UFOs: The Secret Evidence

[Mighty_Emperor]

I thought I'd kickstart the thread for discussion of this documentary:

21:00-23:10 UFOs: The Secret Evidence

Journalist Nick Cook, a British Aerospace specialist, applies his expert knowledge to the fantastical realm of UFOs, close encounters and tales of alien abduction to establish once and for all what has really been flying through our airspace over the last 20 years.

Channel 4 have a minisite for this here:

www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/W/w ... n_history/

 

[Yithian]

Good Nazi technology artwork/graphics. Bit slim on references in that section but i have yet to examine the mini-site which may supply them.

The 'fly-trap' and 'bell' are fascinatingly cryptic.

 

[rynner2]

The 'fly-trap' and 'bell' are fascinatingly cryptic.

Yep. Never heard of them before.

Quite a good production so far.

 

[rynner2]

Quite a good production so far.

..and getting better!

( 2 hour UFO prog with ad breaks only every 20 minutes! )

 

[mothman8]

I actually thought it was quite poor. Why, because some of the folk he talked to appeared to be stringing him along. The way they showed the Lenny Zomora case was bad. Never have I ever read that he saw and ' disk ' shaped object and he also never saw it flying before it landed. Once I saw that I thought ' google ' research job. The idea however that the CIA used the UFO phenomenon to their benefit was interesting but doesn't require 2 hours to get across and has been sugested many times before. That hovering triangle model thing at the end was good.

 

[Jerry_B]

I too thought it was very poor. Smacked of Google 'research' and perhaps occasionaly reading of 'Above Top Secret'. I also agree that the Zamorra incident was skewed by the graphics stuff to make it all fit into the saucer hypothesis. He also made a few sweeping claims, and didn't really seem to be thinking about the whole angle of whether people who report seeing 'something' are actually seeing anything, even if it sounds 'unexplainable'. And he also fell into the illogical argument trap of the cattle mutilations conspiracy.

The fact that he mentioned more than once that he was a journalist made me actually wonder what he really does all day when he gets to work Making coffee and doing photocopies, perhaps...?

 

[Cavynaut]

I actually thought it was quite poor. Why, because some of the folk he talked to appeared to be stringing him along. The way they showed the Lenny Zomora case was bad. Never have I ever read that he saw and ' disk ' shaped object and he also never saw it flying before it landed.

The Zamora case pissed me off a bit also. As far as I recall, the object seen was more of a 'squashed bullet shape' and Zamora also referred to an insignia on the side of the craft. Seems to me that Cook was trying to make the evidence fit his solution. Very disappointing.

And another thing. The Russian 'jellyfish' sighting. Cook implied that it was because of that case that Andropov (as top bloke in the KGB) initiated a high level investigation into Russian UFO's. Cook says that it was probably due to a secret rocket test. Okay, I can buy that, but surely Andropov would have known, or would have at the very least been informed after the event. So why would that incident impell him to order such a large investigation?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

I was disappointed.

The best way I can sum it up is that the argument was built in the same way "scientific" evidence is presented in skin cream ads - a series of statements which may or may not have any connections linked largely by their sequential appearance in the same piece.

Foo fighters >> Sudetenland experiments >> Roswell

and on and on with little attempt to show that the Germans were up to something and that the US did get their hands on it.

You could have told a far tighter story using exactly the same evidence to show that the UFO phenomena is actually a collection of discrete and potentially unrelated incidents. It would have worked better as a series on Discovery looking at aspects of teh UFO Phenomena raher than trying to prove a secret technology/disinfo-type theory.

I was also unhappy with some of the visual evidence - they flashed up pictures with no explanation of what they were. Reconstructions were thrown in with period photos which may or may not have had some bearing on what was being talked about at the time. I think we can all cope with a little subtitle explaining things without the flow bein disrupted too much. At one point (I think when discussing the Zamora case) and they flashed up a series of period photos of flying saucer-like objects presumably more as set dressing but with no explanation it could be misleading.

