UFO HUNTERS - Arizona Lights

History Channel - 12/10/08

What was seen in the skies over Phoenix Arizona on the night of March 13, 1997?  Is it something alien, or a top secret government project?  That night, thousands of witnesses saw a wedge-like shape of bright lights hovering "over" the city.  Earlier in the night, a boomerang-shaped craft was seen over other parts of the state -- sometimes hovering, sometimes moving at incredible speeds.  The craft was said to be up to a mile wide.  Though witnesses claim the lights were otherworldly, the government says they were flares dropped by the Maryland National Guard (see Lights Over Phoenix in a previous review).  A councilwoman who suggested an investigation was ridiculed and harassed.  The state governor seemed about to look into it, and then brought out a man in an alien costume for a press conference, setting off more laughter and derision.  The night in question, a witness described the lights coming on in an arc, and then going out in the same order they came on in.  He says they look nothing like the flares he'd seen before.  He thinks they could have been 1) a hoax, 2) an alien craft (which he says unlikely), or 3) a military experiment.  Expert Ted plans to test the military's flare explanation.

A psychiatrist says that she'd seen such lights before in the months leading up to the sighting.  She describes the events that night as not flickering like flares, but "orbs."  Another witness and his wife first saw lights on the 10th of March.  They do not believe they're flares, either.  Ted explains that flares may look different under different atmospheric conditions.  He sets up a test using maritime parachute flares off of Longbeach, CA.  The witnesses say Ted's flares look different from what they saw -- the other lights hovered.  (This fact was disproved by Lights Over Phoenix; the lights did move, and eventually disappeared behind the mountains.)  The crew then goes on to interview witnesses of the boomerang-shaped craft with five lights.  One witness describes a huge, black shape with an undulating surface, which the show then recreates with CGI.  The show then digresses to try to compare the 1997 sightings to local petroglyphs, 1000 years old -- though crew members point out the symbols on the rocks could as easily be stars (or something else) as UFOs.  They then talk to a scientist/researcher/article writer who says there are some triangular rigid-hull experimental airships (as big as a football field) in experimental use by the military.  They may have been developed for special forces ops, and no pictures exist -- nor will such craft be revealed while they present an advantage to our military.

An interview with the former governor reveals that he was concerned about the intensity of interest in the event, and set up the "alien" interview spoof to defuse the situation. He tried too look into the incident, but got a "no comment" from the air force (which the show takes as an admission that something was there).  In an earlier interview, he also admitted that he saw the strange huge craft on the night in question.  He describes it as "otherworldly."  The crew of the show is split whether the craft is alien or conventional but secret.  The show seems to conclude that the lights could not have been flares.  Personally, I think the UH crew should have done better researsh on this point, or at least watched UFOS Over Phoenix.

UFO HUNTERS - The Real Roswell

History Channel - 12/3/08

The UH team goes to Roswell, NM to follow up on old leads and dig up new witnesses -- while they still can.  The show starts with a recap of the Roswell story from the initial report to the Friedman research tp  the recent Air Force report debunking the incident.  Working with local researchers, the crew points out that time is running out on the witnesses -- as, one by one, they're dying off due to old age.  One new witness is Earl Fulford, who was at the Roswell airbase at the time, but never spoke about it until now.  He says he saw floating objects in the sky near the airbase before the crash; circular objects that hung motionless in the sky and then disappeared -- perhaps a week or ten days before the crash.  Later, Earl went with with members of the base to pick up unusual debris from a crash 70 miles NW of Roswell.  As part of the UH team takes Earl to see the crash site, other parts of the team research the Plains of San Augustin, site of another alleged crash during the same time period.  They also look for debris from the crash that may have been hidden in caves by local farmers.  (The team finds caves, but no debris.)

