Showing posts with label Hangar 1: The UFO Files. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hangar 1: The UFO Files. Show all posts

Sunday, October 11, 2015

The Decline and Fall of Ufology

The Decline and Fall of Ufology

By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
10-7-15

     I think that the high point in Ufology was July 1997 when the fiftieth anniversary of the Roswell UFO crash was celebrated. I think that the low point, probably the lowest since June 1947 and Arnold’s sighting was May 5, 2015 when the fiasco of the Not Roswell Slides was presented to the world. This is underscored with many of the UFO documentaries that now populate the cable channel landscape.

Arthur Stancel Grave - HeadStone
The one that I’m thinking of, which I mentioned in another post that will probably annoy most of MUFON and the people in Kingman, Arizona, dealt partially with the Kingman, Arizona, crash, the MJ-12 SOM 1-01, and a few other ancillary issues. It was the Kingman crash that caught my attention because I have done a great deal of research into this case and frankly, I believe it to be a hoax started by Arthur Stansel.

For those who wish to see an evolution of this case, or rather the evolution in my thinking about it see:




The point here is that Hangar 1 came up with some new information which may or may not have come from Stansel. It was not clear, at least to me, who the source was on this. In this new version, Stansel or someone reported that men in some sort of protective gear had entered the craft. They rushed out, all of them sick and vomiting, which, had I been on the scene would have been frightening. Why were they sick? Have I been contaminated? Is it fatal?

From that point they explained how the disk, whatever it was, had been floated down the Colorado River after retrieval. Kingman is about 90 miles south of Las Vegas and standing between Las Vegas and Kingman is the Hoover Dam. I’m not sure how they got the disc to the river and why they thought this was the best way to recover it, but that’s the claim.

Here’s the point. This case is virtually single witness. There are others who claim to have knowledge of it, but that all comes from hearing the story told by others. And Stansel is not a good witness. His educational background seems to be solid, friends who knew him believed him to be honest, and his assignments put him into the Kingman area, meaning simply he was working north of Las Vegas at the time, so he could have been involved.

But as you can read yourselves in those previous posts, he told a couple of versions of this tale. Some of what he said seems to discredit parts of his story. More importantly, he said that he had lied to the first investigators (who were teenagers with an interest in UFOs) and he said that when he drank, he tended to expand and embellish his stories.

To support the reality of the Kingman crash, they trotted out the SOM 1-01 which is supposed to be the MJ-12 Group Special Operations Manual. Oh, they mentioned frequently that it was controversial, but the language and the tone told us that the controversy was unimportant. The manual contained instructions about the recovery, retrieval and shipping of alien debris. It also suggests that these retrievals be covered by suggesting those in charge say that the debris was from a satellite… but, in 1954, when the manual was created, it didn’t say who had been launching these satellites. This is merely a single example of the flaws that surround the manual.

It struck me as odd that you’d use a controversial manual to support the case for an alien spacecraft crash which is also controversial. The manual arrived in the mail for Don Berliner who himself has said it was a hoax. There is no provenance for it and it violates some of the standards in place in 1954 for such documents. None of this makes any difference to the true believers because they know the manual is authentic.

Finally, to prove their case, they resorted to interviewing Cliff Stone as one of the whistleblowers about alien visitation. You can read about him here:


There is a follow up article about Stone from Dr. Michael Salla, but Stone sinks his own boat with his tales of derring-do in Vietnam. In one of those ridiculous tales he talks about how he would sneak out of the camp, crawling through the wire to engage the enemy on his own. This was a recipe for suicide. Stone served in Vietnam as a clerk and not a combat soldier.

The point is that the episode here was filled with information that was faulty, untrue, fabricated, unverified and unsupported by any facts. It was written in such a way as to suggest that while the authorities might deny it; those at MUFON were telling us all the truth. Just never mind that they had no real evidence for their truth and that their witnesses were less than credible.

And that is why Ufology is in rapid decline. It is not about the research, it is not about finding answers for the unexplained cases and no alien visitation does not answer all the questions… there are many answers. This is about ratings and making money. When solid evidence for a solution of a case is presented, there are always those out there who will scream cover up, that those offering answers are in the employ of the CIA, the Air Force or even MJ-12 as a way of hiding the truth but these programs often ignore those explanations as they underscore the alien nature of the reports. Alternatives are not offered.

But nothing will change as long as there is an audience for the UFO documentaries that have no truth in them, an audience for speakers who are clearly inventing their tales and people who buy books that do not provide solid information. We are stuck in the dark ages and I don’t see us climbing into the light any time soon.

