Government urged to waste more money

By reopening investigation of UFO sightings:

An international UFO group based in Colorado supports a call from pilots and former government officials to the U.S. government to reopen its investigation of UFO sightings to secure the skies.

"There's a big air safety issue," said James Carrion, international director of Mutual UFO Network based in his Bellview home north of Fort Collins. "It's a national security issue."

Remember all those midair plane/UFO collisions? You don't? Well, national security, then. Carrion's got a point there. Certainly his concern has nothing to do with standing to make even more money from heightened interest in UFOs, right?

An international panel of two dozen former pilots and government officials asked the U.S. government yesterday to reopen its generation-old UFO investigation, according to a Reuters report.

The Air Force investigated 12,618 UFO reports from 1947 to 1969 in what was known as Project Blue Book, the Reuters report said.

In 1969, the Air Force cited a $500,000 University of Colorado study called the Condon Report in deciding not to continue its investigation, Carrion said. CU researchers were very negative and said UFO reports did not merit further research, he said.

But thousands of UFO sightings reported by credible people including former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and numerous near misses between aircraft and UFOs counter that conclusion, he said.

Everybody knows Reagan and Carter did a lot of acid together. But more credible witnesses are cited as well:

Recently, Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a U.S. Congressman from Ohio, confirmed he saw a UFO 25 years ago. Author Shirley MacLaine claimed in her book "Sage-Ing While Age-Ing" [Kill! Kill! Kill!--ed.] that Kucinich reported to her that he saw gigantic triangular UFO hovering silently above him at her house for about 10 minutes before it sped away at a speed he could not comprehend.

Bet he says that about lots of stuff.

A spokesman for Kucinich, David Kelley, could not be reached for comment today.

Keep calling.

The nonprofit group MUFON [MUFON!--ed.], which now has 2,500 members from round the world, took over the task of investigating UFO sightings after the Air Force "publicly" ended it's study, Carrion said.

"'Publicly.'"

The group has certified [sic] 800 people including about 20 in Colorado to investigate UFO sightings, Carrion said. Colorado is one of the top states for UFO citings in the U.S., he said.

High country, clear skies, airheads galore.

About 75 percent are explained by natural phenomenon like asteroids or man-made objects like satellites, he said.

Carrion said he does not believe the government stopped investigating UFOs, but has done so secretly.

"The government is putting a lid on what is happening and we'd like to know why," he said. "What we want is for the government to declassify documents."

Right after they declassify all the documents on 9/11.

You can probably tell I'm skeptical of UFOs (of alien origin). Didn't really used to be, or rather, like every reasonable person I believed the universe had to hold intelligent life out the ying-yang (besides, if you're feeling generous, us puny humans), so why wouldn't they be checking us out? This, of course, despite that nagging little question of Fermi's.

But now I believe it is time to echo, even amplify, Fergie's, er, Fermi's question, posed so many years ago: Where. The fug. Are they?

Update: Drunkablog's corollary to Fergie's Paradox: If the bug-eyed little bastards are snubbing us, they can just fug off and die for all I care.