As a first-order probability, the likelihood is that it’s the government that’s lying. Lying governments are commonplace. Aliens, so far as we know, are not. So if you play the odds, it’s a phony story from the government, released for some obscure reason.

But playing the odds can turn out wrong, as Thomas Jefferson demonstrated in a somewhat similar circumstance. For centuries there had been stories – usually second-hand and uncorroborated – about stones falling from the sky. This seemed absurd. You can look up at the sky, and there are no visible rocks there. But when scientists investigated a few widely observed meteor falls and found evidence that they had, in fact, come from the sky, Thomas Jefferson observed: “It is easier to believe that two Yankee professors could lie than to admit that stones could fall from heaven.”

Sensible, but wrong. So it’s a mistake to dismiss reports that the United States has recovered “non-human craft” out of hand. The evidence available to us isn’t conclusive, but there’s now a fair amount of it, and while alien spacecraft seem unlikely, unlikely not the same as impossible.