The fascination with UFOs and whether life exists outside of Earth has intrigued humanity for centuries. But one professor at Montana Tech believes the fascination may run deeper than that.

He believes UFOs are time machines from the future.

Dr. Michael Masters, a biological anthropologist specializing in human evolutionary anatomy, archaeology, and biomedicine, suggests that people view UFOs largely the same way and uses his background to back up his controversial claim. “The phenomenon may be our own distant descendants coming back through time to study us in their own evolutionary past,” Masters said in an interview with Montana's KXLF.com.

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He continued: “The extra-tempestrial are ubiquitously reported as being bipedal, upright-walking, five fingers on each hand and foot, bi-lateral symmetry that they have two eyes, a mouth a nose, they can communicate with us in our own languages.”

Masters discusses the topic in detail in his new book, "Identified Flying Objects," which he says is written just as much for his "academic peers as much as it is for anyone in the UFO community.”

With the book, Masters hopes that the topic of extraterrestrial life and UFOs can "get past some of the stigma and not have to defend this as science because it is very scientific as well.”

Renewed interest

There has been a renewed interest in extraterrestrial life, due in part to revelations over the past few years that the U.S. government had funded a secret project at the Pentagon at the request of former Sen. Harry Reid.

In late 2017, both the New York Times and Politico reported of the existence of the Pentagon’s now-defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The Times said the UFO program began in 2007, while Politico reported in began in 2009.

Both outlets said Reid’s interest in UFOs was the result of friend and donor Bob Bigelow, who owns Bigelow Aerospace and has said before he is “absolutely convinced” aliens exist and UFOs have visited Earth.

The New York Times said the program had a $22 million annual budget and “most of the money” went to Bigelow’s research company, which hired subcontractors and solicited research for the program.

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Following the Times report, Reid tweeted "the truth is out there" (a nod to the show, "The X-Files), adding that if "anyone says they have the answers, they’re fooling themselves."

A Pentagon spokesman said the UFO program ended in 2012, though The Times said the Defense Department still investigates potential episodes of unidentified flying objects.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon released newly declassified documents that revealed the Department of Defense funded projects that investigated UFOs, wormholes, alternate dimensions and a host of other subjects that are often the topics of conspiracy theorists.

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Fox News' Alex Pappas contributed to this report.