- (Note - Read the following carefully and ask yourself
if the writer saw the SAME program you did. Assuming he wrote this review
on February 21, he probably saw an advance copy of the program on the 20th
or earlier. His rage - and his quotes of Jennings - suggest he might have
seen a substantially *different* version of the program than the one which
aired nationally on the 24th. The anger and vitriol below...and the direct
quotes attributed to Jennings...seem entirely incongruent given the desultory
second hour of the program which called Roswell a 'myth' and raised the
generally insulting issue of 'sleep paralysis' to explain away the abduction
phenomenon. Further, we now know the Roswell segment was NOT in the review
copy sent to the NY Daily News. - jr)
-
-
- America, come in, come in, wherever you are. It's not
enough that we're being led by a heartless idiot and his team of obsequious
solipsists and hustlers, that we're in a unnecessary war, that the federal
government has withdrawn itself almost entirely from the business of promoting
the social good. Oh no. Now we have this: A major network is producing
a two-hour special--airing this Thursday--arguing that, as Peter Jennings,
the show's host, gravely repeats over and over again, "we are not
alone," that we get "visited" by aliens on a regular basis.
Or at least since 1947, when someone obviously bored out of his mind and
scared witless both by the specter of nuclear war with Russia and the infinite
silence of rural America at night, looked up from his cornfield or something,
saw a giant dinner plate soaring through the nocturnal sky, and called
his local police department to report an imminent invasion from outer space.
-
- You thought all we had to worry about was Al Qaeda lurking
behind every iPod? Think again. If you only knew the cosmic dangers that
lurk above us, the green, spindly, big-headed beings that nurture dreams
somewhere in their caves, spread ou over billions of galaxies, of traipsing
suddenly into our living rooms and, well, saying hello. And this is the
least of it, only the beginning of a nightmare. What if they are not green?
What if they are beige? What if they are (unreconstructed) liberals? What
if they speak French? What if-- please move your children away from the
screen--they are sane?
-
- Watching ABC present convincing dramatized accounts of
UFOs flying over the country, listening to Jennings calmly make the case
for a government perniciously indifferent to the threat from outer space,
you have to wonder whether we are all as nuts as what we watch on TV. Or
are the people who make television the true crazies? Or are they perhaps
true cynics, whose desperate attempts to boost ratings, to be popular,
to hold on to their jobs, transform their anxiety into a kind of madness,
a psychotic-commercial complex that descends upon us in the form of useless
information that we have to know, or sleep-inducing entertainment to which
we have to turn?
-
- For all its perfunctory nods to skeptics, this special
makes a quiet case that extra-terrestrials are constantly circling our
planet. Why they have never touched down to introduce themselves--landing
only to abduct and then inexplicably to return people, thereby procuring
for them speaking engagements, television appearances and book contracts--you
never learn. Maybe they can't find long-term parking. Maybe they like to
shop but not to buy, sampling an Earthling here, a Venutian there, etc.
Maybe our beloved Earth is actually known throughout the universe as "Planet
Rest Room," and aliens only stop here to pee. These mysteries are
not answered by Jennings and ABC.
-
- Rather, Jennings is very respectful to the "witnesses"
who claim to have seen aliens flying over their barnyards, etc., or who
insist that they've been abducted (they should be so lucky). There is something
in Jennings's open attitude to all of this of the new deference to so-called
religious people that suddenly seized the commentating classes after the
election last November. These UFO true believers, after all, are animated
by some kind of religious-ish impulse, some thirst for ultimates; or maybe
some wish to be jolted out of their dulled senses. In that sense, they
are also like generations of vanguard artists, yearning to shock and be
shocked.
-
- But there is something else in Jennings's preening solemn
tones (his megalomania is extraterrestrial; so is his tendency to pronounce
words like "project" two different ways). There is in Jennings's
voice this surging American love for the absurd, and therefore contemptible
person. From politics to reality shows, we seem to like to be surrounded
by people ruled by greed, hampered by stupidity, blinkered by obsession.
These sad bored UFOers, their faces blank, their land-locked figures full-sail
with heartland obesity, their eyes shining with their earth-centric, mundane,
child's fantasy of a populated universe--the spatial, secular version of
the religious, temporal dream of a populated eternity--these people are
easy to laugh at, and therefore easy to accommodate. In America, attention
must be paid! Attention, that is, to everything freakish, inadequate, unthreatening,
and thus usefully supportive of a shaky sense of worth, of identity. More
and more, the spectacle of human inadequacy on television is like one long
public stoning. Does not poor, war-ravaged, "dysfunctional" Iraq
make us optimistic about America? Nowadays, American health navigates by
foreign sickness.
-
- It's easy to watch the special Thursday night and draw
pretty conclusions. Americans are escaping from harsh realities; the culture's
normalization of deceit is resulting in a conventionalization of fantasy;
Bush's triumphal end-of-daysism has its correlative in the UFOers' belief
that some momentous figure--in one sense, the aliens are ultimate celebrities--will
appear and explain everything to us, etc. But the show's essential meaning
lies in its recurrent assertion that "we are not alone." What
an odd phrase--and how irresponsible of ABC not to examine it.
