Those among us who have staked their reputations and sometimes longevity on trying to make others aware that UFOs are a real mystery may have mouths agape today after CBS-TV's 60 Minutes went whole-hog UFO Sunday evening. While, yes, the subject was minimally touched upon when Robert Bigelow was interviewed some time back, this is the first opportunity the hard-hitting news show ever took over the decades to explore and emphasize the seriousness of the UFO (or UAP, what's your pleasure?) issue.
With millions of viewers still unfamiliar with the facts about UFO observations receiving a top-notch introduction to the subject on a commercial TV network, maybe those of us who endured years of catcalls from the uninitiated can finally shed adoring terms showered upon us -- you know the words, crackpot, lunatic, whack job, flim-flammers, etc.
Did anything in the report make me want to shout at the TV screen? Yes. I continue to marvel at experienced military personnel and legislators who fret that this enigma in the sky could be Russian or Chinese weapons? Whaaa...? Do they really not care or understand that these air / sea / land shows have been tracked visually and on radar since the 1940s, and observed by just plain folk way before that?
Forget Einstein. I think Charles Fort was closer to the truth. Perhaps property we are and property we shall always be.
Quick, get me a time machine so we can bring back from the departed Coral and Jim Lorenzen, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Major Donald E. Keyhoe, Richard Hall, Frank Edwards, Hal Starr and a literal plethora of original UFO researchers and investigators whose early work and pleas for understanding held far more value than a zillion stupid and regressive words from uninformed skeptics and professional debunkers.
Oh, I've no doubt whatsoever that those long-deceased veterans appreciative of real UFO science and legitimate UFO journalism would enthusiastically return just long enough to watch this unexpectedly welcome 60 Minutes report, affirming in spades that their efforts were important.
In TV terms, the account is big stuff for another reason. Those of you old enough to remember will recall when CBS presented its disastrous "documentary," entitled "UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy" in the 1960s, hosted by Walter Cronkite, which turned out to be nothing more than a pathetic hit piece for truth about the UFO phenomenon (and the government "helped," as we recall). A few years later, on December 4, 1976 I sat before the weekend TV screen, shaking my head over the nonsense spoon-fed by CBS-TV in a "Young People's Special" entitled, "Flying Saucers From Outer Space: What's it All About?"
Maybe, one hopes, CBS and other network news divisions have seen the light(s) at last, and will proceed with respectable journalism accordingly. ABC-TV can take a few hints from CBS as well, as its occasional hour-long UFO-related presentations have proven dreadful.
60 Minutes often tends to turn a societal key, and if changes regarding UFO publicity and facts are to expand, this report's potential effects on public attitudes certainly can't be overlooked.
Speaking of journalism, of sorts: Israel bombs a building allegedly housing the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and Hamas: My question -- If you're attempting to discriminate, regarding who eats the explosives, how can anybody at Bomb Central tell the difference among these triplets? Do birds of a feather blow up together?
