Is the truth out there? Brazil releases UFO files

Ever since the late 19th century, strange flying objects have been seen in the sky all over the world, prompting people to ask: “what is that?” With the dawning of the space age, the question, for many turned to “who is that?”

Prior to the 1950s, many thought that UFOs were high-tech aerial fighters, first from Nazi Germany and then from the Soviet Union. However, no evidence of the unidentified flying objects coming from either country was ever found.

The thought that we were being visited by aliens really took off, along with the conspiracy theories, in the 1950s. It was at this time that UFOs were first tracked on radar and seen to move in a way that no known Earthly aircraft could. At the same times, wild, but unsubstantiated claims of alien contact also started to emerge. For serious researchers, these claims were never taken seriously. Citing aliens was a great way for people to project their personal political opinions that could be considered unpatriotic (this was the time of McCarthy), as the aliens of the 1950s often spoke about politics on Earth.

In the mid 1960s, the attitude about UFOs changed with the Betty and Barney Hill incident. Going public in 1965, the Hills claimed that they were captured by aliens and subjected to horrific medical examinations in 1961. Suddenly, the benevolent, human-like interplanetary neighbors of the 1950s were replaced by at best indifferent and at worst hostile non-human creatures with oversized heads and eyes.

During the time this was all going on, the United States government was taking notice. In the late 1940s, the government launched an investigative program to look into UFO sightings, which culminated in Project Blue Book, which was closed in 1969, the same year that we went to the Moon. Since then in the U.S., there has been very limited government involvement in UFO investigations. Instead, the task has been taken over by private groups, like the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

For the conspiracy theorists, the lack of government involvement equates to cover-up, not merely disinterest. Similarly, any attempt to explain a UFO sighting scientifically is often met with accusations of whitewashing. For many UFO believers, the only way to answer the question of whether we are being visited will involve the government releasing its UFO files, and not just the old ones.

Down South, Brazil is doing just that.

Last week, the Brazilian government announced that it would require any reports of UFO sightings to government agencies be documented and then be released to the public where researchers can see the events for themselves. Besides the commitment to openness, the new regulations require pilots and air traffic controllers to report sightings with testimony and images (still or video) if possible. The new requirements have the full support of Juniti Saito, head of Brazil's air force. It is reported that many people in the Brazilian government have voiced support for the policy of openness, too.

So what does this mean?

Well, Brazil is not the U.S., but Brazil is still a country on Earth where strange lights in the sky are frequently spotted by all kinds of people, just like here. Yes, while the U.S. Government seems to show no sign of imitating Brazil's open information policy on UFO documents, that doesn't mean that researchers from all over the world can't go to Brazil to see the documents for themselves.

Yes, the question of whether we are alone in the universe cannot be answered with any certainty for some people unless an alien spacecraft lands on the White House lawn, but perhaps the newly released documents can help point researchers on the right track.

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