“US officials can’t explain UFOs, but aliens not ruled out,” the RTE headline caught the eye. Such a story with have caught the imagination in teenage years when our neighbouring county of Wiltshire was said to be the UFO capital of England. Now the report that is to be released to the United States Congress seems likely to generate more heat than light, particularly as part of it is to remain classified.
The most famous story of an encounter with supposed extra-terrestrial life was more than seventy years ago at Roswell in New Mexico. The United States Air Force reported that a weather balloon had crashed, a story that was accepted for thirty years, until the 1970s when a multitude of theories began to emerge.
Stories now abound concerning what is supposed to have happened – a spacecraft with alien life forms is said to have crashed. There has never been evidence presented to suggest that the original story about the weather balloon was not true, but efforts to dispel speculation simply add to the conspiracy theories.
In a time of “fake news,” and a distrust of any authority or source that is associated with the “Establishment,” it has become impossible to argue with those who believe that the remains of an alien spacecraft are concealed at the air force base. There are those who are convinced that their theories, however fanciful, have as much validity as assertions based on empirical research and rigorous evidence. To appeal to scientific or academic writers is to be accused of being in thrall to “experts.”
If research and evidence are not convincing, perhaps appeal to people’s own powers of logic can prompt thought.
UFOs are now described as “unidentified aerial phenomena.” If these phenomena are believed to be alien visitors, then there must be consideration of the reality of the space through which those craft must have travelled. If these craft have come through space to reach Earth, then logic should tell those who believe this has happened that the technological expertise of those travelling in them is infinitely greater than the technology possessed by those those of us here on Earth. Such is their technology that if such alien life forms should be inclined to communicate with us, they would already have done so, in an unambiguous way. If the putative aliens have not communicated, either they are not there, or they do not wish to talk.
