What Does the Government Know About UFOs?

On June 24th, 1947, a salesman named Kenneth Arnold was flying his private plane near Mt. Rainier in Washington State.  He saw nine luminous disk shaped objects flying at enormous speed.  He reported his experience to the newspapers and an editor coined the term "flying saucers".  Arnold sent a letter to the US Air Force on July 12th requesting information about these strange flying objects.

Something crashed on a ranch on July 2nd, 1947 in Roswell New Mexico and the rancher found debris that did not appear to be of human manufacture.  The government came to investigate and there were press releases about a crashed flying saucer.  The debris was collected and flown to Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio and an announcement was made that it had just been a weather balloon.  Reports came in later that there had been a second crash nearby and witnesses claimed that a saucer and several bodies of aliens were recovered by the government and stored in Hangar 18 at Wright Patterson.

These two incidents piqued government interest.  A file began to fill with reports of other sightings of strange flying disks.  On December 9, 1947, Project Sign was created at the Air Technical Intelligence Center to collect, analyze and distribute information about this subject that might indicate a threat to national security.  After 243 sightings were investigated, Sign submitted its final report in February of 1949.  The report concluded there was no way to prove or disprove the theory that these reports concerned real aircraft unless one crashed and left remains to be examined.  Next came project Grudge which checked out 244 sighting and went further than Sign to conclude that these sightings were mistaken observations of natural objects, mass hysteria or hoaxes.

These two studies failed to convince the public or satisfy groups within the government so another study was convened.  Project Blue Book was started in March of 1952 and charged with finding out once and for all what these "unidentified flying objects" (UFOs) were.  Blue Book lasted for 17 years and investigated over 13,000 sightings.  Sophisticated laboratories were available to examine photographs and physical evidence.  It had the resources of government and civilian organizations to call upon for the identification of aircraft, missiles, weather balloons, satellites, and meteorological and astronomical phenomena.  Unfortunately, the project was underfunded, understaffed, prejudiced and sloppy in its methods.  Blue Book never found any evidence of a threat to national security, technology beyond conventional science, or extraterrestrial artifacts.

The Condon Committee was set up in late 1966 to conduct a definitive review of UFO research.  It was supposed to be impartial but some of the members eventually quit in disgust when it became apparent that the real purpose of the committee was to debunk the idea of flying saucers.  The final report (which was rumored to have been drafted before the project even started) was issued in early 1969 and dismissed all UFOs as having conventional explanations.  Following the release of the Condon report, Project Blue Book was disbanded.  According to public statements of the U.S.  Government, no further official research into UFOs has been conducted since that time.

Through the years, rumors circulated that the government knew more than it was telling.  In 1986, William Moore and Stanton Friedman made public an alleged classified 1953 memo for the briefing of President Eisenhower about an ongoing investigation into the remains of a saucer and several alien corpses recovered at Roswell.  It named a group of top science advisors called the "Majestic 12" who were working on the project.  A furious debate ensued about the authenticity of the document.  The format of the pages, the members of the committee and anything else that could be checked was investigated.  All the men mentioned were top scientist and government advisors.  If such a committee were ever created, they would all have been candidates for membership.  The format of the document was authentic.  Even the FBI checked into it but could not find any government agency willing to admit the document was theirs.  The only firm conclusion that can be drawn is that if the document is a forgery, it is a very good one, done with the assistance of someone that either is, or was, in the intelligence community.

In the late 1980s, outrageous stories began to circulate about Area 51 at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.  Beginning in 1988, John Lear, son of the inventor of the Lear Jet, has been writing and speaking about gigantic underground bases inhabited by aliens with the consent of the US government.  William Cooper has been touring and presenting information that he claims is based on personal knowledge of intelligence reports about a US government treaty with aliens who have a base in Arizona under the dessert.  These aliens agreed to swap their technology for the base and the right to abduct human beings for experimentation.  Star Wars is supposed to be an attempt to create weapons which can deal with the aliens who are said to be breaking the treaty.  A physicist named Bennewitz, living near Kirtland AFB in New Mexico, reported interacting with a woman who had been abducted and taken to an underground alien base.  He also reported detecting strange signals from, and seeing strange lights over, Kirtland.  He believes that agents inside the base are working with the aliens who are blatantly abducting people all over the area.  It is difficult to believe that alien contact and involvement of this magnitude could be kept secret for years.

During the 1980s, many groups and individuals filed Freedom of Information requests with various agencies of the federal government.  Piece by heavily censored piece, the real picture of continuing government involvement in the UFO question began to emerge.  Although it will only admit to the Robertson Panel Review on UFOs in early 1953, the CIA has been quietly collection information about UFO sightings both in the United States and abroad since 1947.  The CIA published a secret monograph on the "Investigation of UFOs" in 1961.

Since 1946, the Air Force has maintained a study group into the potential threat of flying saucers.  In 1948, the Air Technical Intelligence Center of the US Air Force ordered a classified "Estimation of the Situation".  An initial report, which concluded that UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin, was rejected.  A second report was issued which stated that UFO's might be of "foreign origin" and pose a threat to the security of the country.  The Air Force Office of Special Investigations also studied unexplained aerial phenomena.  Air Force Intelligence started two secret projects in 1961, Moon Dust was to find and recover "foreign space vehicles" and Blue Fly was to deliver the recovered materials to the Air Force Foreign Technical Division at Wright Patterson AFB.  Air Force Directorate of Operations began the design of weapons to track and engage in combat with aggressive UFOs.  Project Saint was a design for a UFO detection system and Blue Gemini was a design for a "UFO killer".

