Thomas Tulien

During the 1990s, I developed a keen interest in the history of the UFO phenomenon, which led to the creation of the Sign Oral History Project. In May 2000, we conducted an interview with Captain Bradford Runyon, a B-52 co-pilot who had served at Minot Air Force Base during the 1960s. This interview sparked years of subsequent research and collaborations, culminating in the online presentation of a detailed historical case study on the 24 October 1968, Minot AFB incident. This study provides students of UFO history with a unique opportunity to critically analyze a significant UFO event with considerable detail, fostering a deeper understanding of the phenomenon.

A four-year intelligence study by Britain’s Ministry of Defense, titled Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) in the UK Air Defence Region (2000), also known as the “Condign Report,” acknowledges that the existence of UFOs “is indisputable.” The report highlights that the phenomenon occurs daily on a global scale and attributes specific capabilities to UFOs, such as “the ability to hover, land, take off, accelerate to exceptional velocities and vanish; they can reportedly alter their direction in flight suddenly and clearly can exhibit aerodynamic characteristics well beyond those of any known aircraft or missile—either manned or unmanned.” However, the report concludes that UFOs can often be explained as misidentifications of man-made vehicles, natural phenomena, or relatively rare and not fully understood atmospheric phenomena. For instance, some events may be triggered by meteor re-entry, which can form electrically charged buoyant plasmas. Nevertheless, the “conditions and method of formation …as well as the scientific rationale for sustaining them for significant periods, is incomplete or not fully understood.”

For over 70 years, the UFO phenomenon has resisted definitive explanation regarding its true nature. Official inquiries have largely focused on categorically identifying UFOs rather than investigating their fundamental characteristics, echoing the USAF’s consistent reassurances that UFOs do not pose a national security threat. Professors Wendt and Duvall argue thereby, in today’s context, “the UFO can be known only by not asking what it is.” This systemic ignorance of UFOs has evolved into an active denial of their objective existence. As they note, "to that extent, one may speak of a UFO taboo, a prohibition in the authoritative public sphere on taking UFOs seriously, or in other words, thou shalt not try very hard to find out what UFOs are."