Are UFO cases a question of science or security?
Unexplained sightings have appeared in our skies for years, and one of the most profound questions facing humanity is: Has Earth been visited by a non-human intelligence from somewhere else?
These sightings used to be called UFOs, “unidentified flying objects,” but that was changed in 2020 to the broader acronym UAP, “unidentified aerial phenomena,” and then broadened again to “unidentified anomalous phenomena.”
There’s legislation in Congress to force the government to fully release what it has learned about UAPs. President Donald Trump has said his administration was going to be “identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life.”
Garrett Graff, author of “UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here ― and Out There,” argues that the question of UAPs should be a “scientific-led endeavor” and “not a defense-led one.”
“We have, too long, left this as a national security or defense question. And really answering it is a science question,” Graff told host William Brangham.
Brangham asked Leslie Kean, independent journalist and author of “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, And Government Officials Go On The Record,” if society could handle the revelation that there was non-human intelligence that encountered our planet.
“I think that, if indeed we do have evidence that we are not alone, I think that, regardless of the impact that it might have, I don’t think that’s a legitimate reason for holding that information secret,” Kean said. “It’s something that everybody on the planet is entitled to know.”
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