Aliens

– Ufo Essay, Research Paper

Does life outside earth exist? Are UFO’s really from outer space? Many people in the world today do believe in UFO’s. “About half of the adult population do believe that UFOs are out there in space”(Ritchie 22). There are basically two sides to the matter. The first is that UFOs are hoaxes and don’t exist at all, and the other is that they do exist and come from somewhere in outer space. Government cover-ups have been used to keep the secrets of UFOs under wraps throughout history, but despite all the unexplained sightings and stories evidence continues to indicate that these mysterious vehicles do, in fact, exist.

What are UFOs? A UFO is an unidentified light or object in the air that has no obvious explanation. The expression unidentified flying object “. . . is thought to have origionated with Air Forse Captian Edward Ruppelt . . .”(Ritche 220). This was introduced to replace the term flying saucer. UFO sightings first started in the late 1800s, but there weren’t that many until the 1940s. In the 1940s UFO sightings were being told all over the world. Since the 1940s UFOs are seen every day by people all over the world. Ufologists have come up with a system to divide UFO incidents into three major types of close encounters.

First, close encounter of the first kind (CEI) are classified as UFO sightings. Second, close encounters of the second kind (CE2) are sightings and permanent evidence, such as marks in the ground or burns on grass. Third, close encounters of the third kind (CE3) are actual contact with alien beings from a UFO. (Oberg 240)

There are many different theories about how UFOs travel and where they come from. “Some scientists believe that they come from the larger planets like Uranus, Neptune, Jupiter or Saturn”(Yenne 103). Most people think that UFOs come from Mars, mostly because of movies they see. Psychic Jeane Dixon suggested that UFOs come from a ‘”planet on the other side of the sun and can never be seen”‘(Brookesmith). Its is also believed that UFOs are constructed right here on earth. Some people even go as far as saying that UFOs are secret weapons that Nazi’s have created. The moon is another popular belief. People still think that this is a possibility even with all the lunar expeditions of NASA to the moon. Another is that they come from the stars. Most scientists think its impossible that they come from the stars since it would take 40 years at light speed to get the nearest star. On the other hand if such vehicles exist, no one knows of their technological capabilities . They may be far more advanced compared to technology on earth.

Other questions that remain unanswered as how they travel and what their made out of. It is a great mystery to how UFOs travel and what they are made out of. Some people believe that they travel through black holes from point A to point B and that its like a tunnel. This theory is said to be impossible since a black hole would stretch out a space ship if its made of a solid material. This brings up another theory, what if UFOs aren’t nuts and bolts, but are actually ghost like and can appear and disappear. This theory insists that UFOs are nonmaterial vehicles. “If UFOs are solid vehicles from outer space, I can’t see why they don’t register on our space tracking network” (Clark 78). Some scientists strongly believe that UFOs have the ability to make themselves invisible to the human eye. If this could be proved it could explain a lot about UFOs and how they travel through space. This may explain why all these UFOs that people see don’t show up on radar

Throughout the previous fifty years there have been thousands of UFO sightings from all around the world. Some may be real and others are made up by people for various reasons. Some who see them keep it a secret in fear that other people will think that they are insane or crazy. Since many non-believers were ridiculed”. . .only a small minority of witnesses would ever report their sightings, and many who did soon lived to regret it.”(Clarke 24). People use a varity of names to describe UFOS, but the most common is the flying saucer. “Some UFOs are called “flying saucers”, this term was coined by the press in1947 to describe a sighting by Kenneth Arnold” (Britanica). This was the first major sighting that brought about all the investigations of UFOs. About fifty years after this first sighting around forty sightings are reported daily. “In 1996, Americans reported to the Air Force 1,060 objects in the sky that they could not identify”( Yenne 86). In some areas of world is a larger number of UFO sightings than in others. For example in the Broadhaven triangle an area in mid-whales, fifty UFOs were reported in a single year. This is a very large sum for such a small area of the world. Also in certain years the number of reports have increased immensely. From January to September 1978 there was a 40% increase in the number of sightings around the world. Scientists have not been able to figure out why there are more sightings in these situations. The incident in 1978 in New Zealand has provided the best evidence to date. New Zealand has a radar-visual photo encounter. Radar visual are very uncommon as are good pictures of UFOs. In one case a sighting matched the exact description of another sighting. It was a cigar shaped UFO that a jazz band witnessed in Glasgow Scotland, in 1955,it fit the exact description of one that visited Manchester, England in 1982. Another unexplained UFO sighting is when one hovered over a science lab for ten minutes on December, 10, 1975. Four pictures of the space craft were taken and have never been able to be explained to this day. One famous UFO sighting abduction is the incident with Barney and Betty Hill. They claim to have been abducted by aliens in a space craft at their home. Barney Hill believed that he saw alien faces peering at him through a row of windows. Betty Hill reportedly had reoccurring dreams of their “lost hours” aboard the space ship. Betty Hill also believes that the aliens erased her entire memory of the experience she had with them. It is possible to report the star the Hills saw as the moon light. The whole NAZI idea comes in again when Barney Hill described the leader as “nazi like”. The Hills also mentioned how the aliens ran tests on them and then left them and sped away in their craft.