Oh, for those who can’t deduce what I meant here… Kingman is a hoax and the single first-hand witness said that he lied about the details. The SOM 1-01 manual is a hoax and it provides us with no useful information. Many of the whistleblowers who are invited to tell their tales simply don’t have the credentials they claimed, weren’t in the positions they claimed, or have exaggerated their knowledge. All of this creates the problems for those of us who are more interested in the truth than in validating our own belief structures.

Saturday, August 01, 2015

Hangar 1: The UFO Files – 'This is How Low They've Sunk ...'

 
 
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Hangar 1: The UFO Files – 'This is How Low They've Sunk ...'

Whatever works, obviously ...

By Billy Cox
De Void
7-31-15

Robert Hastings
Robert Hastings
    UFOs and Nukes author/independent researcher Robert Hastings was understandably torqued recently when someone told him he needed to check out an episode of History Channel’s “Hangar 1,” the Mutual UFO Network’s cable television platform for alerting a new generation to its sprawling database. Actually, no, check that, the episode in question aired on H2, History Channel’s second-tier programming subsidiary. Actually, no, check that, it was more like a three-minute clip, not an entire episode. Anything longer than three minutes and your audience is flipping channels.

Huge UFO Sighted Near Nuclear Missiles During October 2010 Launch System Disruption
Anyhow, this compressed accounting of an extraordinary event ran during “Hangar 1’s” premiere season in 2014, and it focused on the underreported malfunction at F.E. Warren AFB near Cheyenne, Wyoming. An alarming 50 nuclear missiles abruptly went offline in October 2010, and the official explanation was that the 319th Strategic Missile Squadron had suffered a brief computer glitch. Naturally, Hastings was interested; his decades-long investigations into UFOs breaching security around America’s nuclear arsenal has prompted well over 100 Air Force veterans to speak out. In fact, the Warren system crash occurred just a month after Hastings assembled half a dozen of those veterans for testimonials at Washington’s National Press Club (see below). The press conference was live-streamed by CNN, but like all UFO stories, big media never followed up and the story died.


In contrast to the Atlantic magazine piece that broke the 50-missile shutdown story, in which authorities said weapons access went dark for just under an hour, Hastings dug around and discovered base personnel who told him, confidentially, control of the ICBMs wasn’t fully restored for nearly 26 hours. Furthermore, witnesses – who ultimately included civilian and law enforcement operatives – reported UFO activity in the vicinity during that time frame, specifically, the overflight of a large cigar-shaped object. Hastings published his findings in 2011, then contributed a followup to the MUFON Journal in 2013.

Hastings bailed on “Hangar 1” after getting his fill of H2's opening episodes' fidgety, hyper-produced sensationalism. After all, he was assembling his own documentary on the nuke/UFO controversy in order to retain editorial control and keep it from becoming, well, another “Hangar 1.” So when he finally watched “Hangar 1’s” spin on the Warren incident, Hastings nearly blew a gasket . Because there was MUFON Executive Director Jan Harzan uttering these scripted words: “Two missile technicians came to MUFON anonymously and reported these objects being seen before and during the actual missile shut down.”

“You know, there’s a guy out there, Jason Colavito, who I don’t agree with very often because he’s a debunker,” Hastings tells De Void. “But when he jumped on Hangar 1 for creating fraudulent documents to make the show sound more official, he absolutely nailed it. This is how low they’ve sunk, saying this is from the MUFON case files without giving me a word of credit. Legally, I think I’m within my rights to contact an entertainment attorney about intellectual theft.”

“Absolutely, Robert should’ve gotten credit for that,” Harzan responds. But it’s complicated. He says “Hangar 1” producers requested everything MUFON had on UFOs and nuclear weapons. The 46-year-old research group complied, and included the Hastings’ MUFON Journal piece in the data dump. “Nowhere in the article does it say Robert isn’t a member of MUFON,” offers Harzan, “so I think the writer just made that assumption. Certainly it wasn’t an intentional omission on our part.”

“Hangar 1's” first season was a critical flop, but it drew the numbers; in fact, the suits were so pleased, they scheduled season two – which ran April through June this year – for a slot in the History Channel rotation itself. But according to Harzan, as a result of season one’s accuracy problems, he told History he needed a MUFON review board to preview each episode to minimize mistakes. Among those sentinel panelists is MUFON communications director Roger Marsh, who also says Hastings should've been credited, but adds that not even prior solves everything.

