SHOWTIMES new UFO Documentary by JJ Abrams

Sooooo....

I had been waiting for quite awhile for the 'Showtime' and JJ Abrams mini episode venture called UFO.

There was quite a bit of hype on many of the UFO camps and a lot of banter of it would be up to snuff, would it attempt to stay true to events it would sensationalize on?

Personally I was turned off pretty much from the start with some recreations and also a lot of B-Roll had been debunked here on ATS several years ago (in some of the short clips). I understand that you have to have content to keep it all interesting... but still, but I'll not rant.

It's always interesting to see how a new series will shape up in it's concluding closer... and this one followed the standard teaser-bait (to watch the next episode of course).

I've come to the realization that these type of shows are not intended for the UFO aficionado's of ATS. Were easily bored by the same content, same stories, yada yada yada. But in the underlying scheme of things... to a non-exposed person getting introduce to the subject, it can be quite literally a mind-blowing realization that before was always the butt-end of jokes (in years past). Some of the material presented like the Phoenix Lights was impressive (for the time allotted).

If you didn't know it's available for free to watch on YT and I'll leave the link for you to watch it here... and remember, this is the premiere episode of a mini-documentary (at least it's being touted as a Documentary)., so they're expecting this to have 'legs' and move forward.



Would be interested to hear if you thought they did a good job in their presentation..

Johnny

I have to say, I don't have lots of confidence in Abrams.

He was put in charge of the biggest cinematic franchise in history, and he threw away what the original author wrote in profit of... a non planned trilogy.

And with his history of the surprise box...

I have zero confidence that Abrams made real research for that show. As you said, some stories seem to already be debunked; that can't be good to perpetuate, towards newcomers, some false stories if you want to grab their attention.

After the Star Wars debacle, I feel like Abrams will be throwing lots of stuff in the air, and hopes to grab something that will stick somewhere, so his career can still happen...

I’m watching it now. Two things so far, the Phoenix lights showed the flares going behind the Mt. video. Then it has Colbert (a comedian) interviewing Obama asking about UFO’s as a bit. Not real encouraging from the start.

A friend was at work at O'Hare during that event and I asked him about it. He said " I'm happily retired now and plan on staying that way". I said thats it? He said "we don't talk about it".

a reply to: JohnnyAnonymous

I just skimmed through bits an pieces of the video...and I was mesmerized @ 23:08, when a USAF pilot eyewitnessed a "fireball" in 1948.

a reply to: JohnnyAnonymous

Have nt watched it but if its about new mexico, pheonix lights or Rendelsham Forest, I'm not going to bother... bored of those same stories in everything UFO related

originally posted by: CrazeeWorld777
a reply to: JohnnyAnonymous

Have nt watched it but if its about new mexico, pheonix lights or Rendelsham Forest, I'm not going to bother... bored of those same stories in everything UFO related

I watched it.

It's sort of a gish gallop of myraid clips of some debunked, some still unknown UFOs, many without any explanation or annotation, and some with misleading connections.

There were a few brief examples covered in more depth than just showing a quick clip, like around 25 minutes, the Val Johnson case where allegedly some bright object sort of temporarily blinded him, knocked him unconscious and caused some damage to his squad car. Nobody knows what that was but it doesn't really sound like aliens.

Around 30 minutes they cover the OHare UFO case briefly for a few minutes. They show some images but I don't think any image was ever validated as coming from that case.

By far the most time was spent on the Phoenix light case, interviewing 2 people in particular:
-Frances Barwood, Phoenix City councilwoman
-Fyfe Symington, governor

They are two of the worst witnesses in the history of UFOlogy.
Symington ridiculed the sightings by bringing out a guy in an alien suit.

Frances Barwood says she interviewed 700 witnesses. Symington and his aide said they doubted Bartwood's "wherewithall" to actually do that and that she would gain anything of real value if she did.

Barwood said they would have to say that, wouldn't they, since they apparently didn't investigate it.
at 37:55 she ironically tells a supposed conspiracy story about the governor calling an emergency news conference, then the story is broken up with scattershots of other stuff and she continues after those at 44:45 (The choppy presentation is very annoying).

