我们询问了科学家们，他们认为我们能从政府的不明飞行物（UFO）档案中了解到什么。以下是他们的看法。
2026-02-24T05:00:10-0500 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-files-released-scientists-trump/
关于联邦政府可能掌握的有关宇宙中地外生命——甚至可能是地球上的地外生命——的信息的疑问，激发了人们的想象力、催生了阴谋论、科幻文学和大片。在特朗普总统上周呼吁公布与不明飞行物（UFO）或任何“外星及地外生命”相关的文件后，这些问题的一些答案可能终于会公之于众。
特朗普在社交媒体上发文称，国防部长彼得·黑格塞斯（Pete Hegseth）和其他机构负责人应“开始着手识别和发布与外星及地外生命、不明空中现象（UAP）、不明飞行物（UFO）以及任何与这些高度复杂但极其有趣且重要的事项相关的政府文件”。
这一宣布是在奥巴马前总统告诉一位询问外星人的播客主持人“它们是真实存在的，但我从未见过它们”之后。奥巴马后来澄清说，他在白宫期间从未见过证据，只是表示“从统计学角度看，宇宙如此浩瀚，存在生命的可能性很大”。特朗普告诉记者，他不确定外星人是否存在，但暗示他的前任可能指的是“机密信息”。
随着文件的公布，美国公众可能会了解到政府是否记录了诸如去年国会一名成员公布的一段视频中显示的美国导弹击中空中一个不明发光球体并似乎弹开它之类的不明现象。
根据一份政府报告，2023年5月至2024年6月期间，有超过750起新的不明空中现象（UAP）目击事件。尽管这些事件目前可能无法解释，但专家表示，公布这些文件的一个好处是，科学家可以通过分析数据，提供事实性解释。
肖恩·柯克帕特里克（Sean Kirkpatrick），前美国政府UFO调查负责人
美国国防部全域异常现象解决办公室（AARO）——该办公室负责调查不明飞行物——的首任主任肖恩·柯克帕特里克表示，那些期望在地球上看到外星生命证据的人可能会感到失望。
“会有一些人感到不满，”他告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻（CBS News）。
“你会看到很多人继续声称这是阴谋，他们会说存在掩盖行为，”柯克帕特里克说。他认为特朗普的命令是“政府的一种转移注意力的手段”。
柯克帕特里克是一名物理学家，2022年7月至2023年12月1日领导AARO，其任务是调查不明飞行物和其他不明空中或异常现象。
他发现的内容包括“空军中的恶作剧”以及他所谓的“为掩盖秘密国防项目而进行的欺骗行为”。柯克帕特里克说，他的办公室“不得不解密任何他们能解密的东西”，但并没有发现外星生命的证据。
“在那份工作中，没有什么比发现外星技术并公之于众更能让我高兴的了，”柯克帕特里克说。“我不期望看到任何新东西。”
柯克帕特里克认为宇宙中某个地方可能存在生命，但“外星智慧生命出现在地球上的可能性微乎其微”。
费代丽卡·比安科（Federica Bianco），NASA研究团队成员
特拉华大学天文与物理系副教授费代丽卡·比安科（Federica Bianco）呼应了柯克帕特里克的观点。
“我们是宇宙中唯一的生命形式，甚至是唯一的科技文明的可能性微乎其微，”比安科说。
比安科是NASA独立研究小组的成员，该小组负责研究不明异常现象。
“作为一名科学家和NASA UAP小组的成员，我还没有看到任何表明我们观察到了违反物理定律、需要外星社会来访才能解释的现象，”比安科说。
尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森（Neil deGrasse Tyson），天体物理学家
美国自然历史博物馆罗斯地球与太空中心海登天文馆主任尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森（Neil deGrasse Tyson）表示，他将在文件中寻找：
“一个真正的外星人。如果真的出现了，那么任何文件都不再必要。”泰森告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻。
泰森说，这些文件可能有助于揭示“大多数仰望天空（无论白天还是夜晚）的人都不熟悉光学、气候和天文现象。在这种情况下，人们很容易将看到的东西报告为神秘的不明物体。”
“急于得到答案的冲动驱使许多人将他们看到的东西解释为来自银河系的外星访客，”泰森说。“我称这种现象为‘我们无知的外星人’。”
他指出，在互联网和社交媒体时代，现在很难隐藏来自异世界生物的访问。
