This is not the first time we in the media have turned our attention to the UFO story, big-time. You would think it was. People are talking about the coverage of the subject these days and saying that UFOs are finally going mainstream. But this has happened before.

          It used to happen every decade. Since the eighties, it’s been a bit less often, but it always comes around again. Back in the nineties, abduction stories were at least entertained on CBS News and in The New York Times. In the eighties, the Brazilian Air Force investigated UFOs at length. That was after the U.S. Air Force conducted its own investigations in both the fifties and sixties. And these are just a few examples of many. UFO reporting always goes mainstream.

          And then, the story goes away again.

          My opinion is that the story goes away because it never really develops. Now, I might be wrong here.  But it seems to me that the UFO never actually steps forward and engages us in our history.  There could be something I don’t know.  Maybe the government has a secret relationship with aliens.  Or maybe one of their ships crashed once, and air-tech companies have since reverse-engineered our own tech based on the analysis of recovered materials.

          Or maybe one day, one of them will zip down and disable a nuke before it can be launched.

          Or maybe abduction stories are true-ish.

          Maybe they are helping us to evolve. I really do not know. 

          But I personally doubt the government knows too much about UFOs—because if these mysterious sky-vehicles are as fast as everyone says they are, then they’ll always just fly away and be gone before we can initiate contact on our own terms. And if one of them did crash one time, that doesn’t entail the government (or Lockheed) having any deeper understanding of the situation.  (Or control over it).

          So if I were a betting man,  I would predict that this story will keep on holding the media’s interest for another couple of years,  before curiosity about the subject is again replaced by an attitude of scorn. Because the UFO will not reveal its face.

          But then, only a fool thinks he can tell the future,  and I hope I’m no fool.

          So just one last observation:  those who see them are changed somehow. 

          And why not?  It is a phenomenon we know almost nothing about.  But whatever it is, it is equal to us.  And it announces that we do not understand.  Our categories fail: is it a part of us and somehow originating out of our selves?  Or is it entirely foreign?  Its behavior confounds: why does it sneak about and then suddenly reveal itself?  Why does it reveal itself in ways that leave space for doubt when the encounter is narrated later?

          What is its intention? Why do so many see it and expect salvation? And why are we so resistant to even entertaining the possibility of its existence? What are we to it? What does it want with us?

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          Until next time, I remain —

          Very truly yours —

          Murray J. Penglass