Could they really keep ETs secret?

If the governments of, say, the USA and/or the United Kingdom knew about Extraterrestrial visitors, could they really manage to that knowledge a secret?

This is a question that has provoked debate in UFO circles for many years.

I thought I'd just add a few matters I've come across in government files which may suggest a negative answer to the above question. In short, the governments of the USA and UK have been fairly inept in censoring/redacting UFO documents - in many cases uncensored/unredacted copies of the relevant documents have been made available apparently accidentally.

In the USA, before the censored/redacted US Air Force's Project Blue Book files were made available on microfilms by the National Archives in the mid-1970s with black marks obscuring witness names and other details, it had been possible for researchers to access the files (without the black marks...) and make extensive notes. Ufologist Don Berliner did exactly that, as detailed in his article "The Bluebook 'unknowns'".

Furthermore, the censorship/redactions of witness names and other details was pretty, um, imperfect - in many of the files the relevant names were not fully redacted on each page of each document, so it was possible to find relevant names even in the censored/redacted microfilm.

Then, in a development which for some reason remains pretty well unknown to UFO researchers, the National Archives appears to have accidently allowed private researcher Bill Weitzel access to redacted 18mm reels of the UNCENSORED/UNRDACTED copies of the Project Blue Book files rather than the censored 35mm reels. The Fund for UFO Research ("FUROR") promptly ordered a full set of the 16mm unrdacted/uncensored reels and received them from the National Archives. Only some of those unredacted files are available online on the Bluebookarchive.org website...

As a taster (and, hopefully, a resource that will also be useful to some of you) of the difference between these files, I have temporarily uploaded the Project Blue Book index pages for each year from 1947 to 1969 to the link below:
we.tl...

That link includes both of the two sets of documents at the longer-term links below.

The first link contains relatively high resolution redacted versions (sourced from Fold3 website, following a considerable amount of work by "Xtraeme" of ATS to enable that huge collection of Project Blue Book documents to be stored on a local hard-drive).

The second link contains lower quality unredacted copies of index pages (showing relevant names) sourced from the bluebookarchive.org website and enhanced/resized following valuable assistance from Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein.

Each set of index pages can either be downloaded individually or (by clicking on the download button on the top right of the relevant screen) you can download each entire collection.

Redacted high resolution :
app.box.com...

For example:



Unredacted low resolution:
app.box.com...

For example (the same page as above, but without those annoying black bits in the copies in the National Archives scans on the Fold3 website...):



Due to the quality of microfilm images/scans being used, the images are far from perfect and the searchable nature of the PDFs is limited - but I nonetheless find the results useful.

Over here in the UK, it seems that the government has similarly been less than perfect in censoring/redacting UFO documents. In the 1980s, for example, UFO researcher Jenny Randles was originally provided with UFO documents with the names of departments that received copies of the documents censored/redacted. However, in
Jenny has written about this in several of her books and in the email at this link:

The files that did emerge during the rest of the 1980s were sporadic but useful. They included, for example, in 1987 files with the distribution list included. These had not been on the 1983 releases made to me - possibly even now they were included in error during a release without proper censorship applied as when I asked Nick Pope to tell me what the acronyms on this distribution list stood for he declined an ability to answer no doubt reasonably given the Official Secrets Act; although I actually already knew what the letters stood for by then thanks to a superior of his in the MoD who had told me!.

The existence of these files with a distribution list revealed the involvement in UFO investigation of locations other than the Air Ministry Secretariat that had long fielded all public enquiries over UFOs, The Air Staff unit that Nick Pope headed in the early 1990s. The other locations included the defence intelligence unit DI 55 and the DSTI, which was important later when files were being sought.

Rather more basic and amusing is the fact (which I've been rather hesitant to mention online) is the fact that in one of my rare requests for documents to the British Ministry of Defence I was emailed with documents as Microsoft Word which had been censored/redacted merely by highlighting offending sections in black. It was a fairly trivial and amusing task to turn off that black highlighting...