“每天有数十亿张照片和数百万小时的视频上传到互联网，但其中没有一张包含真正外星人的图像，”泰森说。“人们隐含的假设是，政府（不知为何）能够接触到来访的外星人，而世界上其他拥有智能手机的人却做不到。而且政府成功地在数百甚至数千人之间保守了这个秘密。在此期间，他们忘记了本杰明·富兰克林的名言：‘如果两个人死了，三个人可以保守一个秘密。’”
泰森在其即将于5月出版的新书《带我见你的领袖：关于首次外星遭遇的思考》（Take Me To Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter）中探讨了外星人抵达地球所需的条件。
“在科学领域，怀疑是我们职业的基础，所以我们坚持证据标准，有些人将其解读为冷漠甚至否认。不要因此感到个人受到冒犯，这是这个世界上任何客观真理建立的方式，”泰森在该书序言中写道。
雪莉·赖特（Shelly Wright），观测与实验天体物理学家
加州大学圣地亚哥分校的观测与实验天体物理学家雪莉·赖特博士（Dr. Shelly Wright）表示，对不明异常现象和其他生命形式的科学研究往往会在人们中产生一种“咯咯笑的因素”。
赖特也曾是NASA独立研究小组的成员，她认为围绕这一主题需要进行更多科学研究，公众对此有着浓厚的好奇心，经常有人问她：“我们是孤独的吗？”
作为一名科学家，赖特说她一直在寻找“宇宙中的生命”，并对宇宙和我们的星系如此浩瀚感到敬畏。她指出：“其他外星生命存在的可能性很大，但这并不意味着它们就在我们附近。”
尽管如此，她说她对文件的公布感到“兴奋”，但根据她在独立研究小组（该小组仅查看了未分类文件）的经验，她并不期望发现太多内容。
赖特表示，她预计大部分文件会因负责记录许多UAP的军方使用的监视设备的敏感性而被大量删改。她认为公布这些信息可能会侵犯国家安全。
然而，她补充说，政府可能会解密几十年前的安全和监视文件，让科学家利用当时尚未出现的新技术来研究这些材料。她说，这一决定既能保护国家安全，又能让科学家更深入地了解监视设备所捕捉到的内容。
扬娜·莱文（Janna Levin），物理与天文学教授
宇宙浩瀚无垠，包含无数其他行星，但在太阳系中，科学家们长期以来一直确定地球是唯一充满生命的行星。
哥伦比亚大学巴纳德学院的物理与天文学教授、CBS新闻撰稿人扬娜·莱文博士表示，即使我们对宇宙了解得更多，“生命似乎仍然很罕见”。这就是为什么天文学家对这些公布的文件可能包含线索的前景感到“非常兴奋”。
她说，天文学家并不是真的在寻找20世纪科幻作品中那种小绿人，而是对可能存在的微生物证据感到兴奋。这些微小的粒子是天文学家寻找的目标，因为微生物是地球上生命起源的关键。“让我们先从生命的起源说起，”她说。
莱文认为，来自其他行星的微生物可能通过一个坠入地球的自然物体被带到这里。
她表示，她希望对文件中可能存在的内容持“开放态度”。
“如果文件中有任何内容，那将非常令人兴奋，”莱文说。但她警告说：“如果有关于其他文明实际技术的声称——科学上没有人会真正期望看到这些。我认为如果你期望看到这些，你会失望的。”
阿维·勒布（Avi Loeb），理论物理学家
哈佛大学理论物理学家、异常现象研究的杰出学者阿维·勒布表示，关键是要从已知的物理学角度研究这些文件。
勒布告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，他上周与国会成员进行了交谈，并告诉他们，他希望他们在审查文件时能咨询像他这样的科学家。他说，在大多数不明现象案例中，“一些平凡的事物可能就能解释这些数据”。
他指出，去年夏天国会播放的一段视频显示，一枚导弹被发射向也门海岸附近一名国会议员称为“球体”的物体。
勒布说，当他检查这段视频时，他得出结论，这有一个简单的解释。
“我说，‘不，这并不异常，它只是一个无人机，’”勒布回忆道。
当勒布有机会检查这些文件时，他将寻找无法解释的现象。
“在数百起事件中，可能有几起确实异常，而这正是我要寻找的，”他说。
勒布认为，检查每一个看似异常的数据都有一个“根本问题”：“我们看到的这些物体是否在人类的基本能力范围内运行？”
如果不是，他会感兴趣。他说，一个似乎违背物理规律的物体可能是外星的。
勒布领导着“伽利略项目”（Galileo Project），该项目致力于寻找地球附近外星文明的遗迹。他曾写道，为什么目前大部分机密材料可能对他没有吸引力：有些信息可能被隐瞒是为了避免向敌对国家暴露先进的军事传感器和系统，或者因为官员认为某些不明物体是由这些敌对国家制造的。
“我对地球上人类制造的技术不感兴趣。地球技术的历史不吸引我，”勒布写道。“我更好奇的是，是否存在一个更先进的文明存在于星际空间中。”
We asked scientists what they think we’ll learn from the government’s UFO files. Here’s what they said.
