Astronaut or Astronut?

This may be old news for many of you, but former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr. Edgar Mitchell — a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission — claims aliens exist.

If you're thinking, "Yeah. The universe is sufficiently large enough for millions of alien species to exist", wait just a second. He also claims extraterrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions, but that the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by the government. And the cover up has lasted for some six decades.

Appearing on a British radio program recently, Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, said:

[I am] privileged enough to be in on the fact that we’ve been visited on this planet and the U.F.O. phenomena is real.

Now, this is not the first time Mitchell has taken a swim in the crazy pool. You can see videos of him making outrageous claims here, here, and here. But being a former astronaut, he has a lot of clout when it comes to things space-related, and many people might just be inclined to believe him because of his status. In fact, as I was flipping through the cable channels last night, I heard even David Letterman comment on the story.

Now, I don't think Letterman buys into Mitchell's claims, except to mine them for jokes, but a lot of people watch his program, and not all of those viewers are as discerning.

But what about Mitchell's claims? Have aliens visited Earth?

Well, of course the default position for most of us is, "It would be awesome if aliens did visit, but without evaluating the evidence, I can't say for sure if they have".

Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support such a claim; no spaceships, no alien bodies, no ray guns or communicators, and no mother ship hiding behind the moon. Plus, there are those pesky old problems of vast distances between star systems and the difficulties of space travel to contend with, not to mention the fact that Earth is in an insignificant solar system in an out-of-the-way arm of the Milky Way. Aliens visiting us would have to be either the most thorough species ever to evolve, or completely fucking lost.

And as for the claims of a government conspiracy, what can one do besides point out the obvious. I mean, we are being asked to believe that a government that has put us in dire economic straits by selling our debts to countries all over the world, that can't make intelligent decisions and take intelligent actions on issues like our dependence on oil, the environment, and stem cell research, and that refuses to be held accountable for enormous foreign policy blunders and the lies associated with them, can cover up what would be the single most important event in the entire history of this planet.

Apparently, the United States government is so clever, so brilliant, it can pretend to be incompetent, even to the point where its citizens face potential long-term financial woes or wind up dying on foreign soil, while still controlling and concealing from the entire world the most important news story ever.

It's frightening to consider anything so diabolical.

Fortunately, we don't have to. The government's not that good. So all we have to do is discuss the subject rationally with the new crop of believers that Mitchell is going to inspire, and then hope that as we age, we can stay several steps ahead of dementia, even though others apparently can't.