A whistleblower claims that the U.S. government is covering up what it knows about aliens on Earth, and several military pilots recently testified to seeing strange objects in the sky. It kinda feels like the tide is turning on UFOs — even NASA is taking these sightings seriously. So what’s going on here? Have aliens visited? And will we ever find alien life somewhere … out there? We speak to astrophysicists Prof. Kevin Knuth, Dr. Sara Webb, and Prof. Adam Frank.

Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsUFOs2023

Check our previous episode on UFOs here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/60oChXf4TK7dN4NZslVUpx

Prof. Adam Frank's new book, The Little Book of Aliens, comes out October 24.

Chapters:

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Chapter 1: Congress takes on aliens

(03:04) Chapter 2: Why is Rose Muldering?

(05:44) Chapter 3: The ‘Tic-Tac’ incident

(13:54) Chapter 4: We need a Scully

(26:45) Chapter 5: The new science on searching for alien life

This episode was produced by Rose Rimler, with help from Wendy Zukerman, as well as Michelle Dang, Joel Werner and Nick DelRose. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Music written by Bobby Lord, Bumi Hidaka, Emma Munger, Peter Leonard, and So Wylie. Special thanks to Matt Shilts and Walter Rimler. An extra special thanks to researchers we spoke to for this episode – including Prof. Seth Shostak and Julio Plaza Del Olmo.

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