The trick to a really good anti-climax is the buildup, the hype, the long, colorful, breathless, anticipatory windup before the pitch. The recent U.S. Government release of the tensely awaited report on UFOs and UAPs is just such a specimen (with everything that’s been going on since, does anyone but a fanatical few even remember it?).

The buildup was intense, remarkable, complete with breathless commentary and speculation from all media, everywhere, footage from jet aircraft cameras, long interviews from “former” UFO officials who speculated (but in a teasing way) about what MIGHT be in the report, never-ending loops of various night-vision scenes of a myriad of “somethings” doing a lot of amazing stuff, and having a wide variety of shapes. And because we are living in a modern age, we do not call them UFOs anymore; they are UAPs now (unidentified aerial phenomena). And then the report came out.

There was no bombshell; there was a popping sound, a puff of smoke – like a flag escaping out of a prop gun emblazoned with the word ‘BANG’. The report patiently, distantly, explained that “if and when” these UAPs are resolved (not, you will note, “explained”), they will fall into one of five categories: random airborne (uh…birds and things); weather phenomena (OMG! the return of the infamous Weather Balloon!); defense prototypes (either ours or some “foreign adversary systems”; and (wait for it) “other.” In other words, no one has a solid explanation for any of it – for all the solid information the report held, one might as well go out to a cornfield in Pennsylvania and ask Mel Gibson what the hell is going on with those crop circles. But maybe there ARE no UFOs.  Maybe what is in the sky is in our collective minds, our social psyches.  Maybe what we see up there is a reflection of the angst, the chaos, the uncertainty, the dissolution of what we assumed were solid cultural and psychological landmarks. This is the psycho-social hypothesis (PSH). […]