2026-02-24T05:00:10-0500 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-files-released-scientists-trump/
Questions about what the federal government may know about extraterrestrial life in the cosmos — or possibly even here on Earth — have inspired imaginations, conspiracy theories, sci-fi literature and blockbuster films. Answers to some of those questions could finally become public after President Trump’s call last week for the release of files related to UFOs or any “alien and extraterrestrial life.”
Mr. Trump posted on social media that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other agency heads should “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”
His announcement came after former President Obama told a podcaster who asked about aliens, “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them.” He later clarified that he never saw evidence during his time in the White House and just meant that “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.” Mr. Trump told reporters he isn’t sure if aliens exist but suggested his predecessor may have been referring to “classified information.”
With the release, the American public could learn what, if anything, the government has documented about the unexplained sightings, such as one seen in a video made public last year by a member of Congress showing a U.S. missile striking an unidentified glowing orb in the sky and appearing to bounce off it.
There were more than 750 new UAP sightings between May 2023 and June 2024, according to a government report. While these instances may currently be unexplained, experts said one benefit of releasing the files may be that scientists, analyzing the data, can help provide factual explanations.
Sean Kirkpatrick, former top government UFO investigator
Sean Kirkpatrick, the first director of the U.S. Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which investigates unidentified flying objects, says people expecting to see evidence of alien life here on Earth may be disappointed.
“There are going to be unsatisfied people,” he told CBS News.
“You’re going to have a bunch of people who are going to continue to cry conspiracy, they’re going to say there’s a cover-up,” Kirkpatrick said. He views Mr. Trump’s order as a “distraction for the administration.”
Kirkpatrick, a physicist who led AARO from July 2022 to Dec. 1, 2023, was tasked with investigating unidentified flying objects and other unidentified aerial or anomalous phenomena.
What he found ranged from “hazing” in the Air Force to what he called “deceptions” designed to hide secret defense programs.Kirkpatrick said his office “had to stand up anything they could declassify,” but proof of extraterrestrial life wasn’t there.
“Nothing would have made me happier in that job but to have discovered alien technology and rolled it out,” said Kirkpatrick. “I don’t expect to see anything new.”
Kirkpatrick believes there’s likely life out in the universe somewhere, but “the probability that extraterrestrial intelligent life is here is little to none.”
Federica Bianco, NASA study team
Federica Bianco, an associate professor at the University of Delaware’s astronomy and physics department, echoed Kirkpatrick’s perspective.
“The probability that we are the only life form or even the only technical society in the universe is negligibly small,” Bianco said.
Bianco was part of NASA’s independent team studying unidentified anomalous phenomena.
“As a scientist and a member of the NASA UAP panel, I haven’t seen anything that indicates that we have observed phenomena that violate the laws of physics and require an alien society visiting us to be explained,” Bianco said.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist
Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History’s Rose Center for Earth and Space, knows what he’ll look for in the files:
“An actual alien. If one is presented, then no documents are necessary at all,” Tyson told CBS News.
Tyson said the files may help illuminate “that most people who look at the sky (day or night) are unfamiliar with optical, climactic, and astronomical phenomena. When that’s the case, a person is prone to report mysterious and unidentified objects.”
“The urge to have immediate answers drives many people to explain what they see as visiting space aliens from across the galaxy,” Tyson said. “I call this, ‘aliens of our ignorance.’”
He noted that in the age of the internet and social media, it would be hard now to hide a visit from otherworldly creatures.
