We're Probably Wrong ep. 1: Alien Conspiracies?!

Simon Carver

You can almost set your watch by it: every few years, UFOs drift back into public conversation. New photos, old rumors, a grainy clip, somebody swearing they saw lights do a right-angle turn over a highway. And what fascinates me is that this isn’t new at all. Since the 1940s, really, people have been reporting strange things in the sky, and the subject keeps surviving every cultural reboot.

Lachlan Reed

Yeah, it never fully cops a day off, does it? One minute it’s pulp magazines and late-night radio, next minute it’s navy footage on the news and politicians asking questions. I reckon part of the reason it sticks around is simple: the sky is huge, people see odd stuff, and our brains hate loose ends. If something zips overhead and you can’t pin it down, that little mystery just digs in.

Simon Carver

Right, and it helps to sort the pile a bit. There are confirmed reports in the sense that, yes, an event was reported, logged, maybe captured on radar or video. That doesn’t mean “confirmed alien craft.” It means something happened that somebody documented. Then there are unexplained sightings, which is a smaller and more interesting category. And then, separate from both, you’ve got full-on conspiracy claims, where people leap straight from “we don’t know” to “there’s a hidden program in a desert bunker.”

Lachlan Reed

That distinction matters heaps. An unexplained sighting just means the data’s not good enough, or the object couldn’t be identified with confidence. Could be sensor weirdness, weather, balloons, aircraft, drones, or just not enough info. It’s like hearing a bang in the shed. Could be the wind, could be a possum, could be me dropping a spanner. “Unexplained” doesn’t automatically mean “spaceship.”

Simon Carver

That’s such a good analogy. And maybe this is the shift that makes the current moment feel different: modern UAP reporting is increasingly being treated not as folklore, but as a data problem. UAP, unidentified anomalous phenomena, is a broader term. It’s less loaded than UFO, which is carrying decades of movie posters and, let’s be honest, some very stylish tinfoil hats.

Lachlan Reed

Yeah, UAP sounds like someone finally brought a clipboard to the mystery. Less “I want to believe,” more “what was the sensor resolution, mate?” Governments, military offices, and scientists are looking at patterns, reporting standards, flight safety, sensor calibration, all that nuts-and-bolts stuff. Which is a bit less sexy, maybe, but way more useful.

Simon Carver

And more humane, too. Because pilots and ordinary witnesses have often been stuck in a weird spot. If they say nothing, the data disappears. If they report something strange, they risk sounding foolish. So for decades, the conversation got trapped between ridicule and wild certainty, which is maybe the least helpful combination imaginable.

Lachlan Reed

Totally. And once you create that vacuum, conspiracy stories rush in like magpies at a barbecue. If the official answer is silence, people fill it with whatever feels exciting or sinister. So now when agencies say, “Report the thing, preserve the data, let’s sort signal from noise,” that’s actually a pretty big change. Not proof of aliens. Just a more grown-up way of handling uncertainty.

Simon Carver

So what do the grown-ups in the room actually say? NASA’s UAP study is a good place to start. The basic message was not “we found extraterrestrials.” It was almost the opposite: we need better data, better tools, and a more systematic scientific approach. Which I know is not the dramatic movie trailer version, but honestly it’s the version I trust more.

Lachlan Reed

Same. NASA’s angle was very much, “Let’s stop squinting at fuzzy scraps and build proper methods.” More high-quality observations, more consistent reporting, more use of AI and sensors to sort things out. It’s like trying to diagnose a rattling engine. If all you’ve got is a bloke yelling, “It sounded crook near the roundabout,” good luck. You need recordings, measurements, context.

Simon Carver

And then there’s AARO, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in the U.S., which has been collecting and assessing reports. The numbers matter because they show scale without necessarily proving extraordinary explanations. AARO has received hundreds of reports, and many can be resolved once more information comes in. Some remain unresolved, but unresolved is not the same thing as unearthly.

