U-2 program

Seal of the C.I.A. - Central Intelligence Agency of the United States Government (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Groom Lake test facility was established by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for Project Aquatone, the development of the Lockheed U-2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft in April 1955.
As part of the project, the director, Richard M. Bissell Jr., understood that the extreme secrecy enveloping the project, the flight test and pilot training programs could not be conducted at Edwards Air Force Base or Lockheed's Palmdale facility. A search for a suitable testing site for the U-2 was conducted under the same extreme security as the rest of the project.[31]
Bissell recalled "a little X-shaped field" in southern Nevada that he had flown over many times during his involvement with the nuclear weapons test program. The airfield was the abandoned Indian Springs Airfield Auxiliary No. 1 field, which by 1955 had reverted to sand and was unusable, but the adjacent Groom Dry Lake to the northwest met the requirements for a site that was "remote, but not too remote".[31]
He notified Lockheed, who sent an inspection team out to Groom Lake. According to Kelly Johnson, "... We flew over it and within thirty seconds, you knew that was the place ... it was right by a dry lake. Man alive, we looked at that lake, and we all looked at each other. It was another Edwards, so we wheeled around, landed on that lake, taxied up to one end of it. It was a perfect natural landing field ... as smooth as a billiard table without anything being done to it". Johnson used a compass to lay out the direction of the first runway. The place was called "Groom Lake."[1][31]
The lakebed made an ideal strip from which they could operate the troublesome test aircraft, and the Emigrant Valley's mountain ranges and the NTS perimeter protected the test site from prying eyes and outside interference about 100 miles north of Las Vegas.[32][33]
On 4 May 1955, a survey team arrived at Groom Lake and laid out a 5,000-foot (1,500 m), north-south runway on the southwest corner of the lakebed and designated a site for a base support facility. The new airfield, then known as Site II or "The Ranch", initially consisted of little more than a few shelters, workshops and trailer homes in which to house its small team.[32] In a little over three months, the base consisted of a single, paved runway, three hangars, a control tower, and rudimentary accommodations for test personnel. The base's few amenities included a movie theatre and volleyball court. Additionally, there was a mess hall, several water wells, and fuel storage tanks. By July 1955, CIA, Air Force, and Lockheed personnel began arriving.[1] The Ranch received its first U-2 delivery on 24 July 1955 from Burbank on a C-124 Globemaster II cargo plane, accompanied by Lockheed technicians on a Douglas DC-3.[32] The first U-2 lifted off from Groom on 4 August 1955. A U-2 fleet under the control of the CIA began overflights of Soviet territory by mid-1956.
The Groom Lake airfield soon acquired a name: Watertown. According to some accounts, the site was named after CIA director Allen Dulles' birthplace: Watertown, New York. Upon its activation, the testing facility was used with increasing frequency for U-2 testing, however that changed in 1957 when the Atomic Energy Commission began testing nuclear weapons at the nearby Yucca Flat facility.[1]
Once the AEC Operation Plumbbob series of tests began with the Boltzmann blast in May 1957, the Watertown airfield personnel were required to evacuate the base prior to each detonation. The AEC, in turn, tried to ensure that expected fallout from any given shot would be limited so as to permit re-entry of personnel within three to four weeks. All personnel at the base were required to wear radiation badges to measure their exposure to fallout. Once the atomic testing began, the CIA U-2 testing operations were interrupted constantly due to the explosions at Yucca Flat, which were scheduled and re-scheduled frequently.[1]
The CIA facilities at Groom Lake were always considered by the agency as a temporary facility, to accommodate the U-2 testing. As the project began to wind down, and CIA pilot classes finished their training, Watertown became a virtual ghost town. By June 1957, most U-2 testing had moved to Edwards AFB and the first operational USAF unit to receive the U-2, the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, was active at Laughlin AFB, Texas. For two years following the departure of the U-2s from Groom Lake, the base was fairly quiet, although it remained under CIA jurisdiction

Area 51

Area 51 (Photo credit: OakleyOriginals)

Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. It is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles (133 km) north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield. The base's primary purpose is to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems.[1][2]
The base lies within the United States Air Force's vast Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), formerly called the Nellis Air Force Range (NAFR). Although the facilities at the range are managed by the 99th Air Base Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, the Groom facility appears to be run as an adjunct of the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, around 186 miles (300 km) southwest of Groom, and as such the base is known as Air Force Flight Test Center (Detachment 3).[3][4]
Though the name Area 51 is used in official Central Intelligence Agency documentation,[5] other names used for the facility include Dreamland, Paradise Ranch,[6][7] Home Base, Watertown Strip, Groom Lake,[8] and most recently Homey Airport.[9] The area is part of the Nellis Military Operations Area, and the restricted airspace around the field is referred to as (R-4808N),[10] known by the military pilots in the area as "The Box" or "the Container".[11]
The facility is not a conventional airbase, as frontline operational units are not normally deployed there. It instead appears to be used for highly classified military/defense Special Access Programs (SAP), which are unacknowledged publicly by the government, military personnel, and defense contractors. Its mission may be to support the development, testing, and training phases for new aircraft weapons systems or research projects. Once these projects have been approved by the United States Air Force or other agencies such as the CIA, and are ready to be announced to the public, operations of the aircraft are then moved to a normal air force base. The intense secrecy surrounding the base, the very existence of which the U.S. government did not even acknowledge until July 14, 2003,[12] has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore.[7][13]

