“We should be prepared for aliens”: Neil deGrasse Tyson reacts to Pentagon UFO files

“To declare that Earth must be the only planet with life in the universe would be inexcusably bigheaded of us,” said Neil deGrasse Tyson in his book, ‘Death By Black Hole’ (p. 229). However, despite his conviction in the existence of alien life, he was not exactly blown away by the infamous UFO files that the Pentagon released recently.

“It was consistent with testimonies we’ve already heard in Congress," he said during his recent appearance on MS Now's Morning Joe. "There’s nothing new there; no shockers that we couldn’t have extrapolated from what was already told.”

The image captures Neil deGrasse Tyson at the SiriusXM Studios in New York City on October 23, 2025, during a studio appearance.

The US Department of War recently made over 160 previously classified files available to the public. These files contain a host of information about unusual sightings of alleged Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), or UFOs. Anyone can visit the https://www.war.gov/UFO/ website to access the files.

The file in the image reportedly contains UFO incident reports documented under the 1948 Flight Service Regulation (FSR) 200-4. The reports were filed by military personnel and Civilian Aviation Authority (CAA) sources, detailing dates, locations, weather conditions, altitude, and observed movements. It also includes military communications, intelligence summaries, diagrams, and a weather station report from Japan.

Despite finding the contents of the UFO files rather unimpressive, Tyson conceded that they do represent an opportunity to adopt a more scientific and grounded approach to the discussion around alien life.

“If they bring out an alien or if an alien does arrive, we should be prepared for that. And this is a primer for you,” he said

This image captures an infrared sensor view highlighting an eight-pointed contrast pattern from an unresolved UAP report in the Middle East, 2013.

If we do ever come in contact with aliens, chances are we are not going to share a common language, culture, or biology. Hence, if we want to communicate with them, relying on typical human modes would be futile. Instead, Tyson suggests it would be more sensible for us to use universal and scientific principles, such as mathematics, in such a scenario.

“You’ve got to come equipped to communicate in that way,” he said, referring to the same.

This image of Neil deGrasse Tyson was captured on November 10, 2025, in New York City at Lionsgate's "Now You See Me: Now You Don't" premiere at The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers.

Neil deGrasse Tyson published his new book titled ‘Just Visiting This Planet, Revised and Updated for the Twenty-First Century: Further Scientific Adventures of Merlin from Omniscia’ back in October 2025. Writing about his notions on alien life, the astrophysicist pointed out that very few would deny that alien life does exist in some form or another elsewhere. However, speaking about aliens visiting the Earth, deGrasse Tyson is highly doubtful. He wrote, "We all grew up when no one had cameras, so everything was an eyewitness testimony. Everybody has got a high-resolution camera video, and nobody's got some alien walking off their flying saucer."

In the image, Neil deGrasse Tyson was captured speaking onstage at the 2025 Literacy Partners Evening of Readings & Gala Dinner at Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers on June 09, 2025, in New York City.