Neil deGrasse Tyson Addresses the Existence of Alien Life

The debate about whether or not alien life exists in the universe has certainly heated up in the last few years. The US government and Pentagon basically admitted UFOs exist, while NASA conducting a study on the possibility of alien life with a team of the world's leading researchers and scientits – the results of which are expected to be revealed this year. 

However, while UFO chasers and sci-fi fans are enjoying seeing their alien theories get closer and closer to being realized, one major figure of the scientific community is holding onto a health amount of skepticism about this whole thing! 

Rockstar astrophycist Neil deGrasse Tyson recently appeared on Who's Talking to Chris Wallace?, where he we asked about whether or not all the recent uproar about aliens visiting Earth has swayed him. Tyson made it clear that, as a scientist, he isn't going to take any big leaps in his view of the universe until it's concretely proven otherwise. 

When asked if he belives alien life is "out there somewhere" in the universe, Tyson responded by saying, "I would say that if there weren't life, it would be astonishing...given how common our ingredients are, and how quickly life took place here, and how many planets we know are orbiting host stars. And it would be astonishing if that were the case."

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(Photo: Karl J Kaul)

After a bit of back-and-forth clarifying the meaning of the term "alien" (which Tyson sees as being "any life"), the more specific question of whether or not aliens have visited Earth came up. That's when Tyson made it clear that while his mind may be open, he's unwilling to believe that the grainy footage we've seen of mysterious objects in the sky constitutes "proof" that aliens are among us: 

"Something that could land here in a spaceship? Could be out there. There's no evidence that would convince an authentic skeptic that we've been visited. And I can tell you this, these fuzzy monochromatic tic tacs that show up around the Navy restricted airspace in our own atmosphere? By the way, you've seen the high resolution images from a telescope we parked a million miles from Earth called the James Webb Space Telescope. Looking at the edge of the universe. And the best you have a visiting aliens in our own atmosphere is a fuzzy tic tac? You got to do better than that if you're going to convince an astrophysicist."

Theorists may have a lot to disagree with regarding Neil deGrasse Tyson's logic on this one, aruging that alien craft might have the ability fo mask or obscure its appearance to the eye or current Earth technologies like radar. At the same time, Tyson is correct that until the proof is concrete, everything is just theory. 

Who's Talking to Chris Wallace? streams new episodes are Friday mornings on HBO Max. Who's Talking to Chris Wallace? also airs Sundays at 7pm Eastern on CNN.

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