Our current understanding of the history of military UFO (Flying Saucer) investigations is that they began in 1941 with the first crash recovery of a saucer in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It is believed that some exploitation (reverse engineering) of this event was integrated into the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project, but that significant efforts did not occur until the July 1947 New Mexico events. Both SECRET cover stories and TOP SECRET research and development projects were started to begin unraveling the greatest technological and biological opportunity in the history of humanity.

"Secrecy is a form of government regulation," is the opening phrase of executive summary of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, 1997. "Excessive secrecy has significant consequences for the national interest when, as a result, policymakers are not fully informed, government is not held accountable for its actions, and most importantly the public cannot engage in an informed debate." The 200-page report can be found at www.access.gpo.gov/int or by calling 202-512-1530 and requesting S. Doc. 105-2.

It is critical to remember how security classifications work. Each document, individual or groups of individuals is compartmentalized based on a "need to know." So just because an individual would have a SECRET or TOP SECRET security clearance does not mean that an individual would have access to similarly classified material. In general, these structures are and were very effective in maintaining security. Security classifications have changed over time; in the 1947 timeframe, military documents were either CONFIDENTIAL, RESTRICTED, SECRET, TOP SECRET or TOP SECRET/CODEWORD. Since each government agency establishes their own security procedures, it is possible to find many variations in security policy and labeling. For example, CIA, NSA, and DoD have different but compatible procedures.