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Letters to the Editor: What a silly op-ed article on UFOs. Really, L.A. Times?

A black-and-white image shows a black dot above clouds.
An image from a video provided by the Department of Defense shows an unexplained object that appears to be soaring high above the clouds.
(Associated Press)
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To the editor: If your goal is to turn the Los Angeles Times into a tabloid, you are going about it the right way by publishing an op-ed article saying that Congress must “lead this conversation” on UFOs.

There is not a single piece of physical evidence that flying saucers and little green men have visited our planet, and relabeling UFOs as UAPs — unidentified aerial phenomena — doesn’t change that reality. The best you can do is show a photograph of a flake of plastic that has fallen onto the image plane of a video camera.

The author of this op-ed article claims that, “In setting up this office, Congress has legitimized the long-ridiculed topic of UAPs.” No, it has merely debased itself further in the eyes of the public. I trust this “office” will also study the existence of leprechauns, as they also “may pose a challenge to U.S. national security.”

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Steven Morris, Torrance

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To the editor: Rumors have abounded for decades that the U.S. government knows and is hiding the truth about UFOs.

One commonly held belief has been that the information is being withheld to prevent the public from panicking. And then, of course, there are the bodies of alien beings retrieved from Area 51 stored in a secret freezer.

So, it’s a great disappointment to learn that the government is as clueless as we are. I was all set to panic.

William Goldman, Palos Verdes Estates

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To the editor: Calling UAPs “craft” is a huge canard. Unidentified aerial phenomena are just that — unidentified.

Professionals who spend time seriously studying such things abandoned the term “unidentified flying object” many years ago for a reason: There is not, nor has there ever been, credible proof that anything is flying.

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There have been thousands of sightings of strange things in the air in the past 17 years. That all but 143 remain unexplained in last June’s UAP report from the Pentagon really shows that there’s little cause for concern.

One could make up all sorts of weird explanations for these remaining sightings: cryptozoological (undiscovered airborne creatures? flying spaghetti monsters?); mystical (wizards? witches?); spiritual (ghosts?); “sciencey” (quantum fluctuations? spacetime bubbles?); or meteorological (ball lightning?).

But until there’s conclusive evidence one way or the other, all (including that these things are some sort of “craft”) are equally probable. Keep an open mind and keep calm.

Robert Lieberman, Redondo Beach

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