Close Encounters of the Distraction Kind

The Pentagon has released hundreds of declassified files, pictures and videos relating to UAPs - Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena - more popularly known as UFOs. The materials date back to the late 1940s and include firsthand but generally uncorroborated narratives from military officers and civilians as well as grainy photos and videos that could really be anything.

Various government and private investigations into whether extraterrestrials have tried to make contact have never come up with anything conclusive. But since the end of World War II and the start of the Space Race and the Cold War, UFO culture in the United States has always intersected with fear of others and distrust in the system on the one hand, and government secrecy and coverup on the other hand - going as far as the Pentagon testing planes and surveillance equipment and blaming sightings on aliens.

Many questions are still open. Are we alone? Have we been visited? But perhaps most importantly, why is the Trump administration releasing these files now?

Plus: Sign the petition to pardon whistleblower John Kiriakou: https://change.org/PardonJohn