For millennia, humankind has looked to the heavens. We have gazed in wonder, searched for inspiration, and let loose our imagination about things we cannot now, and might never, see.
So what now to think about the objects captured on three videos by the U.S. Navy? The videos were leaked in 2017 and 2018, and can be viewed online, but the Navy last week finally confirmed them and, somewhat disquietingly, admitted it has no idea what the objects are. It calls them "unidentified aerial phenomena," not unidentified flying objects, a nod perhaps to the old term's stigma of wackiness. What the videos reveal are Navy pilots encountering flying objects they cannot identify, moving in ways no one inside or outside the government has been able to explain. The objects are cloudy yet mesmerizing, tiny dots sowing enormous and fundamental questions.
Where did they come from? Are they using technology of which we can't conceive? Are they being piloted by life-forms we cannot begin to understand?
