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Lt. Colonel Lawrence Tacker was originally a UFO spotter on Project Blue Book, the infamous US government sponsored effort to collect data on UFOs, who famously made a U-turn in his opinions and denounced UFOs as fake in a popular magazine called The New Golden Argosy. Questions come to mind, however, such as: was he ordered to make these statements or did he really believe them, or was it part of an elaborate cover-up operation by the US government?
The following is the article in question:
Flying Saucers Are Fakes!
THE AIR FORCE ONCE AND FOR ALL BLASTS ON THE MYTH OF THE MEN FROM SPACE
The belief in flying saucers as space ships under intelligent control from other planets is the biggest hoax perpetuated on the American people since the Cardiff Giant affair at the turn of the century and the Orson Welles Martian invasion of earth in the year 1937.
The unidentified-flying-object, amateur hobby groups, who have fostered this belief since the first well-publicized saucer sighting of June 24, 1941, have yelled "wolf" so many times since that initial sighting almost fourteen years ago, that the general public no longer believes in their sensational theory that space travel is an accomplished fact.
Some of these groups, such as the Unidentified Flying Object Research committee of Akron, Ohio, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization of Tucson, Arizona, the Civilian UFO Research of Chicago, Illinois, and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena of Washington, D.C., have dues-paying members who receive the periodical published by their organization, identifying many saucer sightings which they say prove we are being watched by superinteIligent beings from other planets, operating in our atmosphere in space ships. They stress the fact that they have irrefutable evidence to prove their sensational claims and scream that the United States Air Force, the governmental agency responsible for investigating reported sight-ings of UFOs, is aware of the fact that we are being watched by these intelligent beings, that space travel does, in fact, exist, and yet, the Air Force lies and refuses to confirm this significant scientific discovery to the American people.
There are several hundred Flying Saucer Clubs in the United States with a combined membership totaling more than 300,-000 persons. All these UFO groups state that they are nonprofit organizations dedicated to public education on the subject of "unidentified flying objects or flying saucers." They use, in addition to their group publication, a number of methods to place their stories before the general public.
Many of the flying-saucer enthusiasts write case studies, magazine articles and books on the subject, all dedicated to their central theme and all hurling charges and allegations against various governmental agencies, particularly the Air Force, for withholding this vital information from the general public.
They cite the evidence they have gathered over the years which proves their contentions. But here is the sixty-four-dollar question: What evidence? There is nothing there that any scientist could truly call scientific proof. There is no basis for computations resulting from numerical counts gathered in connection with these sightings.
There are no spectrum analyses of light or color. There are no photographs that reveal any detail. There are only vague statements that lack scientific precision. All these groups have been asked from time to time, by the Air Force, to present their evidence to the Air Force, some other governmental agency, or a nonpartisan civilian laboratory such as a university or an industrial laboratory, as an act of patriotism and loyalty, but nothing has been presented to this date which would prove their wild claims. On the basis of this fact, you might say the flying-saucer groups are withholding vital information from the Armed Forces and the American public. However, this is ridiculous, because the very fact that they have not presented this evidence indicates that they do not possess it.
One of America's leading visual astronomers once told me that he had never observed a bona fide flying saucer and he said he had the distinct impression that there exists a strong correlation between the incident of flying saucers and the state of mind of the observer, influenced by fear, hysteria, wishful thinking, or plain fraudulent intentions.
I think this sums up the entire situation beautifully. In a tense world, with the threat of an all-out nuclear war ever present, there are probably people who see flying saucers or space ships, manned by superintelligent beings, as a means of salvation from this painful world condition. The wishful thinkers believe that these superintelligent or godlike creatures from outer space will visit earth and literally save us from ourselves. The individuals or groups with fraudulent intentions see the dollar sign involved and exploit this space-age hoax to the utmost. And then, there is, of course, one additional category, the crackpot or crank, who is very evident in | all walks of "saucer society."
