Watch out for little green terrorists!

The UFOs are coming, and we are totally unprepared! You might expect to find such a message pervasive on the Internet (check here, here, and here, for example), but on the Website of the New York Times? Nevertheless, today in the opinion section of the Times, Nick Pope, author of Open Skies, Closed Minds, advises that “The United States Air Force or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should reopen investigations of UFO phenomena.” He notes that “The American government has not investigated UFO sightings since 1969, when the Air Force ended Project Blue Book, an effort to scientifically analyze all sightings to see if any posed a threat to national security.”

The main concern of Pope, who was in charge of UFO investigations for the British Ministry of Defense from 1991 to 1994, seems to be stealth craft that are undetectable by radar. He writes, “A healthy skepticism about extraterrestrial space travelers leads people to disregard UFO sightings without a moment’s thought. But in the United States, this translates into overdependence on radar data and indifference to all kinds of unidentified aircraft—a weakness that could be exploited by terrorists or anyone seeking to engage in espionage against the United States.”

A concerted effort to investigate UFOs, he says, “…would not imply that the country has suddenly started believing in little green men. It would simply recognize the possibility that radar alone cannot always tell us what’s out there.”