begin quote from:
Events that people swear involve aliens
Aliens, flying discs and sightings -- oh my! A short history of UFOs in America
Story highlights
- The Department of Defense spent $22 million investigating UFOs
- Some of the most prominent UFO reports have been from Roswell, Area 51 and Phoenix
(CNN)The
mysterious flying object that one man saw looked like a "40-foot-long
Tic Tac" and was maneuvering and shifting directions rapidly.
That
claim doesn't come from a random townsperson, though. It comes from
retired Cmdr. David Fravor and bears the Pentagon's stamp of approval.
And it was one of many confounding examples of unidentified flying
objects the Pentagon investigated in the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.
"My
personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may
not be alone," Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon official, told CNN.
The
belief in alien encounters has long been a prominent feature of
American life. A 1997 poll from CNN/Time on the 50th anniversary of the
Roswell incident found that 80% of Americans think the government is
hiding knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrial life forms.
But
instead of funding a $22 million project to get to the bottom of the
issue, the US military could have spent its time reading some of the
many tales of UFO sightings, abductions and alien encounters with humans
over the decades.
There
are thousands and thousands of reported UFO sightings, but in light of
the Pentagon's extensive research into the possible existence of UFOs,
here's a look back at some of America's closest encounters of the third
kind.
Project Blue Book
Many of the best known alien claims come from Project Blue Book, the name for the US government program tasked with investigating reports of UFOs from 1948 to 1969.
In that time, Air Force personnel looked at 12,618 reported UFO sightings and said that 701 remain "unidentified."
But
in the end, the project concluded: "No UFO reported, investigated, and
evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to
our national security." The program also concluded that the
"unidentified" sightings were advanced technology or extraterrestrial
vehicles, according to the National Archives fact sheet.
The project was closed down in 1969 because of its cost, the National Archives said.
"Since
Project Blue Book was closed, nothing has happened to indicate that the
Air Force ought to resume investigating UFOs," the archives said.
Roswell
Groups
dressed as aliens ride through downtown Roswell, New Mexico, in July
2000 as they participate in the annual UFO Encounter.
The
town of Roswell in New Mexico became shorthand for alien encounters in
1947 after reports that a flying object crash-landed in a field.
The
Roswell Army Air Field initially said a "flying disk" had been
recovered, but a second press release clarified that the object was from
a weather balloon. Since then, a number of supposed witnesses have said
they saw the military take away the flying disc -- and bodies of
aliens.
Decades later, plenty of
Americans remain skeptical of the government's claim that it was a
weather balloon. In that 1997 CNN/Time poll, nearly two-thirds of
respondents said they believed a UFO crash-landed in a field in that
incident.
"We had in our possession a flying saucer," former Army Public Affairs Officer Walter Haut said in 1997.
Roswell,
now home to the Roswell UFO Museum, remains a major destination for
alien enthusiasts looking for more evidence of their beliefs.
Area 51
Long
thought to be the location where the US government stores and hides
alien bodies and UFOs, the mysteriously named location in Nevada has
been the focus of alien conspiracies for decades.
The
area has long been a focus of public interest for citizens and
presidents alike. John Podesta, chief of staff to President Bill
Clinton, said that his former boss had "asked for some information about
some of these things, and in particular, some information about what
was going on at Area 51."
Area 51 has been a prominent pop culture reference and made a notable appearance in the alien invasion movie "Independence Day."
In 2013, the CIA declassified documents that officially acknowledged for the first time that Area 51 was a secret military site located a short distance northwest of Las Vegas.
But rather than host flying saucers or alien life, Area 51 was used to test the U-2 and OXCART aerial surveillance programs, according to the documents. The need for secrecy was to keep information from the Soviets, rather than to cover-up an alien encounter, they said.
UFOs and nukes
In 2010, seven former US Air Force personnel described their personal encounters with UFO sightings over nuclear weapons facilities in incidents in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.
Three
of the former Air Force officers said UFOs hovered over nuclear missile
silos around Montana's Malmstrom Air Force Base in 1967, causing
problems with the military base. Former Air Force Capt. Robert Salas
said one of his guards told him about a red, glowing object about 30
feet in diameter hovering above the front gate of the facility.
"And
just as I [called my commander], our missiles began going into what's
called a no-go condition, or unlaunchable. Essentially, they were
disabled while this object was still hovering over our site," Salas
said.
Salas said he didn't
personally witness the UFO. But Robert Hastings, an author and UFO
researcher who organized the press conference, said the series of
stories showed aliens had a particular interest in nuclear weapons.
"I
believe -- these gentlemen believe -- that this planet is being visited
by beings from another world, who for whatever reason have taken an
interest in the nuclear arms race which began at the end of World War
II," said Hastings.
Phoenix Lights incident
In
March 1997, a number of Arizona residents said they witnessed a large
flying object in the sky near Phoenix. Ten years afterward, former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington wrote on CNN about the experience ahead of an event discussing various UFO sightings and incidents.
"I
witnessed a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigate over Squaw
Peak, a mountain range in Phoenix, Arizona. It was truly breathtaking. I
was absolutely stunned because I was turning to the west looking for
the distant Phoenix Lights," Symington wrote. "To my astonishment this
apparition appeared; this dramatically large, very distinctive leading
edge with some enormous lights was traveling through the Arizona sky."
Symington,
a former Air Force officer, said it did not look like a man-made
object. And he ruled out the Air Force assertion that the object was
high-altitude flares.
"I was never
happy with the Air Force's silly explanation. There might very well
have been military flares in the sky that evening, but what I and
hundreds of others saw had nothing to do with that," he wrote.
Symington
thanked those who were speaking out about their mysterious encounters,
and called for the US government to be more open about what really
happened.
"We want the government
to stop putting out stories that perpetuate the myth that all UFOs can
be explained away in down-to-earth conventional terms. Investigations
need to be reopened, documents need to be unsealed and the idea of an
open dialogue can no longer be shunned," he wrote.
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