Those of a certain age will recall the US television show ‘The X-Files’, which began screening just shy of 30 years ago.
A paranoia-soaked science fiction drama, it revolved around Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who were tasked with investigating the eponymous unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena.
The show coined two taglines that still regularly pop up as internet memes – “The truth is out there”, and “I want to believe” – and approximately two-thirds of the series comprised of standalone ‘monster of the week’ episodes, while the other third involved an increasingly complex story arc involving a planned alien invasion.
Fans and even casual viewers of the show are quite likely to have been experiencing a strong dose of déjà vu if they’ve happened to follow any of the past week’s coverage of the US congressional hearing into unidentified flying objects [more commonly known as UFOs, although the phenomenon has relatively recently been renamed as UAPs – or unidentified aerial phenomena – for some unclear reason].
Overcoming a decades-long reluctance to investigate this off-the-planet topic, US politicians from both Democrat and Republican camps have exhibited a sudden enthusiasm for asking questions about the possibility that for many years extraterrestrial lifeforms have been doing drive-bys of the Earth, with the occasional alien pilot spinning out and crashing.
While interest in the UFOs/UAPs has been on the uptick in the past few years, thanks to the leaking of military videos that seem to show weird objects performing aerodynamically impossible manoeuvres in US airspace, these hearings were prompted by the claims of former intelligence official David Grusch, who has now alleged under oath that the US Government is hiding “intact and partially intact” and “non-human” pilots, and has been conducting a “multi-decade” programme that’s collected, and attempted to reverse-engineer, crashed UFOs.
Grusch’s claims have attracted a quick clapback from another intelligence officer, Sean Kirkpatrick, who was appointed a year ago to head up the Pentagon’s new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which is charged with investigating UFOs/UAPs. He reckons the claims are “insulting” to the “truth-seekers” he works with, who are yet to “find any credible evidence to support the allegations of any reverse engineering program for non-human technology”.
What one should make of this is anyone’s guess – and there are a fair few pundits who are willing to have a go.
One theory is that it has no basis in reality and is just a distraction aimed at keeping some other story tightly under wraps [as per the new meme, “I wanted to believe but then the government said they were real”] or aimed at provoking some kind of concerted global effort.
Another is that it’s true [or partially so] and there’s a schism within government agencies about whether to tell the public or not.
And then there’s the idea it’s somehow connected to the negotiation of a treaty about weapons beyond Earth’s atmosphere [remember Trump founding the US Space Force in 2019?].
As to what the truth is, for the time being, we’re all on our own [or are we?].
In the meantime, watch that space I guess.