Many times UFOs are mistaken for a variety of other things besides unknown space crafts. Around 95% of alleged UFOs are misinterpretations of known objects. Investigators can explain all but a this 5% portion of UFO sightings. Most sightings are due to unknown phenomenon, limitations to human perception, bright planets, stars, birds, meteors, aircraft’s, missiles, satellites, boats, insect swarms, and weather balloons. “Some UFOs are mistaken for a rare form of lightening called “kugelblitz”‘(Spencer 65). Air crafts are commonly confused for UFOs because of how their lights appear in bad weather. Japanese Squid fishing fleets can be mistaken for UFOs because of the immense amount of light that they give off. Some sightings that were unexplained at the time have now been announced to be highly classified aircraft’s. “Top secret research aircraft’s often outrage normal ideas of how an airplane should look and perform. Could these bizarre man-made aircraft’s be responsible for a large proportion of UFO sightings”(Soule 117) ? The sighting of a triangular-shaped craft by a Commercial air line near Manchester, England was recently revealed to be the TR3 Mantra, a highly classified stealth craft.

Over the years there have been many government research organizations along with others that have investigated UFO sightings all over the world. One of the non-government organizations that did investigations is called Project Starlight International in Texas. This UFO researching organization is the largest ever. The Unites States Air Force has been investigating UFOs since 1947. In 1952 the Unites States Air Force started a program called Project Blue Book. They investigated about 12,000 UFO reports to determine whether these UFO sightings were a threat to the national security. They researched all UFO reports from 1948 to 1949. Then 1969 The USAF decided to close Project Blue Book. The USAF has constantly been pressed to devote more time and man power in the investigation of UFOs.

There are many factors that lead to how the government has tried to hold back information on what they know about UFOs. “Secret Government agencies like the CIA deny the existence of UFOs” (Brookesmith 37). United States government has long denied any interest in UFOs yet keeps thousands of files on the secret list. When UFO researchers unmasked this secrecy, they revolved a bizarre CIA plot to mislead the public. In late 1952 the National Security Committee levied upon the CIA the request to determine if the existence of UFO would create a national security. “It is a widespread belief that the government knows far more about UFOs than it is willing to reveal” (Sheafferr 25). National archives had shown that many reports were missing from files. Dozens of letters to the other agencies and even to the white house simply elicited the same official response-essentially, that UFOs did not exist. Why then all the missing files? On december 15, 1978 these docuiments were released after months of battling in the courts. There were near one thousand pages of documents released. An important memo was foundin these papers.

. . .Deputy Director for the CIA, dated November 1952 says bluntly: sightings of unexplained objects at great altitude and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major United States defense, are such a nature that they are not attribute to natural phenomena or known types of Arial vehicles(Brookesmith 35)

The debunking companies are the only one that have been successful because of well-known military or government figures have weighed against UFOs. This is because the public has an automatic respect for public figures. “Documents obtained by Ground Saucer Watch from the Unites States government under the Freedom of Information Act now confirm that there has indeed been a cover-up from the start. . .”(Brookesmith 33).

In conclusion even though many UFO sightings can be explained, the small percentage that cannot be explained indicate that UFO do exist. Since there have been so many sightings since the late 1940’s there have been many researchers of UFOs. The government being one of the major contributors to researching UFOs has held back information from the public. Also if the government simply says that UFOs don’t exist, then why all the research on them and the missing files?

For fifty years the unexplained air craft wreckage found outside Roswell, New Mexico, has been in the center of on-going speculation about alien life forms and US Government and Military cover-ups. It is my personal belief that extraterrestrial bodies are present in this Universe and have landed on earth. There is more evidence pointing to the fact that there are aliens present in the universe as proved in this essay. Retired military officials will admit to there being extraterrestrials being present on earth. An excellent example of this is what happened in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. When the US Government and Military first found the wreckage of an unidentified aircraft they issued a press release stating that they had come into possession of an Unidentified Flying Object. The present US Government have passed the Roswell incident off as a closed case ? their investigations declared the incident to be nothing more than a crashed weather balloon from the top secret Project Mogul and the alien bodies merely to be crash test dummies. This essay will argue the point that there is other life in the Universe and that the crash landing at Roswell in 1947, was an alien space craft and not a weather balloon.

