THE UFO FILES! Also, President Obama plugs ‘First Contact'
Thanks for tuning back into the BeX Files! What a week it has been for alien obsessives.
For starters, the Pentagon released the first batch of its much-anticipated “UFO Files” today. Though I am still reading through them, I shared some initial thoughts for WIRED.
Becky Ferreira
The tl;dr: This is all interesting—especially the Apollo program documents—but also not all that revelatory, in the sense that the material is in line with past releases.
Even before the drop, aliens were a hot topic this week, as astronauts, presidents, a billionaire, a celebrity astrophysicist, and a late-night host all weighed in on UAP disclosures and the dream of first contact.
Imagine my delight when President Barack Obama said the following words verbatim to Stephen Colbert: “All right, I’m putting in a plug right now—First Contact.”
No need to watch the exchange any further. You can just assume that the 44th president of the United States recommends my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens. Thanks Obama!
In all seriousness, the interview is yet another example of aliens invading popular culture and even political discourse. The public appetite for news about extraterrestrial life is completely insatiable, a rare topic that consistently transcends ideology, identity, and even political polarization to some degree.
In his conversation with Colbert, Obama reflected on the media frenzy that exploded over his remark in February that “aliens are real,” which I wrote about at the time.
Becky Ferreira
He seemed genuinely surprised at the combustive reaction, saying “I thought it was so obvious what I meant.” Colbert shot back, “It was obvious what you meant. We all got the message.”
This back-and-forth perfectly encapsulated the extent to which aliens have become a livewire running through our collective imagination. Obama barely touched it, but it still sent a shock through the whole media grid. Colbert’s sly response also hints at the prismatic interpretations of aliens in public discourse. Any statement about aliens, no matter how clearly stated or intended, is split into a million wavelengths that are perceived differently depending on the perspective of the observer.
Obama wasn’t the only one ruminating about aliens this week. On an episode of “The Daily” podcast on Wednesday, the crew of Artemis II fielded questions from kids across the United States alongside Rachel Abrams of The New York Times. Celine—an eight-year-old who lives in California, but said she aspires to live in New Jersey (incredible stuff)—wanted to know about aliens
“Is there other life out there, aka aliens, and did your experience on the dark side of the Moon change your answer? Yeah, that’s it….BYYYYYYE,” asked Celine, a true champion.
“There's maybe a couple of trillion other galaxies out there, so it's pretty hard to fathom that there's not alien life,” said Jeremy Hansen, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency who served as mission specialist on Artemis II.
“We've looked,” added Victor Glover, a NASA astronaut who piloted Artemis II. “I mean, we have a lot of resources pointed at this dark sky, looking for answers. It's a great question, and I hope it continues to drive us to explore further.”
Interestingly, both Obama and the Artemis II crew dismissed the idea of a government cover-up about aliens on the grounds that a secret of that scale could never stay under wraps. Obama joked that “some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with the alien and sent it to his girlfriend.”
Meanwhile, the Artemis II crew ribbed their commander, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, for not being able to keep a secret about anything, let alone aliens. Wiseman also pointed out that “if we found alien life out there and we came back and reported on it, NASA would never have a budget issue for the rest of eternity.”
Moving on, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman also shared his thoughts about alien life in a new interview with Tim Stenovec on The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and commercial astronaut, outlined some of NASA’s efforts to find life in the solar system, but said he thought it was “almost impossible” that any alien life is aware of humanity, given our brief history on this planet so far.
“Human civilization is just a small span of time relative to the age of the universe, even relative to the age of our planet itself,” Isaacman said. “It’s extremely hard, I think, for most people to really appreciate—it's very hard for me to even appreciate—the odds of intelligent life finding us at a time where we are alive, as we know ourselves to be, right now.”
Last but not least, the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson published a guest essay in The New York Times on Wednesday to promote his upcoming book Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter.
Tyson anticipates today’s UFO release with the question: “Personally, I’d be delighted if the files were accompanied by an actual alien. Alive or dead or undead. Preferably alive. Is that too much to ask for?”
This time around—yes, yes, it is. But while we still don’t yet have any slam-dunk evidence of extraterrestrial beings, they are clearly all we can talk about here on Earth. We are obsessed with them, whether or not we ever find them, or whether they find us.
With that, it's time to close the file for today and let the truth remain "out there." I'll be taking next Friday off from the newsletter to deal with a deadline deluge. See you at the cosmic rest stop in two weeks—assuming that aliens don't arrive before then.