I do agree that the "flytrap" and other claims for Nazi UFO experiments were interesting - if anyone has any more information on this aspect then feel free to start a new thread on it (I did a quick Google and didn't anything useful.

 

[Jerry_B]

I don't think the whole 'Nazi UFO' thing should be taken seriously. Even stuff about the 'Flytrap' is highly conjectural. For some reason we have to believe that the Nazis were capable of operating such highly manouverable 'aircraft' (i.e. in the 1942 case given in the prog), but yet never used it in any offensive way. This tends also to contradict the fact that known use of guided weapons by the Luftwaffe weren't all that successful. The 'logic' behind these sorts of theories always falls flat - somehow we have to believe that such weapons/vehicles were operational but never used, even in times of dire need. Thus, they were never used offensively by the Nazis when they were most needed, and likewise (when such aircraft were in the hands of the US) were never used during various conflicts (i.e. the Vietnam War). The idea that all of this stuff was built but never used seems somewhat ridiculous.

Again, the programme never tended to question the processes that may be behind events that people claimed to have witnessed. WRT WWII pilots, all sorts of claims were made by aircrew about even conventional aircraft (aircraft types, odd paint/camo schemes, etc.) - none of which had any substance.

There's also the illogicality of some points - for example, one the one hand we're led to believe that UFOs could possibly be ultra-secret US aircraft. But then for some reason these are flown at night over the US capital in large numbers...

Seems to me that the programme followed the same woolly line of thinking that one often sees in on-line sites and various books about UFOs, especially those that deal with the whole 'advanced technology' theories.

WRT the photos the Russians showed him, these look very much like missile launch and associated phenomena:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050928.html

 

[rynner2]

While I agree with many of the criticisms above, I nevertheless found it a good, thought-provoking program.

An important point in its favour is that it was not just another woolly debunking program, sniggering at the poor deluded nutcases who thought they saw something weird in the sky.

Nick Cook accepted that there are real sightings of anomalous craft and activity, and attempted to come up with an explanation. Maybe the explanantion wasn't one you agree with, and a bit too much 'one size fits all', but it's possible that this documentary will lead, in future, to the whole UFO thing being taken much more seriously by the media.

Which would be a Good Thing. 8)

 

[Jerry_B]

Well, that may not be so - after all, the 'real sightings of anomalous craft and activity' may be nothing of the sort. Yes, some people claimed to have seen various things that seem 'odd', but that doesn't mean that what they say is describing anything of substance, let alone some sort of nuts&bolts object.

I don't think this sort of programme will do the subject any favours. It was barking up too many wrong trees IMHO And even a cursory glance through the subject on-line would come up with pretty much the same sort of stuff.

 

[rynner2]

Well, that may not be so - after all, the 'real sightings of anomalous craft and activity' may be nothing of the sort. Yes, some people claimed to have seen various things that seem 'odd', but that doesn't mean that what they say is describing anything of substance, let alone some sort of nuts&bolts object.

That is a bit dismissive. Cook says he has interviewed thousands of pilots in his career as a journalist. And pilots, as one of them pointed out, are very aware of anything out of the ordinary in their airspace, because it may at least be a collision hazard, or it might even be a hostile enemy craft.

The strength of this documentary is that much of the evidence presented did come from pilots, and that so many of them do 'claim' to have seen strange things. These claims deserve to be treated with respect.

Whether the the things seen do represent nuts'n'bolts objects or something more strange is a matter for debate, but the important thing is to respect the sightings, made by men whose lives depend on them being observant and vigilant.

 

[wembley8]

We do seem to be in re-hash land here. The Nazi flying saucer things has been done and debunked to death it just keeps coming back. No matter how many witnesses and sources get discredited there will always be more.

Cook is a major aviation journalist and has done some very good work, but it was never going to get him a 2-hour show of his own on TV, whereas this did. There is a fine balance between exploring and sensationalising; maybe his producer insisted on something with a bit more appeal than straight factual stuff. So, Roswell has to be mysterious...
But I still can't forgive him his book on antigravity flying saucers.

It's good having accounts from credible witnesses, but even the best trained observers are human and are subject to the usual human limitations.

