#116: We Ain't Alone, Y'all

The Story Behind We Ain't Alone, Y'all

In April of 2020 the United States Navy officially declassified videos of unidentified aircraft taken by FA-18 pilots. The videos - "FLIR," "GOFAST," and "GIMBAL" - were uploaded to the Naval Air Systems Command website and are freely available for anyone to download. If you watch these videos, you will see grainy footage of what appears to be some truly unidentified, definitely flying objects. It is certainly the most clear-cut and frank look at UFOs; the fact that our government released the footage is a bit astonishing. Is this the United States military essentially saying that UFOs - and, by extension, aliens - are real?

We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. Let’s agree that the objects in the videos definitely look like UFOs, I am convinced of that. But the painful truth of UFOs is that we really do not know what they are. Could these be aliens? Sure they could be but maybe they are top-secret government vehicles. Maybe they are foreign adversaries flying around. We just don’t know. And, gah, that is frustrating because, like all good alien aficionados, we know that the truth is out there. But it’s unlikely that the truth will ever be laid out clearly. We will probably never see aliens descending from a spaceship in the middle of Washington D.C. like in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Aliens are smart and tricky and will likely remain just hidden enough, allowing us to constantly speculate but never know anything for certain. There was a time around the turn of the century when many people thought that aliens were going to make their presence plainly known, that contact would definitely be made. But I think most people smartly assume that will never happen now. Instead we will have to be happy with footage like that released in April 2020 by the US Navy. It’s enticing, exciting even. But it isn’t the sort of definitive and concrete evidence that Mulder and Scully promised us back in the 90s.

Still, the April 2020 videos are fascinating and eerie and remind us all that something is out there.

Plain Text Description of We Ain't Alone, Y'all

A cowboy wearing a cowboy hat stands in a pasture while 5 UFOs enter the frame. The cowboy calmly states, "I feel like we ain't alone, y'all."