21

Area 51-themed TV specials appear on US cable TV from time to time, often times even appearing on educational TV networks.

These shows often feature interviews with people who claim to have seen strange lights or phenomenon around the US Area 51 military base in southern Nevada. Others have made claims that at one time there were whole Alien bodies or even a UFO located in a hanger.

Is there any evidence to support these claims?

Sklivvz
  • 78,578
  • 29
  • 321
  • 428
Mark Rogers
  • 11,324
  • 11
  • 55
  • 71
  • 1
    Worth pointing out that the networks do not air these specials because they think there really are aliens in Area 51 but because they think people will watch them. – DJClayworth Dec 14 '20 at 03:36

1 Answers1

24

There cannot be any credible evidence at the moment.

There are literally hundreds of scientists who are convinced that extraterrestrial life must exist, and expensive missions have been performed and are planned to find proof that life exists outside of Earth.

This is to say that there is no preconceived hostility from the scientific community to accept evidence of extraterrestrial life - including extraterrestrial life hosted in Area 51.

If there were any evidence, it would arguably be one of the biggest scientific discoveries of all time - nobody would keep it secret!

What should be remembered that extraterrestrial life is an extremely exceptional claim - as such people need to be extremely skeptical of any evidence presented.

To give you a current example, see http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/07/followup-thoughts-on-the-meteorite-fossils-claim/ which is a very good example of how high the bar is set for this type of claims!

Sklivvz
  • 78,578
  • 29
  • 321
  • 428
  • 1
    You seem to be implying that the bar for evidence of extraterrestrial life is higher than for other scientific discoveries. Is this your intended claim? – Russell Steen Mar 29 '11 at 19:32
  • 6
    Yes, it would be a world-changing discovery, so we need to be pretty darn sure. – Sklivvz Mar 29 '11 at 19:41
  • 1
    Yes, "Extraterrestrial life exists at area 51" has a higher burden of proof than "bacteria strain X that we thought would be killed by temperatures higher than 75°C can survive up to 80°C under these very specific circumstances that we already know have a similar effect on some other strain of bacteria". – WolfgangGroiss Dec 14 '20 at 07:54