Preoccupation with flying objects unabated

For at least a decade, reports about witnessing UFOs have disappeared from media outlets. Some even joke that with almost every smartphone having a high-definition camera and everyone with a smartphone being able to access social media networks, UFOs will never be seen in the media again.

That's because a majority of the UFO reports in the 1980s and 1990s proved to be mistakes or hoaxes. They just made it more troublesome to keep records and sharing information on potential UFO sightings. They also make the recent US Congress hearing on UFOs on Wednesday more like entertainment. Even though the three veteran officers attending the hearing said that UFOs, or unidentified anomalous phenomenon as they are now known, are a national security issue and that the Pentagon is not transparent enough on it, the hearing did not reach any conclusion on whether Earth has been visited by aliens or whether any alien spacecraft had ever been spotted.

But still there is something about US politics that can be observed from the hearing. The struggle between the two parties is one, as the Republicans all praised David Grusch who served 14 years in the US Air Force as an intelligence officer and became a whistleblower this time, trying to impress the audience with the low efficiency and high bureaucratism of the Democrat-led government. The Democrats had to admit a lack of transparency by the government over the issue. But they still defended their party by avoiding saying bad words about it.

The unlimited expansion of the US intelligence agencies is another. Grusch and his two companions gave testimonies about the US government having hidden too much information about possible UFO or UAP sightings. There is no reason to blindly believe all these are associated with extraterrestrials, as even the sightings have not been confirmed yet, but who knows how much information the US government has kept to itself, isolated from the world under a "confidential" tag?

The abuse of the national security concept in the US should sound an alert, too. The three veteran officers talked about US national security. But it seems the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies worry more about meteorological research balloons from other nations than UAPs.