The trip had all the makings of a boring car ride—until the couple saw mysterious lights approaching from the sky.

Fire In the Sky was based on the 1978 book The Walton Experience from real-life logger Travis Walton. In it, Walton details his own alleged experience with an alien abduction on November 5, 1975, a tale which he first sold to The National Enquirer.

The White House launched a website teasing new information on aliens, but it actually delivers immigration arrest data, including hundreds in Kansas.

“Disclosure” has become a cult word. It shouldn't be, since all it means, technically, is to reveal something. But the new wave of alien conspiracy theorists have made “disclosure” into a teasingly passive-aggressive code word.

The White House turned a legal term into a science-fiction spectacle. The real story is not the theatrics. It is how language moves an audience from watching to acting.