May 28, 2019--Flying Saucers

Unable to sleep I tuned into my favorite middle-of-the-night radio show, "Coast to Coast," where talk about the paranormal is the norm and flying saucers are the prime topic of conversation.

It's a low key program and boring enough to help induce sleep; but the other night the host, guest (a UFO expert), and the listeners who called in were all unusually excited.

It seems that the Navy, as reported by the New York Times, recently issued new classified guidance for how Navy pilots are to report what the military refers to as "unexplained aerial phenomena," UAPs, or "unidentified flying objects," UFOs.

These guidelines were necessary, the Navy revealed, because in recent years there has been an increase in the number of credible reports about Navy pilots encountering unusual aircraft or otherwise unexplainable flying objects.

The excitement on "Coast to Coast" was because the Navy by developing the guidelines and the paper of record reporting about them offered validation and legitimacy for those who believe in the reality of extraterrestrial spaceships visiting Earth. This suggests that those who for decades have paid attention to reports about UFOs are not all kooks and wing-nuts but rather may be on to something.

True, half the people who call in to "Coast to Coast" share stories about being abducted by space aliens, not just that they believe the evidence that UFOs exist; but with the Navy releasing videotape of close encounters and the Times' Pentagon correspondent the author of the front-page story, it may be possible that there have been abductions.

Who knows? Who really knows?

So it's time for me to confess that I'm a UFO nut. 

Back in 1953 I came across Desmond Leslie's and George Adamski's Flying Saucers Have Landed and it stirred my adolescent imagination.

I took to watching the night sky over Brooklyn, hoping to spot a UFO and maybe, if I were lucky, I would be abducted and transported to a place more interesting than East Flatbush.

But at most all I ever spotted was a bright light in the sky perhaps over Coney Island that seemed to hover and than, at supersonic speed, turn an abrupt right, and disappear from sight over New Jersey.

But than again, as I said, I was a very undeveloped 13-year-old with little prospect of ever living in a larger world, much less one that spanned the galaxy. But I did know enough that I didn't want to be abducted to New Jersey much less Venus, where Leslie and Adamski claimed most UFOs were based.

One good thing about spending the season in Maine is that the night sky is very dark and it's thus a good place for witnessing the Aurora Borealis and spotting flying saucers.