It was one of those crisp autumn nights in Delaware County when the air smells like woodsmoke, damp leaves, and the last warmth of the season. Jeff had picked up one of those KFC-scented fire logs and decided to throw it in for the first time. For a few surreal minutes, the whole backyard smelled like fried chicken and smoke. That’s a whole other story for later. I digress.
I was halfway through a perfectly charred hot dog, the way God intended, when the conversation took the kind of turn only a firepit can inspire. We started out talking about government and conspiracy theories, which somehow led to UFOs, congressional hearings, and those strange interstellar objects that have wandered into our solar system from somewhere else.
That’s when I mentioned the article I’d written a couple of years back about Delaware County’s brush with the cosmos, the Wow! Signal that Ohio State’s Big Ear telescope picked up in 1977, and how today’s discoveries like ‘Oumuamua seem to keep that same mystery alive. Writing that story re-ignited my curiosity about what’s out there. But sitting there that night, I realized my thinking had shifted since then.
From “Wow!” to “Wait.”
Earlier this year, I made a Facebook post about the interstellar visitors we’ve found so far, things like ‘Oumuamua and 3I/ATLAS. I said I don’t really buy into the idea they’re alien ships, but I still find them fascinating.
My friend Sarah was one who commented on that post, and what started as a reply about the Wow! Signal turned into several conversations about space, physics, and how easy it is to mistake wonder for proof. Sarah recommended I listen to Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution by Dr. Richard Wolfson, and that sent me down a different kind of rabbit hole.
Listening and Rethinking
Wolfson doesn’t try to convince anyone of anything. He just explains how the universe behaves, spacetime, energy, and motion, in a way that makes you realize how impossible most science-fiction scenarios really are in as simple of terms as possible. It didn’t turn me into a believer (or an Astro-physicist). If anything, it made me respect how much we still don’t know.
That night around the fire, as I was regurgitating my newfound perspective, Rhonda looked over and said, “You know, I think you’re basically agnostic about aliens.”
I mean, she wasn’t wrong. It caught me off guard, but it fit. I haven’t stopped being curious; I’ve just stopped needing proof to appreciate the mystery. I can still consider the possibility without believing.
Agnostic doesn’t mean disbelief. It means keeping the door cracked open while admitting you might not have the time or brainpower to chase every theory, especially when you’ve got a 13-year-old daughter who already occupies most of that space.
Visitors From Beyond
Since writing that first article, space has handed us a few new conversation starters. The latest is 3I/ATLAS, the third confirmed interstellar object to swing through our solar system after ‘Oumuamua in 2017 and comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.
Astronomers detected 3I/ATLAS early in 2025 and quickly noticed it wasn’t behaving like a typical comet. It began venting carbon dioxide long before it got anywhere near the Sun. Most comets stay quiet until sunlight warms them up; this one started leaking gas in deep space like it couldn’t wait to get here.
That early activity led to speculation online that 3I/ATLAS might be changing course the way ‘Oumuamua briefly did. So far, though, the data don’t support that. Once refined, its trajectory matched what you’d expect from a natural object. Still, Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Avi Loeb and his Galileo Project team have been watching closely. Loeb argues that when objects act outside the norm, science owes it to itself to ask why, not laugh it off.
He’s not saying aliens built it, just that we shouldn’t dismiss unusual data before we understand it. Most astronomers still chalk it up to a natural comet with quirks, but that’s what makes it interesting. 3I/ATLAS sits right at the intersection of “probably natural” and “what if.”
If being skeptical keeps you grounded, being open-minded keeps you looking up.
A Sky Full of Hearings
The curiosity isn’t just in space. Even Congress has gotten in on it. During recent UAP hearings, a Navy pilot described tracking a metallic sphere over the Middle East that was fired upon and simply kept moving, no explosion, no debris, no reaction.
No one’s offered a satisfying answer, though the Pentagon hinted it could’ve been a data-collection or sensor anomaly. Personally, I think there’s a far more down-to-earth explanation. Alas, I still don’t have the time, or energy, to dig into it right now. Thanks to the aforementioned 13-year-old, I’m lucky to keep my calendar under control, let alone solve national mysteries.
Still, it’s remarkable how the conversation has changed. A decade ago, UFO talk in Congress would’ve been career-ending. Now it’s Tuesday.
Science, Sci-Fi, and the Space Between
I’ve noticed that the older I get, the more science fiction feels less about the future and more about the present. Watching Star Trek: Picard finish its final season, I didn’t see the explorer from my younger days. I saw a man looking back, trying to make sense of everything he’d already seen. Maybe that’s what exploration becomes as we age, not chasing what’s next but appreciating what’s still unsolved.
And The Mandalorian, for all its jetpacks and blasters, carries that same quiet philosophy. “This is the way.” For me, that way is curiosity, tempered by reason and fueled by questions.
Between Wolfson’s lectures, Loeb’s research, and Delaware County’s place in cosmic trivia, I’ve realized you can be skeptical and still wonder. You can ask questions without needing the answers right away.
Delaware’s Quiet Connection to the Cosmos
That connection still runs deep here. The Big Ear telescope may be gone, but its ghost lingers over every clear night above Route 23. I keep meaning to visit Perkins Observatory for one of their nighttime programs; it’s on my bucket list, but for now, I’m content to pull over on a back road, roll the window down, and let the stars do their thing.
Sometimes I drive past where Big Ear once stood and think about that 72-second signal from 1977, still racing through space, still unanswered, although a lot more theories have come forward in the last few years. It reminds me that mystery doesn’t owe us closure.
A Skeptical Kind of Wonder
By the time the fire burned down to glowing coals, the conversation had quieted. I leaned back, looked up, and thought about recent events, those late-night chats with Sarah, Rhonda’s comment, and the lectures that reframed how I see all of this.
I’m still skeptical, but I’m also still curious.
Being agnostic about aliens isn’t about disbelief. It’s about standing somewhere between “prove it” and “anything’s possible,” knowing both sides need each other to stay honest.
Because if Delaware County once caught a mysterious signal from the stars, and if objects like ‘Oumuamua and 3I/ATLAS keep drifting through our solar system, maybe the point isn’t to solve the mystery. Maybe it’s to enjoy the fact that we’re still looking up and still talking about it around a fire.
I do wonder, though—maybe the real mystery isn’t out there in the stars, but whether that KFC log could actually fry some chicken?
