The UFO ETH: Pro and Con: Surveillance Rules, OK?

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena, this time the endless stalemate between those supporting the UFO ETH, and those sceptical debunkers of the UFO ETH starting with the most basic of all arguments, UFOs can not be extraterrestrial because our sophisticated ability to spy everywhere and anywhere all of the time hasn’t found them.

OBJECTION #9: If some orbiting piece of space junk threatens to intersect the orbit of the International Space Station, the powers-that-be know about it. If a piece of space junk reenters our atmosphere, we know about it. If a foreign power launches missiles or aircraft against another country, we know that too, and in real time. If a commercial airliner goes off-course, we also know about that. So, if alien spaceships were near or in Earth’s atmosphere, the powers-that-be would know that too – right? It’s obvious. It’s obvious they don’t know, therefore there aren’t any alien spaceships (UFOs) – right? Every cubic inch of the sky is monitored from above and below 24/7/52 by highly sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment, always on the lookout for sneak attacks and to track satellites and space junk. The orbits of thousands of bits of space junk are known with high precision, even if that bit is no larger than a ham sandwich! Any alien spaceships that large or (obviously) larger that’s up there, well, we’d know about it.

ANSWER: I had an interesting exchange with a SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientist who gave the thumbs down to the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) on the grounds that if solid alien craft were flying around our neck of the cosmic woods the powers-that-be would know about it. Every cubic inch of the sky is monitored from above and below 24/7/52 by highly sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment, always on the lookout for sneak attacks and to track satellites and space junk. The orbits of thousands of bits of space junk are known with high precision, even if that bit is no larger than a ham sandwich! Any alien spaceships that large or (obviously) larger that’s up there, well, we’d know about it. We don’t know about it, so there are no alien spaceships.

On the surface this seems to be a pretty ironclad argument that slams the lid on the UFO ETH. It’s hard to miss the elephant in the room when there are eyeballs and cameras covering every nook, cranny and corner of the room. However, the argument is riddled with false assumptions and other flaws.

The first assumption, hardly proved, is how do we, the public, really know that the powers-that-be really know there are no UFOs that are alien spaceships? Just because they say there aren’t any alien spaceship because their state-of-the-art surveillance would have detected them doesn’t mean they are telling the truth. The powers-that-be tell all sorts of little white fibs for all sorts of reasons. However, let’s give those powers-that-be the benefit of the doubt. They tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

Now a lot of countries don’t have spy satellites and probably not even total radar coverage of their territory. But let’s assume the Superpowers more than make up for that and that between them they do indeed supply 24/7/52 surveillance of the entire planet, its airspace and nearby outer space.

The next assumption is a real and immediate fly in the ointment that can be easily refuted. That assumption is that surveillance equipment hasn’t detected bona-fide UFOs. Surveillance equipment has indeed detected UFOs that have remained unidentified after proper and intensive analysis. We call that equipment radar, and the official powers-that-be literature (such as the USAF’s now terminated Project Blue Book archives, which can be accessed via the WWW) is full of unexplained UFO radar cases. The so-called ‘scientific’ study of UFOs by the Condon Committee of the University of Colorado, a study commissioned by the USAF in order to get out of the UFO business, couldn’t adequately explain roughly 30% of the cases they tried to come to terms with. Three of those unexplained UFO cases involved radar. So actually the study was scientific, it was only Condon’s conclusions that there was no case to be answered for the UFO ETH that wasn’t scientific. But that’s another story. 

In short, it doesn’t take a great deal of time and effort for UFO ETH skeptics to confirm that there are many official cases where radar has detected UFOs which defy prosaic explanation and thus remain as bona-fide hardcore unknowns to this day. Of course in fairness, that’s hardcore evidence for the UFO ETH, not proof of the UFO ETH. 

The next assumption is that our surveillance equipment can detect anything in the air or in nearby space. Maybe that’s the case with terrestrial stuff in the air or in nearby space, but we’re talking about extraterrestrial here.

In fact, it’s even a pretty big assumption that all terrestrial technology can be detected by our surveillance equipment.

Advanced stealth technology rules; okay anyone? Stealth technology is a major and ever ongoing R&D exercise that is of interest to the military, the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies on Earth. What might an advanced alien civilization 1000, 10,000 years in advance of our have in the way of such camouflage? They’d obviously use that technology to prevent being shot at by trigger-happy generals! In ‘Star Trek’ terminology, we’d call this sort of technology something akin to a ‘cloaking device’.

My bit about UFOs and stealth technology or ‘cloaking’ devices’ is nothing more than drawing a parallel between with we humans (the military in particular) do R&D on, and have adopted, and will continue to do R&D on and continue to adopt for obvious reasons. If stealth technologies exist, and some certainly exist, then it would surprise me that extraterrestrial intelligences wouldn’t have discovered this as well and adopted same, if for no other reason, assuming UFOs are the products of E.T., than it would be useful for them to often cloak themselves from human observation. E.T. is here on a scientific mission, IMHO, and like say wildlife biologists hide in the bushes so as not to disturb the objects of their study; or why a hunter uses camouflage in the woods so that their prey doesn’t spot them. Equally valid, the military has equipped their soldiers with combat uniforms that match background terrain, and ditto camouflage nets. I mean we’ve all seen footage of military camouflage.  If humans, why not E.T.?

So, IMHO, the ninth objection fails because stealth technology exists; an advanced extraterrestrial civilization with the technological smarts to get from there to here would have mastered the sorts of stealth technology physics and engineering that would enable them to elude us human primitives. In any event, government files are full of hardcore UFO radar cases – unsolved radar cases.