The debate over whether or not extraterrestrial life exists in the universe has certainly heated in recent years. The US government and the Pentagon have effectively admitted the existence of UFOs, while NASA is conducting a study into the possibility of extraterrestrial life with a team of the world’s leading researchers and scientists – the results of which are expected to be revealed this year.

However, while UFO hunters and sci-fi fans revel in the fact that their alien theories are moving ever closer to realization, one major figure of the scientific community maintains a healthy dose of skepticism about the whole thing!

Rockstar astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson recently appeared on Who’s talking to Chris Wallace?, where we asked him if all the recent hubbub about aliens visiting Earth has affected him. Tyson made it clear that as a scientist he will not make great leaps in his view of the universe until the contrary is concretely proven.

When asked if he believes extraterrestrial life is “out there” in the universe, Tyson responded by saying, “I’d say if there wasn’t life, it would be amazing… considering how common our ingredients are and how soon life took place here, and how many planets we know of orbit host stars. And it would be amazing if it did.”

After a bit of back-and-forth clarification of the meaning of the term “alien” (which Tyson sees as “any life”), the more specific question of whether or not aliens have visited the earth came up. Then Tyson made it clear that while his mind may be open, he doesn’t want to believe that the grainy images we’ve seen of mysterious objects in the sky constitute “evidence” that aliens are among us:

“Something that could land here in a spaceship? Could be out there. There’s no evidence that would convince an authentic skeptic that we’ve been visited. And I can tell you this, these faint monochromatic tic tacs popping up around the Navy’s limited airspace in our own atmosphere? By the way, you’ve seen the high-resolution images from a telescope that we parked a million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope. Looking at the edge of the universe. And the best thing is that you pay a visit brings aliens into our own atmosphere is a vague tic tac? You have to try harder if you want to convince an astrophysicist.”

Theorists may disagree with Neil deGrasse Tyson’s logic on this one, arguing that alien craft may have the ability to mask or obscure their appearance from the eye or current Earth technologies such as radar. At the same time, Tyson is right that until the evidence is concrete, everything is just theory.

Who is talking to Chris Wallace? streams new episodes are Friday mornings on HBO Max. Who is talking to Chris Wallace? also airs Sundays at 7 p.m. Eastern on CNN.