Why all the secrecy surrounding UFOs? All theories welcome!, page 1

Hey ATS'ers, watching some old research footage I realized one of the more common questions that professional investigative journalists ask, is, "Why is the USA so secretive about UFOs? What's the motivation for hiding UFOs? Why go through all the effort?"

It's a good question. Why is the USA so secretive?

Over the years I've heard a number of explanations and I don't know if any of them in isolation satisfy the question. However in conjunction I think they give a good picture of the possible motivations amongst the diverse number of groups that make up the United States government back from '40s and up to the present.

If anyone has other theories that aren't on the list, please feel free to add them!


Reasons for the secrecy surrounding UFOs:

1. Stephen Bassett theory - In the late '40s the US government didn't know what was happening when people first started seeing UFOs. The people at the top probably wanted the whole thing to go away since they were in the middle of the cold war, kept it under wraps while they were coming to grips with the situation, things got carried away and the secrecy was never lifted.
   
   
2. The 'Culture of Secrecy' theory. The US is, in general, overtly secretive. Sometimes even to ridiculous and silly extents.
   
   
3. The Hynek theory, "it can't be therefore it isn't." (1) The inability of ranking individuals in government to buy the premise that UFOs might be of extraterrestrial origin, rejecting the idea on principle rather than merit, creating a culture of dismissal that's with us even today.
   
   
4. The Fife Symington theory. It's not necessarily to lie to the public, but to diffuse the situation to lessen hysteria.
   
   
5. The Callahan / CIA theory. It would panic the public. Very similar to 3, the difference being this is preemptive. Gov. Symington held a press conference for the purpose of difussing a situation that was getting out of control. The idea behind this approach is to prevent things from getting out of control before they even start.
   
   
6. The collusion theory, as proposed by Dan Sherman, the idea that the government has been in communication with EBEs and for some end allowed aliens to do things that if disclosed would cause an uproar, possibly inciting the people try and over throw the government.
   
   
7. The Walter Smith theory. The government doesn't want to tip it's hand, because UFOs can be used for psychological warfare. IE/ A scenario where we don't know who's making the UFOs and we now the Russian's don't know who's making the UFOs so we say, "We're making the UFOs."
   
   
8. The Greg Bishop theory. Back during the Cold War there was the belief amongst US intelligence officers that spies working for Soviet Russia were taking advantage of naive UFO-investigators and ultimately manipulating them to collect information about top-secret US government projects. The idea was these spies would spread rumors that the US was hiding information about aliens and from that find US citizens sympathetic to the ruse. Resulting in otherwise patriotic Americans unwittingly spying for another government.
   

reply to post by TeslaandLyne

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Free Energy would have been my first answer as well, followed by weapons tech. TPTB are controlling the masses quite effectively right now by suppressing this tech.

Free Energy = equality of all and no more wage slavery and wars to keep lining the pockets of the few thousand elitists that are running the world.

Weapons tech and secrecy assure they have the utmost advantage to MAINTAIN above said control, under any circumstances.

Based on the several posts I'll add the following to the list:

1. The Steven M. Greer theory. The government is withholding this information, because it would force those in the know to reveal we have the capability to tap free energy -- thereby destroying the worlds power structure. In other words, "the greed theory."
   
   
   I've also come up with a few additional explanations:
   
   
   
2. George Marshall / FDR memo rationale. Allegedly during the Battle of Los Angeles a downed UFO was captured. FDR wrote a memo to George Marshall that reads, "This information is vital to the nation's superiority and must remain within the confines of state secrets."(1). This is a compelling explanation because if we did find this sort of technology the US would have a massive edge over other countries. So, to paraphrase, the Technical Ace-in-the-Hole theory.
   
   
3. Duke Gildenberg (AKA Hide-it-behind-the-UFO) Theory. "Every [skyhook] flight we flew generated UFO reports. In fact for awhile we were even using it as a backup tracking system. We would call up a town and ask, 'Did anyone see a UFO this afternoon? Yeah, one to the ... Okay, what direction, to the south? Okay keep an eye on it.' We allowed them to remain UFO reports, with the hope being once they got over the Soviet Union they'd still be registered as UFOs instead of as our reconnaissance balloons."(2, UFOs: The Secret Evidence, occurs at 22:50). This is similar to the Walter Smith theory, but slightly different in that rather than use UFOs simply to scare the bejebus out of the enemy (psychological warfare), it was used as a cloak to obscure black projects.
   

