Representative image (Picture credit: AP)
As the US heads back towards the moon and public curiosity over UFOs grows again, a familiar question has returned: if intelligent life exists elsewhere, what would it make of humans?That debate has picked up fresh momentum after former President Barack Obama said in February that aliens are “real”, while adding he “hasn’t seen them” and that “they’re not being kept at Area 51”. President Donald Trump later said he would direct the release of government files because of “tremendous interest”.The timing has added to the buzz. Interest in UFOs is also building as Nasa prepares for Wednesday’s Artemis II mission, which will send four astronauts on a fly-around of the moon before they return to Earth.
Why Americans still believe ‘the truth is out there’
Public belief in extraterrestrial life remains strong. A 2021 Pew Research Center survey cited by AP found about two-thirds of Americans believe intelligent life likely exists on other planets. Around half of US adults said UFOs reported by military personnel are “definitely” or “probably” evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.Bill Diamond, president and chief executive of the SETI Institute in California, was quoted by news agency AP as saying that the feeling is deeply human.“We don’t want to think this is the only place in this extraordinarily and incomprehensibly large universe where life and intelligence and even technology have emerged,” he said.“It sort of says about humans, ’We don’t want to be alone.’”
What aliens might think of Earth
For some scientists, the more uncomfortable question is not whether aliens exist, but how they would judge us.Theoretical physicist Avi Loeb, director of Harvard’s Institute for Theory & Computation and head of the Galileo Project, gave a bleak answer in comments.“If I were looking at Earth from a distance, I would be pretty disappointed,” Loeb said. “Most of our investing is dealing with conflicts to prevent other people from killing us or us killing others. Look at the Ukraine war over a little bit of territory. That is not a sign of intelligence.”Loeb went even further, saying, “They might be laughing at us. They might be watching us … to make sure we will not become predators, that we will not become dangerous to them.”University of Michigan astronomy professor Edwin Bergin offered a similar view, saying any advanced beings would likely find humanity chaotic, according to AP.“I would think that they would look at us like we were crazy … but they would come out,” he said. “I mean, why come here otherwise unless you’re going to sit and observe.”
Roswell, pop culture and fear of invasion
America’s fascination with alien life stretches back decades.Public obsession intensified after debris was recovered near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. The military first said it had found a flying disc, then later said it was a weather balloon.That reversal fuelled decades of conspiracy theories, while Hollywood helped shape the modern alien image — from flying saucers and little green men to the familiar “grey” humanoids. April 5 is marked across the Star Trek franchise as “First Contact Day”, tied to the fictional 2063 date when humans first meet Vulcans.Priscilla Wald, a Duke University professor who teaches science fiction,said that pop culture’s tendency to imagine hostile aliens says more about humans than extraterrestrials.“It seems to me it’s a reflection on who we are, that we’re projecting onto aliens the way we treat each other,” Wald said. “So the aliens are coming down, they want to conquer us, they’re violent. Who does that sound like? It sounds like us.”
UAPs, sightings and the push for proof
The older term UFO is increasingly being replaced by UAP — unidentified aerial phenomena or unidentified anomalous phenomena.The Pentagon released hundreds of reports in 2024 involving unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena, but its review found no sign that the incidents were extraterrestrial in origin.Diamond said that does not mean the objects are imaginary.“Absolutely, there are such things” as UAPs and UFOs, he told AP.“People observe things in the sky that they can’t immediately identify or recognize as either human engineering such as planes or drones or helicopters, or animals, such as birds, and therefore they don’t know what they are,” he added.Debbie Dmytro, a 56-year-old medical professional from Michigan’s southern Oakland County, described the recent sightings. She said she saw a greenish object over Royal Oak on March 1 that did not resemble a plane or helicopter, though she accepted it could have been a drone.But she said a 2023 sighting in the same area was harder to explain.“Four yellow lights, yellowish golden lights and they were all flying very, very low,” Dmytro said.“I’ve never seen anything so low without any noise and flying in complete uniformity,” she said. “Is it something man-made? Is it something that’s not manmade? Who knows?”
Retired admiral claims ‘nonhuman intelligence’ is real
Some of the strongest claims came from retired Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, who says the government knows more than it has revealed.“The nonhuman intelligence that operates them or controls them are absolutely real,” Gallaudet told AP. “We’ve recovered crashed craft. We don’t know if they’re extraterrestrial in origin.”Gallaudet, who served as acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and took part in a 2024 congressional hearing on UAP disclosure, said Trump’s promised release of files matters only if it actually happens.He also argued that classified material should be shared with scientists. AP reported that Gallaudet said the Navy is holding a “trove” of UAP videos and that he personally viewed classified footage during his 32 years in the service.“When you look at these things in our airspace having near collisions with our aircraft, that’s a real valid concern,” he said. “We are just not sure of what they are and what they intend to do with their interaction with humanity. That could be a national security threat, or not.”“When has ignorance ever been a good national strategy?” Gallaudet added. “Whether it be scary, harmful or not, or a mix, I think seeking the truth is in our best interest.”
Why secrecy remains tied to national security
Much of the secrecy around UAPs is linked to defence concerns rather than proof of aliens.Diamond said sensitive military and surveillance technology often detects objects that cannot be immediately identified, but the systems themselves are classified.“We have pretty advanced technologies, satellite, ground-based that are for various purposes mostly national security and defense that are pointing at the sky or things on board aircraft,” Diamond said. “Sometimes these pick up objects. The technology behind it is sensitive and protected.”Still, he also argued that a genuine extraterrestrial encounter would be almost impossible to hide.“If any civilization has mastered interstellar travel, they have technology and capabilities beyond our wildest comprehension,” Diamond said. “If they want to interact, they will; if they don’t, they won’t. If they want to be seen, they will be, and if not, they won’t be!”