Leading up to the ‘Roswell Incident’ UFOs were spotted all over New Mexico

and the mid-western coast line. On July 1 of 1947, an Unidentified Flying Object appeared on the radar screens of surrounding airforce bases. People also saw these objects in the skies that night and the next. On July 4 – Independence Day – radar screens showed an object pulsate then explode. Some archaeologists in the area were watching the sky and saw the aerial display as did a large number of the people living in the town. The

archaeologists set out the next morning to look for the wreckage they saw fall to ground after the explosion. They reached the crash site about 10am and found wreckage scattered over a site three quarters of a mile long and two to three hundred feet wide. The archaeology team alerted authorities then peered into the rubble to find the bodies of five aliens (the number of aliens is debatable), four of them already dead but one still alive with a severe wound to the thigh. The witnesses are sure they saw aliens in the space ship, not crash dummies, and the wreckage was too advanced to be human technology. A number of witnesses who saw the crash site before the US Government intervened were interviewed and all gave comprehensive descriptions of the aliens and their flying craft. All descriptions were very similar and if a number of people can give the same detailed evidence, something must have occurred.

Many army retirees have come forward to tell their stories concerning the truth of what happened at Roswell. The US Government will probably continue changing their stories of what they say happened (the crashed weather balloon). Only when new witnesses come forward and share their information will the truth eventually be exposed.

For months after the incident, thousands of hopeful alien enthusiasts flocked to the alleged crash site to view the most famous alien crash site to date. So much attention was placed on the site that the few residents of Roswell, New Mexico, claimed that they feared the aliens would return and invade. Witnesses claim to have received death threats from the military; they were also told to deny all knowledge of what they had seen.

The pieces of the alien space craft were taken to Groom Lake Airforce Base also known as Area 51. Area 51 is a top secret military installation designed to house many of the government’s secret details concerning alien aircraft. Substantial amounts of money was spent to protect the citizens of the world from receiving the truth about AArea 51 and the alien presenc among us. Recent developments have occurred when three-thousand nine

hundred more acres have been purchased by the US government that adjoins the Groom Lake Airforce Base to house what could be up to four hundred newly found pieces from alien aircraft (as shown in documents retrieved from the internet).

Now over fifty years since the uncovering of perhaps the strongest single

piece of evidence to support the theory that aliens are present in the Universe, the American Government will still not admit involvement in covering-up the event, that took place on July 8, 1947, in Roswell, New Mexico. Nearly every piece of information points towards the probability that aliens did crash at Roswell and more importantly that aliens do exist. The only argument that does not support the fact that aliens are present is

the American Government and Military denying it at numerous press conferences. The American Government’s and military’s argument are refuted by the numbers of retired military and government personnel’s testimony. The American Government should not be able to refute the evidence that there is intelligent life on other planets in the Universe because we have a right to know.

This paper will focus on psychological interpretations of UFO phenomena not because of any prejudice on my part but because I believe psychology can serve as a very useful tool in attempting an explanation of UFO’s. All of the existing theories expounded by the Air Force and various physical scientists which have sought to explain UFO sightings have operated on the assumption that the empirical approach of the physical sciences, being less “subjective”, was therefore the “superior” approach. I cannot concur with that assumption, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I believe that as Michael Polanyi (Oxford philosopher) pointed out in a recent article in the magazine of the American Psychological Association, that, all science is both intuitive methodologically and essentially “subjective”. Secondly, the physical.science explanations of natural phenomena (meteors, cloud formations, planets, stars, ball-lightning-plasma, birds, “temperature-inversions”, marsh gases) or artificial phenomena (Various aircraft, weather balloons, satellites, etc.) fail to explain too large a number (though a minority) of the reported sightings. Because of this marginal group of unexplained sightings, the physical sciences have yet to prove successful in providing an alternative to the ET (extra-terrestrial) theory of intelligently guided vehicles.

I have always been skeptical of the ET theory. I am now still more skeptical. This skepticism is based on a faith in both science and man. It seems to me that we can never find a fully satisfactory explanation for all events connected with the UFO phenomenon — scientists can never, for instance, explain all radar “blips” to everyone’s satisfaction. But by exploring the one feature of every UFO sighting — MAN — we may perhaps account for that marginal minority of high-credibility reports.

My approach will incorporate psychoanalytic , artistic , religious, political, and economic interpretations out of both necessity and desire — a desire to examine the total nature of the man who is trying to explain events he himself experiences.

View of the Universe

In the past history of the evolving human mind , mankind has made a series of adjustments concerning his view of the universe. The first adjustment was to cease believing in a world that was anthropocentric, centered on man himself. After the higher civilizations of the Near and Middle East became conscious of the daily revolving sun, stars and wandering planets, they formulated a geocentric concept of the universe, often labeled the Ptolemaic theory. This was interrelated with mankind’s religious and psychological development. It took until the l6th century A.D. and the Copernican revolution for man to change his concept of the order in the universe. The scientists who were exponents of the (then) new heliocentric theory of the universe (with our sun at the center) faced opposition simply because heliocentrism ran contrary to Church doctrine, the primitive theories of St. Augustine and Dante, and the early speculations of Greek scientists.

