UFOs Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (42 page)

Early the next morning, the official from our agency would be dispatched to Phoenix for a briefing with all relevant officials, including, of course, the governor. His own sighting, and perhaps those of other officials or their families, along with commercial and military pilots, would be discussed and documented. Civilian witnesses would be encouraged to file independent reports and supply drawings of what they saw, along with any photos or home videos, as quickly as possible. Reporters would supply footage and witness interviews captured on camera the previous evening. Our coordinating official from the central office would have access to all radar records, and could interview air traffic controllers, police officers, government offices receiving calls, and all pilots flying near the multiple objects. Air Force bases and military installations in Arizona—all having been put on alert during the flyover—would be approached regarding the object, and would inform the investigators whether any flare drops, unusual flight formations, or other military maneuvers had been scheduled that night.

The public would be informed through a series of press conferences—like those provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), as an example, in the days following an airline crash—about progress in the investigation. Citizens would be assured that the sighting did not constitute a threat, that no one had been harmed, that the proper authorities were investigating the incident, and that the public would be kept abreast of developments. Ideally, this event would not be sensationalized or blown out of proportion by the media, and would simply be one of many news stories of the day, perhaps not even of interest to the many who didn’t witness an unidentified object themselves.

In short, a small agency, with links to experts within multiple disciplines around the country, could undertake a clean, clear, and thorough investigation of something like the Phoenix Lights within a short time frame. If the identity of the objects could not be determined after a reasonable amount of time, there would be no need to withhold that from the public. People would go about their lives, as they have done in Europe and South America when such announcements were made, and the scientific community—by now actively investigating the phenomenon—would be provided the relevant data for further study.

“If the sighting affecting so many people in Arizona could have been officially, quickly, and openly investigated, with no stigma attached, all the resulting public confusion and hysteria that I faced as governor could have been avoided,” Symington states. “This is the sane approach, as is recognized in other countries, and should become the new American policy. I would not want to see another governor go through what I did in 1997, and it’s only a matter of time before this will happen again.”

No wonder apprehension and frustration mounted in the state of Arizona. How could anyone feel safe, or trust the authorities to protect them, when such an intrusion by a massive craft is treated as if it never happened? Each of us must ask ourselves what
we
would have done, and how
we
would have felt, if we had stood beneath this silent hovering object. It makes enormous sense to have a small agency in place to be prepared for the eventuality of another widely witnessed UFO event.

Another factor, as has been pointed out by many military officials, is the risk that potentially disastrous aggressive actions might be taken against a UFO, due to a lack of preparation of those responsible for the defense of the country. If an object the size of the one seen over Phoenix came even closer to the ground, for example, or shot a penetrating beam onto an observer, or took any number of frightening actions that we could imagine, how would we respond? Pilots have attempted to shoot down UFOs from the air. What would it take for a similar response to be triggered from an air defense base on the ground? We must not forget that we are dealing with something so unknown to us, so entirely unexplained, that we have no idea what could happen the next time one appeared. The establishment of a government office would be the first step in the distribution of the appropriate data, preparation manuals, and policy recommendations to the Air Force and all other military installations around the country.

The state of Arizona has seen more than one prominent elected official confront the UFO problem. Prior to his sighting, Fife Symington had enjoyed a long-term relationship with a mentor who had strong opinions about U.S. government secrecy and UFOs. Barry Goldwater, five-term senator from Arizona, Republican presidential nominee in 1964, pilot, and friend of the Symington family, was a hero and a father figure to him beginning at age twelve. Goldwater served as campaign chairman for both of Symington’s successful runs for governor.

Symington recounts that on a number of occasions, when he was flying to campaign events with Goldwater, the former senator told him about his efforts to obtain secret UFO information from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, as Goldwater has written in his letters.
⁹
It’s interesting that Symington never knew that Goldwater had written anything about his ventures until after he recounted these conversations to me, when, much to his amazement and delight, I sent him copies of the letters. “Barry was convinced that UFOs exist and that the government held top secret stuff and was holding it close for technological reasons. He didn’t
know
this as a fact, but he was highly suspicious,” Symington says. Unfortunately, Goldwater was not well enough to comment on the Phoenix Lights incident, having suffered a stroke in 1996. He died in 1998 at his home outside Phoenix.

Today, Symington is inclined to agree with Barry Goldwater that our government is withholding secret information about UFOs. “If we got our hands on a very advanced spacecraft before anyone else, you can be sure we would hold it tight and work on it, and we would be interested in the advanced technology. This is as valid as any other idea to explain why it would be kept secret,” he says.

Governor Symington’s “coming out of the closet” represents a historical turning point in the effort to bring official recognition and policy change to the UFO issue in America. Never before has a twice-elected official of this stature not only acknowledged witnessing an unmistakable unidentified flying object, but also taken a public stand advocating for change. When he was forced to test the system, the governor discovered firsthand that it doesn’t work. As a result, he has to some extent made this effort a personal mission, which is being carried forward with the support of other equally convinced former officials from other countries, some of whom have come together in this volume. As a former elected government official in America and part of the political establishment, Symington is uniquely positioned to influence a change in policy. Through his contacts and experience in government, he can help move us toward the founding of a new government agency—which he could have benefited from so much while in office—and has already done so by adding his voice and support to our international coalition.

CHAPTER 25

Setting the Record Straight

by Fife Symington III
Governor of Arizona, 1991–97

B
etween 8:00 and 8:30 on the evening of March 13, 1997, during my second term as governor of Arizona, I witnessed something that defied logic and challenged my reality: a massive, delta-shaped craft silently navigating over the Squaw Peak in the Phoenix Mountain preserve. A solid structure rather than an apparition, it was dramatically large, with a distinctive leading edge embedded with lights as it traveled the Arizona skies. I still don’t know what it was. As a pilot and a former Air Force officer, I can say with certainty that this craft did not resemble any man-made object I had ever seen.

