Conspiracy Road Trip: UFOs

On Sunday night I watched my recording of the BBC's Conspiracy Road Trip: UFOs from last week.

I wasn't expecting much from the programme - and wasn't disappointed in that regard.

It was another example of the lazy programming over the last few years which seems to be a hallmark of British television allotted to the subject of UFOs. Andrew Maxwell - an Irish comedian (why him as presenter?) who has occasional flashes of comic genius - and whose star must be on the wane (judging by this show), led a group of five British people, each of whom claimed their own UFO encounter, on a road-trip through American (why not British?) UFO hotspots to effectively discredit their experiences. The climax (or should it be debacle?) was their collective experience of Area 51 which ended up being that of spending three hours lying flat on a floor with guns pointed at their heads for having trespassed onto the outskirts of the infamous military base - go figure.

The 'contactees'

I think it was no coincidence that one of these people (called Scott) had been chosen presumably because of his penchant for wearing a tin-foil skull-cap under his beanie hat when out and about and his conviction that earth was shortly to be invaded by aliens. I had a hard time believing that this chap wasn't a plant to make the programme marginally more interesting for it's one hour run-time. Stooge or not it seemed like he'd watched M Night Shyamalan's Signs more often than is healthy.

The other four 'contactees' ranged from a long-time UFO investigator from Shropshire called Darren; a wide-eyed young male bar worker called Ben - claiming to be a witness to a classic night-time lights sighting; an attractive but vulnerable looking* lady (and there's a point to me mentioning this later) called Brigitte - who claimed to have seen a classic saucer-shaped UFO over a US freeway; and another more ballsy and eloquent lady - Franky - who claimed an alien/other-dimensional vision.

The 'experts'

After listening to each person's claimed account of their experience, Andrew Maxwell attempted to debunk it by introducing them to an 'expert' offering a contrary viewpoint. Seth Shostak was the first who - quite rightly - asked for photographic or film evidence of Brigitte's encounter, which she couldn't provide.

But hang on? Seth Shostak is an astonomer isn't he? Yes he participates in SETI (which I happen to be a subscriber to through SETI@Home), which means he's considered the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life out in the cosmos much more than your average person in the street - but since when has he seriously studied the phenomenon of UFOs?

Another 'expert' was (if I'm correct about this) scientist and biologist P.Z. Myers who appeared to state - if I understood correctly - that it was statistically highly improbable (not impossible mind you) that another species from outside earth could - through natural evolution - develop humanoid facial features akin to our own like the ubiquitous 'grey' aliens supposedly had. But - wait a minute? Turn that on its head and there are thousands of species on this planet - apparently unrelated to humans on a genetic level - that have two eyes, a nose and a mouth. Am I missing something?

Yet another 'expert' was psychologist Michael Shermer, publisher of The Skeptic magazine who whilst correctly pointing out what the initials UFO actually stood for (and that anyone with an enquiring mind shouldn't bother to enquire further on any UFO origins - some chance!) - went on to patronise the contactees by advising them that humans were - as a whole - fallible creatures often prone to convincing delusions. Fair enough - but that would presumably mean his own world view was just as fallible wouldn't it?

The wildcard

In a rather strange deviation from the pattern being established so far in the programme, the group was then introduced to former airline pilot and wildcard in UFO circles - John Lear - who, it appeared on the surface, was a bit of own goal for Mr Maxwell - but this might have been for calculated comic effect - in that he (John Lear) banged on not only about aliens being studied at Area 51 but also about his (frankly implausible in my view) theory concerning a city on the moon.

The dubious book author

Finally, the contactees were introduced to author Annie Jacobsen , who's faced a lot of criticism for various long stretches of the imagination in her book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base including those concerning a story that one of her sources may have been citing elements strangely similar to those in science fiction writer James Blish’s short story "Tomb Tapper". In the programme, Ms Jacobsen effectively stated that the CIA/military use UFO conspiracies as disinformation to conceal their greatest military secrets. Fair enough again - I'm sure all the Superpowers engage in routine disinformation campaigns. However, that doesn't automatically rule out the E.T. hypothesis (E.T.H.) still being a possible explanation behind some UFO encounters.

