Chapter 32.3: Lights Out for Peter Jennings?

I just saw Peter Jennings’ special report -- UFOs: Seeing Is Believing. What I saw and what I believe is that advertisers don’t care about UFOs. For the first 25 minutes or so of the show I was starting to believe that ABC was going to show the entire program without commercial interruption. Other than a few “house ads” about other ABC shows and a lot of car commercials, many of the commercials were the type of late night crap – shoe stretchers, special spatulas, and one-size-fits all leftovers holders – that made Ron Popeil famous.

The truth out there is that ABC must have had nothing better to do than to air this show. They couldn’t have made much money on it, and they clearly spent a lot. The production quality was excellent. The animation of people’s stories looked like reality; if they didn’t have the “animation” disclaimer on the bottom of the screen, it would have been difficult to distinguish whether or not it was real. In fact, it would have been distracting because the viewer would have looked at the level of detail in the rain-drenched car window and not focused attention on the words being spoken.

I’m not a “UFOlogist” nor have I seen a flying saucer, but as someone who’s watched his share of Discovery Channel, History Channel, Sci Fi Channel, and The Learning Channel programs on the topic, I actually heard some stories that I’d not caught before. Sure, there was the obligatory Roswell item and the discussion of abductions and the psychological trauma they’ve apparently experienced. The interviews with top-notch scientists such as Neil Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium lent a PBS feel of credibility to the report – beyond just having one of the top network anchors actually putting his reputation on the line with what many people consider ridiculous. I was impressed by the debunking of the Project Blue Book PR ploy conducted by the Air Force in the 50s and 60s, particularly the report on the civilian scientific investigator who apparently left the project “a believer.” Yet, an irrefutable answer remains to be told.

Of course there was no new evidence to prove the existence of extraterrestrials or flying saucers. Jennings offered possibilities and showed evidence of hucksters making a buck. They interviewed a man they called the only full-time investigator of UFOs in the country – a guy in Seattle – who works from a small desk surrounded by the tape recordings he’s made of the upset people who call him. They never explained how he could afford to do such work full time, because there clearly is no money in the work. Perhaps some people would pay for an investigation, but when the best answer one’s going to hear is “the results were inconclusive” how much business can one generate?

I applaud Jennings for trying. He went and promoted it on The Daily Show the night before. It’s obvious from that appearance who and where he believed his audience was, and I don’t think the advertising supported his premise. Intelligent, credible witnesses have claimed to see these objects. Intelligent, skeptical people were his target audience. Instead, the ad sales people for ABC could come up with little more than the equivalent of Ronco devices.