As a supplement to our recent show on UFOs, here’s Neil Degrasse Tyson on a panel at St. Petersburg College in 2009, explaining how the human mind is prone to explain the unknown, sometimes without evidence or logic.
Neil Degrasse Tyson on UFOs
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I think Dr. Tyson’s points on the UFO question are well made. Consider the two aspects to the question, “What are UFOs?”. 1) What are UFOs? and 2) are there extraterrestrial beings piloting them?. Of course, if one sees something in the sky that is actually flying and is an object, it need only to be unfamiliar to qualify as a UFO. If you’re pretty sure it’s a craft or vehicle of some type but haven’t a clue to its origin, it’s technically still a UFO to you. We can be confident that UFOs are real because the Air Force has acknowledged the existence of Area 51; presumably a facility created to design and fly secret aircraft, and you better not be able to identify what they are! But to verify the pilots are extraterrestrial, one needs to obtain and test its DNA. To answer questions about its origin you need to communicate with one of them. Without this, one has to conclude an Earthly explanation for UFOs is most probable, and extraterrestrial explanation less probable. The fact is that we cannot completely rule out extraterrestrial origin of UFOs as we are not privy to explanation of all that is terrestrial aircraft.