Hello! I will be using this section of my home page to keep you updated on current projects, plans, things I’m thinking about, articles, speaking engagements, etc.
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Richard Thieme will discuss “UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry” at these libraries:
COMING NEXT:
North Shore Library – Saturday May 25 2013 1:00 p.m.
Kenosha Southwest Library – Tuesday June 4, 2013 6:30 p.m.
Delafield Library – Wednesday June 5, 2013 – 6:00 p.m.
Burlington Library – Saturday June 29, 2013 1:00 p.m.
AND
The Sci-Fi Cafe in Burlington WI Saturday June 29, 3013 at 3:30 p.m.
Waukesha Library – Wednesday July 10, 2013 6:30 p.m.
Port Washington – Saturday August 17, 2013 10:00 a.m.
New Berlin – Thursday September 12, 2013 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Beloit Public Library – October 29, 2013 – 7:00–8:30 p.m.
Gillett Library – November 6, 2013
Mead Library Sheboygan – November 7, 2013
Pending:
Cedarburg Library (post construction)
Pewaukee Library
Sussex Library
Hartford Library
Hartland Library
Muskego Library
Crystal Lake IL Public Library
Past:
2012
Grafton – Nov 12, 2012 6:30 p.m. – 35
Waterford – Dec 5, 2012 6:30 p.m. – 50
2013
Butler – Jan 15 2013 6:30 p.m. – 6
Random Lake – Feb. 4, 2013 6:30 p.m.- 20
Racine– Thursday March 7, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. – 15
Wauwatosa – Tuesday March 19, 2013 7:00 p.m. – 12
Elm Grove – Wednesday March 27, 2013 6:00 p.m. – 80
Milwaukee Public Library (downtown) Saturday, April 27, 2013 1:00 p.m.
Mequon – Thursday May 2, 2013 5:30-7:00 p.m.
West Bend Library – Saturday May 18, 2013 10:00 a.m.
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from Josh Corman, facilitator of the interview:
Dan Geer is CISO of CIA’s In-Q-Tel and a LOT of other things as well.
RT is an author and speaker.
The SOURCE Boston Keynotes are up on YouTube.
My goals were:
to honor them
get them unscripted
make them blush at times if possible (from love)
inspire the room to take a more active role
inspire the room topics focus on more consequential topics
…
get Richard to close w/ his Ferg’s Law excerpt
get Dan Geer to finish reciting “If” by Rudyard Kipling
…
IF you watch nothing else… watch these at the end.
…hauntingly special – and not only because we were all still reeling from the Marathon aftermath and confusion…
Herding cats has nothing on thinking one can steer these two titans 
Enjoy:
All will eventually be posted within the schedule:
Joshua
P.S. ’twas priceless to faux “out” Geer as the leader of Anonymous…
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University of Wisconsin –
Madison
Milwaukee
Stout
Eau Claire
Parkside
Waukesha
Washington County
University Research Park
Wisconsin Medical College
Marquette University
Alverno College
Cardinal Stritch University
Mount Mary College
National-Louis University
Wisconsin Lutheran College
Purdue University – CERIAS
Technology, Literacy and Culture Distinguished Speakers Series of the University of Texas
Nathan B. Stubblefield Distinguished Lecturer in Telecommunications Systems Management at Murray State University, Murray KY
University of Calgary, Calgary Alberta – “Design Matters” Lecture Series
Illinois Institute of Technology
Loyola University – Chicago
Milwaukee Area Technical College
Gateway Technical College – Racine
Chippewa Valley Technical College
Waukesha County Technical College
University of Chicago Club – Milwaukee
Phi Beta Kappa – Milwaukee Chapter
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It’s Identity, Stupid
by Richard Thieme
Published n Cyber Defense Magazine at RSA March 2013
We know that identity is a critical issue for security practitioners, but have we really grasped that identity has become THE existential issue for life in the early 21st century?
Academics write scholarly tomes on morphing personas and juggling online personalities; counter-cultural spokesfolk like Jacob Applebaum in his 29C3 keynote articulate a perceived need for learning how to erase tracks that linger in the snows of cyberspace; traffic analysis and those from whom and to whom the traffic moves requires more and more storage, faster and faster processing.
But it’s deeper than that.
