About Are aliens real?
What science and the official investigations say about whether extraterrestrial life exists and whether it has visited Earth.
- Also known as
- Do aliens exist?
- Life elsewhere
- Not yet found
- Planets known
- More than 6,000 beyond the Solar System
- Official finding on UFOs
- No verified evidence of alien technology (AARO, 2024)
The full story, section by section
The story of Are aliens real? in 3 parts. Tap any part to read it in full.
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Is there life elsewhere?Astronomers have confirmed more than 6,000 planets around other stars, many in zones where liquid water could exist.Read this part → Illustration drawn for this site — not a photograph.
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Have aliens visited Earth?Most UFO reports turn out to have ordinary explanations — planets, satellites such as Starlink, planes, balloons, drones and camera effects.Read this part → Illustration drawn for this site — not a photograph.
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The claimsWitnesses and former officials such as David Grusch and Luis Elizondo have said the U.S.Read this part → Illustration drawn for this site — not a photograph.
Key people
The people at the centre of the story — witnesses, investigators, officials and sceptics:
- David GruschDavid Grusch is a former U.S. Air Force officer and intelligence official who publicly claimed in 2023 that the United States government runs secret programs to recover and reverse-engineer non-human…
- Luis ElizondoLuis Elizondo is a former American Army counterintelligence officer and Defense Department official who became a prominent figure in the modern UFO debate after resigning in October 2017. He stated t…
Related cases & events
Events and sightings linked to Are aliens real?:
🗓️ Event · 10 min readODNI Preliminary Assessment on UAPThe article describes the "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," a nine-page unclassified report issued on June 25, 2021, by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
🗓️ Event · 3 min readUAP hearingsPublic hearings in the U.S. Congress on UFOs and UAP, from 1966 to the whistleblower hearings of 2023–2025.Programs, organizations & documents
The official programs, groups and papers involved:
🏛️ Program or study · 2 min readSETIThe Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: listening for signals from civilisations on other worlds.
📄 Document · 7 min readAARO Historical Record ReportThe AARO Historical Record Report is a Pentagon review of U.S. government involvement with unidentified anomalous phenomena since 1945, required by Congress and released in March 2024.
🏛️ Program or study · 13 min readProject Blue BookProject Blue Book was the United States Air Force's official study of unidentified flying objects based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio from March 1952 until December 1969. The project collected and analyzed sighting reports to determine if UFOs th…
🏢 Organization · 15 min readAAROThe All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is a United States Department of Defense organization created on July 20, 2022, to investigate unidentified anomalous phenomena. Its scope covers objects in the air, at sea, in space, and moving between those do…Related topics & places
Ideas, terms and places that come up in the story:
📖 Term · 5 min readFermi paradoxThe Fermi paradox is the contradiction between the high probability that extraterrestrial civilizations exist and the lack of any clear evidence for them. The term originated from a 1950 lunchtime conversation in Los Alamos involving physicist Enrico Fermi, w…
📖 Term · 5 min readDrake equationThe Drake equation is a probabilistic argument written by radio astronomer Frank Drake in 1961 to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way. Because several of its terms rely on pure conjecture, the formula c…
🧭 Topic overview · 2 min readTypes of aliensThe kinds of extraterrestrial beings described in UFO reports and lore: greys, Nordics, reptilians and more.
