The UFO Phenomenon - Seeing Is Believing (Peter Jennings tonight - Live Thread)

ABC News ^ | Feb. 24, 2005

[traumer]

Almost 50 percent of Americans, according to recent polls, and millions of people elsewhere in the world believe that UFOs are real. For many it is a deeply held belief.

For decades there have been sightings of UFOs by millions and millions of people. It is a mystery that only science can solve, and yet the phenomenon remains largely unexamined. Most of the reporting on this subject by the mainstream media holds those who claim to have seen UFOs up to ridicule.

On Feb. 24, "Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing" takes a fresh look at the UFO phenomenon. "As a journalist," says Jennings, "I began this project with a healthy dose of skepticism and as open a mind as possible. After almost 150 interviews with scientists, investigators and with many of those who claim to have witnessed unidentified flying objects, there are important questions that have not been completely answered — and a great deal not fully explained."

"Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing" airs Thursday, Feb. 24 from 8-10 p.m. ET on ABC. The program will be broadcast in High Definition.

This two-hour primetime special reports on the entire scope of the UFO experience — from the first famous sighting by Kenneth Arnold in 1947 to the present day. The program draws on interviews with police officers, pilots, military personnel, scientists and ordinary citizens who give extraordinary accounts of encounters with the unexplained. Also included are the voices of professional skeptics about UFOs, including scientists who are leading the search for life forms beyond Earth elsewhere in the universe.

The program explores the facts behind the enduring mystery of the incident at Roswell, N.M., and looks into the strange stories of alien abductions. Among the UFO cases presented:

Minot Air Force Base, N.D., October 1968 — Sixteen airmen on the ground and the crew of an airborne B-52 witness a massive unidentified object hovering near the base.

Phoenix, March 1997 — Hundreds witness a huge triangular craft moving slowly over the city.

St. Clair County, Ill., January 2000 — Police officers in five adjoining towns all independently report witnessing a giant craft with multiple bright lights moving silently across the sky at a very low altitude.

Today if you report a UFO to the U.S. government you will be informed that the Air Force conducted a 22-year investigation that ended in 1969 and concluded that UFOs are not a threat to national security and are of no scientific interest. But as one of the world's leading theoretical physicists says in the program, "You simply cannot dismiss the possibility that some of these UFO sightings are actually sightings from some object created by … a civilization perhaps millions of years ahead of us in technology."

"Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing" is produced by PJ Productions and Springs Media for ABC News. Mark Obenhaus and Tom Yellin are the executive producers.

[keysguy]

I was Methodist for many years, since birth, until I saw Hillary and Bill escoritng some pony-tailed big wig from the church onto a plane bound to cuba to return Elian. That made me start thinking.Hard.

[R. Scott]

I would have no doubt about that.

[cgbg]

I want to respond to your post about the "coincidence" of sightings (and abductions) coming at the time of flight.

Vallee, as mentioned before, discusses ancient beliefs on this subject. The point he is making (and also made by Carl Jung) is that our minds conceptualize based on what we know or already believe.

So, for example, an abductee who is Christian will think the aliens were talking about Christianity, a Hindu abductee thinks it is their religion being discussed. A middle ages Christian would believe they were abducted either by angels or agents of the devil based on how the experience went. :-)

The problem is that neither validates nor invalidates the experience. It is just the way our brains work.

There was a great quote on the show last night by one of the pilots.

He said "You just can't imagine what it is like to see something that is not supposed to be there."

Think about what that experience would do to anyone, whether you are seeing aliens or triangle shaped craft taking 90 degree turns or unicorns or whatever.

------

Another topic that preoccupied Vallee in his later writings is the role of the world's intelligence services in both supporting and debunking the UFO movement.

Notice I said _both_ supporting and debunking.

The Clintons were experts at this technique.

Here is how it works.

Suppose you accuse a government official of stealing a billion dollars and hiding it in offshore accounts. You have witnesses, evidence of large bank accounts, and a lot of heavy-duty new spending by the government official. The unsophisticated perp will attack you with press releases, hit jobs in the media, lawsuits, you know, the usual.

But the slick official (particularly ones with an intelligence background) know that attack is just one approach and that it works best in combination with covert support.

The perp can secretly form an organization to investigate the scandal. He hires someone on his payroll to run it or influence it. Then this group claims to be investigating--and they produce volumes of absurd claims, phony evidence, wild speculation, that anyone with an IQ over 50 can figure out is bogus. (A variation of this theme would be create many such organizations, some crazier than others, but all ultimately following false leads.)

Now your investigation can be really pounded by claiming you are one of the fruits and nuts, you are making _another_ stupid claim, and you are just in it for the money like all the rest.

