Originally published 2021-06-01.
In May 2021, retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield told CBC Radio that seeing something unexplained in the sky and immediately deciding it is an alien spacecraft makes no logical sense. He called that leap "the height of foolishness and lack of logic", while stressing that humans are still actively searching for life beyond Earth. Headlines at the time paraphrased him as calling UFO believers "idiots", but that word does not appear in his quoted remarks.
His comments came during one of the busiest periods for UFO news in decades. Here is what he said, why his view carries weight, what the US government actually reported a few weeks later, and how to think clearly about unexplained sightings.
What Hadfield actually said
Hadfield's point was not that strange things never appear in the sky. He openly said he had seen countless things he could not explain, both as a military pilot and in orbit. His objection was to the jump from "I don't know what that is" to "it must be intelligent life from another solar system".
He added that, so far, "we have found no evidence of life anywhere except Earth, and we're looking." He also said the subject sits on the border between science and science fiction, and that it is genuinely fun to think about. That is a long way from mocking people for being curious.
The sharper word "idiots" came from secondary headlines summarising the interview. It made the story more shareable, but it misrepresented the tone of what he said.
Why Hadfield's view carries weight
Born in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1959, Hadfield spent 25 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, flying CF-18 Hornet fighters and later working as a test pilot on more than 70 types of aircraft. He flew to space three times: on Space Shuttle missions in 1995 and 2001, and on a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station in 2012–13.
In 2001 he became the first Canadian to walk in space, helping to install the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm. In 2013 he became the first Canadian to command the ISS, during Expedition 35, and his zero-gravity cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" became one of the most-watched videos ever recorded in space.
Few people have spent as much time looking at Earth's sky from both sides. When someone with that background says he has seen plenty of unexplained things without concluding they were alien, it is worth listening to the reasoning.
Why UFOs were in the news in 2021
Interest had been building since December 2017, when news reports revealed a Pentagon programme that had studied unidentified aerial sightings. Over the following years, the US Navy acknowledged that videos filmed by its pilots showed objects it could not identify, and the Department of Defense officially released three of those clips in April 2020.
The US government by then preferred the term unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), partly to move away from the alien associations of "UFO". In May 2021, a high-profile television segment featured former Navy pilots describing their encounters, and the following month former President Barack Obama said there was footage and records of objects in the sky that "we don't know exactly what they are." He did not claim the objects were extraterrestrial.
Congress had also asked the intelligence community to produce a public report, which was due within weeks of Hadfield's interview.
What the 2021 government report concluded
On 25 June 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a nine-page preliminary assessment prepared by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. It examined 144 reports, most from US Navy personnel, dating from 2004 to 2021.
Only one case was explained with high confidence: a large, deflating balloon. The other 143 remained unidentified, mainly because the data were too limited. The report proposed five broad categories of possible explanation: airborne clutter such as birds, balloons and drones; natural atmospheric effects like ice crystals; secret US government or industry programmes; systems developed by foreign adversaries; and an "other" category.
Crucially, it did not say any object was alien. "Unidentified" meant exactly that: not yet explained. That is very close to the distinction Hadfield had drawn a month earlier.
How to think about an unexplained sighting
An unexplained observation leaves many possibilities open. Before concluding anything extraordinary, it helps to work through the ordinary ones:
- Perspective and distance. Without a reference point, a small nearby object can look like a huge distant one, and apparent "impossible speeds" may simply reflect a miscalculated distance.
- Sensor artefacts. Infrared cameras, lens glare and camera tracking can make objects appear to rotate or move in strange ways.
- Everyday sources. Balloons, drones, satellites (including long trains of newly launched satellites), aircraft lights, planets such as Venus and weather phenomena explain the large majority of reported sightings.
- Data quality. Short, blurry clips rarely allow firm conclusions either way. Multiple sensors and witnesses make a case far stronger.
Scientists often summarise this with the principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That does not mean refusing to investigate; it means not jumping to the most dramatic answer first.
Is there life beyond Earth?
Hadfield's caution about UFOs does not mean scientists dismiss the possibility of life elsewhere. Quite the opposite: agencies such as NASA are sending rovers to search Mars for signs of ancient microbes, telescopes are studying the atmospheres of planets around other stars, and missions are being planned to icy moons like Europa, where liquid oceans may exist beneath the surface.
Hadfield himself has spoken enthusiastically about exploring Mars. His position is consistent: the search is real and worthwhile, but evidence has to come before conclusions. So far, no confirmed evidence of life beyond Earth has been found, and the search continues.
Sources: CBC Radio interview; originally reported via Futurism; Wikipedia: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena; Wikipedia: Chris Hadfield.
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