In an age where UFO sightings and alien theories dominate headlines and internet forums, one former NASA official is urging the public to take a more grounded approach. Joseph Gutheinz, a retired senior special agent with NASA’s Office of Inspector General and now a criminal defense attorney, says the fascination with extraterrestrials is more fiction than fact — and that it’s time to let science lead the conversation.
“Prove it. Honestly, prove it,” Gutheinz said, addressing believers who claim aliens have visited Earth. “They’ve been claiming that there have been UFOs since the 1940s. And, you know, Area 51 supposedly houses UFOs. Have someone go in, look at Area 51.”
During his tenure with NASA’s inspector general’s office, Gutheinz said he regularly fielded calls from people who claimed to have been abducted or implanted with alien technology. His response to such claims was direct: “See a psychiatrist.”
He emphasized the scientific improbability of interstellar travel to Earth, pointing out the immense distances separating our planet from the nearest solar systems.
“There are up to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way and one to two trillion galaxies in the universe,” Gutheinz explained. “But the closest solar system — Alpha Centauri — is 4.4 light-years away, or about 25 trillion miles. Traveling that distance would take over 70,000 years with current technology.”
In his view, alien visitations are not only unlikely — they’re virtually impossible.
Instead, Gutheinz believes that the real explanations behind UFO sightings likely lie much closer to home. “If you’re seeing something up there and it’s real, it’s coming from the Chinese or the Russians — or your next-door neighbor flying around with a drone,” he said.
He also suggested that secrecy within the U.S. military during the Cold War may have played a major role in fueling early UFO myths.
“I believe early on in the 1940s, when all these UFO stories started coming up, it was because the military was probably testing some aircraft and didn’t want the Russians to know about it,” Gutheinz said. “If the UFO cover worked, I wouldn’t be surprised if people in the military played along with it to help conceal advanced stealth technologies.”
As for the possibility of life elsewhere in the solar system, Gutheinz didn’t rule it out entirely — but limited the scope.
“There could be primitive life on moons like Europa, Ganymede, Titan, or Triton,” he said. “Microorganisms, maybe. But nothing flying here in a saucer.”
Gutheinz’s message is clear: focus on what science can prove, not what speculation suggests.
“The bottom line is, I think we’ve used the UFO cover to hide a lot of things,” he concluded. “But that doesn’t mean we’ve ever had visitors from another world.”
