Close Encounters of the Imagined Kind

Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) are all the rage these days. The United States Department of Defense, in the last couple of months, has released three sets of documents, photographs, and videos of UAP. Television presenters, commentators, and true believers wax eloquent on the news, social media videos, and podcasts about what this may all mean. In reality, though, there may be less to UAP than meets the eye.

The recent hullabaloo started in 2017 when the New York Times reported on a 'shadowy program' run by the US DoD, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which studied reports of unidentified flying objects, including those made by American military aviators. The commotion reached fever pitch in 2023, when two of the authors of the 2017 article, Ms. Leslie Kean and Mr. Ralph Blumenthal, reported in The Debrief that the US government had 'retrieved craft of non-human origin', based on claims made by former intelligence official and self-professed whistleblower Mr. David Grusch. Ms. Kean was no stranger to the conspiracy theory, having previously written a bestselling book on UAP, titled 'UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record'. In the days that followed, Mr. Grusch testified at a congressional hearing that there existed a 'multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering programme' within the US military-industrial complex. While acknowledging that he never saw any crashed alien technology or 'non-human biologics' himself, he claimed that he had been informed about such a programme. The very next month, predicated on Mr. Grusch's testimony, Mr. Tim Burchett and five other members of the US Congress launched the UAP Caucus within the House of Representatives. More recently, at a press conference held outside the Capitol in Washington, DC, by Ms. Kean, Mr. Burchett, and others, Mr. Grusch claimed that the US government is aware of several species of alien, ranging from 'corporeal bipedal-type' to 'sentient plasmoid', and managed not to crack himself up.

Even academics do not seem to have been immune to the UAP invasion. Prof. Garry Nolan of Stanford and Dr. Peter Skafish started the Sol Foundation, a think tank which 'strive[s] to offer hard, scientifically [sic] evidence that UAP technologies, vehicles, and other anomalous phenomena exist and are of nonhuman provenance'. In other words, their interest lies not in understanding what UAP are, but rather, in seeking confirmation that UAP are caused by alien technology.

Americans have been fascinated by the idea of extraterrestrial visitors for decades, but the people who are making claims of close encounters today are ostensibly not cut from the same cloth as those in the past. Pundits tell us that the new breed of witness is more 'credible' than the farmers of yore who reported crop circles. After all, they are ex-military men — pilots and intelligence officials. It could be debated whether a pilot is more credible than a farmer, but in a country where even the President and his cabinet lack credibility, one is hard-pressed to believe anyone in government. This is all the more so when several of the most prominent sightings have been all but debunked.

One of the earliest declassified infrared videos, known as 'GOFAST', purportedly shows an object travelling faster than any known human aircraft. It was later shown¹ that the object in question was travelling at a speed consistent with wind speed. Even though the video was debunked, its promoters argued that it only showed part of what they or the people they knew saw, and that the full data, including radar data, had not been publicised. In other words, if material evidence is inconclusive, we are supposed to rely on anecdotal evidence. The same story was repeated for the video called 'GIMBAL', which shows an object apparently rotating in mid-air. It was shown that the object was consistent with a lens flare which rotated due to the rotation of the gimbal on which the camera was mounted. Prof. Joshua Semeter of Boston University was one of the first people who analysed both videos, and his talk on infrared imaging and UAP at a PSW Science meeting is illuminating. Interestingly, he points out that the video was titled 'GIMBAL' by those who released it, without elaborating further. The implication, whether intended or not, is clear: whoever released the video knew that the rotation was caused by the gimbal.

There are two possibilities, then: either American fighter pilots have a woefully inadequate understanding of their own equipment, or — as the title 'GIMBAL' indicates — the people who release these videos know the exact, non-anomalous nature of what is in them, but refrain from disclosing it. In reality, both possibilities probably contribute to the situation. Add to this a combination of artful self-promoters and gullible followers, and an unprecedented level of amplification thanks to the Internet, and we get a potent cocktail of conspiracy theory that even otherwise sceptical people are under the influence of.

The first of the two aforementioned possibilities is concerning. The United States is, whether anyone likes it or not, the world's strongest bulwark against several destabilising forces, including China, a country with revanchist and expansionist goals, which is biding its time for an opening. One can be certain that American soldiers' public display of their incompetence and susceptibility to fantastical notions has not gone unnoticed in Beijing.

The second of the two possibilities is also troubling. Several of the UAP shown in the videos released by the DoD appear unremarkable — infrared blobs, blurry lights taken on phone cameras, and cartoons. Yet, their inclusion in the release points to members of the American military playing a practical joke on the public. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the first director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the organisation tasked by the US government with understanding UAP, lists both operator error and a tradition of practical jokes within the establishment as two of several reasons for the proliferation of the conspiracy theory.

No matter what UAP are, one thing is certain: the conspiracy theory will never die. While it is in the interest of the United States and its allies that charlatans like Mr. Grusch should be exposed, it is a tall order, since the burden of proof, in the public eye, lies not with those making the extraordinary claims, but with the US government. The people demand to see the body, but what if there were no murder to begin with? People like Mr. Grusch will continue to play the hero to seek fame, journalists like Ms. Kean will continue to peddle pseudoscientific books² to seek profit, and congressmen like Mr. Burchett will continue to push the UAP story to seek influence. The only casualty will be reason.