UFOs Keep Appearing in the News. Here’s Why We Can’t Quit Them

In 1995, Fox Television captivated millions with a medical autopsy of a space alien. The 17-minute black and white clip purported to show military doctors examining a bloated, humanoid-looking extraterrestrial  that had died in a flying saucer crash.

The broadcast generated so much hoopla that Fox aired it two more times that year, tacking on “added footage” of the UFO wreckage. Even then, the hoax—recycling the Roswell myth, which holds that the U.S. government in 1947 recovered an alien craft from the New Mexico desert—was old hat.

The latest version of this fable is the widely circulated story of—you guessed it—crashed UFOs  that the U.S. government has been hiding for many decades. In June, a recently retired  intelligence community “whistleblower” made this claim, like others before him in years past. That the latest “bombshell” landed without any evidence or corroboration has not dampened our feverish enthusiasm. “Are we finally ready to admit UFOs are aliens?” asks the Daily Beast in its headline.

Americans have a bottomless appetite for this…