“Bring out the alien” – the UFO community has lost patience with trolls
Renowned astrophysicist Neil DeBrasse Tyson was promoting his new book Take Me To Your Leader this week, which states that the author “wants to meet the aliens as badly as you do.” What did Tyson mean by this? The Cosmic Report investigates, as well as another eccentric individual.
Spiraling. Image by Cybernews.
Renowned astrophysicist Neil DeBrasse Tyson was promoting his new book Take Me To Your Leader this week, which states that the author “wants to meet the aliens as badly as you do.” What did Tyson mean by this? The Cosmic Report investigates, as well as another eccentric individual.
Much of the coverage on the UFO evidence disclosure last week was rightfully on the progress that has been made with this leap. However, resistance and belittlement is also on the airwaves.
Speaking to cable news channel MS Now, and detailing many of the issues like “alien body parts, crashed saucers, and reversed engineering” – Tyson said that it’s time to “bring out the alien,” before offering the reader tips on how to deal effectively with such a rendezvous.
Tyson says that if an alien offers an extended hand, that we should “resist grabbing and shaking it” which annoys the community for its dumbing down of the topic.
One Redditor seemed to think Tyson is being satirical. The post pointed out that “he is not seriously addressing any of the actual claims, exploring any ideas in a realistic way.”
It is highly probable that Tyson is being satirical, but still the UFO community don’t like being laughed at, especially when it’s such an impassioned cause. But what could his motive be? Perhaps to promote his book.
They are also increasingly aware that he has done a 180 of sorts. One Redditor was exasperated with Tyson, pointing out his previous disparaging of eye witnesses, but conceding “I am glad he changed his tune now though. Anything helps.”
In the past Tyson had belittled the complexity and mystery of UFO spotting by telling the community all they had to do was to "take one course in stargazing, another in atmospheric phenomena, and a third in cognitive bias.”
How to turn most UFOs into IFOs: Take one course in Stargazing, another in Atmospheric Phenomena, and a third in Cognitive Bias.
undefined Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 28, 2021
That’s one way to rattle the neighborhood, but then and again, he’s not the only one at it.
Mick West – also prone to trolling
Mick West is one of the most controversial figures around when it comes to debunking matters like UFO evidence. Founder of Neversoft Entertainment (1994) he is acclaimed as the main coder for the first five Tony Hawk skateboarding games.
But as he gradually took up the hobby of flying small planes, he gradually got into aviation and meteorology too.
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His role is not simply disagreement, but active compression of ambiguity, which leads believers to interpret him as someone who explains away everything by default.”
Disparaged as being neither a physicist, military expert, part of the intelligence community, nor aerospace, but a video game programmer, his credibility is questionable at best.
Often the case is that West brings in matters so absurd that the 2004 Nimitz encounter, in which a Navy pilot saw a Tic-Tac shaped UFO was attributed as potentially being a seagull, according to West.
undefinedYou could actually see a seagull, it's a possibility. We're talking about what Fravor saw.undefined
undefined Red Panda Koala (@RedPandaKoala) January 27, 2025
The original clip where Mick West suggests Navy Pilot David Fravor witness to the 2004 Tic Tac UFO actually saw a seagull. https://t.co/0CdWlLZApJ pic.twitter.com/A1Gkk8X54v
Another foundational conflict brought about West’s annoying tendencies happened in the summer of 2024, as commended whistleblower Lue Elizondo was releasing his book Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFO’s.
The author had been busy gathering evidence of shady coverings up, particularly focussing on the Department of Defense and its bureaucracy, which held Elizondo up in and of itself to get everything cleared.
So in one post on X, as if trolling for the sake of it, West gave a “you’ve been quiet” tone, as if to imply Elizondo should have kept updating us every month during the process of publishing his work.
Question about mil NDAs. Since 2017 Luis Elizondo has said very little about when he was working on investigating UFOs. But now in 2024 he's publishing a book with all kinds of amazing-sounding stuff.
undefined Mick West (@MickWest) July 25, 2024
What happened? Do such NDAs expire? pic.twitter.com/nIWxdEmCDF
In one conversation, legitimate probing questions were asked by West at first, before it transpired that he’d even been shunned by Elizondo due to West’s ceaseless badgering. “Why don’t you ask him (Elizondo) yourself?” asked one poster. “Because he blocked me” came the reply.
And no wonder.
So, as we move into further weeks of more UFO files to be released, one of the additional challenges will be to shut out the noise, especially when being absurd can’t particularly warrant being taken seriously.
