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Lesley

Grey Matter

4.15.8

It's Only TV - Get Over it!

Over the weeks that UFO Hunters has been on I have noticed something very strange, a few people actually feel the need to bash at it for not being "real Ufology."

I was truly amazed by that. People expect a weekly one hour show to do "real Ufology?" What planet are these people from? We don't even get real news from 24 hour news channels and they expect real Ufology?

There are some silly things on UFO Hunters and there are some interesting things too, much as I would expect from a TV Show. After all, there aren't months being spent on each episode to collect data and do in depth analysis of anything. It is doubtful that the people who edit the episodes even know what is Ufologically important and what isn't. This is TV ... it is entertainment. It isn't a documentary or book that someone spends months or even years on.

It isn't made for the few hundred people who are involved in Ufology and know a lot about the incidents investigated on the show, it is for the mass audience.

The vast majority of people in Ufology seem to be like me, they understand it is a TV show and they don't expect too much from anything on TV. Maybe they understand the limited time available to put these shows together and that there just isn't the time for in-depth investigation. I would imagine anyone who has ever been involved in TV, in any way, would understand that.

However, the ones that feel the need to gripe about the show time after time begin to sound like they are just plain jealous. No doubt they think they could do a better job. They don't realize the people that would be breathing down their necks to get things done, the limited amount of time and that they would have no control over what was left in or edited out. They would blamed for a final product that they had no control over just like the guys on UFO Hunters.

It seems like I am always left to explain the difference between Ufology and Ufology entertainment to these types of people. TV media, along with most print media (like magazines) are for entertainment purposes. If someone is really very interested in the facts (rather than opinions) about certain Ufology cases the best thing they can do is their own research and not depend on a TV show to provide that for them. You don't even have to travel, the internet is literally filled with eyewitness testimony from most cases.

Shows like UFO Hunters and UFO Files are not for researchers or Ufologists. They are the little things that get people interested in the subject and then when those people become truly interested they will do their own research into the subject. People who do not do some of their own research on the subject and instead just watch TV are not truly interested in UFOs, they are just looking for entertainment and that is okay too.

My interest in UFOs and other strangeness was sparked as a child by the TV show In Search Of. I kind of doubt that everything on that show was well researched and without flaws, but it didn't matter because it still sparked an interest with me that has never gone away. At this point I can't even remember most ISO shows, but I do remember one with Billy Meier photos and as a 7 year old (or whatever age I was) I thought those photos were awesome. Now I think they are fake, but fake or not they had an impact on my entire life in a way. Maybe that is why I am not as outraged by Meier's photos as most people.

Sometimes it takes the sensationalized entertainment media to draw people's attention, even in the case of something so amazing as the UFO phenomenon.

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