A recent news item involving UFOs has caught the public's attention.  A Navy pilot's gun camera shows an unknown aerial object above the ocean near San Diego.  It was performing aerial maneuvers not known to be possible by any U.S. technology.  The pilot's description of the object included the sensational phrase "I can tell you, I think it was not from this world."

The government's interest in this sort of sighting is that there may be a national defense issue involved.  If the reported objects are from a potentially hostile nation – let's say China or Russia – then of course they are possibly involved in reconnaissance or other activity that endangers our national security.  If the phenomenon emanates from a smaller country – say, Luxembourg – the scientific benefits are potentially enormous.  If they emanate from Iran or North Korea, we are in grave military peril.

However, these scenarios seem unlikely.  Any nation that possesses such advanced technology would already be in a position to extort vast concessions from the United States and other nations.  This kind of technology cannot exist in an industrial vacuum.  A fleet of aircraft capable of what the UFOs have been reportedly performing would be part of a system that could overwhelm our defenses in short order.  No such event has happened.

Another possibility seems equally far-fetched – that of interlopers from a planet other than ours.  This is the so-called space invaders theory.

It is not that the possibility of exo-civilizations is considered unlikely.  Quite to the contrary – most scientists seem to accept it as all but a given, despite a lack of confirmatory evidence.  Probability alone is considered evidence enough.  What is unlikely is that such alien societies seek to harm us.

This is evident because of the following: just as any hostile earthly power in possession of ultra-advanced technology would already have overpowered us, the ability of alien conquerors would presumably be multiples of terrestrial forces.  While Hollywood may fantasize about our ability to fight off alien spaceships, the probable reality is that hostile aliens would barely notice any resistance by us.  Indeed, they could easily launch a standoff attack, whether by missiles, drones, or even redirected asteroids, at no risk to themselves.  And we have not even considered technologies so advanced that, to us, they would appear to be magic.

There is one further impediment to making any sense of UFO reports, which is that there seems to be a set of logical contradictions to any theory of what UFOs might actually represent.  The main logical fallacy is that observed UFO behaviors, if accurately reported, seem to be irrational.  On the one hand, UFOs act as if they wish to avoid being seen – while on the other hand, they do get seen, despite having technology that should put our most advanced stealth techniques to shame.  These two mutually exclusive aspects are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile.

It has been suggested that the U.S. government fabricates UFO reports simply to confuse Russia and China and to help conceal our own advanced technology.  For example, when the USAF was testing the stealth fighter aircraft, these otherworldly-appearing aircraft were often misreported as UFOs, and the government did not discourage such reports.

One possible way to explain the erratic behavior of extraterrestrial UFOs is that they are alien space junk.  Yes, junk – that is, artifacts from exo-civilizations that have for one reason or another gone rogue.  For example, if an alien civilization created drones, and then the civilization went extinct or otherwise lost control of its technology, then such machines might behave based on algorithms that have become flawed or damaged. 

However, the most likely explanation of UFO sightings, if there is an otherworldly explanation, is that they represent something so utterly alien to our ways of thinking that our best efforts to contemplate them are entirely anthropocentric, completely off the mark.

Nor can we ignore the fact that the government money spent on UFO research – that is, your money and mine – was allocated at the behest of former Democrat Senate leader Harry Reid, who directed much of that money to his crony friends, who supposedly used it for the purpose intended.

I smell an alien rat.