At top, a tiny white dot high above Bryson DeChambeau's house in Dallas. Below, a guess at what it might be.
@brysondechambeau
Weird.
On a series of Instagram live posts earlier this week, Bryson DeChambeaushowed via his zoomed-in phone camera a tiny white dot high above his home in Dallas. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Or was it something else playing through the Earth Country Club?
“Weird,” DeChambeau said at the end of the videos, all of which had the alien emoji at the bottom.
Or maybe not, at least if you believe the Fermi paradox, which is named after Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and suggests that Earth should have been visited by aliens already. And yes, DeChambeau, who takes an analytical approach to golf, analyzed that theory with swing coach Chris Como during an hour-long Instagram live video on the same day.
It started with one of the followers of the video asking DeChambeau and Como their “thoughts on the Fermi paradox.”
“What is that? Is that, ‘Where are the aliens type of thing?’ ” Como asked.
“I don’t remember, dude,” DeChambeau said. “I’m not deep into that right now.”
“It’s like the chances are that they’re out there, but where are they? Why haven’t we come across anything yet?” Como said.
“I don’t know,” DeChambeau said. “It is pretty crazy to think that we haven’t experienced anything yet because if you really think about it, all the stars and light that we’re seeing is from thousands of years ago. It takes light a certain amount of time for it to get here, right? So we’re actually seeing all of the stars and stuff from the past.”
Indeed.
On Monday, the Pentagon perhaps boosted the theory when it released three declassified videos from 2004 and 2015 that show U.S. Navy pilots encountering what appear to be UFOs. The videos, the Pentagon said, show “unexplained aerial phenomena,” the Guardian reported.
Como did have another explanation.
“You sure quarantine’s just not getting to you?” he asked DeChambeau.
“Ugh. Maybe. I don’t know. Yeah, it’s been weird, for sure. But that’s OK. It’s life.”
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.