As soon as I reached home I told my wife, Ann, about it. She listened attentively, and we both thought long and hard about whether I should make public what I had seen. Eventually, at least for the time being, we reached the conclusion I should not, as doing so would most likely result in ridicule from the press that would distract me and my entire administration from the work we had been elected to accomplish.

The same incident was witnessed by hundreds if not thousands of people in Arizona, and my office was at once besieged with phone calls from concerned Arizonians. Even so, I managed to keep my head down—until two months later, when a story about the sightings appeared in
USA Today
. Catalyzed by the article, hysteria intensified to a point that I decided to lighten the mood and add a note of levity by calling a press conference at which my chief of staff arrived in alien costume. Originally my idea, this was one my team immediately embraced with enthusiasm. Not only would it dampen any incipient panic, it would show the human face of those who hold public office.

In the event, we did manage to calm the public’s developing anxiety and, despite the fact that, in the process, we also upset a few of my constituents, I felt that our approach had ultimately served a greater good.

With hindsight, however, I would like to set one part of the record straight. As I assured James Fox when he interviewed me for his documentary film,
Out of the Blue
, it was never my intention to ridicule anyone. My office
did
make inquiries—of the Department of Public Safety, the Air National Guard, and the lead officers at Luke Air Force Base—as to the origin of the craft, but to this day all of these remain unanswered.

Eventually, the Air National Guard claimed responsibility, stating that at the time its pilots had been dropping flares. This explanation, however, defies common sense, for flares do not fly in formation. Indeed, such a narrative seems indicative of the attitude one all too often encounters in official channels, which provide ex post facto rationales—e.g., weather balloons, swamp gas, and military flares—apparently meant to accord with our experience and expectations rather than our observations.

I was never satisfied by this silly explanation. For, although, as suggested by analysis (by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, among others) of a video taken then, there may well have been military flares in the sky later that evening—around ten o’clock, to be exact—what I and so many others observed between eight and eight-thirty was, on inspection, something else entirely: a huge and mysterious craft.

Today, of course, I know that I was not alone in having witnessed something so extraordinary. There are many high-ranking military aviation and government officials who have witnessed similar apparently inexplicable things at other times and in other quarters of the sky, and who share my concern that our government disparages these facts at its, and our, peril. Some of them have come together in this book, and I join them in suggesting a new approach to this problem.

With due respect, we want the United States government to cease perpetuating the myth that
all
UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth, conventional terms. Instead, our country needs to reopen the official investigation it shut down in 1970. We should no longer shun international dialogue on this important subject. Rather, we urge the appropriate agencies of our government to work in cooperation with countries that have already begun exchanging reports of sightings and to endeavor, in a spirit of genuinely open scientific inquiry, to learn more about UFOs and to make the results of such inquiries, whether immediately comprehensible or not, fully public.

CHAPTER 26

Engaging the U.S. Government

I
n 2002, I cofounded the Coalition for Freedom of Information,
¹
an independent alliance and advocacy group whose mission is to achieve scientific, congressional, and media credibility for the often misunderstood subject of UFOs. Much of our work has been built around an effort to acquire new information through the Freedom of Information Act, and it quickly won the support of John Podesta, one of our country’s strongest advocates for openness in government, who contributed the foreword to this book. As President Clinton’s former chief of staff, Podesta was instrumental in the declassification of 800 million pages of documents during the Clinton administration. In 2008, he headed President Obama’s transition team and now directs the preeminent Center for American Progress in Washington. Our FOIA initiative resulted in the settlement of a federal lawsuit against NASA in our favor, requiring the agency to release hundreds of pages of previously withheld documents.

The coalition is asking for responsible action on the part of the United States concerning UFOs. We make this request
not
as an accusation of wrongdoing in the past, but as an invitation to join an international, cooperative venture under way now. In petitioning for such a change, as previously described in relation to the Phoenix Lights incident, we are seeking the creation of a small government agency to investigate UFO incidents, and to act as a focal point for action at home and for research worldwide. Through its legitimization of the subject, such an agency would stimulate scientific interest and assist with the allocation of government and foundation grants for interested scientists in the academic, research, and aviation communities. As the work of the agency develops over time, positive attitudes toward the serious study of UFOs would be nurtured, leading to the liberation of additional resources. Public support—already very strong although without a focal point—would grow for a global research project that could ultimately solve the UFO mystery.

The first step in approaching a member of Congress or the Obama administration to facilitate this endeavor is to make it clear, as we have continuously done in these pages, that a UFO is, by definition, simply something unidentified. The agnostic position, the scientifically sound one, acknowledges the accumulated evidence of some kind of physical, extraordinary phenomenon but recognizes that we do not yet know what it is. The proper understanding of the acronym “UFO” must lie at the heart of any approach to the American government if it is to be successful, and the necessity of that simple adjustment in understanding—ending the automatic equating of UFO with extraterrestrial spacecraft—cannot be overestimated. This would lay a foundation that would allow politicians to be able to publicly consider moving forward with this issue. This may be obvious to most readers, but some activists working for change do not make this important distinction. Instead, they make sometimes outlandish claims about UFOs and related government conspiracies that cannot be substantiated—and they still expect to be taken seriously. No matter what anyone’s personal beliefs are about the nature of UFOs, those in high positions—the only ones capable of effecting real change—are obviously not going to accept any explanation before a new, legitimate scientific investigation makes a definitive determination.