44:45 Barwood says people in Symington's trial say he was called out of court to go into a private meeting, and then the next thing is this emergency press conference.
In her opinion she thinks somebody tolkd him that "if you make this a joke, we'll dismiss the charges"

Symington is asked about this and he denies there was any conspiracy. He was found guilty later so they didn't let him completely off but he ended up getting pardoned by the president so ultimately he did get out of the charges where he was found guilty.

The reason this is so ironic is that Barwood can see the greatest conspirator in the Phoenix Lights case by looking in the mirror.
She claims to have interviewed 700 people. I don't know if she did that or not, but she did not return the call about the one person who got a better view of the UFO than anybody else because he saw it though a telescope, Mitch Stanley.

Stanly offered to talk to people but nobody returned his calls, nobody wanted to know what the UFO really was.

Barwood was asked why she never returned Stanley's call. She claims she forwarded his number to Village Labs which was run by a sort of crackpot named Jim Diletosso who made the pseudoscientific claim that he could analyze the flares video spectroscopically to tell that they weren't flares. Of course this was widely debunked by real scientists who said rightly that it's impossible to make such a determination from an ordinary videotape, and he was only apparently interested in proving the lights had a non-terrestrial origin.

The 10 pm flares that Diletosso analyzed have been completely explained by now.

The planes that Mitch Stanley saw in the earlier sighting haven't been put to bed completely because nobody has positively confirmed the identity of the planes (Radar records were available for two weeks but nobody bothered to ask for them during that time). If you were going to talk to 700 witnesses as Barwood claims she did, Mitch Stanley is the first person you would want to talk to, having seen the UFO under high magnification through a telescope, and she never talked to him. The fact that she referred his call to a crackpot like Diletosso doesn't speak highly of her either. The reason I'm going on about this, is because this story is almost never told. There are only one or two little articles exposing Barwood's conspiracy which is the real Phoenix Lights conspiracy, not the one she made up about Symington. That's why it's so ironic to hear Barwood accusing others of being in some kind of conspiracy, because she's at the center of the true Pheonix Lights conspiracy, as this article explains:

The Great UFO Cover-up

"They really don't want to know," Linda Stanley says. "Here was a person who had seen it and [Barwood] never bothered to contact us at all."

So much for Barwood's mock investigation, whether real or imagined. This point is also usually hidden by documentary makers who don't want us to know about the planes Stanley saw:

Mitch Stanley's sighting jibes well with witness reports that the configuration of the lights changed over time. In Prescott, for example, witnesses claim that one of the lights trailed the rest. Such evidence supports the claim that the lights were separate objects rather than one large craft.

And as a thread here on ATS shows, there is one known video of the planes which indeed shows relative movement of lights confirming they are separate objects, not connected together as many witnesses claim they saw. Despite spending so much time on the Pheoenix lights case, they never show that very important actual piece of real evidence. Why is that? It seems like none of these UFO documentaries ever want the truth to be known. They are merely about entertainment and perpetuating mystery. Maybe there have been a few exceptions in the past, like UFOfiles were a balanced documentary TV series, the best I ever saw on UFOs. Almost nothing else I see is that balanced, trying to look at it from all angles.

We see once again that the producers of this show spent so much time on Phoenix lights, and again, nobody talked to Mitch Stanley. They showed the 10pm flares video, but they didn't show the earlier video showing the lights in the triangle formation were not connected. They spent a huge amount of time talking to the councilwoman who ignored the most important witness (Stanley) while claiming to talk to 700 witnesses; completely ridiculous.