The fact is, we live among a multiplicity of nested identities that are linked and simultaneously morphing, identities that we determine at the comment of both contemplation and action because the decisions we make about being and thinking and doing determine the clusters of thoughts and actions that in turn determine HOW WE ARE PERCEIVED by Others – and the other may be Big Brother, or one of many little brothers gathering, parsing and selling our data, or casual friends who interpret who they think we are unselfconsciously as they engage with our symbolic presence – also on the fly – and assume and presume us to be who they think we are (see: phishing).
Identity – from that of “the individual,” a social construction, post-renaissance, post printing press – to the citizenship we reference as our primary source of being-in-the-world – is on the move. And because those levels are nested and linked, a change in one means a change in the others, the way pulling a side of a rhomboid on a computer monitor alters the area and the shape, yes, but above all, the relationships of the parts to each other and to the perceived whole. And it is relationships that determine the whole, even more than what is related. Relationships frame what we think we see, more than the things we thinn we see, and those who know this and achieve mastery and control over most behaviors in that regard, rule the identity space – which is now the space of offensive and defensive activities alike.
But it’s worse than that.
Implicit ethical and moral dimensions emerge from new social and cultural structures as a result of ongoing technological transformations, so any discussion of ethics – that is, the right or appropriate behavior in any given context – in relationship to the implementation of new technologies, must take into account these multiple dimensions. The philosophical and religious systems that permeate society are also undergoing transformation, which means that prior paradigms have become chaotic seas of uncorrelated data in transitional cognitive spaces. The frames in which emergent properties, new patterns of data, and new emergent selves – beyond “individuality” – all live and move and have their being, are not yet clear, nor do they have names we can use as if we all mean the same things by our words. We still call these vehicles for self-expression “horseless carriages,” as it were, using terms that are fading from sight, and have not yet found a way to talk about “driving” and “automobiles.”
All this is most evident in the world of security and professional intelligence.
Post WorldWar II, R&D in the intelligence community and military spheres have shared responsibility for creating technological engines that have transformed human identity and therefore the Kuhnian paradigm in which we frame possibilities for action. Action means options, and options mean ethics. (As I said, I define ”ethics” as options that are most congruent with our core notions of identity, self, integrity, and “the right thing to do.”)
Definitions of everyday reality—privacy, security — continue to be transformed by technologies of surveillance, information, and communication. Those technologies are invisible frames because we live inside the picture, so if we define ethical issues in the context created by prior technologies then we derive familiar recognizable and comforting concepts as a result, but ones that no longer fit the real-life context created by new technologies. Our ethical decisions are inauthentic. We deceive others, yes, but first we deceive ourselves. That is the heart of the problem.
Between times, we live in the fog of war. In a world which posits terrorists (i.e., enemies of social and economic order) as the Other, the mind of society is the battlefield. Images and ideas are the primary weapons, and the means by which they come into being and move through human networks is the subtext of all security. The paradigms we use determine the questions we are capable of thinking and asking. The formulation of relevant questions may be more important than the answers.
Let me highlight a few key concepts:
(1) Information security as one task, both offensive and defensive, of the intelligence community sanctions breaking foreign laws while prohibiting similar activities on American soil. We have no friends or allies “out there,” only targets (and maybe “in here,” too). But simple distinctions of “foreign” and “domestic” no longer hold. The convergence of enabling technologies of intrusion, interception, and panoptic reach, combined with a sense of urgency about the counterterror imperative and a clear mandate from our leaders to do everything possible to defeat an amorphous non-state entity defined by behaviors rather than boundaries, borders, or even a clear ideological allegiance, has created an ominous but invisible set of conditions that undermine the previous cornerstones of law, ethics, and even religious traditions.
(2) Identity is a function of boundaries. An “individual self” defined by a boundary around biological processes and the complex of energy and information radiated by those processes is undermined by the erosion of those boundaries by the use of connective technologies.
(3) Security, privacy, and intelligence gathering are corollaries of individual and national identities and how they relate to one another.
(4) Security is a function of boundaries. Boundaries define the “other” that threatens “us” and “us” is a felt experience of clan, tribal, and societal kinship still. Prior to the emergence of writing and the religions it facilitated, the “enemy” was the “Other.” Ancient societies defined enemies as non-members of our tribe. After writing, the enemy became – e.g. in Christianity– that in ourselveswhich must be fought, resisted, or transcended. This shift in consciousness was a result of emergent technologies of writing.
