According to the New York Times, the Department of Defense has a project that looks into military UFO sightings. The story made worldwide headlines last December. Luis Elizondo, who ran the project, says some of the cases they examined are genuinely mysterious and remain unidentified, as in Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). During our exclusive interview with Kelly at the 3M science advocacy event, we asked the former fighter pilot for the U.S. Navy and retired astronaut if he felt this was a viable area of study. Kelly says he also experienced this when flying jets, especially over the water at night. But, they always turned out to be optical illusions. “I personally don’t think that alien spacecraft visit the earth. I don’t have any evidence of that, but I personally think that for a few reasons,” Kelly says. “One, distances are pretty significant and if they did visit, why did they sort of stop as soon as everyone got a cellphone in their pocket? You would think there would be pictures of selfies with aliens now.” He says it seems like in the ‘50s, and ‘60s people were allegedly getting photos of them, but not so much in the age of cell phones. “I am not saying with 100 percent certainty, but 99.99 percent that I don’t think we have visitors,” Kelly concludes. During the interview with Kelly, we asked if he felt some of what people refer to as UFOs could be secret advanced aircraft from other countries. Kelly interjected, “or our own.” He then donned a wry smile, and that was the end of that. We changed topics. Den of Geek were not the only ones discussing aliens with Kelly that day. A couple of hours after our interview, he participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) forum. A Reddit user by the name buttholebungalo attempted to broach the subject by asking, “Aliens?” He did not receive a response. User nanniej asked, “How has your space experience changed your outlook/beliefs in life?” Kelly replied, “Having a good understanding of the size of the universe, I find it hard to believe there’s not life out there. Having said that, I don’t think the aliens stopped visiting Earth once everyone got a camera in their pocket.”
While Kelly’s answers are not surprising, there have been astronauts who have seen UFOs and even those who believe aliens are visiting us. To my knowledge, there are no current or former astronauts who think the world is flat. Perhaps a bit naively, Kelly seems to doubt anyone really does. This topic came up earlier in the day during a panel about a science survey 3M recently conducted called the 3M State of Science Index. During the Q and A, someone in the audience asked about the dangers fringe beliefs pose to science, such as the theory that the Earth is flat. Kelly was not afraid to have some fun with this. Later that day, Reddit users also asked Kelly about his thoughts on the flat earth theory. Reddit user reddit7979 asked, “Settle the debate… is the earth flat or not?” Kelly responded, “Not. I flew A-ROUND it. And if it was flat, wouldn’t the edge be the most popular vacation destination?” “I think a lot of those flat-earthers don’t believe the earth is flat,” Kelly replied. “The risk is when you discount something that is clearly fact, it causes people to question other scientific facts, and that can be dangerous.” Kelly makes an important point regarding the dangers posed by disregarding scientific fact, and hopefully, he is right about the “flat-earthers.” Many of them seem convinced, and nothing seems to dissuade them from their odd beliefs.
