The last time I wrote a sitting U.S. president about UFOs occurred after George W. Bush assumed office. Naturally, and I say "naturally" because the procedures to deal with UFO inquiries flow like the seasons, my letter was bumped over to NASA.
I was rather amused by the NASA spokesman's response, however. Nowhere in my letter had I mentioned "aliens" or delineated what I thought UFOs were, so I assume he was merely generating the canned computerized response stored in the ol' word processor -- the same words noted in the opening paragraph of the "fact sheet." Now, had (the late) Al Chop still worked in NASA's public affairs division, as he had so many years previously, maybe the reply would have been a lot more intriguing. In addition, one can obviously conjure up numerous non-alien reasons why UFOs should be investigated (the quest for a wealth of scientific knowledge, for one).
Anyway, this was the last time I ever received a regurgitated "fact sheet" from NASA regarding the UFO subject. By then, in comparison with my previous communication with both NASA and the Air Force, they weren't even offering specific names of civilian UFO organizations, suggesting instead that people contact other channels for such information.
I realize that over the past year I've offered several of these "fact sheets," and it's only for historical reasons that I do so. It's not my intention to foster a negative opinion of the UFO phenomenon -- I simply hope to display the continuous barrage of government-sanctioned public misinformation about UFOs. Our blood should boil every time we see the scandal-ridden University of Colorado UFO "study" offered as proof that UFOs merit no serious consideration. Government denials continue to be both unwise and dangerous in view of the evidence accumulated to date.
