UFOs or not – something is up

As famous capital cities of world-straddling superpowers go, Washington DC is somewhat disappointing. The grandiose urbanism is surely meant to resemble the boulevards of Paris, with the parks of London, but in reality the dreary post-modern/neo-classical bombast makes it looks like Tashkent married to Milton Keynes. A city that is planned to project power actually projects tedious, if reliable, stolidity. 

But that, for my purposes, is the thing. Washington DC is nothing if not boring. And pompous. And self-consciously serious. And yet, over the last few years, months, even days, a story has been emerging, from this same ponderous city, which is mind-bustingly crazy, possibly world changing, yet often unnoticed or airily dismissed – perhaps because it is so ‘mad’.  

I’m talking about UFOs – or, as the Pentagon in the Washington suburbs would refer to them, UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). The reason the Pentagon has renamed UFOs is because they feel the term ‘UFO’ has been stigmatised as intrinsically suspicious, labelling anyone that talks about them as a lunatic.