Jan 18, 2020 09:58 PM
(This post was last modified: Jan 18, 2020 10:00 PM by C C.)
https://www.airspacemag.com/space/year-ufos-180973965/
EXCERPT: UFOs are back. Or perhaps better put, interest in UFOs is again on the rise. [...] A handful of events helped drive the new interest. Although unrelated, these events have been mutually reinforcing; that is, stories written about any one of them typically mention the others, leaving the impression that they add up to a single, developing narrative...
[...] The first event, and the spark that ignited today’s UFO revival, came in December 2017 [...when it was...] reported that from 2007 to 2012, the Pentagon funded a secret program to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects. The program certainly wasn’t the first of its kind—there have been numerous government fact-finding efforts dating back to the 1940s. But this latest one had never been disclosed to the public.
[...] The second UFO-related event that caught the media’s attention around the same time [...was...] a new, for-profit company called To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences. Its stated mission is “to investigate the outer edges of science and unconventional thinking” via “an entertainment, science, and aerospace consortium that engages with global citizens.” ... its co-founder and chairman of the board is guitarist Tom DeLonge, formerly with the rock band Blink-182. Also joining the team as director of global security and special programs: Luis Elizondo.
Last March, To the Stars announced that Elizondo, DeLonge, and four other company executives would be featured in a six-part television series to air on the History Channel, called “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation,” and that DeLonge would be executive producer. [...] The show focused on the highly publicized U.S. Navy videos but also explored UFO sightings in Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Interviews with witnesses were combined with dramatic recreations. ... the History Channel followed a long tradition within ufology of portraying the UFO investigator as a heroic figure determined to tear away the veil of secrecy surrounding extraterrestrial visitors.
Naturally, there have been skeptics all along. Within days of the release of the Nimitz videos purporting to show a UFO accelerating at a rate defying physics, science writer Mick West showed that the object’s peculiar movement was the result of a change in the camera’s zoom level. Writing for Skeptic magazine, Robert Sheaffer detailed how witnesses in one incident contradicted one another, and how some of the anomalous objects appearing on radar may have been due to a computer upgrade.
The defense department has been little help in clearing up these mysteries. [...] investigators have come to expect silence and denials from government officials ... Others view these tight-lipped responses as evidence of an official cover-up and conspiracy about alien visitors. Still others consider them an inevitable, albeit misguided, reaction by nervous authorities involved in national security. ...
Many ... were therefore encouraged when ... the Navy was drafting new guidelines for its personnel to report encounters with unidentified flying objects. The Navy even appeared to be switching to the designation Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) preferred by UFO researchers ... Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher confirmed to the Washington Post that the Navy’s UFO reporting guidelines were being updated, with the purpose of collecting more information for data analysis. But, he cautioned, don’t expect the data to be shared. ... Since then, information from the Navy has been sparse ... the military’s new interest in UFOs began to seem more mundane than mysterious.
But other, unrelated news stories helped keep the extraterrestrial narrative going. [...] scientists discovered the first interstellar object ever seen to enter our solar system. Astronomers ... raised the possibility that the unusual comet-like object, dubbed ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”), could, conceivably, be an alien spacecraft. Later observations showed it to be most likely natural in origin...
Then came the “storming” of everyone’s favorite secret government installation, Area 51 in Nevada. In June, a college student by the name of Matty Roberts created an event on Facebook as a joke. He called it “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” [...] The #StormArea51 event may have been meant as a joke, but by early September, more than two million people had indicated on Facebook that they would attend. ... As the date drew closer, the Air Force and local police warned potential attendees that trespassers on Area 51 property would be arrested. ... In the end, the happening had more the feel of a festival than a raid. ... about 100 revelers showed up at the back gate of Area 51 at around 3 a.m., with another 40 people going to the lesser known Tikaboo Valley gate. Slightly more people showed up during the day, but a source at the Independent reported that “the event is clearly fairly aimless: dozens of people stood around, while sheriffs watch on.”
[...] So what should we make of this latest UFO mini-craze? Evidence ... shows that the number of sightings has been holding steady or growing for decades, so last year was nothing special in that regard. There was no apparent uptick in public reports of mysterious flying objects. The Navy bears some responsibility for the recent media focus on UFOs, due to its piecemeal and selective approach to revealing details on reported encounters, which only feeds suspicions that the government knows more than it is telling ... Throughout the history of UFO sightings, it has never been enough merely to point to isolated weird events. What’s needed are storylines with characters, drama, suspense, and plot twists. And that’s what UFO believers were given in the past year or two... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: UFOs are back. Or perhaps better put, interest in UFOs is again on the rise. [...] A handful of events helped drive the new interest. Although unrelated, these events have been mutually reinforcing; that is, stories written about any one of them typically mention the others, leaving the impression that they add up to a single, developing narrative...
