RFK Jr., UFOs, and the Laziness of the Conspiratorial Mind
Sensational Fictions and Unprofessional Neglect
In a recent interview, anti-vaccine crank and Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices member Robert Malone (who once told his critics to move to Canada and commit suicide) claimed that fellow anti-vaccine grifter Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, was briefed on classified intelligence about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) flown by extraterrestrial beings, possibly space aliens or even time travelers. Malone claimed a "federal investigator" from an unnamed agency told him that we are having an uptick of "alien encounters." Needless to say, but the conspiracy theory that the government is covering up the existence of intergalactic visitors has captured imaginations for many decades.
Rolling the Intergalactic Craps Table
Let's humor some of these questions posed by Robert Malone. Is there intelligent extraterrestrial life out there? Basic arithmetic and probability might hold the answer. Since the "Big Bang," all matter in the universe has been expanding outward towards infinity, while organic life on Earth has evolved over billions of years, from simple bacteria to the overcomplicated sack of flesh you presently inhabit. What are the odds there is some other species like us out there?
Scientists estimate there around 300,000,000 habitable planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, with an estimated 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the known universe. By multiplying these two numbers together, we get a rough approximation of opportunities for the chaos of organic evolution to finally roll boxcars and produce an intelligent lifeform such as our own. Of all the over two million animal species on Earth, humanity is the only one that has left the atmosphere of their own volition. Beyond it, the vast expanses of space contain countless lightyears of emptiness, meaning all the hundreds of thousands of years of civilization and human history are trapped upon an irrelevant speck of dust, shrouded in an unforgiving darkness. It's a harrowing and terrifying reality to try and comprehend, and within that lonely void, our imagination tries to fill it with elaborate fictions.
Through the lens of probability, it's almost guaranteed that organic life exists across our galaxy, possibly even intelligent and civilized life. Humanity has spent a great deal of resources attempting to reach across infinity and make First Contact. The closest habitable star system, Proxima Centauri, lies endless trillions of miles away with an empty sea of darkness between us. Alternatively, the probability of an advanced extraterrestrial race to have developed faster-than-light space travel, select our world out of so many, and send visitors aboard a highly advanced spacecraft, with the federal government concealing all evidence of these encounters, is incredibly unlikely.
Sensationalism Over Science
Let's look at our own space program and attempts to contact alien life. From Sputnik to Voyager to the Mars rover, mankind has sent all sorts of remotely operated unmanned craft to probe the mysteries of our universe. A manned mission to Mars is still many years away, if ever, and we have yet to overcome the physical impacts of extended stays in zero-gravity. Mankind has blasted all sorts of electronic signals across space to try and make First Contact, yet we have only heard silence in response. The conspiracy theorists who believe in alien visitors insist these highly advanced galactic travelers simply skipped these steps entirely.
So, what's more likely here? That the world's governments are engaged in a vast global conspiracy to conceal knowledge of a highly advanced alien civilization which can effortlessly blink across the infinite void, or that disgraced crank Robert Malone is simply talking out of his ass again? Conspiracy theories are often a form of entertainment, giving the believer the satisfaction of possessing secret, forbidden knowledge, and a special status over "normies." Often times, conspiracy theorists don't simply subscribe to one, but multiple overlapping conspiracies as part of a twisted, larger worldview with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. being a prime example of this":
RFK Jr. also believes that SARS-CoV-2 was a genetically engineered bioweapon deployed as part of a Chinese-Jewish conspiracy, with no serious evidence to support such outlandish claims. This sensationalist, contradictory hogwash serves as a comforting distraction from unsettling realities, such as a virus which emerged from nature killing tens of millions of people around the world in the span of just a few years. Even more harrowing is the terrifying possibility that humanity may render it's only home uninhabitable via manmade climate collapse, long before ever making contact with an extraterrestrial civilization.
Yet, those are the hard truths of our reality, of which elaborate conspiracies serve only as an entertaining distraction from. Part of growing up and maturing is accepting such facts, instead of slinking away into childish fantasy. Yet, American politics has become dominated by a vast and extended temper tantrum, demanding that elaborate fictions overrule hard science. Now we are all at risk.
Federal Bureau of Time Wasters
How do you expect mankind to ever journey across the stars, when we waste so much time and resources on entertaining one man's absurd imagination? Just as it took decades of research to produce lifesaving mRNA vaccines, mankind has decades of hard work ahead of us to overcome the challenges of deep space exploration. It would be foolish to think some benevolent alien civilization is going to simply hand over the blueprints for a craft that can fold space and time, or that the United States military already has these secrets sitting locked away in a desert hangar.
Worse yet, Robert Malone is claiming that RFK Jr. has now joined this government conspiracy to conceal such secrets from the public. Instead of this being an indictment of the character of the HHS Secretary, Malone wants you to think this is cool and exciting. This is the contradictory nonsense that makes up the intellectual laziness of the conspiratorial mind, divorced from the intellectual rigor of scientific inquiry. It’s completely pathetic.
Perhaps a century or two from now, mankind invents the technologies required for deep space exploration. If they find proof of alien life on another world, probability tells us that the most likely scenario is an astronaut uncovering a cluster of single-cell micro-organisms in a mud puddle, too small to be seen by the naked eye, much less hold a conversation with. While this would be a massive scientific breakthrough, it's hardly as exciting as the many conspiracies which make up the plot of The X-Files.
What this does say is that either Robert Malone is lying, somebody is jerking his chain, or perhaps someone in the federal government is having a laugh at the expense of the HHS Secretary. Regardless, it's further proof that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is neglecting his responsibility to the American people: safeguarding the health of the feeble Earthlings. If he's uninterested in doing his job, then RFK Jr. should tender his resignation immediately. Leave the outlandish fantasies to videogame developers.
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