Two-thirds of the American populace believes that the Galaxy houses other intelligent beings. And one-third believe that clever creatures are piloting their spacecraft through our atmosphere, occasionally making themselves visible to Navy Pilots. Meanwhile, a tiny group of scientists is trying to find proof of intelligence that could be situated dozens or thousands of light-years away. Why bother with doing the latter if the former is true? We consider how the UFO phenomenon differs in fundamental respects from science’s search for E.T. And what is the big elephant in the room when it comes to UFOs, anyway?
Seth Shostak is Senior Astronomer and Institute Fellow at the SETI Institute. With degrees in physics and astronomy from Princeton University and Caltech, he has a long history of research in radio astronomy and in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI. Seth has written more than 600 popular articles on science and technology, and hosts the weekly science radio show “Big Picture Science.” He has authored four books.
This talk took place on July 8, 2021, at 7:00 pm EDT.