There were numerous visual and radar sightings of UFOs over air bases, missile bases and nuclear research facilities in the fall of 1975.  Squadrons of fighters were scrambled and gave chase.  The Strategic Air Command ordered many alerts and there were daily UFO bulletins.  According to classified Air Force documents, these visitors demonstrated hostile intent.  After about eight months of activity, the sightings stopped.

Air Force Intelligence, with help from Army Intelligence and General Pfauz of the Defense Intelligence Agency, set up a joint UFO research project in 1983.  After being passed over in the selection of the next director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Pfauz retired in 1985 and work on the joint UFO task force ended.

In late 1986, the NORAD radar fence over North American was triggered by something that traveled across the whole country and executed many "impossible" maneuvers.  The UFO Working Group was convened under the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1987 to review all previous government research into the UFO question and to conduct ongoing investigations.  Experts were brought in from other government intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, to assist.  So far, nothing conclusive has been reported.

It is obvious that the government has not been honest about its interest in UFOs.  There could be several reasons having nothing to do with alien craft.  A great deal of classified information is classified, not because of the critical nature of the information itself, but because of the source of the information.  One researcher claims to have seen a declassified document reporting that a fishing trawler sighted a light in the sky.  There was nothing particularly remarkable about the sighting, but the trawler was near the coast of Red China, where it was not supposed to be.  Another reason for official silence could be that the government does not have any conclusive evidence that UFOs are really alien craft but fears public embarrassment and funding challenges in Congress if it admits its research activities.  A third possibility is that the government has enough evidence to understand something fantastic is happening, but it does not know exactly what.  First, it would want to exhaust the possibility of a natural force that could be harnessed as a weapon.  Second, it might fear someone else had harnessed a new physical principle and was testing its military potential.  In neither case would they want to make their investigations public.

Evidence is accumulating that the government has also been infiltrating the civilian UFO movement and spreading disinformation to individuals and groups.  Several years after he broke the MJ-12 story, William Moore claimed to have been recruited by an Air Force agent for the Office of Special Investigations.  Not only was he asked to spy on the activities of civilian UFO investigators, but also to give false information to Bennewitz about government interaction with aliens around Kirtland AFB.  When his contact was identified, it turned out to be a man working for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.  It is possible that the officer was just playing a practical joke, but he may have been working under orders from his superiors.

One possible reason for this disinformation could be that the government has been running tests on its own personnel.  The classified UFO document Bill Cooper claimed he saw, could have been a test of his ability to distinguish truth from fiction in intelligence documents.  There was a bizarre incident at the U.S. Brenton Woods Air Force Base in England.  Troops were taken into the nearby forest to witness the landing of a UFO and the meeting of a superior officer with its alien crew.  Oddly enough, lights had been set up at the landing location before the soldiers and the craft arrived.  It could well have been a test of the powers of observation and the gullibility of the soldiers.  There have been stories told of anti-terrorist exercises at missile installation where the infiltrators used the guise of UFOs when they penetrated the bases.

A second possibility is that the government is trying to discredit public UFO groups.  This could have several motivations.  We know that the government is running its own covert investigations.  Perhaps they do not want individuals, especially competent scientists, and private groups operating outside their control in the investigation of UFOs.  By leaking totally absurd stories to the investigators, they hold the whole field up to public ridicule.  Many serious UFO investigators have quit in the past several years because of all the publicity of flesh eating aliens in secret bases.

There has also been speculation that the government has been conducting psychological warfare tests.  One reliable source states that he was invited by an Air Force officer to participate in the making of a documentary and was told that the US government had actual film footage of a saucer landing at an Air Force base and would make the film available for the documentary.  At the last minute, the Air Force said that it had decided not to release the film "at this time."  This same pattern has been repeated several times, and in one case resulted in the cancellation of a documentary even though the project had originally been started without any knowledge of a US government film.  Spreading rumors, starting cults, or testing public naiveté and gullibility could be research for possible future social manipulation.  There are even political implications.  If the general public can be swayed away from a rational view of the world and a respect for the opinions of scientists, leaders bent on taking our country in a more totalitarian direction may more easily manipulate them.

 Perhaps the most logical explanation for the strange stories circulating about Nellis AFB is to protect secret weapons research.  The Stealth fighter and bomber were developed at Nellis.  There are also rumors of remote controlled flying disks intended for use in battlefield reconnaissance.  Many sightings of strange flying objects may turn out to be tests of advanced human technology.  By feeding wild stories to the UFO community about the sightings at Nellis, they undermine the credibility of such reports and protect their research.

 No one knows for sure what the government knows, including the government.  As with all huge bureaucracies, each department has its own secrets and its own areas of ignorance.  Maybe there are wrecked saucers somewhere in Hangar 18 and flesh eating aliens in Area 51 at Nellis.  But I find it easier to believe that the government is being paranoid, secretive and manipulative for the usual reasons.