In all fairness I have to say not only was I close but also surprised.
This segment started out exactly as I had suspected. The first mistake was when the narrator Ju Ju Chang stated that the people to be interviewed all “believe in UFOs”.
That set my teeth on edge right there. Not only was I now convinced I was in store for more half-assed reporting and segment direction. To say someone believes in UFOs is absurd. You cannot believe in a UFO as UFO means only Unidentified Flying Object. It’s a scientific term meaning something flying that convention cannot explain. The more proper statement would have been that the persons to be interviewed “believe they’ve been in contact with extraterrestrials”. See, it’s best to say that some UFOs are theorized to be of extraterrestrial origin. There are many theories as to what some UFOs may be.
Next the segment moved onto a more stable approach by finally letting abductees relate their experiences. Chang asked some safe but important questions but they were so lightweight they left more questions than answers. It might have served ABC and the public more if the full subject of abduction were addressed and to what solid scientific methods have, are, and should be employed to validate the phenomena. Has anyone been fitted with a tracking device like we use for convicts who are under house arrest? If not, why not? How long has the phenomenon been going on? How widespread is it?
This segment only safely surfed the issue and the director/producer just had to use quick cuts to movies and unexplained photographs. In other words it was dressed up to within an inch of it’s life as a UFO entertainment piece instead of an informative look on one of the most widespread phenomena of our age. Of course it had to segue’ into what the psychiatric professionals had to evaluate and instead of discussing the findings of the most important psychiatrist to look into the issue, they glance over it to more speculation and nebulous conclusions.
The level of sloppiness wasn’t as high as I had expected although close. It was more of an approach that said the issue is important enough to warrant a glance but no teeth got sunk into this shark.
Dr. Susan Clancy and her evaluation of the phenomena is again so far off base regarding the types of abductions and the wide array of circumstances that to us who have studied, she sounds like a kindergarten colleague. She may mean well, but she’s got a heck of a lot of homework to do. She states that the people she’s examined or interviewed aren’t crazy and that’s what several experts have stated during the past 10 years or so. This is in contrast to what used to be done to people not only who’ve claimed to have been abducted but also just witnesses, as in the old days they would have been sent to a psychiatric hospital and I would have said, or worse, but I can’t think of anything worse than being sent to a psychiatric hospital other than being sent to one in Siberia.
Will this news segment open up dialogue? Hopefully it will but only if that dialogue moves in the direction of the solid application of real science and real detective work. We need that science and detective work to get to the bottom of this issue as well as weed out the charlatans.
The ride ain’t over yet folks.
