Are aliens real? People online don’t seem to care either way

The news that the government may be in possession of “nonhuman” biological matter and UFOs was met with surprising apathy online.

The House Oversight subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs held a hearing on UFOs — officially known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs — on Wednesday. Lawmakers called for more transparency about UAPs and raised national defense concerns.

While the Defense Department has said there’s no evidence linking UAPs to aliens yet, many social media users still took the hearing as proof aliens exist.

The hearing did spawn a lot of memes, but many of them signaled how uninterested users were in the findings.

UFOs, previously a hot topic for conspiracy theorists, are now almost too mundane to break through the news cycle, some users said.

“It’s funny; they were talking about UFOs and ‘non human biologics’ in a hearing yesterday and nobody is paying any attention. There are so many conspiracy theories going on right now, we aren’t even fascinated by Area 51 anymore,” one person wrote.

“They announcing that aliens are real and not one person moved……” another user tweeted.

Others said life on Earth was too chaotic and stressful to care about life on other planets.

“Are aliens going to fix inflation, cancel student debt, end worker exploitation, pay any of these bills, turn the temp down on this planet; and all around bring happiness to me and my friends miserable lives? No? Then yeah- they can get tf,” one person shared.

Some users on X, the platform formally known as Twitter, pointed out the difference in how people felt about aliens and UFOs in the past compared to now. For instance, in 2019, there were calls from alien hunters to storm Area 51. Meanwhile, many online met the news about UAPs on Wednesday with a collective shrug.

Many TikTok users shared the sentiment, saying they don’t care whether aliens exist.

“Like, we as a species have caused so much nonsense that the idea of extraterrestrials doesn’t phase us,” one person said in a viral video.

Amid the harsh realities of Earth, a few people appeared ready for alien abduction and begged any aliens to take them away.

“Can the aliens take me back with them? Earth kinda sucks lately,” one Twitter user said.

Daysia Tolentino

Daysia Tolentino is a culture and trends reporter for NBC News.