Posted on 06/21/2003 12:07:33 PM PDT by demlosers
NEW YORK - In an unusual step for a television network, the Sci Fi Channel is campaigning to persuade the government to be more forthcoming and aggressive in investigating UFO sightings.
Sci Fi has hired former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta as a Washington lobbyist, sponsored a symposium on interstellar travel and is considering a court effort to declassify documents related to a 1965 incident in Pennsylvania.
The network will premiere a documentary, "Out of the Blue," Tuesday at 9 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific time zones) that methodically lays out an argument that there's something out there.
Most TV networks are reluctant to spend money for anything other than self-interest. The few public interest efforts are hardly controversial: Lifetime promoting breast cancer research, for example, or MTV's Rock the Vote campaign to encourage young people to register.
But by fighting for UFO probes, Sci Fi is wading into an area that invites not only dissent, but also ridicule.
"It's very, very tough for people to take this subject seriously," said Ed Rothschild, a lobbyist in Podesta's firm. "We thought the only way it was going to be seriously addressed is to have serious people talk about it, scientists."
Rothschild won't even identify the members of Congress he's talked to about leaning on the government for more openness about UFOs. He's afraid they'll never help if their names come out and they're laughed at.
Even believers are reluctant to talk about the issue.
After hearing that former President Carter once saw a UFO, "Out of the Blue" filmmaker James Fox repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, asked Carter's representatives for an interview. Undaunted, Fox essentially ambushed Carter with a camera one day at a book-signing. Carter confirmed the incident but his brevity and forced smile indicated he wasn't happy to be answering.
Given the "giggle factor" that surrounds UFOs, Sci Fi is taking a chance with its reputation, Fox said.
"I don't think there's a risk because the questions need to be asked," said Thomas Vitale, Sci Fi's senior vice president of programming. "Even somebody who is the biggest skeptic in the world ... still wants the questions answered. And who better to do it?"
The mission isn't entirely altruistic, of course. The Sci Fi Channel, which is seen in about three-quarters of the nation's TV households, polled viewers on the topic. Evidence of keen interest is also seen in the ratings.
Last November's documentary on the celebrated, suspected 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, N.M., was the highest-rated special in the network's 11-year history. It was seen by nearly 2.4 million people, or about 2 1/2 times Sci Fi's usual prime-time audience.
"Our main goal is not to find a UFO," Vitale said. "The goal is finding the truth. We're expanding and exploring the blurry line between what is science fiction and what is science fact."
Vitale wouldn't say how much Sci Fi is spending on this. The network sponsored an archaeological excavation at Roswell, will debut a public service announcement Tuesday and has four new UFO specials in the works.
It is backing an effort to get U.S. Air Force records released on a 1965 incident in Kecksburg, Pa., where some witnesses believe a UFO crashed. This may end up in court, Rothschild said.
Fox, a San Francisco-based journalist, never thought much about UFOs until a visit nine years ago to Nevada, when he and his friends watched a saucer-shaped object hover silently in the sky then dart away.
"When I got home, I was met with laughter," he said. "No one believed me, even my family. I thought, if my own family doesn't believe me, who does?"
Intrigued, he began looking into other UFO incidents. He sold a 1998 documentary to the Discovery Channel and shopped "Out of the Blue" to the same network, but said he was told Discovery no longer buys pro-UFO films. (A Discovery spokeswoman denied this.)
So he went to Sci Fi. Fox considers 95 percent of reported UFO incidents bunk, either hoaxes or easily explained conventional phenomena. And don't count him among people who believe aliens already live among us.
But that still leaves a significant number of mysterious cases. "Out of the Blue" outlines several, concentrating on the most reputable of witnesses - former astronauts, military and government officials, topped off by an ex-president.
Fox's storytelling is sober, not sensational. Summing up incidents at the end of the film, Fox gives the official government explanations of what happened, and they're often more ridiculous than the sightings themselves.
"You get to a point where you can no longer dismiss each and every episode," he said.
Fox and Rothschild can think of several reasons why the government doesn't want to talk about UFOs:
_ The military doesn't want to spend time or money on something that isn't perceived as a threat.
_ Officials may also like the secrecy; it keeps other governments guessing about what kind of new weapon technologies might be in the works.
_ It could also be embarrassing, since it can expose what they don't know and the limitations of human technology.
_ And who wants to set off a "War of the Worlds"-type incident?
Fox envisions the public announcement that could come with such an event: "We don't know where they come from, we don't know what they're doing. We can't stop them if they become hostile and they can fly rings around all of our aircraft.
"Thank you, and good night."
