The United States Air Force has just declassified a top secret program that ran from 1977-1988. The program was a training program where Air Force fighter pilots would train in combat against actual Russian MiG aircraft in an effort to give them real world experience in dogfighting with the Russian aircraft. This program has been a closely guarded secret for almost thirty years. Not only that, this secret program was kept classified for almost twenty years after it was no longer active.

The thing that I find most interesting about this is that this was only a training program. Would it really be all that shocking to the American public if they had found out that our Air Force was flying MiGs in combat training missions? For some reason, I think not. If anything, this would make me feel better about our pilots' chances against enemy aircraft were anything to ever happen, and I would hope the American public would feel the same.

In the bigger picture though, what exactly does this mean? If our government successfully keeps secrets like this for as long as they did, can you imagine what else they're hiding? A lot of people argue that our government is not smart enough to keep secrets like the truth behind 9/11 and the truth of what really happens at Groom Lake. People argue that a vast conspiracy of higher-ups in the government would all have to be in on it, and they would have to keep all possible information leaks patched to avoid the truth spilling out. To me, the declassification of this Air Force program proves that our government "protects us" from way more information that they don't think we're ready for than we can even imagine.