So why did he stop hunting for UFOs on behalf of the American government? In short: Because congressional leaders believe in conspiracy theories with absolutely no substantial proof. “Our efforts were ultimately overwhelmed by sensational but unsupported claims that ignored contradictory evidence yet captured the attention of policy makers and the public, driving legislative battles and dominating the public narrative,” Kirkpatrick said in Scientific American.

The world has long been obsessed with strange lights in the skies and what it might mean for our place in the cosmos. The current craze around UFOs, now UAPs, began in 2017 when a research group backed by Blink-182 frontman Tom Delonge published videos of UFOs purportedly taken by U.S. Navy pilots. Years later, The New York Times reported on it and the Pentagon declassified the videos.

The videos were real, but it wasn’t clear that they showed aliens. After debate and furor, the Pentagon established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and put Kirkpatrick in charge of it. They’ve issued reports over the past few years that have routinely debunked the idea that the Earth has been visited by visitors from the stars. “AARO discovered a few things, and none were about aliens,” Kirkpatrick said in Scientific American.

According to Kirkpatrick, what the AARO discovered was a web of governmental leaders who believed in bizarre conspiracy theories and were willing to spend taxpayer dollars on it.