Was it mostly hysteria back then or what? Why do we not have "flaps" like that now?
Good question. Clearly the common motif throughout 90% of the accounts detailed by Keyhoe and Ruppelt are unexplained phenomenon observed almost exclusively by military personnel (or military technology, in the case of radar-only "sightings"). I'm inclined to believe that the explosion of sightings in the 1950's was certainly enhanced by "public hysteria"-- people feared the U.S.S.R. and were watching the skies more than ever-- but that's really more in the realm of the general public. Which, sadly, can essentially be written off by the government regardless of the era in question, so in essence military observations are clearly the best evidence.
Within the military realm, I'm inclined to believe that the policies of the government led to more credible, "trained observer" sightings getting shuffled under the rug in recent decades-- or to a less public outlet for investigation. While clearly it is declassified by the NSA, I think
JANAP-146 illustrates that pre-1953 the U.S. government had no formal protocol for ground crews, military or commercial pilots to report unexplained phenomenon. I was hardly around in 1953, but I'm willing to speculate and say that once a policy and procedure was in place to filter and investigate the "credible" unexplained objects it became a lot easier to manage. Add in the laughter curtain faced by commercial pilots and you have yourself a fairly effective wall of silence.
As for "flaps", I think it's fair to say that we have those to some degree in the semi-modern era. For example, I think it's fair to qualify the
Rendlesham Forrest incident of late 1980 a "flap" as it was witnessed across multiple nights by entirely different observation teams. Moreover, I think you could make a similar argument for the
Belgium and
Phoenix lights (Phoenix is debatable, I know) and even
Colares, Brazil in 1977.
That said, I totally know what you're getting at. But on the same note (and this is like John Lear out there, so forgive me) whose to say that the government hasn't made contact with them and essentially said "hey, ease up on the whole flying wholesale over the cities in droves thing, it's not helping us out"? Far fetched, I know. But I'm just trying to offer all the potential possibilities I could see and when dealing with this topic nothing seems too far beyond the scope.