Just to add insult to injury, Jacobsen then regurgitated (from her book) an old chestnut concerning the crashed Roswell disc being a Stalinist Russian device carrying deformed or mutilated human passengers in 'spacesuits'. Other versions of this story cite children having being found aboard - again an element possibly pinched from the science fiction story referred to above. Jacobsen claimed she had a reliable but anonymous 'source' to confirm this. But this story is no more plausible than the E.T.H. - and what if her 'source' is feeding her disinformation?

My conclusion?

In my view, the arguments put forward by the sceptics were just as flimsy as the evidence for the five contactees' encounters. Where were the representatives of MUFON, NARCAP or even BUFORA? Where was Fife Symington III, Leslie Kean, Nick Pope or any of the speakers at the recent Secrets of Area 51 event (you could see this event's logo in the background at one point suggesting that Andrew Maxwell and co. were at the National Atomic Testing Museum during filming)?

None of the above people were on hand to give a balanced appraisal of these claimed encounters (or at least make the five people on the show not feel completely humiliated) - and I think I can guess why. Where they did rope in one 'ufologist' - author and UFO investigator Christopher O'Brien - half-way through the programme, it was only in an attempt (ultimately fruitless) to make his theories appear more outlandish to the contactees than their own.

At the end I couldn't decide whether Andrew Maxwell's own crisis of conscience at putting Brigitte - whom I presume he liked because she was 'attractive and vulnerable-looking'* (I told you there was a reason I mentioned it earlier) - through a polygraph test, only to intervene and stop it, was genuine, ill thought out, or just patronising.

Actually - I did decide.

We never got to find out whether Brigitte would have passed or failed. But the results wouldn't have mattered anyway. If she genuinely believed she'd seen a flying saucer - even if in reality she hadn't - I doubt that a polygraph test would have revealed anything significant either way. Maxwell was convinced she would fail (an arrogant assumption to make) and so wanted to 'protect her belief system' (another arrogant assumption) and consequently protect her supposed 'fragile state'. Just how patronising can one Irish comedian be towards a grown woman?

Of course it was never the programme makers' intention to give credence to anything these people said or had apparently experienced. Even if they had, that's not how it came out in the final edit. And each individual had probably been hand-picked just as they would have been for an episode of Come Dine With Me, Coach Trip, or a myriad of other 'reality' shows, with the point being for the relevant, casual audience 'demographic' of this type of show to indulge in voyeuristic schadenfreude.

So - given the attention deficit, dumbed-down programming like this that many appear to accept - we're unlikely to ever see a quality documentary exploring this subject in-depth on British television anytime soon, where:-

• credible witnesses in the military and civil aviation, the police and other emergency services of different countries worldwide come forward and are interviewed; 
• individuals such as Stanton Friedman, Leslie Kean, Timothy Good and Nick Pope have been shown to be writing about the subject rationally and with rigor (and for far longer than I suspect Andrew Maxwell has been bothered about the subject); 
• sceptics have an opportunity to have their say but also be roundly challenged by opponents including those named above;
• documentary evidence such as MOD case files and other hard evidence - including radar, radio, photographic and film records, imply a significant number of UFO incidents that still remain unexplained to this day;
• and whether we like it or not, the same documentary evidence points - in a number of cases - to something or someone (not necessarily E.T.) with apparently very advanced technology penetrating (and causing many potentially lethal near-miss incidents in) the airspace of the UK, US, China, Belgium, France and Sweden to name but a few.

Ho-hum.

Guilty as charged?

Anyway the full programme is below if you haven't already seen it. Let me know what you think...

Secrets of Area 51 revealed?

