We
couldn't help but laugh out loud at the newest History Channel TV show,
UFO Hunters . . .
Schadenfreude is the most base of human emotions.
However, this particular reviewer couldn’t help but
laugh out loud at the so-called “UFO hunters” of the new History Channel
show of the same name desperately clasping at straws towards the end of
the pilot episode. That was when it became apparent that, well, they had
nothing. No evidence of the existence of UFOs whatsoever. The words
“could” and “inconclusive” were bandied around simply too much to prove
anything.
This is after running around an entire episode of 50
minutes or so trying to collect “UFO slag” samples from the bottom of the
ocean near Washington Bay and pointlessly rushing from one point of the
map to the other in their black SUV to solve a sixty years old UFO
sighting. Best of all is their “HQ”, which is portentously located in an
astronomical observatory. Keep watching the skies, indeed. In one
particularly funny sequence they are going through some newspaper
clippings on microfiche from the 1940’s dealing with UFO sightings at
their local library, excitedly exclaiming how this all validates their
search for the existence of UFOs. At any stage I expected one of them to
cry out “Quick! To the Batcave!”
So don’t believe a single word of the show’s press. UFO
Hunters, the press release informs us, “follows a group of experts as they
subject some of history’s most intriguing UFO accounts, and the evidence
surrounding them, to exhaustive scrutiny in an effort to uncover the
actual facts.”
Some “experts”! Not a single UFO sceptic was on
display, but this should come as no surprise by now. UFO believers always
complain that they are being short-shrifted by the media, but have you
ever watched a fair-minded documentary on UFOs in which real scientists
such as Carl Sagan or perhaps Richard Dawkins were allowed some screen
time in which to question the existence of UFOs? Of course not.
|
"The sort of camerawork that will have you rolling on the floor
having an epileptic seizure . . ." |
Instead we get the one sensationalist “UFOs are real
and abducted your dog last night!” “documentary” after the other. Always
much more exciting to give credence to the existence of unlikely phenomena
such as ghosts, UFOs and the Loch Ness monster than to admit to the fact
that the odds of any civilization having the technology to travel the
enormous distances between star systems are very, very small. And if they
did, that they would probably wouldn’t bother anally probing some redneck
hick.
So it was kinda depressing to see a respected channel
as such the History Channel screening the usual hysterical UFO agitprop
stuff you’d find on any other American TV station. Aren’t they supposed to
be vaguely objective? But you know that all notions of objectivity are
thrown out of the window when all the “experts” featured in the show
happen to be the editorial staff of the longest running print UFO magazine
called just that, UFO Magazine.
If they wanted some credibility how
about throwing in at least one Scully to all the assembled Mulders?
Probably because then viewers would realize what a bunch of bullshit it
all really is and switch channels. Thus not one editorial staff member of,
let’s say, Scientific American was on display. . .
Despite its one-sidedness, the show is also an ordeal
to watch. Add to your standard portentous voice-over narration, the sort
of editing and camerawork that will have you rolling on the floor having
an epileptic seizure, and you’ll be reaching for your remote in no time to
see what else is on. Better yet to switch it off and read something,
preferably Carl Sagan’s chapter on UFOs in his book Broca’s Brain
than watch this load of old slag . . .
