Greetings Readers,

It’s time we returned, however briefly, to exploring some of the themes which underpin Memoirs of Conquest.

It’s an open secret that certain elements woven into the narrative, draw heavily from UFO culture. Unfortunately, however, that admission comes weighted with a significant amount of pop-culture trivialisation which presents a very real risk of undermining any attempt at producing a more serious narrative tone.

But is it really warranted?

Rather surprisingly, the short answer (in my opinion at least) is, ‘No, it most definitely is not’.

Now, before we get into this, as a man who was only just championing the healthy skepticism embodied by Atheism and bemoaning the intellectual decline of society in his last two blog posts, I’m going to point out that I’m not asking you to set aside a robust sense of skepticism, in fact, I think it’s a vitally important tool for unpicking the various elements which have gone into making UFOs a subject of ridicule in the modern era. What I am going to say is, bear with me; I’m going to do my best to illustrate (at least in part) how, as with a great many things in life, our accepted view arises from a series of gross misconceptions, misunderstandings, and misrepresentations.

So let’s get started…

One of the key arguments leveled against the UFO phenomenon is one of legitimacy; We are told, repeatedly, by mainstream commentary and consensus that there exists no credible evidence to support the idea that there was (or is) an extant phenomenon and that the concept has never been taken seriously in governmental or scientific circles, and nor should it. Now whilst it’s true that in the modern era, UFOs have been relegated to the realms of pop-culture iconography, fringe pseudo-science, and conspiracy-obsessed Internet sub-culture, in addressing the issue of misconceptions and misrepresentations it’s important to point out that this was not always the case.

Contrary to the stereotype of the UFO phenomenon beginning in the 1950’s (usually with Roswell), the trail of official documentation actually begins in the late 1940’s in the closing stages of the Second World War. Unidentified aerial phenomenon, as we understand them in modern parlance, first appear as ‘Foo-Fighters’ in the mission reports of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron of the USAF (operating in the European theatre, predominantly over Germany) beginning in November 1944 and continuing through to mid-1945. These reports are readily available in the US National Archives in Maryland, and we also know from readily available CIA/’Office of Scientific Intelligence’ (OSI) records dated from the early 1950’s that, at the time, the US Government commissioned scientists from Caltech (H.P. Robertson), California Berkeley (Luis Alvarez) and UCLA (David Griggs) to investigate, albeit under the auspices of searching out possibly unknown Nazi weapons-technologies.

“Kannst du es so machen, dass die Alliierten es nicht klar fotografieren können?”

Now, contrary to the modern dismissal as misidentification of German weapons-technology (such as the V2 Rocket or ME262 Jet Fighter), we know from interviews conducted in the late 1960’s that, not only did the scientists find no applicable technologies to account for the reports, but that at least one of them (Griggs) was so concerned with the effects of these unidentified ‘Foo Fighters’ had on the electrical systems of allied planes that encountered them, that when he was transferred further afield to gather data as part of the ‘Compton Scientific Intelligence Committee’ investigating potentially unidentified Japanese military-technology (which the US government was keen to assimilate), he made an especial effort to investigate anything related to ‘Foo-Fighters’, electromagnetic weapons-technology, or anything else that might assist in explaining the wealth of ‘Foo-Fighter’ reports continuing to occur in the Pacific theatre. We have to remember, that this is at a time before the idea of UFOs had even begun to enter the public consciousness, let alone the strange electromagnetic effects stereotypically associated with them in modern portrayals. We also have records, such as those from HQ VII Bomber Command, which show that the phenomenon was indeed being recorded in the Pacific, consistently and in significant number. As an interesting aside, further, later supporting evidence for the existence of officially documented phenomenon in the Pacific Theatre can be found in messages exchanged between the intelligence center at Wright-Patterson Airforce Base and the Director of Air Force Intelligence at the Pentagon in February of 1952, when they began their own data-gathering exercises related to UFOs.

