A little over a month ago I submitted my final journalism assignment of the year. Burnt out on ethics, law, and the rot of British politics, I decided to have a little fun with this one while exploring a guilty pleasure of mine.
The following was written before the extraordinary claims of former US Air Force and intelligence officer, David Grusch, came to light. Some would have us believe – and it’s being reported in the media more credulously than I’ve ever seen – that the real monsters under the bed are grey, rather than red; and our governments have been tracking them for years.
This is by far my most poorly graded essay.
Considering and exploring the societal impact of journalism and news coverage of the 2023 military shootdowns over North America.
On 4 February, off the east coast of the United States, US fighter jets shot down a 200 feet high Chinese surveillance balloon which carried a payload as large as a small plane (Lakhani, 2023). Three more unidentified flying objects were reportedly shot down over the next fortnight (Al Jazeera, 2023); however, while a photograph of the first balloon was released by the US Department of Defence – as was video of the missile taking it down – there was no such release for the other three objects; nor was any wreckage – if found – reported on.
It’s worth noting that this was the first time in NORAD’s 65-year history that anything was shot down in US airspace (National Defence, 2023). This should concern more than just the Americans, considering the attacks of 9/11 have defined and guided US foreign policy for more than two decades; and yet for two weeks in February, there was free reign to invade their airspace.
NORAD says that that its radar is tuned to things like planes and missiles, which after their failings on 9/11, could make sense. (Mansoor, 2013) It appears that, upon tweaking the sensitivity of the radar led to the detection of the other three objects (Schogol, 2012), which, it appears, could have been nothing more innocuous than hobby balloons (Trimble, 2023). Embarrassment over using millions of dollars’ worth of missiles to ruin a hobbyist’s day could explain the non-release of such evidence (Boswell & Sharp, 2023). The US Military was quick though to release footage of the Russian take-down of one of their drones over the Black Sea (Liebermann & Bertrand, et al, 2023). It is this kind of uneven secrecy that feeds into the conspiracy theories that these incursions over our airspace could be other-worldly.
Whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s reaction to the shootdowns speaks volumes. As he remarked, “…it’s not aliens …it’s just the ol’ engineered panic, and attractive nuisance ensuring natsec reporters get assigned to investigate balloon bullshit rather than budgets or bombings (à la nordstream).” (Snowden, 2023). This allusion to the alleged bombing by the US of the Nordstream pipeline did see a flutter of chatter at the time but was forgotten quicker than the shootdowns, once the news cycle moved on and attention spans were distracted by the next big story.
There have been strange things in the skies for as long as there were creatures on Earth to misidentify them. Even famous French ufologist Jacques Vallée has said that the least likely explanation of this phenomenon is extra-terrestrials. Yet, when we look at the societal impact of these four shootdowns, it would be impossible not to reference the phenomenon as a whole.
In September 2019 and April 2020, respectively, the US Navy and Pentagon released a statement confirming the authenticity of three leaked UFO videos leaked to the New York Times in 2017, stating that they were both real and unexplained (Conte, 2020). The New York Times article published in 2017 was the beginning of the latest wave of interest in UFOs; one that grips every generation without fail (Cooper et al, 2017). One of the co-authors of that piece was Leslie Kean, one of a growing number of investigative journalists, scientists and academics who lend credence to a subject typically treated as ridiculous and un-scientific.
The title alone of Kean’s 2010 book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record, tells us that the subject is not simply the purview of deranged yokels and potheads. Kean, like many of her colleagues, have come to the conclusion that UFOs are physical objects – as real as any plane or balloon – yet, “they remain unexplained …can be an aviation safety hazard [and] our government routinely ignores them, disrespecting expert witnesses and issuing false explanations.” (Kean, 2010).
February’s Chinese balloon was cited as a threat to aviation, and yet when Navy pilots report objects defying the laws of physics around carrier groups, it’s spoken about in the same way as haunted houses and bigfoot. Perhaps, since our pop-culture zeitgeist has taken on the alien as the boogeymen of the century, we’re as likely to dismiss such ideas as simply as ridiculous as witches, demons, and genies.