“There are three groups involved here,” he says. “There’s us, we’re the content providers. There’s the production company, which puts it all together. And then there’s the network – they’re the ones putting out the money and they’re the ones who tell us what they want.” Consequently, says Marsh, MUFON doesn’t always get what it wants. “We don’t need a lot of old stories about Roswell, or Area 51, or alien bases on the dark side of the moon. We have enough good cases over the last five or six years that nobody ever heard of, and those are the ones we’d rather see more of.”

For example, a 2000 incident over southern Illinois in which squad cars from multiple law enforcement agencies gave chase to a triangular UFO made national news. Thanks to recorded chatter between cops, this encounter has become a familiar re-enactment staple on UFO themed shows. Years ago, Marsh found a new witness, a now-retired assistant fire chief who saw the same object, same evening, cruising the skies in next-door Missouri. He had never given an interview until Marsh came along. “To me, putting a new witness in the story was what made it exciting,” he says.

Marsh reviewed what he thought was the final cut and gave it a thumbs-up. When the show aired, however, the fireman’s testimony had been edited out. But Marsh's disappointment was mitigated by a payoff he describes as “huge.”

“When the last two [second season] episodes aired, my phone was ringing off the hook. We got dozens and dozens and dozens of calls about cases I never heard of.”

Bottom line: the dilemma – suspect show quality versus growing eyewitness feedback – is apparently a tradeoff MUFON can live with.

“I really think season two was better than season one,” Marsh says, “but it’s all on Hollywood terms -- it's a medium that's very sexy. and you just have to get used to it. If you’re a stickler for details like Robert is, then it’s just not going to work for you.”

There must be some planet out there where sticklers for detail get a better deal than "Hangar 1."

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Hangar 1 Strikes Again, Pushing Yet Another Fraudulent UFO Document (SOM1-01)

 
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Hangar 1 The UFO Files

By Robert Hastings
The UFO Chronicles
6-13-15

     Once upon a time—and it seems like a long, long time ago—most televised UFO cover-up documentaries were based on actual facts. Facts disputed by debunkers—so what’s new?—but nevertheless readily verifiable, if one chose to consult the legitimately-declassified documents from which they were drawn.

While the second season of Hangar 1: The UFO Files is marginally better than the first, when you’re starting from absolutely atrocious, that’s not saying much.

Let’s see: A non-existent storage hangar in which MUFON staff members supposedly scurry about with piles of files, actor-narrators posing as UFO researchers, “historians” endorsing long-ago-exposed fraudulent documents and a completely undocumented secret space program, equally fraudulent “witnesses” divulging their involvement in pitched underground battles with evil aliens, and blah, blah, blah.

Sadly, given that this abysmal excuse for a documentary series was renewed, there must be an audience for such twaddle. Lots of folks apparently eat up this crap with a spoon.

The latest bogus “document” to be trotted out by the show’s producers is the so-called SOM1-01 field manual, which purports to instruct secret military crashed-UFO recovery teams on the procedures to be used during these alleged operations.

Yes, the show’s chief on-air “researcher”, actor Dwight Equitz, does say, more than once, that the document is controversial and its authenticity is in dispute. However, after doing so, a great deal of time is given to the show’s usual gang of dubious experts, spouting-off about the amazing disclosures contained in the supposed field manual, which Hangar 1’s producers lavishly illustrate with elaborate re-enactments.

The overall impression, very intentionally left, is that the document is legitimate and the UFO recoveries it describes unquestionably happened.

In the past, I have posted online a real military document expert’s authoritative statements about SOM1-01, but feel the need to do so again at this time. Jan Aldrich, a retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant, noted UFO document researcher, and actual historian, told me this in 2009:
When I arrived in Europe [in 1984], I was not sufficiently trained in security and intelligence to do my job. I took every course that U.S. Army Europe had to offer, and dozens of correspondence courses, some of which amounted to over 120 sub-course booklets. One of the things I studied was the history of classified documents and directives from Truman on up to the [then] present day. As a subject-matter expert for Army meteorology, I had to analyze various training, operations, and maintenance manuals. Since the then-current system, at the time of my job, came into the Army inventory in 1947, I am very familiar with 1954 manuals, as the manual for hydrogen-generating equipment was originally written in 1954, and was still in use during my tenure.

[MJ-12 proponents such as] the Woods, Friedman, and Hamilton have an answer for my and others’ objections. [However, while] they all know what they are talking about for manuals, security, and operations in the 1980s, it was different in 1954. They apparently have no idea what was going on then...

