Seventy years of US UFOs
A security insider gives an outsider perspective on US government shenanigans regarding sightings from the Kenneth Arnold case onwards
UFOs Today 70 Years of Lies, Misinformation and Government Cover-Up Irena McCammon Scott, PhD Flying Disk Press, 2017 (flyingdiskpress.blogspot.co.uk/) Pb, 265pp, refs, notes, PRICE, ISBN 9780993492846 Dr Irena McCammon Scott certainly has the qualifications and background to consider the current state of ufology. Indeed, she has worked at the Battle Memorial Institute, which produced one of the first scientific studies of UFO sightings, and for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
Scott’s work gave her top security clearances and she was even stationed at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the headquarters for the US Air Force’s notorious Project Blue Book. Furthermore, her husband has worked in Area 51’s Nevada Test Site.
Combined with this insider perspective, she has served as a field investigator for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and Centre for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and interviewed many witnesses and experts.
Although promising some new ‘smoking gun discoveries’, Scott’s introduction does wimpout with the warning: ‘Even if the phenomena in question were not extraterrestrial, it is still vital to record this material because of the tremendous impact of UFO phenomena upon our civilization and psychology.’
The book covers all the main landmarks of ufology, starting with Kenneth Arnold’s flying saucers and on to the US involvement with the subject and UFO crash accounts, followed by chapters on the highlights of each decade from the 1940s to the new millennium.
From the very beginning of the saucer era, Scott notes, Arnold’s sighting and his involvement with Maury Island involved many strange elements that seem to rule out a hoax. She even wonders if Arnold, who was at the centre of these puzzling events, was abducted at some stage, and those involved with investigating Maury Island were murdered because they knew too much. It all adds to her view that US agencies were involved in running a sophisticated operation to discredit Arnold, in order to keep a lid on the subject.
Scott provides a good review of US ufology and the US Government’s fragmented, dubious and nefarious involvement with it. Yet, rather frustratingly most of her ‘smoking gun’ evidence is based on anecdotal testimony rather than any material evidence or hard facts. For example, she simply says Battle ‘may be’ researching UFOs today and that Wright Patterson ‘may’ also be conducting similar research. She says the CIA could also be involved, adding: “However, even though I worked in the office whose mission was to identify all flying objects over an important area, my section received no briefing about UFO phenomena.”
In the last chapter, it is considered whether UFOs are real or not. Scott is satisfied that that there is enough evidence to say there is a reality to some of the UFO phenomena beyond misidentifications and mundane explanations.
She notes: ‘Rather than space ships, some UFOs may also represent drones, robots, or some sort of artificial force fields created by non-humans. Other portions of UFO phenomena may represent unknown natural events. As discussed in the Skinwalker study, a part of UFO phenomenon may also represent some form of tunnel or wormhole into other dimensions and worlds. In addition, what one sees may depend upon their interpretation. For example, if one sees a floating orb or a humanoid, one might view it as form of ghost. But if one sees the same type of phenomena, but it looks like a floating craft, one would then interpret it as a UFO or space ship.’
That covers virtually every aspect of ufology from the nuts and bolts perspective to the psychosocial hypothesis. Unfortunately, Scott doesn’t take much time to look at the wider context of these sightings and is more interested in the ‘hard’ scientific viewpoint, leading her to suggest that high quality UFO data is collected and analysed, statisticians should look at the existing data, UFO observation stations should be set up, continuing the petitioning of government agencies, encouraging a scientific approach and looking at new scientific models of quantum interactions to understand a phenomenon “that may not be under human control”.
These are all things ufologists have been attempting to do for decades and it all seems a bit pointless if we ‘may’ already have the smoking gun evidence. Then again the US government has effectively covered this up so we’ll never know, and if we do ‘they’ will discredit or murder you.