Science month: UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record
Klaatu and Gort greet Earth after they land in Washington, D.C.
Before they take the White House tour.
This scene from The Day the Earth Stood Still is iconic for how many of us would believe contact with aliens would occur, and it became an established visual and plot device for countless movies that followed in its footsteps. Many believe that we've already been contacted many times, but since the 1980s (at least in the United States), any serious scientific talk about what people are seeing will garner more laughs and winks than serious discussion. But several governments and their military aren't so sure, and have asked that an international scientific panel re-examine the evidence and settle the matter once and for all.
Earlier this year, a fascinating new book by Leslie Kean was published: UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, and it contained several reports by several generals, a report issued by the Belgian military, in addition to other reports written by witnesses to the events. In 1999, a colleague sent Ms. Keen a copy of the French military's report on UFOs (Les OVNI et la défense : À quoi doit-on se préparer?) prefaced by Général Bernard Norlain [1], which dealt with the risk to French national defense, since there were not any scientific explanations for the events covered in the report, and suggested a broader scientific inquiry examine the hypothesis that UFOs could be extraterrestrial in origin. As Keen notes, bout 96 percent of all UFO sightings are typically explained as being caused by either natural causes (e.g. swamp gas, mistaken stars) or mistaken aircraft, etc. Her research focuses on the events that military experts in other countries could not explain at all. Keen makes no claim that the craft are indeed alien, but says we simply don't know and we should test the hypothesis that a possible explanation is they are alien.
Keen also deals with the issue of skepticism versus debunking. It's no surprise that there is an entire cottage industry of private researchers that are just as passionate in debunking any claims of UFO sightings as there are "pro" UFO researchers. She makes a case for scientific inquiry with healthy skepticism, echoing the requests of witnesses, who in several instances after seeing these events, have had their lives profoundly changed on an emotional level.
There are several instances where events seen by witnesses is collaborated by radar either on ground, with F-16 pilots, and also their instruments on board. The one incident in particular that has the most interest was a series of events in Belgium in 1989/1990. Several incidents where multiple sightings were reported by local police, witnesses, and the Royal Belgian Air Force scrambled F-16s to engage the UFO. Here is a Major General Wilfried De Brouwer reciting the incident at a press conference, including the F-16 radar images of the craft moving at sudden speeds and changing direction quickly (scientists have commented that a human would not survive the sudden speed and direction changes, so it's extremely unlikely the craft was an unknown military experimental craft). The F-16s were originally scrambled because of radar contacts, and a quick check with NATO partners indicated they were not conducting any tests with stealth air-craft, In addition, the Belgian Civil Aviation Authorities confirmed that no flight plans had been introduced. This implied that the reported object(s) committed an infraction against the existing aviation rules, so F-16s were scrambled to investigate the infractions:
Click to viewSeveral police officers and witnesses also described in typical uniformity what the jet craft were doing, with the notable exception that there were no sonic booms when the objects took sudden bursts of speed. The ground witnesses were typically in agreement in their descriptions of the objects they saw: a large triangular craft with lights on each end, and a large red light in the center bottom.
A photograph of one of the Belgian UFOs
But skeptics dismiss the Belgian event as radar mirages, and a collective group psychosis and mass hallucinations. They point out despite multiple sightings, there aren't more videos and or photographic evidence, and that the blurry image above was only released months after the initial sightings, which raises suspicions about its authenticity. Keen's rebuttal is none of the debunkers really ever explain the raw data, or even chose to ignore it (e.g. a pilot "saw Venus" when Venus wasn't even in the night sky).
The United States Air Force investigated UFOs starting in 1947 (eventually this investigation became known as Project Bluebook) and it was disbanded in 1969. Project Blue Book concluded that there was no evidence UFO sightings were a threat to national security, or extraterritorial in nature, and all sightings could be explained by using scientific analysis. But notably, one astronomer that participated with Project Blue Book for its complete duration, J. Allen Hynek [2] who started as an extreme skeptic, became very critical of the Air Force investigation, and suggested they were simply disregarding scientific evidence that did not agree with a predetermined explanation. Hynek believed that a much larger scientific inquiry was required.