By law, the United States Air Force is charged with the air defense of the U. S., and the investigation and analysis of UFOs, or flying saucers, over the United States is directly related to this responsibility.
There is really no way you can separate the two. Prompt reporting and rapid identification are essential to the second of the four phases of air defense, namely, detection, identification, interception, and destruction. Therefore, the Air Force must maintain the unidentified-flying-object program.
The real issue is not whether or not life can possibly exist on some other planet or in some other galaxy. It is: Have we been visited by intelligent beings from other planets? Based upon this evidence -or should I say the lack of evidence?- the answer is an overwhelming No.
In investigating, analyzing, and evaluating a given flying-saucer sighting, or a group of sightings, the contrast between facilities of the Air Force for this all-important part of its defense mission, and the facilities of the flying-saucer, amateur-hobby groups is extreme.
For the Air Force has at its disposal the vast resources of the Air Research and Development Command, including their basic research laboratories, the resources of the Air Materiel Command, the Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center, university, college and industrial laboratories on a contract basis, civilian scientific consultants in the various applicable fields such as astrophysics, visual astronomy, psychology, meteorology, metallurgy, etc., and an instantaneous, world-wide communications system which allows immediate access j to such places as Japan, Alaska, Germany, etc., should there be a flying-saucer sighting in any such distant spot.
Another resource, which, because of its great capacity, I mention separately, is the National Space Surveillance Center at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, Massachusetts. This facility, commonly called "space track," can tell on the first orbit of a satellite or vehicle whether or not Russia or the United States has succeeded in placing an object into a successful orbit.
Contrast these resources of the Air Force with the capacity of one of the UFO groups, whose only equipment probably consists of the daily newspaper, a typewriter, and a sheaf of stationery. It is ridiculous to accord them any status.
At this point, it would be well to emphasize the fact that a high percentage of UFO reports were submitted by serious people, mystified by what they had seen and motivated by patriotic responsibility, not by enthusiasm for flying saucers.
To date, approximately 7,000 objects have been sighted and reported to the United States Air Force since 1947. During the last few years, the sightings which could not be positively identified have approximated only two per cent of the total number of sightings. In regard to these few unidentified or unexplained sightings, the Air Force has emphasized the belief that if more immediate detailed data could have been obtained, these, too, would have been satisfactorily explained.
The ninety-eight per cent of the sightings of the last few years, which have been conclusively solved, generally represented either conventional objects, such as aircraft, balloons, birds, etc., seen under extenuating conditions, or aerial phenomena, such as comets, meteors, mock suns, and mirages caused by refraction.
To say that the USAF could suppress such a significant event as the arrival of a space ship from another planet or galaxy is another ridiculous assumption. The Air Force, as one of the departments within the Department of Defense, would not be able to hide anything of such import.
It is hard for me to believe that visitors from outer space would be mysterious or secretive in their arrival on earth. It is almost certain that they would not appear in a trivial way and to only a few unknown people. In all likelihood, they would present a full-scale display of space ships to a city like New York, Washington, D. C., or Paris. (Incidentally, how could the U. S. Air Force withhold the information concerning such an event if it happened in France or South America-or are all Air Forces and governments in cahoots to bamboozle the peoples of the world?)
In any event, I can honestly state that there is nothing in Air Force files, classified or unclassified, which proves the idiotic claim that space ships from other planets have visited our earth.
The real fact of the matter is that the flying-saucer era is coming to an end. At the present time, there are approximately thirty-three man-made objects in orbit around old mother earth. These represent satellites and various propulsion stages which have achieved orbit. Americans today are already used to these facts. He is space conscious and concerned with space travel for earthlings rather than the science-fiction approach of visiting firemen from Mars. Saucers are getting too much competition from real things, like satellites, lunar probes, sun rockets, etc.
Since this is so, it looks as though the flying-saucer groups will have to rewrite their by-laws and adopt new organizational aims for their future operations.
Anyone for bird watching?
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