Adam Frank, who is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, writes a few thoughts on the uptick in UFOs in  The New York Times.

There are also common-sense objections. If we are being frequently visited by aliens, why don’t they just land on the White House lawn and announce themselves? There is a recurring narrative, perhaps best exemplified by the TV show The X-Files, that these creatures have some mysterious reason to remain hidden from us. But if the mission of these aliens calls for stealth, they seem surprisingly incompetent. You would think that creatures technologically capable of traversing the mind-boggling distances between the stars would also know how to turn off their high beams at night and to elude our primitive infrared cameras.

The line “turn off their high beams” is genius. It’s just common sense and the fact that there are so many people willing to think these things are aliens is mind-blowing. Then again, common sense isn’t so common.