The U.S. Government and the UFO Phenomenon
I'm usually skeptical of claims of sightings and alien abductions. It seems unlikely that a civilization which has figured out space travel would bother to visit a relatively primitive backwater world. However, when one sits down and takes a hard honest look at the subject, they will find a plethora of evidence that makes it impossible to outright dismiss the phenomenon. If so much evidence is there, why haven't I heard of it, you may ask. The answer is the US Government doesn't want the public to know about it.
Some people believe life elsewhere in the universe does not exist, that somehow we on Earth are a special case. Statistical analysis would suggest otherwise. In the sixties, Frank Drake developed an equation to determine how many civilizations we could possibly contact at any given time. The Drake Equation uses a long mathematical model that basically states about one in ten thousand stars will have an orbiting planet that develops complex life, which then gives rise to a civilization advanced enough for the possibility of establishing contact. The Drake Equation estimates that there are five thousand distinct extraterrestrial civilizations at any moment that we may contact in our own galaxy. Now imagine if we applied this equation to all the other galaxies in the known universe, and the real question becomes why haven't we made contact yet?
So now we see that visitation is almost expected, not just possible. The government however, doesn't want these visitations made public. Why would they care, you ask? The answer is fear. The government originally feared widespread panic should the public become aware of their inability to protect it from these UFO's. Now, it is more because of the government's "knowledge is power" mentality and their fear that their pet projects may be cancelled if the public knew what they were really spending our tax dollars on. Do you really think the government spends $200 dollars for a screwdriver or wrench? That excess money gets redirected to a secret budget used to fund covert operations and secret projects, commonly referred to as the Black Budget.
Many people claim that the distances involved between stars makes the possibility of visitation impossible, whether life exists elsewhere or not. Their arguments are based on the speed of light and special relativity, which states that nothing can exceed the speed of light. However, a group of scientists at NEC Laboratories America, Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey, conducted experiments in the summer of 2000 that had exceptional results. The researchers fired a laser through a special gas filled tube and measured the speed of the laser light as it left the other end. The result was a light beam traveling three hundred times the normal speed of light. This means it is not theoretically impossible, but merely not yet possible with our current level of technology. Imagine an extraterrestrial civilization started at exactly the same time as ours did on Earth, but without a corresponding era to our own Dark Ages. Two thousand years ago Heron of Alexandria had invented automatic doors, a crude steam engine, and automated a twenty minute play. With the fall of the Roman Empire, most of this information and technology was lost, and the world fell into the Dark Ages. During the Apollo program, Mission Control sent men to the Moon with less combined computer power and performance than could be found in a single modern laptop computer. What kind of technological advances would an extraterrestrial civilization have without our couple of hundred years in the dark?
The first item that pointed to the government's cover up of the UFO phenomena was an event that occurred in July of 1947, commonly called the Roswell Incident. Only July 8, 1947 the intelligence office of the renown 509th Bombardment group, stationed at the Roswell Army Air Field, gave a press release stating that they recovered a "flying disk" on a ranch nearby (Roswell Daily Record 1947). The next day, the Army Air Forces retracted the statement and declared it was a mistaken weather balloon. The government then expects us to believe that such an elite military unit as the 509th Bomb Group, which was trusted to drop the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cannot distinguish between debris from a weather balloon and that of a crashed flying saucer. In later reports, the Air Force changed its story to say it was a Project MOGUL balloon used to detect nuclear testing by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. If this were the case, how would the bomber group mistake it for a crashed saucer? If, as some claim, it was an attempt by the government at disinformation, then the question remains why give a press release at all? Why use a sensational cover story guaranteed to draw attention to the very thing you're trying to cover up? The answer must be that the original release was accurate, but that higher headquarters were not consulted prior to dissemination of the press package. The second press release must have been an attempt to cover-up the truth.
Following the Roswell Incident was Project GRUDGE. GRUDGE was the government's program to investigate UFOs. This controversial program set itself up as the only authority to investigate the phenomena. This ensured that all reports would go through them and that they would be the only ones to explain any "findings" to the public. Government projects and information are classified according to the threat to national security. Project GRUDGE was classified as Secret . If UFOs are not real and not visiting us, then there is no threat to the national security. If there's no threat to the national security, then there is no reason to classify the report or the project. However, the project remained classified for fifty years after it was terminated. Project GRUDGE investigated two hundred and thirty seven different reported incidents. Many of these were dismissed as "war-nerves," "mild mass-hysteria," and "misidentified celestial objects," ie. Venus and other planets. However, seventy-eight, or nearly one third, of the reports remain officially "unexplained"; suggesting the possibility that the government refuses to openly accept evidence of the existence of UFOs.
Another little known fact about the government's involvement with UFO's is the existence of the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit, whose purpose was the investigation and recovery of evidence related to UFOs. If there was nothing to the whole UFO phenomenon, than why create a special unit to deal with it? An Intelligence Assessment by the Air Force, previously classified as Top Secret, details the "extraordinary recovery of fallen airborne objects in the state of New Mexico, between 4 July – 6 July 1947." This was the famed crashed disk at Roswell. According to the report, the remains of the craft recovered were its power plant, parts of its airframe, some components and several bodies. These recovered items were then trucked off to various basses throughout the southwest.
The final piece of evidence I wish to share is a law that was on the books from the sixties until 1990. It was known as the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law. It authorized NASA to detain "any persons, property, animal or other form of life or mater whatever that is extra-terrestrially exposed." Those who are detained are not given trials, and it is left to the discretion of the Administrator of NASA to determine the duration of this "quarantine" and any decontamination procedures that need to be followed. It was argued that this law was needed to ensure any contamination was contained when the astronauts of the Apollo program returned from missions. However, this problem would have been adequately addressed by a simple NASA internal regulation or policy. Why else would the government need to quarantine members of the public unless extraterrestrial beings were visiting us and exposing the general public?
What purpose these visitors have in coming here is unknown. However, it is evident that the phenomena is something real and needs to be addressed. The Drake Equation shows us the possibility of other civilizations, and the experiments at the NEC research lab show us the distances involved are not as imposing as first thought. The government has been involved to varying degree since the late forties, with secret projects and documents and even passing a law regarding exposure. What need would they have in classifying the programs and documents if nothing was really happening? What ever happened to the debris recovered in Roswell? Just what is happening in the skies above us?
