People have been obsessed with UFOs for the longest time.
And, in a recent episode of a TV show on the subject, famed astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, tried to explain why our obsession never fades.
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Impact x Nightline is a TV show that focuses on news on investigative reports and big stories in the news cycle.
It premiered on ABC over a year ago, but it’s now popular again because it’s also airing on Hulu.
In a recent episode of the show, deGrasse Tyson tried to explain what’s going on with our constant obsession with alien life.
“There are people who will see things that are explainable, but they can’t explain it. So to them, it’s unidentified. Fine. Well, let’s investigate it,” deGrasse Tyson said.
This, in fact, is the main focus of the entire program.
According to deGrasse Tyson, the cultural phenomenon behind UFOs is constantly providing fuel for the myth.
In other words, we probably keep seeing UFOs because we kind of want to.
Several prominent scientists argue that there’s no clear evidence that aliens exist, and that most phenomena can be explained rationally.
For the most part, they argue that the vast majority of UFO incidents involve natural light phenomena such as airglow, or can simply be attributed to the fact our skies are basically a highway for satellites.
However, other scientists believe that aliens could exist or, more accurately, they must exist.
Avi Loeb, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University, believes that aliens must exist simply because it would be arrogant to think otherwise.
His point being, even if we don’t know for sure they exist, it is statistically almost certain they do since we live in a giant galaxy that we haven’t fully explored yet.
And our galaxy, albeit large, is still just a tiny dot in the universe.
Having said that, Loeb himself is fully aware that most, if not all, UFO sightings aren’t real.
“Nowadays, there are 10,000 satellites, many of which are communications satellites, and a lot of people mistake them for anomalous objects and there are many drones,” Loeb said in the episode.
And he’s not wrong, from NASA satellites to the ones owned by Elon Musk’s Starlink, it’s like a packed shopping mall up there.
The good news is: governments are taking it seriously now.
Two yeas ago, the US Department of Defense (DOD) has launched the new All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO for short.
This branch of the DOD is entirely devoted to the study of unidentified objects in the sky.
The search for proof of alien life hasn’t produced definitive results yet – but it might.
“If the day arises where they capture one of these things and they find there are aliens in it, that’s cool,” Neil deGrasse Tyson said.
“I’ll rejoice: finally, we found some aliens. But until that day happens, all we can do is collect data.”
