There are few place in the country that have been the site of more mysterious happenings and UFO sightings than Skinwalker Ranch. The 512-acre property located in Utah's Uinta Basin has been at the center of such events for 200 years, with the area even being nicknamed "UFO alley" during the 1950s. The scientists of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch set out, last year, to see if there were actual scientific explanations for what's gone on there, but now one member of the team, Dr. Travis Taylor, has revealed what he thinks would happen if we ever actually prove that aliens have been on Earth.
Dr. Taylor is an astrophysicist who helped to study Skinwalker Ranch for the series last year, and myself and several other journalists had the opportunity recently to ask him about his time working and living at the mysterious location. When asked what he believed proof of alien life having been on our planet would do to society, Dr. Taylor had an answer that might surprise you.
I don’t think that people are going to go nuts...So, what about disclosure? I don’t believe in big conspiracies. There’s no way that humans are adept enough and trust each other enough to create conspiracies so large it would take hundreds and hundreds of people to maintain it. Now there is possibility that things have been classified for national security reasons. And, at such time when it should be it could be disclosed and not reveal a national security advantage, then I could see that taking place but what’s it going to do to the general public? Most people in the general public believe there are aliens anyway. I don’t think it’s going to do anything except assure them.
See? Were any of you expecting Dr. Travis Taylor, who has already admitted to seeing some weirdo, spooky stuff (and having a lot of terrifying nightmares since then) while studying Skinwalker Ranch, to say that he doesn't really think that the general public getting proof of alien life on Earth would really change anything? I suppose this makes a certain amount of sense with how Dr. Taylor explains his position on the matter. Because most people believe that aliens exist anyway, having proof that they've been to our planet shouldn't really do much to shake things up. Here's hoping he's right...you know, just in case.
Of course, Dr. Taylor also doesn't feel that there's been some long standing conspiracy to keep such information from the public. As he said, the idea that there's potentially anything going on other than the government keeping some stuff under wraps for national security purposes would take too many folks too many years of hiding details for that to be true. So, there probably aren't any government programs that are allowing humans to be impregnated by extraterrestrials, or whatever else Mulder and Scully would like to convince us of. This is also really good news, right?
Well, there is an aspect of society that Dr. Taylor does think will be impacted by the knowledge that aliens have been here, though. And, again, he makes a lot of sense.
If there were an alien invasion we’d have to figure out what type of invasion it were and then how to - what type it was and then go from there. It could be a bazillion possibilities on the type of invasion...I’ll tell you what it will do to politics, it will improve the funding for programs to do research like the AATIP [Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification] program, advanced spacecraft technology or advanced spacesuit technology. Why all of our soldiers don’t have Iron Man suits, I can’t explain that. We should be - that should be one of the biggest defense projects we have. But we don’t spend any money on it. So, that’s the things that will change, is where we’re spending our money based on what we think the threats are. That’s all I think disclosure will do. The everyday person, I think they’ll just say, 'I knew it all along. I told you so.'
Improved funding for research sounds great, but, like, could we also not get potentially super dangerous aliens? I mean, not right now anyway. I honestly don't think most of us could handle any more radical change currently. We might not all freak out and lose our minds at the news, but it still feels like it would be a bit much at this moment. Sorry Mulder!
You can see if Dr. Travis Taylor and the rest of the team find proof of aliens or anything supernatural when The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch airs on History Channel, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST.
