Nasa chief claims UFOs are real, but could be China using 'hostile' advanced technology

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's longest-serving administrator, thinks UFOs exist, but they could be 'hostile' advanced technology following the space agency's investigation

There could be evidence of life on other planets, believes Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen (

Image: Wikimedia)

China may be the source of UFOs with its advanced 'hostile' technology, says former head of NASA's Unidentified Flying Objects investigation.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, the space agency's longest-serving administrator, was asked to lead the panel on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena in 2022 and offered his perspective on the findings. He also suggested that there might actually be evidence of life on other planets, but he seemed to point the finger elsewhere for recent events.

He said it was important to ask whether Chinese spy balloons might be to blame, after one was shot down by American fighter pilots earlier this year. Dr Zurbuchen, who recently joined ETH Zurich, said the conversations convinced him that extraterrestrial life could exist.

The Pentagon has claimed that the Chinese balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina in February was part of an extensive surveillance program that China has been carrying out for "several years". China later claimed it was a civilian balloon used for weather research and strongly criticized the United States for shooting it down.

Dr Zurbuchen said: "We cannot ignore the whole balloon phenomenon, because if we ignore what we see, we will suddenly be surprised. Not only have I spoken to the pilots, but I have also talked to individuals who made observations and they were really convinced. I really felt like they were telling me the subjective truth: they weren't lying, they weren't making this up.

"The fact that there are unexplained phenomena is not an issue for me. What they are and what they mean, and how we prove they exist is something that needs more work. There could be several explanations, if we look at technology then maybe it is not user-friendly and that is something we should know.

"It could be technology from other places on Earth and it would be pretty scary. It could be a natural phenomenon like glowing clouds, or something we've never seen before, and it would be pretty interesting, or it could be some kind of camera issue that's happening," he said.

Professor Greg Eghigian, meanwhile, believes that “trends and events” could have influenced the UFO sightings. He said: "As with most things in history, the answer more likely lies in a confluence of events and trends - the discovery of thousands of exoplanets by astronomers since the 1990s has brought life back to other planets more likely than previously thought and the development of drones have contributed to the increase in UFO sightings.

"The development of new sensors and sophisticated spy technologies has enabled the military to detect anomalies more accurately; it...