This is a review of a video called “The Secret NASA Transmissions: The Smoking Gun.” The video is called the most popular underground tape among astronauts, and it claims to show video evidence of aliens in space. There’s allegedly some form of intelligent life flying around on the NASA videos.

I decided to take a look at this video because a lot of people were mentioning it, and they knew that I was interested in evidence of life beyond Earth (even if it’s just microbial life on Mars). While it’s true that I am curious about things out that run counter to the mainstream, I do not automatically believe those things. In fact, I’m skeptical of everything I hear, see or view. I may be one of very few genuine skeptics taking a serious look at this video, because most so-called skeptics running around the internet today have already made up their minds on everything (they either dismiss all UFOs as nonsense without even bothering to look at the evidence, or at the other extreme, they automatically believe all UFO videos without any sense of healthy skepticism).

For me though, I take a look at everything with an open mind and decide if it makes any sense. And when I view this secret NASA transmissions video, I don’t see anything resembling alien life or UFOs, I just see a bunch of space dust, floating crystals, lens effects and camera zooms that are grossly misinterpreted as showing piloted alien spacecraft. And this is from a guy who believes, beyond any doubt, that there is extraterrestrial life beyond planet Earth. It’s out there, but as far as I can tell, it’s not on this video.

For example, there’s one segment in this video that claims to show a UFO in outer space that zooms along at a certain angle and then it suddenly changes course and travels at a different angle. The narrator points this out very excitedly in the video, and I’ve heard other people talk about this particular sequence. They say, “See? Look! That object changed direction.” Well, the truth is, if you look at what’s happening in that video sequence — and anybody who knows anything whatsoever about videography would be able to recognize this — what’s actually happening is that the camera is filming during a zoom function. That is, the lens zooms quickly while an object is slowly making its way across the screen from left to right.

When the zoom stops, it appears that the object that moving from left to right suddenly and miraculously changes its angle of motion. In reality, it was always moving in a straight line, it’s just that our frame of reference of it was altered during the zoom of the camera lens. I can reproduce the exact same thing with any video camera. It’s very easy to do, and in fact you can see in this video that the camera is zooming because all the stars in the background are zooming too. It’s a very abrupt zoom of the camera lens, by the way. It starts suddenly and it ends suddenly, indicating the zoom is undoubtedly motorized (it’s not a hand-controlled zoom). This is what makes the object appear to abruptly change direction. In fact, it’s just some object floating out there in space, moving along in a straight line without changing direction at all.

But this all gets misinterpreted as “proof” that an object instantly changed direction in outer space. Therefore, it must be an alien spacecraft. Some people, it seems, want to believe in this “proof” so badly that their conscious minds will erase the stars in the background of the video that clearly show the starting and stopping of a camera zoom function. In other words, it’s certainly not proof of aliens among us, but it is proof that some people in the UFO community are unbelievably gullible and have absolutely no common sense (or don’t understand the laws of physics or basic camera mechanics).

Interestingly, most of the serious UFO folks undoubtedly agree with me. There’s far better evidence of UFOs available than what’s shown in this video. And the really smart people who follow this topic aren’t fooled by camera zoom effects, either. So I don’t mean to paint this as something that represents the entire UFO community — clearly, it doesn’t. It’s really more of a joke than anything offering serious footage of UFOs. Anybody who takes this video seriously is marching down the wrong path if they want to find hard evidence of extraterrestrial life.

If there’s one thing that’s missing from a lot of the talk about UFOs today, it’s basic skepticism. Having an open mind is great, but you’ve also got to engage that brain and consider other explanations for what you’re seeing on film. One reason the UFO community has so little credibility among mainstream scientists today is precisely because it is steeped in video hoaxes and footage of natural phenomena that are hyped up as proof of alien life. It’s sort of like crying wolf one time too many: When real UFOs show up, who will believe it?

A lot of people who’ve read my work may be surprised by this personal assessment of the secret NASA transmissions video. They might think, “What happened to Mike? I thought he believed in alternative theories?” I do believe in many alternative theories, but I arrived at them all through a process of skepticism. I believe that there is microbial life on Mars right now. There’s no question in my mind that there is intelligent life in the universe far beyond what we know about today. I believe in the Drake equation. When you calculate the Drake equation, the result says there should be billions of planets harboring intelligent life in our galaxy alone, not to mention other galaxies. I also believe that NASA is hiding a lot of information, especially about Mars. I believe there is water on Mars and there is microbial life to be found in that water, even if it’s largely frozen. Every heard of extremophiles? I think NASA is withholding a lot of information from the public on many subjects. And I’d love to see all that caught on film, but the Secret NASA Transmissions video is definitely not it.

I believe that a lot of what scientists say today about the universe is flat wrong. For example, scientists don’t really have a good understanding of what comets are made of. They don’t even know what the Earth is made of, or the sun. So, you may find that many of the people who believe in the secret NASA transmissions video are some of the same people that I might tend to agree with on many subjects, but not on this one. I don’t see a single thing in this entire video (and I’ve watched it twice) that is moving in any way that couldn’t be explained by the basic physics of common particles. You know, some of this could just be ice crystals. It could be the urine dumps outside the space capsules, it could be space dust, or it could be debris from the capsules. All this stuff is just moving in a constant line of direction, just as things do in space.

At one point in the video, the narrator points to something that’s flashing as it moves across the screen, as if the flash itself is supposed to indicate intelligent life. Didn’t they consider that maybe it’s just a solid piece of metal that just happens to be spinning and rotating? Of course it’s going to flash as it moves through space because once an object is rotating and floating around in space, it will not stop rotating on its own. There’s no friction in space, so these objects are going to continue to appear to flash in a steady pattern. It doesn’t mean they are alive, it just means they reflect light and are spinning. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why so many people don’t understand basic physics, especially when it comes to looking for UFOs in space. Do I believe that UFOs exist? Do I believe there is intelligent life in the universe? Absolutely, no question about it; they are just not on this video.

The bigger question is this: Is advanced technology flying around our planet? The answer is undoubtedly yes. There may be some super-advanced military technology. Some of it may be some revamped Nikola Tesla technology, who knows? Maybe the Roswell UFO crash was the real thing and there was some technology taken from that crash as portrayed in the movie “Independence Day.” There’s a lot of weird stuff flying around out there, but again, I don’t see any sign of alien life on this video. In fact, I’m glad this video exists and I hope that the producers of this video continue their search, because maybe they will find some really convincing, hard evidence at some point, but right now, all I see is obvious misinterpretations of what people are seeing on their screens.

On the back of the cover of this DVD, there’s a large quote at the top that says, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” While I agree with that statement, this video is definitely not the proof. If you believe this video offers proof of aliens among us, you need to retake Physics 101. There’s not a single alien on the entire video. Not even a muppet alien.

There is, however, a fascinating array of flashy junk floating around in space that’s been caught on film. And if you’re interested in watching small particles spin and move in straight lines in outer space, you may love this film.