Editor’s note: Don Lincoln is a recognized director at Fermi Domestic Accelerators Laboratory. He is the author of several scientific books for common knowledge, including the bestselling audiobook The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain the Whole Truth. He also produces a series of videos on science education. Follow him on Facebook. The opinions expressed in this column are his own. For more opinion pieces, visit CNN.
(CNN)– For centuries people have carried unexplained lights to heaven and thought they might be spirits or angels. In the summer of 1947, without confiscation, another explanation became popular. Following a widely publicized incident over Mount Rainier in Washington State, the public began to believe that these Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) were in fact extraterrestrial craft wandering the Earth.
Over 10,000 similar reports have been filed over the past 70 years. Most of the reports were eventually debunked as weather balloons, Planet Beauty, or even oddly shaped clouds. Some reports are simply born out of the nervous imaginations of UFO enthusiasts. But not all reports can be dismissed so easily.
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In 2004, Watercolor fighter pilots operating from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz reported exhausted UFOs surging off the coast of San Diego. And more recently, similar claims have been made by other military pilots who flew the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Atlantic. Notice of these accounts has been publicized through an article in The New York Times and a new miniseries on the History Channel. These media and entertainment reports brought the incidents to the attention of government leaders.
The question that comes to mind is, “Are they aliens?” Unfortunately, for anyone who’s a fan of the X-Files TV software, it’s much, much more plausible that what those pilots saw was something with a more popular explanation, that it was a bug in the tool or some other unexplained artifact.
Given the professionalism of the pilots who reported the sightings, I’m fairly certain they saw a UFO. The problem is that many people jump straight from unknown to ovoid to flying saucer. And that’s too loose a leap to understand. There is simply no probable evidence that Earth is visited by extraterrestrials. No artifacts, no clear photos, no captured aliens, no extraterrestrial objects, missing.
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UFO reports come from eyewitnesses or lower resolution photos or video. Ask a prosecutor what the value of eyewitness accounts is: they contributed to most convictions that were later overturned by DNA evidence. An eyewitness can be an unreliable source of information, and in the case of something as extraordinary as an alien spacecraft sighting, pedestrian evidence is simply not enough. As Carl Sagan has often said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
The truth is that unidentified means exactly that. Pilots may encounter a living world object that they cannot explain, or they may encounter an instrumental device that is essentially an electronic defect. During the San Diego incident, there had been earlier reports of high-altitude radar contacts from surface craft. And calibrated before the fighter jets’ infrared camera detected an unidentified object, there were reports of little presence or calibration underwater. Although there have been multiple sightings of multiple phenomena, multiple reports of the same spawn are missing. It would be premature to merge these independent observations.
If proportionately an extraterrestrial encounter is unlikely, we must continue to investigate the possibility while there is the slightest chance that airborne objects exist with capabilities beyond what humanity can attain. Ultimately, if these objects are real and actually moving as directed by the pilots, there’s little every serviceman would want to memorize, as one of their primary responsibilities is to be aware of credible threats.
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There was a time in history when the work of explaining UFOs did not involve extraterrestrials. During World War II and before the flying saucer craze, Allied pilots reported UFOs they dubbed “Foo Fighters”, which may have been a new weapon of the German Luftwaffe. Likewise, these modern reports must be examined to determine if they actually exist and are of tangible origin. Without confiscation, I would be very surprised if the reports turn out to be more numerous than usual.
I’ve been fascinated by the idea of extraterrestrial life since I was a kid, and think it’s very likely that it exists throughout the universe. The catchphrase of the TV show “The X-Files” allows me that. I want to believe
But I’m going to miss better evidence than what we have so far. In the meantime, let’s keep an eye on these reports. You know, by fate.