See how its done?

Vallee believed this is what happened to UFO research. (I believe this is what happened to the Vince Foster "suicide" investigation, for example.)

Fair-minded people just have to ignore the garbage and try to determine the facts regardless of the diversions and obstacles thrown in their path by the MSM and the disinformation specialists.

[Fish Hunter]

OK,

But who made these ETs, that supposedly made us ? If you answer with more advanced ETs, then who made them ? Take this out to a logical conclusion and you get (drum rolls) .....


GOD


FH

PS: This whole world is an experiment that God constantly "tweaks" and "monitors". If you want to find out the results of this grand experiment you don't need to watch X-file reruns, etc. all you need to do is read the Bible. I would suggest starting with the New Testament gospels before you get to Revelations.

[cajungirl]

My hubby says my new lipstick will survive the death of the species. YOu have to take it off with eye make up remover. I am always in possession of nicely colored lips,,it helps, every little bit helps!

[chemainus]

Great post!!! Thanks....

[chemainus]

Who is John Galt?

[chemainus]

I learn a lot here on FR. I thought only cheese and plastic were indestructible (-;

[Sam Cree]

"Because they still knew they did not have acess to the entire earth"

'Course, we don't have access to the entire cosmos.

[mdmathis6]

That was a Hubble photograph, time exposure of an area of space supposedly fairly empty...what they found was an area teaming with galaxies...in the original hi res photo more than a thousand galaxies alone could be counted

[Fish Hunter]

Agreed,

They also may provide a scapegoat for the rapture. If the world believed the missing Christians were raptured by Jesus, they would turn back to God. Satan will not want that to happen!

FH

PS: I wish I had your way with words !

[eyespysomething]

Off the subject of UFO's, but would you say more people coming back into the Church as one of the signs?

[mdmathis6]

Fine..."wee'll just farhhhht eeen yor genralll deeerectshawn....you seellie English tahhhpuh"!

[Fish Hunter]

Beats me,

Do you mean the author of "Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics As If Freedom Mattered" ?

FH

[MississippiMan]

And everything you just said has been repeated with a little variation as long as I can remember. Does "The Late Great Planet Earth" ring a bell? Perhaps some people just really want to believe that we are in the end times and interpret things the way they want to.

So what do you think Christ meant when He told us to watch the signs so that we might know the season? Is that a suggestion we should just forget about?

MM

[mdmathis6]

"The good Lord wasted a heck of a lot of time, energy and real estate on the cosmos."

Lewis wrote of a mystic who had a dream in which Jesus appeared with an object in his hand the size of a walnut. She asked what the object was and he replied..."All that has ever been created....!"

We puny things look into the big universe and say" how large and complex, how much power it must have taken, eyada eyada!" I tell you from God's perspective, it was merely the power of a single thought, a small gesture of measured command..."Let there be Light!"

But to let his son be butchered by us puny things, now that did take some effort on his part to express such "brokenness of heart towards us"!

To create a universe is nothing for God, to experience death for us thru his Son Jesus Christ cost him everything he had, in as much as God could give it and have all material creation survive with-out being unmade!

[traumer]

Well, thanks.
You seem to be a more serious contributor on this tread...
Do you know the name of the (japanese?) professor on the ABC special ? He talked about wormholes etc.

Does he have a website ?

[add925]

The Libs are already after this one. Aliens are descended from Dinosaurs:

Soon to be "your tax dollars at work".

[MississippiMan]

Quix, where's the info on the Christians being abducted? I'd very much like to read that if you remember some sources.

And yes, I agree that there could well be a combination of factors in play here, demonic and non-demonic/tangible craft. My point in focusing solely on the demonic angle was strictly in context of how this could well be the explanation used to explain away the rapture.

Being a believer in the rapture and a believer that we're in the season, certain events trip "prophecy flags" in my mind. Attention given to UFOs by one of the big three networks certainly sent a flag up and waving.

Another recent flag was Russia's increased visible interest in the Mid-East. Until then, although they've supported terrorist countries for years, it was in my mind a stretch to imagine a scenario under which Russia would actually lead an invasion of Israel, since their contact with and interest in Israel seemed thready and tenous at best. That's changing rapidly and the Magog invasion no longer seems so far-fetched.

The folks doing the servicing on the craft my relative worked around were not working on demonic plasmic goo.

I've obviously missed a post somewhere. What relative? The Roswell craft?

MM

[MississippiMan]

Off the subject of UFO's, but would you say more people coming back into the Church as one of the signs?

Hmmmm. I dunno. What do you think?

MM