EDITORIAL

The truth is out there

As AEROSPACE goes to press, the US Congress is set to hold the first open hearing about UFOs in half a century – indicating a shift in official thinking from the giggle factor of ‘alien conspiracy’ to an aerospace subject worthy of serious investigation – as well as a potential risk to flight safety. The spur for this was the declassification of US Navy Super Hornet FLIR footage, credible aircrew eyewitness accounts and radar tracks on both coasts of the US – with the Pentagon releasing the FLIR video in 2020.

Some, for instance, believe the US Navy encounters to be adversary spy UAVs to get an insight into the electronic order of battle of a US carrier group. However, if the objects seen were UAVs, then a mothership (or submarine) must have been nearby to launch them, and transmissions of their ELINT collection downlinked or otherwise returned to its owners. Conversely, if these are visitors from another planet, who are keeping tabs on a superpower’s latest military technology, one might ask why fighter pilots have not seen similar phenomena in the Nevada ranges, around the Area 51 test area, and at Red Flag, where the US also tests its latest exotic classified military technology.

Some might argue that even the mere mention of UFO/UAPs has no place in a publication of the RAeS but this cultural shift in high-level official US policy, particularly in whether these represent adversary threats or are a danger to flight safety, means that politicians, decision-makers, the media and general public will be looking towards those with knowledge and experience of weather, aerodynamics, propulsion, materials, engineering, aviation medicine and human factors for learned, independent and critical analysis. While their true nature is still a mystery, this topic is now shifting away from fringe alien conspiracy theorists and towards the aerospace mainstream.

Tim Robinson 
FRAeS, Editor-in-Chief
tim.robinson@aerosociety.com
@RAeSTimR