“Billions of photos and a million hours of video are uploaded daily to the internet, and none of them contain images of actual aliens,” Tyson said. “The implicit assumption is that the government (somehow) has access to visiting aliens that no one else in the world with a smart phone has. And that the government has successfully kept it a secret among hundreds and possibly thousands of people. All the while, forgetting Benjamin Franklin’s edict, ‘Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.’”
Tyson wrote about what it would take for aliens to reach Earth in his upcoming book, “Take Me To Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter.”
“In science, skepticism is foundational to our profession, so we uphold standards of evidence that some interpret as disinterest or even denial. Don’t take it personally, it’s how any and all objective truths have ever been established in this world,” Tyson writes in the prologue to the book, which is scheduled for publication in May.
Shelly Wright, observational and experimental astrophysicist
Dr. Shelly Wright, an observational and experimental astrophysicist at the University of California San Diego, said scientific inquiry into unidentified anomalous phenomena and other life forms often creates a “giggle factor” among people.
Wright, who also served on NASA’s independent study team, said she believes there needs to be more scientific inquiry around this topic and the public has a deep curiosity to know more. She said often people ask her, “Are we alone out here?”
As a scientist, Wright said she is always looking for “life in the universe” and is humbled by how big the universe and our galaxy is. She noted, “The possibility of other alien life existing is likely, but it doesn’t mean it’s near us.”
Regardless, she said she’s “excited” for the document release but doesn’t expect to find much after her experience on the independent study team, which only viewed unclassified documents.
Wright said she expects most of the documents to be heavily redacted due to the sensitivity of the surveillance equipment used by the military responsible for sighting many of the UAPs. She said that releasing information could encroach on national security.
However, she added that the administration could declassify security and surveillance documents from decades ago, allowing scientists to study the material with new technologies that weren’t available when the data was originally collected. This decision, she said, could protect national security and allow scientists to understand more about what was captured by surveillance.
Janna Levin, professor of physics and astronomy
The universe is vast and contains countless other planets, but in our solar system, scientists have long determined Earth is the only planet teeming with life.
CBS News contributor Dr. Janna Levin, a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University, said that even as we learn more about the universe, “life still seems rare.” That’s why astronomers are “very excited” about the prospect that the released documents may hold clues.
She said astronomers aren’t really looking for the little green men of 20th-century sci-fi, but instead are excited about potential evidence of microbes. These are the tiny particles astronomers are looking for because microbes were responsible for starting life on Earth. “Let’s just get life started,” she said.
Levin said it’s possible microbes from other planets might have been carried here via a natural object that plunged to Earth.
She said she’d like to keep “an open mind” about what might be in the documents.
“If there is anything in them, it would be really thrilling,” Levin said. But she cautioned: “If there are claims of actual technologies from other civilizations — I don’t think anyone is actually expecting that, scientifically. I think if you’re expecting that, you’re going to be disappointed.”
Avi Loeb, theoretical physicist
Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Loeb, a prominent researcher of anomalous phenomena, said the key is to study the documents from the vantage of known physics.
Loeb told CBS News that he spoke with members of Congress last week and told them he hopes they’ll look to scientists like himself when they examine the files. He said that in most instances of unidentified phenomena, “something mundane might explain the data.”
He pointed to footage aired before Congress last summer that purported to show a missile being fired at what a congressman referred to as an “orb” off the coast of Yemen in 2024.
Loeb said when he examined the footage, he concluded there was a simple explanation.
“I said, ‘No, it’s not anomalous, it was just a drone,” Loeb recalled.
When Loeb gets the chance to examine the files, he’ll be searching for the unexplainable.
“There might well be a few incidents out of hundreds that would really be anomalous, and that’s what I’m looking for,” he said.
Loeb said there’s a “fundamental question” to examining each incident with seeming anomalous data: “Are the objects we see as anomalous operating under the fundamental abilities of humans?”
If not, he’s intrigued. An object that appears to defy physics could be extraterrestrial, he said.
Loeb leads the Galileo Project, which searches for artifacts from extraterrestrial civilizations near Earth. He has written about why much of the currently classified material may be of no interest to him: Some information may have been kept from the public to avoid exposing sophisticated military sensors and systems to adversarial nations, or because officials believe certain unidentified objects were manufactured by those adversaries.
“I am not interested in technologies manufactured by humans on Earth. The history of terrestrial technology does not interest me,” Loeb wrote. “I am far more curious about whether a more advanced civilization exists in interstellar space.”
