OPINION:
For us old science fiction buffs, the line between science fiction and science fact has always been blurry. But we’ve been promised that soon, the two will turn out to be one and the same.
NASA and the Pentagon have released some formerly classified files and tapes of the “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena,” (“UAPs”) formerly called UFOs. (The NASA clarification of terms doesn’t clarify anything. These “phenomena” have been seen in the air, in space and under water.)
Most of us have seen the movies, including comedies about alien beings visiting Earth. We know, from the “Men in Black” series, that human thinking is considered a disease among our alien visitors.
We also “learned” that alien beings are among us because our interstellar visitors regard Earth as a sanctuary, like “Casablanca without the Nazis.”
But amidst all the fun and games, we have some evidence from the government files and tapes of the possibility of interstellar visitors. There are satellite images, photos taken on Apollo moon missions and testimony of civilian witnesses.
We know, from those records, that UFOs have been spotted around Area 51, the base in Nevada at which some of the UFO data has been gathered, beginning in 1949, when a “fireball” thought to be made of copper passed over an area of New Mexico.
Collections of copper dust had been gathered at the time the original phenomenon was spotted. UFO sightings have continued from at least that date.
Alan Shepard, our first man in space who later played golf on the moon, never commented on UFOs. But several of his fellow astronauts did. Edgar Mitchell, Shepard’s lunar module pilot, gave many interviews later in his life that assured people we had been visited by alien beings and that the government had covered the visits up.
On Apollo 11, our first moon landing, astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that he saw flashes of light and a very large object outside the capsule. Were aliens taking pictures of the rudimentary spacecraft?
On Apollo 12, astronauts Alan Bean and Pete Conrad described seeing particles, illuminated debris and flashing streaks of light “sailing off in space.” They also photographed several “unidentified phenomena” above the lunar horizon.
In December 1972, a photograph taken through the Apollo 17 capsule’s window showed “three ’dots’ in a triangular formation in the lower right quadrant of the lunar sky that is clearly visible upon magnification of the image.”
None of this proves anything about our supposed interstellar visitors. Most or all of these phenomena can be explained without the presence of alien beings, by natural causes.
But it does allow some amusement about conspiracy theories.
The most popular among these theories is that the U.S. government is hiding facts from the public. But from Aldrich Ames to the Walker spy ring to Edward Snowden, we’ve seen that our government doesn’t keep secrets terribly well.
President Trump’s “Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters” (PURSUE) is supposedly hot on the UAP trail. Mr. Trump is reportedly moving to release more classified files on UAPs. And the second tranche of documents may not be more illuminating than the first.
Other governments — some with space programs, such as China and Russia — could be accused of the same secrecy. But so far, they have not been. It’s highly unlikely that Russian or Chinese astronauts would be less observant than ours.
Or maybe something has read the plaques we left on the moon saying that we came in peace.
Perhaps God or some unknown race of beings set Earth up as an experiment, as we were told in “Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy,” and the answer to life, the universe and everything really is “42.”
It seems unlikely that we are alone as sentient beings in the whole universe, but that may yet be the case. And maybe God has a sense of humor far greater than we give Him credit for.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
Follow the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.