Dr. Carl Sagan [3] participated in a review of Project Blue Book, which had found it lacked serious scientific methods in examine UFO reports, and that review suggested that UFOs posed no national security risk. Sagan's own personal beliefs about UFOs that it seemed unlikely they were aliens, but suggested that the government's unwillingness to declassify all of its research materials helped to foster an environment that made it look an active cover-up. But Sagan was unaware of classified reports of UFO sightings at United States ICBM missile silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana that apparently "turned" off the missiles.
Dr. Michio Kaku [4] believes that the 5 percent of unsolved cases are serious enough to warrant investigation, and has an interesting theory about why if aliens are visiting us, why would they not simply land in Central Park and go "Ta DA!," as Carl Sagan suggested. Kaku thinks it would make logical sense that if an alien civilization was to investigate planets it wouldn't do it one at at time, but would do it in a way like a virus: one craft would go to a world or moon, then build 100 craft to investigate other worlds, which would in turn generate more craft. The sheer number of potential planets would make a one-to-one visit very impracticable. Kaku thinks robotic craft would be much more likely; which jells with several scientists statements that any life forms in the crafts could not survive the G forces caused by the sudden bursts of speed. Kaku puts a H-U-G-E caveat that this is own possible explanation, without a shred of evidence as he states in this interview conducted on MSNBC:
Leslie Keen interviewed by Dylan Rattigan:
For my part, I find all of this interesting. Like a lot of folks that really don't have a vested interest in this, the conflicting evidence and viewpoints can be pretty confusing. I wished though a private foundation or as several participants in the book and military reports have suggested: some sort of international body of experts from a variety of fields would look at the new evidence since project Blue Book disbanded. I have not ever seen a UFO personally, although my uncle (an Army pilot) told me of several instances he did. Have you seen a UFO, or family members?
Feel free to participate in this poll too ;)
Poll UFOs
**EDIT** Dr. Kaku's possible explanation of what's happening with these UFO sightings can be listened to in a much longer interview with Ms. Keen here. Dr. Kaku has a weekly talk science radio show (how cool is *that*!) and you can find out more about that via his official website.
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1. An English translation of the report is available here, starting on page no 5
2. Dr. Josef Allen Hynek (May 1, 1910 - April 27, 1986) earned a Ph. D. in Astrophysics at the Yerkes Observatory. Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio State University in 1936. He specialized in the study of stellar evolution and in the identification of spectroscopic binaries. During World War II, Hynek was a civilian scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where he helped to develop the United States Navy's radio proximity fuze. Became a professor at Ohio State, rising to full professor in 1950. In 1956, he left to join Professor Fred Whipple, the Harvard astronomer, at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which had combined with the Harvard Observatory at Harvard. Hynek had the assignment of directing the tracking of an American space satellite, a project for the International Geophysical Year in 1956 and thereafter. Became chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University in 1960.
3. Dr. Carl Sagan, (November 9, 1934 - December 20, 1996) Ph.D. Astrophysics, University of Chicago, he was the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Co-founder of The Planetary Society, a 100,000-member organization and the largest space-interest group in the world. Sagan played a leading role in NASA's Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo expeditions to other planets; and received NASA Medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and twice for Distinguished Public Service and the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was the author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books.
4. Dr. Michio Kaku (加来 道雄), currently holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics and a joint appointment at the City College of New York, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. As a student, Dr. Kaku was mentored by Edward Teller, the father of the American Hydrogen bomb project in the 1950s. As a winner of the Hertz Engineering Scholarship, Kaku graduated from Harvard with a B.S. in physics (Magna cum laude), earned his Ph.D. @ Berkeley Radiation Laboratory University of California, and completed basic training in the United States Army during the Vietnam War. Kaku's current work involves research on a developing a fundamental unified theory for physics.