UPDATE: See the review of this movie that reader Dan links to in comment #5.
I’ve recently heard a lot about UFOs, mainly because I have a friend who seems to think they’re real. I’ve watched the videos taken from planes supposedly showing alien craft, and I’ve read various explanations for them, both involving and not involving aliens. I’ve seen people swearing that actual UFO craft are in the possession of the U.S. government, which is “reverse engineering” them to see how they work, and I’ve heard people who are considered “reputable” espouse belief in UFOs.
But in the end I remain deeply skeptical. Where did these aliens come from: a star light years away? Most of all, I think that if there’s credible evidence for UFOs—evidence including remains of alien vessels themselves—then why is the press ignoring such a big story? It would be the biggest news story of our lifetime, by far. Yet the press doesn’t seem that eager to sniff out the hard evidence for UFOs—the supposedly extant captured flying saucers. The people who spread these stories seem to me to be conspiracy theorists, like the Q-Anon people.
Still, the story won’t go away—its persistence being yet another reason why people find UFOs credible. Well, creationism hasn’t gone away, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Like creationism, UFOs just appeal to people with certain points of view: in the case of creationism, religious views. In that sense the UFO-believers are like religionists, for a lot of their beliefs in aliens rests on our failure to yet understand those high-velocity specks photographed by some aircraft. It’s the Argument from Ignorance. Goddies like Ross Douthat think that if we can’t explain phenomena like the “fine-tuning” of the Universe,or human consciousness, it points to God. Likewise, if the UFOers can’t explain those high-velocity specks, well, it points to aliens.
Now the NYT has an article about a new documentary showing “credible” government officials espousing belief in UFO. Click below to read the article, or see it archived here.
Excepts (indented):
The long government shutdown had left a secret screening in limbo. But Monday on Capitol Hill, a handful of House members filed into a committee room to watch a new documentary featuring nearly three dozen government officials and others discussing what they can disclose about unidentified aerial phenomena, long known as U.F.O.s.
The unusual bipartisan mix of Republicans and Democrats had gathered to watch “The Age of Disclosure,” which had its high-profile debut at South by Southwest earlier this year. In the film, 34 former and current senior members of government, military and intelligence groups claim that they have knowledge of advanced nonhuman intelligence and contend, among other things, that there’s been an 80-year cover-up of the reverse engineering of technology retrieved from crashes.
Perhaps the biggest name in “The Age of Disclosure” (in theaters Friday and on Amazon Prime), is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the former senator whose participation helped open the door for other top officials to go on record when he served as the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In the film, he cites “repeated instances of something operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities, and it’s not ours. And we don’t know whose it is.”
. . .Representative André Carson of Indiana, a Democrat from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, praised the documentary, saying it “pieces everything together that we’ve seen on television, on film and on social media.” Carson, a host of the screening who also appears in the film, added, “There is a section in here that will bring context to all the fuzzy photos that we’ve seen.”
One attendee, Representative Eric Burlison, Republican of Missouri, said he hoped “The Age of Disclosure” would help make the U.A.P. issue a priority for the Trump administration.
“I think we’ve had enough hearings” and it is now time for hard evidence or “receipts,” he said in an interview while waiting for his colleagues to arrive. “I’m trying to find the receipts. In private conversations, I’ve been given enough information to find them, I just don’t have access.”
. . . . The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, tasked with investigating U.A.P., has said it has no verifiable information to support reports of a government program to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial materials.
. . . . The controversial documentary has drawn mixed reactions from critics, with several reviews questioning unproven statements.
The showing was held in part to mobilize support for the U.A.P. Disclosure Act, legislation proposing a path to undoing government secrecy on this topic that has been introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota. Rounds was interviewed in the film.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, did not attend but sent a statement calling for greater transparency and saying she would work in Congress to “reduce the stigma around reporting, strengthen our national security, and ensure U.A.P. records are being properly disclosed.”
Right now I’d put my money on their non-existence, but of course I was a career scientist and my mindset is one of doubt, especially about extraordinary claims. Show me a flying saucer and I’ll change my mind.
