A major Pentagon figure has a dire warning for the United States: There may be aliens in our backyard. Or a super-secret Chinese spy craft. Or a super-secret Russian spy craft. Or something. 

This week, the director of the U.S. government’s UFO analysis office stated that there is “evidence” of concerning unidentified flying object activity “in our backyard.” According to physicist Seán Kirkpatrick, who heads the congressionally-mandated All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, this alarming UFO activity can be attributed to one of two extraordinary sources: either a foreign power or “aliens.” 

To be sure, the ramifications of either would be significant. But Kirkpatrick’s comments, which come as he is about to retire after a 27-year defense and intelligence-focused career, are more intriguing because he also says that “none” of the hundreds of military UFO reports analyzed by his office recently “have been positively attributed to foreign activities.”  

Well, I guess that leaves aliens. Goldie Hawn will be relieved to know she didn't just imagine the whole thing. But take a look at the somewhat dodgy wording of that Pentagon statement; it is as though Mr. Kirkpatrick (does he wear a black suit and dark glasses while on the job?) is saying, in effect, "I'm not saying it's aliens, but... It's aliens."

At the same time, Kirkpatrick and senior defense officials have ruled out the possibility that secret U.S. programs or experimental aircraft explain the phenomena. 

While suspicious UFO cases will “continue to be investigated” for foreign links, the facts at hand appear to support Kirkpatrick’s more startling explanation for the UFO activity in America’s backyard: “aliens.”

Uh-huh.

One has to ask (for what seems like the 10,000 time), why would our solar system and our planet draw any particular alien attention? There's nothing here on Earth that they couldn't get much more easily somewhere else. Water, oxygen, and other volatiles? Forget the asteroid belt; they don't need to come that far into the Sun's gravity well. The Oort Cloud is loaded with chunks of ice, laced with all matter of other substances. Methane for fuel, or other hydrocarbons? Saturn's moon Titan literally has oceans of liquid hydrocarbons (Don't tell the Doom Pixie, or she'll be picketing Saturn next.) And why is the Pentagon getting involved in this? Presumably, this is more in NASA's wheelhouse.

It just doesn't make any logical sense, especially when you consider the solar system's Galactic Yelp rating; only one star.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. We're not talking about President Trump in a Swedish steak proof, we're talking about something more substantial. If alien spacecraft had visited Earth, they would have come from a civilization that is thousands, maybe millions of years more advanced than us. There would be no reason for them to be stealthy. They wouldn’t bother to hide from us. We would very likely be of no more consequence to them than an ant-bed is to us. Their presence would almost certainly be obvious and probably wouldn’t end too well for us humans. And in these modern times, when almost everyone carries around a device with a high-resolution camera built in -- and when plenty of folks never seem to pry their faces away from the damn things -- still, to this day, nobody has ever produced a clear, unambiguous photograph of an alien or an alien spaceship.

Or have they? There is some evidence that may be more conclusive. Being ever on the spot while it's hot, we can now present some recently uncovered footage of an actual alien encounter:

As the character Graham says at the end of "Signs," Swing away, Merrill!