1) Insufficient information, hoaxes, misidentifications etc
2) Highly probable Unexplained (by Science) Natural Phenomena -UNP
3) Clearly described and seemingly constructed craft.
Ignoring 1 and 2 I concentrated on 3 and began excluding single witness accounts that had no back up from secondary witnesses, etc.. It took a lot of reading, digging into archives and it left me realising that that far from there being "Thousands of reports every year from credible witnesses" and "Many thousands of reports that have remained unexplained after thorough investigation" there were not. There were very few really thoroughly investigated UFO cases and the main ones were those investigated by the French authorities. I also know that the British RAF as well as the Royal Australian Air Force and New Zealand Royal Air Force carried out investigations into reports and even CE3K reports -those accounts have never been released and t5he 1950s Flying saucer Investigation omitted or 'forgot' to comment on these. Those files are somewhere but are never going to be accessed via the National Archives.
Investigators tried and failed to "solve" encounter cases but at every step they failed. Eventually, some superiors -we can speculate why for a long time but it has to be realised that while some at the Air Ministry/War Department/Ministry of Defence thought UFOs were real many did not and thought investigation of reports was frivolous- even resorted to suggesting in some cases the officers involved were "not up to scratch" for one reason or another. This type of attitude from superiors usually stopped investigations as the military had a chain of command and you obeyed or ended up cleaning toilets on Thule.
The RAF had its officers visiting the USAF take documents back and forth -case reports and questions on various aspects of the UFOs or flying saucers. Even the former head of USAF Project Blue Book, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, referred to this in his book The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects.
The big problem was that the flying saucer saga began at the outset of the Cold War and while countries behind the Iron Curtain often suggested or stated outright that the saucers were their new weapon/aircraft we know "on the quiet" that Western countries (mainly the United states) found it convenient to let "the opposition" think the saucers were theirs -they having gotten the ex-Nazi scientists who developed 6the "foo-fighters" of WW II. At this point the military interest in "defence of the (whichever) country" took over and despite what some people think they kept tabs of flying saucers. And the military interest meant that the intelligence community also moved in.
We know scientists -astronomers, physicists, etc were contracted to study reports and look for anything that could lead to a breakthrough. These scientists had "patriotism" thrown at them as well as the odd career ending threat ; being labelled a "Communist" just required someone claiming that and if that threat did not work the threat to expose or create a lie that someone was homosexual definitely worked. Some Ufologists were willing to take 'gossip' from the USAF that a witness was suspected of being "a homosexual" or "fond of young boys" and actually spread the rumour.
The Ufologists failed dismally to actually seriously study flying saucers. There were scientists of repute with an interest and even their own sightings and using such people would have set Ufology on the right track. Instead it seemed to attract more attention and therefore members and membership subscriptions as well as book sales to accuse the US Army Air Force/US Air Force of a cover-up and this is where things went wrong. In the UK there was no flying saucer group until 1952 but those investigating sightings freely communicated with the authorities and there was a much more relaxed cooperation. When groups formed the immediate priority was to increase membership. How could that be done? How did they manage in the United States -claiming cover-ups and accusing the authorities and Air force of anything possible and when they accepted the patently false claims of alleged flying saucer contactees things only got worse because those space brothers revealed that they had been in contact with world governments.
COVER UP!!!
You keep calling someone a liar when they are telling you the truth they eventually decide to stop talking to you and be so open. It happened in the United States although the minds deciding things there were thinking military adversary and so on. In the UK there was still some open talking to the Air Ministry and RAF but those in charge simply saw it as "bad form" and "not the done thing" to attack and criticise them when they had been as open as they could be.
Professional scientists were encouraged in various ways to not accept that some reports were unexplainable -there were even well placed senior scientists who had their own sightings who put pressure on subordinates and even scientific journals to mock the subject or be quiet "or else" and in a very conservative world where being seen as a "good boy" got you the grants and work ...people kept quiet though some bravely did not. The history is there if you look for it.
It is an unpopular statement to make because there is so much money and scamming going on based on lies, however, the various militaries and governments are non the wiser on UFO origins than we are. They may have a little more data but that is it. They still think potential terrestrial adversary and intelligence work. It is almost amusing that Ufologists want case reports released when they, supposedly, have gathered "hundreds of thousands of fully investigated" reports of their own since 1947. Ask a UFO group to release its reports and you will find that it suddenly takes more man power than they have and a lot of time to edit out witness date and various other excuses -but they will challenge officialdom if it states the same reasons for non release of reports. Of course, if you are Robert Bigelow then you can slip MUFON and certain abduction researchers a few grand and all the concerns about witness confidentiality are out the window.