📖 Term · 10 min readAlien abductionAlien abduction is the claim that individuals are taken against their will by non-human beings aboard a spacecraft to undergo physical and psychological procedures. Reports of these events occurred worldwide between 1952 and 1995, with the first widely public…🗓️ Are aliens real? on the UAP timeline
- An alleged Air Force project used drugs and hypnosis; one participant believed he contacted aliens. Read the article →
- Army Col. Philip Corso claims he handled autopsy reports and recovered alien artifacts. Read the article →
- An Air Force technician says he saw a charred alien body at an underground site in Colorado. Read the article →
- A source tells Leonard Stringfield that three air bases held alien craft or bodies. Read the article →
- A NASA official testifies to the House about searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Read the article →
- Former CIA official Victor Marchetti writes that the government is hiding alien contact. Read the article →
- Pilot John Lear claims the government has worked with gray aliens since the 1960s. Read the article →
- Bob Lazar goes public, claiming he worked on alien craft at S-4 near Area 51. Read the article →
- Gen. Arthur Exon says he was told Roswell was an alien craft recovery. Read the article →
- A writer using a pseudonym publishes books claiming 'grey aliens' are involved in human affairs. Read the article →
- Vallée says Liechtenstein's prince funded a study of alien abduction claims through Robert Bigelow. Read the article →
- Dan Sherman claims his NSA analyst training was cover for communicating with extraterrestrials. Read the article →
- Sherman claims he received his first alien communication while on duty. Read the article →
- Sherman says his messages seemed to involve alien abductions. Read the article →
- Philip Corso tells Vallée he may have received disinformation about alien autopsies. Read the article →
- Bigelow discusses the need for a plan if alien contact were confirmed. Read the article →
- They also discuss Kit Green's claim of a briefing on three alien landings. Read the article →
- Former contractor Don Phillips claims Lockheed studies extraterrestrial technology. Read the article →
- Kit Green says an Air Force physician told him he saw alien autopsy material. Read the article →
- Puthoff took part in a think tank's role-play of possible alien contact scenarios. Read the article →
- Bill Cooper claims underground bases host cooperation between aliens and humans. Read the article →
- Dan Burisch claims he studied an extraterrestrial being at the S-4 facility. Read the article →
- Kit Green says he received an anonymous package of supposed alien autopsy tissue. Read the article →
- A retired Marine captain says he tested exotic aircraft and worked on alien technology. Read the article →
- Steven Greer says he heard Elizondo was in a facility holding an alien vehicle. Read the article →
- Elizondo says alien technology could give one company an unfair advantage over another. Read the article →
🏛️ Official records
- “Apollo 16 Scientific Debriefing”NASA · Released Jun 12, 2026At 32:41, the speaker makes an off-handed comment, “Could be an alien starbase or something, I don’t know” when discussing correlations between experimental data sets.
- AAWSAP DIRD, An Introduction to the Statistical Drake Equation, March 2010Department of War · 2010-03-11This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIR…
- Placement on High Alert Due to Perceived Aggressive Foreign PosturingCIA · July 2008A never before released July 2008 report on a UFO sighting at the Harare International Airport. Individuals debated if the sighting was an advanced reconnaissance device of a foreign government or of extraterrestrial or…
- State Department UAP Cable 005, Mexico, September 16, 2003Department of State · 2003-09-12On September 12, 20023 the Mexican Congress heard testimony on UAP from experts related to the debate about an Aerial Space Protection Law, which, if approved, would make Mexico the first country to formally acknowledge…
- Congressional, White House, UFO-related Constituent Correspondence, 1998U.S. Government · 1998This collection of documents, primarily from 1998, contains draft and final correspondence from the White House and the offices of members of Congress responding to constituent inquiries about Unidentified Flying Object…
- 59 214434 SP 16 [7.18.1963]Department of State · 1963-07-18This memorandum, dated July 18, 1963, from the Executive Office of the President, National Aeronautics and Space Council, relates to thoughts on the space alien race question. Included are details relating to plans if a…
🛸 UFO sightings about Are aliens real?
Sightings that mention Are aliens real?
More in the encyclopedia
Other articles that link to or mention Are aliens real?:
- Nordic aliensNordic aliens are described in UFO literature as tall, human-like extraterrestrials with blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin who are said to originate from the Pleiades star cluster. These benevolen…
- The Flying Saucers Are RealThe 1950 book "The Flying Saucers Are Real" was written by Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major and aviation writer. The book expanded on his earlier magazine article and argued that flying sa…
- Government programs (topic)This encyclopedia overview outlines government and private programs established to study UFOs and UAPs from 1947 to 2023. U.S.
