The Wall Street Journal published a Free Expression column by James B. Meigs this week, entitled “Our UFO Obsession Is a Distraction From National-Security Reality.” The title says it all, really, along with the tagline: “The skies are full of drones, not flying saucers.”
The key passage, really, is this:
I’m a skeptic about UFOs. I think the chances that we’ve been visited by extraterrestrials are infinitesimally remote. But for that very reason, I strongly support opening the government books. As Journal columnist Holman Jenkins argues, the U.S. military and intelligence establishments have long sidestepped legitimate questions about unexplained sightings and sometimes deliberately fomented “UFO hysteria.” That kind of gamesmanship simply invites more conspiracy theories. And if one of these UAPs turns out to be something truly out of this world, well, they ought to tell us that too.
This deflates the whole thesis. Most thoughtful folk marshal some doubt when presented with claims about things with which they have no experience. It also shows that transparency on the subject is an area of broad agreement — at least among people who know next to nothing.
But bringing “extraterrestrial” aliens into the conversation about UFOs is itself a standard distraction. While it is true that most people who have seen something bizarre in the skies or coming out of (and going into) bodies of water leap to the ET hypothesis, it is not the sole conjecture to explain the phenomena, and even among ufologists it appears to be decreasing in popularity. Other explanations? They include:
- Plasmoids (“life-like” systems of plasma, the fourth state of matter)
- Cryptoterrestrials (they’re from here, are much older than us, and probably reside in the oceans)
- Ultraterrestrials (they’re from “other dimensions”)
- Breakaway civilizations (human tech but far more advanced than our civilization’s drones)
So having a theory about how difficult it would be for “aliens” to get here — as Mr. Meigs floats — border on the disingenuous. Besides, such Difficulty Objections are based on our currently rickety physics.
Meigs, who is associated with the Manhattan Institute, also observes that the War Department’s tranches of released historical UFO files “have yet to include any bombshells supporting the claims made by retired intelligence officer David Grusch in his explosive 2023 congressional testimony.” Well, yes. No evidence has been disclosed of crashed UFO retrievals or “biologics” (both staples of science fiction). But it has been widely observed that elements in the Pentagon and the information agencies have worked mightily to pooh-pooh UFO talk — even while also using disinformation to encourage belief in UFOs among targeted individuals and groups. (What if the actual psy-op is planned confusion and a divided-and-conquered populace?) Also, it may be worthwhile to note a fact about the files so far released: they’ve been mostly stripped of telemetry and investigative reports, consisting mostly of raw data unadorned by context, seeming more designed to appease disclosure advocates than actually disclose anything.
This is a widely noted judgment of the files even among their enthusiasts.
More importantly, the files do show behavior of flying objects that is far beyond what our civilization has yet publicly produced. Many of these sightings are outré enough not to warrant being classified as mere “drones.”
But there are drones out there. One reason to disclose all aspects of the files is to allow the Navy (which appears to encounter UAP with the most frequency) to distinguish enemy reconnaissance objects from whatever the truly outré UFOs are.
Interestingly, UFO historian Richard Dolan has commented on the op-ed.
Let’s end this by taking the above-mentioned Plasmoid theory seriously: “It is likely that the plasmas of the ionosphere, when they descend into the lower atmosphere, account for many reports of UAP/UFOs including those that have followed, harassed, and ‘toyed with’ military and civilian planes,” as a 2024 study puts it. “As documented, plasmas in the ionosphere will also turn, follow and even collide with each other.”
These aren’t drones. And they aren’t aliens. But they are alien. They’re apparently all around us. The Plasmoid Theory may not explain all odd encounters, but they, too, must be thoroughly studied and be popularly acknowledged. For the truth’s sake as well as for national security.
Feature image taken from “Observations of Ball-Lightning-Like Plasmoids Ejected from Silicon by Localized Microwaves (2013).”