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ABC UFO Special : Program Log with Segment Lengths and Quotes

2.27.5

Hoping to delve into ABC UFO Special : The Aftertaste II later tonite. Until then, here's some good data I've put together on the special.

Segment Lengths (Approximated to within 10 seconds)

Art Bell Segment : 3:40

Phoenix Lights Segment : 3:30

Center for UFO Studies Profile : 1:40

2000 UFO case in Southern Illinois : 4:20

Early Ufology : 10:00

Project Blue Book, Allen Hynek : 3:30

Mina, ND UFO case : 6:20

Skeptics and SETI : 9:00

Roswell : 9:00

Abduction : 11:00

Space Travel Problems : 5:30

Peter Davenport : 3:30

ABC UFO Special Program Log w. Notes and Quotes (Approx. to within 3 seconds)

00:00 - 2:00 : Peter Jennings introduces the show. Mix of film clips and clips of interviews that play throughout the remainder of the show.

02:00 : Fragmented sit-down interviews with UFO witnesses, including one man totally in shadow. Some good UFO footage, mixed with bad stuff. Possibly a clip of the Mexican Air Force video from 2004. Jennings reads various survey numbers related to UFOs.

03:45 : Jennings : "Real to some, fiction to others." Interview w. NASA's Chris McKay. He called Ufologists "UFO searchers".

05:20 : Art Bell segment.

09:00 : Phoenix Light's segment. Interview w. witness, including "security guard Bob Nelson, who was sitting on his porch with his dog."

11:00 : Good Phoenix Lights video

12:00 : Phoenix skeptic James McGaha mispronounces "Ufology", saying its "based on superstition, wrapped inside a fairy tale, telling a story that's simply not true." His explanation for why the Phoenix lights wat not a real craft, "the radar didn't see anything."

13:40 : Rebuttal from Phoenix Lights witnesses.

14:30 : Center for UFO Studies Profiled. Dr.Mark Rodegheir, director of the Center, is interviewed. Dispels the "UFOs as secret craft" theory.

16:10 : Goes to 2000 UFO case in Southern Illinois. Starts with Melvin Knowles (sp?), filmed at his mini golf course at night. Melvin looks like a rube.

Good audio clips of police radio. Cops laugh at first, but then it gets serious.

Numerous animations here.

20:40 : Jennings : "The U.S. government is not in the business of investigating UFOs."

21:00 - 25:45 : Commercial #1

26:00 : Kenneth Arnold Profiled

Jerome Clark, UFO Enclyclopedia is interviewed. Gives basic background of the "Arnold Case".

Old media coverage of the event. Explains origins of term "flying saucer".

Michael Swords, PhD, Professor at Western Michigan University is interviewed. Gives government perspective on UFOs at the time. Not identified as a Ufologist.

30:00 : Jennings : "Since 1948, there have been hundreds of sightings by commercial and military flight crews."

Six different pilots are interviewed. One French sounding pilot sounds like a drunkard, with an unshaven face and hard to understand accent.

32:15 : Details of the Vandenburg memo

33:00 : Pop culture "flying saucer" clips, old newsreel footage of UFO witnesses.

34:52 : Dr.Bruce Goldberg, PhD University of Utah, is interviewed. Says UFO reports clogged communication channels of US goverment, so the government is forced to take action.

Jennings : "It was public hysteria, not the flying saucers themselves, that threatened the National Security."

35:30 : Robertson Panel Segment

36:10 : Keyhoe's book "The Flying Saucers are Real" is shown.

36:20 : Old sci-fi movie clips.

37:05 - 41:50 : Commercial #2

41:50 : Project Blue Book Segment. Blue Book is discussed as a PR tool, not a research body.

44:30 : J.Allen Hynek profiled.

45:23 : Profile of Blue Book Case # 12548, UFO sighting at Mina AFB, Mina, ND

51:45 - 56:50 : Commercial #3

57:10 : "Mainstream scientists" weigh-in

Neil deGrasse Tyson PhD, Director of Hayden Planetarium says "Even if, in the court of law, eye witness testimony is a high form of evidence, in the court of science, it is the lowest form of evidence you could possibly put forth."

Michael Shermer PhD, of Skeptic Magazine, is also interviewed, criticising eyewitness testimony.

58:00 : Moon confused with a UFO story from SETI's Dr.Jill Tarter.

59:00 : Small profile of recent Hyugen's Probe and what it means if even microbial life is found outside of Earth.

1:01:13 : Dr.Frank Drake profile, followed by profile of Dr.Seth Shostak and Jill Tarter, all filmed very brightly in the desert.

