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Possibly true; though on a meta level, me and magicalkittycat actually agreeing on something should be considered a rare and special kind of evidence.
No, I don't think his disclaimers cover it.
First, in Hanson's original post where he outlines his "key positions, 2026", he says explicitly: "There’s a good chance some UFOs are aliens". No disclaimer, no playful hypothetical framing. There's no reason to regard it as some kind of sci-fi mental exercise; he literally lists it as one of his key positions.
Second, the aliens post itself makes specific claims prior to that limited-scope disclaimer, such as "we now accept ball lightning, even though evidence for it is weaker than for UFO". Couple this with his general attitude of contempt in those paragraphs -- e.g. his physics teachers "arrogantly" told him to write off UFOs. Then add in things like "I browsed UFO evidence and found it to be much stronger than stuff on ghosts or telepathy", or his titular "What the Hell!" reaction to US military reports of UFOs. This isn't someone who's meekly trying to go "hey, I just want to flag this up as a not-literally-impossible hypothesis".
Third, his disclaimer is scoped to his specific explanation of aliens, rather than to the general "UFOs are caused by aliens" explanation. His language in general assumes (though he's ambiguous about it) that the evidence for alien-type-UFOs is so strong that we should all be going "what the hell!" rather than "hmm, why is this US military report claiming something that's almost certainly not true"/
Fourth, it's a very weak disclaimer. "I'm not claiming this as fact; I'm saying it isn't crazy". I generally like disclaimers of this form! But they can't be coupled with content that clearly is claiming the thing as a likely fact. "There's a good chance some UFOs are aliens" is much stronger than "this isn't literally crazy". He's doing a motte and bailey: when he presents his high-level beliefs, it's the strong version ("good chance"); then, when justifying stuff, he retreats to the weak version ("not crazy").
I think you're just wrong about this.
I know the kind of mode of discussion you're pointing to. My canonical model for this is "irreducible complexity" -- when a creationist says "the human eye is so complex it couldn't have possibly evolved". In that mode, it suffices to come up with any plausibly true mechanism by which the eye could have evolved; you don't need to prove it.
So I get exactly what you're describing, and I agree that it's a valuable mode of argumentation, and needs to be recognised when it's in play...
... and I just don't think Hanson is doing it. A narrowly-scoped "I'm just saying this isn't crazy", coupled with everything else, isn't enough to credibly signal that mode. Here's an example of how I'd signal it, in Hanson's position:
He wouldn't have to phrase it like that, obviously. But if he's trying to convey "hey, I don't actually believe this, it's just a toy sci-fi exercise", then he's done a very bad job that seems inconsistent with his general ability to communicate. If I tell a Young Earth Creationist "There's a good chance the human eye formed via gene sequence B857-X223", and then subsequently make an argument for that specific explanation, I don't get to fall back on "but I only need a plausible explanation for the human eye; it doesn't have to be that specific one".
I keep reading more of his stuff and keep seeing more disclaimers. While you keep reading his stuff and keep dismissing more of his disclaimers.
Here he is in a another post:
For a second I thought this disclaimer you wrote for him was something he wrote. What you wrote here is my interpretation of what he is saying.
Here he is again calling these "weird" ideas.
And the best piece of evidence is his words on other posts:
UFOs as US PsychOp
So he explicitly considers the "government hoax" explanation as most likely.
I could not find the writing you were talking about that is more recent. Much of this seems to be back in 2022/2023. He was added to the advisory council on UAPs in June 2026 but i couldn't find any output from that group. Perhaps now that he is part of the government he can update on the likelihood of the government hoax explanation.
He has written a bunch of stuff about aliens. Which might suggest he believes they are true, but he has also written possibly one of the best explanations for the non-existence of intelligent alien life: The Great Filter. I think he honestly likes thinking about and playing around with strange ideas. I went to GMU and have met Robin Hanson a few times, I've also known people who interacted with him a great deal (like fellow professors). The impression is the same: weird guy likes weird ideas. His public persona is really only the tip of the iceberg. And his publicly listed views on wikipedia include prediction markets (two decades before they were cool), incel sympathy, cryonics, the great filter (aliens), and a future society of brain emulations (his age of em book).
There are some people I feel safer pegging my views on a particular topic to whatever they say is correct. For example, I'll trust Scott Alexander on plenty of things. I think he will do honest research and come to the best possible conclusion given the evidence on plenty of topics. Psych meds are one of those topics. Robin Hanson is someone I'd feel comfortable pegging my views on aliens to. If he has recently updated his views from the ones expressed in his 2021-23 blogposts I'd be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence. I still think you are both reading him uncharitably, or reading something I haven't seen.
Last summer, he had a post exploring some very interesting research showing transient light phenomena in outer space prior to terrestrial satellites, and claiming a corroboration to UFO sightings and atomic testing. He's updated it with two reports of corroboration and (today!) with a report of "failure to replicate" on another telescope.
Last fall, he had a post arguing that the DoD has been lying through their teeth about UFOs, either deliberately fostering a cover-up or encouraging people to believe in them – both cases with pretty dramatic outcomes for US trust in institutions.
(An aside, but I think it's really funny that now the shoe is on the other foot, as UFO skeptics basically have to argue that there's some sort of conspiracy by the government to fool the public into believing UFOs are real, an amusing reversal from the time when the UFO believers had to argue that there was some sort of conspiracy by the government to keep people from believing in UFOs.)
Maybe he's written more since that I haven't read, but it looks to me like he's still pretty open-minded about possibilities besides aliens.
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