 

[Twin_Star]

Anyone else think the 8,000MPH globe-circling contrail, captured by a (Chinese?) Met Sat was the coolest thing?

 

[Heckler]

He did seem to protest "I am a defence journalist." at nauseatingly regular intervals (just in case we forgot).

 

[Rubyait]

Anyone else think the 8,000MPH globe-circling contrail, captured by a (Chinese?) Met Sat was the coolest thing?

Yeah that was cool. Also got to see more clips of the Blackbird, still looks new and what a plane!

 

[azuredoor]

Yeah, brilliant, a feckin contrail of something going 8000mph. Hardly out of this world.

The only thing good about this program was the fact that Cook admitted that there is some properly inexplicable sightings made by witnesses of the highest reliability and expertise.

The fly trap was pure crap, also the stuff about the military having designed and built flying saucers. The saucer design was found to be inherently unstable and noone ever got it to work. Besides, saucers are only one of the many designs reported by people. Many of the designs are completely un-aerodynamic which would make sense if they are space vehicles.

Don't get me wrong I am sure that many people do mistake weather balloons and test vehicles for UFOs and I have seen many things myself that could easily be mistaken for an alien craft. But there is a good lot of sightings which cannot be mistaken for anything manmade or natural. Sightings by people who are experts in Astronomy, Aircraft identification , meteorology etc. and I am glad that Cook was balanced in this regard.

 

[barfing_pumpkin]

I gotta say I enjoyed the programme, even though some of the details concernering individual cases were wrong. Nevertheless, it gave me a chance to bore my girlfriend shitless by explaining how Lonnie Zamora actually witnessed a capsule-like craft and not a saucer etc...

The CGI reconstructions were pretty good in my opinion - especially the saucer skimming and swooping over the desert - and though flawed in many respects, it was still nice to see a programme that actually took the subject fairly seriously.

 

[Jerry_B]

That is a bit dismissive. Cook says he has interviewed thousands of pilots in his career as a journalist. And pilots, as one of them pointed out, are very aware of anything out of the ordinary in their airspace, because it may at least be a collision hazard, or it might even be a hostile enemy craft.
The strength of this documentary is that much of the evidence presented did come from pilots, and that so many of them do 'claim' to have seen strange things. These claims deserve to be treated with respect.

Why? We shouldn't automatically assume that when a pilot claims to see something, that they have indeed seen something. As I said before, WWII crews reported all sorts of fictiticious stuff. Even the pilot reports in Blue Book should be taken with a pinch of salt (and they weren't buried under alot of secrecy, as Cook claimed). Pilots and other aircrew are only human, after all. And that means that they can be mistaken.

 

[feen5]

Why? We shouldn't automatically assume that when a pilot claims to see something, that they have indeed seen something

And we also should not assume that every strange thing seen by pilots is a bird, a man made object or a mistake. Of all the thousands of sightings made by pilots why should all of them dismissed out of hand just because some perhaps most will make mistakes.

 

[plusk]

Hi azure,

Your comment about the "fly trap" seems a bit harsh. The guy who led Nick Cook to it, Igor Witkowski, is a highly respected author with a lot of military titles to his credit as well as UFO stuff. The books he has published in Poland are crammed full of original research - from US, British, German and Polish military archives - much more so than any Western ufologist I can think of. His material on the "fly trap" is well-researched and very thought-provoking. Great shame it hasn't been published in English.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Hi azure,

Your comment about the "fly trap" seems a bit harsh. The guy who led Nick Cook to it, Igor Witkowski, is a highly respected author with a lot of military titles to his credit as well as UFO stuff. The books he has published in Poland are crammed full of original research - from US, British, German and Polish military archives - much more so than any Western ufologist I can think of. His material on the "fly trap" is well-researched and very thought-provoking. Great shame it hasn't been published in English.

Thanks for the name - I've started a new thread on this guy:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23784

 

[Jerry_B]

And we also should not assume that every strange thing seen by pilots is a bird, a man made object or a mistake. Of all the thousands of sightings made by pilots why should all of them dismissed out of hand just because some perhaps most will make mistakes.