When we move into the post-war period, sightings of unexplained aerial phenomenon do not abate, but rather continue to intensify. 1947, in particular, is a key year in ‘Ufology’ because of the occurrence of what is considered the first, true, ‘UFO’ sighting by US aviator and entrepreneur Kenneth Arnold and the beginning of the big ‘waves of sightings’ that characterised the late 40’s and the early 50’s (and captured the public imagination at the time). It is interesting to note, however, that official (and readily available) records exist from the time of sightings that precede Arnold’s famous case by many months, such as those of the US Weather Bureau. This agency, in particular, has records of several sightings which are noteworthy because they were made by trained personnel operating theodolites (a type of sighting telescope) whilst also observing weather balloons and other known (and sometimes classified) aerial apparatus in action. This is important, because not only were they able to distinguish between known and unknown objects but were also cognisant of (and would recognise) other atmospheric effects and visual ephemera. We know of many of these cases because, when the UFO waves of the 50’s began in earnest, the US Weather Bureau felt them pertinent enough to have them transferred to the air force where they subsequently ended up in the case files of the (in)famous ‘Project Blue Book’.

“What about the one being beamed into the saucer Ted?”

This period is also noteworthy, in the context of looking at the UFO phenomenon as more than just a subject of ridicule, as we also start seeing more reports from trained observers such as air force pilots, air force intelligence officers, and qualified personnel such as rocket experts attached to the ‘Naval Research Laboratory’ not to mention solid data available from the emerging world of radar. We know of this because communications documents from the time, such as those garnered from FOIA requests made to the FBI, show said reports were being analysed by the Pentagon and the ‘Air Staff for Research and Development’ of the nascent USAF (then still the AAF), and because whilst this was happening, the AAF in particular, was putting out press releases to reassure the public about such sightings.

I think it’s important to remember here, how little was actually in the sky at the time. It’s easy to forget, in the current era of satellite communication, budget airlines, commercially available drones, and the plethora of other technologies buzzing around our skies, that we’re talking about a period, seventy-odd years ago, when the skies were relatively empty. There were a lot fewer aerial phenomena to eliminate from the list of possible misidentifications, and from a military perspective, it was relatively easy to track what had been in the air on any given day, within any given jurisdiction.

With this in mind, a wealth of official documentation, readily available for scrutiny, shows that in the latter stages of the 1940’s a number of high-ranking military and intelligence personnel became involved with the phenomenon, with interest from the Pentagon (both its ‘Collections’ and ‘Analysis’ divisions), ‘Air Force Intelligence’, the ‘Office of Defensive Air Analysis’ and ‘Air Materiel Command’. In the latter case, in particular, we know that a ‘flying disk project’ was established in collaboration with the Pentagon, which (amongst other things) saw them attempting to plot trajectories for so-called, ‘Disk Sightings’ in an echo of work undertaken by US, UK and Scandinavian military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel during the ‘Ghost Rocket’ scares over Sweden, Norway and Finland in 1946.

Now it’s important to note that the allied interest in aerial phenomenon (led by the US) was, at this point, still focussed on possible legacy technologies from the defeated Axis powers or emergent technologies from the burgeoning threat of the USSR, but in the same vein, many of the official documents available from the period, without offering alternative solutions, often contradict these hypotheses as being unrealistic given the huge leap in technology that would have been required to perform many of the aerial manoeuvres observed. Now, this is especially relevant to our consideration of the UFO phenomenon as worthy of more than just out-of-hand dismissal, because we now know (with the benefit of hindsight) what the US only suspected at the time; that they were the most advanced power on the planet, and that the aeronautical, rocket and jet-propulsion technologies they were familiar with (especially in terms of their own military capabilities) classified or otherwise, represented the then limit of what was humanly possible. The impact of this is two-fold: As a result of this knowledge, the late 40’s to early 50’s see the idea of these phenomena, which exceeded the then capabilities of the US, being non-terrestrial start to coalesce in the official consciousness, and for us, as present observers looking back (with access to swathes of classified data), we have documentary evidence for a credible phenomenon with no readily identifiable cause…

Мы пришли с миром

As we start to move forwards again, the late 40’s had already seen the establishment of formal investigations into the UFO phenomenon, which would culminate in the establish of Project SIGN, the files of which were later declassified in the 60’s, and whose final report in 1949 testified to the existence of UFOs and that, in spite of more credible explanations such as ex-Axis or contemporary Soviet technologies, their origins could not be readily determined. We also know from SIGN’s documentation, that credible sightings from military personnel and trained individuals in the public sphere (such as commercial pilots or trained ground observers) continued to occur and be collected & collated.