When the enemy is “within” the body politic, defined as an element that threatens societal order and economic well-being, defined no longer as a nation-state that threatens our political existence as a nation state, then the distinction between criminals and terrorists or religious/political dissenters and supporters of terrorism blurs. Accordingly the tools considered appropriate to their identification and neutralization will blur.
We continue to speak of ethical norms in relationship to the cultural past as if it is still the context of our beliefs and actions. We speak of individuals as primary moral agents. We speak of nation states as primary determinants of our collective identities. We speak of the intelligence mission as if “we” who live inside one nation are intercepting or penetrating or subverting the technical processes and social dynamics of others who are also “inside” the boundary of a nation state that defines them.
Those distinctions no longer hold.
(6) Current technologies make speaking of interception obsolete. Boundaries between elements of the network, between the networks that make up the network, are arbitrary and porous. We live in a world without walls. Every attribute of a process or structure that broadcasts or transmits information about itself by any means can be detected, often at the source. Often enough, those who built the system in the first place engineer information to come to them. “Here” and “there” are distinctions without a difference.
(7) Identity at a fundamental level is therefore transformed. Digital identities can be appropriated, yes, but more than that, we invent them on the fly and determine at the moment of thought or action or execution to which matrix of equally transitory and transitional attributes we are related as a node in the network. Our identities exist as potentialities made actual by our intention at the moment of action. They are the equivalent of quantum states, fixed only when expressed.
Identity in relationship to security is a matter of observationand not assertion. Only multi-level observation penetrates the skin sufficiently to reach the meta-level determined by actions which may support or contradict identity-assertions.
(9) As boundaries go liquid, the task of defining appropriate behaviors in relationship to moral norms becomes difficult because the phrase “moral norms” is a metaphor for the context that is generally invisible to members of a society but not to sophisticated security professionals, an elite sanctioned to manipulate those underlying norms on behalf of ends considered important enough to justify a variety of means to achieve them.
Therefore:
Security and intelligence professionals exercise an implicit, de facto thought leadership because they create structures that bind and inform society and civilization. They create frames of human behavior that determine how we think about ourselves as possibilities for action. Their real implicit charge is no longer “to defend and protect a nation” but tostabilize a world.
The dire possibility of societal disintegration elevates the moral responsibility of the security and intelligence communities to a higher level. Linked in cooperative activity, they are responsible for maintaining social and global order at a level of understanding far beyond that formulated in the past by any one nation. These communities in the aggregate constitute a global community of practitioners who share an ethos and modalities of operation not available to ordinary citizens; they have thereby created for themselves an intrinsic vocation or calling to maintain global order in a way that is consistent with the ethical norms and moral order articulated by the great cultural traditions even as those traditions are also transformed by diverse technologies—and even though they and we recognize that in practice that moral order and those ethical norms are often violated as a matter of practice.
Well, this is but the beginning of a conversation. No one said it would be easy, did they?
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A Short List of Selected Resources on UFOs
UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry (Anomalist Books: 2012) by Dr. Michael Swords, a retired professor who taught at Western Michigan University for 30 years, and Robert Powell, with co-authors Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester-Olmos, Bill Chalker, Barry Greenwood, Richard Thieme, Jan Aldrich and Steve Purcell – from reviewers: “This is the best book about the UFO phenomena that was ever written” and “UFOs and Government is a triumph of sober, conscientious scholarship unlikely to be equaled for years go come”
The UFO Encyclopedia : The Phenomenon from the Beginning (2 Volume Set) by Jerome Clark. Omnigraphics. 1998. – The best by a serious thoughtful scholar. The two volume set is superior to anything in the field.
The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial by Jerome Clark. Visible Ink. New York. 1998. An abridged version of the encyclopedia.
The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry by J. Allen Hynek (1975, reissued Marlowe and Company 1998) - A plea by an astronomer and respected scientist for the scientific method to be applied to UFO data, with clear criteria for doing so, above all, eliminating reports from consideration which can not be analyzed appropriately.
