Logic and UFOs

Copyright 2006 Bart Stewart

One Kenneth Arnold changed the world forever on June 24th, 1947. He reported seeing nine strange objects flying in the sky over Mount Rainier in Washington. There had been vague, rare, UFO stories in history prior to 1947, but the great flood of reports followed that of Kenneth Arnold. He was “The Man Who Started It All," as the media later dubbed him. The newspaper reporters who covered Arnold's story were perhaps the ones who really started it all. In their news dispatches, they made a choice of wording that would become very significant, as we look back on it today.

When Arnold was first describing his sighting to the press, he said the objects he saw moved like saucers skimming across water. This description was seized on by the reporters, at least one of whom coined a new term -- “Flying Saucer." This became the buzzword for a major media sensation that year. Within days of the first national news exposure, people began to report seeing fantastic saucer shaped aircraft zipping around in the skies. The Flying Saucer craze was born. To this day, the overwhelming majority of UFOs reported are not rods or cones or cubes, but discs. Saucers.

There is one glaring problem with this. Kenneth Arnold never said he saw anything saucer shaped! He said the objects MOVED like saucers, skipping across water. The reporters who attended his story chose to call the objects “Flying Saucers," and dispatched that phrase to the masses. But there was never any ambiguity in Arnold's description of how the objects looked. He said they were crescent shaped. Like boomerangs. He said the UFOs were fifty feet long and three feet thick, and they were crescent shaped. Period.

A logical problem becomes obvious here, because there is no disputing the timing of what happened. Immediately following news reports about mysterious things in the sky, called “flying saucers," people in the thousands began reporting strange saucer shaped craft.

Poor Kenneth Arnold later tried to publicize what it was that he had seen. They weren't saucers, folks. He published a book with a drawing of a batwing, (bird wing?), crescent shaped UFO on the cover. But the genie was out of the bottle by then. “Flying Saucer" was all the public needed to hear. When Hollywood got into the act, flying saucers were in the collective consciousness to stay.

One has to ask, how many reports of saucer shaped UFOs would we have had over the past fifty years if those newspaper reporters covering the Arnold story had used the term “Flying Crescents?”

Alas, the beat goes on. In our times, belief in alien UFOs flourishes, and hinges heavily on the notion that the government is conspiring to keep it all a secret from us. If alien intelligence has arrived, in their flying saucers, the government would have to know of its presence after all these years. Whether the government understands anything about the aliens, they would at least know if they were here or not. But the government denies such knowledge. Hence, to the believers, there is a cover-up.

There is, however, an important question about this cover-up that is rarely asked. That question is, simply - Why?

Why would such an effort to cover up be attempted? Just what is the government's motivationfor engaging in this, the most extensive, expensive cover‑up conspiracy in all of history? If you ask that question to a UFO buff, you get some stock answers:

“To prevent a mass panic. Religions would be disrupted."

“To prevent the government from being overthrown."

“To allow the ETs to continue their abduction activities."

“Because the ETs are controlling the government."

Let's consider these familiar four, one at a time.

Number one. Mass panic? Really? There might be some short‑term milling in the streets, but a civilization‑shattering panic? That would not happen. A massive celebration would be as likely. Whatever the reaction, people would still need to get back to earning their living, be they happy or afraid. And why would the government be concerned if some religions fell apart? The government is supposed to be so hostile to religion.

As for “reason” number two, why would the government fear for its own survival from a public disclosure of ET visitations? If there were aliens among us, we would need representative government more than ever, to be our representatives to the aliens! Who would want to overthrow a government in the face of space aliens? This rationale is the dumbest of all.

Three. If the aliens were revealed it might disrupt their experiments on us; the government is letting some of us out as guinea pigs in return for alien technology. (Human ingenuity could not have developed all the advanced technology we have.) But the “abductees” don’t seem to be experiencing any lasting physical harm. Their complaints are mostly about the fear they experience. So, do you really suppose that there would be any shortage of volunteers if these aliens were to openly ask for people that they could examine? If they would use some anesthetics, and let people know what was going on, they could have all the guinea pigs they want, including this writer! To meet a real space alien? They would have all the examination subjects their flying saucer could hold.

“Reason” Four. Aliens control the government? There have been hundreds of thousands of people in and out of government since the time of Kenneth Arnold. And that's just the US government. UFO stories are global, and would involve many other governments, and militaries. If the ETs can work mind control on that many people, why not just do it on all of mankind? Even if we allow that aliens are somehow controlling only top echelons of government, in a vacuum, it still doesn't explain the need for secrecy! Refer to Number One and Number Two above.

And all this is apart from the fact that governments have a generally poor track record of keeping secrets secret!

Any race that has mastered interstellar space travel would be so godlike compared to us that they would not need to go through the machinations of infiltrating governments. They could control us utterly. And there would not be all these accidental sightings of them, either. We would either see them or not, as they chose.

From its dubious beginnings, the case for alien visitation of earth rests on the theory of an impossibly gigantic cover-up conspiracy, for which there is no motive. Viewed logically, the entire colossal cultural phenomenon of UFOs becomes as shaky as a castle of cards.