What's Up With the UFO Boom?

 For most of my lifetime people have been claiming to have seen UFO's, been abducted by aliens, etc., etc. Most reasonably sane people have figured most of those folks to be a bit loony, to say the least. Now, all of a sudden, the Government has stopped with the usual "weather balloon" nonsense and is releasing information and photos. Maybe because weather balloons are seldom used anymore?  Just what IS going on?

Speaking personally, I have never seen anything in the last 70 years or so that looked like or could be construed as being a UFO. I try to keep an open mind, just because I haven't seen one doesn't mean there aren't any. However, some decent photos would be nice. Most of what the government has released look like someone took them with a cheap Kodak camera of a kid playing an '80's video game on a low res screen. Where are those vaunted cameras that can read a license plate from space?

Then there is the engineering aspect. Form almost always follows function. A saucer shaped craft is not a particularly useful one. An actual spacecraft does not need to be aerodynamic or of any particular shape, other than it needs to be able to withstand acceleration. Only in atmosphere does shape matter. Airplanes are shaped the way they are for good reason. We don't fly saucers around, why would anyone else? It would only make sense if it was required by the propulsion system. So what sort of propulsion system would require that particular shape?

Saucers would then actually be shuttlecraft, not spacecraft. They would be designed to operate in atmosphere and possibly also in water. They are too small (according to reports) to be interplanetary craft, so they would require a mothership. That would have to be very large. Where is it hiding?

There are also reports of bigger cigar shaped craft in atmosphere, something like our missiles, but still not large enough for long distance space travel.

I have my suspicions of the Government and the information they have suddenly decided to release at this time. We have just established a Space Force. Why? It has no spacecraft and cannot even get into space unless they partner with the Russians or a private contractor. They are, however, competing with the traditional branches of the Armed Forces for financing!! There is no better way to get financing than to invent a new and dangerous enemy that we need to defend against - like starting a war with a species able to travel between planets or even solar systems would make a lot of sense! If they exist, they have been around for a long time and seem to follow something like the "Prime Directive", avoiding contact as much as possible. Leave them be. If they wanted to invade earth, they would have done it long ago when we were still hunting mammoths with spears.

I really doubt space aliens are visiting earth. I would guess the real motive here is to take the arms and trade race with China and Russia into space, which is illegal under present treaties and laws. 

Money is tight, and going to get a lot tighter. Financing the military will become ever more difficult as the economic pinch grows ever tighter. Any excuse to keep the cash flowing to the military and intelligence services will be used, wars will deliberately be provoked and even openly started to do so. An imaginary enemy beyond earth would serve well to raise money and might also be used to try to unify warring countries against such an enemy.