Every now and then, the circus comes to town. The clowns and the strongmen; the sideshows and illusions. The same is true with the field of ufology; every now and then the circus comes to town. Tales like “Aliens built the Pyramids”, “Secret Alien/Nazi bases are concealed in Antarctica”, “The Royal Family are Lizard Aliens”, and “Nikola Tesla was visited by Aliens” ring out from sideshow alley.
The ‘biggie’ proposition, however, is served with greater fanfare from under the big top and is known as “The Nuts and Bolts Proposition”: alien space craft inhabit our airspace, have crashed on planet earth, and the US Government has recovered these, the alien occupants, and is reverse engineering the off-world technology.
We’ve seen this claim repeated and fortified, decade in and decade out; in the press, in books, in movies and on television. The X-Files series (1993-2018) propagated the crashed saucer/recovered alien theory across many episodes, greatly popularising it.
Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, stars of the X-Files, applaud on stage at San Diego Comic Con. Photo by Gage Skidmore, source: Wikimedia Commons.
Intense periods of interest in UFOs (called ‘flaps’), occur every 10 to 15 years – each and every time proposing the nuts and bolts theory and the claim of a government cover up. Massive media coverage at the beginning of each cycle initially catapults the subject to the fore (quickly falling away as tangibility becomes illusive) and, as recently seen, can even force a response from the Pentagon.
It’s not the first time the US Government has reacted and responded. Analysis of reported UFO incidents has been undertaken by multiple agencies since 1947 and Kenneth Arnold’s original sighting – the one that gave the objects their name ‘flying saucers’. See, for instance: Project Sign (1948), Project Grudge (1949), Project Blue Book (1952-1969). The Condon Report in 1968 led the US to pull funding because, “…nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge.”
Spread over many decades, these reports (and those published by foreign governments) have consistently indicated that more than 90% (some suggest as high as 96%) of the claimed sightings and interactions can be explained by natural occurrences or the misidentification of the same. It is proposed that, with additional data, the balance of the sightings could, most likely, be explained. To this end, and to their credit, both NASA and the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) have put a reporting protocol in place – allowing pilots and civilians to add sightings of anomalous activity to a new database – without prejudice.
The beloved moniker ‘UFO’ has also been changed to ‘UAP’ (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). This recognizes that many reported events are not actually ‘flying’, nor are they ‘objects’. The removal of the stigma for reporting a sighting, and the re-definition of the term UFO, are both steps in the right direction, making real science possible. Collecting further data is a reasonable and fair response to the consistent figures produced by reports that date back over 50 years.
A systematic approach is needed for sorting misidentified atmospheric phenomena such as balloons (scientific, weather, commercial, party), drones (military and domestic), rocket and satellite launches, and deliberate hoaxes – from what could be considered genuinely ‘unidentified’, given that the latter category represent important security and safety concerns. No one denies this. Witness the recent confusion, and the use of a multi-million-dollar missile, to shoot down a Chinese ‘spy balloon’. Three American soldiers were killed in Jordan due to the misidentification of an enemy drone. There is no argument that identifying airborne anomalies is of great import.
“A visual representation of a Chinese spy balloon”, by Focal Foto on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED)
Unreasonable though, I think are the claims of the new batch of UFO Entrepreneurs. They used to go by the monikers: ‘informants, and researchers’, but with advent of social media, podcasting and the like, these new faces of the industry seem more concerned with sensationalism and looking good on camera. Thus, I think the term, ‘UFO Entrepreneur’ is a more accurate definition.
People like Steven Greer, Bob Lazar, Billy Carson, Jeremy Corbell, Luis Elizondo, Richard Dolan, Tom Delonge, and the relative newcomer, Ross Coulthart, are ‘talking head’ personalities. Drama is to the forefront; they ride their high horses, full of their own self-import, their truth, making demands of Congress – and mainstream media – who they think are ‘missing the story of a lifetime’. They paint the government as an enemy, a conspirator hiding an imagined truth.
This time around, the circus has offered what they considered irrefutable evidence: ‘real’ video footage including the famous Tic Tac and Nimitz scenes, a ‘Jellyfish’ UFO, and a ‘Chandelier’ UFO. All genuine military footage. Added in are recycled claims from former UFO personalities – like Bob Lazar and his unsubstantiated work at Area 51 – and the insistence that US Nuclear sites are in peril. They’ve also collected an impressive list of whistleblowers who claim inside knowledge of the supposedly secret US Government ‘alien retrieval programs’. One of these popular entrepreneurs, Steven Greer, claims to have a dossier of 750-plus whistleblowers!
You would think that there would be one, just one, smoking gun revelation amongst all that testimony, but it’s not yet forthcoming. Incidentally, for a fee of $2,500, Greer will take you on a tour to point lasers at suspected UFOs in the hope that they will flash back.
“The evidence for alien crash retrievals is overwhelming…” the UFO ringleaders cry, dismissing scientific and skeptical inquiry out of hand with an abrupt attitude. “The bleating skeptics, I don’t care what they say!” shouted one of the lead players. Another, “We can’t keep wasting our breath on people who will never, ever, seriously review the evidence. I’m done with them!” These and many similar comments followed skeptical criticism of the latest UFO whistleblower to come forward, David Grusch. Here is the new ‘golden boy’, they promised; an insider with high security clearances who will blow the lid off ufology and force the US Government to admit the truth. He didn’t do any such thing.
David Grusch was a USAF officer and intelligence official. Testifying in a US House of Representatives hearing, he claimed that the US Government maintains a secret UFO recovery program, and that it was in possession of ‘non-human’ spacecraft and ‘dead pilots’. He remained tight-lipped, not suppling any specifics under questioning in 2023 at the House Committee Oversight and Accountability hearing – offering only to supply names and contacts in a private setting.
