AIs have replaced aliens as our greatest world-destroying fear

In 2004, while conducting training exercises over the Pacific Ocean, two US Navy pilots reported something extraordinary: a mysterious, blindingly fast flying object that caused the sea to boil, rotated mid-air, and could fly more than 60 miles in under a minute, despite having no visible means of propulsion. The episode was just one of many investigated by a highly secretive Department of Defense program that ran from 2007 to 2012 and was championed by a handful of US Senators. A New York Times report on the program mentioned a clandestine government warehouse in Nevada that may or may not be storing "alien alloys" recovered from similar flying objects. Once upon a time, rumors and revelations like these would have sent the public into a frenzy. They would have joined Roswell and Area 51 in the pantheon of UFO-conspiracy chatter.