Georges Charpak

Georges Charpak portrait photographed by Studio Harcourt Paris Français : Georges Charpak photographié par Studio Harcourt Paris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Georges Charpak was born to Jewish family in the village of Dąbrowica in Poland (now Dubrovytsia, Ukraine). Charpak's family moved from Poland to Paris when he was seven years old, beginning his maths study in 1941 at the Lycée Saint Louis. [3] During World War II Charpak served in the resistance and was imprisoned by Vichy authorities in 1943. In 1944 he was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, where he remained until the camp was liberated in 1945. After classes préparatoires studies at Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris and later at Lycée Joffre in Montpellier,[4] he joined in 1945 the Paris based École des Mines, one of the most prestigious engineering schools in France. The following year he became a naturalized French citizen. He graduated in 1948, earning the French degree of Civil Engineer of Mines (equivalent to a Master's degree) becoming a pupil in the laboratory of Frédéric Joliot-Curie at the Collège de France during 1949, [3][5] the year after Curie had directed construction of the first atomic pile within France. [6] While at the Collège, Charpak secured a research position [3] for the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He received his PhD in 1954 [7] from Nuclear Physics at the Collège de France , receiving the qualification after having written a thesis on the subject of very low radiation due to disintegration of nuclei (Charpak & Suzor).[3][8][9] In 1959, he joined the staff of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva. This is where he invented , and developed, [10][11] the multiwire proportional chamber. The chamber was patented and that quickly superseded the old bubble chambers, allowing for better data processing. This new creation had been made public during 1968. [12] Charpak was later to become a joint inventor with Ngoc and Policarpo of the scintillation drift chamber during the latter parts of the 1970's. [13] He eventually retired from CERN in 1991.In 1980, Georges Charpak became professor-in-residence at École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles in Paris (ESPCI) and held the Joliot-Curie Chair there in 1984. This is where he developed and demonstrated the powerful applications of the particle detectors he invented, most notably for enabling better health diagnostics. He was the co-founder of a number of start-up in the biomedical arena, including Molecular Engines Laboratories, Biospace Instruments and SuperSonic Imagine – together with Mathias Fink.He was elected to the French Academy of Sciences on 20 May 1985. Georges Charpak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992 "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber", with affiliations to both École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles (ESPCI) and CERN. This was the last time a single person was awarded the physics prize.[citation needed]In March, 2001 Charpak received Honorary degree Ph.D from University of the Andes, Colombia in Bogotá.[14]
In France, Charpak was a very strong advocate for nuclear power. Prof. Charpak was a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.[15]

Why Is Pseudoscience Dangerous?

Русский: Эмблема Совета безопасности Российской Федерации English: Emblem Security Council of Russia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The growth and influence of pseudoscience in Russia has become serious. Many pseudoscientific devices and schemes have gained influence within governmental organizations. A special Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences against pseudoscience has had some effect in addressing the problem.

The end of the twentieth century was marked by a boom of astrology, mysticism, and occultism in many countries. In the USSR (during the last years of its existence) and then in Russia the situation was even worse in a sense. The system’s collapse and the wreck of old ideals-along with the absence of new ones-caused many people to hope for some kind of miracle. The mass media contributed to this tendency. Through their irresponsibility, pseudoscience has filled newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV.

In recent years a new phenomenon has arisen. Pseudoscience has become a powerful, well-organized force. Over the last decade in Russia, about 120 academies have appeared, many of which don't deserve the name “academy.”

Some of them give their stamp of approval to professionally inadequate doctors of science in various fields. Others do the same in pseudoscientific disciplines, giving diplomas to astrologers, UFOlogists, and others of the sort.

In Russia, even research institutes with pseudoscientific tendencies have appeared. I'll give only two examples: the International Institute of Space Anthropecology and the International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics. The first has even managed to attain state accreditation with the help of the Russian Ministry of Science. The second has received financial support both from the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Defense for the well-known swindle of torsion fields.

