Page 40 - 200812 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - December 2008

40 2008: Worst UFO Media Year Ever! 40 2008: Worst UFO Media Year Ever! 2008: Worst UFO made the surprise announcement that yes, it did media. But he pointed out that the Denver Post 2008: Worst UFO Media Year Ever! indeed have warplanes in the air on the 8th. Not and the Rocky Mountain News managed to Media Year Ever! one or two, but 10. Ten F-16s. “Routine training cover Denver rez Jeff Peckman’s press By Billy Cox missions.” Its press release said nothing about conference, which advocated spending By Billy Cox the UFO. Which raised another question – why municipal funds on an extraterrestrial liaison bother with issuing a press release at all? Why committeee. not just let the event die a natural death? The During the September sweeps, ABC 2008 started out as just another mediocre year for the mainstream media’s official statement went against the USAF's own Prime Time aired a rehash of Peter Jennings’ “Seeing Is Believing” report from 2005. There interests. It meant the eyewitnesses were ineptitude with UFO issues. But boy, did that credible. was a brief mention of Stephenville, but reporter ever change. Carswell’s reversal generated another David Muir didn’t bother to question military It began reliably enough early last January, when Editor & Publisher, the brief wire-service cycle, but it had nothing to authorities about the FAA records. Which appear to have documented a serious breach of fear from the media. exhausted industry watchdog monitoring the In May, Dateline NBC promoted a UFO national security. Just for the record, when extinction of newspapers and their advertising ratings-month special called “Ten Close contacted by De Void, Carswell PIO Maj. Karl revenues, found time to chide The Wall Street Journal for wasting 1A real estate on UFOs. The Encounters Caught on Tape.” Host Hoda Kotb Lewis says his employer has no comment on was (“Tonight, what he describes as MUFON “speculation.” more an rhymes into WSJ actually played that story straight by Finally, in November, during the last tracking down fellow eyewitnesses to Dennis extraterrestrial creature feature!”) and lame ratings period of 2008, CNN’s Miles O’Brien cliches (“The experts can argue until they’re as Kucinich’s 1982 UFO sighting. The E&P was just doing what it's supposed to do. Zzzz. green as the little men whose existence they filed a week-long UFO series (pre-empted by debate”) as she reviewed UFO cases from as far the terror attacks in Mumbai) without A few weeks later, the libertarian Cato back as half a century ago. This lady had mentioning the Stephenville case once. Internet Institute — those stalwart sentinels for network resources to work with. And she said cassandras charge O’Brien was terminated government transparency — decided to nothing about Stephenville. Zilcho. immediately thereafter because he dared to terminate the services of adjunct scholar Dom The reason for Carswell’s embarrassing venture into The Great Taboo. CNN said it Armentano for writing an op-ed piece in the press release became clear in July when the canned O’Brien and its entire science staff as a Vero Beach News-Press. The economics professor’s crime? Advocating the Mutual UFO Network uncorked an online cost-cutting measure, and there’s no reason to bombshell – a 77-page evaluation of radar doubt that. No sinister government agency declassification of federal records on UFOs. Had Armentano gotten the hook for writing records from 4 to 8 p.m. on Sept. 8 near could've possibly been threatened by O’Brien’s UFO reporting. Stephenville. about racism or some other more conventional Stephenville was the only UFO story In response to MUFON’s Freedom of corruption, this would’ve been news. But it was Information Act request, the FAA produced a that mattered in 2008, because it was one of only UFOs. So who cared? And as the months went by, UFOs 139-meg CD tracking 2.8 million radar hits those rare instances where federal records continued to provide the media intelligentsia during that time span along the UFO flight supported eyewitness accounts. It showcased a with easy rhetorical devices in which to gauge corridor on a southeast beeline toward military response to a threat against the home of Crawford, site of President Bush’s “Western the United States president. And the Air Force the stupidity of the American people. Eric White House.” The timeline tapered off at 8 got away with its lack of accountability (again) Alterman flogged the horse in March: “Vastly o’clock sharp, the end of MUFON’s request because the press wasn’t interested. more Americans believe in flying saucers and window – with the UFO just 10 miles from Which raises another question: If the 9/11 conspiracy theories than believe in the Bush’s ranch, and six miles from its restricted MSM’s stunning financial collapse hits critical notion of balance – much less ‘objective’ – in air space. mass this year, will anyone notice? [] the mainstream news media” Nicolas Kristof Although the F-16s ventured into took a whack in April: “There’s this unauthorized civilian air space and pulled to embarrassing fact about the United States in the 21st century. Americans are as likely to believe within a mile of the object, which carried no transponder and flew at speeds between 49 mph in flying saucers as in evolution.” So 2008 was shaping up as a garden- and 2,100 mph, they were nowhere near the variety yawner. Until the drama over craft when it reached Crawford. Neither Stephenville, Tex., shook down. And as a result Carswell nor any other Defense Department entity released radar data, but the former turned of the MSM’s evaporation in the aftermath of over its flight logs for that evening, all of which this still-unresolved national security fiasco, De had been redacted. Void has proclaimed 2008 as The Media’s Worst “Four days after our FOIAs hit the FAA, UFO Year Ever. they (the military) knew we’d show they had To be sure, there was an initial stampede planes all over the place that night,” MUFON to the Stephenville region shortly after Empire- investigator Glen Schulze told De Void. “They Tribune reporter Angelia Joiner’s accounting of didn’t have much choice. Fort Worth radar data the Jan. 8 UFO incident made the wires. TV crews came from as far away as Japan to get the shows the F-16s from takeoff the landing at Carswell Air Force Base.” story, and why not? There were plenty of This was an incredible story. Especially loquacious witnesses to the lit-up, bigger-than- the non-responses from various military an-aircraft-carrier flying machine that glided silently over the little cow town and reversed its bureaucracies. There was a brief allusion to the MUFON report on Larry “non sequitur” King. course. Eyewitnesses included cops and a pilot. Better yet, several reported military jet fighters But no wire service coverage. Not even The Wall Street Journal. During the first public scrambling after it. presentation of the data in San Jose, Calif., in An Air Force Base at nearby Fort Worth denied it had planes in the air that night, which July, the San Francisco Chronicle showed up, but its reporter didn’t have a clue. was good enough for Newsweek. The emaciated “A chart full of purple dots and black weekly magazine didn’t waste any precious arrows that may or may not indicate aliens flew print on the story, but it did run a “Web Exclusive” by a “lecturer in English at Yale over President Bush’s Texas ranch in January,” wrote Steve Rubenstein. “The dots and arrows University” who attributed the suppertime sighting to sleep deprivation. on the chart are as plain as day.” Schulze, a resident of Littleton, Col., But then, not quite two weeks after the incident, as the hoopla subsided, Carswell Field couldn’t even draw ink from the hometown