Kean talks of fundamentalist American Christians regarding UFOs as demonic – and how that could lead to a desire to leave them alone. Carl Jung called UFOs, “technological angels,” and a, “universal mass rumour.” (Jung, 1959). In increasingly secular – and atheistic – times, we are seeing something like a need for something more than just the tangible. Some say a denial of God leaves a god-shaped hole. Even in our culture, this has been shown by the nightmares we conjure during sleep apnoea, turning from monsters of scripture into the aliens of current day folklore and police reports (Newsom, 2023). Is it that, just like the parable of the blind men touching different parts of the elephants and seeing a different beast, we only see in the clouds what our subconscious chooses?
Jung also wrote that, “No sensible person would believe in UFOs.” While Stephen Hawking said that aliens only appear to cranks and weirdos (Venables, 2012). The truth, writes Professor of religious studies, Diana Walsh Pasulka, “is quite the opposite.” (Pasulka, 2019, Ch 2, 2:00). In her book, American Cosmic, she posits that, “Certain media techniques influence religious belief, and belief in the supernatural.” (Pasulka, 2019, Ch 6, 5:16). Pasulka makes the case that, “Belief in extra-terrestrials constituted a new form of religion.” (Pasulka, 2019, Ch 9, 2:31).
Just as the Virgin Mary is said to have once appeared to children in Fatima, otherworldly apparitions have infamously been witnessed by children from as far afield as Varginha, Brazil; Ruwa, Zimbabwe; and Melbourne, Australia. The children, now adults, all stick to their stories. Mass hallucination could explain much of this – but what of an entire Navy carrier group? And is a swarm of high-tech Chinese drones more – or less–– concerning than the supernatural? Surely the psychological implications of this worldwide phenomenon are almost equally as fascinating as visitors from space.
Pentagon briefings in January revealed 510 UFOs – many in military airspace (Associated Press, 2023). This month saw more briefings on Capitol Hill, but Lawmakers are apparently unimpressed with how serious they are being taken (Bender, 2022). That being said, it would be possible to ignore American experiencers and the American press entirely, while still having a remarkable wealth of anecdotal evidence. Ross Coulthart, Australian investigative journalist, has risen to the forefront of research into the phenomenon in recent years. In his book, In Plain Sight, Coulthart reminds us of the Aboriginal art and dreamtime stories which imagine – or remember – the strange lights in the sky and non-human faces of spirits. Recalling a conversation with former Director of US Navy Science and Technology Development, Nat Kobitz, Coulthart asked him, “Are you able to confirm to me that the US has been trying to develop recovered alien technology?” To which, after “careful consideration,” Kobitz replied, “Yes, I can say that’s so.” (Coulthart, 2021, Ch 22, Para 19).
But without credible evidence, it might as well all be smoke and mirrors. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was approached by investigative reporter Georgina Bruni following the Rendlesham Forest incident of 1980, when American servicemen witnessed strange lights and a craft landing near US Airbases in Suffolk. Thatcher infamously told Bruni that, “You must get your facts right and you can’t tell the people.” (Bruni, 2000).
Because when highly trained war fighters – manning bases, allegedly containing nuclear weapons – charged with guarding us while we sleep see such things, surely we should take them seriously. The trouble is, who do we believe when the SAS come out and claim that they were lampooning the Americans after being captured, brutalised, and called unidentified aliens? “We’ll show them what aliens really look like,” one trooper is reported to have said (Lockett, 2021). And if individual servicemen and women can’t be trusted, what does that say of militaries and governments as a whole?
Black triangles have become some of the most commonly reported UFOs. One such craft purportedly crashed in the area around Kirtland Air Force Base in the 1970s and the Air Force took bothersome local UFO investigator Paul Benowitz to see it from the air. This black triangle was an experimental version of the F-117 Nighthawk “Stealth Fighter,” but it was a perfect addition to the government disinformation that led to Benowitz’s myth building of an alien invasion conspiracy, and subsequent breakdown and hospitalisation (Lundberg et al, 2013).
It’s useful to be able to cover up your secret aircraft in this way. It’s certainly more likely that the strange things in the sky are military black projects or spy craft. Looking at the exhaust heat of a jet airplane in Forward-looking Infrared looks a lot like a spinning flying saucer. Maybe such videos are deepfakes or frisbeed hubcaps or maybe the pilots saw laser induced plasma military countermeasures (Hambling, 2020).
