Former Senator, astronaut, and current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson went on CNN Sunday to talk about aliens; specifically, the Pentagon’s recently-released report on UFOs. Nelson has read the unclassified version of the document, and he said: “My feeling is that there is clearly something there. It may not necessarily be extraterrestrial, but if it is a technology that some of our adversaries have then we’d better be concerned.”
CNN host Pamela Brown tried to get him to open up. “Not necessarily extraterrestrial but you’re not ruling it out,” she said.
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Nelson recounted the events of recent years that have sparked a major wave of new interest in UFOs. Navy Pilots and others have seen strange things in the sky and captured some of it on video. Still, no one, including the Pentagon, is quite sure what the UFOs are. Nelson wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it’s aliens but also said he didn’t know of any greys currently running around.
“Remember, the universe is so large,” he said. “We have a program in NASA called the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But thus far we don’t have any receipt of a communication from something that’s intelligent.”
In answering a question from Brown about the risk of creating more conspiracy theories, Nelson offered his own perspective on the existence of alien life in the universe and explained that people will always desire to explore the unknown.
“Are we alone? Personally I don’t think we are,” he said. “The universe is so big. It’s 13 and a half billion years ago when the universe started. That’s pretty big. People are hungry for this kind of information and they’re going to keep searching.”
Webb teased the launch of the James Webb telescope in November—a $10 billion dollar machine that will help scientists unlock the secrets of the universe. “We are already finding examples of other planets around other suns,” he said. “When we launch the James Webb telescope in November, it will peer back in time, almost to the beginning and then we’ll find additional information.”
