Politics & Power Quote by Jeri Ryan

There is a very particular kind of celebrity candor at work here: the casual, half-joking shrug that lets an actress touch a loaded topic (aliens, God, government paranoia) without getting trapped in it. Jeri Ryan opens with a mock-theological provocation - if humanity is such a mess, why would a higher power bother with us? It reads like a punchline, but it’s also a moral side-eye at human self-importance. The humor is doing defensive labor: it admits disappointment in people while keeping the tone airy enough to avoid sounding preachy.

Then she pivots hard into boundary-setting. “I don’t necessarily believe in aliens coming to the States” is phrased like someone declining an invitation, not rejecting a worldview. That “to the States” detail matters: it pokes at the oddly American vanity baked into UFO folklore, the assumption that if extraterrestrials showed up, they’d naturally pick our airspace, our deserts, our news cycle. The second clause - “I don’t buy into the government cover-up” - is less about aliens than about refusing a cultural posture: the idea that insight comes from distrusting institutions by default.

Contextually, Ryan’s sci-fi bona fides (she’s inseparable from Star Trek: Voyager in the public imagination) make this a preemptive disclaimer. Fans and interviewers want the actor to validate the genre’s metaphysics; she answers with wit, skepticism, and a small critique of American exceptionalism, keeping the conversation human instead of conspiratorial.