The latest wave of controversy followed remarks by Barack Obama
in an interview with blogger Brian Tyler Cohen. The former U.S. president
suggested that extraterrestrials exist, though he said he had not personally
seen them.
He also denied the existence of secret underground
laboratories or hidden aliens at the military site known as Area 51 in Nevada,
stressing that such large-scale secrets could not be concealed from a
president.
Those comments drew sharp criticism from Donald Trump.
Speaking aboard Air Force One, he accused his predecessor of revealing secret
information.
In response, Trump formally instructed the defense secretary
to begin the process of declassifying all government documents related to
extraterrestrial life and unidentified aerial phenomena.
NASA responded to the president’s initiative with skepticism.
Press secretary Bethany Stevens reaffirmed the agency’s
commitment to open science and cited administrator Jared Isaacman, who remarked
ironically that the unexplained issues specialists encounter are more often
linked to overly expensive government programs than to visits from aliens.
The scientific perspective was outlined
at a conference in Phoenix by Dr. Gentry Lee, a veteran space engineer who has
worked at NASA since 1968.
He described the idea that aliens have visited Earth as “a
delusion.” According to Lee, decades of observation have produced no evidence
of extraterrestrial craft landing on the planet.
He stressed that most reported UFO sightings have far
simpler, terrestrial explanations.
Lee added that humanity should be prepared to encounter
biological forms radically different from those on Earth.
In his view, the entire biosphere known to us — from
bacteria to elephants — is relatively uniform because of its reliance on DNA,
which could appear unremarkable to advanced cosmic explorers.
Despite promises to declassify archives, NASA scientists
maintain that, so far, there is no evidence of extraterrestrial contact.