I feel the problem with that mindset is that it implies that the government would have a direct benefit to denying the existence of aliens. When the reality is that defense spending would nearly double if proven true.

NASA is kind of in the same boat, once alien life is found, suddenly people are going to want research and collect data on the new life, which means their budget goes up too.

So there is a direct intensive to finding aliens from two places of government.

Then there is the personal benefits, you get to be the first human in history to discover aliens.

As an academic, your face will be in every history book titled “First contact.” You will be on every talk show across the US and abroad as it would be translated into multiple languages. You’d be famous and wealthy whether you wanted it or not.

So when I look at the argument that the government has a direct intensive to hide the truth, I don’t see a fair argument. Just people that assume the government has those intensives to hide from the public, when the reality is the opposite.