Governments and military organizations around the world have shown strong interest in UFOs. On November 2, 1954, Brigadier General João Adil Oliveira, chief of Brazil’s air force general staff information service, said to members of the Army war college, “The problem of flying discs has polarized the attention of the whole world. But it’s serious and it deserves to be treated seriously. Almost all the governments of the great powers are interested in it, dealing with it in a serious and confidential manner, due to its military interest” (Burt 2000, p. 311). In a letter dated May 5, 1967, Air Marshall Rosenun Nurjadin, commander-in-chief of the Indonesian air force, wrote, “UFOs sighted in Indonesia are identical with those sighted in other countries. Sometimes they pose a problem for our air defence and once we were obliged to open fire on them” (Burt 2000, pp. 313–314). In 1974, in an interview with uFo news, General Kanshi Ishikawa, chief of staff of Japan’s air self-defense force, said, “Much evidence tells us that UFOs have been tracked by radar, so, UFOs are real and they may come from outer space. . . . UFO photographs and various materials show scientifically that there are more advanced people piloting the saucers” (Burt 2000, p. 314). China’s Academy of Social Sciences has had a branch called the China UFO Research Organization. In the August 27, 1985 edition of the newspaper China Daily, Professor Liang Renglin of Guangzhou Jinan University said, “More than six hundred UFO reports have been made in China during the past five years” (Burt 2000, p. 322).
In 1984, the Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences established a commission on anomalous atmospheric phenomena. The chairman was Vsesvolod Troitsky, of the Academy, and the vice chairman was General Pavel Popovich, a famous cosmonaut. In 1988, the Academy of Sciences held a conference on UFOs, attended by 300 scientists (Clark 1998, p.
978). In June 1989, General Igor Maltsev, Soviet chief of air defense forces, discussed military encounters with UFOs in an article in Soviet military Review: “For skeptics and non-skeptics, this information can serve as officially documented proof of UFO validity. We hope that this open acknowledgment of the phenomenon will put an end to ambiguous speculations and will make the fact of its existence beyond doubt. Now we have grounds to tell that UFOs are not optical or hallucinated objects, which were allegedly caused by global psychosis. The objects have been spotted by technological means. Pictures are available for specialists” (Burt 2000, p. 315).
The French government has an active UFO research program. The first organized studies began in 1976, when the Institute des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale (IHEDN), formed a committee to study UFOs. It was chaired by General Blanchard of the Gendarmerie National. This led to the formation of the Groupe d’Etude des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non Indentifiés (GEPAN). In 1977, GEPAN published a five volume report. The report focused on eleven cases, studied in great detail. Sociologist Ronald Westrum said in 1978, “In nine of the eleven cases, the conclusion was that the witnesses had witnessed a material phenomenon that could not be explained as a natural phenomenon or a human device. One of the conclusions of the total report is that behind the overall phenomenon there is a ‘flying machine whose modes of sustenance and propulsion are beyond our knowledge’” (Fowler 1981, pp.
224–225). GEPAN later became the Service d’Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrée Atmosphérique (SEPRA), which is part of the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the French equivalent of NASA (COMETA 1999, p. 7).
In 1999, a group of high ranking scientists, military officers, and government officials presented a report on UFOs to the French government. The report, titled uFos and Defense: What Should We Prepare For?, was produced by the Committee for In-Depth Studies (COMETA). The guiding force behind COMETA was French air force general Denis Letty. COMETA included in addition to General Letty: air force general Bruno Le Moine; Admiral Marc Merlo; Denis Blancher, chief of the ministry of the interior’s national police force; Françoise Lépine of the Foundation for Defense Studies; Christian Marchal, research director of ONERA, the National Aerospace Study and Research Office; Michael Algrin, state doctor of political science; Alain Orszag, a doctor of physical sciences and weapons engineer; Pierre Boscond, also a weapons engineer; and Jean Dunglas, an engineer. Several other high ranking military and government officers also contributed to the report (COMETA 1999, p. 6).
General Norlain, director of the IHEDN, said about COMETA: “Almost all of its members have, or had during the course of their careers, important responsibilities in defense, industry, teaching, research, or various central administrations.” General Norlain also said, “I express the wish that the recommendations of COMETA, which are inspired by good sense, will be examined and implemented by the authorities of our country” (COMETA 1999, p. 5). Professor André Lebeau, former chairman of the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), wrote a foreword to the COMETA report. He said, “The report is useful in that it contributes toward stripping the phenomenon of UFOs of its irrational layer” (COMETA 1999, p. 2).
Governing and military officials in the United Kingdom have long been interested in UFOs. In the July 11, 1954 edition of London’s Sunday Dispatch, Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, Commander-in-Chief of RAF Fighter Command, said about UFOs: “More than 10,000 sightings have been reported, the majority of which cannot be accounted for by any scientific explanation. . . . I am convinced that these objects do exist and that they are not manufactured by any nation on earth. I can therefore see no alternative to accepting the theory that they come from some extraterrestrial source” (Burt 2001, p. 312).
Since 1964, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) has studied UFOs through Department 2a of the Secretariate (Air Staff) division, abbreviated Sec(AS)2a. Nick Pope, who headed the division from 1991 to 1994, has described its activities in his book open Skies, Closed minds. Pope afterwards remained an official of the Ministry of Defence. About Pope, the COMETA report says, “He has given interviews to the press and participated in television programs. He has cooperated with ufological organizations, giving their address and phone number to witnesses who have written to him. In his letters of response he admitted that a small proportion of UFO sightings defied explanation and that the MOD was keeping its mind open regarding these. . . . In his book, Nick Pope evokes various hypotheses to explain certain unidentified cases that were the subject of credible and detailed reports. He strongly favors the extraterrestrial hypothesis” (COMETA 1999, pp. 52–53).
In 1987, in his foreword to Timothy Goode’s book above top Secret, Lord Hill-Norton, Chief of Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence, wrote about UFOs: “A very large number of sightings have been vouched for by persons whose credentials seem to me unimpeachable. It is striking that so many have been trained observers, such as police officers and airline or military pilots. Their observations have in many instances been supported either by technical means such as radar or even more convincingly by . . . interference with electrical apparatus of one sort or another” (Burt 2001, pp. 312–313).
Let us now consider some representative UFO cases. We will consider cases in four categories: 1. sightings of flying objects that display intelligently guided flight characteristics beyond those of known aircraft; 2. sightings such of UFOs involving landings that leave physical traces; 3. sightings of UFOs that involve not only landings but also humanoid occupants; 4. abductions.