“In late 2014, a Super Hornet pilot had a near collision with one of the objects, and an official mishap report was filed. Some of the incidents were videotaped, including one taken by a plane’s camera in early 2015 that shows an object zooming over the ocean waves as pilots question what they are watching. ‘Wow, what is that, man?’ one exclaims. ‘Look at it fly!'” A couple weeks ago, the NYT reported about the Navy’s reports of unidentified flying objects. The news seemed like it got a lot of people talking about UFOs and aliens. But the truth is that a lot of people are talking about them all the time. “More than half of American adults and over 60 percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This tracks pretty closely with belief in God.” Vox: The new American religion of UFOs.

+ “The first space policy directive that Trump signed was an order for NASA to send people back to the Moon, and in March, Vice President Mike Pence called on NASA to expedite its lunar return by ‘any means necessary.'” Perhaps the one thing more mysterious than UFOs are the alien forces that drive presidential tweets. I mean, wow, just look at this one fly. “For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part).” It’s all very perplexing. You’d think Trump would love NASA because of the all caps…

+ NYT: NASA plans to open the International Space Station to commercial business, including tourism. “Becoming a NASA astronaut is far harder than getting into Harvard — of the thousands of hopeful spacewalkers who apply, NASA accepts only a handful. But now ordinary people — at least those with tens of millions of dollars to spend — can go to space.” (If we can convince Trump to go, I guarantee Mexico will pay for the ticket.)