Incidentally, this problem is not limited to UFO documents. The Grand Jury indictment of UFO hacker Gary McKinnon similarly was censored/redacted simply with black highlighting in November 2002 Grand Jury Indictment. Researchers found it fairly simple to turn off that highlighting and read the uncensored/unredacted document.

Here is the PDF of the Grand Jury indictment as released (with redactions). Here is a sample page:


The unredacted version of that PDF can be found here. Here is a sample page:


In the light of errors like that, is it really credible to think that, if the governments of the USA and/or the United Kingdom knew about Extraterrestrial visitors, they could really manage to that knowledge a secret? Well, it depends on how thorough UFO researchers were in following up gaps and inconsistencies in the documents disclosed by those governments and the extent to which UFO researchers exploited apparent mistakes in disclosing uncensored documents. The fact that the above example of the uncensored Project Blue Book documents obtained by FUFOR nearly 15 years ago is little known (and still only partly available online), and numerous other issues, indicate to me that UFO research is so disorganised that it would even a very imperfect job of censorship would suffice to hide significant matters from UFO researchers...

So far, I have deliberately (generally...) refrained from making Freedom of Information Act requests to the governments of the UK and USA for UFO documents. Until the UFO community becomes more organised and better at sharing material which it has already obtained from various governments, I feel that imposing on governments by sending further requests is an unwarranted waste of the time and efforts of government officials.

i am not sure, maybe they could. I am will to give them the benefit of doubt. mostly, because i know it
would be highly compartmentalized.

reply to post by IsaacKoi

S&F Isaac. As usual, thorough and well-researched.

I think a large part of keeping anything secret, is not to grip too tightly. Because the tighter you grip, the more things tend to slip through your fingers. The other part of keeping a handle on secrets is making sure the waters stay murky. For every bit of truth that slips through your fingers, make sure there's plenty of propaganda and disinformation out there to catch it. That way, nobody knows what to believe with a certainty. Just my take on it.

reply to post by IsaacKoi


Let me say initially that i do not believe aiens are visiting Planet Earth.

However regarding your question, then my answer is NO.
If civilians and others are reporting they are seeing either UFO's and aliens, then by that very nature it is not a government secret is it. If it was then non-government people wouldn't be saying that they have seen and been in contact with them.
Something is only a secret when only one party and no other has the information.

Truman knew nothing about the Manhattan Project until Roosevelt died and then he had to be briefed in on it; this is a perfect example of both secret-keeping and compartmentalization.

And if the secret were really being kept perfectly, we'd have no knowledge of sightings, whistleblowers or anything else, would we?

Turns out the truth, or at least some semblance of the possibility of it, are leaking out all over the place as badly as a three day old diaper.

My answer would be no.

There simply would need to be too many people involved in the conspiracy for it to be plausible on its own. Someone would eventually come forth with good evidence.

signalfire
Truman knew nothing about the Manhattan Project until Roosevelt died and then he had to be briefed in on it; this is a perfect example of both secret-keeping and compartmentalization.

And if the secret were really being kept perfectly, we'd have no knowledge of sightings, whistleblowers or anything else, would we?

Turns out the truth, or at least some semblance of the possibility of it, are leaking out all over the place as badly as a three day old diaper.

So then where is the good evidence?

reply to post by IsaacKoi


First of all thank you for the links and the work you and Xtraeme have put in to archive these files

The mainstream UFO community is a shambles and has been for quite some time,as I've stated before I believe any breakthrough in this subject will be found by researchers like yourself and Xtraeme who do these things for the community not their bank balance, money is a corrupting force and never more so than in a subject like this.

In regard to the government and secrecy , well of course you are right governments aren't good at keeping secrets but what of the argument that the secret is so big that only the select few in the upper echelons of the military know the full picture and the real documents of interest are unknown to all but the few ?

reply to post by gortex


If aliens were visiting Earth ( which i doubt very much), why would you think the aliens would only want a "Select Few" to know that they are?
How do these aliens select these "Select Few" ? Do they have their names and addresses before they come to Earth?

