UFO Claims Still Waiting for Undeniable Evidence
The main question is not whether reputable people
have seen unexplained objects, but what they are.
UFOs have been given a new label: UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena). The new name, however, does not eliminate the curiosity over lights and objects that people have reported in the sky for decades if not centuries.
A new openness from some government officials has revived interest in UAPs. That interest spiked on July 26, when David Grusch, a US Air Force veteran, testified before the House Oversight Committee that the government allegedly had recovered a craft that contained “biologics” that were non-human.
Crashed UFOs? Non-human ‘biologics’? Professor asks: Where’s the evidence? (Northeastern University Global News, 28 July 2023). Northeastern prof Jonathan Blazek is not ready to buy into the claim, citing the subjectivity of the evidence.
He says he finds it “very frustrating” that former intelligence officer David Grusch “back(ed) away from specifics” in his July 26 testimony before a House Oversight subcommittee on national security.
Blazek gives examples of how Grusch avoided details in his testimony, tossing the hot potato about “biologics” to others who saw them and supposedly knew what they were, Grusch not having seen them himself.
Grusch, a U.S. Air Force veteran who previously worked at the National Reconnaissance Office, told members of Congress that the U.S. is operating a secret crash retrieval and reverse engineering program and that he “knows the exact location” of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) in the government’s possession.
But he himself is not an eyewitness. He relies on what others have told him. That criticism was also brought up by a guest on Fox News commenting on the testimony.
Grusch also alleged that people have been harmed or injured by alien craft. But when push came to shove, he either said that others had the evidence, or that he couldn’t discuss the details publicly.
Despite his doubts about the testimony so far, Blazek is in favor of getting the information out in the open.
He says he is looking forward to a report from an independent NASA panel of highly regarded scientists who are looking into the origins of UAPs, be they optical illusions or atmospheric or stranger phenomena.
The NASA panel is due to issue a report any day now, the article says.
The topic of UFOs brings out strong opinions in many people, for or against. Before Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News, he regularly brought up the subject, discussing it with the aura of mystery (creepy background music, etc.) to emphasize the argument that things appear to be going on in space that are far beyond our understanding. The guests he would invite were as unconvincing as Grusch, because they would always appeal to someone else’s testimony. Most of them were already UFO believers.
Usually such presentations are accompanied by claims of government cover-ups. It’s a reflection of public credulity that the story about “Area 51” remains viable. It brings in good tourism dollars in Roswell, New Mexico. With decades of publicity, surely some insider would have blown up the secrecy.
We’ll see what comes of the current flap, but in my opinion the testimony is not convincing. If there was ever a case where “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence,” this is it. What these so-called alien spaceships do is violate the laws of physics: turning on a dime at high speed, disappearing, and diving from air to water without a splash. No country in the world can do that. Surely an engineer involved would have come forward to explain the principles that would allow China, Russia or the USA to violate mechanical laws that have stood centuries of testing: laws that we use every day and that guide our spacecraft beyond Pluto.
Believers can always resort to the unknown, that they violate physics “as we understand them now.” That’s hardly convincing. Yes, scientists of the 1800s would have been astonished at what we take for granted today, but turning on a dime at high speed would destroy any craft made of atoms. Worse is the belief that aliens have traveled many light-years through space to our tiny dot. If a craft traveled at near light speed, the smallest dust particle would destroy the ship.
The nearest star is 4.3 light-years away. I saw that star on a recent trip to the southern hemisphere. From such a distance, earth would be invisible. Other problems crop up, like the Fermi Paradox: “Where are they?” if they are numerous and more intelligent than we are? Surely they would have found us by now.
As I wrote for Evolution News July 31, advocates and scientists working on SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) almost unilaterally deny that UAPs represent alien beings from distant stars. Even the late Carl Sagan, one of the most ardent believers that intelligent life pervades outer space, denied that UFOs were real physical craft from alien civilizations. If he couldn’t swallow the tales of UFOs, then why should we?
People can be fooled by things they don’t understand. I heard that half of UFO sightings are the planet Venus. One guy was speeding up his car on a highway, chasing down Venus, thinking it was a UFO. He was unaware that Venus can look like it is moving against a foreground row of hills. The vast majority of other sightings have physical explanations. Only a tiny fraction are left unexplained.
Once again I recommend the documentary by CMI: Alien Intrusion: What on Earth Is Happening? It’s well done and interesting, and it comes to important conclusions about UFOs and the people who witness them.
What’s ironic is that SETI requires intelligent design! Most SETI people despise the Intelligent Design Movement and strongly believe in Darwinian evolution. They believe that space aliens have had many millions of years more than humans to evolve intelligence and to build advanced technologies. But SETI work relies on the assumption that we can discern between natural and intentional phenomena. That is the Design Filter in action!
Watch Seth Shostak, a long-time leader of the SETI Institute, admit that the only way humans could deny space aliens is to believe that something extraordinary or “miraculous” happened on Earth: The Privileged Planet ch 3, at 1:45 to 2:32.
That’s exactly what Christians affirm: we live on a planet that was designed to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18). We are a Privileged Species on a Privileged Planet. The creation of life by God was a miracle by an all-wise, all-powerful God. Since evolutionists haven’t a clue about getting life by chance and unaided chemistry (watch PhD chemist James Tour explain), why exchange an intelligently-designed miracle that was communicated to us by God for miracles of chance that are outrageously improbable?
Hoping that space aliens will come and answer deep human questions is a vain hope. Even some SETI enthusiasts are worried that they would, instead, commit genocide and take over the world! A trustworthy hope comes from the words of the One who created us and has revealed his purposes to us. For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).