting was going on, a participant said out loud, “You have absolutely no idea what is out there!” Everyone was silent for the statement was so true, and they were so afraid of aliens visiting Earth. However, we were still relying on the fact that the distances one star to another are too vast to wipe our fear.

Kevin Knuth – a physicist and former NASA researcher, who attended the conference, thinks that it’s not sustainable to hold on blanket skepticism about extraterrestrials. He thinks that from a technological view, interstellar travel is achievable.

As recalled by the physicist, back in 1988, while Knuth was discussing a UFO-related cattle mutilation with several students at Montana State University, a physics professor participated in. He said that his colleagues at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana were facing troubles with UFOs shutting their nuclear missiles down. Knuth, at that time, did not buy the story. But two decades later, Knuth watched footage of a press conference in which some former personnel of the US Air Force and Malmstrom AFB described similar events occurring in the 60s.

Kevin Knuth

Knuth believes it’s possible that extraterrestrial flying objects whose technologies way surpass our best aircraft, and he has evidence for that.

The Fermi paradox

Enrico Fermi was a famous physicist for raising thought-provoking questions. Back in 1950, after a discussion on UFOs over lunch At Los Alamos National Laboratory, Fermi said: “Where’s everybody?”

By Fermi’s estimation, the galaxy had around 300 billion stars, many of which were born billion years before the Sun and many of which might be habitable. Even if only a small proportion of this number can host intelligent life, there would still be a considerable number of intelligent civilizations within the galaxy. By that, there could have been tens to tens of thousands of civilizations.

Our Milky Way galaxy

Using the current rocket-based techs we’ve developed for space flight, it would take a civilization like ours about 5 to 50 million years to colonize the Milky Way galaxy. As that should have taken place several times in our galaxy, where is the proof for these civilizations? The gap between the presumption that there have been no visitations observed and the expectation for evidence of extraterrestrial visitations and civilization is named the Fermi Paradox.

To sum up the situation, Carl Sagan made a perfect statement that we need extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.

The point is there is currently no official documents about UFO encounter and governments across the world may have concealed such information. However, there are still more than enough scraps of evidence to call on a serious scientific study.

UFOs, a taboo topic for professional scientists

From the scientific approach, it requires testable hypotheses so scientists can verify interferences. Because UFO encounters cannot be controlled and do not repeat, it’s extremely challenging to study them. But the key point here is that UFO is a taboo topic.

While the idea of UFOs has interested people for decades, it appears that governments, media, and scientists have tried to deny it by claiming the encounters to result from human actions or weather phenomenon. So, although the topic of UFOs is off the table for official channels, it’s still going on among pseudoscientists.

In some way, UFO skepticism has grown to some sort of religion where the possibility of extraterrestrials without scientific evidence is dismissed while making silly assumptions that describe just one or two sides of UFO encounters to strengthen public belief. Scientifically, all data must be considered with every possible hypothesis, and as little is known about UFOs or encounters with them, the hypotheses relating to extraterrestrials cannot be ruled out for now. In fact, many of these encounters defy conventional explanation.

And thanks to the media, the skepticism is amplified through information publication about UFOs when there’s something exciting, but always mocking and reassuring people that there’s no way it’s true. Nevertheless, there are convincing encounters and witnesses.

Why don’t astronomers see UFOs?

The truth is, they do. Professor of space science and astrophysics Peter Sturrock at Stanford University, in 1977, sent 2,611 questionnaires to members of the American Astronomical Society about UFO sightings. There were 1,356 respondents, 4.6% of which said they witnessed or recorded aerial phenomena that could not be explained. This figure is close to the nearly 5 percent inexplicable UFO sightings.

And Sturrock was not surprised to find that most UFO witnesses were night sky observers. Also, 80 percent said they were willing to do research on UFO phenomenon provided that there was a way to. While over 50 percent believed the topic of UFOs should be studied, 20 percent thought otherwise. From the survey, it is likely that younger scientists are more concerned about studying UFOs.

UFOs observation happened on telescopes too. An experienced amateur astronomer observed an object that was shaped like a guitar pick flying through the view field of his telescope. A book titled “Wonders in the Sky” documented further sightings. It includes a large number of aerial phenomena observations remaining unexplained by astronomers that was published in various scientific journals from the 1700s to 1800s.

Military and government officers give the most reliable evidence

Notably, government officials are among those with the most credible observations. In 1997, Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (CEFAA) was founded by the Chilean government, responsible for studying UFOs. In 2017, the organization released a UFO footage captured with a Wescam infrared camera attached to a helicopter.

Since 2008, other countries including the UK, Russia, France, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Ecuador, Denmark, and Brazil, have been declassifying their UFO files. COMETA (the French Committee for In-Depth Studies) – an unofficial group of high-profile scientists for UFO study – conducted research in the late 1990s and released their findings in COMETA Report.

According to the group, 5% of encounters were reliable but could not be explained. Besides their best assumption which said the observed crafts were extraterrestrial, COMETA alleged the US government of concealing evidence of UFOs.

Additionally, Iran has had concerns over “CIA drones” that were spherical UFOs spotted near nuclear power plants. The UFOs was reported to measure 1.5 meters in diameter and can speed up to Mach 10, able to leave the atmosphere. At such speeds, the observed flying objects are equally fast with the fastest experimental aircraft, but the fact that they have no visible propulsion mechanism is unthinkable.

In December 2017, NYT revealed a story about a classified $22-million program for UFO research – the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program which was led by Luis Elizondo. Elizondo, also a former Pentagon official, reportedly resigned from his position at the program as he protested against lack of support and funding and extreme secrecy.

Then To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science recruited Elizondo and some other people from the defense and intelligence community. Tom DeLonge is the founder of this academy, with the aim to study interstellar travel and UFOs.

Along with launching the academy, the Pentagon revealed three videos of encounters with UFOs captured by cameras attached to F-18 fighter jets.

A topic worthy of serious study

A lot of evidence shows us that a number of these UFO observations are an unidentified craft with the flight capabilities beyond any technology created by human. Although none of the cases provides solid evidence to be put under the scientific scope, there are multiple cases observed simultaneously by reliable witnesses, including photographic proof and radar returns that reveal compelling activity patterns.

The information declassified from undercover studies is exciting, yet not scientifically helpful. The topic of UFOs is worth opening an open scientific study, but that would require actual evidence instead of belief or prior expectation.

If it’s true that extraterrestrials visit Earth, studying their nature and intention would bring us significant benefits. It would also be an invaluable opportunity to broaden and advance our technology and knowledge as well as reevaluate how we define our place within the vast universe.