Alien UFOs: they are not and are not expected

In recent days, the US military has shot down several unidentified objects in Canadian and US airspace. The first official statements about their origin were ambiguous, not excluding extraterrestrial origin. In fact, for several months now there have been repeated reports of sightings of numerous unidentified flying objects, famous UFOs or UFOs. What is behind this phenomenon?

Known now as UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), or as FANI in its Spanish translation (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), these events cause us certain fears and, in any case, uncertainty.

When Wells and Wells panicked

Perhaps the most obvious instance of panic occurred with the radio adaptation of Orson Welles’ 1938 science fiction novel. War of the Worldswritten in 1898 by HG Wells. His narration in a powerful voice caused some social alarm in New Jersey and New York in 1938, when many listeners believed that an alien invasion from Mars had begun.

Since then, sightings of alleged alien spacecraft have been uneven, both in time and because of their geographical dispersion. The proliferation of digital cameras and the use of social media has led to some apparently cryptic readings, especially when taken by aircraft pilots, both civilian and military.

Official recognition of the phenomenon

After decades of being ignored by the academic and official worlds, in mid-2022, the Office of the Secretary of Defense created the Office of Anomaly Resolution in All Areas (AARO) to study the observations. Thus, resources and committees that had been dispersed to investigate phenomena in previous years were centralized.

The first reports are already available, and the Congress of this country has instructed the office to provide reports on an ongoing basis.

NASA also launched an independent study. It focuses on identifying available data and finding the best way to collect and use it to improve scientific understanding of NIAP.

What is FAN?

As the name implies, any flying object that is not clearly identified as an aerospace craft is classified as a FANI. His true nature, if revealed, can be very varied. It includes both natural phenomena and others created in various ways by human artifacts.

Natural causes include meteorological or atmospheric phenomena. Here there is a place for clouds of unusual shape and color; reflections of sunlight (or from some planet) on water and/or clouds; Rainbow; green beam, an optical phenomenon that occurs before sunset; umbrellas, sunlight reflections around a star; Kern arcs, circles of light that form in cold areas; and sun pillars, beams of light reflected by ice crystals.

Another potential source of FANI is the northern lights, a spectacular sight that only occurs in regions near the poles.

Human technology also generates them. Among the latest explanations are the traces of aircraft illuminated in a certain way; those that are formed during the launch of some space rockets (for example, a kind of whirlpool left by the Falcon 9 spacecraft); weather balloons (and now supposedly spies); aircraft and other civil and military devices, especially when the sun hits the fairings at certain angles; or satellites in orbit, especially those very close to the earth and therefore moving at high speed relative to the observer.

The International Space Station, with its large solar arrays, is especially visible, although the problem is now exacerbated by the sheer number of satellite fleets. In any case, even the most exhaustive investigation leaves a number of observations inexplicable. Does this mean they are of extraterrestrial origin?

Is a reasonable civilization “visiting” us?

An alternative to those events that go beyond the above explanations is the unlikely visit of an advanced alien civilization. After all, humanity has begun to explore the solar system and, possibly, to colonize it. We even began to consider further steps beyond it. If intelligent life existed on other planets, they could start this process much earlier.

What does our astrobiological knowledge tell us? On the plus side, the Milky Way, our galaxy, contains about 400 billion stars, many of which are surrounded by their own cohort of planets. Many of them must have suitable conditions for the appearance of liquid water (the simplest prebiological environment). The rapid emergence of life on Earth indicates its great abundance in many planetary systems.

However, the maintenance of biological activity, especially multicellular life, requires very long-term stability conditions that cannot be easily achieved.

In addition, our systematic search for intelligent life using radio wave scanning of nearby stars, such as the SETI initiative, has yielded no results. Despite the few and ambiguous signals that have never been repeated, for hundreds of light years no one emits artificial signals towards other systems. In addition, the material and energy requirements would be so huge that they would likely make interstellar travel impossible.

Given these facts, it remains only to apply the criteria of the philosopher of the XIII-XIV centuries, William of Ockham, his law of parsimony or Occam’s Razor: other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. We are alone, at least on our beloved and battered Earth.

David Barrado Navasquez, Professor of Astrophysical Research at the Center for Astrobiology (INTA-CSIC)

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.

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