swamp gas indeed…

Last night ABC apparently needed to fill some airtime and generate ratings.  They came up with a UFO show - Seeing is Believing.  It is a recognized fact that UFO shows draw huge ratings; it’s the only reason the History Channel runs so many of them.  They’re just a bit cavalier with the facts.   If you look closely, you can pick up a bit of a slant.

The first version of this special starred Peter Jennings and was highly hyped and billed.  Last night’s show was supposed to build on the Jennings special.  It probably built ratings, which made it a success for ABC.   As for content, well…. not so much.

It seemed a bit less overtly slanted than the original, which certainly was a good thing.  It had no traces of Michael Schermer(?), the professional skeptic with no answers - this is a good thing also.   I wonder if he has a Swamp Gas t-shirt.

Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly brimming with new information.   Much of it was a rehash of the Jennings show, with some fellow whose name escapes me, but is probably bucking for New Fair-Haired Boy at ABC.

I really listened to the explanations of the skeptics.  I wanted to give them equal time.  It seemed the more I listened, the sillier the explanations became.

One example was an astronomer who swears the Phoenix Lights was nothing more than a squadron of planes dropping flares.  He said he knows what flares look like.   That’s all well and good but if you listened to the many eyewitnesses, including pilots and policemen, and watched the video, you know they weren’t flares.  Flares don’t fly in formation, don’t stay in formation as they fall, and don’t block out objects above them.  This so-called skeptic had better not encounter a tornado.  There wouldn’t even be any little pieces of him to scrape up afterwards.  He would simply stand there, arms folded, and continue to insist the tornado just did not exist.  He’d even shake his head side to side for effect (before it got carried off to parts unknown).  If he could overrule physics, he would also claim that people who saw his head flying away were just seeing basketballs in the breeze.

Another fine example of the quality skeptics were the professionals who spoke on alien abduction.  As professionals, they were obliged to refer to abductees as `people who believe they were abducted.’  This comes from psych-speak, which teaches you not to argue with a person who’s seeing bugs crawling up the walls.  It’s real to them.

These medical marvels toed the Sleep Paralysis line.  I’m pretty sure this segment was included in the original show (or I’ve seen them elsewhere doing the same old song and dance).  Listening carefully, I heard the female shrink/therapist describe sleep paralysis: you get a feeling of not being able to move, seeing lights,  and people frequently report seeing others in the room.

Then you listen to the abductees.  They speak very clearly of beings.  They describe them.  They have physical effects of examinations*.  Major and minor details tend to agree across abductions.  Yes, that’s exactly like seeing lights and others in the room.

After that explanation, they went on to explain Recovered Memories, with that little grimace they use.  The foes of recovered memories claim that the memories were made up by the patient or inserted by the therapist.  And in some cases this might be true, a long time ago.   Properly trained therapists do not lead the client. There’s a world of difference between `What did you see?’ and `Were there aliens?’

Lastly we come to everybody’s favorite ufo site; Roswell.  It was very interesting to note that the show left the Roswell explanation with the `final’ (third) explanation given by the government: Project Mogul.  Project Mogul involved dropping dummies with parachutes.  The actual claim is that there were no spaceships or aliens, just parachute material and dummies.

The only problem is that this is also a lie.  Project Mogul did not take place until years after Roswell.  This was taken from government documentation by Stanton Friedman (the father of modern ufo research).   As if that weren’t enough, the Mogul dummies were about 150lbs and six feet tall.  The aliens were said to be between three and four feet tall.  The parachute material looked like aluminum foil.  The crash site looked like a crash site.  Do you mean to tell me a whole bunch of people can’t tell the difference between a crashed device and aluminum foil?  Sorry, Uncle Sam, it still doesn’t wash.  Guess you’ll need to come up with a fourth (and final) explanation.

The skeptics’ technique is to debunk a portion of a claim, thereby invalidating the entire claim.  Nice work if you can get it.

You don’t have to believe in UFO’s.  But you should apply brain power to the claims on all sides.

* Physical effects are not proof in and of themselves.  I know that the mind can produce all sorts of interesting things on the skin and other places.  Someone with multiple personalities can recall an incident of physical abuse and have black and blue marks appear where they were originally hit.