I am just always interested in what stake people have in there being aliens. It strikes me as a form of millenarianism. They want aliens to come and save us and make Earth perfect. Or the want aliens to destroy us as irredeemably corrupt, or destroy the wicked and reward the good. There’s a lot of that around.
Qui non si tratta di credere o non credere! Anche lo scetticismo a oltranza, aprioristico è una forma di dogmatismo! L’unica cosa che appare evidente è la quantità incredibilmente alta di INDIZI di ALTA QUALITÀ sulla presenza aliena. Certo, mancano ancora le prove certe e definitive, ma se usassimo una bilancia, il piatto penserebbe decisamente dalla parte della probabile presenza aliena sul nostro pianeta.
Mi dispiace, amico mio, ma non sai di cosa stai parlando. Addio.
The word “Unidentified” is doing a lot of work.
I think Michael Shermer’s Skeptic and related material has the most clear-cut one-stop-shop for “UFOs”.
An old cult I (re)-learned about recently was … here it is :
Heaven’s Gate
It’s fun to look at the religious themes in these UFO cults – salvation, e.g. etc. search “UFO cult”… and how they react to e.g. failed prophecies.
One of my guilty pleasures is The Rookie. Season 2 episode 6 includes a story line based on the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult and their desire to be rescued by aliens. The story line ends better than the cult did 🙁
Once upon a time, sceptics questioned people who claimed that they were abducted by space aliens. The sceptics asked them why they didn’t grab something from the UFO, and smuggle it back to Earth. That would be evidence that they actually were abducted by aliens. The myth of “anal probes” was created shortly thereafter.
In the Early 90s, I marketed a line of TShirts based upon my comic ideas. I had a professional comic artist design them. One of my best selling shirts was called “Green Trash”. The design consisted of three green aliens sitting on the stoop in front of their mobile home, drinking beer. There was a dog chained in the yard, which was strewn with trash. And front and center in the yard was an old, beat up, flying saucer up on blocks.
The T shirts sound pretty funny!
I pray to the FSM, please send me one of those shirts! As an ordained minister in the Church of the FSM as of 10/27/2025, I would wear the shirt as I performed my pastoral duties, including marriages, funerals, casting out false prophets, etc.
NewsNation has been covering this story, having some of the protagonists on the air and showing brief excerpts from the new documentary you cite.
I don’t believe it. With hundreds of professional astronomers, astrophysicists, and other active researchers out there, surely if there really were UFO’s it would be a huge scientific discovery and we’d know about it. A government cover up? I don’t believe that either. Where would the government’s evidence come from if not from the same professional scientists? Even if some of them are “government scientists,” those scientists participate at scientific meetings and have conversations with colleagues. Again, if it were true that we’ve been visited by technology produced through non-human agency, we’d know about it. There’s a lot of distrust about the workings of government today, so the idea that “the government” is hiding something and needs “more transparency” is in the air and is appealing to whose who distrust.
Is it possible? As a scientist, I have to conclude that yes, it is possible. Is it worth altering my life. No.
Strange, isn’t it, how it’s only ever American territory that they crash land on. No, wait, there are plenty of UFOs recovered from Siberia also. Putin is in on the conspiracy with Trump and all American Presidents over the last 80 years. As have been all governments of China, Iran, Argentina, and everywhere else. I know, it must be The Jews! Only they could organise a conspiracy involving so many different governments and so many different scientists and keep it hidden for 80 years!
LOL. As I started reading your response I thought (jokingly) that it must be the Jews. And a split second later, in the very next sentence, I read in your response: “it must be the Jews!” Of course it was.
Always us Norman, always us. 🙂
D.A.
NYC
Of course it’s the Jews: Jewish space chazers.
Where did they come from? A star light years away? Obviously not. They’re right underfoot in Agartha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agartha
Why is the press ignoring such a big story? Duh; what part of “vast conspiracy” don’t you understand?
It’s so simple.
Jason Colavito’s review of the docu-movie sums it up very well. No evidence, only the same old tired stories. See: https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-age-of-disclosure-an-ancient-aliens-episode-with-better-lighting
Devastating review. I forwarded it to a believer. She won’t read it.
“Triumph of the Swindle”!