- Propulsion & physics (topic)This overview covers claims and research regarding advanced propulsion, gravity, energy, and exotic materials spanning from 1955 to 2023. It details various historical attempts by inventors, governme…
- Remote viewing & psi (topic)This article provides an overview of remote viewing, psychic research, and consciousness studies linked to UFOs from 1950 to 2022. It details government-funded initiatives like the Stargate Project, …
- Congress & law (topic)This topic overview covers congressional hearings, laws, and inquiries regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena from 1950 to 2022. During the Cold War, Congress primarily received closed briefings …
- Disinformation & hoaxes (topic)This encyclopedia overview covers disinformation and hoaxes related to UFO history from 1948 to 2019. It details how officials played down subjects, used cover stories for secret projects, and fed fa…
- Ocean & underwater (topic)This encyclopedia overview covers objects seen entering, leaving, or moving under the sea, which are associated with military encounters and government investigations spanning from 1951 to 2022. It d…
- Crashes & retrievals (topic)This topic overview covers claims from 1947 to 2023 that governments have recovered and studied crashed non-human craft or debris. Beginning with the 1947 Roswell incident in New Mexico, ufology clai…
- Bases & Area 51 (topic)This overview topic covers military bases, test ranges, and secret facilities related to UFO folklore, focusing primarily on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and Area 51 in Nevada between 1949…
- Beings & bodies (topic)This topic overview covers reports and claims about non-human beings, bodies, and biological material spanning from 1947 to 2023. It outlines various second-hand and anonymous accounts involving cras…
- Nuclear & missile sites (topic)This text is about reported UFO and unidentified anomalous phenomena sightings and incidents at nuclear weapons sites, missile bases, and laboratories between 1947 and 2022. While researchers like Ro…
Questions & answers
What is Are aliens real??
Are aliens real?: What science and the official investigations say about whether extraterrestrial life exists and whether it has visited Earth. Read: Are aliens real? →
What else is Are aliens real? called?
Are aliens real? is also known as Do aliens exist?.
Who is David Grusch?
David Grusch is a former U.S. Air Force officer and intelligence official who publicly claimed in 2023 that the United States government runs secret programs to recover and reverse-engineer non-human craft and pilots. Read: David Grusch →
Who is Luis Elizondo?
Luis Elizondo is a former American Army counterintelligence officer and Defense Department official who became a prominent figure in the modern UFO debate after resigning in October 2017. He stated that he led the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and later helped bring Navy videos of unidentified objects to public attention, though the Pentagon has given conflicting accounts of his role. Since leaving government service, he has worked with the To the Stars Academy, lobbied Congress for UFO transparency, and written a memoir. Read: Luis Elizondo →
What was ODNI Preliminary Assessment on UAP?
ODNI Preliminary Assessment on UAP: The article describes the "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," a nine-page unclassified report issued on June 25, 2021, by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Read: ODNI Preliminary Assessment on UAP →
What was UAP hearings?
UAP hearings: Public hearings in the U.S. Congress on UFOs and UAP, from 1966 to the whistleblower hearings of 2023–2025. Read: UAP hearings →
What is SETI?
SETI: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: listening for signals from civilisations on other worlds. Read: SETI →
What is AARO Historical Record Report?
AARO Historical Record Report: The AARO Historical Record Report is a Pentagon review of U.S. government involvement with unidentified anomalous phenomena since 1945, required by Congress and released in March 2024. Read: AARO Historical Record Report →
What is Fermi paradox?
Fermi paradox: The Fermi paradox is the contradiction between the high probability that extraterrestrial civilizations exist and the lack of any clear evidence for them. The term originated from a 1950 lunchtime conversation in Los Alamos involving physicist Enrico Fermi, who asked "Where is everybody?" Proposed explanations range from life being extremely rare and civilizations dying out quickly to aliens choosing to stay hidden, while decades of searches have found no clear signs of extraterrestrial life. Read: Fermi paradox →
What is Drake equation?
Drake equation: The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument written by radio astronomer Frank Drake in 1961 to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way. Because several of its terms rely on pure conjecture, the formula cannot support firm conclusions and yields results ranging from less than one civilization to tens of millions. Its primary value is setting out what scientists need to know and serving as an agenda for discussion. Read: Drake equation →