JD Vance is obsessed with UFOs. And it is not the only one

Vice -president of the United States JD Vance said he will spend his holidays in August studying the UFO issue: “I am obsessed with it”. It is not the only one. The number of Americans convinced that the sightings of unidentified flying objects offer proof of the existence of alien civilizations grew in the United States from 20 percent in 1996 to 34 percent in 2022. The question of aliens, or rather of their manifestations, is therefore a serious thing in society and, consequently, in American politics. But establishing its nature is much more complex: is it a collective hallucination? A conspiracy theory like those on the attacks of 11 September 2001 or on the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein? Or the birth of a new religion?

The crucial date in the political history of UFO is December 17, 2017: the New York Times It publishes an article that reveals the existence of a secret program of the Pentagon dedicated to UFO, with a budget of 600 million a year so hidden in the folds of the federal budget that no one had noticed it. At the head of that project there was a certain Luis Elizondo, an officer of intelligence, who in an audition at the United States congress on November 13, 2014 explained that UFOs, or rather the Uaps – unidentified abnormal phenomena – as they are called, now exist and have a primary military importance: «Advanced technologies not made by our government – nor by other governments – are monitoring sensitive military installations all over the world. In addition, the United States are in possession of Uap technologies, as well as some of our opponents ». According to Elizondo, “we are in the middle of a secret ride to secret armaments, financed with public funds employed improperly and hidden from our elected representatives and the control bodies”. It seems the confirmation of what many Ufologists have always supported. That is, that the American government knows much more than it says, that the aliens are among us. The New York Timesin that famous article, he realized many other testimonies: there is a long list of high -level exponents of the American army who claim to have seen mysterious objects, inexplicable phenomena. So were conspiracyers right? There is a part of the synthesis of Elizondo which is certainly true: In the name of the need to deepen the “unidentified anomalous phenomena”, some politicians have managed to allocate large sums sheltered from the parliamentary scrutiny. The secret program revealed by New York Timesofficially closed in 2012, was a project by Harry Reid, at the time head of the democratic majority in the Senate, who made a river of public funds arrive for that way to his friend and financier Robert Bigelow, entrepreneur in the airospace sector.

Although flying discs and green men were a collective blunder, they can be very useful to create opacity that allow very concrete maneuvers. In fact, he begins to suspect the excessive talkativeness of many of these exponents of the American army: they all say they have seen UFO, evoke very secret plans and unspeakable truths, tickle the conspiracyers by suggesting the presence of hidden decision -making levels. But they never bring a test.

There is a lot of transparency from the government, there is even an annual report that censors the suspicious events of the last few months. Maybe a little too much transparency: It almost seems that the government want Americans to believe in the existence of aliens. After all, they can be an excellent coverage story for many operations: anyone who known something strange is passed through a slightly unscrewed conspiracy theorist.

David Grusch, an Air Force officer who dealt with UFO for the Defense Department, claims that the Vatican has first -hand information on a certain alien accident at the time of Pius XII: the election of an American Pope, Leone XIV, has aroused great expectations. Perhaps Robert Prevost chose the name of “Leone” to give a signal: the previous lion had created the Vatican Astronomical Observatory. There are those who believe it is not a coincidence.

Ufo, in fact, are a question of faith: Ross Douthat, conservative editorialist of New York Timeshe suggested that ufology is a very American new religion: mysterious atmospheric manifestations have always been part of the spiritual life of man. That they are the apparitions of elves and fairies, of spirits of ancestors, ghosts or Madonnas. The Americans, pragmatic and confident people in progress, instead of seeing fairy creatures hyper -technological allulcina.

The trust in the presence of a secret design of the world, of a level of existence that escapes us but is at hand is a trait common to almost all religions, as well as the expectation of a moment of truth, when everything is understandable and the aliens will free us with our fatal limits. In his political ascent, JD Vance converted to Catholicism, in 2019. Believing UFOs is the natural next stop, especially if he aims for the presidency in 2028.