As usual, nothing in the latest tranche of UAP materials in Washington gives us what we really want (the acronym UFO went out with multicolored COVID-19 masks, in case you didn’t notice).
What we want is the smiling face of a genuine alien. Even a frowny face would do, although that would likely raise concerns to a whole new level.
Frankly, with the national debt, a war in Iran and the never-ending fix-it job on the Washington Mall’s reflecting pool, we just can’t afford to ramp up a space war with another planet right now. Don’t expect China or Russia to be much help in that funding problem, either, no matter how many spaceship phasers are pointed at them.
As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote recently for The New York Times, “If an authentic alien walked out of the halls of Congress, nobody would ever again have to ask if you ‘believe’ in aliens, just as nobody questions the existence of elephants. An alien of the alien files could become the literal elephant in the room.”
Take me to your leader?
Tyson goes on to whimsically speculate on what such an alien might look like, then poses what ought to be a serious question. What would happen if the alien made the clichéd demand, “Take me to your leader?”
“Who exactly would that be?” he wondered. “The president? The prime minister? The pope? Or would it be a multibillionaire or captain of industry?
“Not knowing anything in advance about human civilization, but picking up clues from our cultural norms before arrival from leaked radio waves, an alien might instead expect to meet Ryan Gosling, Taylor Swift or Oprah Winfrey.”
We probably should think of a good answer while there still is time. It’s not something we want to get wrong.
Unfortunately, the videos and descriptions coming from newly declassified items in Washington aren’t providing much help. Some of the newest videos come close to showing details of strange aircraft, or maybe deformed balloons — it’s hard to say.
The Voyager probes
Maybe aliens one day will encounter one of the two Voyager spacecraft NASA sent into the great void in 1977 as capsules of our culture. Each one carries a golden record containing, among other things, sounds of various animals and greetings in 55 languages, both ancient and modern. The irony is that the aliens would need to figure out how to play technology the rising generation of earthlings can no longer work.
A government diversion?
My skeptical meter about all of this is on high alert, however, after reading a Wall Street Journal investigation last year. It turns out some of the best-known stories about crashed aliens and other close encounters may have been planted by the government as a diversion.
A now-retired Air Force colonel confessed to the Pentagon in 2023 that he handed a Nevada bar owner photos of flying saucers many years ago to fool the Soviets.
“The whole exercise was a ruse to protect what was really going on at Area 51,” the Journal reported. That would have been the stealth bomber, the F-117.
The Journal also found evidence of what it called a “bizarre hazing ritual.”
“For decades, certain new commanders of the Air Force’s most classified programs, as part of their induction briefings, would be handed a piece of paper with a photo of what looked like a flying saucer,” the report said. They were sworn to secrecy, threatened with discipline or even execution if they told. Some never learned the information was made up.
So, the government has a big wall to climb to get over its own credibility problems when it comes to close encounters from other planets.
Still, plenty of evidence exists independent of the government, including eyewitness accounts from pilots and others. We are naturally enthralled. Given the unimaginably vast reaches of space, it makes no sense to believe we are alone.
But before you get carried away, consider this:
If a genuine alien appeared in the United States, our first question might be whether it is a Republican or Democrat. The second would be to ask whether anyone onboard the ship is pregnant and soon to deliver. If so, the child would automatically become a U.S. citizen, which would make it no longer an alien and eligible for food stamps. After that, the debate is likely to be out of this world.