The controversy over unidentified flying objects in America: 1896-1973 by David Jacobs (Thesis – University of Wisconsin, Madison: 1973) – A historical review for a Ph. D. in history by a man who became a professor of History at Temple University and – much later – immersed himself in the study of abduction experience. Until “UFOs and Government,” the best history of the subject available, although now dated.
The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects by Edward J. Ruppelt (Ace Books: 1956) – (compare first and second editions) – a thoughtful reflection on his experience as an early head of the USAF Project Blue Book. Still one of the best resources.
The UFO Evidence – Volume 2 : A Thirty Year Report by Richard H. Hall on behalf of NICAP (The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) is a classic, with numerous incidents analyzed and a taxonomy of vehicles reported by witnesses. This edition (if you can find it and afford it) is best. Hall also wrote Uninvited Guests (Aurora Press. 1988), a popular account.
The UFO Enigma by Dr. Peter A. Sturrock. Warner Books. 1999. and A Tale of Two Sciences: Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist. Exoscience: Palo Alto CA. 2009. – Two mature, thoughtful works by a recognized physicist whose fine work with plasmas was in the open and whose research with UFO and other anomalous phenomena was not. The latter book documents his frustration with trying to do science which was not acceptable to the academy. See my review at www.thiemeworks.com.
The Myth and Mystery of UFOs by Thomas E. Bullard (University Press of Kansas: 2010). A fine scholarly work which emphasizes the social and cultural contexts of UFO experience and reports in relationship to history and myth. The emphasis is on how a percept travels through humans –bodies, communities, frames of thought, constructions of reality – and is transformed along the way into acceptable concepts. The author concludes that the phenomena is real, compelling, and demands serious investigation and study.
CE-5: Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind by Richard F. Haines, Ph. D. (Sourcebooks Inc. 1999) – A compendium by a NASA psychologist of encounters that suggest intelligent interaction between anomalous vehicles and people. Haines has also documented encounters by airline pilots and produced a compendium of 3500 cases. (google NARCAP for details and other publications)
The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up by Terry Hansen. Xlibris: 2000. – A journalist explores the failure of the mainstream media to cover the phenomena in a serious way.
Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis by Paul R. Hill. Hampton Roads Publishing Company. 1995. A veteran at NASA, he was allowed to collect reports inside the agency for years on the condition that he keep it quiet. His daughter posthumously published this attempt to understand the physics of the characteristics shown by anomalous vehicles within the constraints of science that had not yet advanced to a level appropriate to account for the reported data.
Incident at Exeter. John G. Fuller. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1966. A popular account of a major incident. It all depends on the reports and data, of course.
The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters by Frances Stonor Saunders. The New Press. New York. 1999. (published in the UK under the title “Who Paid the Piper? by Granta Publications. – Nothing on UFOs here but illuminates methods and covert action by the early CIA in the realm of the social sciences and art worlds. Good for contextual understanding of the CIA in the 1950s-1960s.
The Cash-Landrum UFO Incident: Three Texans are Injured During an Encounter with a UFO and Military Helicopters by John F. Schuessler. (Self-published 1998) A well-documented incident which calls into question the accountability of government units to or for physical injuries during an unusual experience which may have involved radioactivity.
Encounter at Buff Ledge: A UFO Case History by Walter N. Webb (J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies: 1994). A fascinating account of an abduction experience recalled independently by the two who experienced it. The result of ten years of thorough, serious, responsible investigation, this incident ranks with the Hill case and the story of three women in Stanford, Kentucky in 1976 (http://ufos.about.com/od/bestufocasefiles/p/stanford.htm) for those interested in the abduction phenomena. Also see the Betty and Barney Hill case in 1961, the Pascagoula MS incident in 1973, and the Travis Walton incident in 1975.
Google or read at www.thiemeworks.com:
“How to Build a UFO … Story” by Richard Thieme. originally published in Internet Underground and anthologized in numerous collections.
“Are There UFOs on Mars?” by Richard Thieme, at www.thiemeworks.com, with a collection of interviews
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CHOICE: a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries. A Division of the American Library Association. www.choicemag.org
CURRENT REVIEWS FOR ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
FEBRUARY 2013 VOL. 50 NO.06
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
History, Geography and Area Studies
The following review appeared in the February 2013 issue of CHOICE.