Isaac, let's flip this around, if I may...

If there is no, absolutely NO alien presence visiting this planet, and none ever in the history of the globe, then a guy who was trusted enough to work at the UK Ministry of Defense, and another guy high up in the executive hierarchy in Canada, and several men the US government has entrusted with shooting off nuclear missiles from a bunker on orders from the President, regardless if that act will result in their family's death, and their own death soon after from either blast effect or radiation, are all certifiably insane, or liars.

Very worried looking liars. Who are openly accusing the same governments they've worked for their entire lives of lies, cover-ups, misappropriation of massive sums of taxpayer money, threatening behaviors towards whistleblowers, and a whole lot more.

Now ask yourself what a benevolent, non-lying, morally upright government that actually worked for the people who empower it would look like.

And then ask yourself if we appear to have that type of government.

I dunno about you, but the government I see on a daily basis seems to be filled with sociopaths at the top, many well-meaning but powerless people on the lower levels, and masses of relatively clueless bureaucrats in the middle sections, all of whom seem to have no problem with the fact that their own jobs are heavily compartmentalized, they adhere to their secrecy levels and need-to-know designations without a questionmark or eyebrow raised, and enjoy their nice paychecks and pensions, never apparently once wondering what it is they're working at and what they're not being told.

Given plenty of money to throw around, it's easy to hire thousands of hitmen, and more thousands of clueless nonquestioning drones. I'm pretty sure the people doing the black magic marker redactions aren't the top level generals who may actually be fully briefed on this most delicate of subjects. They're probably low level clerks who don't even understand what they're drawing black lines over, thus the mistakes and oversights.

My reading leads me to the conclusion that secrets cannot be kept, but perhaps managed. The existence of things like Area 51, the Stealth plane program, Glomar Explorer, Corona satellites, the U-2 were all known, but their purpose and operational details were generally not.

When secrecy is attempted, speculation runs wild. When the truth gets disclosed, we usually find it was already out, just far less interesting than the rumors. Sometimes those rumors become folklore or mythology and overshadow their factual inspiration.

JadeStar

signalfire
Truman knew nothing about the Manhattan Project until Roosevelt died and then he had to be briefed in on it; this is a perfect example of both secret-keeping and compartmentalization.

And if the secret were really being kept perfectly, we'd have no knowledge of sightings, whistleblowers or anything else, would we?

Turns out the truth, or at least some semblance of the possibility of it, are leaking out all over the place as badly as a three day old diaper.

So then where is the good evidence?

Probably most of it is 20 stories down at Area 51. Y'know, that place they long said didn't exist, but now they've admitted does? The place with the 'Lethal Force Authorized' signage? In the middle of nowhere? Where people are flown in anonymously daily to work? That place.

Here's Major Donald Keyhoe's book that he wrote with full permission of the U.S. Air Force before the hammer came down; sometimes it's easier going back in history and reading information from the more innocent past, then trying to glean something from present day sources:

Keyhoe book

Photographs will probably never be accepted as evidence; either they're just blurry lights, or so good that they're suspect as hoaxes. Even a real live 'alien' will be seen as a hoax by a lot of people. What you'd need is a craft that was undeniably not of this earth and not anywhere near our technology abilities. Good luck finding one lying around.

We get leaks every now and then. We get whistle-blowers every now and then. I would expect a cover-up to look pretty much like how it looks today.

I'm not quite sure how much information you're expecting to see leak from a government on something they would consider of the highest secrecy.

When the U.S. government's military officer Walter Haut issued a press release to the public saying a flying disk has been recovered in Roswell, New Mexico that seems pretty official. Of course the denial came immediately afterward, but again that's how I expect a cover-up to look like.

reply to post by alldaylong

If aliens were visiting Earth ( which i doubt very much), why would you think the aliens would only want a "Select Few" to know that they are?

