November 23, 2025 • 11:45 am UPDATE: See the review of this movie that reader Dan links to in comment #5. I’ve recently heard a lot about UFOs, mainly because I have a friend who seems to think they’re real. I’ve watched the videos taken from planes supposedly showing alien craft, and I’ve read various explanations for them, both involving and not involving aliens. I’ve seen people swearing that actual UFO craft are in the possession of the U.S. government, which is “reverse engineering” them to see how they work, and I’ve heard people who are considered “reputable” espouse belief in UFOs. But in the end I remain deeply skeptical. Where did these aliens come from: a star light years away? Most of all, I think that if there’s credible evidence for UFOs—evidence including remains of alien vessels themselves—then why is the press ignoring such a big story? It would be the biggest news story of our lifetime, by far. Yet the press doesn’t seem that eager to sniff out the hard evidence for UFOs—the supposedly extant captured flying saucers. The people who spread these stories seem to me to be conspiracy theorists, like the Q-Anon people. Still, the story won’t go away—its persistence being yet another reason why people find UFOs credible. Well, creationism hasn’t gone away, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Like creationism, UFOs just appeal to people with certain points of view: in the case of creationism, religious views. In that sense the UFO-believers are like religionists, for a lot of their beliefs in aliens rests on our failure to yet understand those high-velocity specks photographed by some aircraft. It’s the Argument from Ignorance. Goddies like Ross Douthat think that if we can’t explain phenomena like the “fine-tuning” of the Universe,or human consciousness, it points to God. Likewise, if the UFOers can’t explain those high-velocity specks, well, it points to aliens. Now the NYT has an article about a new documentary showing “credible” government officials espousing belief in UFO. Click below to read the article, or see it archived here. Excepts (indented): The long government shutdown had left a secret screening in limbo. But Monday on Capitol Hill, a handful of House members filed into a committee room to watch a new documentary featuring nearly three dozen government officials and others discussing what they can disclose about unidentified aerial phenomena, long known as U.F.O.s. The unusual bipartisan mix of Republicans and Democrats had gathered to watch “ The Age of Disclosure ,” which had its high-profile debut at South by Southwest earlier this year. In the film, 34 former and current senior members of government, military and intelligence groups claim that they have knowledge of advanced nonhuman intelligence and contend, among other things, that there’s been an 80-year cover-up of the reverse engineering of technology retrieved from crashes. Perhaps the biggest name in “The Age of Disclosure” (in theaters Friday and on Amazon Prime ), is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the former senator whose participation helped open the door for other top officials to go on record when he served as the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In the film, he cites “repeated instances of something operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities, and it’s not ours. And we don’t know whose it is.” . . .Representative André Carson of Indiana, a Democrat from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, praised the documentary, saying it “pieces everything together that we’ve seen on television, on film and on social media.” Carson, a host of the screening who also appears in the film, added, “There is a section in here that will bring context to all the fuzzy photos that we’ve seen.” One attendee, Representative Eric Burlison, Republican of Missouri, said he hoped “The Age of Disclosure” would help make the U.A.P. issue a priority for the Trump administration. “I think we’ve had enough hearings” and it is now time for hard evidence or “receipts,” he said in an interview while waiting for his colleagues to arrive. “I’m trying to find the receipts. In private conversations, I’ve been given enough information to find them, I just don’t have access.” . . . . The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, tasked with investigating U.A.P., has said it has no verifiable information to support reports of a government program to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial materials. . . . . The controversial documentary has drawn mixed reactions from critics, with several reviews questioning unproven statements . The showing was held in part to mobilize support for the U.A.P. Disclosure Act , legislation proposing a path to undoing government secrecy on this topic that has been introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota. Rounds was interviewed in the film. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, did not attend but sent a statement calling for greater transparency and saying she would work in Congress to “reduce the stigma around reporting, strengthen our national security, and ensure U.A.P. records are being properly disclosed.” Well, yes, if the government has files that attest to the existence of UFOs, it should release them, unless there are pressing national security concerns, but I can’t imagine what those would be. (Could the Russians steal our reverse-engineered mechanisms for why UFOs go so fast?) And if we have actual spacecraft from aliens that are in the process of being reverse-engineered, I can’t believe that the entire American press corps would not be sniffing it out as hard as they could, and that eventually they’d find them—IF they existed. Documenting their reality would make the reputation of any reporter or newspaper. Sadly, there has been no credible documentation. Right now I’d put my money on their non-existence, but of course I was a career scientist and my mindset is one of doubt, especially about extraordinary claims. Show me a flying saucer and I’ll change my mind. Share this: Source: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/11/23/the-new-kerfuffle-about-ufos-and-why-believers-resemble-religionists/