Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs)
In 1947 W.W. ("Mac") Brazel discovered some unusual debris -- tinfoil, rubber strips, and sticks -- on his New Mexico ranch. People have been talking about it ever since. The military fostered the initial intrigue by claiming the recovered debris was from a "flying disc" only later walking it back with explanations centered around a weather balloon, then a top-secret project to detect Soviet nuclear testing, then a balsa wood frame carrying a radar target.
Too late. The July 9, 1947 headline in the Roswell Daily Record blared "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch In Roswell Region." Mr. Brazel helpfully added he did not believe that the debris was from a weather balloon.
The so-called Roswell incident became the centerpiece of all sorts of fear, speculation, intrigue, fascination, projection, and conspiracy theories, as the United States and other countries became enveloped in a "flying saucer" craze. “UFOs” have fired the imagination for some seventy-five years now.
The term UFO has actually been neutered by the more scientific “Unidentified Anomalous (previously, Aerial) Phenomena,” the official name given for subsequent sightings. Ongoing investigations are classified as either "identified" with a known astronomical, atmospheric (or otherwise human-caused phenomenon) or "unidentified" meaning there was insufficient information to make an identification with a known phenomenon. The latter category makes up six percent of total sightings.
Referencing that six percent, we will be joined in our session by Lt. Commander Alex Dietrich (retired), a U.S. Navy fighter pilot who famously intersected with one such signature event. On November 14th, 2004, Alex was on a routine training mission off the coast of Southern California, until it was ordered to vector off to intercept a “real-world” contact picked up on radar from the USS Princeton, a ship in the training battlegroup.
This interception is referred to as the "Tic Tac" incident – so named after the shape of the object performing in ways that were totally outside any known laws of physics. Linked here is the account of her 2004 encounter as featured on 60 Minutes (60 Minutes Navy UFO Sighting 8/29/21). While Alex had been extensively debriefed on what she saw, she claims no particular technical expertise (i.e. physics) to explain either the phenomenon or how it might fit into the mosaic of other UAP events.
Alex’s account is one more data point on a subject capturing the center stage in Washington with the July 13 announcement of proposed legislation that would mandate the full disclosure of any government or private contractor information relating to UFOs (er, UAPs) along with any “biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence.” The proposed legislation follows allegations by former intelligence official David Grusch that secret UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs have been Illegally hidden from Congress. Both NASA and the Pentagon have also weighed in on the subject.
How do you relate to the possibility of non-human life? In many ways, the prospect of non-human life has changed little since the reports of Mr. Brazel’s discovery seventy-five years ago – in that it still represents the sum of all fears, imaginations, hopes, even a kind of imposter religion for some. Research has shown that people reporting contact with aliens, known as “experiencers,” have a different psychological profile compared to control participants. They show higher levels of dissociative, absorption, paranormal belief and experience, possibly fantasy proneness Psychological Profile. Alex decidedly does not fit such a profile, having simply reported what she observed as the engineer that she is without further speculation.
The subject may invite a certain religious dimension, such as the perspective of Father Spyridon Bailey’s assertion in his book The UFO Deception, equating the phenomenon with yet another form of occult worship that would undermine Christian doctrinal sanctification of the human soul. Then, of course, comes the inevitable question about the government’s possible role, particularly given its reversal from downright skepticism, even scorn, to its recent openness to “get behind all this.”
Maybe little has changed since Mr. Brazel’s discovery some seventy-five years ago.