It started with a very corny and imposted voice in off, describing how a innocent architect discovered that aliens were about to take over the earth. Driving in a lonely road, on a lonely night, he sees the landing of a flying saucer and watches figures come out looking like humans! Actually, the aliens are not only looking like humans, but also mutating real ones to take over the earth! The rest of the TV show that haunted my childhood, was indeed about the heroic David Vincent, convincing an unbelieving world of the impending threat.
Fast forward to pretty much any other TV series today. It does not matter if it is action, procedural, or drama. You name it and take your pick. Look at more than two episodes and a character will appear, mostly for comic relief purposes. He (alas boys, I haven’t seen the first lady in this role yet) is clumsy, probably not very sportive and dresses unfashionably. At best, he is a nerd that can do computers. At worst... never mind. He also believes in UFO’s.
So, what happened in the meantime? How comes that the persons interested in UFO’s, aliens, and whatever related, went from heroes saving the earth from impending doom to bumbling nerds? If anybody would pose that question to me I would wonder about it, and guess that it is what it is, who cares about little green men anyway? But then, I actually know better now. And at risk of sounding as silly as any caricatural nerd of any TV series, what happened is that the CIA happened. That’s correct, you read properly. Inti just claimed that the CIA is responsible for our desbelief in UFO’s and our caricaturization of whoever still believes in them, Mulder included.
In a recent article in the New Yorker, which I really recommend to read, the troubled relation between UFO’s and the USA government is described. As it happened, UFO’s have been recorded since we have records. The thing is that, around the time my scary series was being filmed, the North American government begun to realize that North American citizens had enough stress with the cold war. The ongoing encounters of UFO’s with jet pilots, navy sailors or simply people were driving a whole environment of distrust in the government, and mass histeria. So, probably for the one and only time that it worked out, the CIA run a campaign of ridicule and disbelief. Ongoing air force dossiers (the now well known blue files) and similar research from the army and the navy were disencouraged and their budgets were not renewed. Slowly we got to believe that anybody believing in aliens was, basically, a fool.
Those who know me beyond these pages know that I despise conspiracy theorists of any kind. Surely more nowadays, with an ongoing pandemic, broad distrust in institutions and clear disinformation and radicalization campaigns unwittingly due to social media. I am not the one prone to believe that something like the CIA, or the GRU or MI6 or anything like that can influence the public. And yet.
It looks like this time, they manage. Damn.
I've read that article. Loooong as it is customary in The New Yorker, but I enjoyed it. I once heard someone say something like "it takes the whole life to have a decent reputation, but it takes only 5 minutes to lose it." UFO's didn't have a whole life to gain a good reputation and on top, CIA managed to discredit them the one they could have had...