In a similar vein, official documentation shows that, as we move into the early 50’s the UFO phenomenon was increasingly witnessed over US assets related to weapons testing sites, atomic weapon storage, and atomic power plants (and experimental sites), and that the ‘Atomic Energy Security Service’ in the US felt the problem so pressing, they authorised the use of high quality, ‘high speed’ astronomical-quality cameras to assist in observations of UFOs. We also see the involvement of the ‘Air Force Office of Special Investigations’, and academics such as Dr Lincoln LaPaz, in attempting to gather tacit evidence to support further investigation. LaPaz in particular, a pioneer in the study of meteors, would go on to be heavily involved in the UFO phenomenon in the 50’s and 60’s, and is reputed to have come to the conclusion that UFOs (in terms of those objects for which there was no other, logical explanation) were most likely unmanned, extraterrestrial probes.

Again, far from crackpots and pseudo-scientists, we are talking about credible, qualified individuals within academia, making an informed assertion based on information they, themselves had collected from what they felt to be reliable sources or, in LaPaz’s case especially, a phenomenon they themselves had directly witnessed.

Of the 50’s proper, entire books could be (and have been) written on the wealth of material related to official investigations into the UFO phenomenon. We see the official investigatory project in the US transition from SIGN, to Grudge, to Blue Book, we see the US armed forces formalise its reporting procedures by establishing a ‘Joint Army, Navy, and Airforce Publications’ committee (JANAP) with the express purpose of revising WWII’s CIRES (Communications Instructions for Reporting Emergency Sightings) system and, amongst other things, establish clear lines of communication for the reporting of UFO sightings. The 50’s also sees the UFO phenomenon expanding into the public sphere, and becoming such an issue that the CIA’s ‘Office of Scientific Intelligence’ formed the highly secretive (and later, highly contentious) ‘Robertson Panel’ in 1953 under the direction of Howard P. Robertson, a physicist and CIA consultant, not to mention the director of the ‘Defense Department Weapons Evaluation Group’.

The Robertson Panel itself is interesting because not only do we have the CIA feeling the need to form an expert panel to deal with the issue of UFOs, but at least one member of the panel, astrophysicist Dr Thornton Page, would later go on to say (in criticising its bias) that the panel was formed simply to reduce public concern and show that UFO reports could be explained by conventional reasoning, whereas another panel member, astronomer Dr J. Allen Hynek, initially a hardened skeptic, would go even further becoming not only a vocal critic of the panel’s findings but also the US government’s handling of the UFO phenomenon, going so far as to found CUFOS (the center for UFO studies) and, in 1978, speaking before the United Nations General Assembly on behalf of himself, Dr. Jacques Vallée, and Dr. Claude Poher to propose the creation of a centralized, United Nations authority on UFOs.

“I don’t always posit an extraterrestrial hypothesis, but when I do…”

Don’t get me wrong, I could easily go on and double the length of this already, lengthy blog post to discuss the continuing wealth of credible reports and data gathered, not to mention governmental and academic personalities and organisations interested in the subject over the course of the 60’s, 70’s and even on into the 80’s and 90’s; we could talk about how the French space agency CNES established (and still maintains) an office (GEIPAN) dedicated to collecting and collating information on UFO sightings and making it available to the public, we could also discuss how, quite recently, the militaries of various South American countries have established, and openly discussed, their own reporting procedures for UFO sightings (and have even reached out to the US to link up their efforts), and we could also talk about the various professionals and academics currently involved with MUFON (the mutual UFO network).

But no.

Instead, we’re going to turn to the subject of misrepresentation.

