Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh

So­cial me­dia lit up on May 22, as peo­ple re­port­ed ob­serv­ing un­usu­al lights or “UFOs” mov­ing across the evening sky.

Most of the re­ports came from Face­book, In­sta­gram, and YouTube users post­ing short videos be­tween 6.30-6.50 pm.

Some com­ment­ed that the lights may have been drones, satel­lites, an air­craft, at­mos­pher­ic re­flec­tions, and even a soucouyant.

These re­ac­tions re­vealed the wide spec­trum of hu­man think­ing: from su­per­sti­tious be­lief to ra­tio­nal ex­pla­na­tion, to imag­i­na­tive spec­u­la­tion about what may ex­ist be­yond Earth.

Those raised hear­ing sto­ries of soucouyants may be cul­tur­al­ly con­di­tioned to as­so­ciate un­usu­al lights with folk­lore. Those ground­ed in sci­ence would search for plau­si­ble ex­pla­na­tions root­ed in tech­nol­o­gy or at­mos­pher­ic phe­nom­e­na. Oth­ers may keep an open mind to an ex­trater­res­tri­al pos­si­bil­i­ty.

The uni­verse is an­cient and unimag­in­ably vast. Our galaxy has hun­dreds of bil­lions of stars, and sci­en­tists es­ti­mate as many as a tril­lion galax­ies. So, the math­e­mat­i­cal prob­a­bil­i­ty ex­ists that if life emerged on Earth, so it could al­so emerge else­where.

In the Unit­ed States, there has been a spike in dis­cus­sions about UFOs and ex­trater­res­tri­als due to Con­gress’s hear­ings on Un­ex­plained Aer­i­al Phe­nom­e­na (UAPs), the de­clas­si­fi­ca­tion of mil­i­tary footage, and the re­lease of gov­ern­ment files re­lat­ed to UAPs.

Some claimed that their re­lease was meant to cre­ate a dis­trac­tion from in­fla­tion, for­eign pol­i­cy ten­sions, po­lit­i­cal scan­dals, de­clin­ing pub­lic trust, and on­go­ing con­flicts abroad. Gov­ern­ments ben­e­fit when pub­lic at­ten­tion shifts to­ward spec­ta­cle rather than ac­count­abil­i­ty and failed de­liv­er­ables.

So, while our lo­cal phe­nom­e­non was ex­plained by the launched SpaceX Star­link satel­lites, one may ask, did the US files pro­vide ev­i­dence that aliens are vis­it­ing Earth?

None of the re­leased ma­te­r­i­al pro­vid­ed a smok­ing gun of ex­trater­res­tri­al ex­is­tence.

It was dis­ap­point­ing that we got no strong ev­i­dence, such as ver­i­fi­ca­tion of non-hu­man tech­nol­o­gy, arte­facts made from un­known el­e­ments and even bi­o­log­i­cal ev­i­dence.

For years, we have heard con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about a re­cov­ered crashed ex­trater­res­tri­al space­craft in New Mex­i­co’s Roswell area and the ex­is­tence of an alien spec­i­men in South Neva­da’s Area 21.

Still, what cap­tured my at­ten­tion was the sheer vol­ume of mil­i­tary re­ports and videos, the fact that some in­ci­dents re­main un­ex­plained, and the tes­ti­mo­ny of pi­lots and sen­sor op­er­a­tors de­scrib­ing ob­jects be­hav­ing odd­ly.

In the ‘in­stant ac­cel­er­a­tion’ video, an ob­ject was seen hov­er­ing be­fore it shot quick­ly off the screen, de­fy­ing the laws of physics. The tech­nol­o­gy to do this just can­not be ex­plained by any we ad­mit we have.

The forces in­volved would like­ly de­stroy any drone or air­craft due to in­er­tia.

While peo­ple may ac­cuse some for be­liev­ing in Sci-Fi fan­ta­sy, this same be­lief can of­fer hope.

Every gen­er­a­tion be­lieves its trou­bles are unique­ly over­whelm­ing. We im­merse our­selves in po­lit­i­cal con­flict, so­cial di­vi­sion, eco­nom­ic anx­i­ety, and end­less cy­cles of out­rage that dom­i­nate head­lines and dai­ly life. Na­tions com­pete for pow­er, lead­ers bat­tle for in­flu­ence, and or­di­nary peo­ple car­ry the bur­den of un­cer­tain­ty. In such mo­ments, hu­man­i­ty’s con­flicts can ap­pear to be the cen­tre of ex­is­tence it­self.

Yet, above us each night stretch­es a uni­verse so vast that it qui­et­ly chal­lenges that as­sump­tion.

There is some­thing deeply uni­fy­ing about the cos­mos. The same moon­light falls across every bor­der. The same stars shine over every na­tion, every cul­ture and every per­son alive. In an age in­creas­ing­ly de­fined by di­vi­sion, that shared ex­pe­ri­ence mat­ters.

The stars of­fer per­spec­tive. They re­mind us that while our strug­gles are re­al, they re­main small with­in the im­mense scale of the uni­verse. Earth it­self is on­ly a tiny world sus­pend­ed with­in a cos­mos filled with mys­ter­ies and pos­si­bil­i­ties we are on­ly be­gin­ning to un­der­stand.

Some of hu­man­i­ty’s great­est achieve­ments were born from won­der. We crossed oceans to dis­cov­er what lay be­yond the hori­zon. We stud­ied the skies be­cause we re­fused to be­lieve the lim­its of our world end­ed at the edge of our sight. We built tele­scopes, launched satel­lites, and walked on the Moon not be­cause hu­man­i­ty had solved its di­vi­sions, but be­cause the hu­man spir­it has al­ways been drawn to­ward dis­cov­ery.

Won­der asks some­thing dif­fer­ent of us. It asks us to look be­yond our­selves with hu­mil­i­ty, cu­rios­i­ty, and imag­i­na­tion.

And per­haps that is why con­ver­sa­tions sur­round­ing UFOs and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of life be­yond Earth con­tin­ue to cap­ture the hu­man imag­i­na­tion so pow­er­ful­ly. Not mere­ly be­cause of mys­tery or spec­u­la­tion, but be­cause they re­mind us that hu­man­i­ty may be part of some­thing far larg­er than its con­flicts.

For above us still stretch­es a uni­verse vast enough to hum­ble our di­vi­sions — and won­drous enough to re­mind us that hu­man­i­ty’s fu­ture may hold far more than the things that di­vide us to­day.