Eventually mankind adjusted to the heliocentric theory of the universe and accepted the sun as the center, not only of the local family of planets, but also of the total sidereal assemblage. This necessitated further revisions in religion but man’s psychological makeup changes little; as he had clung previously to other official dogmas which proved to be incorrect, he adopted heliocentrism as a dogma. This was fairly easy to rationalize with quasi-scientific rationalizations and observations. For instance, the Milky Way lies along a great circle: it is a band of starry light that divides the sky into two practically equal parts, with about the same brightness in all its parts. By implication, therefore, the sun and earth are centrally located. Further evidence was that the numbers of stars seemed to the early census takers to fall off with distance from the sun in all directions as though the sun were central, and this position among the stellar billions provided man a dignity of location in the cosmos that was not at all disagreeable.

As late as 1917 the astronomical leaders held that the sun was central, or very near the center of the sidereal universe. But new evidence (such as the period-luminosity relation for Cepheid variable stars used as a sounding tool, and the determination of the distances and distribution of the globular star clusters) indicated that heliocentrism was also fallacious. Other “galaxies” were officially recognized, and the earth and mankind forever lost its position or great significance in the universe. While the introduction of heliocentrism had little philosophic impact in the sixteenth century, the death of that theory had much more significant repercussions on the concept of the universe and mankind’s uniqueness in a world that was no longer his, however flattering such advances of human knowledge were to the human mind.

The “galactocentric” hypothesis put man on the outer fringe of one galaxy, more than twenty-five thousand light years distant from the center, in a universe of millions of galaxies. Another psychological) adjustment had to be made, not only with the location of our earth in the time and space of the physical world, but with our location in the world of biological phenomena. Scientists and laymen alike have now had to accept the fact that man is not alone in the universe. The work of such scientists as Harlow Shapley and Su-Shu Huang suggests that not only if there life in the universe but that it may be fairly “close” to our earth. Huang suggested that Tau Ceti, a star 10.8 light years away, may have life-supporting planets. The adjustment of mankind necessitated by this would be, in Shapley’s phrase, our Fourth Adjustment. He states that, “The mystery of life is vanishing. Objective science is replacing the subjective miraculous.” He further suggests that the fifth adjustment may lie almost wholly in the “psychological realm”.

Of course the Fourth Adjustment is also psychological in nature. Psychology has shown us a great deal about mankind’s myth-making abilities (even needs) and one need not have a Ph. D. in psychology to be aware of this characteristic. If science is responsible for removing the “subjective miraculous”, it is also likely that quasi-science, fantasy, mythology and mass-media-culture would create replacements to fill the needs of a not-so-rational human psychological makeup. I feel that there are many causative factors involved in man’s turning once again to his mind’s inner world, attempting to dispel the fears and insecurities manifested in UFO phenomena.

One theory of UFO phenomena was advocated by the eminent pioneer in psychology, Carl Jung, who sees UFO sightings as cases or psychological projection, with a psychic cause. One of the explanations Jung offers is as follows:

” ….There are cases where the same collective cause produces identical or similar effects (i.e, , the same visionary images and interpretations) in the very people who are least prepared for such phenomena and least inclined to believe them. “This fact gives the eyewitness accounts an air of particular credibility: it is usually emphasized that the witness is above suspicion because he was never distinguished for his lively imagination or credulousness but, on the contrary, for his cool judgment and critical reason. In just these cases the unconscious has to resort to particularly drastic measures in order to make its contents perceived. It does this most vividly by projection, by extrapolating it contents into an object which then mirrors what had previously lain hidden in the unconscious….”

Jung offers further an interesting interpretation of flying “saucers”, as characterized by their roundness:

“If we apply the principles of dream interpretation to the round object — whether it is a disk or a sphere — we at once get an analogy with the symbol of totality, well-known to all students of depth psychology, namely the mandala (Sanskrit for circle). This is not by any means a new invention, for it can be found in all epochs and in all places, always with the same meaning, and reappears time and again, independently of tradition, in modern individuals as the ‘protective’ or apotropaic circle…a modern symbol of order, which organizes and encloses the psychic totality….”

“….Circular symbols have played an important role in every age in our own sphere of culture, for instance, they were not only soul symbols but ‘God-images’. God in his omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence is a totality symbol par excellence, something round, complete, and perfect.”

One can substitute the “ability to fantasize” for the word “projection”; Ray Bradbury [3] himself has said that “the ability to ‘fantasize’ is the ability to survive.”

