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without knowing something about it. I have done my best to distill from a huge mass of material some of the most compelling and essential facts. In this country, UFOs became a national issue in the late 1940s, when there were many sightings of great public interest and concern that were covered widely by the media. The U.S. Air Force took the lead in addressing these events, complicated by the A414 xr onset of the Cold War, attempting to explain away as many cases as possible in order to divert public attention from the mystery. Behind the scenes, the topic was of great concern at the highest levels, and the Air Force was not equipped to protect the public from an entirely unknown but apparently technological phenomenon that could come and go at will. In the early 1950s, it established Project Blue Book, a small agency that received reports from citizens, investigated the reports, and offered explanations to the media and the public. Blue Book gradually solidified as largely a public relations effort intent on debunking UFO sightings. Hundreds of files accumulated, and the Air Force closed down the program in 1970, ending all official investigations—or so they said publicly—without having found an explanation for many shocking UFO incidents. The cases presented by our contributors all occurred after the close of Project Blue Book, between 1976 and 2007. Our government still stays out of the UFO controversy and has no policy in place to address growing concern. Within the historical framework, the upcoming chapters will examine the role of the CIA in establishing the protocol for the debunking of UFOs; the stark contrast between the handling of UFOs by our own government and the address ~ Within to concern. between of UFOs between the handling of UFOs by our own government and the governments of other countries; the issues of aviation safety and national security as they pertain to UFO incidents; the psychology of the UFO taboo; and the question of a U.S. government cover-up. Much of the American public has grown increasingly frustrated with the pattern of government denials about UFOs, especially as the evidence has mounted over time. With digital cameras and cell phones now commonplace, UFO photos are snapped almost every day, although they are easier to fake, making the new technology a mixed blessing. As exoplanets are discovered and scientists acknowledge the probability of life elsewhere in the universe, the demand for studying the neglected UFO phenomenon has become imperative. I think you will agree, by the time you finish reading, that there is now renewed hope for solving the UFO enigma, and that you will also agree as to the signal importance of that endeavor. the It's extremely important to establish at the very beginning that neither I nor the other writers are claiming that there are alien spacecraft in our skies, simply because we do not deny data showing a physical presence Defining the Indefinable: What Is a UFO?