On September 27, my government again had an opportunity to step forward and do the right thing, and the right thing would involve a current high-ranking official representing the U.S. to come forward and say something, anything, to lend support to former military officers daring to tell us the truth at the Hastings/Salas National Press Club affair. Instead, we got stone-cold silence, an attitude firmly entrenched over the decades and always topped off with a disinformation "fact sheet" from the Air Force, a document which exists only because the Colorado UFO "study" fudged, ignored and lied as taxpayers' money was squandered unscientifically to bolster preconceived negative opinions.
Billy Cox (see link), having received for his collection yet another copy of a USAF UFO "fact sheet" denial growing mold since 1969, was informed by Vicki Stein of the Pentagon's Air Force press desk that "This is what our position is. And we're standing by it." Well, excuuuuuuuuuze me, Ms. Stein, but I'll continue to stand by the words of Al Chop, my favorite all-time Pentagon USAF press desk chief, whose 1953 letter on DOD letterhead (reprinted on this blog more than once, use the search engine above and type in Al Chop Henry Holt) essentially assured publisher Henry Holt and Co. that if the maneuvers reported by experienced personnel were correct, the only remaining explanation for UFOs was extraterrestrial intelligence (the "interplanetary answer").
Air Force and government denials at any level do not speak well for us as a free society. If the U.S. can't provide answers about the UFO subject, our government at least must have the integrity to stand behind and support its honorable former and current military personnel. Instead, over and again throughout the years we document accounts of service personnel who experience profound UFO-related events, and they are either warned never to speak of these incidents, or to sign oaths promising non-disclosure, or are intimidated into "believing" that nothing happened at all. Such threats can be most convincing -- but ultimately for what purpose? We must all thank and hold in the highest regard former military personnel who eventually feel they must come forward and display the temerity to tell the people the truth, at least as much of the truth as they know, about UFO events clearly unrelated to human technology or ability.
But -- now you puzzle over the pictures shown here today? Well, it's still October, Halloween month, and since the seriousness of the UFO issue continues to be characteristically superceded by things of lesser substance, why not join in?
I guess we all like a good science fiction movie, but always remember that, during the 1950s, where government sources couldn't make UFO inquiries go away, the motion picture industry could. The unfortunate melding of the UFO subject with the popular genre of science fiction on film was destined to create ridicule on the streets, less pressure on Congress to explore sightings in depth and the need for even more sci-fi and horror movies craved by the public. Invasion of the Saucermen and The Man From Planet X were two fifties favorites at the drive-in and, as you can imagine just from the publicity stills shown here, the atmosphere for sober attention to UFOs wasn't about to improve anytime soon.