Man’s imagination has almost no limits, although his theology seems to. I do not think it idle to speculate that the recent “Death-of-God” theology may have forced modern man to look elsewhere, especially to the heavens, for a new God. That we should externalize a quality so deeply rooted in man’s nature is not at all surprising and one need not accept Marshall McLuhan’s ingenious speculations to see that quite logically man uses his interior world with its enormous powers to try and locate what he has often believed to be omnipresent, yet somehow external. “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere” is a doctrine that originated with St. Augustine in the third century A.D. More recently, Einstein spoke of a sphere in four-space as t he best mathematical model of the universe, being boundless yet finite.

The Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner says that “No one has ever portrayed an interesting heaven.” Arthur Clarke [5] sees that ET vehicles conform with Jean Paul Sartre’s notions of Man, Heaven and God. The ET’s are beneficent, not hostile — “Any race intelligent enough to conquer interstellar space must have first conquered its own inner demons.” They are practically omnipotent; the “aliens” would be able to “transmute any element into any other”, needing only raw materials and the energy of sunlight. I say “practically” omnipotent because even mankind’s concept of God limit Him; the God of St. Augustine could not achieve creation ex nihilo.

Arthur Clarke is more sophisticated than many of the Ufologists, and his belief in the possibilities of communication having already occurred between ET’s and our planet is not a religious faith. He cites the radio signals which have been monitored at M.I T since 1963, mentions the speculations of Fred Hoyle about a “galactic communications network”, and quotes M I T astronomer Alan Barrett:

“…The properties of the radio signals are strong intensity, narrow band width, origin from regions of extremely small angular size, strong polarization and, perhaps, variation with time. The apparent time variations of the amplitude of the signals seem to have a period of days, or weeks – somewhat longer than would be expected for interstellar communications, but not so much longer as to be unreasonable. While declining to claim that the signals do indicate a vast interstellar communications network, Barrett insists that such speculations have passed well beyond the domain or science fiction…..”

All those statements are very guarded, reflecting the realm of possibilities, not probabilities. Clarke later cites Hoyle’s speculation that a sufficiently complex signal from space might serve as a genetic blueprint for constructing an extraterrestrial entity. He also makes good use of humor and sarcasm, saying that aliens might think the dominant life form in the United States was the automobile. It is peculiar that he uses sociology and psychology quite often in building his case for ET’s.

Pro-ET observers are forever invoking the “Unimpeachable Source”, saying that this man’s credentials are beyond question. If this were to serve as the overriding criterion for assessing the nature of the UFO phenomenon, then we must also accept the necromantic arts, the hypnogogic state, ghosts, and reincarnation (Buddhists believe in reincarnation. ) Just because J. Allen Hynek has experienced a “flying saucer” affecting an automobile’s electrical system, must the world community necessarily accept his ET-intelligent-being explanation of UFO’s? We would put precious little faith in psychology, and forget that humans are fallible. Freud has been proven incorrect.)

Sociology and psychology have been misused in analyzing the Hill case, which John Fuller capitalized on. Too much faith was put in the ability of hypnosis to distinguish “reality” from hallucination. This brings me to the nature of hallucinations , imagination, fantasy, daydreaming, and their role and function in man and his consciousness.

Our culture is filled with fantasy, particularly in the U.S., the source of most of the UFO reports and activity. Science fiction has all but destroyed the animated cartoon television program. Hollywood has beaten to death the outer-space fantasy theme. Chuck Jones (successor to Walt Disney) and Ray Bradbury rightly bemoan these events; high quality fantasy has all but disappeared (although two Charles Schulz “Peanuts” episodes and Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” were rated among the top five TV specials in 1961). There is, in our mass-media-culture no alternative to intelligent fantasy for adults other than the outlet provided by UFO’s.

This discussion attempts to explain why believable fantasy is essential for the mental well-being of any culture, if only as an emotional outlet. It is not necessary to establish a need for “psychic housecleanings”, to borrow Norman Mailer’s phrase. People do “fantasize” — hallucinatory activities such as day dreaming are scientific fact. The importance of daydreaming has long been neglected in psychology and sociology. In 1966 Jerome L. Singer published his pioneer research [8] on daydreaming, where he writes:

“Very likely man’s capacity to daydream is a fundamental characteristic of his constitution. Like other abilities — perceptual, motor or cognitive — it is there to be developed depending on circumstances. “the practiced daydreamer has learned the art of pacing so that he can shift rapidly between inner and outer channels without bumping into too many obstacles. He has developed a resource that gives him some control over his future through elaborate planning, some ability to amuse himself during dull train rides or routine work, and some sources of stimulation to change his mood through fanciful inner-play.” (Emphasis added.)

This may provide us with a partial explanation for the fact that so many UFO sightings are made by experienced pilots – Air Force career officers and commercial airline pilots. Ufologists always cite the pilot’s experience as an indication of high credibility; but they fail to perceive that “experienced” implies routine, and routineness implies increased susceptibility to hallucinatory experience.