Arbitrageur

so, yet again, your calling former Guvnor Fyfe Symington, what?
Yet another, what?
Delusional, and or, blatant lier?
You must have seen, the years later, the one on one interview, at Fyfe Symingtons home, where Fyfe, went on record, to camera, not only did he ( again, another Eyes On witness) state on the record, he drove, from his home, and witnessed, first hand, the Real Event, the Craft, which, categorically was not, the rushed flares set up.
Further, clear footage, does actually exist, again, doubt you have ever seen it, as its not in the public domain, but, here's the scent, for you to chase, two separate pieces of footage, actually, both filmed by pilots, one a 30 year veteren,both pieces of footage, time stamped well before the flares 'set up'
One of the the pilots was driving to work, stopped car, filmed what he did, tuther pilot, the 30 year veteren, was doing his job, 'up in the air', but then, as we know, so you relentlessly broadcast,unreliable witnesses! But, you not seen the precious footage, I have.

originally posted by: niladmirari13
Arbitrageur

so, yet again, your calling former Guvnor Fyfe Symington, what?
Yet another, what?
Delusional, and or, blatant lier?

Actually Symington was convicted of lying before he was pardoned by the president, you can't dispute that can you?

According to Robert Sheaffer, after initially ridiculing the Phoenix UFO, later Symington did lie about the Phoenix UFO too. His timeline didn't add up, and I see no reason to disagree with Sheaffer:

Symington was convicted for lying and also lied about the Phoenix UFO

James Fox told how he interviewed former Arizona governor Fife Symington, who belatedly "confessed" to having seen the lights ten years earlier, a dramatic reversal of his previous disparagement of the "lights". When Fox was a speaker at the 2013 UFO Congress, I spoke with him and explained why it is obvious that Symington is lying, and simply made up his sighting:

I reminded Fox that Symington claimed to have seen news coverage of the lights on TV, then went outside to look. He says he walked down to where the news crews had been filming the lights (the flare drop), and then saw the V-shape fly over, big and mysterious. However, there was no news coverage of the sightings before the planes landed about 8:45, and there could have been nobody filming the "lights" prior to 10:00, because the flares had not yet been dropped. Therefore Symington's claimed sighting occurred after 10:00, probably well after, and hence is an obvious fabrication. "No, he saw it at 8:20. It was 8:20," Fox insisted. "How could he have seen news coverage of this by 8:20?", I asked. "Maybe he heard chatter on the radio or something," Fox said. "How could there have been news crews filming this by 8:20?", I asked? Fox was having no more of this conversation.


In 2017, Symington's story has changed again (or more likely, Fox changed it for him). As Fox explained in his own talk later, Symington was listening in on the scanner and heard about the lights. (We don't know that there was any discussion of the first incident on some unspecificed scanner channels, although we can't say that there wasn't. This removes the obvious timeline discrepancy in Symington's first "I saw it" statement, which was that he saw the news reports, and went out to where the news crews had been filming the lights. This would be much too late to see the "triangle.") Symington supposedly drove out to Camelback Mountain, where he saw them.

In response to a question, Fox marvelled at Symington's abrupt change of heart on the subject:

I can't get it out of my mind. Earlier in the day he seemed so adamant, let's get to the bottom of it...it didn't seem like he was joking...let's find out what it was these people have seen, of course at that time not admitting the fact that he too had seen it.

But then that whole shift between that morning and that afternoon... I can't help but wonder, if he must have received a phone call. Something was going on that we're not privy to. So I asked him, did you receive a phone call from somebody? He said no. I don't know man, it's really kind of strange that he would do a 180 from the morning to the afternoon...

What "went on" was simply that Symington had decided to jump on the Phoenix Lights bandwagon, and invent a story about seeing them. Symington is an experienced liar (his conviction was later overturned on a technicality, but before he could be re-tried he was the lucky recipient of one of many undeserved pardons issued by the outgoing President Clinton).

So even to James Fox, Symington's story doesn't make much sense. Symington does a 180 in one day from taking it seriously to ridiculing it, and Fox asks him if someone made him do that, and he says no. So Fox apparently thinks Symington is lying when he says "no", but Sheaffer thinks Symington is lying about seeing the UFO. Either way, he's lying. If you think he really saw the UFO personally (very unlikely), don't you hate his guts for ridiculing the story like he did? That doesn't seem like the behavior I'd expect from someone who actually saw the UFO himself, who I would expect to take the event more seriously.

