Representative image of a UFO
Credit: iStock Photo
By Tyler Cowen
There is currently legislation before Congress that, if passed, could be one of the most important laws in US history. The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023, which calls for transparency in matters related to UFOs, is sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and has considerable bipartisan support, although it may fail due to Republican opposition.
One early version of the bill would, among other provisions, create a board of experts that would decide whether classified UAP information should be released. That would enable a managed process by which siloed governmental knowledge would eventually be made public.
However skeptical you or I might be, there are many allegations from within the federal government that the government is hiding alien crafts and bodies, and that the military is seeking to reverse-engineer alien technologies. There are also more plausible claims that there are flying objects that defy explanation.
Either way, if you think all this talk of aliens is nonsense, isn’t the best response some sunlight to show nothing weird is going on?
That is the strongest argument for the bill: if all the recent UAP chatter reflects neither an alien presence nor threats from hostile foreign powers. In that case, drawing back the curtain would discourage reasonable observers from pursuing the topic further. A modest benefit would result.
This is not, however, the scenario that the bill’s most ardent supporters have in mind.
Before we get to that, ask yourself: What if some of these UAP reports reflect a foreign military presence, or perhaps a new technology from a secret or renegade part of the US government? In that case, additional transparency could be harmful. The US government conducts a variety of intelligence and military operations, and Congress does not insist that they all be made public. There is no transparency for CIA missions, or for US cyberattacks, or for many other aspects of US foreign policy.
The military’s surveillance of UAP activity should fall under the same category. Secrecy is often permissible, even desirable, for national security reasons.
There may well be a compelling argument why, in general, secrecy in these military and foreign policy cases should be limited. But so far, it has not been made.
Now let’s consider the possibility that the government does in fact have information that, either directly or indirectly, could lead the public to believe that aliens are visiting Earth. It doesn’t have to be strange bodies hidden in Roswell, or a scenario from The X-Files. It could just be repeated and hard-to-explain observations, picked up through various sensor readings, which turn out to be speedy alien drone probes, well exceeding our current engineering capabilities.
In that case, is the best policy really what transparency advocates call “managed disclosure”? They had envisioned a panel of responsible experts managing the flow of information, bit by bit.
One question is whether such knowledge might be better kept secret, or known only to the small number of elites who manage to put all of the pieces together. Whether a broad social panic would result from revealing an alien presence on earth is hard to say — but it is also hard to see the practical upside. The best argument for disclosure is simply that the public has a right to know, and that such a knowledge of the reality of the humankind’s place in the universe is intrinsically valuable.
A second question concerns the inexorable logic of disclosure. Practically speaking, the US has a long tradition of whistleblowers and truth-tellers. If there is actual hard evidence of alien visitation, it is going to leak out, with or without the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023. Just look at the Edward Snowden case, where an American risked imprisonment and exile to reveal secrets that were far less important than what could be at stake here.
If the current legislation does not pass, or if a much weaker version moves forward, some people may take that as their cue to step forward and spill the beans — with direct proof rather than hearsay. Ultimately, the final result might not be so different from the transparency bill and its panel of experts. Speaking of which: Would its members keep the secrets they are entrusted with? Once they started hinting about alien visitations, the flood gates would open and the story would come out — and quickly.
So I am left with what I concede is a curious position: If you suspect the UAP sightings are a bunch of malarkey, support the bill. If you fear they are the work of America’s enemies, oppose it. And, on the chance that the most exotic possibility is true — that we have been and are being visited by aliens — it almost doesn’t matter. The truth is going to come out anyway, and at speeds we will find discomforting.