The launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 was the signal that the Soviet Union could surpass the United States in technology. From that fear arose UFO fever, in force throughout the Cold War. The sighting of a hot air balloon from China over the skies of Montana on February 4 may be confirmation that the world is witnessing a second Cold War, this time between China and the United States.
On the night of May 3, 1973, at dinner time, my uncle called home through the intercom. “Hurry down!” Right out on the street, he dragged me and my father to the back of the building, to the edge of town, where the wheat fields began. There, half a kilometer away, at an indeterminate height, were two large red disks suspended in the air. They were between 30 and 40 meters in diameter. They were quiet for a minute, enough time for other neighbors to come down to enjoy the show.
In those years many people saw UFOs (unidentified flying objects). In the Vallès especially. And a lot of people believed in aliens. A year earlier, two residents of Terrassa had committed suicide by putting their heads on the train tracks to travel to the afterlife. “The aliens call us; we belong to infinity WTKS 88”. In 1969, a ship landed in a potato field next to my house, in Matadepera. The neighbor who saw him told the press the scene in great detail.
The fever lasted for years, but by the late 1980s, the UFOs were gone. And with them, the most endearing generation of “freaks” of my generation. The UFOs left here and the United States, where the phenomenon had come from. They left with the end of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union dissolved and ceased to cause fear. Americans never looked at the sky in fear again.
A few carefree words from General Glen Van Herck – “we do not rule out anything” – have now sufficed for UFO fever to suddenly emerge. And, whether by chance or not, it coincides once again with a time when people are talking about the Cold War again. This time between the United States and China. Post-war UFO fever peaked when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) launched Sputnik into space in 1957. This second Cold War had its own “Sputnik moment” on February 4, when UFO radars American aviation located the first hot air balloon of Chinese origin.
UFO fever started in 1947 because it was clear to the Americans that the next war was going to be won in the air. They began to look up into the sky and see things. That same year, Harry Truman articulated the doctrine that communism was the great enemy of the American way of life and split pears with the Russians. The godfather of UFOs was civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold, who that same year began to see flying saucers everywhere. It was partly true. The sky was full of artifacts. It was the result of the technological efforts of the powers that fought in World War II. So the Americans did not know what technology the Soviets had. Now they are in the same way with China.
In the 1940s and 1950s, everyone in the United States started seeing UFOs. The fever was unleashed by Hollywood, which took advantage of the reef, and the evangelical creeds, which saw in the phenomenon the proximity of the end of the world. Aliens were sometimes seen as aggressive beings. In other cases, as intelligent entities that carry a message of peace. The list of movies with “ecumenical” messages to humans is long. It goes from Ultimatum to Earth to Encounters of the Third Kind. And then there were the conspiracy theorists. Those who thought the government was hiding reality. Like the fall of a ship with a Martian pilot inside in Roswell (New Mexico) in 1951.
While the population shuddered in front of the screens, the American army never stopped scanning the sky. An activity in which they spent 75 years. Always with the same hypothesis: the UFOs had been manufactured on Earth and, most likely, by Soviet technicians. This time, the sighting of the Chinese balloons has found the Pentagon busy. Since 2021, 366 initially inexplicable incidents have been reported, of which 163 were balloons (according to data released on Sunday by The New York Times).
This time the UFO fever has little sign of catching on. But the mere mention of him indicates that unrest has returned to the skies of the United States. In a certain way it is a sign that the time in which the United States has ruled alone over our heads – which began in 1989 – has come to an end. As agents Mulder and Scully, masters of television fantasy science with The X-Files, would say, “the truth is out there.” And most likely, that truth must be sought in China.
