The U.S. government has said it has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet or that an extraterrestrial presence has ever contacted any human being.
Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy released a statement on Monday in response to two petitions which called on the White House to “immediately disclose the government’s knowledge of and communications with extraterrestrial beings.”
“The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” Larson said. “In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”
However, Larson pointed out that a number of projects, including the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI), are working toward the goal of understanding if life can or does exist off Earth.
“Many scientists and mathematicians have looked with a statistical mindset at the question of whether life likely exists beyond Earth and have come to the conclusion that the odds are pretty high that somewhere among the trillions and trillions of stars in the universe there is a planet other than ours that is home to life,” Larson explained.
“Many have also noted, however, that the odds of us making contact with any of them – especially any intelligent ones – are extremely small, given the distances involved,” he added. “But that’s all statistics and speculation. The fact is we have no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.”