Peaceful coexistence between science and pseudoscience is impossible. From time to time, science attempts to unmask pseudoscience. The latter fights back with fierce hatred. Pseudoscientists are anxious to settle accounts with the Academy of Science, because the Academy is a great obstacle to these newly half-baked “scientists.” Here are a few quoted statements of such people:

“By the end of the twentieth century, on the periphery of official academic science, such a substantial arsenal of facts, conceptual guesses, and extravagant technologies was compiled, demanding an integral and unpreconceived comprehension, that it encourages many scientists to expect a new scientific paradigm in the beginning of the third millennium.”
“The scientific paradigm is hopelessly obsolete. The epoch of materialistic science, which does not recognize this, is finished.” Meanwhile, according to the statements of such “scientists,” “the influence of thought on the composition of liquid chemicals was proved.” Furthermore, “The world’s leading physicists and philosophers warned of an inconsistency between the modern paradigm and the fundamentals of physics.”
Thus pseudoscience predicts the full breakdown of science unless the scientific paradigm is changed. Meanwhile, according to a statement of academician Z.I. Alferov, recently awarded the Nobel Prize, “. . . the crisis in quantum physics is not observed. For the most part in the physics kingdom, it is calm now.”

The Emergence of Antiscience
Where does this passionate desire to replace a scientific paradigm stem from? Here is what one of the pseudoscientists said: “Up to now the broadly spread dogma of experimental studies of the nineteenth century is to recognize as 'scientific' only one such technique, which provides reproducible experimental results irrespective of whenever and wherever they could be obtained.”

What a fertile ground for antiscience if this “dogma” is canceled. There will be no need for explanations or repeatable evidence.

Here is what one of the main theorists of the so-called science of torsion fields, “academician” G. Shipov said: “Now there is no doubt in the existence of telepathy, levitation, clairvoyance, retrovision, or that energy of consciousness plays some certain role in physical processes.” And since science does not recognize this, therefore, “official science lags behind the new developments.”

Science has long been too indulgent to pseudoscience. This cannot continue. Pseudoscience becomes dangerous for both science and society. The bacchanalia of parascientific delirium has even begun to affect the highest echelons of power. Pseudoscience has begun to gain the favor of officials representing the supreme authorities of the country.

In the 1980s, for example, Chumak and Kashpirovsky forced their way onto television in spite of the fact that during those years TV was controlled by the state! This means that paranormalists have appeared on TV with the consent of the supreme officials. These officials might wish to know at least that Mr. Chumak is not original. His trick with “charging” water was unmasked in the beginning of the twentieth century by American physicist Robert Wood.

It is worth mentioning the sad fact that Mr. Kashpirovsky pushed his ideas on members of the state Duma, and Mr. Chumak also has tried to do this.

Here is another case, involving M.D. Maley, chairman of the Interdepartmental Commission on Scientific and Technical Problems of the Industry of Defense of Security Council of the Russian Federation. The purpose he pursued looked rather reasonable: “From the viewpoint of the Security Council, our task is to filter correctly the basic directions and orient the present and future management of the country with respect to a launching position of Russia in this scientific-technical revolution.”

To prepare for scientific breakthroughs, Mr. Maley created a “Large State Research Center.” This is praiseworthy in itself; a high-ranking government official facilitates the development of a science. Alas, when one hears the purposes, you can't help being horrified at the ignorance of the official: “Replacement of the concepts of quantum physics by neutron physics, vacuum as emptiness by the concept of neutrino fields is in prospect for us . . . .We have some works at the R&D; [research and development] stages that contradict common sense and cannot be described by any equation.”

One can add to this many other “pearls” characterizing the activities of the Center, but it hardly seems worth mentioning. But I would mention that the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, heading the Council in the first years of existence of the new Russia, O. Lobov, has managed to distinguish himself. He patronized the introduction to Russia of the scandalous doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo.

Bad Science in High Places
Astrologers, claimants of extrasensory powers, and newly appeared “scientists” of other “professions” more and more actively push themselves through into the State Duma, ministries, and even into the President’s circle. Here are recent examples:

