Unusual Bets on Alien Life Raise Suspicions
A "Welcome to Roswell" sign in New Mexico. (Getty Images/Cheri Alguire)
A massive bet on aliens briefly turned a prediction market into something out of a conspiracy forum.
According to The Atlantic, journalist Ross Andersen reports that late Monday night a trader on the prediction platform Kalshi placed nearly $100,000 on a contract that would pay out only if the Trump administration formally confirms the existence of extraterrestrial life or technology by the end of the year. Roughly 35 minutes later, another wager—almost twice as large—hit the same market.
The sudden, high-dollar trades were so dramatic that, for a short time, the market implied there was about a one-in-three chance such a disclosure would happen.
The contract spells out the trigger clearly: If President Trump, any Cabinet member, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or any US federal agency definitively states before Jan. 1, 2027, that extraterrestrial life or technology exists, the market resolves to “Yes.” The rules also bar trading by anyone employed by designated “Source Agencies” or anyone holding material, nonpublic information related to the outcome.
What makes the episode especially puzzling, Andersen writes, is both the timing and the way the bets were placed. They came days after a fresh wave of UFO buzz—including a joking podcast comment by Barack Obama and President Trump’s order to begin declassifying certain UFO-related files—had already died down. And instead of being broken into smaller, strategic trades (a common tactic among experienced market participants), the wagers were made in large lump sums.
Prediction markets expert Ben Shindel told the magazine the activity suggests either an inexperienced trader making a bold move—or someone acting on inside information. Andersen’s full article explores how markets like these can sometimes function less as forecasting tools and more as what he calls “paranoia generators.”
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