You see, the Robertson Panel is important in another way…

It is the point at which we see the UFO phenomenon really begin to be discussed in terms that suggest it was an annoyance that needed to be managed or proactively sidelined. Admittedly, it is a process that perhaps began with the aptly named ‘Project Grudge’ in the late-40’s, but whereas Grudge simply represented a genuine data-collection endeavour suddenly at the mercy of tacitly disinterested or proactively dismissive helmsmen, the Robertson Panel is the defining point at which we see various governmental agencies with vested interests in minimising the interest in the UFO phenomenon start to align their interests and make deliberate moves to reduce its validity in the public consciousness. We see the effects and iniquities of the Robertson Panel of ’53 later refined in the Condon Committee of ’66-’68 – This latter body, arising out of a legitimate desire and pressure from almost every quarter (military, governmental, public, etc.) for better, more systematic and academic research into the matter, was passed off to a single US university via financial inducement, helmed by men with an obvious bias who concluded, despite drawing attention to a statistically significant residue of cases which defied explanation, that no further research was really warranted, and represents the true death knell of the UFO phenomenon as a legitimate field of research.

The Robertson Panel, and later the Condon Committee, represent the ‘move along, nothing to see’ attitude of the tired policeman who, faced with managing a crowd of anxious onlookers to a spectacle he’s not really interested in, simply wants to get back to the reassuring monotony of his usual beat, with its readily identifiable miscreants and easily recognisable misdemeanours.

“Move along, there’s a good fellow…”

So where does Memoirs of Conquest come into this?

Well, what if there was something to see?

Sitting in 2017, we are in the fortunate position of having a wealth of information at our fingertips that we can begin to compile and collate in interesting ways, and perhaps utilise in constructing an intriguing narrative: Knowing what we now know about space exploration in the modern era, we can perhaps give some credence (at the very least as a narrative device) to LaPaz’s assertion that UFOs were unmanned probes. We can perhaps also, from the data available over the course of the 40’s and 50’s, infer an escalating pattern of observation, beginning with military technologies in WWII, and moving on to our first experiments with atomic, and later nuclear, weapons, and technology. By volume of report and quality of source, we could even infer the continuance of these remote observations throughout the 60’s and into the 70’s – As our own technology improved over the course of the 80’s and the 90’s, we can perhaps suggest that this reconnoitering was gradually scaled back due to our increasingly busy skies and increasingly effective detection methods. As we move into the 2000’s, it might not be unreasonable to imagine that the birth of a global communications network and the wealth of information it provides, much of it transmitted via satellite, means that intelligence can be gathered without ever having to penetrate our atmosphere. What if, in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, rather than looking to the skies, we should now be looking at our data networks, studying more closely those strange ‘penetrations’ by ‘unidentified, state-level actors’.

The only real downside to this wonderful narrative contrivance, of course, is the risk that its true…

Surprising as it may sound, I don’t mean that because of the assumed threat of impending invasion: I’m referring instead to the sense of missed opportunity it infers. Once you navigate your way past the quagmire of supposition and conspiracy theories obfuscating the subject, even a cursory reading of actual, credible source materials from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s suggests that something was indeed going on and, whilst the dwindling of official interest and increasing ridicule play a part in the similarly diminishing number of credible accounts as we move into the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, it doesn’t tell the whole story. The records available seem to suggest a thirty-year window of opportunity to have really explored the UFO phenomenon before it receded, and were it indeed the case we were being visited by non-terrestrial vehicles, to have tacitly and explicitly identified that fact. As it is, we may well have missed the boat, and now potentially exist in the classic ‘goldfish bowl’ scenario of more ‘arm’s length’ observation.

Even if we haven’t missed our opportunity, and interaction is ongoing, the simple fact of the matter is that it would take a significant amount of effort to overturn the entrenched cultural stereotype of the subject, clear the waters that have been steadily muddled by the rise of the pseudo-scientific, lunatic fringe, and reach a point were some cohesive strategy for true, scientific investigation could be formed. Sadly, I think, little short of some singular, extraordinary and irrefutable event, it will take us getting a good century clear of the Condon Committee, and well on the way to initiating human exploration of Mars, remote exploration of places like Jupiter’s moon Europa, and improved techniques for exo-planet detection and observation, before the idea of life out there, coming here, becomes even remotely credible again…

…and all the while, those documents from yesteryear which could have given us a head start will remain unseen, moldering away in forgotten filing cabinets or sitting unread in obscure online archives, not because of tacit efforts to conceal them, but because the world chose to look the other way for fear of being made fun of – Like Mulder, still sitting alone in that basement, waiting for someone else who wants to believe…

“Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI’s most unwanted.”