Sen. Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, on the possibility of an alien presence

October 19, 2021 — Sen. Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, spoke about the possibility of an alien presence in a podcast held by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Bill Nelson“[You’ve seen] what those Navy pilots saw in 2004. And there have been some 300 sightings since then.

And I’ve talked to those pilots, and they know they saw something. Their radars locked onto it, and then all of a sudden it was here on the surface and then it’s there. And they don’t know what it is, and we don’t know what it is.

We hope it’s not an adversary here on Earth that has that kind of technology. But it’s something.

And so, this is a mission that we’re constantly looking at: What or who is out there? Who are we? How did we get here? How did we become as we are? How did we develop? How did we civilize? And are those same conditions out there in a universe that has billions of other suns in billions of other galaxies? It’s so large I can’t conceive it. […]

My personal opinion is that the universe is so big, and now there are even theories that there might be other universes, and if that’s the case, who am I to say that planet Earth is the only location of a life form that is civilized and organized like ours?

But I’ll tell you what that makes me think. I better be a better steward of what we have. Because we’re messing it up, and we’re messing it up even just the way we’re treating each other. And so I know what my mission is: to be a better steward of this planet and be a better citizen of planet Earth.”

— Bill Nelson, former Senator and current head of NASA (Oct 19, 2021)

Sen. Bill Nelson was sworn in as the 14th NASA administrator on May 3, 2021, tasked with carrying out the Biden-Harris administration’s vision for the agency. Nelson chaired the Space Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives for six years and later served as the Ranking Member on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. During his time in Congress, Nelson was a strong advocate for NASA’s Earth science programs and authored numerous pieces of legislation to combat and mitigate the effects of climate change. Click for full bio at NASA.