10.05
Popular culture and opinions
It has been suggested that UFO conspiracy theories have been presented to UFO enthusiasts as disinformation designed to distract from prosaic but secretive government effort; there is one well-documented instance of this occurring; see Paul Bennewitz. Some UFO conspiracy theories have been studied as emergent folklore or urban legends. It has also been suggested that UFO conspiracy theories were deliberately played into by the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War in order to create fear in the minds of Soviet leaders that the United States had access to superior alien technology and, thus, shouldn’t be attacked or provoked.
Various conspiratorial UFO ideas have flourished on the internet and are frequently featured on George Noory’s program, Coast to Coast AM.
In fiction, television programs (The X-Files and Stargate), films (Men in Black and Independence Day) and any number of novels have featured elements of UFO conspiracy theories.
Elements may include the government’s sinister guy from Men in Black, the military bases known as Area 51, RAF Rudloe Manor or Porton Down, a supposed crash site in Roswell, New Mexico, the infamous Rendlesham Forest Incident, a political committee dubbed the “Majestic 12″ or afterrunner of the UK Ministry of Defence’s Flying Saucer Working Party or the FSWP.
Various recent polls have suggested that most Americans suspect that their government is withholding or suppressing UFO-related evidence. Some civilians suggest that they have been abducted and/or body parts have been taken from them. The contention that there is a widespread cover-up of UFO information isn’t limited to the general public or UFO research community. For example, a 1971 survey of Industrial Research/Development magazine found that 76% felt the government wasn’t revealing all it knew about UFOs, 54% thought UFOs definitely or probably existed, and 32% thought they came from outer space.
There have also been some notable persons to have publicly stated that UFO evidence is being suppressed. These have included Senator Barry Goldwater, Admiral Lord Hill-Norton (former NATO head and chief of the British Defence Staff), Brigadier-General Arthur Exon (former commanding officer of Wright-Patterson AFB), Vice-Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter (first CIA director), astronauts Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell, former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer, and the 1999 French COMETA report by various French generals and aerospace experts.