Further, clear footage, does actually exist, again, doubt you have ever seen it, as its not in the public domain, but, here's the scent, for you to chase, two separate pieces of footage, actually, both filmed by pilots, one a 30 year veteren,both pieces of footage, time stamped well before the flares 'set up'

If it's not in the public domain, it's not doing anything to prove your claims. The fact you seem to believe Symington doesn't do anything at all for your credibility, considering he was not only convicted for lying, but his story about the Phoenix UFO doesn't stack up also.

There is video in the public domain which is consistent with Mitch Stanley's observation, showing that the lights were separate objects.

a reply to: JohnnyAnonymous

You said you were turned off by the recreations from the start. I take it the following quotes were made up?

- What are those things goin' over?
- What is that Jack?
- Hey something just.. GET HERE!

Was that real audio, or a recreation? Please clarify for this newbie. It really is a turn off if that is indeed fake. Lets say it was re-created. Was the original dialogue, if there was any, remotely as exciting as that? Thank you.

a reply to: JohnnyAnonymous
I wondered about the Apollo moon footage...was it Apollo 17?
And Dr. Death, in episode 2.

But is this another step towards disclosure?

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck
a reply to: JohnnyAnonymous
I wondered about the Apollo moon footage...was it Apollo 17?

originally posted by: kanamit
a reply to: JohnnyAnonymous

You said you were turned off by the recreations from the start. I take it the following quotes were made up?

- What are those things goin' over?
- What is that Jack?
- Hey something just.. GET HERE!

Was that real audio, or a recreation? Please clarify for this newbie. It really is a turn off if that is indeed fake. Lets say it was re-created. Was the original dialogue, if there was any, remotely as exciting as that? Thank you.

It was real dialog from Apollo 17 but taken so far out of context as to be extremely misleading, which is typical of these UFO documentaries, you can't really trust any of them, as I said in my earlier post:

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
It seems like none of these UFO documentaries ever want the truth to be known. They are merely about entertainment and perpetuating mystery.

The misleading transcript of JJ Abrams edit is here:

See if they can take the front fender off and put it on the back there. They need to know where it broke off.... (overlap) see if it's a feasible procedure.

Okay...(unintelligible). What are those things goin' over?! What is that, Jack?! Hey, something just - GET HERE! What blew? Hey, what is that? Just came flyin' over the top of our heads.

This is the actual transcript, in context:

123:28:18 Cernan: Okay. (Reading CDR-35) "Verify (good seal)...SRC (in) plus-Z pad..." What are those things going over? What is that, Jack? Hey, something just hit here!

[Beyond Jack's head, a piece of debris is visible moving north and away from the LM.]

123:28:30 Cernan: What blew? Hey, what is that?

123:28:33 Schmitt: Oh, your antenna...It's that Styrofoam off the high-gain antenna package.

123:28:41 Cernan: On the LM?

123:28:42 Schmitt: No, the one you deployed. The Rover high-gain antenna.

[Another piece of foam packing has exploded because of sunlight heating of trapped gas bubbles.]

123:28:47 Cernan: My God, it blew up!

123:28:49 Schmitt: Yeah.

[Fendell pans to Gene at Jack's seat; he is holding the dustbrush.]

123:28:51 Cernan: I thought we'd been hit by a...Look at that stuff just keeps flying over the top of our heads! I thought we were the closest witnesses to a lunar meteor impact. (Pause) I wonder if that's the same glass I picked up?

[Gene is beginning to realize that the piece of "brown glass" he picked up at the SEP site at 123:03:25 was actually a piece of foam.]

Solar heating had raised the pressure of the trapped gases in the styrofoam which resulted in the Styrofoam "exploding" which could send pieces of styrofoam flying for long distances. It's completely dishonest to try to make it sound like some kind of UFO event when they had figured out it was pieces of the exploded styrofoam flying. But this is the kind of lack of honesty which is all too common in almost all if not all UFO documentaries made this century.