Well,
they’ve finally done it. Slipped completely off the rails. The latest episode
bears almost no relation to the sighting on which it was based. I mean
(SPOILERS) that it opens with Hynek either reviewing what was the
Chiles-Whitted sighting in
1948, or having been on the aircraft to see it
himself. It’s not overly clear which it was, but I would guess Hynek was
reviewing the information rather than having been a participant. Paul Hynek
said during my radio interview with him that Hynek had been on the plane… or
that was one interpretation.
 |
| The Chiles-Whitted Illustrations. |
And
that’s sort of it for the UFO investigation. Hynek and Quinn (who might be
Ruppelt, might not be Ruppelt or might be sort of Ruppelt) head to Alabama
where Chiles and Whitted saw the cigar-shaped craft with square windows and a
flame out the back. They think that it might be a rocket and head down to talk
with Werner von Braun, the German rocket whiz.
What
we have here, is not really an investigation into the sighting, but an excuse
for Quinn to crash through a barrier on the base and later break into what must
be a top secret research lab, complete with an Independence Day alien suspended
in liquid preservative. The rules for guarding highly classified material are
apparently ignored on this base because there really is no way that Hynek and
Quinn should have been able to get in as easily as they did, escape as easily
as they did or for Hynek to carry out the photograph of the alien he took…
 |
| The Zond IV Reentry. |
And
did I mention the crop circle that Hynek found?
And,
just so we remember the time frame, we have Mimi Hynek and Joel attending some
sort of afternoon drill on what to do if there is an atomic bomb attack. Hynek
mentions that it won’t do any good if the bomb drops, and they happen to be
close to ground zero he is right, but if not, then a fallout shelter, which is
designed to protect from fallout and not over blast of a bomb with all the
sun-like heat would be beneficial.
For
James Carrion (The Roswell Deception), we have the spies, Soviet, I would guess,
who are hanging around Mimi Hynek and radioing their findings back to their
home base. Here too, we have the penetration of a secure facility that is much
too easy by the female spy. Spy lady asks to use the restroom on the base and
is allowed to roam the hallways until she finds the office that contains all
the UFO stuff, which she then photographs.
I’m
not going to continue with this. I have enjoyed the previous episodes, which
seemed to be about the sightings, even with large the liberties taken with them.
I was going to say that this is science fiction, thought that’s not really fair
to science fiction. It’s more of a thriller with a hint of the UFO thrown in as
the connecting thread. I can only hope that the next episode slides back on the
rails and sticks a little closer to the UFO investigation.
For
those interested in the sighting that was the basis for this show, and I use
the term basis loosely, here is where you can read more about it:
Rather
than rewrite these postings for here, I thought it simpler to just point to
what I have written in the past. Besides, there are lots of illustrations that
go with this sighting and I think those are almost as important as the written
word.
Finally,
I will note that back in 1948, just as History
mentioned at the end of the episode, Hynek believed that the solution for the
sighting was a bolide. Given what I have learned about the case and in a review
of the Air Force file on it, I find no reason to reject that solution. History should get some credit for the
notes at the end of the show. I just wonder how many people bother to read
those.