1:06:00 : Montage of the three scientists saying that they don't "make claims" like Ufology.

1:06:40 - 1:11:20 : Commercial #4

1:11:25 : Roswell Segment

Dr.Bruce Goldberg tells the Roswell story.

Jesse Marcel, Jr. interviewed.

Karl Pflock, author of Roswell, interviewed.

Jennings : "Jesse Marcel's story of a flying saucer that crashed might still be forgotten were it not for a Ufologist named Stanton Friedman."

1:15:21 - 1:15:41 : Stanton Friedman interviewed, total time 20 seconds.

Archival interview with Jesse Marcel, Sr.

1:16:25 : Jennings : "But what is the truth ? The wreckage hasn't been seen since 1947, so there was no way to prove Jesse Marcel's claims, which never stopped Stanton Friedman and his fellow Roswell promoters."

Clips of old "In Search of ..." episode, complete with campy scene of a goverment agent handling Roswell "wreckage".

Pflock : "This all came together at a time when people were ready to buy into conspiracy."

1:17:35 : Jennings : "Jesse Marcel's story about a day, long ago, was becoming an article of faith, and the promoters [Friedman pictured] were busy spinning it every way they could."

Old clip of Friedman on a talk show alleging government cover-ups.

1:18:01 : Jennings : "A parade of new witnesses came out of the woodwork to share in the limelight"

Clip of Larry King Roswell show.

Dr.Bruce Goldberg : "The people who are promoting Roswell realize that there is a gold rush to Roswell. There is money to be made. But your book is only gonna sell if your charges are more grandiose, more exaggerated, more powerful"

Clips of FOX's Alien Autopsy.

Clips of X-Files.

Jennings : "Jesse Marcel's unproven story was now primetime mythology. This remote New Mexico town had hit the jackpot. It didn't matter that there wasn't a shred of credible evidence to support the claim that a flying saucer crashed here. It didn't matter that there were no credible witnesses to alien bodies."

1:20:30 : Clip of government Mogul Press Conference

Animations of Roswell debris matching up with Mogul balloon.

1:20:35 : Jennings : "They [Roswell supporters] cling to a myth."

1:22:38 - 1:27:38 - Commercial #5

1:27:50 : Abduction segment

Abductees shown in shadow and fragmented shots, interspersed with drawings.

1:29:55 : Budd Hopkins profiled.

Jennings : "Budd Hopkins is an artist who spent the last 25 years exploring his belief that aliens are among us and have been abducting people."

Budd Hopkins interview.

5 abductees interviewed, again in shadow, with dark backgrounds, fragmented shots, and with drawings interspersed.

1:25:34 : Dr.Susan Clancy from Harvard is interviewed, "There is no evidence that hypnosis will help retrieve memories. Or, if it does retrieve memories, that the memories are, in fact, accurate."

1:36:10 : Sleep Paralysis explained by Dr.Richard McNally, Professor of Psychology at Harvard.

1:39:11 - 1:44:05 : Commercial #6

1:44:35 : Problem of space travel segment.

Sci fi film clips run over Shostak, McGaha, and de Grassa Tyson saying it's impossible to travel such distances in real life.

Dr.John Gibbons, Science Advisor to Clinton : "I think the notion of transporting people, as some people think, to other planetary systems, beyond our solar system, is so far beyond plausible reality that its a waste of time."

1:46:47 : Michio Kaku segment

Kaku : "Some people slam the door on the question of other civilizations visiting the Earth because distances are so far away. I say, 'Not so fast.' "

Kaku profiled.

Kaku : "The fundamental mistake people make when thinking about extraterrestrial intelligence is to assume that they're just like us except a few hundred years more advanced. I say 'Open your mind. Open your consciousness to the possibility that they are a million years ahead.' "

Kaku : "When you look as this handful, handful of cases that cannot be easily dismissed. This is worthy. This is worthy of a scientific investigation. Maybe there's nothing there. However, on the off chance that there is something there, that could change the course of human history. So I say, ' Let the investigation begin.' "

1:50:00 - 1:54:30 : Commercial #7

1:54:30 : Peter Davenport profiled.

Jennings : "The National UFO Reporting Center is really one man, Peter Davenport, sitting alone at his desk in the corner of his living room. Davenport is the only person we met who devotes himself full time to collecting reports and investigating UFO sightings."

1:56:25 : Davenport takes UFO reports

Jennings : "It is left to Peter Davenport and only a few others to investigate this mystery."

Jennings : "Ultimately only contact is going to resolve the mystery."

1:58:35 : Jennings signs off.

Montage of "UFO believers" saying "I believe" and skeptics dismissing UFOs as credits roll.


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