Shhhhhh!!
Cancerman keeps a souvenir closet in the Pentagon. The United Nations manages to keep secret multiple alien invasions in Great Britain. Alien contact- even experiments in reverse-engineering alien technology- are kept so super-top-colossal-secret that the common man in the street never knows...
Yes, in fiction the government is actually able to keep secrets secret. In real life the ship of state leaks from the top like a sieve, but their fictional counterparts actually understand some basic grasp of what "secret" and "classified" means.
Of course, it was easier for the super-secret government conspiracy to keep their secrets on The X-Files, since by the time any leak ever got printed the very nature of the conspiracy and their relations with the various ETs had changed by then. No wonder the Big Boss smoked so much; riding herd on the various government intelligence agencies was hard enough without having to constantly re-order his cabal to match the conspiracy du jour.
U.N.I.T. had a harder time keeping alien landings and Nessies and antisocial mannequins under wraps- but at least anyone outside the UK would simply write it off as just one more strange habit of our cousins across the pond. The Brits themselves could always be counted on to keep a stiff upper lip, even when they had to cope with the Sixth Doctor.
At least on Stargate: SG1 we see there's some effort to keep their work out of the public eye. They've had to deal with leaks, and even have a documentary already filmed for the day when they have to go public with the whole Stargate program. After some of the more cataclysmic events it seems to strain credulity that the program is still secret, but at least they do address the issue in several episodes and not simply ask us to believe that it's all kept effortlessly under the rug.
At least, not until General O'Neal gets a hummer...
Yes, in fiction the government is actually able to keep secrets secret. In real life the ship of state leaks from the top like a sieve, but their fictional counterparts actually understand some basic grasp of what "secret" and "classified" means.
Of course, it was easier for the super-secret government conspiracy to keep their secrets on The X-Files, since by the time any leak ever got printed the very nature of the conspiracy and their relations with the various ETs had changed by then. No wonder the Big Boss smoked so much; riding herd on the various government intelligence agencies was hard enough without having to constantly re-order his cabal to match the conspiracy du jour.
U.N.I.T. had a harder time keeping alien landings and Nessies and antisocial mannequins under wraps- but at least anyone outside the UK would simply write it off as just one more strange habit of our cousins across the pond. The Brits themselves could always be counted on to keep a stiff upper lip, even when they had to cope with the Sixth Doctor.
At least on Stargate: SG1 we see there's some effort to keep their work out of the public eye. They've had to deal with leaks, and even have a documentary already filmed for the day when they have to go public with the whole Stargate program. After some of the more cataclysmic events it seems to strain credulity that the program is still secret, but at least they do address the issue in several episodes and not simply ask us to believe that it's all kept effortlessly under the rug.
At least, not until General O'Neal gets a hummer...
