On UFO crashes...

You might be able to gather from my writings on UFO phenomena that I'm a fan of The X-Files.

Or you might have just read the posts I've already done on the show beforetime.

One thing the show did, especially early on, was tap into the mythos of UFO crashes. There were "Blue Beret Retrieval Teams," the confiscation of evidence, the intimidation of crash witnesses, and MIBs all floating in the mix. All this stems from alleged real-life incidents such as Roswell and Kecksburg. There's something about supposed UFO crashes that bothers me but first let's take a look at aspects of "crash mythology" that may have concrete roots.

-Special Operations Manual 1-01. This was part of the "Majestic Documents" leaked to Stanton Friedman and Jaime Shandera. The authenticity of these papers is hotly contested. If veracity were ever established, however, it would be proof-positive that the U.S. government had a procedure in place for the recovery of both extraterrestrial hardware and "biological entities" (aliens). Within this protocol, officials are directed to take "extreme measures" if necessary in order to keep a crash and its recovery completely quiet. You can read PDFs of the supposed documents here.

-Air Intelligence Squadron.  This outfit in the Air Force was originally staffed with veterans from World War II and Korea. If a Soviet aircraft were to crash somewhere accessible, the squadron's task was to quickly recover the wreckage so that intelligence might be gleaned from it. This unit had an additional charge in the 1950s and that was to gather information on UFOs. Was this an outgrowth of a need to recover downed alien craft?

-The Fort Dix alien. A man named Jeffrey Morse alleges that "dozens of glowing UFOs" were sighted over Fort Dix in New Jersey. Morse further asserts that a police officer responding to the reports came upon a Gray alien in the road. A UFO also appeared overhead at that moment. The cop shot both the alien and the UFO. The UFO sped away and the alien ran into nearby trees. Later, the alien was found dead on an unused runway between Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base. A military retrieval team, according to Morse, then rolled on to the scene and took complete control. The alien corpse is said to have been taken to Wright-Patterson, Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

-The Extraterrestrial Exposure Law. UFO devotees and true believers often point to this bit of U.S. regulation as a "smoking gun" of alien contact. After all, why have a law that makes it "illegal to touch or be in the proximity of" something from outer space unless there is a pressing need for one? Truth is, the law has much more to do with astronauts than UFOs. This came about in 1969 just before NASA sent Apollo 11 to the Moon. There were concerns at that time that astronauts might bring back an alien virus or other such disease a la The Andromeda Strain. So there were rules set in place to prevent such an occurrence. Question remains though, could a hypothetical government cover-up be based around the idea that UFOs and aliens pose significant health risks to humans?

In light of all of this, it's easy to see why accounts of UFO crashes persist. Add to that the fact that "official" explanations for events such as Roswell just don't add up and the murkiness only grows. Like I said, however, I have a bit of a problem with crashes and here it is.

If we proceed from the ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis (ETH)--which I still debate--what do all of these crashes say about the technology of alien visitors? I mean, there have been at least seven UFO crashes I've heard of in the United States alone. Then there are said to be ones in Iran, the former Soviet Union, former Nazi Germany, Venezuela, Mexico, and so on and so forth. So these aliens are quite capable of traveling trillions of miles to get here, but as soon as their UFOs hit our atmosphere, they start dropping like flies? What sense does that make?

I'm not saying that alien technology, if it even is alien, would be infallible. It just seems that logic would dictate that spacecraft would be a little less prone to falling apart if they're capable of making it all the way to our planet.

No, there seem to be more plausible explanations for "UFO crashes" in most cases. Namely, top secret aircraft that have malfunctioned and crashed, combined with misperceptions and imaginations. For those cases that can't be so easily explained away, I point towards Terrence McKenna:

"We are part of a symbiotic relationship with something which disguises itself as an extraterrestrial invasion so as not to alarm us."

Oh and UFO crashes also make for great fiction. Just look at The X-Files.



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