United States: How UFOs Went From Mockery to National Security Issue

WASHINGTON.- In 2007, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid summoned his colleagues Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye to a particularly secure room on Capitol Hill to exchange highly confidential information..

Inouye, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, and Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, handled the funding for the Pentagon’s top secret operations. Reid wanted to plant in the minds of his colleagues the seed of an idea which should be kept secret, not only for a matter of national security but because it was, as Reid had said his assistants, a little crazy. .

Reid wanted the Pentagon to investigate UFOs. “Everyone told me I was buying a problem,” said Reid, then Democratic Senator from Nevada, the state where the US Air Force’s top-secret test facility known as of Area 51, the Mecca of all UFO hunters. “But I was not afraid, and it seems to me that time has proved me right.”

Reid is referring to the wave of rumors surrounding UFOs that has arisen among Washington officials, especially the most prominent senators, former CIA directors, and other Pentagon insiders. What once involved a direct flight to the political madhouse, worthy of Hollywood screens and sci-fi novels, is now part of the debate in the United States. In fact, new government acronyms have even appeared..

“It used to be a problem that ruined anyone’s political career,” says John Podesta, who when he was President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff preferred not to share his personal interest in UFOs with anyone. “No one wanted to be surprised by talking about this, because they could accuse him of believing himself to be part of the X-Files series.”

But now the subject is not just discussed. Earlier this year, the US Department of Defense issued a press release with the headline: “Establishment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force” (UAPTF). As the Pentagon reports, the mission of UAPTF, an acronym that sounds more like a tongue twister, “is to detect, analyze and catalog unidentified aerial phenomena that could potentially pose a threat to United States national security. “

A few months later, as part of President Donald Trump’s pandemic economic stimulus package, the Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Democrat Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, included a clause calling for the helping the director of national intelligence produce a declassified report containing everything government agencies know about UFOs, including the many sightings reported by Air Force pilots. This report will be released next month.

But in recent months, many former government officials have started making startling statements. Late last year, Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University, interviewed John Brennan, former director of the CIA, in a podcast, who noted that “he’s a bit cocky and arrogant to believe that there is no other way out of life. throughout the universe ”.

Last month, in an interview with Black Vault, a website that collects paranormal sightings, James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, said: “I’m not as skeptical as I was a few years ago. to say the least, but there is a group of smart and experienced pilots who have had incredible experiences ”.

The two former CIA directors were referring to videos of Air Force and Navy pilots in which they are heard of inexplicable objects appearing on their radars, moving at unusual speeds and performing maneuvers. air that goes against all logic. advanced military planes could work.

– “Look at this!” A pilot yells in one of the videos, while his radar focuses on a strange flying object.

– “He’s spinning” said another pilot.

-“My God!” said the other pilot.

The authenticity of the videos has been confirmed by Pentagon officials. Some of them were recently aired on the American TV show 60 minutes.

“I’ve seen some of these videos of Navy pilots, and I have to admit you’re flabbergasted,” Brennan says. “I think some of these phenomena remain unexplained, and in fact some believe they might be the answer to something we still don’t understand, which would include the activity of a different life form.”

This is not the first time that UFOs have appeared – literally or metaphorically – on Washington radar. In 1952, there were reports of “flying saucers” appearing on radar over the nation’s capital.. The news made the cover of every American newspaper. “Flying saucers fly over the capital”, entitled the Gaceta de Cedar Rapids. Newspaper cover The Washington Post it was a little more moderate: “A flying saucer leaves behind an airplane,” said a pilot. The Air Force covers the investigation ”.

Viewers have reported strange performance on their TVs. The Air Force immediately dispatched its planes: they found nothing. Senior military commanders attributed it all to the weather.

When he was a Michigan congressman in 1966, the future president Gerald Ford has asked Congress to investigate UFO sightings reported by voters in his state. No one supported his request. A few years later, future President Jimmy Carter reported seeing a UFO shortly before giving a speech at the Lions Club in Leary, Georgia.

“There was a bright light in the sky,” Carter told the magazine. GQ in 2005. “We’ve all seen it. And then the light started to get closer, until it stopped, I don’t know how far, but it stopped behind the pines. And suddenly it changed color and turned blue, then red, then white again. “

Washington’s renewed interest appears to stem from Reid’s meeting on Capitol Hill. The senator’s curiosity about UFOs dates back to the mid-1990s, when a television actor in Las Vegas invited him to a conference with academics and spectators on the subject of UFOs.. “I found it really interesting and moving,” says Reid, who has yet to see a UFO.

A decade later, Reid was contacted by Robert Bigelow, a wealthy and well-known motel industry businessman whose father was killed in a plane crash and whose family blamed UFOs for the ‘event. Bigelow, passionate about the topic of aliens, had a farm in Utah, where a series of paranormal events had taken place: disappearance of cattle, sighting of UFOs, appearance of strange magnetic fields. When a Defense Intelligence Agency official wanted to visit the scene, Bigelow called Reid. The majority leader became convinced that it was time to take UFOs seriously.

It took him no more than ten minutes to convince his colleagues Inouye and Stevens to back a $ 22 million budget for the Pentagon to create a research program. Reid recalls that Stevens quickly agreed, because as an Air Force pilot in WWII he had seen strange things, including an object that did not appear to be an airplane and mimicked his movements in the air.

Reid is retired but his interest in UFOs remains intact. The man who is catching the attention of all of Washington these days is Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence officer who, according to Reid, led the Department of Defense unit created after the secret meeting held on Capitol Hill.

Elizondo recently appeared on the show 60 minutes, where he said, “I know this may sound crazy, but what I’m saying is real. The question is: what is it? What are your intentions? What is he capable of doing? In an interview with The Washington PostElizondo explains why the issue has gone from being mocked to being formally investigated.

“Now we have to rely on the ability of military and intelligence forces to collect data and interpret it,” Elizondo says. “We are not talking about a grandmother who saw colored lights in the yard.”

Elizondo adds that the United States cannot delay taking the issue seriously. “Currently there are sighting reports almost daily,” Elizondo says. “The more we hide it, the worse it will be. In fact, keeping everything covered is against our own interests. “

But according to some Washington officials, little political will remains to publicly discuss the UFO issue. Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to comment for this article. “We are not going to comment on the matter,” said his spokesperson.

Translation of Jaime Arrambide

The Washington Post