“We don’t have any evidence”

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) stands as a pivotal institution dedicated to the monumental task of discovering alien life. Yet, despite its mission to detect extraterrestrial signals, SETI’s President, Bill Diamond, maintains a grounded perspective on the likelihood of Earth having been graced by alien visitors.

Diamond’s stance is clear: the absence of verifiable evidence speaks louder than the rumors and myths of alien encounters.

His words resonate with a sobering clarity, dismissing the notion of hidden alien technology in our atmosphere as unfounded. The idea of a governmental conspiracy to conceal such evidence is, in his view, not just unlikely, but illogical.

“We don’t have any evidence of any credible source that would indicate the presence of alien technology in our skies,” he told Space.com. “And we never have.”

“The idea that the government is keeping something like this secret is just totally absurd. There’s no motivation to do so.”

The skepticism held by Diamond is rooted in the sheer scale of the cosmos. The nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, lies at a distance that would take conventional spacecraft tens of millennia to reach.

This vast gulf between stars serves as a formidable barrier, one that suggests any visiting civilization would possess technological capabilities beyond human understanding.

“If you sent that spacecraft to our closest neighbor star, Alpha Centauri, it would take 80,000 years to get there,” he said.

“Any civilization that has mastered the ability to traverse the incomprehensibly vast distances of interstellar space would have technology so far advanced from our own as to be beyond our comprehension.”

Yet, this does not entirely close the door on the potential for alien visitation. The advancement of an extraterrestrial society could far surpass our own, possibly yielding methods of travel that defy our current scientific paradigms.

“Why do people have these beliefs? It is because they want to believe,” Diamond added.

“Nobody really wants to think that this Earth is the only place in the vastness of space where life has emerged. Even that idea is also kind of absurd.”