UFOs and government: a historical inquiry, by Michael Swords et al. Anomalist Books, 2012. 580 p. ISBN 9781933665580 pbk. $29.95
The bibliography of the UFO phenomenon is vast but often dreary. This straightforward study of the limited topic of government responses to sightings of UFOS–unidentified flying objects–is an exception. The idea that UFOs had extraterrestrial origins (a hypothesis not favored by governments) is only one of the many explanations the authors discuss. Although UFO sightings have supposedly occurred throughout history, the modern UFO phenomenon had its origins in the final days of WW II. Initially, Western officials feared that UFOs were NAZI or Soviet technology. Cold war fears caused the US and other governments to obsess about the national security implications of UFOs. Scientific investigation and transparency were only occasionally part of the response. Combined with inconsistent government policies, the response resulted in confusion and suspicion, which inspired conspiracy theories. Although these nine authors are part of the UFO community, they are not advocates of fringe theories. Their narrative is firmly based on the available sources. The writing can be dense and sometimes convoluted, reflecting the military sources that form the evidence. A useful resource for the study of a controversial topic. SUMMING UP: Recommended. All levels/libraries. — R. Fritze, Athens State University.
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“UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry” is an exceptional and exciting book. Written by the UFO History Group – serious researchers and historians composed of Swords, Powell, Svahn, Olmos, Chalker, Greenwood, Thieme, Aldrich and Purcell – it brings analytical complexity of the UFO phenomena from World War II up to current days. Their work stands on the shoulder of facts, official documents, and sterling sources. The book is focused towards military and intelligence circles and describes in detail their long-term struggle on how to handle the unwanted problem of UFOs. If only the phenomena could simply go away and leave them in peace. But it persists, without mercy, over and over again. Historical treatment of the official UFO research within the United States is presented with great care along with the controversies that followed projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book. Years passed. Different officials within different policies tried to deal with the issue, one way or another.
It was especially interesting to compare official policies with the internal notes of Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of project Blue Book and who wrote a classic book “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.” “UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry” brought extended treatment to General Cabell’s 1951 meeting, which was mentioned only in passing in Ruppelt’s book. Notes from the meeting show that Cabell demanded a serious approach regarding UFOs. Ruppelt previously described in his original book that “every word of the two-hour meeting was recorded on a wire recorder. The recording was so hot that it was later destroyed.”
It was impressive to follow the chapter on the Colorado Project which caused the closure of the USAF investigation of the phenomena. Audiotaped lectures from the CUFOS archives of Robert Low to the JPL at Caltech from October 1967 shows how strong the subject was polarized between personal opinions and official inertia. This chapter is a great companion piece to previous works of Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s “The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry,” David. R. Saunders’ “UFOs? Yes!: Where the Condon committee went wrong,” and Wendy Connors’ audio set “Faded Discs.” Documents and facts from Sweden, Australia, Spain, France, Belgium, the former Soviet Union and Brazil, emphasized the international context of the whole problem.
In the Australian chapter, the Sea Fury radar-visual incident with UFO from August 31, 1954 was presented. The pilot was instructed by air-traffic control to turn his airplane in a circle for identification. That maneuver showed that his aircraft was discernable from two other close targets. A similar radar-visual case, that I am personally aware of, happened at the end of 1970s in the former Yugoslavia where a pilot was also instructed to turn his aircraft through a maneuver for identification purposes. At that moment, the UFO accelerated towards the aircraft almost causing a collision. The case involved AIRPROX which implicated aviation safety so it was interesting for me to compare similarities between both cases.
The book also explains the unique situation in France because their official UFO research program, from GEPAN, SEPRA to GEIPAN, is located within the French Space Agency CNES where a scientific approach is applied. Although the official UFO program in the United States was terminated after the review of Condon’s committee, other programs in other countries are still active. It can be argued that due to the lack of direct experience in the UFO field, countries that are still in the UFO business, will encounter the same obstacles and in the end, they will draw the same conclusions that Project Blue Book did. On the other hand, France is already 35 years into the UFO field, which is 13 years more than the length of the entire Blue Book mandate. Official projects and investigations of these complex aerial phenomena are ongoing, and that is the fact.
