Americans are increasingly willing to believe reports of alien visitors, raising some familiar questions about science, authority and public trust. Nevada’s ‘Extraterrestrial Highway’ is near Area 51, a top secret Air Force facility that features in UFO lore. Eric Ruby Eric Ruby Adam Kirsch Aug. 4, 2023 10:41 am ET Not long before his death in 1996, Carl Sagan said that he had been “captured by the notion of extraterrestrial life” since childhood and that discovering it would be an “absolutely transforming event in human history.” Exactly because the prospect was so alluring, however, Sagan warned that we should be skeptical about believing reports of UFOs or alien encounters. As he put it in the documentary “Cosmos,” “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”—an idea now known as “the Sagan standard.” On July 26, the House Oversight Committee heard what might be the most extraordinary claims ever made before Congress. Three witnesses, all veteran military officers testifying under oath, declared that they had encountered Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs)—what used to be called UFOs—or knew others who had. A 2004 video of a Navy pilot’s encounter with a ‘Tic Tac’ shaped UAP off the coast of San Diego, Calif. If you’ve followed the…
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