The United States government has a long history of covering up information regarding UFOs. The data on this is abundant, as Richard Dolan points out in the following short video which I highly recommend:

Dolan makes it clear the government has long been attempting to hide - or reframe - the bulk of data associated with UFO and UAP phenomena. Since at least the 1950s, it was generally assumed in the public square that the Air Force or Pentagon were hiding secret technology (akin to the F-117 or the B-2) and that most sightings could be attributed to this. While comforting to imagine the United States government is so advanced they have technology that rivals Star Trek, the data just does not add up. If the Department of Defense developed craft that could appear and disappear out of thin air since the 1940s, we are wasting a lot of money on hundreds of Air Force programs.

UFO reports within government folklore go back at least to World War II. The reports back then involved "flying saucers", "glowing orbs", and "star-looking" objects zipping around the sky - just like today. The famous Foo Fighters were a great example of this phenomena. Then, shortly after World War II ended, there was a significant increase in UFO sightings and apparent abductions around the 1950s. In 2015, the CIA admitted that at least half of the reported sightings were indeed spy craft. But this still does not explain the other half. Some in ufology surmised this is due to mankind developing the atomic bomb. The theory generally runs that an atomic explosion is dangerous for these beings and they want us to stop, as evidenced by unconfirmed reports that UFO craft have disabled both Russian and United States nuclear missile launch systems.

But as with most of these stories, they are often labeled as "unconfirmed". Just as in most religious experiences and occult activity reports, you and I are entirely dependent on trusting a few select witnesses. It is usual that there is little or no physical evidence. Photos or videos are blurry, or conveniently erased. We must trust that the witnesses are who they say they are and that their memory of the event is accurate. But it gets more frustrating, because in many cases the government denies or contradicts the witness testimony. Even the famous Roswell incident - which began with a newspaper article declaring that a saucer-shaped object had crashed - was quickly changed to a "weather balloon" story. Even though the original person who posed with the weather balloon has come out on record and said that it was a hoax story cooked up by the United States intelligence community, the government's status and power tend to trump a lone witness.

What does "Confirmed" Mean?

So in this we learn an important lesson:

Who has the authority to confirm an experience?

If the government says "yes, that thing is not ours" it is tempting to think the government is lying. If the government contradicts a witness of an encounter, many like to side with the government out of a desire for comfort and therefore it is easier to imagine the witness to be attention-seeking or a nutcase. We learn really quickly that "unconfirmed" is no different than "unconfirmable", for even the government themselves is not trustworthy on the matter. After all, the government is made up of people who are no different at the end of the day than the witnesses themselves.

I for one would like to imagine that the government has some secret archive of information, some advanced tech or access to secret knowledge that gives them some insight into what is going on. However, the data just does not completely fit this. For one, it takes an act of Congress to keep funding the F-22 or F-35. Where would the United States be getting money and thousands of tight-lipped engineers - since the 1940s no less - to build technology that is apparently light-years ahead of our most advanced fighter plane? Do we honestly think that only a few lone souls similar to Bob Lazar are the only ones who would not squeal that we have this technology?

And so we are left with hundreds, if not thousands, of eyewitness testimony - many times with multiple witnesses - of truly bizarre phenomena within the government bodies themselves. From men like President Jimmy Carter to air force pilots like David Frazer, the reports are wild and sometimes fantastical. Sometimes they are of glowing orbs, sometimes of stationary saucers, sometimes of star-like objects zipping across the sky and radar screens. And in the more extreme cases, there are stories of crashed craft and humanoid beings, like in the Lazar story.

Why has the government been so secretive and why now, in 2020, are they allowing a slow-drip of information to the press without trying to hush it up like they seem to have done with Roswell?

Theorizing

In 2020, we are experiencing a radical shift in the way information is shared. For one, communication is impossible without cell-phones, and all cell-phones are equipped with cameras. This goes for military personnel as well. Secondly, we are in the post-Wikileaks era where even the average teenager knows how to anonymously leak information. It could simply be that the government knows quite well that their top brass are likely to drop bombs over the next couple of decades and they want to get ahead of the game, so they are relaxing their intellectual control on the matter. This is primarily out of necessity.

Time will tell, but I believe we are in for a considerable number of surprises. But remember, they may still not be telling the whole truth - no matter how fantastical it sounds.