Meh. UFOlogists have been making the same claims for 75 years. Gubmint conspiracies and blurry photos. There are more than a million take offs every day ( and, hopefully the same number of landings). Civilian, commercial, and military aircraft, everyone of them carrying people with cameras. Literally millions of cameras is th sky every day and still no unambiguous photos.
UFOists; put or shut up. It’s been seventy five or more years you’ve been claiming these things are coming here. When I was young, I thought they did too. But then i graduated high school, went to university and learned how to think. ‘m 65 now and still bubkis from UFOists.
It’s the same with gjosts; billions of cameras and video surveillance equipment recording our world every day and all we get are chairs moving across the room (well hidden ropes) or shadow pareidolia.
Meh.
Exactly. Earlier this month an MD-11 crashed at Louisville airport. Within a day or so, there were at least 5 different videos of the crash available on Twitter, all of fairly high quality. The UFO enthusiasts have never managed to put together even one middling-quality, quarter-convincing video.
NASA commissioned an Independent Study Team in 2022-23 regarding what the Agency calls UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). It appears to be a serious team, based on its membership, approach to task, and final report. The 39-page final report is available at url
https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/uap-independent-study-team-final-report.pdf
The report includes a list of team members. As an example, the executive secretary for the team is a PhD astrophysicist with white house fellow experience. It was sponsored out of NASA’s Space Science Mission Directorate. One of the real issues they bring to light is possible impacts/interaction with air traffic safety, a shared responsibility between NASA Aeronautics and the FAA. Former astronaut and fighter pilot Scott Kelly (some readers might recognize him as the twin of Former pilot, astronaut and current U.S. Senator Mark Kelly) was also a member of this team.
I particularly like the work product report on pp24-25, “UAP in a Scientific Context” and recommend it to WEIT readers….”extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”….indeed!
I don’t think UFO believers are political conspirators. In general i think they are gullible which makes them susceptible to religious and UFO ideas. We all have to watch our own gullibility, of course.
This UFO gullibility can lead them to believe in hoaxes as well as “well-meaning” inquiry, just as the religious gullible get taken in by grifting preachers.
The Occam’s Razor thing added to “extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence” fits here.
Americans also find it extra credible when it’s some former top-ranking military man telling them about UFOs. Because someone like that could not be wrong, as the uniform imprints you with a special kind of wisdom.
I am sure that military experience, even US Air Force experience, does not make one an expert in the artifacts that cameras make. More likely, a high degree of training can make one overly confident in areas in which one knows little.
But I do know a thing or two about cameras. The recent release of military recordings a few years ago showing blobs that exactly pace jet aircraft over the sea, and sometimes suddenly zoom away at incredible speeds, are simply a common artifact that cameras make, and the sudden movements of the blobs are bc the cameras are gimbaled. The blobs rapidly expand and contract and have a polygonal form. Yes … that is made by the shadow of the aperture blades opening and closing. I see it all the time in my cameras. It’s called bokeh.
What I find suspicious is that this kind of aerial phenomena happens mostly in America. Remember last year the Mystery New Jersey drones from Iranian mothership? It’s similar to the Marian apparitions that happen only to Catholics.
Michael Shermer has a long, detailed discussion of Farah’s film The Age of Disclosure here: https://www.skeptic.com/article/the-aliens-are-here-again-a-review-of-the-age-of-disclosure/
And, if one really does want to put their money on the non-existence of UFOs (etc) in the last two paragraphs Shermer talks about how to to that…
Whether there is intelligent life on other planets, and whether they may be visiting Earth are two separate subjects. Considering the huge amount of possible planets in this galaxay; I think it is highly likely that the former is true. However, I was an airline aircraft mechanic for 10 years, and then an airline pilot for 15 years; and I have never seen an aerial vehicle that I did not, at least in general, know what it was. Many of you, however, might think that a couple of those vehicles I saw were from another planet. I am former military, and, as a civilian, worked with the military, landing at many military bases around the world. I saw many interesting things while at those bases.
Traveling to other stars is impossible, except the very very very far stretch of generation ships and cryogenic freezing of cells for future cloning. The time to get to the nearest star is probably centuries under very high acceleration, and meanwhile the radiation will ensure that genetic material is badly damaged.