Earl describes picking up a strange metal-like substance, and -- in the most interesting part of the episode -- the team sets up an experiment to see if they can determine what he and the others recovered.  Meanwhile, another local researcher has debris from the second site that seems highly unusual; the team takes the twisted blob of something to be tested.  In the crash metal test, UH takes a handful of different metals, cardboard, and plastic-like substances.  They then have two witnesses who claim to have touched the substance -- Earl and Jesse Marcel Junior -- examine the samples in independent viewings.  Both men pick silver acetate as being very similar to what they encountered.  It has the right consistency and it springs back to its original shape when crumpled.  And while acetate was available at the time, the government document about Project Mogul, the supposed explanation for the crash, says that mylar was used in the Mogul targets, not acetate.  (Although, when I was in art school, the terms were used almost interchangably -- and what they show as acetate is what I picture when I hear the word "mylar.")  The mysterious melted substance found in the 2nd crash site turns out to be HDPE - a plastic used in Tupperware, fuel tanks, and aircraft windows.  Oddly, the plastic only melts at 250% farenheit, too hot for normal desert conditions.  (Though it seems to me that the investigators have ignored potential, manmade causes of melting -- like bonfires.)

Though the show tries to draw conclusions about the artifact found and the "memory metal" test -- seeming to imply that the things encountered had not been invented at the time they were found -- the fact that both objects had very ordinary explanations seems to me to bely this argument.  In a sad coda to the story, Earl Fulford (81) passed away before the show was aired -- adding to the show's eerie warning about the witnesses to the event dying of old age.

UFOS OVER EARTH: Mass Sightings in Mexico (2008)

Discovery Channel - Original Air Date: 11/24/08

The MUFON crew goes to Mexico City to investigate the huge number of sighting constantly coming from south of the US border.  Is it possible that one place can consistently have so many "genuine" UFO sightings?  Or is it more likely that the culture of Mexico -- which features a very popular UFO-sighting show -- is making people mistake more mundane objects for truly strange things?  After interviewing witnesses, the group decides to focus on three incidents: a videographer who works with Jaime Maussan (ultra-popular UFO show host) and consistently sells UFO footage, a witness who turned in very clear photographs of a daytime sighting, and an incident where a UFO landed atop a hill and made the local lights flicker in time with its pulsing.

The videographer has a lot of interesting-looking shots, most of them taken from the roof atop his studio.  The roof is a good viewing area, as it has a 360-degree view of Mexico City.  And as the group tours the roof, they spot something mysterious in the sky.  The videographer whips out his camera and captures what becomes known on YouTube as the "Morphing UFO" footage.  It all seems too convienient--and indeed, it is too convenient, as the MUFON group has set up this sighting to test the ability of the videographer (and Jaime) to differentiate mundane objects in the sky from truly unidentified ones.  This "UFO" is actually a group of mylar balloons released by another MUFON member in a nearby park.  The videographer fails the test, and Jaime insists that he trusts the man implicitly, even after the MUFON folks have revealed their hoax.  Ironically, a coda to the episode notes that the hoax video is now a very popular "real" video on YouTube.  Sorry, folks, it's just a bunch of balloons (and if you don't believe me, watch this show).

Jaime's tendency to trust too willngly shows up again in the next sighting, in which a young man claims to have photographed a hovering disc several times during one day, and then again several weeks later.  The photos are very sharp, and -- at first -- seem convincing.  The MUFON folks, though (rightly) distrust pictures that are too clear, and soon discrepancies crop up in the young man's story.  For one thing, the time stamps on the shots from his camera don't match the time frame he says they were taken in; the total time of the incident being about three minutes, though one of the photos was taken the better part of an hour after an ealier shot in the same series.  Also, the second sighting photos show signs of having been tampered with -- the UFO has apparently been pasted into the sky.  Confronted with these facts, the witness feigns ignorance, and Jaime claims to still believe him.  The MUFON folks (rightly, I think) conclude that the witness has faked the photos to get on Jaime's UFO-sighting show.  Jaime, unfortunately, is invested in his franchise and "wants to believe" more than he wants to know the truth.

Next, the group travels to the town where a UFO landed on a mountaintop and caused the local power grid to flicker on and off.  Using their CGI capability, the MUFON folks recreate what they think the sighting looked like -- based on the stories they've heard.  They then show the simulation to the community.  When they do , they discover a huge discrepancy between the stories and what the actual witnesses report: in reality, the "UFO" didn't fly over the town, but appeared glowing atop the local hills.  The crew tracks down the young man who took the (impressive) video of the incident.  The photographer shows them where he took the film, and states that he thought it was some kind of transformer short, rather than a UFO.  And it turns out that there is a series of power towers right where the "UFO" was sighted.  Taking the film to an expert in power line and grid problems, the group confirms that the report is entirely consistent with some kind of short circuit in the grid.  (The expert says that a thick tree limb fallen across the lines might cause shorts for days before finally burning away.)

