Look, I'm a science-fiction writer, in addition to my other various ventures in life. Nobody would be more excited than I to learn of other intelligent life out there, somewhere in this vast, vast cosmos. But if we ever do learn of another intelligent species, it's unlikely in the extreme that they will land on Earth, pop out of the hatch, and say, "Take me to your leader." (If they ever do land here in the Susitna Valley with such a demand, I'm taking them to Gary Busey.) It's far more likely that such a discovery would come from a snippet of intercepted radio that is organized into a signal, one that was probably not meant for us. We have been sending such signals ourselves for some time now, after all, and so far, nobody has come calling.

What does all this mean? That the things people see and call "UFOs" may be many things, but they aren't alien spacecraft. 

In an era captivated by unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and government conspiracies, one former NASA official is cutting through the noise and casting doubt on aliens coming to Earth.

Joseph Gutheinz, a retired senior special agent with NASA’s Office of Inspector General and current criminal defense attorney, said it’s time to apply science, not speculation, to the debate.

"Prove it. Honestly, prove it," he said to those who believe in the presence of UFOs on Earth.

"They've been claiming that there have been UFOs since the 1940s. And, you know, Area 51 supposedly houses UFOs," he told Fox News Digital. "Have someone go in, look at Area 51."

Nobody has, of course. There have been some "leaked" photos of aliens and so forth, but most of them are laughable attempts. And in all the years that the facility has been running, and of the thousands of people who have worked there, where they supposedly have not only alien corpses but wrecks of alien ships, not one person has decided to gain international fame and fortune by smuggling out one inarguable piece of alien technology? 

It's a near-impossibility, given our current understanding of physics.

Citing astronomical distances and scientific understanding of the solar system, Gutheinz explained the improbability of any extraterrestrial visitors reaching Earth. 

"There are up to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. There are maybe one to two trillion galaxies in the universe. But the reality is this, the closest solar system is Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri A, B, and Proxima Centauri are the closest stars," he said.

"The bottom line is that it's 4.4 light years away, or 25 trillion miles away. And if somebody started flying to Proxima and Satori, or the other way around, it would take them over 70,000 years to get there," he said. "Nobody is visiting us from another world, likely."

And those are just the closest stars. There are millions, billions, of stars and planets even farther away.

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And that's an interesting point. Out of the billions of stars and billions of planets just in our galaxy, there are strong odds that there is other life out there, somewhere. I know there are a lot of biologists who would love to get a look at a few places in our own solar system, like under the ice pack of Europa. Any life there would be primitive, but it would be extra-terrestrial life, and it would knock a lot of our current notions into a cocked hat.

But life from another solar system? Intelligent life? Having crossed an ungrokkable distance in time and space, just to see us? Bear in mind that there is the even less likely prospect that they would be enough like us to allow for any interaction; they may communicate not by speaking, for instance, but by a squidlike flashing of light or some other even more unfathomable method.

As noted, I'm a science fiction writer. I've written of cultures with interstellar travel, and I've written of intelligent alien species that stand upright and communicate verbally, as we do, and with whom we can speak after learning their language. To explain this, I can offer two points: First, see Device, Plot, one each, and second, science fiction is often marked by the wild abandon with which we just make stuff up. That's kind of the whole point of the genre.

But in the real world, I'm inclined to agree with Joseph Gutheinz. UFOs aren't alien spacecraft, and many of the rumors and sightings are almost certainly experimental aircraft, which is, after all, what the Nevada Test and Training Range (which includes Area 51) actually does. Occam's Razor applies.

We've got plenty of real-world things to be concerned about without worrying about aliens.

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