[...] The first event, and the spark that ignited today’s UFO revival, came in December 2017 [...when it was...] reported that from 2007 to 2012, the Pentagon funded a secret program to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects. The program certainly wasn’t the first of its kind—there have been numerous government fact-finding efforts dating back to the 1940s. But this latest one had never been disclosed to the public.
[...] The second UFO-related event that caught the media’s attention around the same time [...was...] a new, for-profit company called To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences. Its stated mission is “to investigate the outer edges of science and unconventional thinking” via “an entertainment, science, and aerospace consortium that engages with global citizens.” ... its co-founder and chairman of the board is guitarist Tom DeLonge, formerly with the rock band Blink-182. Also joining the team as director of global security and special programs: Luis Elizondo.
Last March, To the Stars announced that Elizondo, DeLonge, and four other company executives would be featured in a six-part television series to air on the History Channel, called “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation,” and that DeLonge would be executive producer. [...] The show focused on the highly publicized U.S. Navy videos but also explored UFO sightings in Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Interviews with witnesses were combined with dramatic recreations. ... the History Channel followed a long tradition within ufology of portraying the UFO investigator as a heroic figure determined to tear away the veil of secrecy surrounding extraterrestrial visitors.
Naturally, there have been skeptics all along. Within days of the release of the Nimitz videos purporting to show a UFO accelerating at a rate defying physics, science writer Mick West showed that the object’s peculiar movement was the result of a change in the camera’s zoom level. Writing for Skeptic magazine, Robert Sheaffer detailed how witnesses in one incident contradicted one another, and how some of the anomalous objects appearing on radar may have been due to a computer upgrade.
The defense department has been little help in clearing up these mysteries. [...] investigators have come to expect silence and denials from government officials ... Others view these tight-lipped responses as evidence of an official cover-up and conspiracy about alien visitors. Still others consider them an inevitable, albeit misguided, reaction by nervous authorities involved in national security. ...
Many ... were therefore encouraged when ... the Navy was drafting new guidelines for its personnel to report encounters with unidentified flying objects. The Navy even appeared to be switching to the designation Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) preferred by UFO researchers ... Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher confirmed to the Washington Post that the Navy’s UFO reporting guidelines were being updated, with the purpose of collecting more information for data analysis. But, he cautioned, don’t expect the data to be shared. ... Since then, information from the Navy has been sparse ... the military’s new interest in UFOs began to seem more mundane than mysterious.
But other, unrelated news stories helped keep the extraterrestrial narrative going. [...] scientists discovered the first interstellar object ever seen to enter our solar system. Astronomers ... raised the possibility that the unusual comet-like object, dubbed ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”), could, conceivably, be an alien spacecraft. Later observations showed it to be most likely natural in origin...
Then came the “storming” of everyone’s favorite secret government installation, Area 51 in Nevada. In June, a college student by the name of Matty Roberts created an event on Facebook as a joke. He called it “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” [...] The #StormArea51 event may have been meant as a joke, but by early September, more than two million people had indicated on Facebook that they would attend. ... As the date drew closer, the Air Force and local police warned potential attendees that trespassers on Area 51 property would be arrested. ... In the end, the happening had more the feel of a festival than a raid. ... about 100 revelers showed up at the back gate of Area 51 at around 3 a.m., with another 40 people going to the lesser known Tikaboo Valley gate. Slightly more people showed up during the day, but a source at the Independent reported that “the event is clearly fairly aimless: dozens of people stood around, while sheriffs watch on.”
[...] So what should we make of this latest UFO mini-craze? Evidence ... shows that the number of sightings has been holding steady or growing for decades, so last year was nothing special in that regard. There was no apparent uptick in public reports of mysterious flying objects. The Navy bears some responsibility for the recent media focus on UFOs, due to its piecemeal and selective approach to revealing details on reported encounters, which only feeds suspicions that the government knows more than it is telling ... Throughout the history of UFO sightings, it has never been enough merely to point to isolated weird events. What’s needed are storylines with characters, drama, suspense, and plot twists. And that’s what UFO believers were given in the past year or two... (MORE - details)