Are we prepared for public UFO encounters?

(This article also appears on the Joint Recon Study Group and Transcendent TV & Media sites.)

Is the U.S. prepared for public, daylight, high-profile UFO encounters?

Do average adults, teens and children have adequate mental and emotional preparedness for visible and indisputable extraterrestrial and/or inter-dimensional visitation?

Are our public health and safety officials ready to handle possible ramifications of such an event?

To explore these important questions, it may be instructive to look at the March 13, 1997, so-called "Phoenix lights" case.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PREPAREDNESS

When the Phoenix lights incident took place, it was early evening and already dark. This undoubtedly minimized the number of residents who actually observed what was reported to be a huge V-shaped object with large lights underneath.

If this had occurred during daylight, would there have been more anxiety by the public?

In many alleged UFO cases, an object quickly zips by at high speed and is gone in the blink of an eye.

In other cases, sightings or encounters reportedly occur in isolated regions, where there are few human witnesses.

Since the object over Phoenix in 1997 was said to be very large, slow-moving and maintained a fairly low altitude, it would have been very visible over a length of time by millions of people if seen during daylight.

Feelings of anxiety would be very normal on the part of people who were seeing something they had never seen before. Their first impressions might be that there were two main explanations for such a large unidentified object: a U.S. craft or a ship piloted by non-humans.

Once the thought process considered both options and concluded that the latter explanation was more likely, more natural questions might come to mind.

The relatively few Phoenix residents who experienced these feelings and thoughts in 1997 would be multiplied by millions.

Feelings of fear or panic can be contagious, spreading rapidly to create a human social climate. This would be a concern for public health and safety officials, and for the general public if a significant daylight UFO event were to occur over a major city.

THEN AND NOW

It can be argued that concerns of this kind may be part of the reasons for the alleged secrecy of the U.S. Government's handling of the UFO situation.

In the late 1940s, the U.S. had just emerged from the trauma of World War II. As the '50s began, the Cold War with the Soviet Union commenced. Fear of attacks on U.S. soil was part of both WWII and the Cold War.

Sightings of UFOs were becoming more frequent and some Americans were naturally somewhat unsophisticated about what these might mean.

If accounts of federal government inside activities during those decades are correct, there was anxiety in Washington, D.C., about a possible invasion or infiltration of a new kind of adversary – intelligent non-human ones.

The reasonable conclusions that these visitors were probably much more advanced technologically, and possibly in other ways, than humans also would have caused government leaders to worry.

As a result, it would be logical for them react with high levels of security, secrecy and discretion regarding public reaction to such a scenario.

It could be that programs to prepare and acclimate the public on these topics was implemented.

Now, in 2009, Americans appear to be more sophisticated about the possibilities or probabilities that UFOs and other anomalous phenomena may be real, and may be something quite complex, sensitive and unusual.

Movies, TV shows, books and other media platforms have tackled the themes of unusual situations such as UFOs and extraterrestrial visitation to our planet. Sometimes the visitors are friendly, sometimes hostile, and sometimes fairly neutral.

Maybe this is also the case in real life.

For most of us, the situation is unclear and we can only evaluate the available information and use our own intelligence, common sense and gut feelings to try to get an understanding of what might be going on.

Considering all the possibilities and outcomes from something like a daylight version of the Phoenix lights incident might help our communities and society prepare for that kind of contingency.

NOTE TO READERS: Readers who enjoyed this article may also like Modern science, ancient wisdom now merging, Book 'Hunt for the Skinwalker' is investigation of the unknown, UFOs and public safety: Firefighter manual explains risks, 'Alien Trespass' explores '50s UFO views, public acclimation, UFO hoaxes can teach us about UFO realities, More UFO acclimation in 'Race to Witch Mountain', Transcendent power has public safety applications, Transcendent warfare, transcendent power have potential and Phoenix lights UFO anniversary brings fresh insights.

A large amount of detailed verbatim text from the UFO chapter of "Fire Officer's Guide to Disaster Control" can be found in the March 21, 2009, article New UFO response teams face public safety issues.

An article published Jan. 28, 2008, Special research team targets emerging phenomena, explores public safety responses to a different kind of emerging anomalous incident.

For more information, click here to visit the Joint Recon Study Group and Transcendent TV & Media sites and have a look around.