Conclusion
The US government has made concerted efforts over the years to manage through entertainment media popular perceptions of UFOs while attempting simultaneously to massage its own public image in relation to the phenomenon.
If, though, as the government insists, UFOs are essentially non-existent, why the concern? In 1961, a NASA-commissioned report by the Brookings Institute, “Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs,” warned that an official announcement confirming the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial beings could have disastrous consequences for human civilisation:
“Anthropological files contain many examples of societies sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior.” 85
The report also advised that the government ask: “How might such information, under what circumstances, be presented to or withheld from the public for what ends?”86 However, although the Brookings report points to the concerns raised amongst powerful organisations about the potentially dangerous implications of UFOs and the need to control perceptions about the possibilities of alien life, it certainly does not constitute evidence of a UFO cover-up. A US government cover-up, though, is precisely what was alleged in 1999 in a ninety-page report detailing the results of an independent study for the Institute of Higher Studies for National Defence – a French military think-tank. The white paper, now commonly referred to as The COMETA Report, was compiled by a group of thirteen retired top-tier generals, admirals and government scientists (including General Bernard Norlain, the former head of the French Tactical Air Force, and Andre Lebeau, the former head of CNES [the French equivalent of NASA]) and documented the existence of unidentified flying objects and their implications for national security.87 Copies were received by President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. The report concluded that for the small percentage of UFO sightings which after exhaustive investigation and analysis could not be attributed to any known earthly technology or phenomena, the extraterrestrial hypothesis was valid. The report stated that some UFOs represent “completely unknown flying machines with exceptional performances that are guided by natural or
artificial intelligence”88 and noted that, although the extraterrestrial hypothesis “has not been categorically proven… strong presumptions exist in its favour.”89 The report then goes on to consider in detail the likely consequences of open extraterrestrial contact for politics, science and religion.
