"I Don't Know" is A OK

New information is an excellent thing. Jumping to conclusions about new information for shitty reasons is a non, non, non-excellent thing.

Recently, The New York Times exposed the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program; a shadowy scheme managed deep inside The Pentagon with an acronym that doubles as the answer to "What does an Applebee's server exclaim when the white trash family leaves?"

A...A TIP?

In any other time period, "The Government Has a Secret Program Dedicated to Studying UFOs" would be front page news. Unfortunately, we have a senile old Cheeto in the Oval Office walking around with nuclear launch codes and Twittering all over himself, so interesting newsbites like this tend to be overlooked.

AATIP examined encounters service members had with unidentified flying objects. Here's one:

Those are Navy pilots who are completely bewildered at what they are seeing. Interesting, right? Who doesn't love a good mystery? The Times quotes an astrophysicist who sums up our position quite nicely:

While not addressing the merits of the program, Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at M.I.T., cautioned that not knowing the origin of an object does not mean that it is from another planet or galaxy. “When people claim to observe truly unusual phenomena, sometimes it’s worth investigating seriously,” she said. But, she added, “what people sometimes don’t get about science is that we often have phenomena that remain unexplained.” 

That's nice scientist talk for, "I hope all the fucking morons out there won't take this to mean it's aliens."

Well, Super Smart Sara Seager, while you were busy developing a parallel version of the Drake equation, earning a MacArthur Fellowship for your research on extrasolar planets and Ted Talking your heart out (seriously, this lady is awesome), the Internet went and explained that unexplained thing that you have no explanation for!

It's aliens.

Over the weekend, The New York Times released an exhaustive report on a secret and not fully declassified government program that studied U.F.O sightings within the Department of Defense that seems to indicate there have been documented alien visits to our planet.  

Whenever one sees the phrase "seems to indicate," whatever is indicative can usually go straight into the Bullshit Bin. Aimee has broken Rule #4: The Time to Believe Something is True is When There is Evidence to Support it.

We know someone out there in Internetland can't wait to say, "But that video is evidence to support her claim!"

We also know we can't wait to shut that shit down before it even gets to the door.

What we have here is a video of an object that has not been identified and is flying. That is where we have to stop and ask, "Where the fuck did this thing come from?"

The answer is, we don't know. That's it. Nothing else. No more, no less. The fact that we don't know where the fuck this thing came from does not mean we can make up an origin story. Well, sure, maybe we can, and the story of Oobie McFairyfart from Planet Twinkleshits could be a good one. As a matter of fact, our tale will have exactly the same amount of evidence as those who believe any other extraterrestrial origin story.

I can't wait to tell you my explanation!

Until there is evidence to support the existence of alien intelligence, we respectfully withhold belief.

Are you sure you don't want to hear my explanation?

Yeah, dude, we're sure.