Jeremy's Stories and Musings
UFO Cover-UpJeremy's Home Jeremy's Stories and Musings
UFO Cover-Up
Jeremy Daniel Zawodny
November 12, 1991
For ages scientists, astronomers, and even common men have theorized that humans are not alone in the universe. This idea, debated by many, was once taken to a group of mathematicians. They computed the 'odds' of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe. To the surprise of many, the odds are indisputably high. In fact, it was computed that over five thousand planets near our own solar system have the potential for sustaining carbon-based life such as our own. Despite the odds, many people choose to reject even the idea of extraterrestrial life. Yes, the idea is debatable, but there is a wealth of information in various reports and government documents that supports the theory of intelligent life elsewhere.
In the 1970s, the United States Government, through the Air Force, began a program called the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). This is simple proof that the government believes it is worthwhile to spend millions of dollars and many years beaming signals into space and scanning the sky in the search of an intelligent form of life (Constable 124). To date, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) says they have not discovered any form of intelligent life. However, there are those who disagree. Their belief, a very plausible one, is that the history of alleged Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) sightings has been and is currently being investigated by NASA, the Air Force, and the federal government. More importantly, it appears as if the information gathered in the investigations has been covered-up or hidden for reasons yet unknown.
SETI was created partly in response to a nationwide Gallup survey in which the question was posed, "Do you believe in UFOs? If not, do you believe they are just products of imagination?" Over five million Americans were polled and of them fifty percent responded "Yes" to the first question. Out of the fifty percent remaining, twenty nine percent said that UFOs were just a product of imagination (Steiger 19). These figures still leave twenty one percent unaccounted for. It can be assumed that a percentage of those who approached the question just had no comment. While others may not have believed UFOs exist, they may have been open to the possibility if some evidence was available. This very credible poll more than qualifies the question of UFO existence for serious study and investigation. This further lends support to the idea that the government may be genuinely interested in UFO research because the results of the poll were published in leading newspapers like USA Today. It is believed that the government was worried about possible follow up of the poll and the possibility of outside investigation into their procedures.
If, in fact, the assumption that the United States government is and has been hiding vital information from the public about its knowledge of UFO activity is correct, then a plethora of questions arise. But before those questions are even proposed, the notion that information is being concealed should be proven to be more than just a notion. In order to arrive at such a point, one must start with the basics: some background and UFO history and then the study the research and some information on the government's involvement.
Recent UFO history began in 1947 when two very important and well known cases occurred. Kenneth Arnold reported the first UFO sighting and William Brazel discovered the first UFO wreckage. Kenneth Arnold, an Idaho businessman and private pilot, routinely flew himself on routes over Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Wyoming. On June 24th, he was returning home, with a detour into the Yakima, Washington area to help search for a missing troop transport aircraft. At about three o'clock in the afternoon, as he flew at nine thousand feet, a flash of light caught his attention. He turned and saw nine crescent-shaped objects bobbing and weaving through the air, flying in an echelon formation. He described them as flat, like pie tins, with highly polished surfaces. It was the bobbing and weaving that caught the sunlight, flashing it toward Arnold. Through the report that followed, the world first heard of UFOs and the term "Flying Saucer" was coined (Randle 4-5).
The one UFO case that is probably the most popular in the U.S. and around the world has come to be known as the "Roswell Incident" or the "Roswell Crash." It is the single most studied, disputed, and covered-up case in history. The case itself is quite simple, but the events following it complicate and confuse the case.
On the evening of July 2, 1947 a very bizarre series of events took place. . . "That night, a bright, disk-shaped object was seen flying over Roswell, New Mexico, heading northwest. During the night, William Brazel, a local ranch-owner, heard an unusual noise. Aside from the normal noises associated with thunderstorm (thunder, rain, wind, etc.) he hard a loud crash of thunder followed by what sounded to him like a large object crashing. The next morning, he discovered widely scattered wreckage of some sort of airship. His farm, seventy-five miles north-west of Roswell, was partially covered in metallic debris that he could not explain." (Good 254) The wreckage was soon hauled away by the Army/Air Force and flown to Wright Field (currently Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio) where it was reportedly tested and stored. Brazel himself had some time to examine pieces of the wreck before it was seized by the military and called a "Weather Balloon Crash." The details of his description and tests clearly show that this was no weather balloon. He described the pieces of "metal" that he found as "not of this world by any means." (Flammondale 47)
The majority of the controversy in the UFO field arises in the process of UFO investigating. More specifically, the areas usually called into question are those directly associated with the data collection and processing. For this reason it is important to have a good understanding of how information is collected, analyzed, and classified. Without such an understanding, it is very difficult to see how the concealment of information is possible.
