Social media reacts with snarky jokes amid UFO discussions and sightings
Jokes about UFO sightings have been floating around social media after lawmakers held " ," to discuss UAPs, also known as unidentified objects or UFOs, last week.
The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability gathered for the follow-up hearing Wednesday, with several witnesses claiming the U.S. government hasn't been honest with the public about UFOs.
Just two days later, news broke that an unidentified object on Feb. 12, 2023. Canadian authorities found debris from the UFO along Lake Huron's shoreline, according to a new report.
Some people on social media said they are frightened by the thought of not only the presence of extraterrestrial lifeform, but also the possibility the government has been hiding important information from the public.
Others appeared indifferent.
"I believed in aliens when the government tried to say they were not real .. now they admit they are and I don't believe it," one person wrote on X.
But most people seemed to take it all in stride.
The majority posted snarky replies to news about the reports, with several including memes of aliens and spaceships.
Many of the jokes centered around illegal immigration and the crisis at the border.
During last week's hearing, which marked the Committee's second hearing since July 2023, Rep. Nancy Mace said UAPs are "a controversial topic" and claimed there were "certain individuals who didn't want this hearing to happen because they feared what might be disclosed."
But, she said, she was determined to proceed.
"No amount of outside pressure would ever keep me from pursuing a subject to ground come hell or high water," Mace, a Republican who represents South Carolina, said at the hearing.
The Pentagon's latest report on UFOs revealed hundreds of new reports of unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena - but no indications suggesting an extraterrestrial origin.
The review includes hundreds of cases of misidentified balloons, birds and satellites, as well as some that defy easy explanation, such as a near-miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of New York.
While it isn't likely to settle any debates over the existence of alien life, the report reflects heightened public interest in the topic and the government's efforts to provide some answers.
Federal efforts to study and identify UAPs have focused on potential threats to national security or air safety and not their science fiction aspects. Officials at the Pentagon office created in 2022 to track UAPs, known as the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, have said there's no indication any of the cases they looked into have unearthly origins.
"It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology," the authors of the report wrote.
The Pentagon's review covered 757 cases from around the world that were reported to U.S. authorities from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024. The total includes 272 incidents that occurred before that time period but had not been previously reported.
