what the objects actually are. In their respective countries, some government agencies continue to collect case reports and look into sightings, adding more data to the heap but not solving anything, as the rest of the world looks away.
When asked, most military officers who have been personally involved with UFO incidents refrain from interpretation or speculation, yet privately many have a keen, persistent interest in getting to the bottom of the problem. They want to know what it was they themselves have seen, or what their trusted military colleagues have encountered, and this desire does not diminish over time. These witnesses and insiders recognize the extraterrestrial, or maybe interdimensional, possibility; once you have observed one of these bizarre manifestations at close range, your mind is newly opened, through no choice of your own. Even those who were prior debunkers, who would have scoffed at the mere notion of a UFO, are forced to recognize the once inconceivable. They often feel isolated, afraid of ridicule, unsupported by the world around them. But collectively, they may be able to make a difference.
Credible witnesses and government investigators have documented thousands of compelling case reports and first-person accounts. We now have accumulated enough data to establish the reality of some kind of consistent physical phenomenon
How can we overcome this? In terms of finding a workable model, we can look to France’s UFO agency as the mother of them all, because, as we have seen, its office within CNES has been diligently working on the problem for over thirty years, from a research perspective rather than a military one. By seeking knowledge purely for its own sake, the French have been open to a wide range of explanations for UFOs, as scientists should be. The historic COMETA Report of 1999 broke a barrier when its generals, admirals, and engineers, along with a former head of CNES, brought the issue into the military realm and declared with great authority that even though it had not yet been proved, the extraterrestrial hypothesis was the most likely explanation of the phenomenon.
Will we ever be able to find out, to the satisfaction of scientists in the world community, what UFOs are and where they come from? Is this something we, as a planetary society, would be capable of deciding to do? If so, we would have to be proactive, rigorously seeking a resolution to this problem, making it a priority. Alternatively, would we prefer to sit back and wait for the seemingly all-powerful flying objects to reveal themselves more fully to us? Nearly all of the most concerned, most credible, and most serious of the government and military officials I have talked to agree on three basic points, when it comes to moving the issue forward:
• that further scientific investigation is mandated, partly because of the impact of UFOs on aircraft and aviation safety
• that this investigation must be an international, cooperative venture involving many governments and transcending politics
• that such a global effort cannot be effective without the participation of the United States, the world’s greatest technological power
We are locked in by the stifling UFO taboo, which has served to protect us from the deeper, underlying issues and even threats—both perceived and unconscious—inherent in the most basic acknowledgment of a shocking and unexplained physical phenomenon. Now we need to rattle that cage. In this section, we will explore these crucial political questions with the help of a former high-level FAA official, a former state governor, and, more theoretically and philosophically, two leading political scientists. Yet, the final determination about our country’s potential role in the future will have to be decided by all of us.
Logically, the first step in moving toward a solution is the establishment of an office or small agency within the U.S. government to handle appropriate UFO investigations, liaison with other countries, and demonstrate to the scientific community that this is indeed a subject worthy of study. In order to achieve these goals, we must consider where—under what branch of government—the United States should create this modest “UFO office” to get the process started. Using other countries as a model, there are many options. Often it is the Air Force that handles these investigations, as we have seen in Belgium and Brazil, even though neither government had established a special department within the Air Force for this purpose. However, in both cases, the generals involved have stated that a specific unit tasked full time with UFO investigations would have greatly aided the process, and they advocate for that necessity. Perhaps America needs to open a new Air Force office, being extremely careful to avoid repeating the many mistakes of Project Blue Book. General De Brouwer of Belgium recommends that the Air Force be the location for the American agency, because it is responsible for airspace security and has the means to intervene if required. The work of the office, he adds, must be objective, open- minded, and transparent, and private civilian groups could assist in this effort.
Four specific agencies described previously—the GEIPAN of France, the CEFAA of Chile, the OIFFA of Peru, and the Ministry of Defence office in the UK—were set up in four distinctly different bureaucratic departments within each of their respective countries. The French agency was founded within the equivalent of our NASA, while the Chilean authorities established theirs within the equivalent of our FAA, stressing aviation safety. The Peruvian office is an Air Force agency, and the British UFO office resided within their Ministry of Defence, like our DoD, with a mandate to protect the defense interests of the UK. This diversity of both locations and emphases has much to teach us, showing that within our own country we have a number of structural options.
Many of our contributors, such as Jean-Jacques Velasco of France, Dr. Richard Haines of the United States, General Bermudez of Chile, and Brigadier General Pereira of Brazil, stress the importance of establishing some kind of centralized database—“a serious global organization that is objective, connected to agencies around the world, and committed to respond in a scientific and responsible way to the larger questions raised by the UFO issue,” as Bermudez describes it. “Without this, we are stuck.” Some have therefore proposed that the United Nations might be a logical focal point for the further study of UFOs, since the phenomenon occurs worldwide, transcending national boundaries. Theoretically that makes sense, but its effectiveness would be highly unlikely, given the many preoccupations and bureaucratic headaches of today’s world body in a time of increasing danger and hardship.
However, at an earlier time, in a relatively simpler world, an approach
In 1978, Sir Eric M. Gairy, then prime minister of Grenada, proposed to the United Nations General Assembly that the UN establish “an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, coordinating, and disseminating the results of research into Unidentified Flying Objects and related phenomena.”[140] With his associates Dr. Jacques Vallee and Lieutenant Colonel Larry Coyne, a U.S. Army pilot whose helicopter almost collided with a UFO in 1973, Dr. Hynek requested—in a UN hearing—that the United Nations provide a framework in which the many scientists and specialists around the world working on the UFO phenomenon could share their studies. He pointed out that UFOs had been reported in 133 member states of the UN and that there existed over one thousand cases where “there appears physical evidence of the immediate presence of the UFO. In significant numbers, these reports had been made by highly responsible persons— astronauts, radar experts, military and commercial pilots, officials of governments, and scientists, including astronomers.”[141]
Despite these concerns, State Department teletypes show that the United States delegation at the UN was dismissive of Gairy’s effort, calling it a “blitzkrieg sales pitch”[142] and attempting to prevent his resolution from ever passing. A confidential message sent to the U.S. Secretary of State from the UN mission made an “action request” seeking “instructions on U.S. position to be taken in this matter as well as desired level of visibility. Last year Grenada requested our support and Misoff had to scramble hard behind the scenes to water down the resolution and, in effect, delay a vote for one year. Another consideration is whether to issue a disclaimer on statements made by U.S. nationals on the Grenadian delegation.”[143]
Later, U.S. members conducted “negotiating sessions” with delegates from other missions, “in an attempt to arrive at a mutually acceptable compromise solution to the problem.” The plan was devised to refer the Grenada resolution to the Outer Space Committee without a mandate to engage in a study. This would alleviate “the need to vote on a resolution and gamble on the results.”[144] Despite U.S. efforts to block the vote, the General Assembly eventually adopted a draft resolution submitted by Grenada. It all fell apart in 1979, when Gairy was ousted during an internal communist takeover that tragically led to his execution.