Regarding the scope of this short investigation, it drags us quickly into the fringe where it is near impossible to source academic or even reliable evidence. Certainly, when claims and hypotheses become so outlandish that it’s difficult to know how to process them, it will become harder than ever to sort fantasy from fact.
This is the true societal impact of an almost religious reaction to the unknown. And, as Carl Sagan famously said, it’s important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
References
Al Jazeera (2023, 13 February). What we know about the mysterious flying objects downed by the US. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/13/what-we-need-to-know-about-the-four-objects-downed-by-the-us
Associated Press. (2023, January 12). WATCH: Pentagon holds briefing on UFO reports, fighting in eastern Ukraine. PBS News Hour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-pentagon-holds-briefing-following-russias-release-of-u-s-veteran-who-crossed-border
Bender, B. (2022, May 2). The UFO briefings on Capitol Hill have begun. Lawmakers aren’t impressed. Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/ufo-briefings-congress-pentagon-00029315
Boswell, C, & Sharp, C. (2023, March 27). EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon REFUSES to release footage of three UFOs shot down over Alaska by US fighter jets sidewinder missiles – despite admitting that images of the wreckage exist. The Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11907515/Pentagon-REFUSES-release-shot-UFO-footage-North-America.html
Bruni, G. (2000). You Can’t Tell the People. Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, London.
Conte, M (2020, April 29). Pentagon officially releases UFO videos. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/pentagon-ufo-videos/index.html
Cooper, H., Blumenthal, R., & Kean, L. (2017, December 16). Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html
Coulthart, R (2021). In Plain Sight. Harper Collins Publishers Australia Pty Limited.
Hambling, D. (2020, May 11). U.S. Navy Laser Creates Plasma ‘UFOs’. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/05/11/us-navy-laser-creates-plasma-ufos/?sh=318b7ed21074
Jung, C.G. (1959). Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. Princeton University Press.
Kean, L. (2010). UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record. Three Rivers Press.
Lakhani, N. (2023, April 3). Chinese balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive US military sites – report. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/03/china-spy-balloon-us-military-intelligence/
Liebermann, O., Bertrand, N. & Sciutto, J. (2023, March 16). US military releases footage of Russian fighter jet forcing down American drone over Black Sea. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/16/politics/us-military-video-drone-russian-jet/index.html
Lockett, J. (2021, January 21). X-FILE RIDDLE SAS trooper claims UK’s most famous UFO sighting was revenge prank after US soldiers ‘called us aliens’. The Sun. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13628163/sas-trooper-ufo-sighting-rendlesham-forest-prank/
Lundberg, J., Denning, R., Kyprianou, K. (Directors). (2013). Mirage Men. [Documentary]. Perception Management Productions
Mansoor, S. (2013, February 10). Why America’s Air Defense Network Failed to Detect the Chinese Spy Balloons. Time. https://time.com/6254681/chinese-balloons-us-air-defense-network-failure/
National Defence. (2023, May 12). Statement from the Minister of National Defence on the 65th Anniversary of the Creation of NORAD. National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2023/05/statement-from-the-minister-of-national-defence-on-the-65th-anniversary-of-the-creation-of-norad0.html
Newsom, R. (2023, May 18). Sleep Demon. Sleep Foundation. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/parasomnias/sleep-demon
Pasulka, D.W. (2019). American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. [Audiobook]. Oxford University Press. https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/American-Cosmic-Audiobook/1977339468?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp
Schogol, J. (2012, February 23). How balloon encounters revealed gaps in NORAD’s warning system. Task & Purpose. https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-military-norad-radar-balloons/
Snowden, E. [@Snowden]. (2023, February 13). it’s not aliens / i wish it were aliens / but it’s not aliens / it’s just the ol’ engineered panic, an attractive nuisance ensuring natsec reporters get assigned to investigate balloon bullshit rather than budgets or bombings (à la nordstream) / until next time [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1625241477642088454?s=20
Trimble, S. (2023, February 16). Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF. Aviation Week. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf
CHRIS PARLETT 
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