[Dion]

Speaking about the stigma of UFO's

That is also the US government’s official position. According to the 25 June Preliminary Assessment on the topic, the unidentified objects that military pilots and other personnel are seeing on a near-daily basis “probably represent real objects” because they are tracked by multiple different systems. But, the report also said we still don’t know what they are. There was no mention of extraterrestrial life or UFOs specifically in the report. Instead, the authors chose to lump the taboo topic into a mysterious “other” category.

Leslie wrote in her excellent book “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record” that the UFO stigma is a very powerful force. No journalist, politician, or scientist would touch the topic for fear of ridicule and isolation. The simple fact, so they believed, was UFOs do not exist, therefore they cannot exist. End of story. Why waste time and effort, and be ridiculed along the way, searching for something that doesn’t exist? Any deviation from this line of thinking resulted in damaged egos and ruined careers.

Determining what the phenomena is, how it works, and why it is here is one of the rare bi-partisan topics in Washington. Now that congress is engaged on the matter the topic is legitimate to investigate. Although there is still a stigma from decades of official denial and derision, with the recent admissions from congress and the DOD, many witnesses now feel comfortable talking about their experiences.

Although I didn’t see any UAPs while flying F-16s, I can’t say for certain I would have spoken up if I had seen one. Even if I believed my own eyes, how would I report it? What would my commanders think of me? Would they take me off flying status and order me to take a psychological evaluation?

Now, the US military will be required by congress to have a reporting process for these rare events. The jet tapes and radar records will be preserved for later analysis. The witnesses will be taken seriously and protected.

“There still will be a stigma,” Leslie said, “there are still fears of ridicule if you're active duty. But it has got to be better than it was. It’s got to be. I think people like David Fravor and Alex Dietrich have really been role models to try and encourage others to do what they’ve done.”

https://www.theportugalnews.com/news...o-stigma/64824