I was also in a critical nuclear weapons position for seven years, so I know about sensitive operations and security. Twice, I served as acting Intelligence Officer in a nuclear-capable artillery battalion. I also served for a time as an adjutant, both unusual positions for an enlisted man. Finally, I served on the Special Staff of the Commanding General of the Southern European Taskforce. So I have significant experience in a number of areas related to manuals, operations, and security. I have, at one time or another, had the additional duties of Top Secret Control Officer, Classified Document Custodian, Communication Security (COMSEC) Custodian, Cosmic TS Control Officer, Security Manager, Interviewing Officer for Special Background Investigations, Nuclear Release Authentication Training Officer, etc.
Well, as noted earlier, the man knows his field manuals. Fortunately, the person(s) who forged the SOM1-01 field manual did not, which makes exposing it easier, at least for knowledgeable and credible military document examiners such as Aldrich. Here is his critique of the forged document:

I [found] about 50 problems with SOM1-01 when I quit looking at the manual. The following items are neither the most important nor vital objections to SOM1-01, rather some of the problems with it which are easy to understand without a lot of background and extensive commentary.
1. Posting Changes to Manuals:

In 1954, [one] received changes to a manual generally in the form of a document which had the changes-to-be-made written out, instructing the manual's owner to add, cross out, or change items in the manual. For example, such instructions might be:

Change 1, dated 5 November 1957, to SOM1-01, 1954:

Page 22, paragraph 2.c.2 change the words: ‘send to the nearest ASF collections point.’ To: ‘send to the Centralized ASF collection point, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.’

After the change had been made in the manual, the owner would write on the page ‘Changed by Change 1 dated 5 Nov 57,’ and indicate the date changed and his initials. Generally, the fact that the manual has been changed appears at the beginning of the paragraph changed. As some of these changes could change just about every page in the manual, the absolute minimum annotation would be ‘C-1 12 Nov 57 JLA..’ Most changes in the 1950s were made by hand written annotations, but even back then, there were tear-out pages which required the old page(s) be removed and new pages inserted. The new page would be have the change number indicated on the page.

[Despite these formal Army requirements,] SOM1-01 indicates in the front cover that a number of changes were made, but nowhere in the manual are any of these changes indicated or annotated. Also, the requirement is that the outside cover of the manual be annotated with ‘Change 1 dated 5 Nov 57 posted 12 Nov 57 JLA.’ Such annotation on the cover indicates to the user who might be different than the manual's owner or custodian, that the manual was up to date with all relevant changes posted.

With a classified manual [like the allegedly genuine SOM1-01], not posting or properly annotating the postings could be considered a security violation...

2. Manual Style. Paragraphs, Sub-paragraphs:

If you have a sub-paragraph, e.g. 2.a.1 then it must have a paragraph 2.a.2 as a minimum. If you don't, then the subparagraph (or, in this example, the sub-subparagraph) is not required. That is a military style requirement. However, a change could supersede sub-paragraph 2.a.2, but again, that the change was made should be annotated on the page.

3. Recovery Operations:

The manual instructs that operations be conducted so that the press and public cannot gain access or know what is going on. [But] it does not instruct the recovery team to utilize camouflage nets or tentage to preclude viewing from higher ground or from aircraft such as the press might hire to have a look about what is going on.

4. Recovery Operations and Technical Intelligence:

The manual does not tell recovery teams to set up a gird, photograph the scene and tag each item for future reference. (Identifying material and where it is found is, of course, basic to technical intelligence.)

5. Organization and Equipment:

The manual does not explain what specialized gear, what protective gear, what type of personnel occupational specialties, and what specific training would be required for recovery teams.

6. Logistics, Transportation, Communication, etc.:

There is no guidance about supply rates, consumables, etc.; material handling gear and transportation, and communications.

7. Chain of command:

Who does the recovery team report to? [There is no mention of any kind.]

8. Special conditions:

How are liquids, gasses, fires and hazardous material handled in the recovery operations. [There is no mention of any kind.]

9. Standards:

The manual says that the site will be cleaned to the satisfaction of the commander in charge of the operation. This goes without saying and is not guidance at all. Military manuals of all epochs, since at least WWII, despite differences in wording and policy at the time, all contain elements of conducting military operations which are readily identifiable: That is ‘Task’ (what is to be done); ‘Conditions’ (under what kind of environment is the task to be performed); and ‘Standards’ (what are minimum acceptable outcomes of the task). Basically, all military manuals can be analyzed in this manner...

