‘Hey Bill Nye, Could the Government Be Hiding Extraterrestrials From Us?’
New videos DAILY: bigth.ink
Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: bigth.ink/Edge
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peel off your tin-foil hat like a Hershey’s Kiss, because Bill Nye has a reality check for the alien conspiracists out there. Roswell? Area 51? Vincent D'Onofrio as the roach alien in MIB? Bill Nye shoos them away, deeming each as unrealistic as the next.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BILL NYE:
Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.
In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.
While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”
Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.
Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.
Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT:
Question: Hey Bill. So there are many videos online claiming to be extraterrestrial sightings. It just seems that the government is aware of extraterrestrials yet they reject the idea. Possibly they’re hiding the truth from us in fear of the knowledge greatly changing our daily lives. Do you believe these aliens exist and if so would you tell us?
Bill Nye: No I don’t believe the aliens exist coming to visit you and the government knows about it and hasn’t told you. No. Start with that. Two more things. First of all the whole alien thing really got revved up in 1947. There was a project called Sky Hook and the U.S. Government had these very cool super high altitude balloons and they were going to have a constellation of them or an armada of these balloons off the East Coast of the former Soviet Union with microphones tuned to listen for nuclear weapons tests. This was going to be big fun. And so they were testing the balloon in New Mexico and it was complicated and the winds blew the thing around and it crashed and it was impractical. The idea was kind of cool but it was a cold war idea that just didn’t work. Now this project was secret so yes, government people showed up. The U.S. Army swept up all the debris from the crash and took it away because it was secret.
And they also experimented with parachuting dummies from very high altitudes in the same area. And this has led to all these fabulous myths about aliens and the government knows stuff you don’t. Now I look like nobody and I am but I had an engineering job, several of them over the years, and during one of them I had security clearance. And I worked on a secret airplane for a little while and I never went myself but I worked with several guys, they were all men, who went to Area 51 to Groom Lake which is an Air Force base in Nevada where we fly around these secret airplanes. And it’s a real place. And these guys went there and when I was doing it it was called level five security clearance. I only had level four. I never went to Groom Lake. But t...
For the full transcript, check out bigthink.com/videos/bill-nye-...