In the Ministry of Emergency Measures, a laboratory of “extrasenses” was arranged, and though no results have been reported yet, the laboratory nevertheless exists and is financially supported.
At the Ministry of Defense, a military astrologer is employed. In addition, the Ministry has created a specialized military unit manned with psychics and others who claim special powers. The research is conducted secretly. Such senseless secrecy is advantageous only to dishonest officials. It raises the possibility of corruption and the absence of outside review and control.
At the Ministry of Defense, the Extreme Medicine Center was created. At first glance, this seems quite reasonable. However, listen to what they do there, as described by the head of the Center, Professor P. Shalimov: “We test charged water, study man’s aura.” Quite frequently in the mass media we hear complaints about the lack of funds for the army. At the same time, inside the Ministry of Defense large amounts of money are spent supporting various programs with a pseudoscientific orientation.
The deputy chief of the President’s Security, General G. Rogozin, in addition to his main duties, was involved in astrological forecasts and occultism. At the end of 1998, Mr. Rogozin, on the basis of his analysis of Nostradamus prophecies, predicted the beginning of nuclear war in July and August 1999. Fortunately, today this person is out of the President’s circle.
One academician of the Academy of Natural Science, G. Grabovoy, carried out a psychic check of the readiness of President Boris Yeltsin’s airplane. And recently, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta (a Russian newspaper) revealed to readers how Mr. Grabovoy took part in underground tests of nuclear weapons in Semipalatinsk where he supposedly investigated the influence of some device, “a crystalline module,” on a nuclear explosion. It was asserted that switching on the device makes the force of a nuclear explosion two times lower. But if one can use several such devices simultaneously, the force of explosion could be “nullified.” Under present conditions, it was said the device could be used on atomic power stations to serve as a guarantee against accidents.
This entire swindle is apparent to any physicist at once. Nevertheless, I had to carry out the official investigation. It revealed that Mr. Grabovoy never took part in tests of nuclear weapons in Semipalatinsk. Therefore, he did not test “a crystalline module” there. At the same time, it was revealed that this “doctor of technical and phys-math. science” has never defended any theses. In lists of the Italian Academy of Science, “academician” Gravovoy was never mentioned. It is sad that the governmental Rossiyskaya Gazeta misled its readers; alas, not for the first time.

In the previous State Duma, a rather strange exhibition was arranged, in which the main subject was the so-called sofa-extrasens, which was said to cure nearly a hundred diseases including impotence and frigidity. The same Duma has arranged debates on the problems of the UFOlogical safety of Russian people. To understand how this could happen, I cite the statement of the deputy chair of the State Duma Ecological Committee, doctor of technical science (!) V. Tetelmin:

Science revealed a sufficient number of examples of natural bioresonance processes affecting the human organism. For example, at the Earth, there are many well-known geopathogenic zones. Their basic property is that there, the procession of time is changing. So scientists detected that precise watches failed in the region where the Tunguska meteorite fell, in regions of nuclear weapons tests, near Chernobyl, and in other “fatal” places. . . . It was noticed that places with anomalous proceeding of time are located there, where there are flows of large amounts of water along the circle.

I hope that it is now clear who could organize such an exhibition and who could try to push through a law on the protection of the “energy-informatic” safety of the population. To the credit of the present Duma, it does not do anything like that.
Alternative medicine has dramatically developed. It is attracting numerous unscrupulous swindlers, robbing sick people who cannot find help from traditional medicine. New medical devices claiming to cure patients of any illness are appearing on the market.

A device called “New Cardiomag” recently became available at a price of only 500 rubles (about $16). It supposedly helps with hypertonia, ischemia, arterial hypertension, stenocardia, and headaches. One might question the honesty of developers of the device since one of them, doctor of medical science A.P. Naumov, has written in an advertisement for the “Cardiomag” the following: “This is an ecologically pure autonomous source of gravitation field, pulse bipolar current, and direct magnetic field with special energy characteristics” (Isvestiya, March 14, 2001). In Isvestiya of July 24, 2001 a device called “Vita” was described. Do not think that the device is so different from many other useless devices. The one thing that was different about “Vita” is that it had direct lobbying on its behalf by high-ranking officials. The Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Development, V.A. Yanvarev, requested Federal Organs of Executive Power of Federal Subjects “to facilitate head sanitary physicians in introducing the device 'Vita.'”

And a deputy head of sanitary physicians, professor E. Belyaev, impudently recommends “the use of the bioenergetic safety device 'Vita' as an individual protection against electromagnetic radiation at plants and establishments, on the ground, and air transport. . . .” Even if this device could really protect against electromagnetic radiation, it is improper for high-ranking government officials to be engaged in lobbying. And as Mr. Belyaev ends the letter with the words, “With questions on purchasing the device 'Vita' please address to . . . ,” (and then the address and phone of a commercial firm follows), there is a suspicion that the official does not do all this with much objectivity.

Two conclusions can be made about the device: The product “Vita” is not a means of protection against biological action of electromagnetic fields; and the offered technical information and advertising mislead potential customers.

It is incomprehensible why the Academy of Medical Sciences keeps silent about such fraud. It is time to express its opinion about that. The ever-growing activities of pseudoscience attempt to get money from the government, consumers, and industry while avoiding the standard procedures of review by experts. There are many examples of pseudoscientists managing to get money from state sources.

