National Geographic Channel show : The Truth Behind: UFOs

Well I am already annoyed.

Only 2 minutes into it and they are being idiots.

They talk about the Jerusalem UFO and then show only one clip ......

The only clip that is OBVIOUSLY fake. When all the videos first came out 1,2,3,4 in that order

Video #3 was the obvious fake. Yet this show is showing the obvious fake instead of videos 1,2 and 4.

..... I'm sure this was made before it was a proven hoax ....but all Jerusalem videos are fake.

reply to post by fxmodels


Hi. Are there people at MUFON who are interested in UFOs primarily as psychological or sociological phenomena, or is it expected that members believe in the ET hypothesis for at least some UFO activity?

I don't know if you have any influence on the titling of these shows, but the inclusion of the word "Truth" always makes me reluctant to give the material the time of day. "Truth" implies that there is only one interpretation and that there is nothing more to learn.

I am interested in hearing about the unexplained cases you referred to in your opening post. I have of course seen a lot of "unexplainable" cases, but how many cases can't be chalked up to "insufficient information", and how many out of those imply extraterrestrial activity?

I still haven't seen any case that I thought couldn't plausibly be explained as misidentification, hysteria, fantasy, hoax, or some combination thereof.

Heh .... well after finishing watching it .... it was once again disappointing.

The end pisses me off.

They attempt to debunk Roswell with the Project Mogul Balloon story .... which has in itself already been debunked.
Was he serious that people mistook the "tape" on the balloons for Alien Hieroglyphs???!!!

I highly doubt people would think tape from a toy manufacturer was Alien Hieroglyphs..... meaning .... it wasn't tape let alone a balloon.

Then at the end .... Joe Nickell from the "Committee For Skeptical Inquiry" says:
"There is no good evidence that any extraterrestrial craft is visiting the planet earth" ?!?!?!?

Wow ..just wow. When I said this show wouldn't view all sides of the story ...this is what I was talking about.

Apparently he is unaware of the mysteries that surround:
-Ancient Civilizations
-Crop Circles
-Abductions
-Mass UFO sightings (like Phoenix lights)
-Or the huge amount of eye witness testimony given in front of the National Press by Credible People.

This show ignored every single one of those things ...which IMO needs to be addressed if you want to get to the "truth" about UFOs.

The show seemed extremely dated, and rehashed topics that are already such fine hash you could push them through an unopened screen door and not leave a mark.

The UFO field is dead. That's the truth.

If there are any new interesting sightings or other happenings going on out there, nobody's talking.

Originally posted by Tearman
reply to post by fxmodels

 

Hi. Are there people at MUFON who are interested in UFOs primarily as psychological or sociological phenomena, or is it expected that members believe in the ET hypothesis for at least some UFO activity?

I don't know if you have any influence on the titling of these shows, but the inclusion of the word "Truth" always makes me reluctant to give the material the time of day. "Truth" implies that there is only one interpretation and that there is nothing more to learn.

I am interested in hearing about the unexplained cases you referred to in your opening post. I have of course seen a lot of "unexplainable" cases, but how many cases can't be chalked up to "insufficient information", and how many out of those imply extraterrestrial activity?

I still haven't seen any case that I thought couldn't plausibly be explained as misidentification, hysteria, fantasy, hoax, or some combination thereof.

edit on 2-12-2011 by Tearman because: (no reason given)

Hi ...
Some of the unexplained cases may yet be explainable, we just dont have enough data at this point to provide an adequate explanation. My operational procedure is if I cannot unearth enough data to convince ME that it is explainable, I am not going to say it is explainable. Such is the case of the Belgian Triangle. Yes, hoaxers created a flying model after the incidents... It was a small model. The craft seen though were much larger. Most people wont mistake a model for a triangular UFO IF it is extremely large and over the trees. Such was the case of my own sister two years ago.

Preface: She does not believe in UFOs, even less in extraterrestrials, (some people draw the line between the two!) but concedes life elsewhere is "possible" as she has put it.

But, one morning at 2am or so she was awakened by a loud humming sound. She went to get up and noticed it was pitch black.. As in, no power in the house. She looked outside to see if streetlights were on and they were not. Adjoining towns had power and the sky was dimly lit with a Sodium Vapor Lamp light domes from the nearby towns. But it looked to her as our hometown, Plainville CT, was completely dark. It turned out later that it was. She looked for any sign of light when suddenly in her peripheral vision she saw something UP above in the sky through the window. What she described is as follows. She saw against the Sodium Vapor lights that permeated the sky from the nearby towns, a DARK BLACK void, triangular in shape, with red glowing lights at the tips of each vertex. She took great pains to describe the lights. She said they did NOT protrude below the 'thing' as she called it, but were simply flat against it yet glowed red. She spent about 4 minutes describing these red lights in fact becuase they struck her as very odd. She watched it move across the treetops right OVER her house, and continue to the neighbors property and then go over those trees until it disappeared from view. She is very matter of fact about the sighting. She doesnt know what it was and doesnt lose sleep over it either because she just figures its something of ours flying around. Could it be one of ours? Maybe... But I do not believe it is the TR3B ... It just didnt fit the profile.
So that is anecdotal evidence of course because she didnt take a picture or video but coming from my sister who is NOT a believer, this is valuable for that reason. She has no vested interest in misleading anyone about it.

As far as people viewing UFOs as a psychological or sociological phenomenon, I do not know of anyone at MUFON who researches that avenue. The reason is that most of the people I deal with in MUFON here are scientists who have worked at places like Dryden Research Center, Lawrence Livermore and other labs. These people bring arrays of instrumentation out into the field to try to confirm the existence of extraterrestrial craft, examine potential landing sites... No one in that particular group believes that UFOs are imagined in any way. Personally, when I do my Photo and Video Analysis talks around the country, one of the things I am clear about is that I am not a debunker. I dont subscribe to the UFOs-as-psychological-phenomenon theory... I draw from another talk I do on Exoplanets in fact to provide high statistical probability that Aliens exist. It is actually nearly a certainty. The number of habitable planets in our galaxy is estimated, based on the surveys so far of nearby stars and with extrapolation to the general stellar population, to be nearly one BILLION just in our galaxy alone. So there are many civilizations out there in my view. With a mere 1000 years of lead time over us in development an alien race could have already been plying the space between the stars and looked for other worlds like theirs and perhaps... found US.
Marc

reply to post by fxmodels


Hey again... No need to convince me that aliens exist (somewhere). I have extremely high confidence in that belief. I also see no reason they couldn't visit the earth, even without having to speculate about any kind of imaginary propulsion or power technology.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "No on in that particular group believes that UFOs are imagined in any way." Do you mean to say that imagination plays no part in any UFO sightings? I don't mean to imply that UFOs are purely a psychological or sociological phenomenon, that is to say a complete illusion. I believe that in most cases there is some kind of sighting, some sort of triggering event. The psychological or sociological phenomena that I am interested in are people's reactions to those events, and what leads people to suspect extraterrestrial involvement.

By the way, what sorts of criteria do you guys expect to use in order to conclude that something is extraterrestrial in origin? Do you have to see it arriving at earth from outer space? Is there some kind of evidence that would suggest extraterrestrial origin in some less obvious way? Obviously I can imagine some hypothetical scenario so bizarre that it makes a terrestrial hypothesis completely outrageous (such as a mile-wide object hovering over New York and seen by everyone).