-
- How could we be alone when the Earth currently holds
over six billion of us? And who is this "we" anyway? Cross any
border in the world and you either encounter or become an "alien,"
to one degree or another. There is something chilling about postulating
the unknowable six billion as "we," and then wishing ardently
to be astounded or shocked by company. Such mental sleight-of-hand implies
the conceptual annihilation of everyone but you. If there's anything behind
the UFO phenomenon at all, it's the human, all-too-human desire to be freed
from humanity altogether. Maybe someday scientists will tell us why ABC
is conferring prestige upon the buried impulse to destroy everything except
you and your local cornfield, or bowling alley.
-
-
- http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w050221&s=siegel022105
-
-
- Comment
Jeffrey Ritzmann
2-24-5
-
- Mr. Siegel's "review" of this program is generally
what we've come to expect from folks who time after time fail to see, research,
and acknowledge the evidence that proliferates the UFO enigma. Anyone,
who truly does their homework into this long standing mystery will come
to realize that there remains, after all these years a true and solid unknown
element. While I find the large part of his review rather humorous, there
is a constant that runs through so called "debunkers" essays,
and that is pure and simple personal attacks. Not serious questioning on
credibility, on evidence, or on UFO witnesses accounts of what they see.
-
- This is an issue that admittedly, the UFO research community
has failed to address in relation to those who flatly refute their information.
Very rarely will you enter into a debate of any kind with a "debunker"
where you won't hear the word, "nut", "moron" or have
it implied that you or your witness is a "hillbilly". It's a
symptom of an individual who refuses to accurately research the information,
the witness, etc., and I don't personally believe that's ever going to
change.
-
- The bottom line, is that they ultimately lose the argument
because they resort to personal attacks that concretely prove they have
no real basis for their argument.
-
- I can recall a debate of about 4 emails regarding an
astronauts sighting of objects he saw in space and has been fairly vocal
about. Now, lets face the facts, these men and women are highly trained
in space flight, and science. Many have had multiple flights. There are
more than a few who have seen UFO's and have openly admitted it to the
public. When I wrote the "authority" on space flight about these
sightings, it took all of one email to say "yeah well ______ is quite
a space "experiencer". To imply in such a fashion that you could
deduce this astronaut is somewhat of a "goof" and doesn't know
what he's talking about.
-
- You're kidding me right?
-
- We're talking about an astronaut, vs. a man who has *never*
been in space, ever. He's not an astronaut, he's an "expert".
Does anyone see the absurdity? I can tell you after 20 years in this field
of study, it's completely typical. Time after time, debate after debate,
a "debunker" will tell you it's purple when he can't even see
in color.
-
- The UFO community is always clamoring for more "scientists"
and "hard core scholars, institutions" for a deeper look into
the mystery but we do have to realize that even if MIT did a serious inquiry
into UFOs...you can bet "debunkers" would try to say MIT or those
involved with the study were "a little out there" or as Mr. Siegel
put it, "sad" or "bored". The fact is, there *are*
scientists looking into UFOs, some at the pinnacle of their field, but
it will little matter what they find using a debunker's line of logic (if
there is any) and reasoning of the core facts.
-
- The bottom line is, as much as we in the field hate to
admit it, a fringe element of individuals in our study. But, are they not
in every facet of any interest? Science, music, literature, philosophy?
You can find them everywhere, in anything. The difference is, in our chosen
field of study, a debunker, or at most instances, the media, will always
gravitiate to these people.
-
- I got the general feeling in reading Mr. Siegel's review
that he's not a big fan of the sensationalism in the report. UFOs don't
need to be sensationalized, but one has to also understand the media rating
machine, and look past that. Again, debunkers wont comment on the message
in the opera, they'll say they hate the music. But that's assuming they
even paid attention.
-
- The bottom line is, in all the time UFO's have been researched,
and investigated there have always been people who chose to refute the
idea and dismiss the evidence. We as researchers and just interested people,
have come a long way in being critical and seriously finding methodologies
to improve our study. It's high time to upgrade our outlook on "debunkers",
and see that these are people who don't comment of relevant evidence, don't
truly study all the facts, and resort ultimately to personal attacks if
all else fails. There are a few that do in truth debate facts in an intelligent
manner, and bring forth true issues that need to be rethought by the UFO
researchers. The rest...well, could they not hold up their one way mirror
at their own debunking community and see themselves as the "fringe
element" of their own point of view.
-
- ~Jeff Ritzmann
-
Comment
Alton Raines
2-24-5
-
- Dontcha' just love it when one of these know-nothing
'journalists' gets behind his little hot keyboard, hunkered down ready
to lambaste the UFO experiencer? We're the ez targets. All we have is our
word. But you'll notice they NEVER go after the air force of any given
nation which routinely spends umpteen-million dollars a year firing up
very expensive jets and endangering the lives of ace pilots to intercept
UFOs clocked on radar, both ground and cockpit, at speeds utterly impossible
for any known aircraft today. No, they won't go there because it's a brick
wall of proof, and they want to keep the masses thinking UFO = nutballs.
Well, nuts to you, Mr. Siegel. You not only have the unmitigated audacity
to speak on a subject of which you know absolutely NOTHING, or worse, you
are an unconscienable hack who knows he's manipulating the facts for some
ulterior reason. Either way, you're an enemy of truth. It's despicable.
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