The most well known is the swindle based on so-called torsion fields. In addition, there are some “studies” on anti-gravity, and on transmutation of elements with an attempt to obtain gold (not involving the known method of nuclear reactions but instead

Scientific Method in Practice

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham as shown on the obverse of the 1982 Iraqi 10 dinar note (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the gateway to scientific thinking, an understanding of the scientific method is essential for success and productivity in science. This book is the first synthesis of the practice and the philosophy of the scientific method. It will enable scientists to be better scientists by offering them a deeper understanding of the underpinnings of the scientific method, thereby leading to more productive research and experimentation. It will also give scientists a more accurate perspective on the rationality of the scientific approach and its role in society. Beginning with a 

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.[1] Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.
A field, practice, or body of knowledge can reasonably be called pseudoscientific when it is presented as consistent with the norms of scientific research; but it demonstrably fails to meet these norms.[2] Science is also distinguishable from revelation, theology, or spirituality in that it offers insight into the physical world obtained by empirical research and testing.[3] Commonly held beliefs in popular science may not meet the criteria of science.[4] "Pop" science may blur the divide between science and pseudoscience among the general public, and may also involve science fiction.[4] Pseudoscientific beliefs are widespread, even among public school science teachers and newspaper reporters.[5]
The demarcation problem between science and pseudoscience has ethical political implications as well as philosphical and scientific issues.[6] Differentiating science from pseudoscience has practical implications in the case of health care, expert testimony, environmental policies, and science education.[7] Distinguishing scientific facts and theories from pseudoscientific beliefs such as those found in astrology, medical quackery, and occult beliefs combined with scientific concepts, is part of science education and scientific literacy.[8]
The term pseudoscience is often considered inherently pejorative, because it suggests that something is being inaccurately or even deceptively portrayed as science.[9] Accordingly, those labeled as practicing or advocating pseudoscience normally dispute the characterization.[9]

UFO conspiracy theory

Charles Fort's 1919 The Book of the Damned exposed to a small but influential group of readers to Fort's extensive references to unidentified objects. Fort himself was extremely critical of scientific consensus, and his book contained extensive references to reports he said were "damned" or ignored by scientific dogma. The Fortean Society was founded in 1931 to promote his works and over time its members included H. L. Mencken, R. Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright. According to the Durant Report on the CIA's top-secret 1953 Robertson Panel, "The writings of Charles Fort were referenced to show that 'strange things in the sky' had been recorded for hundreds of years."
These "strange things in the sky" captured the world's attention in the summer of 1947. Kenneth Arnold's description of nine shiny metallic-looking objects flying at an estimated 1,200 mph on June 24 was followed by sightings all over the United States and Canada, and later the entire globe. On July 9, 1947 the Roswell Daily Record ran a headline stating, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region". The Army Air Force changed their story the next day, saying that instead a balloon had crashed with a radar-reflecting disc suspended from it.
By August 1947, a Gallop Poll indicated that 9 out of 10 Americans had heard of flying saucers. A wide diversity of theories were offered in the press about the origin of the UFOs. Some newspapers interviewed Forteans who offered historical context and were among the first to theorize that the objects could be extraterrestrial in origin. This idea was given a fictional treatment by popular AP writer Hal Boyle on July 9 with his story "Trip on a Flying Saucer." The story and its followup installments ran in newspapers all over the nation and detailed Hal's trip to Mars with an 8 foot tall green alien who is on a scavenger hunt to find Orson Welles.
Donald Keyhoe later began investigating flying saucers for True Magazine. Keyhoe was one of the first significant conspiracy theorists, asserting eventually that the saucers were from outer space and were on some sort of scouting mission. Keyhoe derived his theory from his contacts in Air Force and Navy intelligence. Project Sign, based at Air Technical Intelligence Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its successors Project Grudge and Project Blue Book were officially tasked with investigating the flying saucers. As reported in Edward Ruppelt's book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, many people within these research groups did in fact support the hypothesis that the flying saucers were from outer space.
Keyhoe later founded NICAP, a civilian investigation group that asserted the US government was lying about UFOs and covering up information that should be shared with the public. NICAP had many influential board members, including Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, the first director of the CIA.
[edit]Popular culture and opinions

Various conspiratorial UFO ideas have flourished on the internet and are frequently featured on Art Bell'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 operative 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 Rendlesham Forest Incident, a political committee dubbed the "Majestic 12" or successor of the UK Ministry of Defence's Flying Saucer Working Party (FSWP).[3]
Some civilians[who?] 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 is not 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 was not revealing all it knew about UFOs, 54% thought UFOs definitely or probably existed, and 32% thought they came from outer space.[4]
Notable persons to have publicly stated that UFO evidence is being suppressed include 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.
[edit]Chronology

