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I Agree With Elon Musk: UFOs Are Real, But They Have Nothing To Do With Space Aliens

Interesting to see Elon Musk repeating previous statements casting serious doubt on the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs.

His latest comments came during a Katie Miller podcast, as reported in this article in the International Business Times on Dec. 12, 2025.

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/musk-claims-ufos-are-not-aliens-they-could-new-weapons-program-1762436

Here are the most relevant bits from the article, bold and in brackets:

[‘I have seen no evidence of aliens,’ Musk told Miller, before addressing the notion that a major player like SpaceX might be withholding cosmic knowledge. He confirmed he had directly questioned his highest-level staff. ‘No one on the SpaceX senior team has any evidence of aliens … For Musk, these mysterious objects aren’t vehicles from another star system, but rather terrestrial prototypes developed by governments right here on Earth, likely the US government. His assessment is cold, cynical, and centred firmly on national security, suggesting these are not interstellar explorers but rather advanced military hardware.

‘UFOs… it could be like a new weapons programme… or hypersonic missiles. It’s just basically a weapons prototype. It’s not aliens.’]

So, this would suggest that all of UFO sightings and encounters reported by everyone from Gordon Cooper to Jimmy Carter were actually top-secret Pentagon platforms known only to a small circle of people with the appropriate classification status.

In other words, hardly anyone really has a need to know because these technologies are so important to the national defense.

This is a viewpoint that I share, but it doesn’t explain why we have numerous former U.S. military personnel going on national television claiming to have evidence that these UFOs are extraterrestrial.

However, there is one very plausible reason for this: A concerted, organized and professional-grade disinformation program designed to confuse the public and journalists alike about the nature of these vehicles. After all, if it’s E.T., then it couldn’t be the Pentagon. The secret remains safe.

Why would such a disinformation program be warranted?

Because the secret is so profound, the breakthroughs in propulsion (which have nothing to do with extraterrestrials) are so sensational, that keeping these technologies hidden from the public is a major priority. Once the secret is out, it wouldn’t be long before everyone would figure it out, much as other nations acquired nuclear weapons after World War II.

At the same time, we are not seeing this kind of disinformation in any other country. Now, why is that? Perhaps because there isn’t a need for it in any other country.

People have asked the perfectly logical question: If the United States possessed such a propulsion advance, why not use it, to, say, beat China back to the Moon. The reason is quite simple: because then it would be out, and then soon everyone would have it.

So, you see, these platforms cannot be employed for any overt purposes.

Based on the historical record, it would seem that these propulsion breakthroughs go all the way back to the first truly important UFO sighting, that of Kenneth Arnold in 1947.

If is my hypothesis that the sightings of 1952 over Washington, D.C., were likely a technology test ordered by then President Harry Truman, much as he had earlier ordered a test of the Flying Wing aircraft, when the experimental plane flew at low altitude over our nation’s capital in 1949. (I explore this idea in my novel Flying Saucers.)

You might say this is a crazy idea, but is it any crazier than space aliens traveling trillions of miles from another solar system, only to forget how to land, crashing not once, but numerous times?

It’s worth noting that the only time in spaceflight history that humans landed on another planetary body we managed to do so without crashing, and more than once. That’s what that whole ‘The Eagle has landed” thing was all about.

We know the UFOs are real. They are not a figment of anyone’s imagination. I will point to just one case, that of the giant triangular craft spotted by police offices in rural Illinois in 2000. It was observed at low altitude by cops, one of whom took a photo of it with his Polaroid camera. Granted, the photo is blurred, but you don’t try to take a photo of an illusion or a hallucination. You just don’t.

Moreover, Musk suggests these sightings are possibly “prototypes,” but I would suggest these are not prototypes but fully operational platforms. The “tic tac” encounter was in 2004, so if it was a prototype then, it surely wouldn’t be by now. Anyway, that’s my take on the mysterious realm of UFOs, which continues and is very real.

Fascinating Research Paper Links Fleeting Star-Like Points of Light with Nuclear Weapons Testing and 1952 UFO Encounters Over Washington, D.C.  

A fascinating research paper regarding transient light sources detected by the Palomar Observatory between 1949 and 1957 has provided an apparent link between these events, UFO reports and above-ground nuclear testing.

The paper is described in this excellent article published on Aug. 8, 2025, in IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/uap-researchers-search-for-transient-events-in-earths-shadow-finding-unexplained-events-80323.

Also, here is a link to the paper itself, posted on July 25 on the website Research Square, https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6347224/v1.

The researchers analyzed data regarding “transient star-like objects of unknown origin” that were identified in the first Palomar Observatory Sky Survey.

Basically, the bottom line is that there are statistically significant correlations between these fleeting points of light, nuclear testing and UFO reports, notably the 1952 UFO flap over Washington D.C.

