Modern Ufology focuses on mysterious lights on Ceres or tales of alien abduction, but this wasn’t always the case, and looking at how the beliefs in the UFO phenomenon have changed or stayed the same can shed light on how culture and belief changes over time. One does not have to believe humans are actually being visited by aliens from another planet to recognize the importance of UFOs in human society. Any widespread belief that endures for centuries is worthy of study, and as always, cases exist that can’t be explained away simple superstition.

The first large-scale, official investigation came during the UFO flap of 1947. On December 30, 1947, Major General L. C. Cragie, director of research and development for the United States Air Force, authorized the study of the flying saucer problem. His statement carried the line “by command of the chief of staff.” The program was called Project Sign, and it would be the first of three known U.S. government studies of the UFO phenomenon.

While these American investigations of UFOs from the 1940s and 1950s were documented, nothing exemplifies the debate between those who believe that extraterrestrials visit the Earth and skeptics like the top secret papers that emerged in the 1980s and seemed to prove the existence of a shadowy secret organization known as MJ-12 or Majestic 12. To believers, these papers proved beyond a doubt not only that UFOs were real and of extraterrestrial origin, but also that the federal government had been aware of their existence since the 1940s and had even managed to recover one or more crashed alien spacecrafts. To skeptics, this notion simply proved how gullible UFO believers were. There was no middle ground - people either believed in the MJ-12 papers completely or laughed at them.