Aliens among us: Our major concern is the Chinese Communist Party, not flying saucers

OPINION:

There has been a lot of speculation recently that some of the spy balloons, or whatever they are, may be from another solar system rather than another country.

This follows the flurry of stories over the last few years about all the sightings by commercial and military pilots of various unidentified flying objects. There are serious claims that these UFOs often behave in ways that no man-made vehicle can match. In some reports, they seem to violate the rules of physics as we understand them.

I may be uniquely qualified to discuss alien possibilities, since I was shown in the original “Men in Black” movie as an alien — along with Sylvester Stallone, Danny DeVito, and a number of other disguised aliens living on Earth.

In popular imagination, the first great work of fiction about aliens invading the earth was Orson Welles’ spectacular radio program “The War of the Worlds.” It was done as a straight news program, and some people at the time were panicked by the seemingly authentic reports of the alien invasion. Welles based his radio program on H.G. Wells’ 1897 book of the same name.

After World War II, interest in the possibility of alien activity (and possible invasion) on earth was triggered by the famous 1947 incident at Roswell, New Mexico.

In 2017, Smithsonian magazine published a great article by Donovan Webster outlining the history of the Roswell discovery and its evolution titled: “In 1947, A High-Altitude Balloon Crash Landed in Roswell. The Aliens Never Left.”

As Webster recounted, on July 8, 1947, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, Maj. Jesse Marcel, told the Roswell Daily Record: “The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment Group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into the possession of a Flying Saucer.”

Webster’s article continued: “‘Apparently, it was better from the Air Force’s perspective that there was a crashed ‘alien’ spacecraft out there than to tell the truth,’ says Roger Launius, the recently retired curator of space history at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

“‘A flying saucer was easier to admit than Project Mogul,’” Mr. Launius adds, a chuckle in his voice. ‘And with that, we were off to the races.’”

For the last 76 years, some Americans (and people worldwide) have believed something must be going on.

And of course, popular media from “Star Trek” to “Star Wars” have conditioned us to imagine travel through space. Some of those films and TV shows (think “The X-Files”) have involved alien threats to Earth.

All of this has led to a thriving UFO (or, as the new bureaucracy of aliens prefers to call it, unidentified aerial phenomena) industry.

The American government is working hard to bureaucratize the alien business. What had been the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group was reorganized in response to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act into the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

I am certain this bureaucratic reorganization and renaming makes every American feel more secure — not!

From 1947 to 1969, there had been more than 12,000 reports worldwide of unexplained airborne objects.

As Bill Chappell reported on NPR on Jan. 13:

“Within the new batch of sightings, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence say, they’re focusing on some 171 cases — including some in which objects ‘appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis.’”

Apparently, we are supposed to be reassured that the U.S. government has replaced UFO with UAP. I would love to have someone explain why the bureaucracy thought UAP was clearer and more useful than UFO. Most normal Americans will continue to use UFO despite the bureaucracy’s best efforts.

Since my contract with “Men in Black’s” Alien Placement Office blocks me from saying anything more about the aliens among us, I’ll leave you with this: The Chinese Communist Party is a far more immediate threat than the people of Alpha Centauri and beyond.

• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.