Chinese balloons stoke American paranoia with extraterrestrials

The sheer number of balloons sparked talk of them being UFOs on the prowl. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

A series of balloons that appeared mysteriously over American skies, have again drummed up the eternal American obsession with aliens. For those who believe, and that’s a majority of the men in the country, suspicion of other worlds being involved were confirmed after a US general in charge of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, didn’t rule out the possibility that the three objects shot from the skies over the US and Canada might be of extraterrestrial origins.

The balloons were initially suspected to be Chinese spy platforms, till so many of them were found floating around that the need was felt for a new theory. And what better than UFOs on the prowl.

Also read: Eye In The Sky: India alert to Chinese spy balloons; IAF has some of its own

It was in 1947 when a civilian pilot, out searching for the wreckage of a marine aircraft that could net him a cool $5,000 in reward, sighted an unusual formation of nine craft travelling much faster than any jet of the time could. According to a piece in the Wired, he claimed later that he had told a reporter that the objects skipped like saucers on water, referring to their motion and not their shape. Through the time-honoured process of Chinese whispers, this soon became a sensational headline in the Chicago Sun “Supersonic Flying Saucers Sighted by Idaho Pilot.”

It was the start of a strangely American paranoia about flying saucers and soon UFO sightings became a preoccupation. The government was forced to start its own investigations, a process that continues till today in the work of The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). Based on its findings, on June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in its report titled Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena stated that “in a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis.”

Such rational explanations though haven’t ever satisfied believers. This particular report was greeted with a rally outside the White House in protest against the secrecy regarding extraterrestrial life.

Also read: Funnycontrol | How to scale to a jillion trillion intergalactic dollar enterprise before lunch

That’s because many Americans are convinced that UFOs are the biggest threat to the country. Surveys reveal that more than 90 percent of all Americans have at least heard or read something about UFOs, and 55 percent of them believe they are for real. This despite the fact that even the CIA, which is often accused of hatching conspiracies, during the course of its own investigations into UFOs in 1952, questioned whether they might reflect "midsummer madness". But given the high levels of anxiety, the US administration has no choice but to continue its surveillance of UFOs. In July 2022, the US Department of Defense set up the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), to track UAP in space, air and even under water.

Given the massive interest in the subject, it is no surprise that Hollywood got into the act early. Over the years films, starting with 1950’s The Flying Saucer and the 1956 thriller Earth Vs The Flying Saucers, capitalized on the growing mania. But the craze died down in the 1960s, particularly once space travel actually took off.

In India, interest in UFOs received a minor bump with Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In one scene, a Hindu seer turns to the crowd of worshippers and asks: "Where did these sounds come from?" In unison, they gesture towards the sky.

This kind of faith has ensured that Indians haven’t really worried too much about UFOs though in December last year, a mysterious light which was spotted for around 3 minutes in several parts of West Bengal, including Kolkata, did give rise to speculations of an alien spaceship. As it turned out, the illumination was caused by the night trials of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Agni-V, in the Bay of Bengal. Move on guys. Nothing to see here. It wasn’t the first time that a UFO was rumoured to have been spotted in India but as it happens, the end was similarly anticlimactic.

That probably explains why Bollywood, never one to miss a trick, hasn’t really featured UFOs among its many mysteries. Koi Mil Gaya starring an alien is perhaps one of the handful of them; though, by the end of the movie, it is difficult to distinguish the real from the ethereal.