The History Channel's new Wednesday night UFO documentary series UFO Hunters (which premiered on February 6) is the latest in a long line of television's efforts to satisfy the appetite of a public which continues to be fascinated by the subject of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. Anybody else remember the old FOX TV series Sightings, back in the nineties?
Interestingly, this time around the show has some competition.
It seems the producers of the Sci-Fi Channel's highly successful (and entertaining) Ghost Hunters franchise about — what else? — hunting down ghosts, have launched their own weekly UFO hunting show. Sci-Fi's version of UFO Hunters not only airs at right about the same time on Wednesday nights, it even has the same identical name.
In the Sci-Fi Channel's version, a New York based amateur UFO hunting group called NY-SPI (which stands for New York Strange Phenomena Investigators) investigate UFO sightings, and even some alien abduction cases. The stories are told, the witnesses are interviewed, and the team investigates. There's not a lot of hard science involved, but it does make for some very entertaining, and occasionally even thought provoking television.
The History Channel's UFO Hunters on the other hand, choose to take a somewhat more scientific approach. This is after all, the History Channel right?
Here, a team of UFO researchers headed up by UFO Magazine publisher William J. "Bill" Birnes joins forces with scientists like MIT engineer Dr. Ted Acworth to investigate — and whenever possible recreate in a science lab — some of history's most famous UFO encounters. It's occasionally a bit drier than the Sci-Fi channel's version — particularly when the methodology of science is applied to these cases. But while the results are at best inconclusive — at least in the two episodes we were able to view — they also tend to raise your eyebrows a bit.
In the debut episode, we follow Birnes and his team to Washington State where they attempt to solve a case which occurred in 1947 a full two weeks before the more famous purported UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico.
The case began with the sighting of six donut shaped UFO's by witnesses aboard a boat near Maury Island. When one of the UFO formation appeared to encounter mechanical problems, it rained down some sort of flaming debris which reportedly injured a passenger and even killed a dog onboard the boat.
Shortly thereafter, an Air Force team retrieved said debris, and attempted to fly it out of Washington to Northern California's Hamilton Air Force Base. But the plane never made it — crashing instead near Kelso, Washington and killing two of the crewmen aboard. Our team of UFO Hunters goes to Washington State to search for answers. They gather debris from both the Maury Island and Kelso sites, and take them back to the lab for scientific analysis.
Article comments
1 - Jet in Columbus
Good read Glen. My father was in the air force for nearly 35 years and I've seen photos that would freak a lot of people out.
kudos
jet
2 - Josh Lasser
Congratulations! This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States.
3 - Richard
RE:The portion of the last show where the gentleman had the metal removed from his leg. The fact is that soft tissue will integrate or grow to metalic surfaces, in particular those that have a surface that is irregular or rough AND BIOCOMPATABLE. Check the dental implant and otyhopaedic surgery literature. As per the electronic emissions, beats me!...Richard H. D.D.S.
4 - Gordon Day
I am comenting on the show about the lights over Arizona. As a vet of over 20 years, I have never seen flares of any type act in that way. As anyone with any REAL military expereance can tell you, the military can't keep anything in such a formation on the ground standing still let alone in the air. If this is one of our "Black" aircraft it is a good one, the new F 22 and F 35 are amazing and could possibly preform the with computer assistance. But telling me it was Air National Guard A-10s dropping flares. No way in hell.I am a fan of fiction and this isn't even high school quality. Just my thoughts.
5 - Tom Muzydla
I have not sent in comments to a show before but the changes that you have made to the UFO Hunters show have really hurt how your quest to get the truth out is comming across to the viewer. It seems that Bill and the new guy just end up fighting over even minor issues. Your change from Ted the Scientist/PHD has taken out a big chunk of credibility out of your show. Bill needs to stick to the facts instead of verbally dreaming of what your show is going to show or prove to both sets of vewiers. Those who have had enough sightings to know that something is going on and those that need to be shown that there is a lot more to learn about our universe.
One last comment---Bill, take off your sunglasses when you are being interviewed! Viewers need to see your eyes to help determine if you are speaking the truth--and that is your ultimate goal---the truth.
Thanks for listening,
Tom