This show delves into the Presidential libraries in an attempt to uncover evidence of 50-years of alleged Oval office involvement in the existence of UFOs.
U.S. investigations into UFOs include: The Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU), established by the U.S. Army sometime in the 1940s, and about which little is known. In 1987, British UFO researcher Timothy Good received from the Army's director of counter-intelligence a letter confirming the existence of the IPU. The letter stated that "the aforementioned Army unit was disestablished during the late 1950s and never reactivated. All records pertaining to this unit were surrendered to the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations in conjunction with operation BLUEBOOK." The IPU records have never been released. Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge, conducted by the USAF from 1947 until 1969 The secret U.S. Army/Air Force Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948--1951) Ghost rockets investigations by the Swedish, UK, U.S., and Greek militaries (1946--1947) The secret CIA Office of Scientific Investigation (OS/I) study (1952--53) The secret CIA Robertson Panel (1953) The secret USAF Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 by the Battelle Memorial Institute (1951--1954) The Brookings Report (1960), commissioned by NASA The public Condon Committee (1966--1968) The private, internal RAND Corporation study (1968) The private Sturrock panel (1998)
Thousands of documents released under FOIA also indicate that many U.S. intelligence agencies collected (and still collect) information on UFOs. These agencies include the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), FBI, CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), as well as military intelligence agencies of the Army and U.S. Navy, in addition to the Air Force.[note 3]
The investigation of UFOs has also attracted many civilians, who in the U.S formed research groups such as NICAP (active 1956--1980), Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) (active 1952--1988), MUFON (active 1969--), and CUFOS (active 1973--).
In November 2011, the White House released an official response to two petitions asking the U.S. government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited this planet and to disclose any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings. According to the response, "The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race." Also, according to the response, there is "no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye." The response further noted that efforts, like SETI and NASA's Kepler space telescope and Mars Science Laboratory, continue looking for signs of life. The response noted "odds are pretty high" that there may be life on other planets but "the odds of us making contact with any of them—especially any intelligent ones—are extremely small, given the distances involved.
UFOs are sometimes an element of conspiracy theories in which governments are allegedly intentionally "covering up" the existence of aliens by removing physical evidence of their presence, or even collaborating with extraterrestrial beings. There are many versions of this story; some are exclusive, while others overlap with various other conspiracy theories.
In the U.S., an opinion poll conducted in 1997 suggested that 80% of Americans believed the U.S. government was withholding such information. Various notables have also expressed such views. Some examples are astronauts Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell, Senator Barry Goldwater, Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter (the first CIA director), Lord Hill-Norton (former British Chief of Defense Staff and NATO head), the 1999 French COMETA study by various French generals and aerospace experts, and Yves Sillard (former director of CNES, new director of French UFO research organization GEIPAN).
It has also been suggested by a few paranormal authors that all or most human technology and culture is based on extraterrestrial contact.