The questions and controversies raised by UFO phenomena are not likely to be answered conclusively, and the likelihood is diminished even more by the animosity between social and physical scientists. John Fuller, in a recent (sensationalized) article in Look magazine [9] said that the NICAP* people were disturbed by the fact that four of the first five scientists selected for the Condon Committee investigation of UFO’s at the University of Colorado were social, not physical scientists. It is difficult to judge the objectivity of the Colorado study group from John Fuller’s article, but it does seem to me that the brunt of the proof lies on those who subscribe to the ET theory. There seem to be no photographs of UFO’s that have withstood careful examination, and none taken at an astronomical observatory. Even Hynek says: [6] “What is needed is for us to find a baby UFO somewhere in the crates of UFO reports.”

No one has yet found a “baby” for Hynek or even a piece of a full sized UFO. The closest we come may be the efforts of cartoonists although the Australian girl who claims to have been made pregnant by a UFO alien may have something. Pro-ET investigators can be criticized for their rhetoric, fake photographs, and irresponsible quotations. (Hynek quoted the Soviet writer Felix U. Zigel, who has been strongly criticized by Soviet scientists.) It will require a great deal more sophistication to solve the UFO riddle, if it can be solved. The Air Force obviously has not and cannot handle it and NICAP hasn’t done much better. The social scientists have been accorded rough treatment from the physical scientists, who have themselves been irresponsible. It may be the philosophical approach which ignores all the “contradictions”, that will provide the best answers. (If men examine anything long enough and hard enough, “contradictions” always appear.) Scientists must admit that conflict is inevitable in a discussion of a human problem, and that we can’t be as “rigorous”as we’d like to be. As Dr. Floyd W. Matson [10] states; “When man is the subject, the proper understanding of science leads unmistakably to the science of understanding.”

UFOs and Aliens on Earth

Is their intelligent life out there? That is a question that has been asked for many centuries. Will it ever be answered? If it is, will people accept the truth or will they go on believing what they want to believe? There have been many documented alien sightings in this century, but there has never been any hard evidence or proof of their visitations. Is our government covering up this evidence for our own good, or are these sightings a figment of our imagination? Most scientists say that all of the sightings are just astrological phenomena that are visible in the sky and can easily be explained. Has our longing to not be alone in this vast universe caused us to hope, imagine and create some unseen strange space men? These are many questions that I have even asked myself. All I want is the TRUTH.

The Roswell case is one of the best-documented and most controversial UFO cases ever. In July of 1949, at a small airforce base in Roswell, New Mexico, a small, brightly glowing object was observed to crash land at about 11:30 P.M. There were many people who had seen the crash, and they had described that it was brighter, and fell much slower than any meteor they had ever seen. At St. Mary’s Hospital in Roswell, two Catholic nuns, saw the crash, directly north of them, and logged the crash in their diaries to have occurred on July 4, between 10:00 and 11:30pm. Southwest of the base, Corporal E. L. Pyles looked to see what at first he thought was a shooting star, only it seemed to be too large to be one. He testifies that the crash happened about 11:00 PM also. (Randle 17)

There were many Military officers in the area that had seen the object as well. The object was appearing on military radar for many days before the crash. Before the crash, on July 1, all of the officers and technicians at the base had been tracking an unidentified object on their radar. Starting on July 2nd, Steve MacKenzie, who was stationed at Roswell, was ordered to report to the White Sands Proving Ground radar sites and report directly to the brigadier general at the base. The Brigadier General’s orders were to inform him of all the movements the object made. At White Sands, there had been doubt as to whether this object was a malfunction of radar equipment or, if it was in fact, real. The airforce had other radar sites in Albuquerque and Roswell look at the area on their radar to determine if it was authentic. It was shown that they had, in fact, a real object. (Randle 23)

During the evening of July 4th, the object changed. It was growing bigger, and then it shrank back to its original size; the blip was pulsating. It grew quite large, and then it disappeared from the screen. Because sites in Albuquerque, White Sands and Roswell were tracking the object, the airforce had triangulated the location where it crashed. The airforce then decided to launch a comprehensive search the following morning. (Randle 25)

The airforce, however, was the last to arrive at the site. A group of archaeologists, being led by Dr. W. Curry Holden, had arrived earlier. One of the students recorded the object as “a crashed wingless plane, with a flat fuselage.” The archaeologists then left to inform local authorities of an aircraft accident. (Jacobs 45)

