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Some scholars skeptical of latest UFO-aliens mania

Why do technologically advanced aliens supposedly keep crashing their spaceships, scholars ask

A recent spate of headlines have hyped up the latest claims of UFOs and aliens among us on planet Earth.

“One in five academics report seeing a UFO,” the Daily Beast reported May 22, citing a Humanities and Social Sciences Communications survey that questioned professors across roughly 150 universities.

“Crashed Las Vegas UFO witness ‘terrified’ by 8-foot creatures in his backyard: ‘100% not human,’” declared a June 10 Fox News article.

A Stanford University med school professor also recently made national headlines in late May for asserting “aliens have been on Earth for a long time and are still here.”

But by far the most dramatic news story came earlier this month when a former U.S. Air Force officer alleged the government has collected crashed UFO spaceships and the bodies of nonhuman pilots, which they are now supposedly experimenting on as well as attempting to reverse engineer the technology.

The “whistleblower” did not provide any evidence whatsoever except second-hand accounts. But his story was even picked up by Tucker Carlson, who touted the claims as legitimate on his debut show June 6 on Twitter, which has amassed more than 114 million views.

Yet amid the recent hype and excitement, some scholars — while not dismissing the suggestion of alien life visiting Earth altogether — are asking the tough questions.

For example, University of Tennessee College of Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, on his Substack on June 7, made the thoughtful point: “Why are these spacecraft crashing all the time?”

“If we really have ‘12 or more spacecraft’ of non-human origin, er, what’s wrong with them? I mean, to lose one spacecraft could be an accident but to lose twelve seems like carelessness,” Reynolds wrote, adding spacecraft that can travel the cosmos should be more advanced.

“… Perhaps they’re deliberately crashing spaceships to transfer technology to us on the sly. … Or perhaps they have some sort of odd philosophical or religious reason for building-in unreliability to their technology,” Reynolds wrote.

Reyolds cited another scholar, George Mason University economics Professor Robin Hanson, who made a similar point.

Aliens “who allow their local vehicles to crash and let their pilots, debris, or vehicles be grabbed by us just do not seem as impressive. Not only does this undermine their key strategy of domesticating us via showing impressiveness, a civilization a hundred million years more advanced than us should just be far more capable than this,” Hanson wrote on his Substack.

“… I expect our civilization to be completely artificial within a million years. So I’d be surprised to find our descendants vehicles piloted by squishy bio creatures a hundred million years from now.”

Michael Shermer, presidential fellow Chapman University and a famed skeptic, also threw cold water on the recent reports. On June 5, he described it on Twitter as the “latest semi-annual ‘the government is hiding alien spacecraft’ with a half-life of 2 weeks that will result in 0 disclosure of any actual evidence that we have been hearing about for 75 years.”

“When will anyone actually ever produce physical evidence? Never. Pure myth making.”

Writing in the New York Times, conservative columnist Ross Douthat suggested the latest whistleblower is probably evidence of an emerging Deep State psy-ops. He wrote June 10 he believes the UFO phenomenon is actually likely either produced in the minds of creative humans or hails from “actual supernatural realms.”

“The possibility of literal spacecraft stashed in U.S. government hangars, meanwhile, piles up two immense-seeming improbabilities,” Douthat wrote.

“First, that inhuman species cross oceans of space or leap interdimensional barriers using unfathomable technology and yet somehow keep crashing and leaving souvenirs behind. Second, that human governments have been collecting evidence for generations without the truth ever being leaked or uncovered or just blurted out by Donald Trump.”

MORE: Harvard astronomy chair: We were visited by an alien artifact 3 years ago

IMAGE: Heidi Besen / Shutterstock

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About the Author
Fix Editor
Jennifer Kabbany is editor-in-chief of The College Fix.