The Controversy Continues—Friedman v Jennings

By Stanton Friedman
3-05-05

Over the years I have been involved in the making of a number of Documentaries about UFOs. These include "UFOs ARE Real", "Flying Saucers ARE Real-(2 Vols.)"; "Stanton T. Friedman IS Real!", "Do you Believe in MAJIC" and in numerous interviews for a wide variety of producers of shows that have aired on the History Channel, The Discovery Channel, TLC, etc.; therefore, I am really puzzled about certain aspects of the Peter Jennings Productions ) PJP UFO special seen on ABC on February 24, 2005.

The word is that 150 people were interviewed and only 50 made the cut. That is far more than would be required for a 2 hour special ... I had heard just before the broadcast that an interview was done with Dr. John Mack, Harvard Psychiatrist that would not be used.It surely would have made a good counterweight to the two Harvard psychologists falsely explaining away abductions as sleep paralysis enhanced with hypnosis It was only after the broadcast that I found out how many extended interviews with very sharp people hadn't been used. Richard Hall, Dr. Richard Haines,Dr. David Jacobs, Ted Roe of Narcap etc.I saw the people who interviewed Don Schmitt (no air time) and myself (20 seconds.. and referring to me as a promoter twice, and calling Roswell a Myth at least twice) in Roswell with Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell. None of this is in the PSP show.Crews for PSP traveled a lot including, for example, the MUFON Conference in Denver. There was no mention of MUFON in the program though CUFOS was given a lot of time with old footage of J. Allan Hynek as well. Strangely he was portrayed as a courageous loner the only one standing up to the debunkers... a totally misleading portrayal.

The question thus arises as to why spend at least many hundreds of thousand dollars to collect far more footage than could possibly be used? Perhaps they will do another special using "the good stuff"? I doubt it.

But if one wanted a real state-of-the-art survey of Ufology, who knows what, is there a better cover story than that a company linked to Peter Jennings, the last remaining Big Time Network news anchor, is making a hard hitting 2 hour special? People are flattered to be asked to contribute. Many of us were questioned for more than an hour. It might also be possible when reviewing the tapes to get clues as to who might be speaking out of turn The crews were very tight about who all they talked to. Is it really surprising that the harshest attacks came down on Roswell, the reality of abductions and the reality of interstellar flight? Glorifying the Silly Effort To Investigate cultists provides a great deal of misdirection away from the reality of UFOs and the government coverup. The footage would be a feast for the minions of whatever group is taking Majestic 12's place to help plan their strategy for debunking and also for possible future release of data. I suspect they are also collecting reactions to the program.

I would like to hear of others whose testimony was taken and not used.

fsphys@rogers.com