Throughout the 50+ odd years of UFO sighting reports, a close study would show that there have been definite patterns both on the alien side, and on the government side. 

Speaking of the alien side - One example of this would be the lack of humanoid sightings in today's UFO reports compared to reports of the fifties and sixties, or the case of "Physical Trace Cases." According to Ted Phillips, who is the world expert on the phenomena, "during the peak years there was an average of one UFO/trace event every two days. This was during the late 1960's through the early 1980's. Since that time the numbers and quality have dropped to below 20 a year and that would be a good year." In the year 2001, there was not a single confirmed "landing-trace case." 

Another apparent pattern that has occurred in Ufology is the dominance of the space brothers in the 1950's who were kind, interacted with people who became known as contactees, and took people for rides in their space crafts. 

This pattern changed dramatically with the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in the early 1960's. The space brother human types of the 1950's seemed to fade away, and they were replaced in the UFO literature with another type of alien. 

In the early sixties the first abduction of the Hills began a new pattern where the aliens were grey "evil" aliens who would abduct people against their will, and perform medical procedures on them. There were, as far as this author is aware no confirmed cases of "classic" abductions in the 1950's. 

Unlike the "good" space brothers of the 1950's these grey aliens were described by all, who were unfortunate enough to have met with them, as being distant and without emotions. 

Mrs. Francis Swan, was a contactee for one of the space brother aliens in the 1950's. She was studied more than most by the American government as a link to a possible understanding of who the aliens were, and why they were coming to earth. She symbolized contact with the space brothers who had arrived to "save the planet from atomic weapons." 

In the early 1960's after the Hill abduction, the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena took up the Hill case for investigation. There was some disagreement within NICAP how legitimate the case might be because of the bizarre new nature of the tale. NICAP really didn’t know what to do. 

Vice-Admiral Herbert Knowles, was a NICAP board member who had been in contact with Mrs. Hill trying to help her come to grips with what had happened to her. He also had been the NICAP board member who had been the leading investigator of the Francis Swan contact when it began in 1954. 

Part of his interest in the two cases lay in the fact that he lived very close to the two women, one who was a key symbol of the 1950 space brothers, and one who was the prime symbol of the new greys. The two key women, in fact, lived less than five miles from each other along the New Hampshire/Maine border. 

In his work with Betty Hill, Knowles suggested that he put the two women together for a meeting. He felt that the experienced Mrs. Swan could comfort Mrs. Hill, and explain to her why that the aliens were here, and that there was nothing to fear from the encounter she had experienced. 

To everyone’s surprise, when Knowles approached Mrs. Hill with the idea, Mrs. Swan flat out refused any meeting in any form. "Mrs. Hill," Mrs. Swan told Knowles was in contact with the "evil ones," and not the "good ones" that she had been involved with. She would have nothing to do with Hill and her little grey aliens. 

Thus, just as the greys were making their appearance on the UFO stage, Mrs. Swan had already pointed them out as evil entities that were here to cause trouble. It appears that as the stories of the greys has developed, many researchers would agree with Mrs. Swan’s early assessment. 

In an effort to try and explore this transition from the blonds of the 50's to the greys of the 60's, this author questioned Mrs. Swan in the late 1980s to explain the difference between the "good" aliens and the "evil" aliens. It was hoped Mrs. Swan might elaborate on just why the space brothers had disappeared and how and why the grays emerged on the UFO scene. 

Mrs. Swan, however, would add nothing to my new theory about how the alien types had developed. Her advice was simple and biblical. "The ‘good ones’ work for God," she told me, and the ‘evil ones’ work for the devil. Read your Bible."

The search for an explanation to the pattern continues.