"UFOs are back in the news, and it is high time we took a serious look at this phenomenon ... persistent sightings by responsible individuals have caused the Air Force and the scientific community to reexamine a once skeptical attitude, and the sum of two hundred dollars has now been allocated for a comprehensive study of the phenomenon. The question is: Is anything out there? And if so, do they have ray guns?"
— Woody Allen ("Side Effects, 1986)
Now that the nuisance of local elections is over for this year, we can concentrate our attention on something really important:
"What does the United States government know about aliens visiting here from outer space?"
Since September, a feature called "We the People" has appeared on the White House website in which folks can create petitions to get their questions officially answered. If they gather enough signatures, the White House staff will review the issue and get back to them.
So something called the Paradigm Research Group got more than 12,000 signatures to insist that "the President of the United States ... formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race and immediately release into the public domain all files from all agencies and military services relevant to this phenomenon."
Another petition, with more than 5,300 signatures, demanded "the President ... disclose to the American people the long withheld knowledge of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings and call for open Congressional hearings to allow the people to become aware of this subject through those whose voices have been silenced by unconstitutional secrecy oaths."
Responding in a blog posting was Phil Larson, a member of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House.
"There was no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth."
That's his story, and he's sticking to it.
"The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race," he wrote.
It's not that Larson is precluding the existence of life outside our planet, it's just that E.T. hasn't phoned us ... and is unlikely to any time soon.
"Many scientists and mathematicians have looked with a statistical mindset," he said, "... and have come to the conclusion that the odds are pretty high that somewhere among the trillions and trillions of stars in the universe there is a planet other than ours that is home to life."
Unfortunately, he said, the light years of distance separating planets make the likelihood of contact "extremely small."
After an election, isn't it nice to know our tax dollars are at work on such an important issue?
