UFOs continue to hold our imagination. Why? ∣ Ervolino

Last weekend, I tuned in to a relatively new UFO-themed documentary series on Netflix.

Why watch another UFO show?

I have no earthly — or non-earthly — idea.

In fact, for an hour, I kept asking myself, “Why are you watching this junk?”

I seem to ask myself that every time I stumble over another TV show about UFOs. And, yeah, there are LOTS of them.

They’re on the History Channel and the Learning Channel and Showtime and National Geographic.

And PBS!

And YouTube!

And they are all over the Travel Channel, which used to be about far-off places we could visit. Now, it’s about beings from far-off places visiting us.

Very far off.

All of these shows promise to give you the latest lowdown on: Unidentified flying objects! Flying saucers! Extraterrestrials!

Things from another world!

And, yes, that’s what I was hoping to see last weekend when I began streaming “Top Secret UFO Projects Declassified” on Netflix.

Is that a mouthful of a title, or what?

Not only do you get “UFO,” but you get “Top Secret” and “Declassified.”

The subliminal message: This is it! Finally! The top secret declassified information we’ve all been waiting for!”

I went in with an open mind, but halfway through the first episode, I turned to my dog and asked, “Why am I watching this junk?”

Her reply: “Because nothing else is on. And because you’re an idiot. And you have no friends. And you believe every stupid thing you see on television.”

(So … was she telling me the truth? Or is she part of some vast global conspiracy to cover up the existence of unidentified flying objects?)

“Top Secret…” is actually a series that premiered two years ago on Netflix. But, it wound up back on my “trending” list last week, a couple of days before NASA announced that it would be releasing a first-of-its-kind report on UFOs later this year and a couple of days after noted UFO investigator Jeremy Corbell made worldwide headlines with a podcast discussing a 2021 case in which a triangular-shaped UFO was seen hovering over a Marine base in Twentynine Palms, California.

Corbell says he interviewed several eyewitnesses to this reported event, including members of the military. (If you’re so inclined, you can check out his podcast, which is called “Weaponized,” at apple.com/podcasts.)

As of this writing, I haven’t made it over to the podcast, because I haven’t finished the Netflix series yet.

As for the NASA announcement, I can’t wait to hear what its new report has to say about UFOs, which they now call UAPs — unidentified anomalous phenomena.

As of this writing, I haven’t made it over to the podcast, because I haven’t finished the Netflix series yet.

I'm not sure why I remain fascinated with this stuff, although I was born in the 1950s, a banner decade for UFO sightings, UFO movies and an almost endless stream of UFO conspiracy theories that flowered after the Roswell Incident in 1947, when military personnel in Roswell, New Mexico, recovered either a downed weather balloon or a mysterious flying saucer.

(My two cents: Weather balloons range in size from 6 feet to 20 feet in diameter and are filled with hydrogen or helium. Flying saucers are the size of a city block and filled with extraterrestrials who have big heads, slender necks and buggy, bulging almond-shaped eyes.)

In the years since the Roswell story, people have been seeing UFOs here, there and just about everywhere: around the block, over the rainbow, under the Tuscan sun and straight outta Compton.

Governments around the world have been dutifully debunking each and every one of these sightings. But, somehow, despite the mocking comments made by government officials — “Your ‘flying saucer’ looks more like a surgical lamp. Ha-ha-ha” — and the lack of persuasive, indisputable physical evidence of alien encounters, an entire industry has managed to flourish in Roswell’s wake.

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By one estimation, there have been more than 8,000 books written about flying saucers, UFO cover-ups and extraterrestrial beings.

And movies about aliens and their assorted planets and galaxies have made roughly eighty-eight skazillion dollars.

So, are aliens real?

A survey done in 2021 by the Pew Research Center found that 65% of Americans believe that intelligent life exists on other planets.

This is in sharp contrast to a survey I did in 2021, which found that only 29% of Americans believe that intelligent life exists on our planet.

More: Did a UFO fly over West Milford in 1966?

The late Stephen Hawking, one of Earth’s great minds, supported a program designed to search for alien communications by monitoring radio wave observations from a million nearby stars.

But, in 2010, he also famously said, "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”

So are they hovering above us right now? Can they look into monitors and see us sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, taking pictures of our salads and getting our belly buttons pierced?

I bet they can!

And, I bet they’re saying “Why are we watching this junk?”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Does intelligent life exist beyond Earth? UFOs continue to hold our eye