Some Folks Making a Federal Case of UFOs Source: Arizona Republic February 9, 2000
They were there on a search for truth, or at least their version of it.
The federal courtroom was jampacked with observers, but they weren't there to watch the trial. The actual proceeding mattered very little.
In their minds, the verdict was already in: Alien beings are among us, and the government is engaged in an all-out campaign to keep it hush-hush.
The observers just showed up in the courtroom to glean evidence to support that view.
Peter Gersten, the attorney and founder of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, sat waiting to argue his case. A man in a bright yellow jacket snapped open a briefcase and offered Gersten the beginnings of a book about the Kennedy
assassination called Flame of Silence.
"I'm trying to get it to Art Bell," he told Gersten.
The attorney politely told him thanks but no thanks.
Gersten has filed three federal lawsuits in recent months. One, which sought wreckage from a purported 1947 UFO crash, was tossed out. Another, which asks the government to take action against the invading alien force, is pending.
Then there is the case heard Monday, asking the government to turn over all documents relating to a triangular object spotted all over the world. And in Phoenix.
"(We're) talking about an object that's been in existance for 20 years, the size of a football field, flying at treetop level, with no noise. And they don't know what it is," Gersten told the judge. "You would think it would be the Number 1 priority of the Department of Defense."
Richard Patrick, an assistant U.S. attorney, doesn't much look the part of a shadowy government figure bent on keeping a lid on the truth, but that's the role he played in the minds of the UFOlogists in the audience.
He said the government looked for the documents but didn't find any. He asked the judge to drop the matter, saying the search for paperwork on the spooky craft was "reasonable."
Problem is the word "reasonable" doesn't mean much to true believers.
Nothing the government said would be trusted or believed by the life forms in the courtroom, unless it helped prove their extraterrestrial views.
The only "reasonable" evidence they'd accept would be FBI agents coming into court with a red wagon filled with spacecraft wreckage and a dead alien or two.
And they're not alone. Seems like a lot of us like to suspend reason when it comes to reports of alien spacecraft.
Television reports about the infamous "Phoenix lights" of March 13, 1997, still say that there is no "reasonable" explanation for the orbs that appeared that night.
But there is an explanation. A very reasonable one.
An astronomer pointed his telescope at the strange hovering pattern around 8:30 p.m. that night and saw planes in formation. The bright lights people saw to the west of town around 10:30 p.m. that night coincide with planes dropping an unusual amount of flares over a gunnery range.
But those explanations are discounted in favor of the one that is more fun: Aliens are among us.
District Judge Stephen McNamee said he'd issue a ruling soon. But it won't matter much.
If UFOlogists lose the suit, they still win. They'll just have more proof that the government is hiding the real truth.
That truth being that the sky is filled with aliens, monitoring our thoughts and actions.
No wonder they just keep on flying.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/cols/0209ruelas.shtml