Some believe this is as it ought to be. Can the public really handle the truth about aliens? If the presence of others constitutes a threat to humanity, for example, what could the average person even do about it? There are those who believe that secrecy about UFOs is in the public’s best interest. Whatever the value of this sentiment—which I do not share—the “public interest” has never been the main concern of those making the decisions. Ultimately, a national security apparatus exists not to protect the public but itself. The attachment of Americans to the fiction of a representative government, or—God forbid—a democracy, has clouded their ability to see their society for what it is: an oligarchy that uses the forms of democracy to appease and distract the public. Whether or not this is the best solution to organizing millions of people into a body politic, it remains folly to imagine that an oligarchy is not concerned with maintaining its position, to the exclusion of all else.
If we accept the reality of an alien presence, as the UFO evidence suggests, we must be willing to consider that presence as a threat. The record of military encounters with UFOs suggests that this is the case. Since the public is completely unprepared to meet this threat, one can only hope that those groups which have been dealing with it will act in the public interest. During the period under review in this study, those groups did not always work in the public interest when it came to other matters. There is little reason to believe it was, or is, any different regarding an alien presence.
Since the 1970s, the subject of UFOs has become more complex. Encounters are as widespread as ever, and even more plentiful than in the early years. At the same time, UFOs have received a thoroughly schizophrenic cultural treatment. Within popular culture, UFOs and aliens possess a cache they never had during the cold war. Yet, the bastions of “official culture”—academia, mainstream media, government, and the elements of national security—continue to ignore the subject or else treat it as a joke. One can plainly see that neither
Among organizations studying UFOs, the situation is one of extreme division, far more so than in the simple days of NICAP, APRO, and Blue Book. Throughout most of the century’s last three decades, very little effort was expended by the larger organizations either to end government UFO secrecy or, it appears, to reach the public with a coherent message. Instead, they have spent their efforts squirreling away huge amounts of data for ... who knows what end?
In addition to these, there now exist organizations that serve in a kind of professional debunking capacity. The military and intelligence community continue to show myriad connections with UFO organizations, and several instances of UFO disinformation planted by intelligence personnel are known. The result has been three decades of fragmentation and perennial wheel-spinning. How can one make sense out of such confusion?
One way is by remembering that UFOs have continued to intersect with the militaries of the world. Unauthorized airspace violations by unknown vehicles continue to occur; attempted interceptions continue to take place; secrecy orders are as severe as ever. For all of our sophisticated, secret, technology (yet another element to the confusion), these objects do not appear to be under our control. Through the cultural static, that signal is clear.
But that is the subject for another book.
Appendix
TABLE OF MILITARY UFO ENCOUNTERS
This table is by no means comprehensive. Most likely, it describes only a small fraction of encounters between military personnel and UFOs, and only those that appear in this book. It does not include the many additional UFO sightings that were investigated by military or intelligence personnel. The sharp drop-off in reported military encounters during the 1960s probably has as much to do with improved control over the release of information as anything else.
Sightings designated by an asterisk (*) indicate encounters by the military of countries other than the U.S. Of the 285 military encounters in this table, 244 were American, 41 non-American. Of course, several of the sightings were officially explained, although many of the explanations were threadbare.
Abbreviations: R/V—radar/visual cases; EM—electromagnetic effects; ASV—Air Space Violation.
Endnotes
Introduction
1 The Learning Channel 1996.
2 U.S. Air Force Fact Sheet 95-03.
3 Hall 1964, 44, 138; Keyhoe 1960, 255; 1973, 40-44.
