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What could they have been so concerned about? As everyone likes to ask, why the secrecy? Surely, if the military truly believed what it said for years about UFOs—that they are usually misidentifications of natural phenomena—it would hardly be interested in the problem. But that is not the case. As we have seen, objects have violated restricted airspace, and objects were seen by thousands of witnesses.

The core of the UFO problem comes down to two possible answers. Both are startling, and both difficult to accept, in their own way. The first possibility is that UFOs are the product of a revolutionary, human, technological breakthrough. Such rumors have existed for a long time, several of which even trace the development to Hitler’s Germany. Without denying the sophistication of the German scientific establishment, such a claim cannot shake the aura of absurdity. The Germans, acknowledged by all to have done the most advanced work during the war in the field of aerodynamics, barely figured out how to reach England with their V-2 rockets. A breakthrough to create flying saucer technology would have involved much more than propulsion technology, materials, and aerodynamics. It would have meant the creation of a viable antigravity craft with nearly unlimited maneuverability and speed. There has never been the slightest shred of evidence, either in the realm of fact or common sense, that points to a German flying saucer.

Could flying saucers have been invented after the war by the Americans, or possibly someone else? As we have seen, this was a distinct possibility mulled over by various groups in the early years. During the wave of 1947, several classified documents expressed the belief that the objects were a secret American, or possibly Soviet, technology. Following the Schulgen memo of late 1947, American military intelligence seriously investigated the Soviet angle and came up empty. The group assigned to the problem in 1948, Project Sign, rejected both explanations. If Soviet, why fly these things over the American heartland? If American, why fly them over cities, where everyone could see them, or over sensitive installations, where they were harassed by our own aircraft? Add on top of this the amazing production levels that would have been necessary to fly so many of these objects, which were seen all over the world. After all, even if one discounts the Foo Fighters of World War Two, what about the sightings over Scandinavia and the rest of Europe in 1946? Were these the result of revolutionary American or Soviet technology?

Looking back from some distance, we can see that the problems of creating a flying saucer were no easier for the Americans or Soviets than they had been for the Germans. Such a breakthrough, so soon after the war, makes no sense. Moreover, it is supported by no evidence. Indeed, even as late as the mid-1950s, research into the creation of artificial gravitational fields, based on electromagnetic principles, was in its infancy. By then, UFOs had been part of the public scenery for a decade. What type of classified project could have been responsible for those sightings?

It is this very issue that makes a study of the early period of UFOs so important. Few people doubt that twenty-first-century aviation technology is capable of awesome feats, some of which might be able to produce “flying saucers.” The point is, was such a technology in existence at the mid-twentieth century? All indicators point to a definitive no.

That brings us to the second possibility: that UFOs are the product of an alien technology. Without devising a priori arguments, let us simply look at the evidence, both historical and technological.

First, the phenomenon has always produced believers among those who have bothered to investigate it. For decades, every official study of UFOs followed the same pattern: extended analysis of the data persuaded researchers that aliens were the most likely explanation, a conclusion that was inimical to those in charge of the study. As early as 1948, Project Sign concluded that flying saucers were probably extraterrestrial. After the UFO project at Wright-Patterson AFB was revitalized in 1952, matters again reached the critical point, and most project members favored an extraterrestrial solution. This, too, ended in failure and dispersion. After 1966, when the air force carefully selected a university to solve the problem once and for all, a near mass resignation ensued, and UFO believers were fired midway through the project.