Examining the Origins of Conspiracy Theory Culture

THANKS IN LARGE PART to the internet and its powers of information proliferation, we live in a world awash in conspiracy theories. Almost all of them, ceratainly, are unfounded, which only makes them more fun by inviting ever more hard to believe versions. The most prominent among them are well known to everyone; the deep state, stolen elections, and all manner of top secret government perfidy, including the notion that the United States government has long been aware of extraterrestrials and has a supply of captured alien beings stashed away, hidden from the general public. The list only grows. In an enticing new study, journalist Garrett Graff, author of seminal explications of the Watergate scandal and the Twin Tower tragedy of nine eleven, explores the origins of our modern conspiracy theory culture, convincingly, in the book: "UFO: The Inside Story of the U.S. Government's Search for Alien Life, Here - and Out There". As everyone who has ever been employed by or associated with the U.S. government well understands, if indeed the government were secretly housing alien beings, dead or alive, it would remain a secret for probably no more than a few minutes. It all began with UFOs, asserts Graff. Robert J.Goddard pioneered rocket science in the nineteen twenties, and Werner von Braun continued his work during World War Two, before coming to the U.S. after the war to head the newly created National Aeronatic and Space Administration. The commencement of the cold war after the hot war caused great concern that the Soviet Union might be ahead of the Unitd States not only in rocketry, but in he exploration of outer space, and with the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957, the paranoia only intensified. In 1947 two events precipitated the UFO craze, which has never subsided. An airline pilot saw unidentified flying objects near Mt. Ranier, and a weather balloon crashed to the ground in New Mexcio, the famous Roswell incident, and UFO culture and conspiracy theories were born. The American government has indeed conducted a decades long search for extraterrestrial life, through projects Ozma and SETI, without any tangible, reportable results. This lack of evidence not only failed to deter the rumors; it ony invited and enhanced them. The nineteen fifties and sixties were decades of UfOlogy. Millions of people claimed to have witnessed UFO sightings and landings, and a nearly equal number claimed, and many still claim, to have been abducted by extraterrestrials in flying saucers, as unidentified flying objects were called from the beginning for their usually circular, saucer shape. The government's research, usually through the Air Force and CIA, was quite serious and legitimate; the conspiracy industry engendered soon got totally out of control, and remains so today. There remains no evidence that millions of government bureaucrats have organized into a conspiratorial entity, nor is there, three years after the last presidential election, any evidence to support the outlandish claim that the election was stolen. And yet, these absurd ideas persist, just as UFO enthusiasts refuse to give up the ghost and admit that not only do we simply not know, but that we have not a shred of reliable evidence to substantiate claims regarding vivitors from other planets. But, so what? Never let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory. We are highly imaginative creatures, and the price we pay for our inquiring minds and lack of science education is a plethora of untruths, absurdities deeply embedded within our collective psyches, there to doubtless forever remain.