Unidentified Objects a Threat?

Barry sends in a thought provoking piece from the op/ed section of the New York Times. First it brings up what could be massive holes in the U.S.' terrorist barrier and the dichotomy of the system at identifying a threat! From the Times:

• ON the afternoon of Nov. 7, 2006, pilots and airport employees at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago saw a disc-like object hovering over the tarmac for several minutes. Because nothing was tracked on radar, the Federal Aviation Administration did not investigate. Yet radar is not a reliable detector of all aircraft. Stealth planes are designed to be invisible to radar, and many radar systems filter out signals not matching the normal characteristics of aircraft. Did it really make sense to entirely ignore the observations of several witnesses?

It's fine to have a healthy skepticism concerning U.F.O.s Many have easily explained as mis-identifications of stars and planets, aircraft lights, satellites and meteors, but some cases have raised national security or air safety issues. On Dec. 26, 1980, for instance, several witnesses at two American Air Force bases in England reported seeing a U.F.O. land and on 2 occasions shine bright lights into sensitive areas on the base, a obvious breach of security. Under any other circumstances an incursion of a base would bring an immediate and massive response, but any hint of UFO and the incident is completely ignored. Again, near misses with commercial or military craft are thoroughly investigated unless of course they are reported as a close encounter with a UFO.

It would almost seem that for a terrorist to be successful he doesn't need to engage in subterfuge but merely to have himself identified as a UFO to gain access to some of the most sensitive areas on the Earth.

<- Times op/ed ->