The existence of UFOs is not about whether aliens exist, it's about whether FTL travel is possible.

In all the talk about UFOs (surprisingly limited as it is, considering that speculating on UFOs is way more interesting than obsessing over a stuck ship) perhaps the single question most often asked, by both the media and the causal observer, is: do you believe aliens exist? The weird thing about asking that question is we know the answer already: (almost) unequivocally yes, aliens exist. Almost everyone, even smart, reasonable, science-minded people, believes that somewhere in this overwhelmingly huge universe intelligent life has evolved. Probably many times, in fact.

The existence of aliens was pretty much clinched with all the research showing the existence of exoplanets — that is, planets in other solar systems. In the last couple of decades we found out there’s lots and lots of exoplanets. Now we know pretty much every sun has planets, and that means probably lots of stars have habitable planets (if not most), and that means intelligent life probably had many chances to evolve — so it almost certainly did. This is all stuck into numbers form in the Drake equation, which has to be the most boring serious thing ever published about aliens. You can read more about it elsewhere. But basically rest assured that with the discovery of all these exoplanets, science people are now pretty sure it’s very likely that aliens exist. Somewhere.

The problem is that when people ask “do aliens exist?” they aren’t really asking whether aliens exist somewhere, they want to know if aliens exists here on Earth. Like, today. Or at least recently. And the answer to that question, by science-minded people, is: probably not, no. The reason is because space is really, really fucking big. So big that traveling between even close stars would take generations (of human lifetimes, anyway). So aliens exist somewhere, but it would probably take them hundreds of years, if not thousands to get to Earth, if they wanted to. And why the hell would they want to? And if they did want to, why would they suddenly arrive right now, instead of 10,000 years before or after this moment? The answer to that is they just wouldn’t. Just like we wouldn’t send a ship full of people to some random star, even if we could afford to do it.

But, and this is a big but, that assumes faster-than-light (FTL) travel isn’t possible. This is a reasonable assumption, because even our scientists who currently work on our most science-fictiony stuff think that it’s pretty unlikely that FTL is something that can be done, even in our most sciency-fictiony future. And if it is, it would be really really hard to do. Serious scientists basically believe it’s about as easy as time travel — which is impossible and will forever remain so. One good piece of evidence that FTL travel is impossible is that if it was possible, the aliens would probably already be here. Which they are not.

Except: for that thing about the current acknowledgment of the existence of UFOs. Sure, it’s unlikely, but for just a second let’s put likelihood aside, and let’s pretend that these UFOs that do exist are driven by some extraterrestrials. If that turned out to be true, the real shocker is not the confirmation of the existence of aliens—we already knew they existed, remember? Cool to have that confirmed sure, but the real blast-your-mind-out-the-back-of-your-fucking-skull phenomenon is that they probably are here, now because they do have FTL capability. It’s possible that the insane maneuvers the UFOs have demonstrated are just the low-gear cruise mode of an FTL system.

If FTL is possible, and we learn it’s possible from our currently visiting alien buddies, then just knowing FTL travel is possible will change everything for us. All science fiction futures are now on the table. Our whole approach to physics, space travel, and yes, aliens will be radically altered in one fell swoop. It’s the reverse of what Star Trek postulates. On the show it is human discovery of FTL “warp” drive that attracts the aliens (read: Vulcans). For us in real life — if the aliens are here now — it is our discovery of aliens that will drive humans to pursue FTL.

So next time you are sitting around with a beer in hand looking at the sky, don’t ask the person next to you if they think aliens exist. You already know the answer to that. Ask them if they think FTL is possible, because that is the linchpin on which shaking hands with aliens in our lifetime is held.