If aliens were visiting Earth I don't think they would want a select few to know but the select few are the people that reports of intrusions into our airspace would got to , they are the ones in charge of monitoring equipment that would let them know the details of intrusions and actions taken regarding those intrusions.

How do these aliens select these "Select Few" ? Do they have their names and addresses before they come to Earth?

Unlikely but possibly ...don't forget Mr Janus

An interesting question, definitely. I think there are a few other factors that weigh into the debate though.

Could ETs keep themselves secret? (While still visiting Earth of course) If so, then I don't think it takes too much more for the government to just support/continue/extend that secrecy.

But beyond that, another factor here is 'How much does the government know?' Certainly it's a question that we'd all like answered, but also it's crucial here. If they have direct communication/involvement with ETs, then keeping it a secret becomes more difficult. If they've maybe recovered a couple of craft and/or bodies then there are less people involved so it's less difficult to keep that secret.

Ultimately it boils down to 'How many people know?' Quite simply, the more people who are aware of something, the harder it is to keep that thing secret.

But I do personally believe that the US government is pretty handy with compartmentalisation, black budgets and whatnot. I think they're pretty good at keeping secrets and if (theoretically) you add unknown alien technology into the concealment equation then I'm quite certain they are capable of keeping it secret.

reply to post by IsaacKoi


Can the government and thousands and thousands of employees and contractors keep secrets about all aspects of UFOs?

I donno, ask the NSA, maybe they've picked up something.

Oh, wait. Ask Snowden, he might know a tidbit or two.

It is exceedingly strange, even mystical that we have literally tons of UFO information out in the public arena from the very first day of the modern era of UFOs, and people will come along every now and then and give hypothetical arguments with their chosen data and opinions as to why UFOs can't exist for one reason or another.

Could they keep ET a secret?

Yes. Absolutely.

Does it need a massive amount of people? no.

what does it require?

A few elite to have unbridled access to pleasures and panderings to fullfil their every whim and wish, and in return they put the machinations of the State into work every time their card is called.

Its how you stay a Prime Minister or President.


This requires an extra layer of power above these people. Does such a layer exist? most certainly. people are steered and placed where they get to in the modern globe. That requires a constant guiding hand.

This group then would be the ones who hold the keys and employ the gate keepers. ever witnessed the raw power a Prime Minister has first hand? I have. Its a dirty, vicious, cold, calculated rarefied atmosphere these people fly in and they fully intend to stay there.

I started to post the counter argument myself, just to deflate it. The one that goes:
Leaks happen, but they get "managed," discredited, ridiculed, or silenced.

Problem is that many UFO stories fall apart unless the evidence is hidden by some Government agency. Without the Keyhoe paranoia, there's nothing there.

reply to post by IsaacKoi


Thx for the thread IK, very insightful and fascinating.

I imagine it could be quite complicated in trying to explain why things are so disorganized, or indeed the explanation may be a simple one. The government really don't know much about UFOs and furthermore, aren't even bothered by their alleged existence.

It's understandable that things would fall into disorganization if investigations stopped with Blue Book (and other similar groups around the world), but as has been proved with governments consistently down the years, officially closing a department doesn't actually mean investigations stopped.

I would say the government clerks are just doing their jobs. And also that those in the government who may know more about the UFO subject have vetted from the top what's important and what isn't for public consumpiton.

Of course, I've widely thought for years, maybe governments really are just incompetant and stupid.

I also add another theory, classifying documents regarding unexplained things (for say 50 or more years), would easily sweep EVERYTHING under the rug, for as long as deemed necessary.

Aliensun
It is exceedingly strange, even mystical that we have literally tons of UFO information out in the public arena from the very first day of the modern era of UFOs, and people will come along every now and then and give hypothetical arguments with their chosen data and opinions as to why UFOs can't exist for one reason or another.

Possibly because the mere quantity of reports doesn't prove that they don't all have mundane explanations.

In fact, most serious researchers would readily accept that at least MOST reports can be solved if a proper investigation is performed.