There are several anecdotes in UFO literature, dating back as far as the 1950s, which describe incidents in which reporters were told amazing stories of UFOs by government officials.  Whenever the reporter followed standard journalistic procedures, he would ask for corroboration — proof, if you will.  The tipster would then promise that proof would be presented the next day but would also say, this is your chance to get the scoop, so publish it now.  Hurry.

The "proof" never came, and those reporters who fell for the trap were discredited.  Subsequent claims by qualified observers, such as pilots, radar operators, and the like, could then be lumped in with the discredited reports, using the tactic of guilt by association.  The public would be deceived.

The tactic of disinformation is always a potential threat to any honest reporter.

Some UFO news items seem clearly authentic, such as the famous USS Nimitz, Roosevelt, and Princeton reports, with video tapes of fighter-pilot and shipboard radar recordings.  The U.S. Navy eventually stated that the recordings are legitimate.

However, the Navy never verified the interpretations of those videos.  Indeed, some experts stated that there are explanations that do not involve any actual, extraordinary objects.  The software involved with the recordings seems to have been fairly new at the time, and as any software expert can tell you, brand new software can have glitches.  The implication, and sometimes explicit claim, is that software and/or hardware malfunctions are the best explanation for the Nimitz (etc.) UFOs.

Those claims do not, of course, explain the "eyeball" sightings that several pilots, in several instances, have reported, sometimes at risk to their careers.  Those reports add credibility to the alien UFO interpretation.

By far the most spectacular, recent UFO news story (mentioned here on AT) involves a claim, as yet unverified, that the U.S. has in its possession certain manufactured materials, recovered from UFO crashes or landings, that cannot have been made by humans.  If this claim proves to be true, then it involves the most significant, paradigm-shifting event in human history: contact with an off-world, nonhuman civilization.

There is ample reason for serious skepticism about the claim of off-world materials.  Is this another case of deliberate deception?  Is it yet another trap?

The UFO/UAP phenomenon has many inconsistencies and even paradoxes.  One of them is that UFOs seem to attempt to avoid detection, yet despite their astoundingly advanced technology, they get detected anyway — if indeed those detections are authentic.  Our own stealth aircraft, primitive as they are, are stealthier than the supposed aliens.

If the UFOs are not seeking to avoid detection, then verified sightings, proof, should be as commonplace as sightings of meteors, or more so.  They are not.  Thus, we have a paradox.

It seems that left-leaning news outlets are not reporting about UFOs as they did until recently.  Some have suggested that the government is seeking to trap conservative reporters and commentators, to destroy their credibility, advising the others to steer clear.

The saying made famous by the fictional X-Files TV show is that "the truth is out there."  Indeed it is, but so are deceivers, and in great numbers.

Image via Pxfuel.