Perhaps, perhaps not.

But my point was that we shouldn't take pilot reports as wrote because they're just as prone to making mistakes as anyone else. Remember also that what makes something appear 'strange' to any given percipient is partly based on the percipient's mind in the first place. As with any witness in this sort of situation, the mind of whoever's seeing something plays as much a part as the basic evaluation the eye, brain, etc. makes when looking at any given object. If there's actually an object there in the first place

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Its also worth pointing out that all the pilots are reporting is a UFO - an unidentified Flying Object. Although one would hope that a pilot (with all their experience) would have a better chance of indentifying flying objects than the general populace it only ups their odds and doesn't make them infallible. It doesn't mean they've seen earthlights, secret military technology, alien spaceships, etc.

 

[plusk]

Maybe ME

But pilots do go through psychological evaluation before being recruited, precisely to ensure they are not prone to making errors of judgement.
A relative of mine is a commercial pilot. One night when a bit tiddly, he did confess that pilots often see UFOs and are under instructions to keep quiet about what they see.

 

[Jerry_B]

But that doesn't make them infallible - they're still human, after all.

 

[Jerry_B]

FYI, here's some aircrew sightings (amongst others) from 'Blue Book' that are considered 'unknowns':

http://www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/unknowns.htm

Just bear in mind that a mundane explantion could not be found for these reports as far as the people involved in the case analysis were concerned, but that this doesn't automatically make them 'odd' or = 'spaceships', etc etc.

 

[plusk]

By the same token, sightings which were dismissed by the observer as lightning flashes, atmospheric phenomena etc. might be actually have been UFOs.

My personal involvement in this is that I have seen a UFO - a metallic-looking bell-shaped vehicle which hovered in one place for 2 minutes and then took off in a speed and manner which no conventional aircraft could match. The sighting was at 3.15 pm on a bright summer's day with barely a cloud in the sky. It was no more than 1,000 feet up.

I am not a pilot or a trained observer, but I do get really pee'd off when the few people I've told about this go on about seeing and misinterpreting things.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

By the same token, sightings which were dismissed by the observer as lightning flashes, atmospheric phenomena etc. might be actually have been UFOs.

Well possibly but they are more likely to be lightning flashes, atmospheric phenomena, etc.

My personal involvement in this is that I have seen a UFO - a metallic-looking bell-shaped vehicle which hovered in one place for 2 minutes and then took off in a speed and manner which no conventional aircraft could match. The sighting was at 3.15 pm on a bright summer's day with barely a cloud in the sky. It was no more than 1,000 feet up.

I am not a pilot or a trained observer, but I do get really pee'd off when the few people I've told about this go on about seeing and misinterpreting things.

But of course the definition of a UFO includes the idea you may have misinterpretted something "known".

 

[azuredoor]

Hi plusk, yeah you're right, probably a bit harsh but it just pisses me off that people are prepared to believe that the nazis had all this amazing technology that we can't even replicate today, yet they refuse to listen to countless credible witnesses who see serious 'technology' .

The nazis were good at rockets, and nuclear physics, that's it, they didn't have anything special otherwise they would have kicked our asses in the war.

And also the way that they said that they just got loads of electricity and pumped it into a ring structure and made flying saucers float or sent up foo fighters from it. I don't buy it. The polish guy was like, yeah, the cables were as thick as a man's arm, brilliant, hi technology thick cables. Just seems to be no more impressive than one one of those floating pens on a magnet, and about as useful.

There seem to be a lot of people out there who think that buy producing loads of electricity you're gonna make a UFO. No you're not, you're gonna get a lot of magnetism and a lot of heat, that's it, no magic.

There is no anitgravity effect in those bloody 'lifters' either, it's just the ion wind, why do you think they use balsa wood and aluminum, instead of something substantial? Ion drives are a good propulsion system in space but you would need hideous amounts of power to lift anything substantial off the ground with them.

Sorry, I know I am ranting, not in a good mood, my cat died and I have the cold.