Importantly, the paper specifies that these transient lights were recorded before the launch of any artificial satellites. However, I would like to add the caveat, “that we know of …”

I have speculated that the sensational 1952 UFO encounters over Washington actually represent a huge milestone in U.S. military history, the testing of a top-secret Pentagon weapons platform that harnessed a different type of propulsion technology and that these demonstrations were ordered by then President Harry Truman. After all, Truman had ordered a similar demonstration over Washington for the experimental Flying Wing aircraft in 1949. I further speculate that the reason the 1952 UFO event occurred on two consecutive weekends in July was that the president was not satisfied with the first demonstration of this technology, so a second demonstration was ordered.

At any rate, the research also draws an intriguing link between the transient points of light detected by the observatory and above-ground nuclear tests. While the UFO community has long speculated that space aliens have been monitoring nuclear testing, I suggest the UFOs were actually top-secret Pentagon platforms that were used in conjunction with nuclear testing, perhaps for observation and data collection or for security purposes.

Of course, this is all wild conjecture, but this paper would appear to represent important scientific data linking transient light sources with UFOs and nuclear weapons tests. Kudos to the researchers and IFLScience!

Pulp Fiction Book “Flying Saucers” Predicted Wall Street Journal’s Revelation About Pentagon Electromagnetic Tests Over U.S. Nuclear Missile Silos

It’s worth pointing out that the pulp fiction work Flying Saucers, published in 2014 and revised various times since, predicted the Wall Street Journal’s astonishing revelation that the Pentagon ran electromagnetic tests over U.S. nuclear missile silos in the 1960s, leading to one of the most enduring UFO mysteries of the modern era.

However, whereas the Journal’s investigation found that the Pentagon tests were aimed at learning whether the nuclear bunkers would still function if they received a direct hit, my thought was that the military was testing a new anti-missile technology using electromagnetic pulses to temporarily shut down the controls.

Anyway, here is the relevant passage, from page 150, Flying Saucers:

Air Force General Curtis LeMay, a key player in antigravity R&D, informed McNamara that the saucers were by design the perfect foil against Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. LeMay, who despised McNamara and his intellectual disposition, strong armed the defense secretary into boosting resources for the antigravity program.

Tests ordered by LeMay were conclusive: Just flying alongside missiles and unloading a few hundred rounds from a 30-millimeter cannon was all it would take to neutralize nukes. Or, better yet, hover over a missile silo and barrage it with electromagnetic pulses to overwhelm the controls.

The weapons people were testing both options by 1967, inducing terror in the hearts and minds of military personnel on both sides of the Cold War.

Missile silo operators at U.S. and Soviet bases reported UFO encounters that temporarily shut them down. On other occasions, Air Force and Army engineers reviewing films of missile tests were surprised to see flying saucers shadowing their rockets and shooting what appeared to be a ray gun. The “ray gun” was actually a high-intensity strobe lamp flashing rapidly to simulate cannon fire. Sometimes word leaked out to the press, fueling speculation of alien visitation and interstellar intrigue. All films were sent to the Pentagon and studied by project leaders. Analyses confirmed that flying saucers were the only effective defensive weapon against ICBMs.

 This sort of testing represented a dramatic development: The big brains in charge of antigravity realized the best way to evaluate their new weapon was in the real world. Cribbing a page from Truman’s playbook, they’d fly over cities and near military bases in America and Europe and then watch the fireworks.

The idea was to pit antigravity vehicles against first class air defenses and radar systems. America was fine-tuning the ultimate weapon, and the program got a big boost during the Reagan years, when the black budget tripled.

The Late Jimmy Carter to NPR on Subject of UFOs: ‘They’re usually some experiment. You’d be surprised how often the Navy doesn’t know what the Air Force is up to, and so forth.’

Fascinating little tidbit from NPR regarding Jimmy Carter’s take on UFOs.

Here is a link to the brief article, published today, Jan. 11, 2025, and an excerpt, bold and in brackets:

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/10/nx-s1-5248959/opinion-when-jimmy-carter-and-i-spoke-about-ufos

[“I have a story I can tell now about an off-the-record conversation I once had with the late Jimmy Carter, about one of the great human controversies: UFOs.

“This is totally off-the-record, I assured Mr. Carter. ‘But you were president for four years. You had access to all the national security intelligence. Could these people be right? Mr. President, is there anything we should know?’ “

… The president chuckled and replied, ‘No. But remember,’ he added, ‘a UFO is simply something we haven’t identified. There are dozens of unexplained incursions of our airspace every year. They’re usually some experiment. You’d be surprised,” he said, “how often the Navy doesn’t know what the Air Force is up to, and so forth.’

” ‘ So based on what you’ve seen,” I ventured, “you have no reason to think there’s life… out there?’ “

” ‘I don’t know that,” Mr. Carter gently corrected me. “But if there is, it has nothing to do with UFOs. If there’s some other civilization out there, I doubt they’d send big, bulky airships. They’d probably just keep watch and leave us alone.’ “]

Sounds like sage wisdom, and I offer it as further evidence supporting the “terrestrial hypothesis” for UFOs: that is, the UFOs are top-secret Pentagon tech, not E.T.

And Re: The Navy not always being aware of what the Air Force is doing, remember the “tic tac”, where, in 2004, U.S. Navy pilots encountered a flying object exhibiting extraordinary performance characteristics over a military training range?

Just saying …