Over the past sixty years the government has had a number of different working groups or projects dedicated to the study of UFOs. What is important here is just the simple recognition of the names so as not to cause confusion when they come up in discussion. The government projects follow: Sign, Grudge, Majestic Twelve (MJ-12), Blue Book, and the UFO working group (Steiger).
The foundation of UFO reports lies is the sources. Without credible sources, an investigation usually doesn't even begin. According to ex-investigators, those people who the government considers credible sources are as follow: military personnel, pilots, astronomers, law enforcement officials, and most scientists. They also investigate sightings that have been reported by the average citizen if more than a few reports come in from nearby locations. Such a pattern implies that there is a UFO in the sky and that it is in fact moving along the area from which the sightings are reported.
The United States Air Force (USAF) follows a very systematic routine for determining whether a sighting report merits follow-up action. There a seven criteria that need to be at least partly met before the Air Force will even take a second glance at any given report. The Air Forces main working group, Project Bluebook, usually performed all investigative work. The following criteria are dictated in The USAF Guide to UFO Identification.
"In general, reports which should be given consideration are those which involve several reliable observers (see above), together or separately, and which concern sightings of greater duration that one quarter minute. Exception should be made to this when circumstances attending the report are considered extraordinary."
"Special attention should be given to reports which give promise to a 'fix' on the position [of the UFO] and to those reports involving unusual trajectories." (Quoted in Steiger 260)
The "Rules of Thumb" for Project Bluebook investigations are all the areas to be considered before in-depth investigation. In order of priority, they read:
1. Duration of Sighting
2. Number of Persons Reporting the Sighting
3. Distance from Location of Sighting to Nearest Field Unit (Air Force/Bluebook unit)
4. Reliability of the Person or Persons Reporting.
5. Number of Individual Sightings Reported
6. The Value of Obtaining Additional information
7. Existence of Physical Evidence (photographs, material, hardware, bodies, burns, radiation traces, etc.) (Steiger 260-261)
Upon obtaining information and completing all follow-up investigating, a formal report is completed and filed in Bluebook (or whatever government group is investigating) files. The report contains all information pertinent to the sighting and additional information deemed necessary by the investigative group. The final entry made on each report is the one of prime importance to the question at hand. There is a box labeled either "Conclusion" or "Findings." In that section one of three terms in written. "Insufficient data," "Explained," and "Unexplained" are generally used. These terms often cause much of the confusion associated with the research. "Insufficient data" means that there simply is not enough information available to make a judgement on the case. "Explained" means that origin of whatever the sighted "object" was has been determined. Often a weather phenomenon, aircraft, other man-made or natural disturbance is blamed.
Approximately ten percent of the cases are those "Unexplained" sightings. The label "unexplained" is very significant to the cover-up that is in effect on UFO information. The Air Force's second and third working groups (Project Grudge and Project Bluebook) were designed to meet the objective of explaining every sighting. Basically what this boils down to is that about ten percent of all reported UFO cases in the United States of America have not been explained to the satisfaction of the government. Those cases number around 15,000 annually (Randle 164).
Since the 1970s, various groups around the country have been formed to independently investigate UFO sightings and reports. Interestingly, conflicts usually exist between government and independent findings. Lending support to the idea of a huge cover-up are the many instances when UFO investigators have gone back into Project Bluebook files under the Freedom of Information Act and found hundreds of pages missing from UFO reports. Not only were there missing pages, but there were some reports missing altogether. The only reason their existence is known is that they were referenced by other de-classified reports. Very often names, dates, times, and places in the reports have been censored with black markers. Why would the government censor its own classified documents? Probably because too much information was getting into the hands of investigators who were going the tell people the truth about what the government found. This is clear proof that something is being concealed.