This book can serve as a perfect briefing document for every government employee, military analyst, non-commissioned officer, officer and researcher which could be, or already is, confronted with this issue. France has GEIPAN; Chile has CEFAA; Uruguay has CRIDOVNI; Argentine has CEFA, etc. If any employee of those projects, or any other serious scholar from any other field, will need a historical broad overview of the UFO phenomena, this book will provide a great service. If this issue will ever become academically recognized in the unpredictable future, “UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry” should be an obligatory literature at those colleges. My opinion is that this is the best book about the UFO phenomena that was ever written.
Giuliano Marinkovic
Former Military Intelligence SIGINT operator, Croatian Army
Journalist and Writer
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UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry
A Book Review By Jerome Clark
Among the most discussed issues in UFO history, dating back to the advent of flying discs in the latter 1940s, are these: What does the U.S. government know about UFOs, and is it concealing earth-shaking secrets?
The issue formed the core of the first two UFO-themed books ever published, Behind the Flying Saucers by Frank Scully and The Flying Saucers Are Real by Donald Keyhoe, both from 1950. In Keyhoe’s view the Air Force had deduced that saucers were visiting from another planet, probably Mars (which even astronomers then thought a possible abode of an intelligent race), from its analysis of sightings by reliable observers including its own pilots and other trained personnel. Scully’s book, based on what turned out to be bogus claims by two notorious grifters, anticipated later allegations that UFOs had crashed and been recovered in New Mexico. Scully’s yarn was situated near Aztec, not near Roswell, but the tale was the same in its broad details: extraterrestrial craft, alien bodies.
Today, according to the occasional poll taken on the subject, even the casually interested American is likely to suspect that the government knows more about UFOs than it’s willing to own up to. It’s hardly irrational to harbor suspicions of that sort. Decades of puzzling sightings from credible citizens of all conceivable backgrounds – sometimes backed up by multiple or independent witnesses as well as sophisticated instrumentation – render so dubious the routine official denials that one can easily conclude that government sources are being much less than forthcoming. It’s also true that the Air Force and its Project Blue Book resisted furiously – and successfully — when a civilian group, Keyhoe’s National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), lobbied for Congressional hearings on UFOs in the late 1950s and 1960s.
These facts and considerations have generated a considerable literature, most of it more speculative than factual. At one end are relatively conservative Keyhoe-like notions; at the other extreme are stories of government/ET contacts and comparable face-to-face interactions. Roswell-based theories are somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.
For those curious about these things, UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry by Michael Swords and Robert Powell (San Antonio and Charlottesville: Anomalist Books, 2012, 579 pages, $29.95, paperback) ought to be required reading. After all this time it is possible to glean some perspective on what governments, our own and others, have and have not done about the UFO sightings that came to their respective attentions. Most of this fat volume is taken up with the history of American officialdom’s UFO policies and practices, but other chapters interestingly survey related matters in Sweden, France, Spain, and Australia.
The authors – Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Bill Chalker, Barry Greenwood, Richard Thieme, Jan Aldrich, and Steve Purcell also contribute in a secondary role – draw on the extensive documentation that has become possible through releases of documents by various governmental agencies. Interviews with those willing to speak on the record supplement the paper trail. What results is as thorough and accurate recovery of the record as is possible in the early 21st Century.
The story is a riveting one. Americans, of course, will be most concerned with what was happening within our national boundaries. The answer: a whole lot of deeply puzzling sightings versus many years of official apathy punctuated with active hostility. Official interest was (and it is correct to refer to it in the past tense) sporadic, lasting at a perhaps too-generous estimate no more than three years. The first official body to take on the problem, Project Sign, decided after a few months of inquiry that the flying discs were probably extraterrestrial in origin – which was definitely nothing its Pentagon superiors wanted to hear. The succeeding Project Grudge, barely active for much of its existence, devoted its time to minimal investigation while conjuring up absurdly inadequate solutions to reports. Between late 1951 and mid-1953 Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt led the project, retitled Blue Book in March 1952, and tried to do the job right. These were Blue Book’s golden years, never to be repeated. From then on, it was full-tilt debunking until the project shut down in 1969.
The full history of those useless years is still a fascinating one, however. Those looking for sinister government machinations can find it in the recommendations of the CIA’s Robertson Panel, which convened for less than a week in January 1953 but laid down recommendations that drove official policy forever afterwards. The panel’s scientists dismissed the reality of UFOs practically on the spot, but they thought sightings and beliefs influenced by reports constituted the true menace to national security. The panel urged that people be discouraged from making those reports by manipulation of popular opinion, and it advocated the monitoring of private UFO groups. Sightings would be quickly explained, and even if people didn’t stop making them, they would at least be discouraged from talking about them.
