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."
I offered to grill a PB&B sandwich for him, but he declined, saying it was too fattening. The only thing he begs for is whipped cream. He won't leave me alone until I get a dish for him and squirt some WC on it! He looks at me like he's saying "thank you, thank you very much". LOL
I don't think too many people ever seriously believed that Carter actually saw a "flying saucer". The important part of the story is that Carter himself believed he actually saw one. He believed it so much he filed an official report and later made the statement "If I become President, I'll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and scientists. I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen one."
This isn't a myth, it's just a fact.
Sort of. I read his book twice and sent him some questions he did not answer. I pointed out that his concept of the "arena" (all possible configurations of all particles in the Universe) may be static but something still selects which "slice" is "now" at any "instant"--kind of like an instruction pointer in a computer. A moving instruction pointer or "instant selector" is moving...implying time. In other words, how does one define sequential selection or motion without appealing to time (or 'meta time')?
And what is "sonoluminescence"?"
An exercise for the interested student. Type it into Google.
--Boris
I think it's clear that there are real phenomena. the question is whether there's enough evidence to require belief in alien spaceships. I don't think so, but I can't deny the possibility.
Clearly, I don't have any in depth understanding of this kind of stuff, but to my layman's mind, or from my vantage point, if time is static, then we, or something, appear to be moving.
Ron and Nancy were expected at a casual dinner party with friends in Hollywood. Except for the Reagans, all the guests had arrived. Ron and Nancy showed up a half hour later quite upset. They stated that they had seen a UFO coming down the coast.
The second sighting occurred in 1974 while Reagan was still Governor. One week after the sighting, Reagan related the story to Norman C. Millar, then Washington Bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, later the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Reagan told Millar:
"I was in a plane last week when I looked out the window and saw this white light. It was zigzagging around. I went up to the pilot and said, ‘Have you seen anything like that before?’ He was shocked and said, ‘Nope.’ And I said to him: ‘Let’s follow it!’
We followed it for several minutes. It was a bright white light. We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden to our utter amazement it went straight up into the heavens. When we got off the plane, I told Nancy all about it.’
The pilot of Governor Reagan plane was Bull Paynter, and he backed up Reagan’s version of the incident with the UFO.
I was the pilot of the plane when we saw the UFO. Also, on board were Governor Reagan and a couple of his security people. We were flying a Cessna Citation. It was maybe nine or ten o’clock at night. We were near Bakersfield when Governor Reagan and the others called my attention to a big light flying a bit behind the plane.
It appeared to be several hundred yards away. It was a fairly steady light until it began to accelerate, then it appeared to elongate. The light took off. It went up at a 45-degree angle - at a high rate of speed. Everyone on the plane was surprised.
Governor Reagan expressed amazement. I told the others I didn’t know what it was. The UFO went from a normal cruise speed to a fantastic speed instantly. If you give an airplane power it will accelerate - but not like a hotrod, and that is what this was like.
We didn’t file a report on the object because for a long time they considered you a nut if you saw a UFO.
Paynter added the UFO incident didn’t stop there. He stated that he and Reagan had discussed their UFO sighting "from time to time" in the years following the incident.
Reagan, in his discussion of the sighting with Norman C. Millar added that he had told Nancy about the UFO he had seen, and they had done personal research on UFOs. This research had uncovered the facts that there were references to UFOs in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Reagan was telling his story in a very animated way. This led Millar to conclude that Reagan seriously believed in UFOs. He asked him, "Governor, are you telling me that you saw a UFO?"
Suddenly, according to Millar, Reagan realized that he was talking to a reporter. "This look crossed his face," recalled Millar, "and he said let’s just say that I’m an agnostic."
Minkowski taught us that time is a coordinate axis, just like "X", "Y" and "Z". Coordinate axes do not "flow".
If one were born on a train (on an infinitely long and smooth track) and spent all his life there, and the train never stopped or slowed, by looking out of the window he would conclude that "X" (the coordinate axis X) flowed.
When Rudy Rucker (the mathematician and writer) met Kurt Gödel (a contemporary of Einstein and probably more intelligent), one of the questions he asked Gödel was: "What causes the illusion of the passage of time?"
Gödel answered obliquely, not directly addressing the question...but he did not say, "What kind of stupid ass question is that?!" In other words, he tacitly accepted Rucker's premise that the passage of time is an illusion...
--Boris
No offense, but if I have anything to contribute one ping will do.
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