When the airforce arrived at the Roswell crash site, there were two other people exploring, one a man named Ragsdale and the other a woman named Truelove. They had been collecting pieces of metal from the site, tossing it into their jeep. But, what they saw was much more significant. They saw bodies lying about. There were several of them, about four or five feet long. There were five in total, obviously not human. There were three dead bodies, one in critical condition, and one, apparently fine. They threw the debris clear of their jeep when the airforce started driving up, and got out of there as fast as they could because of fear of being arrested. When the airforce arrived, they looked around, and they saw the large craft in the side of the mountain, partly buried, leaning at about a 30-degree angle, with large pieces of debris scattered about. After the airforce had searched and photographed the area, they began cleaning up. The bodies were loaded into ambulances after being put into body bags. The living creature was taken into an ambulance also. The area was cleaned over the next few days. A little later, the airforce located a field that the UFO had apparently flown over as it crashed. The field had strange debris scattered about. A man called Brazel owned the property, and the airforce then allegedly kidnapped him for three days. They also rounded up the archaeologists, and later tracked down Ragsdale and Truelove, who drove off as the airforce arrived. Ragsdale and Truelove were sworn to secrecy. After they took care of all the other details, they changed the story from “FLYING SAUCER RECOVERED IN ROSWELL!” to, “WEATHER BALLOON CRASH IN ROSWELL!” (Jacobs 48-52)

This story doesn’t hold up well enough though. After all the reports were turned in, and all the witnesses had been interviewed, it didn’t look like the airforce could support balloon story. So, they have been changing their stories, from a weather balloon, to a crashed V2 rocket, to an experimental aircraft. As recent as June of 1995, the airforce officially announced that it was in fact a balloon lofted to view Russian weapon test sites. But, that wouldn’t explain the bizarre debris, a foil that would reshape itself after being bent, and the pieces of metal that would not melt under any temperature. Nor would it explain the aliens themselves. So, none of these explanations could hold water. The only possibilities are that it was an early US spacecraft, or a UFO. And the UFO, for the first time ever, is the only explanation that makes sense in this case. (Emery)

This is just one of the many well documented alien sightings between 1947 and 1969; also known as the project Blue Book era. Another famous UFO sighting happened in 1951. Over 100 eyewitnesses say a football shaped glowing object hovering over a swampy area. The object dodged an airport light beacon, dimmed when cars approached, and then would brighten again as the cars passed by. The eyewitnesses watched this object for several hours before it vanished into thin air. After an extensive study the Air Force simply dismissed this case as a swamp gas phenomenon. It later became so famous because of this unbelievably stupid explanation the Air Force gave. Not one of the 100 or more eyewitnesses accepted the swamp gas explanation that the Air Force had given. (Jacobs 198-201)

United State astronauts reported some of the other famous UFO sightings. During Gemini IV, two astronauts videotaped a UFO. Also 2 years later during the Gemini XII mission, the astronauts aboard photographed 2 UFOs. They appeared to be about a half of a mile away from their space ship. These 2 UFOs remained observable for some period of time. Also during Buzz Aldrin’s space walk in 1969, it was reported that he too saw UFOs. Some years after the incident, the original broadcast transcript showed this quote by Aldrin, “These babies are huge sir?enormous?Oh, God you wouldn’t believe it. I’m telling you there are other space craft out there.” (Mickus)

During the project Blue Book era, the government funded many programs designed to find extraterrestrial life. None are more famous than SETI. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence program. This program was designed to communicate with aliens in far reaches of the galaxy. It would send information about us humans; like the location of our home world, population of the earth, and little useful things for anyone that is listening could hear. It also listens with some of this world’s largest satellite dishes. So far, they have discovered no evidence of an advanced civilization. No evidence that they are willing to telling us about anyway. SETI has taught us many things about strange types of stars, and possibly even black holes by listening to the radio waves that it has sent out. (Shostak)

Sam Harrison has proclaimed that he himself knows why the Aliens are here, what they are doing, and what they want from us. According to Harrison, he spent two weeks aboard a flying saucer in 1975. He stumbled upon this flying saucer, by pure luck, when he was on a hiking trip. The aliens invited him to come aboard and to spend the next two weeks of his life with them, and learn about their ways. Harrison was told what they are doing here on earth, why they came, and what they want. He also learned about their light speed propulsion engines and about their antigravity machinery. When he returned to earth, he wrote a detailed letter to the United State Air Force describing everything that he had discovered and learned. Shortly thereafter, the Air Force sent him a letter back stating that the systems he described were much too far advanced for them to understand. When Harrison tried publishing a book about his two-week experience aboard the alien spacecraft, everything appeared to be running smoothly. That is until the government got hold of a copy of it. Once the government received a copy of it, they took it off every single self in America. The book simply became unattainable. He felt that this only confirmed his beliefs; and that now, he had some sort of hard evidence or proof. (Hamilton)

In 1969, project Blue Book came to an end. The government investigated more the 1,239 individual cases, but concluded that not a single case had any substantial proof of extraterrestrial existence. The government was accused of covering up information to protect the people. 71 percent of American who were surveyed in 1970 think that the government knows more than it is telling. The government’s final view on the issue was that UFOs were just some sort of natural phenomena. They may have been real or figments of viewer’s imagination, but not intelligent life. (Duin)