How American officialdom went about doing its dismal deeds comprises much of the narrative of UFOs and Government. If it’s discouraging, sometimes infuriating, reading, the book is yet full of life and color. The heroes are few, albeit not nonexistent, and the villains are many. The drama never flags, even when the good guys – those who advocated real investigation and empirical analysis – are frustrated at nearly every turn by Blue Book, the Pentagon, and an insanely compliant press which embraces official pronouncements, however spurious or laughable on their face. Meanwhile, the book continually highlights mostly little-known, seriously enigmatic, yet well-documented reports which make it depressingly clear what was not being accounted for or addressed all the while.
Before this, only three books have sought to address the official history in a responsible, grounded fashion: Ruppelt’s The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), David M. Jacobs’s The UFO Controversy in America (1975), and Lawrence Fawcett and Barry Greenwood’s Clear Intent (1984). UFOs and Government supersedes all of these fine works, not only by bringing the story up to date but by filling in the early record with what we have learned since.
How could this have happened? How could what is surely destined to be seen as among the major scientific questions of the 20th Century been so irresponsibly neglected? UFOs and Government can’t answer that question, which will take up a fair amount of space in the future literature of science, sociology, and psychology. At least among military and intelligence decision-makers , however, it appears reasonably evident that once they observed that UFOs didn’t act like an imminent threat, they could be ignored while more pressing Cold War anxieties consumed policy-makers’ attention.
Of course, nobody wanted to put it that crassly when so much of the public was demanding something more substantive than rote statements of rejection. So eventually, often unconsciously, an evolving mind-set declared that UFOs were being essentially ignored because the sightings didn’t amount to anything – a judgment the military was not actually entitled to make, but which it did anyway because contrary pressures (from civilians and UFO organizations) could easily be contained. As for the dismissive scientists, no excuse is imaginable, and history will render its verdict, sure to be harsh, in due course.
Where does this leave intriguing controversies like the Roswell incident? UFOs and Government handles that question as well as any astute observer could, with agnosticism. Yes, it concedes, the official explanation (a balloon employed in a secret intelligence experiment) is unconvincing to most. At the same time, no evidence exists that so colossal an event as the recovery of an alien spacecraft affected official policy, which it would have pushed in a radical direction. To every available appearance, Roswell and its aftermath vanished into a black hole. If something is being covered up, whatever that something is, it remains for all practical purposes invisible. It doesn’t play a role in any detectable history.
UFOs and Government is a triumph of sober, conscientious scholarship unlikely to be equaled for years go come.
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“UFOs and Government.”
Keith Basterfield
As many blog readers will be aware, I facilitated a team of Adelaide based researchers (members of the Australian UFO Research Association) who looked for, located, and documented the file holdings of the Australian government, between 2003-2008. I now continue this work as an individual, as I slowly find more and more files in the National Archives of Australia. It is for this reason, as well as others, that I looked forward to reading a new, scholarly, work titled “UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry” written by members of the UFO History group, and published in 2012. The publisher is Anomalist Books of San Antonio, Tx, USA. ISBN is 19-33-66-55-80. My copy was courtesy of a member of the group, Jan Aldrich.
Members of the Group:
A little rundown of the group’s members is in order. Jan Aldrich is formerly of the US Army; Bill Chalker is a renowned Australian researcher who was one of the first to get a look at Australian government files; and Barry Greenwood is co-author of the groundbreaking book “Clear Intent.” Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos worked with the Spanish government’s Air Force to review their files for public release; Robert Powell is MUFON’s Research Director; Steve Purcell is a member of MUFON’s STAR field investigation team; Clas Svahn is vice-chair of the Archives for UFO Research; Michael Swords is a board member of CUFOs, and Richard Thieme is an author and speaker. As you can see, the list of contributors to this work, speaks volumes about the serious nature of the quality of the contents.
The USA:
The major portion of the book is dedicated to the exploration of the phenomenon by various elements of the US government. 13 of the 20 chapters of this massive 580 page book relates to the US experience. However, this work starts with two chapters which discuss pre 1947 events in non-US countries. The first delves into World War Two observations of what came to be known as “foo fighters.” The second takes a look at the Scandinavian “Ghost Rockets.”