This is a list of events, statements and personalities which are related to UFO conspiracy theories.
[edit]1930s
On the night before Halloween in 1938, Orson Welles directed the Mercury Theatre in their live radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's classic novel, The War of the Worlds. By mimicking a news broadcast, the show was quite realistic sounding for its time, and some listeners were fooled into thinking that a Martian invasion was underway in the United States. There was widespread confusion, followed by outrage and controversy. Some later studies have argued that the extent of the panic was exaggerated by the contemporary press, but it remains clear that many people were caught up, to one degree or another, in the confusion.
In other countries, reactions were similar. In 1949, part of the script for the War of the Worlds was read out over the radio in Quito, Ecuador without announcement, as if it were a major piece of breaking news. Huge crowds of people emerged onto the streets and sought refuge inside of churches with their families. When the radio station was informed, they broadcasted the fact that there was no invasion. An angry mob formed and burned the station to the ground, resulting in somewhere between six and twenty deaths. There were many other countries that experienced problems when broadcasting The War of the Worlds.[5]
According to U.S. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt,[6] the Air Force's files often mentioned the panicked aftermath of the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast as a possible reaction of the public to confirmed evidence of UFOs.
[edit]1940s
[edit]The Great Los Angeles Air Raid
Main article: Battle of Los Angeles
"The Great Los Angeles Air Raid" also known as "The Battle of Los Angeles" is the name given by contemporary sources to the imaginary enemy attack and subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which took place from late 24 February to early 25 February 1942 over Los Angeles, California.[7][8] Initially, the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox speaking at a press conference shortly afterward called the incident a "false alarm." A small number of modern-day UFOlogists have suggested the targets were extraterrestrial spacecraft.[9] When documenting the incident in 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of "war nerves" likely triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries.[10]
[edit]Ghost rockets
In 1946 and 1947, numerous so-called ghost rockets appeared over Scandinavian countries, primarily Sweden, and then spread into other European countries. One USAF top secret document from 1948 stated that Swedish Air Force intelligence informed them that some of their investigators felt that the objects were not only real but could not be explained as having earthly origins. Similarly, 20 years later, Greek physicist Dr. Paul Santorini publicly stated that in 1947 he was put in charge of a Greek military investigation into the ghost rockets sighted over Greece. Again, they quickly concluded the objects were real and not of conventional origin. Santorini claimed their investigation was killed by U.S. scientists and high military officials who had already concluded the objects were extraterrestrial in origin and feared public panic because there was no defense.
[edit]Roswell Incident
Main article: Roswell UFO Incident
In 1947, the United States Air Force issued a press release stating that a "flying disk" had been recovered near Roswell, New Mexico. This press release was quickly withdrawn, and officials stated that a weather balloon had been misidentified. The Roswell case quickly faded even from the attention of most UFOlogists until the 1970s. There has been continued speculation that an alien spacecraft did indeed crash near Roswell despite the official denial. For example, retired Brigadier General Arthur E. Exon, former commanding officer of Wright-Patterson AFB, told researchers Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt that a spacecraft had crashed, alien bodies were recovered, and the event was covered up by the U.S. government. Exon further claimed he was aware of a very secretive UFO controlling committee made up primarily of very high-ranking military officers and intelligence people. His nickname for this group was "The Unholy Thirteen" (see also Majestic 12) [11]
[edit]Mantell Incident
The 1948 death of Air Force pilot Thomas Mantell (the so-called Mantell Incident) may have contributed to a distrust of governmental UFO studies. Mantell's airplane crashed and he was killed following the pursuit of an aerial artifact he described as "a metallic object...of tremendous size." (Clark, 352) Project Sign personnel investigated the case and determined that Mantell had been chasing the planet Venus, a conclusion which met with incredulity. Later this theory was changed to include a Skyhook balloon instead of Venus, an explanation which continues to be debated to this day.
[edit]Project Sign
The U.S. Air Force may have planted the seeds of UFO conspiracy theories with Project Sign (established 1947) (which became Project Grudge and Project Blue Book). Edward J. Ruppelt, the first director of Blue Book, characterized the Air Force's public behavior regarding UFOs as "schizophrenic": alternately open and transparent, then secretive and dismissive. Ruppelt also revealed that in mid-1948, Project Sign issued a top secret Estimate of the Situation concluding that the flying saucers were not only real but probably extraterrestrial in origin. According to Ruppelt, the Estimate was ordered destroyed by Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg.
[edit]1950s
The UK Ministry of Defence’s UFO Project has its roots in a study commissioned in 1950 by the MOD’s then Chief Scientific Adviser, the great radar scientist Sir Henry Tizard. As a result of his insistence that UFO sightings should not be dismissed without some form of proper scientific study, the Department set up the Flying Saucer Working Party (or FSWP).[citation needed]
In August 1950, Montanan baseball manager Nicholas Mariana films several UFOs with his color 16mm camera. Project Blue Book is called in and, after inspecting the film, Mariana claimed they returned it to him with critical footage removed, clearly showing the objects as disc-shaped. The incident sparks nation-wide media attention.
Frank Scully's 1950 Behind the Flying Saucers suggested that the U.S. government had recovered a crashed flying saucer and its dead occupants near Aztec, New Mexico, in 1948. It was later revealed that Scully had been the victim of a prank by "two veteran confidence artists".[citation needed]
Donald Keyhoe was a retired U.S. Marine who wrote a series of popular books and magazine articles that were very influential in shaping public opinion, arguing that UFOs were indeed real and the U.S. government was suppressing UFO evidence. Keyhoe's first article on the subject came out in True Magazine, January 1950, and was a national sensation. His first book, Flying Saucers Are Real also came out in 1950, at about the same time as Frank Scully's book, and was a bestseller. In 1956, Keyhoe helped establish NICAP, a powerful civilian UFO investigating group with many inside sources. Keyhoe became its director and continued his attacks on the Air Force. Other contemporary critics also charged that the United States Air Force was perpetrating a cover-up with its Project Blue Book.
