Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD
were reports by observers near California's Edwards Air
Force Base and Groom Lake, Nevada, and particularly a
region of Groom Lake called Area 51 where experimental
aircraft for the Department of Defense are tested, that
seemed by and large mutually consistent. Confirming reports
were filed from all over the world. Unlike its predecessors,
the aircraft is said to be hypersonic, to travel much faster,
perhaps six to eight times faster, than the speed of sound. It
leaves an odd contrail described as 'donuts-on-a-rope'. Perhaps
it is also a means of launching small secret satellites into
orbit, developed, it is speculated, after the Challenger disaster
indicated the shuttle's episodic unreliability for defence
payloads. But the CIA 'swears up and down there's no such
programme', says US Senator and former astronaut John
Glenn. The principal designer of some of the most secret US
aircraft says the same thing. A Secretary of the Air Force has
vehemently denied the existence of such an airplane, or any
programme to build one, in the US Air Force or anywhere
else. Would he lie? 'We have looked into all such sightings, as
we have for UFO reports,' says an Air Force spokesman, in
perhaps carefully chosen words, 'and we cannot explain
them.' Meanwhile, in April 1995 the Air Force seized 4,000
more acres near Area 51. The area to which public access is
denied is growing.
Consider then the two possibilities: that Aurora exists, and
that it does not. If it exists, it's striking that an official
cover-up of its very existence has been attempted, that
secrecy could be so effective, and that the aircraft could be
tested or refuelled all over the world without a single
photograph of it or any other hard evidence being published.
On the other hand, if Aurora does not exist, it's striking that a
myth has been propagated so vigorously and gone so far.
Why should insistent official denials have carried so little
weight? Could the very existence of a designation -Aurora in
this case - serve to pin a common label on a range of diverse
phenomena? Either way, Aurora seems relevant to UFOs.
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