[edit on 5-2-2009 by Xtraeme]

reply to post by Sclee

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I don't think there's a conspiracy at play here, even though I do believe a great deal of information is hidden from the public. Rather I think the people at the top convinced themselves there was nothing to the phenomenon (ie/ the Hynek theory).

Look at what happened after Project Sign. Ruppelt handed the Estimate of the Situation (EOTS) to his commanding officers, they completely disagreed with the conclusion, and born out of the conflict was Project Grudge. According to members of the team Grudge was aptly named in that it was given the directive to look for more down to earth explanations for the sightings despite the original Sign research pointing to the ET hypothesis.

Once that was set in motion, the few remaining people on the project as military personnel, did as directed.

By stating their position on UFOs that set in motion the "ridicule" of anyone who differed in opinion.

This ridicule factor became self-perpetuating. If you look at the Condon Report it's easy to see that Condon was driven by a) fear of alienation from fellow scientists and b) complete disdain for the subject probably in part due to societal indoctrination leading him to believe there was nothing to the subject in the first place. Despite having a bias against the subject, and being very loud about his opinion, when asked to study the subject he said he would remain impartial. No sooner had he said that he drafted the 'Trick Memo':

"The trick would be, I think, to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study but, to the scientific community, would present the image of a group of non-believers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer."

So think about it this way. Following Kenneth Arnold's sighting, those at the top of government were given strong signals for nearly 20 years that there was nothing to the UFO phenomenon. This was then reinforced by what was supposed to be an unbiased scientific study conducted by a prominent scientist at a reputable university.

That's why I think the answer to the question of "Why all the secrecy?" is rather complex.

At the start the answer was, "It can't be therefore it isn't." (The Hynek Theory) Or to quote James McDonald, "We have managed to so let our preconceptions block serious consideration of the possibility that some form of alien technology is operating within our midst that we have succeeded in simply ignoring the facts." Then the opinion of those top few officials percolated out to the mainstream and the scientific establishment. 'Group think' kicked-in reinforcing the notion that only idiots and crazies believed such nonsense. Thus ridicule was born.

Along the way I'm sure there were Generals who discovered information that proved to there satisfaction there was something to the UFO talk. Events like the 1956 RAF Lakenheath / Bentwaters sighting, 1957 RB-47 incident, etc. The problem is admitting UFOs exist would also be an admission that the government was wrong or, worse, that officials had lied. It would also beg the question, "Do they pose a threat?" It would bring stories like the 1967/1975 ICBM missile shutdown to the foreground of public commentary. So by admitting the truth the government ran the risk of not only panicking the country, but facing a potentially huge backlash for what citizens would consider bureaucratic incompetence of the highest order.

Looking at all that it's not a conspiracy so much as it is people covering their asses and trying to prevent the system from falling apart on itself.

[edit on 5-2-2009 by Xtraeme]

reply to post by Majorion

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Imagine yourself in the shoes of an Admiral or General stumbling upon a crashed craft from another world, what would YOU do in such a situation?

Obviously a knee-jerk release to the press wouldn't be the ideal approach, but to answer the question, "why shouldn't [they] keep this information so secret?"

Imagine a scenario where the human race is attacked by an extrasolar civilization. If the government is incapable of addressing that sort of military problem, and it systematically clouds the issue, it's defaulted on even the pretense of protecting its people. Should that ever turn out to be the case people won't only strip those in power of their positions, but their lives.

People fundamentally want to be treated with the respect and dignity to be able to decide for themselves the best course for their lives. The longer any official with that kind of knowledge obscures the issue the more likely people will retaliate.

It's in the best interest of those who govern to disclose what's known (and I'm not saying they know much if anything) simply to lessen accountability.

[edit on 5-2-2009 by Xtraeme]

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