Public interest in things extraterrestrial was suddenly reignited this month when the US military - apparently eager to show that they are capable of protecting American skies in the aftermath of the Chinese balloon saga - went on a shooting spree and downed three unidentified objects.
Speaking with media after these objects were shot down, NORAD Commander Gen. Glen VanHerck refrained from explicitly ruling out the possibility of some kind of aliens being involved.
Alas, other US military officials were quick to dash the hopes of those who “want to believe." White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre specifically told media during a press briefing on Monday that there is “no indication of aliens or extra-terrestrial activity with these recent takedowns.”
A few days after she made this statement, the US military called off the search for two of the unidentified flying objects they shot down, as Canadian officials continued to look for the third, which went down in Canadian territory.
So while a theory about at least one of these flying objects being an extraterrestrial craft may seem rather outlandish, it is hard to tell at this time exactly what the US military shot down.
Several members of the US Congress did insist that US President Joe Biden owes the American public an explanation, with Republican Senator Tom Cotton saying on Monday that Biden should reveal, “direct and on camera,” what the US leadership knows of the objects in question and “what steps he’s taking to protect America’s sovereign airspace.”
Meanwhile, it appears that people in the United States have become somewhat less skeptical about the possibility of intelligent alien life existing. A YouGov poll last year revealed that 34 percent of respondents believe that UFOs are alien ships of perhaps alien life forms, and only 32 percent said there is a natural scientific explanation for the phenomena.
In comparison, in a similar poll conducted by one US magazine in 1996, only 20 percent of respondents voiced their belief in aliens while 54 percent opted for a scientific explanation of the UFOs.
The US government itself has looked into the UFO phenomena several times in its history under the auspices of programs such as Project Sign and Project Blue Book in the 20th century and the more recent Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
While the US apparently spared no expenses at these efforts, with $22 million being sunk into the AATIP alone, these programs yielded no confirmation of aliens’ existence – according to the publicly available data, of course.