This 1982 "expose" of the UFO phenemenon is the most irritatingly blinkered alleged debunking imaginable. Attempting to portray "scientific" sceptics as truthsayers and ufo witnesses as either hallucinating, confabulating, or simply mistaken, this NOVA episode is victim of its own illogic - what method there is amounts to little more than a one sided ad hominem attack. The veracity of ufo experiencers' accounts is never once acknowledged as a possibility, while the so-called explanations of skeptics is never seriously questioned even when they have nothing to do with the situation or circumstance they are supposedly rendering moot.
Weather "anomalies", "angels", "plasma vortices" "Venus", "balloons", lousy camera work, etc. are trotted out as "evidence" to call into question the accounts and photographic documentation of those who perpetuate the "myth" of the ufo. In every case, eye witnesses are ignorant of the "real" cause of these extraordinary events which scientific skeptics can readily explain away as of mundane terrestrial origin.
If Philip Klass and his ilk are your cup of tea, this video will be a real treat. But if, like me, you think that self appointed guardians of the flat earth mentality are tedious and irrelevant, you will watch this with a growing skepticism and, I think, conclude that these "experts" are myopic dogmatists and not scientists at all.
Fascinating Are we alone in this universe where billions upon billions of galaxies exist? Probably not, but most people need proof in order to believe it. This video tries to debunk the myths of UFO's, saying that it is mostly our imagination and superstition that causes our belief in UFOs or extraterrestrials. It tires hard to explain some of the UFO sightings, but at the same time, falls short in its explanations. For example, the story about the forest worker who claimed he was abducted by aliens. The scientist in the video says he had an hallucination, but doesn't explain why he had the "hallucination" in the first place or how his co-workers saw the UFO too. The video tires to be too scientific, and there's nothing wrong with that. But science can go only so far. Yes, most of the UFO sightings are not real UFOs. Although most people like to believe they are, they are not. But there are still a few sightings and experinces that go beyond scientific explanation. This video is probably worth the rental price, although one might be able to catch it on PBS one of these days. It does a good job is destroying UFO myths, but still falls short.
Interesting, although too one-sided This is an older Nova episode, from 1982. It's real easy to tell from watching this particular episode, UFOs: Are We Alone, that this is from the early 1980s. Although informative, as in many different topics Nova has covered through the years, my biggest complaint is this the subject covered here is almost completely one-sided, that from the skeptic's point of view. You only get people like Philip Klass and the likes here, but you don't get UFO supporters Stanton Friedman or Budd Hopkins. One example of being so slanted to the skeptics was the UFO sighting in New Zealand near the end of 1978 where the skeptics were convinced the UFO was actually city lights from Wellington, even though it was a few hundred miles away. They even try to justify the alien abduction of Travis Walton as little else than hallucination. Certainly it's easy to to justify some of the UFO photos as fakes, but you can't say that to all of them. By the way, the voice of the narrator sounds a bit familiar to me on this particular episode of Nova. Although no mention of who narrated the program, I am very certain it was Tim White, a whole ten years before the TV series Sightings. Although UFOs: Are We Alone is well made, I can only recommend this one to the skeptics. If you want something more fair and balanced, look elsewhere.
Well-Done, if biased, UFO documentary One of the problems which exists for people who want to learn more about the UFO phenomenon is figuring out which books and videos are trustworthy on the subject, and which books and videos are done by con artists or "true believers" who are simply looking to make a quick buck. This well-done documentary produced in the early 1980's by the respected PBS-TV science series "Nova" is one of the videos that you can take seriously - up to a point. The video is well-researched and it interviews several of the most famous ufo researchers and debunkers of that era. Additionally, the video also examines several well-known UFO sightings and cases from the 1960's and 1970's, including the sighting made by a New Zealand TV crew while flying in a plane off of New Zealand in the late seventies (they captured the strange object on film, it was shown around the world); and the incident in 1979 in Minnesota in which a policeman claimed that his patrol car was "hit" by a huge ball of light which left him with vision problems and which damaged his car - the photos of the damage are shown in the documentary. It's all well-done, but "Nova" has long had an anti-UFO bias, and it's painfully clear in what the documentary covers that they're trying to dismiss the phenomenon. They cover several UFO hoaxes, and although they're never able to explain the New Zealand or Minnesota UFO incidents, they nonetheless leave you with the strong impression that there's just GOT to be a rational explanation for the two incidents, although they can't seem to find it. The two primary men who are interviewed for the documentary are Allan Hendry, who was then the chief investigator for CUFOS (Center for UFO Studies), one of the most respected pro-UFO groups in America. Hendry defends UFO research as a "serious" undertaking, and he hardly comes across as a UFO "nut". The other person interviewed is Philip Klass, America's leading debunker and bane of anything related to UFOs. Overall, this is a solid UFO documentary, but just be sure to watch for the bias.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
