Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos (Valencia, 1948) is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the study of UFOs. For three decades he combined his work as a financial analyst at Ford Spain with a prolific research activity, reflected in more than a dozen books, beginning with ‘UFOs: The Landing Event’ (1978). The architect of the Air Force Classification of Unidentified Flying Object Reports, he published ‘The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony’, in which sixty authors examine the reliability of UFO testimony in the light of science.
– NASA says in its September 14 statement, “The study of unidentified anomalous events (FANI) presents a unique scientific opportunity.”
– It’s overrated from the start. It simulates giving too much relevance to the ‘show’ to ultimately propose a research project with the use of novel sensors and systems that require federal funding. That is the crux of the matter.
The reason
“Most amazing events – human figures, abductions … – discoveries”
– So we are not facing “one of the greatest mysteries of our planet”.
– That’s a little ‘podate’ from NASA. There are many scientific unknowns that weigh more than UFOs, yet they are one of the most popular ‘mysteries’ from a media perspective.
– According to NASA, FANI is a threat to air defense.
– Since the flying saucer myth began in 1947, where is the danger to aviation not just in the US, but around the world? Birds, lightning, drones, balloons, even out-of-control missiles represent hazards to aviation, but UFOs? NASA, which is hearsay, does not support this naive statement with little evidence in the form of casuistry.
– You get the idea that you want to do UFO research to get funding to build new satellites and equipment.
– That’s what matters. NASA has found a new place to increase its budget and demand generous funding from the government based on the UFO puzzle.
– The report highlights the significance of the remaining, approximately 2% of cases without conventional explanation due to poor data quality. Can there be anything surprising in these events?
– No biological or technological system is perfect, be it eyewitness observations or automated recordings. There are always reasons why some of the millions of UFO sightings cannot be identified. It should be considered that. But unidentified is not unrecognizable. Importantly, NASA admits that ‘there is no data on which to draw scientific conclusions’, ‘most sightings can be attributed to known events and phenomena’ and ‘there are no similarities to UFO sightings’. This last statement is decisive: cases of alleged UFOs are an example of absolute entropy, no patterns, no pattern. Because? This is because unsolved cases come from the internal space of the subject, not from the external space.
200 years of things in the sky
– Does NASA draw attention to the importance of the testimonies of military pilots?
– Pilots make mistakes and mess up like every son next door. The point about elite witnesses is false. And all the Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), Defense depends on, is going to prove it with hair and signs. In fact, one of their early conclusions was that 50% of cases were balloons. This shows that in many cases the military pilots were unable to identify the balloon.
– In Washington, did they go back to 1947, when they feared that the plates were Soviet weapons?
– Yes, we are starting from scratch. The Pentagon is reinventing the wheel. We’ll see when they publish their research results. We’ve gone from the flying saucers of 1947 to the UFOs of the 1950s and the FANIs of the 2000s. The terms are timeless, minus their extraterrestrial connotations, as there is little evidence that some of the scenes are even remotely related. Creatures from other planets. It is true that rival powers use drones, balloons and other aerial vehicles to spy on the US. But this will be a small percentage of cases. They are mistakes, pure and simple. And the most spectacular events – landings, human figures, abductions … – discoveries and mysteries.
– In the last 200 years seeing things in the sky has been common, hasn’t it?
– NASA’s panel of experts has shown that there is no historical perspective needed to assess this issue globally. Fears of aerial invasions, mysterious or ghostly planes, and waves of objects from outer space have been confirmed relentlessly in a series of crises since at least 1789. The current one started in 1947 and the legend continues till date.
– Do you conclude that UFOs are a myth?
– The influence of journalism, literature, cinema and television is fundamental in creating the myth of extraterrestrial UFOs. There is little evidence that UFO sightings, even unsolved ones, have the slightest connection to ships from other worlds, universes or dimensions. This is science fiction.
– Would the UFO myth have arisen without science fiction literature?
– No. There are several studies showing connections between the appearance of flying saucers and science fiction magazines and fan stories and illustrations from the 1930s and 1940s, which may have predated some of the sightings.
– What questions do you have to answer?
– After more than 55 years of research, with an evolving intellectual position, my conviction is now complete: there are no UFOs or extraterrestrial FANI, they are a myth. But we must go a step further: above observational errors, whether visual or automatic systems, there is a phenomenon that psychologists and sociologists should study more than astronomers.
