The reports of strange objects in the skies of our planet have been coming in for centuries. Few people anymore really doubt there is something going on but finding open and honest answers has not been at all easy to discover. Despite the many reasons we have been given to question the actions and motives of our governing agencies, people still want to believe that ultimately their leaders have their best interests at heart. In the case of unidentified flying objects and the possibility of alien contact this trust has been woefully betrayed.

One of the first big attempts at official government investigation was undertaken in the middle of the 20th century by the United States Air Force. Beginning with "Project Sign", that ended in 1948, it was officially determined that these objects were neither US or Russian in manufacture but failed to give even a hypothetical guess as to where they were from. "Project Grudge" quickly followed but was initiated as a purely debunking effort to convince the masses that they were "crazy" or "delusional" if they insisted on seeing an alien connection. This extremely cavalier attitude even angered senior military officials to the point that "Project Blue Book" was formed in an attempt to regain some sense of factual understanding of the phenomena of UFO's.

After years of investigation into nearly 13,000 UFO reports, 701 of which were never found to have even the most flimsy natural explanation, the Project was closed and the final statement issued was that "the phenomena poses no threat to national security." This was not an answer to the question but circumvention around the facts. A popular hypothesis for this is that they were quite aware of what these things were and the possibility that "deals" were in place that the common citizen was not privy to. It may not be a matter of "national security" but that still leaves the question of what it may mean to "personal security" if they are in fact alien in origin.

Other world governments have recently begun to be somewhat more forthcoming with the information they have compiled over the years about sighting made by their citizens. Beginning in 1989 the Belgian government and Air Force began an, at the time, unprecedented openness policy about the severe increase in UFO sightings happening in their country. Rather that trying to pacify the populous with pat stories of "misidentification" of mundane things, they admitted their ignorance of the cause and origins and welcomed input and information from their citizens. While a definitive conclusion was never made, the Belgian government acknowledged the phenomena and did not treat their citizens as if they were ignorant children incapable of dealing with the mystery.

May of 2008 also saw the British government and Ministry of Defense releasing thousands of pages of reports on UFO and alien sightings in their country. These reports are filled with observations from very reliable and trustworthy people including police, pilots, air traffic controllers, military personnel, and government officials themselves. It was their hope that with the release of this information, enough people could study and correlate the data to the point some idea of what is happening in our skies could be developed. We can but hope that with this new openness on the part of some of the world's governments a satisfactory answer can be gleaned before an alien craft makes a public landing and tells us what they are up to themselves.