This introductory material paves the way for an excellent, in-depth review of the US government’s actions (and inactions) regarding what started off as “Flying Discs.” We read of the formation and demise of Projects Sign and Grudge; of reports during the Korean War; and the official response to the 1952 Washington events.
There were some surprises for me in this book. In Feb 1950 the US Navy presented an intelligence analysis on the subject. The book states “This is a mild surprise to modern historians because, although it has been known that the Navy was getting copies of Air Force reports at least since late 1948 the existence of a formalised method of UFO case analysis by Naval Intelligence has only been suspected.” (p.90.)
“The CIA solution:”
Chapter nine was of particular interest to me, as I had previously read much material on the involvement of the CIA. “The CIA analysts viewed the Air Force handling of the UFO problem as honest but inadequate.” (p.175.)
Chapter 12 “Something Closer This Way comes” reminded me that the American experience, up to that stage, was one where the “unknowns” were in the air and not on the ground. This was opposed to the 1954 experience in France where many close encounters on the ground were being reported. This, to a degree, set the US government’s responses in context.
The classic Nov 1957 Levelland, Texas, “close encounters” with multiple events, met with a limited USAF response. Lt Col William Brunson’s reports included “…would suggest that Saucedo was unreliable, the sheriff had seen lighting and electrical storms, and Neville Wright must have encountered a rare case of ball lighting.” (p.254.)
NICAP v the USAF:
The saga of the civilian group NICAP versus the USAF is examined in depth, telling the story of NICAP’s use of the political arena to push for serious research. The book provides a far more in depth exploration of this era than most others. We read of the characters on both side of the debate.
The 1960′s:
Moving into the 1960′s we come to chapter 14 “The Colorado project” and find strong support for the fact that the Project lacked a proper, scientific approach. In an interesting twist, this lack of scientific rigour “…awakened many academics and intellectuals, and they came, at least briefly, out of the closet with their interest.” (p.332.)
With the release of the University of Colorado report came the demise of the USAF “Project Blue Book.” “…the defense function could be performed within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project Blue Book” said the USAF. (p.336.)
The final chapter of the US involvement, chapter 15, takes the story from 1969 through to the “Stephenville lights” of 2008. “Government agencies continued to be interested in the phenomenon, as we have seen.” (p.349.) The Roswell incident was responded to by the USAF in two reports “The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico desert,” in 1994, and the 1997 “The Roswell Report: Case Closed.”
Other countries:
The government response in some other countries has been different to that of the USA.
In chapter 16 “The Swedish Military’s UFO History” we learn of the interaction between the official Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOA, now FOI) and the civilian group UFO-Sweden. “This cooperation and sharing of information between a civilian UFO group and a military UFO desk is unique.” (p.371.)
As regards to the Australian experience “The Australian response was more of a middle ground,” (p373) between the USAF’s no official program from 1969, and the UK’s, secrecy. Bill Chalker competently covers the RAAF’s involvement, together with the early efforts of the Department of Civil Aviation. Harry Turner’s extensive investigations and role, are well set out. A number of well known, and not so well known Australian cases, are documented, together with the official Australian response.
Chapters 18 and 19 set out the government’s response in Spain and France respectively. “Historically speaking, two stages are distinguished in the performance of the Spanish Air Force in the UFO business: (a) secrecy (1962-1990) and (b) disclosure (1990-1999.)” (p.437.)
In France, science studies the phenomenon, not the French Air Force. “The support provided to GEIPAN by the French government illustrates the significance that one of the world’s major powers places upon the scientific understanding of the UFO phenomenon.” (p.453.)
Finally, chapter 20 takes a brief look at the government’s response in Belgium, the Soviet Union and Brazil.
Conclusion:
The book’s Epilogue includes “This is exactly our conclusion – many UFO incidents have occurred and are documented in the governmental sources, for which no obvious explanation was, nor is, available.” (p.469.)
My final thoughts:
“UFOs and Government” is a thoroughly, well researched and enjoyable read. It makes a magnificent contribution to our knowledge of global governmental response to the phenomenon.
I heartily recommend it as an essential part of any serious researcher’s library.
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