Basically, Ufologists and the military were at logger heads; both want to (I suppose Ufologists want to) get to the bottom of the v"UFO mystery" but time-after-time Ufologists fake, lie and twist the truth to get celebrity status and the lucrative book and TV as well as conference cheques. And some Ufologists take money from intelligence agents in the US to spy on fellow Ufologists as well as outright lie to the UFO 'community'.
Scientists do not like getting mixed up in this kind of thing. They want the data to study and research and if they can draw conclusions on. Claims of all UFOs being ball lightning, swamp gas, temperature inversions etc are not scientific conclusions as it is all generalisation almost like stating as scientific fact that "all chickens are white". If a scientist looks into a report or series of reports and draws a conclusion based on data and known facts then that is acceptable. Not all UFOs are unexplained and there are alleged "veteran Ufologists" who are even aware of what parhelia is and even ball lightning and other natural phenomena are unknown to them.
Scientists looking at case reports have found many to be unexplainable. It has to be made clear that this means unexplainable based on current scientific knowledge -one day they might be easily explainable which would be good because that would leave the raw data of seemingly constructed craft and, dare I write it -entity encounters.
As an historian I also look at military history and aircraft/flight development is one aspect of this research. Back in 1980 I prepared a document looking at early balloon, airship and even experimental aircraft before 1900 and followed through on the development of not just rocketry but also the first jet aircraft. There was nothing developed by Western or Eastern powers that matched objects described in flying saucer reports -anything described as multi-coloured or big bright light we can dismiss since that may or will probably fall under UNP (such as foo-fighters).
Look at the stealth aircraft that were revealed after decades of secrecy and we can intelligently guess what is currently under development and testing. There are no known (or under development) aircraft manufactured on Earth in 2023 that come anywhere near the capabilities demonstrated by UFOs.
The french space agency does investigate certain UFO reports from its territory and certain people at the European Space Agency are also interested in UFO reports. Ufology and the military are not going to give any answers as they are entrenched in the endless cycle of lies, deceit and arguing with one another. Science is where we should be looking.
I have not the slightest interest in what Dr Brian Cox in his ignorant and ego centric ranting has to say about UFO sightings. To my knowledge he has never investigated a report nor study the data. That makes his opinion his own and based on ignorance. On the other hand scientists such as Michio Kaku have looked at reports and make their conclusions (even theoretical) based on data. Someone ought to explain "science" to Cox.
So why is it that documentaries like this do not refer to the UFO reports or what respected scientists have to say since it could (quite reasonably) indicate extraterrestrial visitation? Even Carl Sagan stated that, maybe, in the distant past Earth was visited by alien travellers. Sagan was another scientist who took a stance on the subject (people really need to study what the late physicist Stanton T. Friedman had to say about Sagan and UFOs ).
The main principle of scientific discovery when it comes to evidence is "chuck the body on the slab and we'll examine it and if it exists we'll say so". Scientists want those pieces of solid evidence and that is why people like Vallee, etc. keep referring to pieces of metal from a crashed UFO they have in their possession (wanting to raise huge amounts to have the metal analysed when it can be analysed within a few hours and any certified scientific establishment would jump at the chance to carry out such analysis -if it were alien material they would go down as an institution and whoever carried out the analysis in the history books. Instead we have no material submitted for analysis except for Earthly alloys.
How would a scientist explain multiple witnesses to a strange light seen on a quiet country road and above a car or that the three people in the car lost time, suffered mild radiation contamination, PTSD and much more -and had no recall of what had happened? Swamp gas? Hardly. Ball lightning. No. So what? These are the cases and questions that scientists need to look at and that is supposedly their function as scientists -to seek, study, discover and report.
The fictitious Physical Trace Evidence catalogue of Ted Phillips or the often hoax filled Landing Report catalogue of Jacques Vallee carry no weight. Claims carry no weight unless there is anecdotal or physical evidence to back them up. If their is no possibility of a lie or hoax and there is more than one witness/percipient then that is anecdotal evidence. If there are physiological and psychological effects then that is anecdotal evidence. It does not prove extraterrestrial visitation but but it could be suggestive of it.
Only by studying every aspect of reports can any hypothesis be formed even if that is "unknown" because the question then is does that "Unknown" mean that it could be indicative of extraterrestrial visitation and if not why not?
Also, scientists do not like giving their time for free. The big mistake that people such as Robert Bigelow made was that he hired the wrong people. He should have gathered as much data in the form of reports and contracted physicists to look at that evidence, ask questions and if necessary carry out follow up checks.
Documentary makers also want to keep in Science good books unless their intention is to create deliberately sensationalist TV shows. In the end Science has failed to do what it is supposed to do: study the data without any prejudice or personal prejudices and report on their conclusions and put those conclusions out for peer review/debate.
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