This view would coincide with an astronomer’s personal statement about this matter. Hale said, “Extra Ordinary claims require extra ordinary evidence.” If one is presented with a series of phenomena where there is more than one viable or possible explanation, one should choose the simplest explanation. This is known as Occam’s Razor. Hale points out that it is an undeniable fact that reports can come from people who are unaware of various phenomena that are visible in the sky on any given night. Also, the people reporting these sightings are not equipped or trained at making reliable scientific observations. To him, the UFO phenomena is just that. Every reported sighting is either a hoax or a mistake of some sort. “The possibility of the existence of other intelligent, even advanced life is great, but why don’t they formally introduce themselves. It is just rude!” (Hale)

In 1995, Fox TV broadcasted “UFOs: The Best Evidence Ever Caught on Tape.” This show featured video of alleged UFOs that were caught on tape, but the show’s producer was later found to be guilty of intentionally withholding other parts of the video that could have proven it to be a hoax. Viewers watching the show could have easily mistaken and as easily believed to actually be seeing UFOs. “It’s easy to preserve the mystery surrounding a UFO sighting if you don’t look too closely.” (Emery) A movie that showed a UFO moving across the skies of Rhode Island didn’t reveal its true nature until the whole video was seen. It then became obvious that it was a hoax. The same wind that was moving the trees was also making the paper towel tube suspended on a wire between two trees bob up and down too. Every single videotape seen in its entirety proved itself false. Here is one more example. A shape changing UFO that was caught on tape became less mysterious when viewed in entirety. The camera this person had been using had an automatic focusing system that made the pinpoint lights of a distant plane turn into a fuzzy blob whenever the branches of a nearby tree entered the foreground. The clips on this show were so brief and repeated so often, one might wonder if the producer were intentionally withholding other parts of the video, which was exactly the case. (Emery)

A recent survey shows that 50 percent of Americans believe that the government is still withholding or covering up information about aliens. One startling fact from this survey was that lesser-educated people were more likely to vote yes on this survey when compared to those who had graduated from college. What does this show, you might ask? It shows that the more you know, the more likely you are to believe that aliens are not real and UFOs are just phenomenon. It also shows that the educated have a stronger belief that the government is telling the truth. (Frazier)

The only way we will be able to find out the truth is if we take on this challenge individually. We must all come forth and report any sighting we have no matter how great the public ridicule might be. For every one UFO sighting reported there are ten that go unreported. Try to imagine investigating only a tenth of something and then try to form a logical conclusion on it when you only know a tenth of it. It is just not possible. (Stacy)

UFOs are impossible to prove, short of parading onto David Letterman with a “One eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater”. The government has repeatedly denied the existence of UFOs for years, but all the investigations that they have staged seem to indicate that the US military, at least, takes UFOs very seriously. During my research for this paper I became completely and totally frustrated with this whole ordeal. The only thing I know for certain about this, is that the Truth is no where to be found!

Extra Terrestrial

In an ever-expanding galaxy, humans cannot be the only intelligent life forms. Somewhere, in some universe exists a form of life equal, or superior to, intellectual capability and performance of humans. Many people have seen unexplained occurrences that could only be classified as alien life forms. Thousands of humans claim to have seen aliens, and hundreds more say they can communicate with them. These sitings have intrigued people all over the world, and have led to a debate on weather UFO’s are real. There is no doubt they exist.

For many decades people have claimed to have spotted UFO’s. There are many theories on whether UFO’s exists ranging from government cover-up to the another dimension breaking the barrier between our worlds?., from UFO’s traveling through black holes to there being millions of other universes with intelligent life. Yet the only evidence of any extraterrestrial beings come from sightings by ordinary people.

World governments tried to keep the phenomenon of extraterrestrial life forms secret. Due to the fact our society is gullible believing every myth that one might tell to another. This confidentiality only lead to more curiosity among the people.

So far, in spite of a concerted effort by not only the U.S. government, but other governments worldwide to discredit the whole notion of unidentified flying objects; in spite of the ridicule heaped on anyone who even hints they may have seen something remotely resembling a UFO; in spite of official debunkings and even threats, people still step out of the shadows of their own fear to tell their amazing stories.

(Seller, ix)

People do talk, and every time something is being repeated a couple words are being added. Hence, not to many people know the truth.

One example of an UFO sighting was

For many years humans have criticized one another if their beliefs were not that of the common public. For example Christopher Columbus and his theory on the shape of the earth or Galileo and his theory on the rotations of the planets. Both were ridiculed, as are most believers of extraterrestrial life today. However both were proven correct, as will be believers in extraterrestrial life. With every century more and more knowledge came to people, they gained understanding of many natural and physical phenomena. The time will pass, and we will understand what UFOs are all about, and who are the ones who pilot them.