Last week the hacking organization that goes by the name of Anonymous claimed that NASA was prepared to make an announcement about the discovery of Alien Life. However, the space agency has been obliged to state that no such news is forthcoming at least for the time being. The item is an example of fake news derived from a part of a sentence uttered by NASA science chief Thomas Zurbuchen taken out of context.

What did Anonymous say?

The video, which the reader can see below, took a statement that Zurbuchen made at a hearing at the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and ran with it for nearly 12 minutes.

It covered a variety of topics ranging from the recent discovery of exo-planets, to the possibility of microbial life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, to alleged confirmed UFOs. The implication was that NASA has made contact with aliens and is about to announce that fact.

Zurbuchen covered those topics, except for the UFOs, in his congressional testimony. "Taking into account all of the different activities and missions that are specifically searching for evidence of alien life, we are on the verge of making one of the most profound, unprecedented discoveries in history." Of course, that does not mean next week or even next year as it turned out.

What did NASA have to say?

The video from Anonymous went viral and was reported by a number of news organizations.

So Zurbuchen, whose testimony served as the basis of the video from Anonymous, was obliged to clarify that, no, NASA is not about to announce contact with alien lifeforms, not microbes embed on Mars or a moon of Jupiter or Saturn, and not pilots of spacecraft either. However, the space agency is working on making such discoveries, at least the microbes, and has been for much of its existence.

Why would Anonymous make such a statement?

Anonymous is a secretive, loosely affiliated group of activists and hacktivists that use computer hacking for political activism and generating publicity. Its targets have ranged from government agencies to terrorists such as Al Qaeda to child pornographers. During the 2016 campaign, Anonymous declared war both against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

With that history in context, one might understand why the hacker group, or perhaps an individual affiliated with it, would make such a claim about NASA. The discovery of aliens has been the staple of conspiracy theorists for decades.

The idea is that the government knows about the existence of intelligent aliens visiting the Earth but is keeping is a secret for its nefarious purposes. Zurbuchen’s testimony, taken out of context, seemed like an excellent opportunity to latch onto that meme for a little publicity. Anonymous appears to have succeeded, that being the case.