Canadian radio engineer Wilbert B. Smith, who worked for the Canadian Department of Transport, was interested in flying saucer propulsion technology and wondered if the assertions in the just-published Scully and Keyhoe books were factual. In September 1950, he had the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. arrange contact with U.S. officials to try to discover the truth of the matter. Smith was briefed by Dr. Robert Sarbacher, a physicist and consultant to the Defense Department's Research and Development Board. Other correspondence, having to do with Keyhoe needing to get clearance to publish another article on Smith's theories of UFO propulsion, indicated that Bush and his group were operating out of the Research and Development Board.[12] Smith then briefed superiors in the Canadian government, leading to the establishment of Project Magnet, a small Canadian government UFO research effort. Canadian documents and Smith's private papers were uncovered in the late 1970s, and by 1984, other alleged documents emerged claiming the existence of a highly secret UFO oversight committee of scientists and military people called Majestic 12, again naming Vannevar Bush. Sarbacher was also interviewed in the 1980s and corroborated the information in Smith's memos and correspondence. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Smith granted public interviews, and among other things stated that he had been lent crashed UFO material for analysis by a highly secret U.S. government group which he wouldn't name.[13]
A few weeks after the Robertson Panel, the Air Force issued Regulation 200-2, ordering air base officers to publicly discuss UFO incidents only if they were judged to have been solved, and to classify all the unsolved cases to keep them out of the public eye. In addition, UFO investigative duties started to be taken on by the newly formed 4602nd Air Intelligence Squadron (AISS) of the Air Defense Command. The 4,602nd AISS was tasked with investigating only the most important UFO cases with intelligence or national security implications. These were deliberately siphoned away from Blue Book, leaving Blue Book to deal with the more trivial reports. (Dolan, 210-211)
In 1954 an automatic working station for UFO monitoring was installed at Shirley's Bay near Ottawa in Canada. After this station detected the first suspicious event, all data gained by this station was classified as secret, although the cameras of the monitoring station could not make any pictures because of fog.(citation?)
1956 saw the publication of Gray Barker's They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, the book which publicized the idea of sinister Men in Black who appear to UFO witnesses and warn them to keep quiet. There has been continued speculation that the men in black are government agents who harass and threaten UFO witnesses.
Also in 1956, the group Foundation for Earth-Space Relations, led by film producer Tzadi Sophit, tested their own flying saucer outside the Long Island town of Ridge Landing. It is speculated in Robertson's "The Long Island Saucer" that an FBI cover-up silenced witnesses. (citation?)
On January 22, 1958, when Donald Keyhoe appeared on CBS television, his statements on UFOs were precensored by the Air Force. During the show when Keyhoe tried to depart from the censored script to "reveal something that has never been disclosed before", CBS cut the sound, later stating Keyhoe was about to violate "predetermined security standards" and about to say something he wasn't "authorized to release". What Keyhoe was about to reveal were four publicly unknown military studies concluding UFOs were interplanetary (including the 1948 Project Sign Estimate of the Situation and a 1952 Project Blue Book engineering analysis of UFO motion presented at the Robertson Panel. [Timothy Good, 286-287; Richard Dolan 293-295]
Astronaut Gordon Cooper reported suppression of a flying saucer movie filmed in high clarity by two Edwards AFB range photographers on May 3, 1957. Cooper said he viewed developed negatives of the object, clearly showing a dish-like object with a dome on top and something like holes or ports in the dome. The photographers and another witness, when later interviewed by James McDonald, confirmed the story. Cooper said military authorities then picked up the film and neither he nor the photographers ever heard what happened to it. The incident was also reported in a few newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times. The official explanation was that the photographers had filmed a weather balloon distorted by hot desert air.[14]
[edit]1960s
Throughout much of the 1960s, atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald suggested—via lectures, articles and letters—that the U.S. Government was mishandling evidence which would support the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
[edit]1970s
Although strictly unrelated to a UFO conspiracy theory, the Watergate affair brought the curtain down on the era when authorities were generally trusted by the public. A decade after the assassination of John F. Kennedy a cottage industry of JFK conspiracy theorists seemed to spring up out of the woodwork, fed by the tabloids. UFO conspiracy theories found fertile ground in this paranoid zeitgeist.
Clark also notes that many UFO conspiracy theory tales "can be traced to a mock documentary, Alternative 3, broadcast on British television on June 20, 1977, and subsequently turned into a paperback book." (Clark, 213–4)
[edit]Holloman Air Force Base
Clark cites a 1973 encounter as perhaps the earliest suggestion that the U.S. government was involved with ETs. That year, Robert Emenegger and Allan Sandler of Los Angeles, California, were in contact with officials at Norton Air Force Base in order to make a documentary film. Emenegger and Sandler report that Air Force Officials (including Paul Shartle) suggested incorporating UFO information in the documentary, including as its centerpiece genuine footage of a 1971 UFO landing at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. Furthermore, says Emenegger, he was given a tour of Holloman AFB and was shown where officials conferred with EBEs. This was supposedly not the first time the U.S. had met these aliens, as Emenegger reported that his U.S. military sources had "been monitoring signals from an alien group with which they were unfamiliar, and did their ET guests know anything about them? The ETs said no." (Clark 1998, 144) No film was ever presented, however, and the documentary was released in 1974 as UFO's: Past, Present and Future (narrated by Rod Serling). The alleged Holloman UFO landing was discussed in the documentary and was depicted with illustrations.
In 1988, Shartle said that the film in question was genuine, and that he had seen it several times.
[edit]Paul Bennewitz
The late 1970s also saw the beginning of an affair centered around Paul Bennewitz of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
[edit]1980s
[edit]MJ-12
The so-called Majestic 12 documents surfaced in 1982, suggesting that there was secret, high-level U.S. government interest in UFOs dating to the 1940s.