I'm sure all of you will have noted the recent event "Area 51: Myth or Reality" that took place at the National Atomic Testing Museum, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution. The publicity running up to it rather misleadingly claimed that the 'secrets' of 'Area 51' were to be revealed.

Obviously such publicity promised much and delivered virtually nothing, so whilst there wasn't any earth-shattering news to come out of this event, it was a milestone for having the Smithsonian - a respected U.S. establishment - host an event of this type.

Publicity image from the National Atomic Testing Museum

It was also notable for having five respected speakers with military backgrounds and/or impressive credentials who willingly and candidly spoke about their take on the UFO phenomenon - and this being outside of any pro-ufologist forum such as that of the Disclosure Project. The speakers were retired US Air Force Col. Robert Friend; retired US Air Force Col. William Coleman; retired US Air Force Col. Charles Halt; former UK Ministry of Defense UFO investigator Nick Pope; and retired US Army Col. John Alexander.

Several online articles, including one posted by the Las Vegas Sun give a good rundown of the speakers and their comments so I won't repeat them here.

Concerning Area 51

Area 51 itself is in the news yet again because of a BBC film crew that recently tried - and failed - to enter the base, according to various articles, the most comprehensive of which is the Daily Mail's.

At the BUFORA 50th anniversary conference, a member of the audience asked one of the speakers whether they had any insider knowledge about the old chestnut that is the alleged reversed engineering of alien spacecraft at Area 51. I have to say I groaned inwardly when I heard this person ask the question (a question that was frankly naive). The speaker rightly answered that they had no knowledge on this. Why would they anyway? It is highly unlikely that a representative of a volunteer UFO investigation body in Britain would have come into possession of genuine, privileged information about Area 51, let alone whether this information contained the 'smoking gun' about E.T.

As it is, if you believe the hype about what goes in in Area 51 then this place is perhaps - bizarrely - one of the worst kept military secrets in the world. Look at it another way however (I'm sure I'm not the first to say this) and we may be observing a great smoke and mirrors operation in effect. In my view,  Area 51 very usefully serves to divert attention away from genuine ongoing USAPs or black projects elsewhere in the U.S. (or perhaps in other friendly countries) which - if they are being carried out in the interests of national security - should of course remain heavily protected from unfriendly powers.

Given the continuous satellite surveillance by all superpowers - and other interests over the globe, not to mention an increasing army of 'Google-earthers' out there,  any such activity would have to be based either underground or in very ordinary looking facilities at an unremarkable location so as not to attract unwanted attention. Such a location, or locations could be housed in existing military - or even civil - facilities but known to only a select few with the highest compartmentalised security clearance. And given the Americans have had nearly 70 years - since the Second World War - to perfect how to hide their greatest military secrets, I'm sure they're now very good at it.

As for strange lights/activities observed by those over the years who claim to have skirted - or even penetrated - the perimeter of Area 51 (a rather foolhardy thing to do in my opinion considering the threat of deadly force to interlopers - the BBC film crew were let off lightly in my view), this could all be part of the 'show'.

Of course I claim no privileged knowledge on this subject. It just seems to me to be a simple and logical conclusion to reach about this now world-famous area.

Another school running a 'UFO crash drill'?

Ok so I recently posted this about a few instances of schools running 'UFO crash drills' and - what d'you know? Another one pops up in the news!

Here's the link to the article in the (presumably Sheffield) 'Star'

This time it's a 'rocket' but the event is staged in much the same way as previous events.

It makes me think that someone, most probably a fast-streamer Civil Servant - or an 'HEOD' as they're now called - in the Department for Education thought conducting such activity across schools in England would be a wheeze. Either that or school heads are just copying each other's ideas.

But recently allowing this kind of thing into school activity does seem rather strange, even if it is done under the guise of increasing an awareness of 'science' amongst pupils.

So who first planted the suggestion of doing this at all at the first school and why?