A fine example of this "missing document syndrome" is the case of a Florida Scoutmaster who claimed to have been burned by a UFO. The case is missing from the master Bluebook index but reference is made to it in another report. On one page in the report, it states, "Regarding the 'Florida' samples [soil samples] . . . the lower leaves, those nearest to the ground . . . slightly deteriorated, apparently due to heat. No logical explanation is possible." (Randle 172-173) Where is that report now? Possibly in a still secretive file -- hidden from those who seek ALL the facts. It is hard to say.
When it comes to investigation, independent groups, will listen to and investigate claims from almost anyone, unlike our government. Their rationale is that people, no matter what their occupation, are all capable of spotting an unidentified flying object. In some cases, as shall be seen, this attitude has led to much better findings and easier investigation.
The largest of the nationwide UFO groups, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) investigates incidents much differently than do the government working groups. They have associates (members) around the country who respond to local sightings and reports. They will generally obtain the same types of information that the Air Force does, and then they will document it along with theories about the origins of the UFO or possible causes of the disturbance. That sighting oriented type of investigation, though important, is not nearly as important as their case oriented research.
Some members of these groups like Bud Hopkins, Kevin Randle, Brad Steiger, Timothy Good, Whitley Streiber, and others have dedicated the rest of their lives to finding out what is truly going on with UFO activity. All of those mentioned have written books detailing their findings. To date, their books are the only vehicle that has been extensively used to relay this information to the public. That is probably because the government has little ability to regulate books in print.
Interestingly enough, there are some very similar and consistent parts to their stories. For example, all the investigators, going back into the government files, have found information deleted (names, places, dates, etc.). This, again, indicates that government officials think something needs to be hidden. If all their claims of misidentified aircraft and such are true, then why are they hiding information.
Government officials regularly deny that information on UFO research was ever compiled. Often when questioned by those aforementioned investigators, they deny ever commenting on the subject in the first place. The government has undoubtedly engaged a practice of disinformation and flat-out lying when it comes to Unidentified Flying Objects.
Now that the background information, research styles, and a few famous cases have been presented, it is important to answer one critical question. [Supposing the government is hiding very important information from the public] what do they have to gain by keeping their information classified?
There are several theories about the secrecy, but a few have been generally agreed upon by most of the professionals in the field of UFO research. First of all, if it is true that beings from another planet have been in contact with humans or the U.S. government, that would be the largest breakthrough in the past five hundred years. The announcement could easily cause panic and fear for many. This panic mentality was illustrated very well in the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. Furthermore, many movies on the subject have generated an atmosphere of fear soon after their release. It Came from Outer Space (1953), Earth Versus the Flying Saucers, and the Spielberg classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind are all superb examples of this cause-effect relationship (Constable 28-35). Some supporters of this theory also believe that information is being slowly revealed to the public so that when all the facts are known, there will not be any kind of panic or hysteria (Winkler). One problem worth pointing out with that idea is that only a fraction of the world population hears any of the information about aliens or flying saucers.
Possibly the are hiding information because the United States in particular would benefit greatly if it were to communicate with the aliens and exchange information with them; there is a lot to be learned from them. Their technology, for instance, is hundreds of years ahead of ours. They can travel from other planets to earth and back again. The best scientists on earth have not even developed a way to send humans from here to Saturn. With some information from them, the U.S. could build virtually unlimited power sources and military hardware that is faster than ever and almost indestructible.
There is also a small group of people that believe the aliens are actually humans from the future who have discovered time travel. If this is so, the government might be able to get some information to help in decision making for the future, or just some extra knowledge that would put it in a more powerful position.
There are hundreds of theories floating around, but these are three of the most widely talked about -- not necessarily the most widely accepted. If one looks far enough, he will find that books have been written in an attempt to prove that UFOs are documented in the book of Ezekiel (Blumrich).
By now it is more than evident that the United States Government, more specifically the Air Force, has much more information on the subject of UFO activity than they are willing to share, let alone admit. This has been a trend ever since the issue first received major publicity in June of 1947. Through all the government's UFO projects they have amassed a wealth of information on the subject. All of the investigations conducted under any of the projects were very in-depth and detailed. Therefore, the information uncovered in the research and rereading of old UFO documents unquestionably proves the original claim of a cover-up. There is more than sufficient information to back the idea of a cover-up. The reasons the government has revealed only a fraction of it are yet unknown. Speculation on their motives is easy to come by, but the facts are not.