Psychological origins

Psychological origins
According to some psychologists, a person who believes in one conspiracy theory tends to believe in others; a person who does not believe in one conspiracy theory tends not to believe another.[28]
Psychologists believe that the search for meaning is common in conspiracism and the development of conspiracy theories, and may be powerful enough alone to lead to the first formulating of the idea. Once cognized, confirmation bias and avoidance of cognitive dissonance may reinforce the belief. In a context where a conspiracy theory has become popular within a social group, communal reinforcement may equally play a part. Some research carried out at the University of Kent, UK suggests people may be influenced by conspiracy theories without being aware that their attitudes have changed. After reading popular conspiracy theories about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, participants in this study correctly estimated how much their peers' attitudes had changed, but significantly underestimated how much their own attitudes had changed to become more in favor of the conspiracy theories. The authors conclude that conspiracy theories may therefore have a 'hidden power' to influence people's beliefs.[29]
A study published in 2012 also found that conspiracy theorists frequently believe in multiple conspiracies, even when one conspiracy contradicts the other.[30] For example, the study found that people who believe Osama Bin Laden was captured alive by Americans are likely to also believe that Bin Laden was actually killed prior to the 2011 raid.
Humanistic psychologists argue that even if the cabal behind the conspiracy is almost always perceived as hostile, there is often still an element of reassurance in it for conspiracy theorists. This is due, in part, because it is more consoling to think that complications and upheavals in human affairs are created by human beings rather than factors beyond human control. Belief in such a cabal is a device for reassuring oneself that certain occurrences are not random, but ordered by a human intelligence. This renders such occurrences comprehensible and potentially controllable. If a cabal can be implicated in a sequence of events, there is always the hope, however tenuous, of being able to break the cabal's power – or joining it and exercising some of that power oneself. Finally, belief in the power of such a cabal is an implicit assertion of human dignity – an often unconscious but necessary affirmation that man is not totally helpless, but is responsible, at least in some measure, for his own destiny.[31]
[edit]Projection
Some historians have argued that there is an element of psychological projection in conspiracism. This projection, according to the argument, is manifested in the form of attribution of undesirable characteristics of the self to the conspirators. Richard Hofstadter, in his essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics, stated that:
...it is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship... the Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through "front" groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist "crusades" openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.[32]
Hofstadter also noted that "sexual freedom" is a vice frequently attributed to the conspiracist's target group, noting that "very often the fantasies of true believers reveal strong sadomasochistic outlets, vividly expressed, for example, in the delight of anti-Masons with the cruelty of Masonic punishments."[32]