So, on this episode, we have three cases that prove to be entirely mundane: one mistaken identity (by a too credulous vidographer and TV show host), one hoax, and one unusual but by no means unexplainable event.  This is like getting a "not haunted" conclusion on a ghost hunting show -- something far too rare on television.  Since this episode aired back-to-back with the series premier (at least I hope it will be a series), it allows folks like me to form an impression of what the continuing show may be like.  And I'm impressed.  Unlike the other UFO shows regularly on the air, this show seems more concerned with finding out the truth than with building UFO mythology (a mythology that fuels a multi-million dollar "believers" enterprise).  In fact, members of the investigation even state this as one of their goals: to find the truth, not build myth.  As someone who has complained long and loudly about other shows building myth, I'm very happy to see this development.  And I hope that when/if this show continues, it will continue to operate in this same way -- calling the incidents as they see them. (Like the drone hoax, also mentioned in this episode.)  It might be helpful, though, if MUFON would put up a page of UFO Hoaxes or Debunked Cases on their sight -- so that people would know what to look for and not believe so quickly. (Like the "ghost lights" that are showin being launched in one of the show's cut shots -- which are something that most believers have probably never heard about or seen.)  After all, as this episode proves with its "morphing UFO" footage, some people will believe a myth, even when the truth is right before their eyes.

UFOS OVER EARTH: Bucks County Flap (2008)

Discovery Channel - Original Air Date: 11/24/08

There's a new player in the UFO hunt, though it remains to be seen whether this show will be a perennial player, or if it's just a flash in the pan (I.E. a pilot that doesn't pan out -- Disc. seems to be showing a lot of "one shots" in their Monday night time slot right now).  This episode looks at a spate of recent (spring and summer 2008) sightings in Pensylvania.  After interviewing a number of witnesses, the investigators -- all members of MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) -- narrow their focus to two witnesses.  One is a retiree, who seems very credible and has no obvious reason to make up his two sightings, and the other is a woman who claims both multiple sightings and to have pictures of the alleged UFO.  Unfortunately, the first witness has no actual proof, just a compelling story.  So the MUFON folks recreate his sighting using their CGI equipment, and filddle with the simulation until the witness approves the octagonal-shaped craft and the sighting conditions.

The woman witness proves both more interesting and problematic.  Her picture evidence is unimpressive (the usual blurred lights), and one image even seems to match up to the position of the moon and Jupiter on the night in question.  Additionally, she claims to have seen some kind of glittering dust falling from the UFO into one of the trees in her yard, only to have the dust then return to the UFO.  Despite claiming that this phenomnon lasted 20 minutes, she has no photos.  The group takes cuttings from the tree and sends them to a scientist, who claims that the tree was subjected to radiation which caused mutation in the leaves.  Fortunately (for science), the group then sends the sample to another expert, who says the first expert is totally wrong; there is no evidence of either radiation or mutation.  I was impressed by this, as most shows of this kind consistently fail to get a second opinion -- prefering to go with the most sensational finding (and dubious expert) possible.  The group also re-creates the woman's sighting, and she is very moved by the compupter-generated recreation.  This makes the group believe that she is sincere, though they retain some skepticism about her report.  This would be my only reservation about this episode -- that they give a witness more leeway than perhaps they should.  (To me, at least, the dust part of her sighting seems more like a waking dream.)  Fortunately, the MUFON folks make up for this lapse of "toughness" in the Mexico show.  (See following review.)

