By Tim Binnall
The head of the Russian space agency recently shared his thoughts on the UFO phenomenon, including the possibility that Earth is being studied by extraterrestrials. Dmitry Rogozin reportedly made the intriguing comments during an interview with a Russian media outlet over the weekend. Asked about the chances of intelligent life arising in the universe, the Roscosmos chief was open to the idea and argued that there are "innumerable factors that could contribute to the emergence of life, including an intelligent one." Regarding UFOs, Rogozin revealed that the Russian Academy of Sciences has actually been "collecting facts" regarding sightings of unidentified flying objects, however he offered a rather dispiriting assessment of their findings.
According to the space agency chief, to date, Russian experts have determined that 99.9% of the cases are instances of "atmospheric and other physical phenomena" rather than aliens. That said, Rogozin conceded that "we still assume" that genuine visitations of the extraterrestrial variety "might have taken place" and indicated that he has spoken to Russian pilots who reported mysterious mid-air encounters with odd objects that seemingly cannot be explained. Perhaps the most unsettling observation to come from Rogozin concerned the idea of ETs could be visiting Earth in secret and mused that "we can study bacteria, but we can also be studied just like bacteria."