Hi all. I am pleased to have found this area of "reason" in amongst all the CT stuff on the Net.My background is in Astronomy and Astrophysics and I am a founder member, researcher and contributor for the UK Meteor Observation Network, The Global Meteor Network and the UK Fireball Alliance. I was part of the team that tracked and recovered the Winchcombe Meteorite in February 2021 for which we were awarded the RAS Group Award for Geophysics in 2022.
I have my own, state of the art, fully robotic observatory (Exeter Observatory) and my professional field is the study of asteroids, comets and meteors. Although largely retired, I still do some research with the aforementioned organisations. Currently, I am lucky enough to lecture on luxury cruise ships and spend about 8 months of the year at sea, talking about my subject. As I interact with thousands of people through the year, I come into constant contact with people who have "fallen down the rabbit hol" and have had many discussions about "aliens" and "UFO's". I usually try and explain through astrophysics and cosmology why alien visitations are at best unlikely and mostly impossible. This does not always go down well! As an astrophysicist, I believe that there is probably life somewhere out there but due to the vastness of the Universe, the distanced involved and the Univeral Laws of Physics, we wil be very unlikely to ever encounter alien races (I give lectures on this).
I spent 25 years in the Royal Air Force working in many areas of electronic communications, including radio, radar, missile systems and satellite systems. In all my years I have never seen an object in either the daytime or night time sky that could not be explained. Yes, I have seen some odd things, but never anything that defied the Laws of Physics. As a scientist, I look to explain strange phenomena through science, not "woo".
I have just purchased Mick's book, Escaping the Rabbit Hole" and look forward to his advice on dealing with conspiracy theorists. I also look forward to interacting with sensible, rational minds on this forum.