Think it through; think it through. In the face of "billions and billions" they throw 0.001's and 0.0001s.
- Earth in the right orbital distance. All we seem to find are "hot gas giants" orbiting very near their primary.
- Earth with a single large moon that was formed by an impactor about the size of Mars, which came from precisely the right direction and angle. Any variation in these variables: no moon. The moon stabilizes our precession and hence gives us predictable and repeaing seasons.
- An astounding amount of water for a rocky planet.
- The "snowball earth", which killed off 98% of all life 600 million years ago, and then killed 98% of the cold-adapted survivors when the temperature overshot to as high as 70C.
Etc. It appears that the authors assemble sufficient multipliers (.0001x0.001x0.00001x....) to wipe out the billions and billions.
I would like to believe there are huge numbers of intelligent species. But I find the arguments in Rare Earth compelling. As Fermi asked, WHERE ARE THEY?.
As for the vast distances, some races could be nearly immortal, or possess technology to make themselves so. As I have commented, a technological civilization a few centuries or millennia in advance of ours would have seemingly godlike powers. Surely they could attain 0.05 "C". There has been ample time for self-replicating robot probes, running at 5% of "c", to visit every single star in the Galaxy. If several ET civilizations figure this out (as we have) there ought to be a veritable traffic jam of probes swarming about the Solar System. Again, Fermi asks: "Where are they?"
--Boris
It's completely unmystifying to me.
Bottom line: there is ZERO evidence. Merely the same old bulls**t in a new chamberpot.
I don't have trouble accepting that you are not in the government's service to debunk.
Why, gosh, thank you SO very f***ing much.
If this were a bar, I'd deck you for the condescending tone in that line.
I can understand a healthy skepticism.
Until the little green men show up in person, I ain't buying in.
But you are a bright guy. And you seemingly shoot down so many things wholesale without, to my mind, sufficient in-depth research . . .
I've done a s**tload of in-depth research.
The folks who wave their "TOP SECRET" security clearances around and claim that they've seen all manner of reports on the aliens turn out to be BS artists.
and you shoot down so wholesale and seemingly arbitrarily so many quality personal experience reports by very high ranking experts in the military and scientific field--such as the French study was full of . . . .
"Appeal to authority" is a logical fallacy.
It's puzzling. Very puzzling.
Produce me a f***ing flying saucer or an alien. Not a "report" by a BS artist, produce the real damn thing.
Your assertions that it's all poop just do not cover a sufficient number of data points to remotely begin to be a viable explanation.
Like I've said, I've done tons of homework.
What's your take on Socorro, New Mexico, for example?
Except that the physical evidence didn't match his description of events. Also, nearby people who SHOULD have been witnesses saw or heard nothing unusual, despite Zamora's claims of incredibly loud noises and bright lights.
It's this kind of stuff that you keep finding every time you look in depth.
You accuse me of condescension
If you didn't actually mean it the way it came out, then fine, I accept that.
But how about watching how you choose your words?
Purely because our method of detection (gravitational perturbation of the primary) only allows us to see huge planets. With the latest refinement of the technique last year, we would now just be able to detect Jupiter from interstellar distances. Your conclusion would be that our own system consisted of one big, boring gas giant.
- Earth with a single large moon that was formed by an impactor about the size of Mars, which came from precisely the right direction and angle. Any variation in these variables: no moon. The moon stabilizes our precession and hence gives us predictable and repeaing seasons.
Who says a large moon is a prerequisite for life. or an impact of a Mars-sized body at a time when the whole planet was a blazing cinder?
- An astounding amount of water for a rocky planet.
We're starting to find that water is common out there. Several gas-giant moons seem to have an abundance of it. The whole Kuiper belt is mostly made of it. The waterless rocky planets appear to be those that were too small (Mars) or too hot (Venus) to hold onto it.
The "snowball earth", which killed off 98% of all life 600 million years ago, and then killed 98% of the cold-adapted survivors when the temperature overshot to as high as 70C.
Snowball Earth is just a speculation, but if it did happen, it proves that life is resilient and adaptable, and therefore likely to be pervasive.
I would like to believe there are huge numbers of intelligent species. But I find the arguments in Rare Earth compelling. As Fermi asked, WHERE ARE THEY?.
Our SETI program searches for radio leakage as evidence of intelligence. But think this one through: Earth first began to leak artificial radiation about 1950, when we began broadcasting in the VHF and above. Today we are finding that long-distance communication works best over cable. This is causing Earth's radio signature to disappear after only one generation. In scanning the sky for radio leakage we would be like Eqyptian tribesmen looking for messages in bottles as evidence for life in other countries.
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