“Hard” SF contains many not-obviously-unworkable scenarios. Clarke’s Rama, for example.
Sorry, I left out the last sentence: None of those things I saw were from another planet.
Yes, I kind of auto-completed that myself. 🙂
I tried to put a smile face here, but apparantly I’m not computer literate enough; so this will have to do: ” 🙂 “
Damn! I guess I just taught myself how to do it!
And as I sortof anticipated above, Michael Shermer has chimed in :
“The Aliens Are Here…Again!
My review of The Age of Disclosure & commentary on why most scientists remain skeptical that contact has been made.
But if disclosure really happens this time I will gladly change my mind.”
https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/1992735967221080272?s=46
That^^^ has a link to Skeptic that I can’t see because of a ‘disabled javascript’ error screen.
I find it impossible to believe that if the government had actual alien spacecraft in its possession for many years, that none of this would have been leaked. Presumably other governments have spacecraft as well, or at the very least gather intelligence on us and know that we have them. And they themselves have no security leaks.
The probability of all of this remaining secret in these circumstances must be close to zero. I think that people who are vulnerable to conspiracy theories of this magnitude have a fundamental cognitive problem, akin to dyslexia or extreme innumeracy. They seem to be unable to process probability in the way that most people are able to. In fact, I wonder if innumeracy and inability evaluate the probability of events are related.
If there was a crashed alien spaceship the chance that we could reverse engineer anything from it is pretty low. It would be as if an F-22 went back in time 2000 years and crashed next to Ancient Rome. The Romans would get no practical knowledge from trying to reverse engineer it
Trousers? Chariot cup-holders?
Do aliens exist? Yes. Do some aliens have space ships? Yes. Do some of the aliens with space ships get into those space ships and travel to Earth? The odds are low. Are the odds as low as magic being real? No, not that low. But pretty low.
I would say “probably” to your first two questions. You cannot answer them with the certainty that you do, because we just don’t know.
It seems to me that given the size and age of the universe, the answer has to be yes. Or at least, the odds of it being no are so infinitesamally small as to be effectively yes. Monkeys, typewriters, and Shakespeare, as it were.
Not so much the size and age of the universe but the time an individual planet would have to remain capable of supporting life long enough that technology could advance far enough. For all we know, civilizations develop telescopes and orbital communication satellites somewhere in the universe many times every second. But they don’t get far enough along to master interstellar travel before they succumb to environmental collapse or nuclear war or some other catastrophe. Or they just lose interest in the project as not worth the effort and invent holographic tactile pornography instead.
“To be or not to be. That is the tveszi,nfl.”
“holographic tactile pornography”
?
HHmmm. I’d say there are worse ways to end one’s civilization.
If you know where that stuff is, I’d like to know (for the articles of course!) 😉
D.A.
NYC
IIRC, TL’s version sounded like “gaZORninplat”.
But mine was ~random, pecking the keyboard with eyes closed. Tom’s had the look of, well, Tom. Or MAD Magazine.
Thanks for the citation, though. I couldn’t remember where I encountered it many years ago.
Urban dictionary attributes it to Bob Newhart, 1960.
CCR had a good guess at what would happen if an alien spacecraft crashed on Earth: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zwAcvIZzuM0
First off, I apologize for my late answer. Could some ‘space aliens’ be the result of intelligent life on other planets? Hard to say. However, the sheer number of stars make one suspect that the answer is Yes.
I have ‘proof’ that space aliens really exist. The famous singer known as Taylor Swift is actually a Timelady. This comment is 99% meant as a joke. However, she does bear quite a similarity to Clara Immerwhar (who was married to Fritz Haber).
Actually, I watched “The Age of Disclosure” on Amazon Prime the other night. Nothing really new here to me. The most impressive thing was the people interviewed: Marco Rubio, Kirsten Gillebrand, James Clapper, among them—all pretty impressive people in their own way ( though not scientists). A couple of astrophysicists too.
I can’t say I’ve been a real believer in this stuff, but my mind is open. I agree that the immense distances involved in space is a problem, but I do believe, with what we now know about the number of other planets outside our solar system, life elsewhere is extremely likely (including intelligent life).