UFOs, once consigned to conspiracy theories, have landed in mainstream American journalism

Last Friday, U.S. intelligence agencies released a report that many were eagerly awaiting: a preliminary assessment on unidentified aerial phenomena. In layman’s terms, UFOs. The unclassified report said these phenomena clearly pose a flight safety issue but that there aren’t enough high-quality reports on them to draw any firm conclusions.

Sightings of UFOs have been reported throughout history in different parts of the world. In the U.S., these unidentified flying objects have been repeatedly investigated over the decades and perhaps forever embedded in our culture. And journalists have been there to report...