In article <1057950110.823427@cswreg.cos.agilent.com>, Garry Bryan says...

What are the signals that SETI is looking for? 

Why Secrecy? By Stanton Friedman

One of the most frequently asked questions after my 3 lectures or during radio
and TV interviews is, "Why is the government not telling us what it knows about
flying saucers?" Is it fear of panic like the reaction to the Orson Wells' 'War
of the Worlds' radio program in 1938?"  Apparently people have no problem with
the evidence I present that indeed the subject of flying saucers is a kind of
Cosmic Watergate. I show the blacked out CIA and NSA documents, the whited out
NSA documents, and review some of the lies told by Air Force and other
officials. But the kicker seems to be WHY?

I normally start by saying that obviously I am not a spokesman for any
government agency, but here are the five major reasons that I believe help
explain (not justify) the coverup: 

**  Technology most important consideration 

1. From a government's viewpoint, what is most important about flying saucers is
the technology; not the philosophical implications of man not being alone, so
often proclaimed by the SETI (Silly Effort to Investigate) cultists.

The first country to duplicate the ability of flying saucers to move at very
high speed and very slowly, to make right angle turns at very high speed, to
move up and down vertically, usually with little noise or exhaust or visible
external engines, will rule the planet. Having wreckage and lots of classified
technical data about flight performance, naturally a secret project was set up
to try to learn as much about the technology as possible and to tell our enemies
as little as possible about what we have learned.

A basic rule of security is that one can't tell one's friends without telling
one's enemies. Fifty-five years is a very very short time to try to learn the
technological secrets of a civilization(s) that might be thousands or millions
of years ahead of us, especially since technological progress comes from doing
things differently in an unpredictable way.

I, for one, don't want technical data out on the table where Saddam can have
easy access. 

**Who gets it first?

2. Governments must be concerned about the possibility of "The other guy" (and
every country has an "other" guy) figuring out how they work before we do. How
do we defend against the new technology? We certainly don't want them to know we
know they know. If they have a new poison gas, and we figure out an antidote,
then they have to change the gas, we have to change the antidote, etc. Mankind
has been playing these silly, but deadly, games for eons. Bigger clubs, stronger
shields. A primary espionage target is determining what the other guy knows.

** A political problem

3. The third problem for governments is political. What happens if an
announcement were to be made by people respected around the world (The Queen and
the Pope??) that some UFOs are indeed ET spacecraft? I think Church attendance
would increase, as would mental hospital admissions. The stock market would go
down.

But I think one of the most important reactions, based on more than 600 college
lectures, would be a push from the younger generation (which unlike me was never
alive when there wasn't a space program) for a new view of ourselves as
Earthlings (Terrans?) instead of as Americans, Canadians, Peruvians, Chinese,
etc). Some people immediately think "wouldn't that be great??"

Unfortunately, I know of no government that wants its citizens to owe their
primary allegiance to the planet instead of that government. Nationalism is the
only game in town. There certainly isn't anybody who truly speaks for the
planet. I can't imagine a galactic federation offering membership to individual
countries, any more than the UN offers membership to cities. Actually I don't
think our planet yet qualifies for membership in the Cosmic Kindergarten.

** A devilish question

4. Certain Christian fundamentalists in the USA (Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell)
have strongly expressed the view that mankind represents the only intelligent
beings in the universe, and that this flying saucer stuff is the work of the
devil. These guys were very close politically to Ronald Reagan and Bush senior.

They would be up the creek without a religious paddle should an announcement be
made. It is interesting that the Mormons, Hindus, Muslims, etc all accept the
notion that there is intelligent life out there.

** It's the economy, stupid!

5. The fifth difficulty is economic. Suppose that an announcement were made,
obviously not quietly, but carefully, saying that indeed Earth is being visited
by intelligently controlled ET spacecraft. I believe that many people, so long
as no direct threat were being presented, such as was the case in "War of the
Worlds," would say that obviously the aliens are much more advanced
technologically than are we, since they are coming here and we can't go there.
Probably this would suggest that soon there would be new methods of energy
production, of ground and air transport, of computing and communications. In
short, economic chaos.

Who would be the winners? Who the losers? Remember that in the late l980s the
countries of the West were saying that if only the Russians would take down the
Berlin Wall and have elections, freedom, democracy, and capitalism, everything
would be great. They have had those things and everything is terrible. We
Earthlings don't seem to be very good at large-scale economic transitions.

** Knowledge is power

I am sure that readers can think of other reasons, such as the government has
made a deal with the aliens, perhaps swapping access to medical examinations of
earthlings for advanced technology. Perhaps they know that something terrible
will happen and there is nothing that can be done about it, etc etc etc.

The point here is that Knowledge is Power. Americans and other nationalities
long ago conceded that information would be kept from the public in the
interests of National Security. After all, the Director of Central Intelligence
in 1996, because of a court action, was forced to admit that his total black
budget that year was only $26.6 billion dollars.

That represents a lot of effort with little oversight by elected officials.
Those in power want to stay in power. Elected officials take as their first duty
the need to be reelected. Those with access to very highly classified
information take as their first duty the need to keep it from all but the very
few having a need to know.