Lachlan Reed

Exactly. People hear “hundreds of reports” and think, crikey, invasion. But reports are just inputs. Some turn out to be balloons, drones, clutter, sensor artifacts, or ordinary objects viewed in weird conditions. And some stay open because the footage is too limited or the chain of evidence is patchy. That’s frustrating, sure, but it’s also normal in investigations.

Simon Carver

Transparency is where things get sticky. Governments have declassified some files over the years, released videos, acknowledged investigations. But the public still runs into a wall pretty quickly. Some information is genuinely sensitive because it involves military sensors or capabilities. And some of the secrecy, fair or not, inevitably makes people wonder what’s being held back.

Lachlan Reed

Yeah, that’s the awkward bit. Even if secrecy is about national security and not little green blokes, it still looks suspicious from the outside. If someone says, “Trust us, we can’t show you the good stuff,” the mind starts doing backflips. Even a kangaroo could trip over that. But skepticism cuts both ways: you should be skeptical of official silence, and skeptical of anyone claiming they’ve solved it with one blurry clip.

Simon Carver

And scientists are often the least romantic voices here, in the best way. Expert skepticism says ordinary phenomena can look extraordinary, especially under stress or at a distance. Venus, weather balloons, drones, atmospheric effects, optical illusions, camera compression, parallax from a moving aircraft—there are so many ways reality can put on a mask.

Lachlan Reed

Parallax is a ripper example. Something can seem to zip along at impossible speed when it’s really a viewing-angle trick from a moving platform. Same with infrared footage; what looks wild to us might be less wild once you understand the sensor. Doesn’t mean every case is solved. Just means human perception and technology can both be a bit wonky. Which, fair enough, so am I before coffee.

Simon Carver

Here’s where the conversation gets really slippery. What do we actually know about life beyond Earth? Well, we know the universe is staggeringly large. We’ve found planets around other stars, and that alone makes the idea of life elsewhere seem plausible. Not guaranteed, not nearby, not visiting us in sleek geometric vehicles, but plausible in the broad cosmic sense.

Lachlan Reed

Yeah, the universe is a massive suburb. It’d be pretty bold to assume we’re the only house with the lights on. But plausible isn’t proof. That’s the key line. We’ve got good reasons to think life elsewhere could exist, and we’re still looking for evidence. Microbial life, biosignatures, technosignatures, all that gear. But as of now, that’s different from saying any UFO case proves aliens are here.

Simon Carver

And into that gap pour the famous conspiracy theories: crashed craft, hidden retrieval programs, secret agreements, reverse engineering projects, underground vaults. Some of these stories have been around so long they feel almost mythic, like urban legends with a security clearance. The trouble is, secrecy itself acts like fertilizer for speculation.

Lachlan Reed

Too right. If governments hide real things—surveillance tech, weapons tests, classified aircraft—people start wondering what else is under the tarp. And sometimes the hidden thing is ordinary by spy-agency standards but bizarre to everyone else. That history makes it easier for bigger claims to sound half-believable. Still, extraordinary claims need proper evidence, not just whispers and dramatic pauses.

Simon Carver

I think that’s the tension that keeps this topic alive. “We don’t know yet” is a real and honest position. So is “there’s no proof.” Those statements can sit next to each other, awkwardly, without canceling each other out. I mean, uncertainty is uncomfortable. We want a neat ending, and this subject just keeps refusing to give us one.

Lachlan Reed

Which is maybe why we keep coming back to it. It lives in that maddening little space between curiosity and caution. You can stay open-minded without falling for every shiny story. You can ask for evidence without acting like all mystery is silly. That balance is hard, though. Bit like tuning a carburetor by ear—possible, but you’ll mutter at it a lot.

Simon Carver

And we probably will keep muttering at it, because better data may clarify some cases and deepen others. Which, honestly, feels like the most human outcome imaginable.

Lachlan Reed

Yeah. We’ll leave that one hanging there for now. Simon, this was a good one.

Simon Carver

It was. Thanks, Lachlan. And thanks for listening, everyone. We’ll keep following the evidence, and the questions. Bye for now.

Lachlan Reed

Catch you next time. See ya.