UFOs from outer space — science or science fiction?

Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a new name: unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). They have also been in the news of late, as more sightings of unexplainable objects have emerged. The recent congressional hearing on the subject has drawn attention and raised legitimate concern, with testimony by David Grusch providing evidence of extraterrestrial origins of objects that elicit further investigation and discussion.

Rare events occur. That is why people win billion-dollar lottery jackpots that have astronomical odds. Yet the very occurrence of a rare event may be a consequence of the laws of large numbers — with a sufficiently large number of trials in a random experiment, a rare event will eventually be observed. The challenge is predicting when.

The same can be said about UAPs. Based on statistics and data analysis, over a long enough time horizon, involving a large enough number of people making observations, unusual sightings are certain to occur. The number of UAP sightings is in the several hundred over several decades, which makes them rare. Grusch’s revelations contribute to such observations, providing evidence that UAPs may exist with extraterrestrial origins.

The question remains as to whether such alleged sightings are sufficient to affirm that some UAPs have their origin outside our solar system.

If for entertainment value alone, and to play devil’s advocate, suppose there is some form of intelligent life that resides outside our world, and UAPs are the vehicles by which they reach our planet.

First, if extraterrestrial beings succeed in making it to our planet, they likely need to travel a long distance, and once here, penetrate our atmosphere. The technology to achieve this would be highly sophisticated and may not be known on our planet.

The other issue is the kind of life this would represent. It most certainly would not be carbon-based, requiring water and oxygen, nor communicate in a language that we could hear or recognize. Though the laws of science would likely prevail, there may be phenomena that our world has never considered nor observed.

This could be a consequence of materials not on Earth that could facilitate such transportation and communication. This possibility is the top concern of the United States military, particularly if such extraterrestrials, if they exist, prove hostile or dangerous.

Many questions remain about some of the elements in the Periodic Table. If elements exist that are not on Earth, then existing technologies are limited only by what is available. If new elements exist that can move technology beyond current known capabilities, this could provide a plausible explanation of how extraterrestrial UAPs reach our planet.  

Using a simple example, until gun powder was discovered in China between the 10^th and 12^th centuries, weapons were limited by the physical capabilities of warriors, and hence far less lethal than what is available today. Yet all the ingredients for gun powder already existed on Earth. The issue was their discovery and how they could be used to create gun powder.

Extraterrestrials that can reach our planet are likely to have access to materials and have knowledge that is unavailable on Earth. At the same time, we may have knowledge that they do not possess, if their extraterrestrial home does not have all the elements available on Earth.

In fact, in whatever manner that they can sense activity on this planet, they may view our population and society as primitive. This would be akin to us discovering a planet inhabited only by single cell amoeba. We would be excited by such a discovery, though not view it as intelligent life.

So any extraterrestrials that are alleged to be observed on our planet must also project in a manner that we could detect using our senses and the technologies available to us. If such tools are unable to measure the presence of such beings, then they would go unnoticed, much like how amoeba may not recognize that they are being observed by higher life forms.  

Such discussions sound more like science fiction than science, which is why affirming that the origins of UAPs are from intelligent life outside our planet is highly unlikely. The one avenue to uncover such origins is materials made from elements that are unavailable on our planet. Given that David Grusch’s testimony indicates UAPs have been recovered, have such materials been determined? Would disclosing such information pose a threat to our national security?

What is most likely is that every UAP has a plausible explanation provided reliable and complete data is available about it and its origins. The challenge is collecting and analyzing such data. Without such a mechanism, some UAPs will remain unexplained, with our imaginations creating storylines that remain impossible to affirm.

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A data scientist, he applies his expertise in data-driven risk-based decision-making to evaluate and inform public policy.