The American establishment, especially the media and the military top brass, has an interesting habit of mentioning extra-terrestrials. Here, we are talking about mentioning them seriously, in an official capacity, at official platforms, in a manner that flies rather spectacularly in the face of common sense.
The latest of this happened on 12 February 2023, the United States Air Force shot down what they claimed was an Unidentified Flying Object(UFO). When asked about the possibility that these could be of extra-terrestrial origin, the military officer giving the press conference let the people know that he “hasn’t ruled out anything.”
This is but another episode in a specifically American discourse made possible by an ever-imaginative media, helped along by breadcrumbs from the military establishment and made grand by Hollywood blockbuster movies – that of the prospect of “extra-terrestrials” making appearances through apparently strange aircraft in the sky and archived through grainy footage or other inconclusive visual evidence. A similar news cycle occurred towards the end of the Presidency of Donald Trump.
Why Is US Govt Hell bent On Proving Aliens Exist
Ever since the beginning of the Cold War, the spectre of the extra-terrestrial keeps recurring in America’s public psyche through the mentions by officialdom, and there are always enough takers to keep the pot stirring. The USA happens to be the only place where a topic of speculation and imagination, is elevated to full seriousness with the government taking an active role in fuelling speculations. When you imagine this scenario in any other country say India, the UK, or France, and the response that would follow, the absurdity of the premise becomes clear.
Much has been speculated as to why the military and security establishment of the US lets such rumours circulate with their tacit approval. The commonest arguments have been that (i) it helps deflect attention from other crises, (ii) it keeps the public in thrall so as to keep refreshing public support of the US military.
But the issue here is the public is unlikely to believe such claims. If the government of any other democratic country were to raise the spectre of aliens when either geopolitical tensions are high or when domestic criticism at home is high. It is predictable to see terrorist threats and rival nation threats being raised.
What makes the extra-terrestrial a viable option for the likes of the US government institutions such as the US defence forces or Pentagon to even consider raising it seriously? Surely, the government of any country should know that the public will consider such statements ridiculous. Nevertheless, “alien talk” keeps happening at the official level, which means that the government knows that it has some effectiveness in deflection. In other words, it does not work on everyone, but works on enough people.
What makes it work? The US public is not illiterate and uneducated, and could ideally be expected to be suspicious about such deflections. What purpose does the bogeyman of aliens serve where the fear of the Russians, the Cubans, the Chinese, the “illegal” Mexican immigrants, the Islamic terrorists, etc fails?
Roswell and the Normalisation of the Extra Terrestrial
In the task of embedding the image of the extraterrestrial in the public minds across America, some events and the accompanying official responses have played an active role. In American imagination, the alien has been ever present, possibly since the end of World War II. The spark was first lit by the Roswell Incident.
It was June 1947 when a passerby claimed to have seen the wreckage of a crashed alien spacecraft and it made headlines. However, an ordinary person’s claims are not enough to fire up the public imagination, unless official channels also play their part.
Herein, happened something interesting. A remark by a US Army officer somehow became the first official statement out in the public that it was a “flying saucer”, setting public imagination alight. Of course, it was later debunked as an experimental high-altitude balloon meant for spying on the USSR.
The US Air Force had preferred that the alien story get out instead of showing the extent to which US was involved in the arms race with USSR. As said by Roger Launius, a curator of space history at the Smithsonian, it was better to say it was a crashed alien aircraft than inform the world about Project Mogul, a program to launch high altitude balloons to spy on USSR’s nuclear tests.
But as is the human tendency, first words and impressions have a lasting effect, and thus, the image of the alien was now very much present in the American public. The official statements and the public’s response proved favourable in the creation of a cottage industry of conspiracy theories. It gave birth to an entire subculture of Americans completely convinced of the presence of aliens.
America Saves the World on the Big Screen
Hollywood then capitalised on the growing popular interest, producing film after film. One of the commonest themes running in the “alien invasion” subgenre of science fiction films in Hollywood was the US, through its unrivalled military power, saving the world. Movies such as Independence Day became major hits.
Then, in the aftermath of the unending US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the US military gradually become unpopular both domestically and internationally, Hollywood shifted the role of saving the world to its superheroes.
This way, the industry could both serve the narrative need of centering America in the context of a theoretical threat, and be profitable at the same time. Marvel Cinematic Universe played an exceptional role in this, by elevating the category and danger posed by its supervillain, ultimately manifesting in the image of the alien overlord Thanos.
It is not a surprise that Marvel has links to the Pentagon in matters of representing the US defence establishment in their films. The other superhero franchise, DC, also ultimately made the ultimate villain an extra-terrestrial.
The appetite, at least from a popular culture consumption point of view makes complete sense. So, we have two potent ingredients that make this cocktail “extra-terrestrial” discourse possible – an event that accidentally gives birth to a certain discourse and an entertainment industry that popularises it. But then, is that enough to warrant the legitimacy of an official response?
How Conspiracy Theories Shape Popular Narratives
Nevertheless, the US officialdom keeps a lexicon of symbols and gestures to bring the alien back into the public. This includes terminologies and their minutiae such as the NASA revising the term “UFO” to instead, insist on “UAP” or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon which conveniently leaves a bigger scope for imaginative interpretation.
As we saw from the rise of extremist groups such as the Q-Anon, conspiracy theories can be very potent when done in an information environment that favours them. When one analyses things in this manner, the information environment has all the right conditions for “aliens” to be alive for the American public.
This is why, whenever the US government finds itself in a tight corner, the UFO talk is likely to escalate. It is not a surprise that the last time “UFOs” visited the US, the governments were all in really difficult spots. President Trump was facing a strong assault on his credibility through impeachment and other issues. President Biden faces difficult questions on supposed Chinese spy balloons as well as an ecologically catastrophic chemical train derailment in Ohio.
In the end, it is still very simplistic to say that the threat of the alien is used to obfuscate and deflect the public attention away from questions of misplaced priorities amid crumbling public infrastructure, inflation, and the extremely high costs of healthcare as defence still continues to get a lion’s share of the budget. These could be considered the possible reasons, but there are human enemies for that too. After all, there is the geo-economic rival China presenting a real threat to United States establishment.
There is Russia, whose threat is no longer a threat, but now an active war against an American ally Ukraine. There are bases to maintain, alliances to keep and wars to be fought. That should be a reason enough to not worry about public attention on defence expenditures that could have been used elsewhere. The US military budget is unlikely to decrease anytime in the future. Then what could be the function that only a being from outside could fulfill?
Perhaps, a reason here that the author would like to argue is that wars are not as grand as a lot of conventional literature, cinema or television presents. And the USA is involved in a large number of them. They are more than often dragged out, protracted, bloody with a lot more tragedies than stories with a good ending.
(Shivam Bahuguna is a PhD scholar from South Asian University, New Delhi. He tweets about different topics on @JanusBlinked. Note: A version of this article was posted in Eleventh Column. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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