Would NASA conceal evidence of advanced, extra-terrestrial civilization? [View All]

This was touched upon in another thread and I believe that it could bear discussion so long as it doesn't degenerate into a flame fest or pissing contest. I think rational discussion is possible. Of course, I have been wrong many times over the course of my life.

Barring any nefarious reasons for such withholding, one possible reason for the government to withhold information from the citizenry would be altruistic. Could there be a reason for withholding that is rational?

One thing is certain ... NASA is a government agency and government agencies operate in predictable ways. They generate paper by the wagonload ... policies for this, studies of that, manuals for the other ... they float on a sea of paper.

NASA came into being in 1958, succeeding the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, under the National Aeronautics and Space Act. While I am not a scientist, I have, over the years, burrowed deeply into major bureaucracies and believe that bureaucracies are all pretty much the same in many ways. It is the nature of organization. In addition, each bureaucracy also has its own personality. Some are subtle, some brash. Those personalities are the product of the organization's history, culture, legal environment, financial environment, and business procedures.

That brings to mind ... what was NASA thinking about when it was legislated into being? What was on the minds of those first NASA bureaucrats as well as the legislators who established it? Is there any way of knowing? Of course there is --studies.

They study everything to death. That's government. In this case, it was no different. NASA commissioned a study by the Brookings Institute, an organization that I expect all of the readers of this forum are very familiar, entitled, "Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs." Very sexy title, no?

As it turns out, on page 215 of the study, one of the concerns Brookings identified was the disintegrating effect of socieities "certain of their place in the universe which have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different lifeways: others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior."

On the next page, 216, Brookings mentioned the possibility of withholding the information from the public.

So ... is it possible that withholding information is part of the NASA organizational personality or are they absolutely transparent?