This show is to MUFON what UFO Hunters is to UFO Magazine -- that is, the program seems to be built around the people in the group and their interests.  And I have to say, from what I've seen so far, I find this show much more interesting.  Where UFO Hunters (the History Channel one, not the SciFi series which had one show and then disappeared -- seemingly for good) is built around UFO mythology and "investigating" classic sightings -- nearly all of which seem to be more than 20 years old.  This show is tackling sightings that are current (2008 as this is written).  I find the immediacy much more compelling.  The witnesses have had less time to become "set" in their stories, or to forget or embelish details.  (Though, as regular readers know, I don't put a lot of stock in witness reports; see the review of Unsolved History: Roswell - a.k.a. UFOs Over America for a scientific study of witness' memory.)  Also, the MUFON crew seems much more interested in finding out what's really happening than in building the UFO mythology.  In the Mexico show (see review), they even state this goal specifically.  So far, I'm favorably impressed.  The "crew" may not be as flashy and memorable as UFO Hunters or Ghost Hunters, but they're serious about their work and asking the hard questions that UFO Hunters -- for one -- seldom wants to ask.

A Nice Review of My Iron Man Novel

I just got a nice review of my Iron Man adaptation and thought I'd share it.

Here's the URL:

http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/sci-fi/capes-cowls-costumes-hey-kids-books/

You have to page down a bit to see the actual review.

But, in case you'd rather just check this blog entry, here's my cut 'n' paste of the review itself:

This summer's IRON MAN was, in my opinion, one of the best comic book movies made — certainly my current favorite, replacing the reigning champ of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE after 29 years. The beauty of the film — besides pitch-perfect acting and characterizations, seemingly effortless special effects, and the tight package in which it is all wrapped up — is the simplicity of the story: a man brought down by his own ego finding redemption through service to the world. The subtlety of his unfolding salvation provides the adult viewing experience that drew all those hundreds of millions dollars to the box office. For the young 'uns, it was the coolness of a guy who's been knocked down by bullies, but gets back up to fight back and win.

And that's how it plays in IRON MAN: THE JUNIOR NOVEL by Stephen Sullivan, featuring eight pages of photos from the film. Sullivan is faithful to the screenplay, while downplaying many of the too-grown-up motivations that might confuse his younger readers. It is, as I say, a good story and difficult to ruin, and Sullivan brings the right tone and style to keep things moving at a brisk pace that should keep even the kids who have seen the movie enthralled.

UFO HUNTERS - First Contact: Aurora, Texas

History Channel - Original Air Date: 11/19/08

A brief review, as this is another in the UFO Hunters' "mythos" shows -- with lots of story, speculation, and theory, and no real (incontrovertible) evidence.  The team goes to Texas to investigate an 1897 incident in which a UFO allegedly hit a windmill on a ranch.  The ranch's well water was said to be contaminated, and an alien body was supposedly buried in a nearby cemetery.  The end result is that the team discovers the well was closed for non-alien reasons, though there was metal (aluminum -- possibly from the windmill) found there and in the property.  An ancient tree also sets off a metal detector (possibly from "molten debris" embedded in its wood), and ground-penetrating radar seems to indicate an umarked grave in the spot indicated by legend.  Unfortunately, the team doesn't have authority to dig up the alleged grave.  So, again, a lot of poking around and speculating, but little else.  If you like UFO stories and little or no proof, this show remains the one for you.

Michelle Update

Here's an update about Michelle & her family (from her sister, who works in comics):

* Michelle has gotten her baby's body and had had the funeral. Real-life is weirder than anything I can come up with in the comic book. Michelle and her husband Rhene were arguing (once again) with the Hospital powers-that-be, when a Doctor RECOGNIZED Michelle from our appearance together in FHM magazine. The Doctor actually brought the magazine to her asking her to sign it -- as she was grieving! The upside to this? The Hospital administrators said, "Oh...she's kind ofa celebrity? Maybe she's good for the money." And they released baby Reinee's body to her -- but not before they had her write three post-dated checks, essentially giving her another two months or so to pay the debt.

* Thanks to some wonderful people contributing, we've raised over $3,800.00 toward the $9,000.00+ that Michelle needs. The first person to contribute was STAN LEE! Several Glass House Graphics artists contributed anywhere from $10 to $500. Some of the biggest fans of BANZAI GIRLS also contributed (you know who you are). One amazing fan contributed $1,000.00!!

We're still hoping to reach the $9,000.00 point and pay off Reinee's hospital and funeral bills.

We approached "The Hero Initiative" for help. They said, "We'll look into it and get back to you," but they never did follow-up.

Thank you to all who have contributed!

*

I'm sure they'll still acccept donations at: banzaigirlmc@gmail.com