UFOs

"UFO" stands for "unidentified flying object." Although many people associate this term with aliens or spaceships, it can refer to any unknown object seen in the atmosphere.

Many people believe that UFO sightings began in modern times, but thousands of reports of extraordinary lights and mysterious objects in the sky have been documented around the world since antiquity. One of the earliest sightings was in the 15th century BCE in Egypt, where observers reported "foul-smelling circles of fire and discs in the sky." Centuries later, in 1516 CE in Nuremberg, Germany, there were reports of more than 200 UFOs of differing shapes, including cylinders, spheres, and spinning discs.

The most interesting part of UFO history began in the mid-20th century. During World War II, fighter pilots reported many luminescent¹ and cylindrical² UFOs at high altitudes. Sightings of these objects were reported by both airplane pilots and high-ranking intelligence officials. Interestingly enough, both the Allies³ and the Germans recounted such occurrences. At first, they both thought that these objects were new weapons made by their enemies. However, when they realized that the other side was seeing them, too, they concluded that these sightings were UFOs. Both the British and Germans created committees to investigate. Ultimately, it was determined that these UFOs, nicknamed "foo fighters," were not man-made; no conclusive alternative explanations were forthcoming⁴ at the time.

In the late 1940s, following WWII, the "flying saucers⁵" era began. In 1947, a man named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing "nine silvery, circular objects" in the sky. He told his story to many people, including the press. He eventually wrote a book titled The Coming of the Saucers. In it, he described the UFOs as flying saucers because they were shaped like large china cup saucers. After the book's release, more and more people reported UFO sightings. Previously, anyone who reported a UFO had been considered a liar or a lunatic⁶. However, because authorities were receiving so many reports, some with photographic evidence, they decided to set up a committee called Project Blue Book to investigate these sightings.

In 1947, the Roswell crash occurred and eventually became the most famous UFO case in US history. In early July that year, an object crashed onto a sheep ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. All the pieces of the fallen object were collected by members of the US Air Force stationed at Roswell Army Air Field. Later in the day, the commander of the base informed the press that the remains of a "flying disc" had been recovered. This news spread worldwide in a matter of hours. Strangely, a few hours after the press release, the commanding general of the Eighth Air Force issued a second press release asserting that the remains were from a common weather balloon. This retraction⁷ caused a lot of controversy. There were eyewitnesses—including the sheep rancher and an Air Force major-who saw many items they believed to be of unknown origin and made of strange material. Some even claimed to have seen the bodies of non-humanoid⁸ organisms.

Despite this incident and continued UFO sightings, the government disbanded⁹ the Project Blue Book committee in 1969 due to the lack of concrete evidence. The US Air Force conducted an investigation in the 1990s and released reports that reaffirm the wreckage was a weather balloon from Project Mogul, a top-secret program for the detection of Soviet nuclear devices. Nonetheless, many people presume such reports are disinformation¹⁰ and still think the government is suppressing the truth of what they collected from the Roswell crash and of other unexplained incidents. In 2021, several photos and videos of UFOs circulated online, apparently taken by members of the US Navy. Navy officials admitted that the images were real but would not comment further. John Ratcliffe, a former intelligence advisor to then-President Donald Trump, told a reporter that "there are a lot more sightings than have been made public."

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The Truth About UFOS

According to a 2012 poll, nearly eighty percent of Americans believe the US government is not telling the public everything it knows about UFOs. It's not surprising, then, that there has been continuous pressure on governments to declassify UFO records.

One of the most recent groups to apply such pressure is the CFI-the Coalition for Freedom of Information. The CFI includes John Podesta, former Chief of Staff to President Clinton, among its distinguished members. Citing the need for scientific inquiry, the CFI has requested the release of information on several UFO cases, starting with the Kecksburg incident.

In 1965, a car-sized, acorn-shaped object crashed in a wooded area of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. The US Army was the first on the scene. They secured the area and began removing the object. Witnesses and even local police and firefighters were kept at a distance. The government claimed the object was a meteorite-a claim that has raised suspicions ever since.

In 2002, the CFI took NASA to court, demanding that the official records be made public. The CFI won the suit, and the records were released in 2009. They did not include any conclusive reports, however. But more interesting to the CFI representatives was what was missing: a full two boxes of files had been lost, according to NASA representatives.

More declassified files followed. In 2012, the UK government released 7,000 pages of previously classified reports on UFO sightings. In 2015, the US Air Force released the entire set of Project Blue Book files, 130,000 pages in all. As was the case with the NASA files on Kecksburg, there were no smoking guns-no conclusive evidence one way or another. This has only fueled doubt about whether the authorities are sharing all of the relevant information they have.