The Phenomenon: It's Not A Question Of Belief

guardian |  The government program and its known records have rendered the question “do you believe in UFOs?” obsolete, according to the Times’ investigators – “their existence, or nonexistence, is not a matter of belief”. UFO means, simply, that we don’t know what these incidents are – not necessarily alien, but a matter of government record, as fact. “It’s not a question of belief, it’s not a question of whether this is happening,” said Mellon. “Our government and our defense department have publicly acknowledged that this is real and that this is happening.” The observations released by the military seem to suggest advanced military technology, enough to have concerned the Department of Defense – which announced a new taskforce into the matter this August – as well as the Office of Naval Intelligence and members of two Senate committees. “The challenge now is to figure out where they’re coming from, how they’re made, and what the intent is,” said Mellon.

Both Fox and Mellon acknowledged the difficulty in entertaining the idea of confirmed UFOs, and some of The Phenomenon’s more fantastical claims, without skepticism. Indeed, the idea suggested by the film that governments from the US to Russia to Australia have systematically suppressed coverage, research or speculation of UFO sightings seems dubious, if not outright dangerous, given the very real threats rampant conspiracy theories, which often invoke the military and/or space, pose to American democracy in the Trump era. Mellon agreed that “there is a problem with disinformation in this area, and unfortunately there’s a lot of junk and hoaxes as well as just information from people seeing something they’re not understanding, that has an explanation based in science or a classified program”.

But he noted that “all of the serious people involved in this issue want to take a hard-nosed scientific approach to this topic – we need more and better data” based on “trustworthy” and “authentic” reports released by government departments — “it’s information that the government is surfacing from our own military”.

The Phenomenon, like the many extraterrestrial documentaries before it, ultimately can’t stake a claim on certainty; instead, it concludes with a call for consideration. “I’m not screaming from the hilltops ‘ET is here!’” said Fox. “I’m just saying, ‘Hey, look, there’s a serious situation going on, and this demands not only government transparency, but further investigation.’”