There’s enormous media pressure to publish whenever anything alien comes out. Yet the best explanation of the phenomena isn’t aliens.

T he press has massively overhyped two recent stories about the supposed discovery of alien life.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover found organic molecules and intriguing geological formations that could indicate the Red Planet may have supported life 3 billion years ago when the planet was wetter. This resembles what scientists speculate Earth may have looked like at roughly the same time period, setting off intense scrutiny and a year-long review recently published in Nature. At the same time, major media outlets have been actively reporting that a U.S. “Hellfire” missile struck a UFO off the coast of Yemen — CBS News even supposedly had video — following a House Oversight Committee hearing.

NASA’s rover samples from the Bright Angel region of Mars indicate a river channel, laying down deposits called “poppy seeds” or “leopard spots,” the largest of which are one millimeter in diameter. There are detectable carbon-carbon chemical bonds in these samples. Those could be from one of the numerous biological molecules that create these sorts of bonds on Earth, which are effectively the “food” of microbes.

However, the number of tests the rover can perform to determine more is inherently limited, and the sample makes the case for the long-delayed Mars sample return mission or sending astronauts to the Red Planet.

“The identification of a potential biosignature on the Red Planet is a groundbreaking discovery, and one that will advance our understanding of Mars,” acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in a press statement. “NASA’s commitment to conducting Gold Standard Science will continue as we pursue our goal of putting American boots on Mars’ rocky soil.”

Despite the hype, these findings only indicate potential habitability, not actual life. And the presence of these organic compounds can result from non-biological processes, though that’s unlikely in this particular geologic situation. If there were life or the remains of life in these samples, this is what scientists would expect the test results to look like. If this kind of discovery were made on Earth, it would be assumed to be evidence of fossilized life. But since it is also possible that nature can make these materials without life, this isn’t an open and shut case.

Hyping such discoveries looks a bit like a request for an increased budget to the agency’s shockingly unscientific “science” programs. This wouldn’t be the first time NASA announced the potential discovery of life on Mars, just before “science” budget cuts were fully implemented, only for scientists to walk that back later.

There are still credible researchers who sincerely believe that the Viking Mars lander discovered evidence of life on the Red planet back in the 1970s, which returned evidence of active metabolism in Martian soil. But more recent work suggested alternatives.

NASA has emphasized that further analysis is needed to draw conclusions, but that it has diligently worked to rule out potential causes other than life . . . a fact which has been ignored by sensationalized press reports, some of which promptly used the potentially huge discovery to . . . attack President Donald Trump. As Duffy noted, this is especially ridiculous considering the Perseverance rover was launched during Trump’s first term.

Secondly, major media outlets reported on a new video of a U.S. Hellfire missile striking a UFO off the coast of Yemen, released in a House Oversight Committee hearing after being leaked to Congress by a servicemember, who claims that another MQ-9 was given authorization to engage the object.

Members of Congress claimed that the missile was “ineffective” against the UFO, and the press widely reported this as the missile “bouncing off” a UFO. CBS cites sketchy UFO media personality Luis Elizondo as a “former senior intelligence official,” claiming, “We’ve never seen a Hellfire missile hit a target and bounce off.” Elizondo was allegedly recruited by the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program in 2009, but has issued alternating and conflicting accounts of his role in government.

The claim made in the video is clearly wrong. The missile almost certainly used here is not an air-to-air missile and clearly did not detonate for obvious reasons having to do with its manufacture and targeting.

The footage shows the missile impacting the object, debris flying off the object, and shows both the object and the missile continuing on their course. As reported by the War Zone, the AGM-114 Hellfire used is not an air-to-air weapon, and the video clearly shows the weapon used was laser-designated. There is historical precedent. In 1991, a laser-guided bomb was used to destroy an Iraqi helicopter. It is possible to use these types of weapons to kill aerial targets, but they are not the preferred weapon.

Air-to-air missiles in the U.S. arsenal are proximity fused, but the Hellfire has a “crush-switch” detonator. This sort of missile is an anti-armored vehicle weapon, meant to kill tanks on the ground, not planes in the air; thus, it detonates in a different way.

The video clearly shows the Hellfire’s warhead not detonating. Such a missile “bouncing off” is not at all surprising.

Elizondo is not an expert in the Hellfire missile regardless, and three separate individuals who have used or were involved in the designing such missiles told National Review that the missile likely simply didn’t detonate because whatever the object is almost certainly isn’t as heavily armored as the main-battle tanks these missiles are supposed to be used against.

This means the detonation sequence wasn’t triggered as the impact wasn’t sufficient to activate the “crush-switch” detonator, as the footage clearly shows the impact making a glancing blow. This means the amount of kinetic energy transferred in the UFO was likely exceedingly low; after all, the missile is visible flying away from the impact, too!

“The weird thing about the missile hitting something and bouncing off is the missile surviving,” one expert, who wished to remain anonymous, told National Review. “Means it couldn’t have hit something that hard. The missile is going Mach 1.3 and it’s not built to take hits.”

The object impacted by the missile is highly similar to Group 3 drones, operated by the Houthis in Yemen, and would explain why the Hellfire was launched at the target in the first place. Precedent for these kinds of inexpensive kamikaze drones getting hit and continuing to operate certainly exists for this, too. It would make perfect sense for an MQ-9 crew to take a shot at such a drone in that area during the time when this was filmed, as we know these drones were flying in this area at this time.

There have been many cases of aircraft being kinetically struck by missiles and then flying considerable distances; notably, a 2003 case where a U.S. A-10 Warthog flew 120 miles after such an impact by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile. In 1983, an Israeli F-15 managed to lose its entire right wing during a kinetic collision and managed to successfully return to base, with the aircraft in question actually successfully returning to service.

As I’ve said before, there’s enormous media pressure to publish whenever anything alien comes out. Yet the best explanation of the phenomena is never aliens. The U.S. government has a long track record of using alleged aliens as an explanation for programs it would rather not disclose. And, evidently, as an excuse to request budget expansions.