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1.28.8

UFOs and Military Exercises:
Is This Supposed to Make Us Feel Better?

During the 1997 Phoenix Lights UFO episode, the military and authorities of various kinds denied any knowledge. They denied knowledge of anything weird going on, as in, there are UFOs over Phoenix. They denied knowing who to contact to report such goings on. They denied having anything going on themselves that would explain the appearance of strange lights in the sky. They didn’t know a thing. This lack of knowledge on various levels: the UFOs, who to contact about unknown craft in the sky (especially post 9/11 and Homeland Security hysteria), their own military exercises, doesn't do much in way of making us citizens feel any better. Let’s see, authorities and agencies, supposedly here to protect and to serve, don’t know a damn thing? They’re not even pretending to know?

And yet, they come out two weeks or so later, to tell America that they were responsible after all for the strange lights in the skies over Phoenix. It wasn’t UFOs at all. It was flares.

The recent UFO sightings in Stephenville, Texas has America buzzing again about UFOs. Witnesses have come forward to give their descriptions of weird craft and lights in the sky. And the usual debunkers have come forward to give their take on things: including James McGaha’s question to a UFO witness -- destined to become a classic in the UFO realm -- "Are you qualified to look at the sky at night?" But nothing from the authorities. Nothing from the agencies our tax dollars pay for. Nothing about the UFOs, no reassuring comments, (no matter how empty, still, you’d think they’d at least care enough to fake it a little) no explanations about how it’s misinterpretation of military exercises.

Until, two weeks later, the Air Force comes out and says in effect "Oh, yeah, wait a second there. . . we were flying over Texas skies that night!" Wow, that instills a sense of comfort and pride in the rest of us, I’m sure.

Whether or not these things were truly UFOs, including aliens from another planet, or Air Force or some other agencies craft, this cavalier attitude on the part of officialdom is troublesome. Not too surprising, but troublesome.

You’d think that these agencies would at least fake it, just to make everyone feel better. After all, it’s pretty tacky for the Air Force to be so nonchalant and come right out that they "made a mistake" and couldn’t remember whether they had flights going on the night of the Stephenville, Texas UFO sightings.

In the old days, you could count on the government to tell the most outrageous lies concerning UFOs. Representatives from various agencies appeared on television, radio, were quoted in newspapers, that assured us there are no such thing as UFOs, it’s all a matter of temperature inversions (the excuse given for the UFOs over the White House in 1952) or swamp gas. Shams like Project Blue Book were created to lend an air of comfort; "See?" the message seemed to be, "The Air Force and your government are seriously looking into these things."

Now they don’t even pretend to know what’s going on and eventually they get around to denying the whole thing. But it’s a long time between the appearance of UFOs and the official denial. During the time from the first sightings, to the (finally) official view from the government, it’s like the Keystone Cops of silent movie days. Lots of officials running around, chasing each other, tripping over each other.

Maybe all this is a good thing in the long run. While it’s unvernving to watch the agencies we support through taxes, who are supposed to protect and lead us, behave so ineptly, it’s possible this ineptness will force the issue.

There’s still a huge wall of denial and outright debunkery on an official level concerning UFOs, but good sized chunks have been falling off. I don’t believe full disclosure of any kind will ever happen, but maybe that’s not the point. Just a general, global and semiofficial acknowledgment that UFOs are real and are here, is enough. That’s the positive spin on it.

The other side is that, no official agency of any kind, anywhere on this planet, knows what to do about UFOs, any more than you or I know what to do. That’s scary, at least for the powers that be, because they like to be in control. That’s what they do. If they can’t handle UFOs, they can’t handle us.

Right now, the situation seems to be in a weird kind of stalemate. Deny, ignore, stumble around, even let your guard down a bit, then come up with some silly explantion for the whole thing; flares, military exercises, etc. weeks later. And then, like all news, no matter how huge or tragic or astounding, it gets forgotten.

Maybe that’s what they’re hoping for. Doesn’t seem to be working too well, does it?


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