UFOs - Leslie Kean [136]
Over the years, I’ve interviewed Symington several more times and come to know him. His remarkable personal journey as both a governor and a UFO witness, forced to contend simultaneously with the impact of his own sighting and the restrictive force of the UFO taboo on elected officials, is highly unusual. It certainly gives him a unique perspective, and has led him to become an advocate for change to an outdated and counterproductive UFO policy—or nonpolicy—in Washington.
But what makes Symington’s situation even more exceptional is that although he was awestruck by his sighting, and believed this craft could not have been man-made, he didn’t just simply ignore it. He went so far in the other direction as to stage a farcical press conference featuring a costumed alien that inadvertently insulted his fellow witnesses. How could he have laughed about this, and made a public joke out of it, given his direct experience of the physically real, inexplicable event a few months earlier?
Symington, in retrospect, says, “If I had to do it all over again I probably would have handled it differently.” But the state of Arizona was “on the brink of hysteria” about the UFO flyover when he called the press conference, and the frenzy was building. “I wanted them to lighten up and calm down, so I introduced a little levity. But I never felt that the overall situation was a matter of ridicule,” he says. That was why, ten years later, free of the constraints of political office, he wanted to set the record straight and make amends to constituents like Stacey Roads.
Now, we can gain insight from the former governor into what drives government officials to intensely resist the simple acknowledgment of the mere existence of something unidentified in the sky that does not have to be associated with anything extraterrestrial or alien. In this unusual case, the official knew it was real because he had seen it with his own eyes and didn’t have to rely only on other witness reports. But hundreds of others also saw it! He still held back. How could he have restrained himself? And why did he feel compelled to do so?
He explains it this way:
You’re not a normal person when you’re a governor. You have to be extremely careful about public statements and how you handle yourself. A public figure is fair game for attack. Everything is picked over by the media and your political opposition. You try to avoid being the subject of harsh ridicule because you have a serious responsibility while in this role, and your public stature is directly related to your ability to get things done. If all of a sudden you’re typed as a buffoon or a loony, you won’t be effective. I had to make a choice. My top priority was to fulfill the responsibilities I had been elected to accomplish as governor.
In the months following the event, Symington had observed the press making fun of his friend Frances Barwood for simply taking the sighting seriously in response to public pressure—and she wasn’t even a witness. He was also dealing with his share of political battles within the vicious world of Arizona politics, and says today, “Can you imagine what would have happened if I had said anything?” Although his decision is understandable, this is a sad commentary on our unspoken political policy toward UFOs, and the power of that irrational, habitual taboo that most of us have not questioned and that led Governor Symington to believe he would be branded a “buffoon” or a “loony” if he acknowledged something he and countless others had seen in the sky. Although he was at risk politically, such damaging labels are not only dangerous for political figures such as he, but are also harmfully applied to many everyday people who witness the phenomenon. Imbued with prejudice and an irrational fear