In Walter Cronkite’s 1966 suck-up documentary for the Air Force — “UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy?”— CBS took viewers to the NORAD nerve center in Colorado, where a reporter asked Capt. Gary Reese if UFOs can avoid radar detection. “So far as we know,” replied the robotic Air Force officer, “all flying objects are composed of materials which are aerodynamic and which do have a reflective surface upon which radar waves can be bounced. It’s possible there are other types of material; however, I doubt it.”
Pressed for more details about eyewitness reports, Reese fibbed, “These sightings have never been substantiated and could not be translated into hard radar return figures.”
That was half a century ago, when stealth technology was a fantasy. And nevermind that radar records corroborating eyewitness UFO accounts began rolling in as early as 1947 and are too numerous to itemize here. Last week, during NPR’s discussion of James Bond’s hi-tech gizmos on “Morning Edition,” De Void got to thinking about how much farther we might have extended the boundaries of science today had The Great Taboo been subjected to truly professional evaluation.