“After rigorously examining the photographs from the Juno probe’s flyby of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, our scientists and researchers have unanimously concluded that the images strongly suggesting the existence of at least one species of eusocial, possibly intelligent life forms capable of simple methods of agriculture and construction of small cities is indeed accurate. We can now confirm that there is life on other worlds, an historic discovery that will change our entire understanding of the universe and humanity’s place in it. We are not alone in this solar system and quite likely in the space beyond it,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a press release we completely made up.

Juno really is flying by Io this week, approaching the tiny hellish world as we speak, third of the three planned visits to the Galilean moons after Ganymede and Europa (the fourth Galilean moon, Callisto, apparently being deemed too lame to bother checking out). Next to Europa, Io is probably the most likely candidate for harboring extraterrestrial life in our solar system given its active volcanism caused by Jupiter’s gravitational pull. However there’s not going to be any announcement like the one above. All our “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS” these days turn out to be moronic scams. If there ever is life found on Io it’s unlikely to be viewable with anything other than a microscope, requiring distant future astronauts to actually land there and collect rock samples.

But take it as a thought experiment. What would happen if next week Nelson released a statement something along those lines? What would the aftermath of such a discovery look like? Would NASA be like “Wow that was something else, huh? Well let’s get back to work on that new Mars rover so we can go take more pictures of rocks,” or would they demand Congress immediately write them a trillion dollar check to send a half dozen probes to find out anything and everything they could about the apparently intelligent life that they just found on Io? Wouldn’t every other country with a space program start throwing every dime they have into developing missions to Io?

You’re goddamned right they would. The public would not accept anything less than a freaking armada of space probes poring over every inch of the surface if Io to determine what the aliens look like and whatever clues could be learned about their culture from an orbital distance. Volumes of books would be written scrutinizing every single aspect of the Ionian species, their lava-fueled ecosystem, the fungus-like shit they grow and harvest, the structures they build, you name it. National Geographic Channel’s “Secrets of the Ionians,” the Discovery Channel’s “Ionians Revealed,” and the History Channel’s “Ionian Secrets Revealed,” would play back-to-back-to-back marathons for decades. Ionians would be a trillion dollar industry across the public, private, and educational sectors from the probes down to the stuffed toy Ionians near the checkout counter at Walgreens.

That was a colorful way of answering that magically stupid question of “Why would aliens ever want to come to Earth?” Sorry but if you ask that question there’s a very good chance you’re an obtuse fucking idiot with no practical imagination. You don’t have to take everything else UFO enthusiasts believe seriously. You do have to however look at it from within our own context as having evolved to become the apex predators of our planet and are, as we speak, directing a multi-billion dollar hunk of metal to go look at a volcanic rock to see if maybe there might be life on it. You should probably consider the idea that there’s a real situation going on right now in which we’re the Ionians and a more advanced alien civilization from another star system are NASA, probably minus the human-shaped stuffed toys at the checkout counter in their alien version of Walgreens.

Five years ago to the day the New York Times published the video above, marking the beginning of a serious, seismic change in the way the public, the media, and even the US military and Congress treat the subject of UFOs. Here’s a lengthy description of the UAP-related investigative provisions of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act passed earlier this week, something which for National Zero would take at least another week to parse out and interpret for our audience. The content of it is surely remarkable to the trained eyes of a hard boiled national defense journalist but the fact it’s even there in the first place should be remarkable to the eyes of the “skeptical” layman who spent his entire life convinced UFOs were superstition that only morons and weirdos believed in.

Should be. We’re still stuck with holdouts and their lame excuses. “Oh there’s no way a spacecraft could circumvent the physical limitations of general relativity and travel faster than the speed of light” says a member of a species that landed a crewed vehicle on the moon 66 years after it had invented powered aerial flight. “They’re just drones bro” says the asshole who thinks 21st century humans can build a device that can fly through the air and also under the goddamned water and then in the air again without slowing down. Or the old “Well everyone has a smartphone in their pocket these days, so why are the pics of UFOs always so blurry?”

Watch ten seconds of that video to see why that might be. Forget that it’s even of a “UFO” and just look at the difference in level of detail between what a smartphone’s camera and a real SLR can capture. It’s like the difference between the Lincoln Memorial and the obverse of a penny.

There’s always something the deniers will find and try to cling to. It’s hard to blame them after decades of just pure garbage about secret underground bases and conspiracies coming from the UFO community. But that was then, this is now. It’s been five years since the reset button was hit. So strip it down to this: There are artificial objects in the sky that are clearly not made by humans. The demonstrate characteristics that strongly suggest they have their own means of generating their own gravitational fields to move throughout air and water. The New York Times, the United States military, and Congress are all taking them seriously. They have hinted very strongly that they’re in possession of hard evidence these objects are not of earthly origin.

Fuck this guy

Of course there will still be freaks out there talking about Reptilian aliens secretly taking over the world and all that shit. But just like you shouldn’t allow Pizzagate batshittery to dismiss the real questions about Jeffrey Epstein, you shouldn’t let the pre-2017 UFO community’s batshittery and fucking Ancient Aliens dumbassery cloud your ability to look at the current situation soberly.

And that goes both ways. Don’t go harass Bill Nelson for “covering up” the Ionians.