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Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson—astrophysicist and planetary scientist—hosted the 2014 reboot of Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, on Fox and the National Geographic Channel. He also is Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York, New York.
So, when the United States government decided to release a report detailing the last 100 UFO (unidentified flying object) sightings, Dr. Tyson had some thoughts.
He shared them on Twitter, of course.
He posted:
"The search for Aliens on Earth has been crowdsourced to three-billion internet-connected smartphones around the World."
"If our best evidence for visitors from another planet is monochromatic low-resolution, fuzzy video taken by the USNavy, then there's more work to be done here."
Clearly Tyson was unimpressed with the Navy's photography skills.
Still, the science educator had a few tips up his sleeve for the abductee eager to be believed.
He suggested:
"If a UFO beams you up, steal a gizmo [from] the Alien's shelf when it's not looking."
"Bring that to the lab—you'll need it to supplement your eyewitness testimony."
He added for those unhappy with his skepticism:
"Ready to resume the posting of all my Space Alien Tweets since 2009."
"But some of you didn't like them. You're not obligated to, but you can always unfollow me."
"Or just avert your eyes for the rest of today."
Tyson added a bit of sound advice about meeting an alien and assumptions about anatomy.
"If I ever met a Space Alien, I'd resist shaking its extended appendage, not knowing for sure the details of alien anatomy."
Then he shared some thoughts on the impression humans might make on outside observers.
"Space Aliens, seeing Humans kill over land, politics, religion, & resources, would surely ask,"
"'What the f*%k is wrong with you?'"
"After which, they'd return to their home planet, declaring there is no sign of intelligent life on Earth."
He finished up in the best way possible for a father of two—a groan-worthy dad joke:
"Gotta end with a Dad-joke…
"Q: What do you call embryotic Space Aliens?"
"A: Eggstra-terrestrials."
That of course lead to other jokes...
Although not everyone was a fan.
Some people decided to provide comparisons in technology.
Ouch...
Others decided to get scientific in their approach to why we don't have good photos of interstellar visitors.
Or maybe they just watched a lot of Star Trek.
Romulan cloaking device, anyone?
In the end, Tyson reminded us to keep our eyes skyward and look to the experts:
- SETI Institute - search for extraterrestrial intelligence
- DoD - Department of Defense
Keeping looking up everyone, you never know what you might see...
Just make sure you don't shake any alien's "hand."
You don't know what that thing is or where it's been.