Strangely, Grusch’s demeanour changed when he embarked upon a social media and podcast tour, appearing with many of the characters we’ve already encountered at our circus. With a wide-eyed fervour, Grusch implied that Roswell was a genuinely recovered UFO and that Mussolini, via the Catholic Church, had secretly passed a crashed flying saucer to the US in 1936. What?
We know that Roswell was a Mogul Balloon. The Mussolini case is a well-established hoax from 1996. We know that, done and dusted. For Grusch to be claiming these as genuine alien spacecraft retrievals is a real concern. It seems like he’s been led up the garden path by the same oft-repeated stories and re-hashed nonsense, all of which lack evidence. The UFO community didn’t bat an eye, blindly accepting – with affirmative nods – his Roswell and Mussolini references. No one pushed back, no one questioned him. It’s a cycle that former AARO director, Sean Kirkpatrick, likened to a “self-licking ice cream cone” (Pentagon jargon for a non-productive endeavour that only perpetrates its own existence).
The video evidence, especially the Corbell supplied ‘Jellyfish’ and ‘Chandelier’ have been closely examined by experts like Mick West at Metabunk.com. The first cannot, with certainty, be distinguished from a bunch of party balloons, tied together, filmed in infra-red, and riding a breeze. “But, hold on, it’s military footage,” was the angry retort, as if there are no parties, with party balloons, on base.
The ‘Chandelier’ UFO is indistinguishable from a specific star-shaped lens refraction – hardly evidence for a spaceship from another world. In both cases, we can apply Occam’s Razor. This is the idea that, “all things being equal, the simplest solution is probably the correct one”. So, if it looks and acts like a bunch of balloons – and no further evidence to the contrary can be supplied – then it’s probably a bunch of balloons. It’s irrational to conclude otherwise, let alone posit ‘alien spacecraft’.
It is no wonder that the UFO front-liners have objected so vehemently to the latest report (February, 2024), from the body they insisted be established (AARO) to objectively examine the ‘evidence’ they hold so precious:
“AARO found no evidence that any USG investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology“.
And,
“AARO found no empirical evidence for claims that the USG and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology. AARO determined, based on all information provided to date, that claims involving specific people, known locations, technological tests, and documents allegedly involved in or related to the reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology, are inaccurate.“
Science is an exacting discipline. It’s the process of thinking in a clear and ordered manner so as to establish what is objectively real or not. Science allows us to sort fact from fiction with a coherent methodology, the core idea being that the onus of proof lies firmly with the proponent. However, with UFO mythology, the evidence always lies just out of reach. Evidence for crashed UFOs, it seems, will always be one more ‘cover-up’, one more excuse, one further barrier, away. The UFO circus has been promising ‘full disclosure’, year in, year out, for decades. Somehow, it never materialises.
The alternate theory I offer, that the UFO industry is show business – and miles from a scientific endeavor – is falsifiable. You can prove me wrong. All it will take is one article of proof that we can all agree is of alien manufacture or biology. Just one shred of evidence and you’ll blow my theory to smithereens. That’s all we skeptics having been asking over the past 75 years. Just one piece of alien technology (or flesh) that unequivocally answers the question, “Are we alone?” I don’t think we are asking too much.
While we are talking about science, here’s a question of import: where are the scientists in this crashed saucer/alien body claim? The proposal from the UFO circus is that crashed saucers and aliens are in possession of the US Government. If that is really the case, it implies that one of science’s (and humanity’s) most profound questions – whether we are alone in the universe – has already been answered. Science is actively, forcefully, and at immense expense, searching for life elsewhere in the galaxy; trying to answer this profound question.
We’ve been launching probes since the 1970s to explore the planets and moons in our solar system. We’re exploring Mars and the Moon right now. The James Webb Space Telescope explores deep space and, along with Hubble, has found hundreds of exoplanets, changing our understanding of the universe in which we live. The Drake equation, something that measures the possibility of encountering alien life, is constantly contracting into the positive as more data becomes available.
The book “Out of the Shadows: UFOs, The Establishment & the Official Cover-Up” by Dr David Clarke and Andy Roberts.
Science is a slow, evolving process, with many checks and balances. Proof of life elsewhere in our galaxy requires evidence of the highest quality. Evidence that can be checked, re-checked, and falsified. The question we are asking is so big that it requires nothing less than the most rigorous investigation by science. So, who are the scientists among the UFO entrepreneurs? The answer is that none of them are scientists. None!
You would think the field of ufology should be heavily populated with physicists, biologists, astronomers. Instead, it appears that the core of the myth-making machine consists of armchair specialists, all with day jobs.
However, all may not be lost. The ring-leaders of this intergalactic circus have something very special up their collective sleeve. They claim to be aware of a downed alien spacecraft so large that the US Government built a structure over it… “Big. It’s big. So big they built a building over it”, says Coulthart, during a Project Unity podcast. “It’s in a country outside the United States of America… I know this sounds preposterous… Let’s see this investigated… Let’s test these allegations before Congress.”
No, Ross, why don’t you simply reveal the location? You and your fellow tale-spinners will have the biggest story of all time. You will prove the ET hypothesis, and will no longer have to needlessly wrestle with Congress or AARO. It would be easy, just show your hand.
Will the UFO Entrepreneurs reveal the location of this eye-watering claim and take the cake? I doubt it. Based on the historic track record, there will be NO revelation, only more weak excuses. Once again, the grail will remain just out of reach. The circus, though, will undoubtedly roll back around.
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The public face of ufology is more akin to a circus than any scientific endeavour, argues Australian author, Ben Harris.
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