Challenge: More serious government approach to UFOs/aliens

WI a POD of no less than 1920, you must have the government of the USA, or if you prefer any other major western nation, take a much more serious approach to UFOs and the concept of extraterrestrial life in general, be it more Blue Books or whatever. Obviously, aliens actually showing up and parking over the White House is verboten.
 
Maybe an earlier or more ambitious space program achieves a flyby of Mars and the Face on Mars discovered sooner?

It's pretty clear that it's a trick of the light now but in the fifties...

face-on-mars-1976.jpg


More of these odd occurences over the American capital

UFOs+Over+Washington+DC+1952+UFO+Disclosure+First+Contact+Dawn+Of+Aquarius+Obama.jpg


And many, many more UFO and alien invasion flicks to increase the hype.
 
WI a POD of no less than 1920, you must have the government of the USA, or if you prefer any other major western nation, take a much more serious approach to UFOs and the concept of extraterrestrial life in general, be it more Blue Books or whatever. Obviously, aliens actually showing up and parking over the White House is verboten.

At which time must the more 'serious' approach be taken, at the latest? If well after WW2, why only western nations?
 
At which time must the more 'serious' approach be taken, at the latest? If well after WW2, why only western nations?

Well, anytime in the 20th century after the POD given, I guess, but it would be prefrable for it to be in the 50/60s, when UFOmania was at its height. As for western nations...well, how many times have crop circles appeared in the USSR? ;)
 
Actually the Soviet Union had the most eloborate and extensive UFO study ever, it made Blue Book look like a mere private coolection in comparison.

So that means their government already took it seriously to some extent, which would focusing on that redundant. :p
 
So that means their government already took it seriously to some extent, which would focusing on that redundant. :p

BlackWave, are you looking for a scenario in which governments publicly declared they were serious about UFOs?

I think that's quite different than your OP.
 
BlackWave, are you looking for a scenario in which governments publicly declared they were serious about UFOs?

I think that's quite different than your OP.

Well, just to clarify that government attitudes to UFOs, were, at times, quite serious. The question is how to make it more so and prolong it, so to speak.
 
Maybe if there were actual flying saucers. Bonus points if they contained real aliens (no, Germans aren't alien enough).
 

The Vulture

Banned
A couple more incidents where UFOs appear to perform hostile actions or pilots crash while in pursuit. If UFOs are even circumstantially associated with more than one loss of life, they'll be taken more seriously than IOTL.
 
1961, a single unidentified flying object is spotted through out northern Europe, flying at incredible
speed. A pair of SAAB J29F Tunnan scrambles to identify the object but are attacked the very instant they
make visual contact. The pilots barely manage to dodge the green slimy goo the UFO fires upon them.

Soon the UFO looses interest in this inferior opponent and nonchalantly speeds away at full speed, not paying
these flying machines another thought. No thing made of man can compete with their superior technology, so
why bother they thought. Little did they know, that the J29F, one of the worlds fastest fighters had the
capability to intercept and destroy them with the use of their quadruple 20mm cannons.

No UFO's have been spotted over Swedish territory ever since.

http://alfredsson.deviantart.com/art/Swedish-UFO-Interception-16815960
Swedish_UFO_Interception_by_Alfredsson.jpg
 
I was tempted to say no cold war to avoid the secrecy but on the other hand, I can't help suspect that cold war paranoia helped fuel it in the first place.
 
How about after a sighting near an airbase and the ensuing chase by the airforce, the airbase is coincidentally destroyed by the air burst of a small meteor.
 
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