In addition, I offer an opinion that in such [UFO] recovery operations, there would probably be instruction about removing soil from the area of a crash site. Interestingly enough years later, I obtained some information about a case of an explosion over western Maryland in the 1970s. Lou Corbin looked into before he died. The farm in question was showered with metallic fragments after the explosion. The farmer and neighbors picked some up. Corbin found that the military arrived at the farm, scraped off all the soil with earthmoving equipment, carted it off and replaced the farmer's soil. Corbin had the fragments analyzed by a NASA scientist. They were of earthly origin. However, the point is that SOM1-01 is lacking in details for operations that the military actually engages in.
As Aldrich said, these are only a few of the 50 or so errors he found in the so-called field manual. I will also mention this fact, excerpted from the wikipedia.org webpage on MJ-12, which is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_12#Arguments_against
A document entitled ‘SOM1-01: Extraterrestrial Entities and Technology, Recovery and Disposal’ and found on www.majesticdocuments.com contains paragraphs with subheads set in the sans serif ‘Helvetica’ typeface. The document purports to be from 1954 yet the typeface in question was first designed in 1957 by the Swiss graphic designer, Max Miedinger. The capitalized sans serif letter ‘R’ (and others) found on many pages confirms that this typeface is not the much earlier Akzidenz Grotesk sans serif typeface. This evidence seems to strongly suggest that this document is a fabrication.
The bottom line: As was the case with the earlier batch of MJ-12 “documents” that surfaced over 30 years ago, the MJ-12-related SOM1-01 “field manual” is undoubtedly a forgery.

Of course, the producers at Hangar 1 could care less. After all, as long as there exists a large contingent of UFO aficionados who are eager to hear scary UFO “ghost stories” told around a campfire—regardless of the facts or lack thereof underlying them—the show can probably expect a long run on the History Channel.

Indeed, the continued series-renewal of Ancient Aliens—whose mostly-absurd theories and claims are repeatedly presented as credible—is a good predictor of future success for the purveyors of Ufology Lite.

****

UFOs and Nukes Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons SitesHastings is a long-time researcher on UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites, who utilizes vetted ex-military witnesses and authenticated declassified U.S. government documents to support his findings. CNN live-streamed his September 27, 2010 “UFOs and Nukes” press conference and a full-length video of the event may be viewed at www.ufohastings.com. His book, UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites is available at www.ufohastings.com/book.

Hastings’ now-completed documentary film, UFOs and Nukes: The Secret Link Revealed, will hopefully be broadcast before the end of the year. See the film’s trailer below:

Thursday, May 07, 2015

Hangar 1: 'This Series is Slow Suicide for MUFON'

Hangar 1: 'This Series is Slow Suicide for MUFON'

And that's the way it is


By Billy Cox
De Void
5-5-15

     Following the second-season premiere of “Hangar 1” a couple of weeks back, De Void decided to skip the rest of the Red Bull-paced bells & whistles that the History Channel marketing slicks insist it takes to hold 21st-century audiences. The NBA playoffs are in full swing now, and Friday nights are usually reserved for disco-ing, so time management’s a BFD for me. Because you can tell by the way I use my walk I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk.

Anyhow, the aftermath of “Hanger 1’s” third episode, “The Far Side of the Moon,” triggered an email from “UFOs and Nukes” author Robert Hastings, which lured me back into the mire. Hastings has interviewed more than a hundred USAF veterans testifying to decades of UFO activity making a joke of security around America’s nuclear arsenal, and has just finished crafting their stories into a documentary. Along the way, Hastings turned down several cable offers that would have cost him creative and editorial control, and probably would’ve made his research look like, well, “Hangar 1.” But last Friday night’s installment, which speculated the U.S. is operating secret military bases on Mars and the moon, really set him off.

“This series is slow suicide for MUFON,” declared Hastings, referring to the private research group which has turned its 45-year-deep case files over to the History Channel. “Whatever credibility the organization had is ebbing away. Their membership may be up — a sad testament to be sure, if the show is responsible for that — but their association with Hangar 1 has severely and negatively impacted ufology's attempt to be recognized as an endeavor worthy of respect.”

Ever the sucker for train wrecks, De Void tuned in, online, for the full monty, and wow, yeah, shew. There were actually some interesting assertions begging more details, such as how “hundreds” of ham operators recorded Apollo 11’s missing 2-minute tape-recorded astronaut chatter about seeing UFOs on the moon, and Buzz Aldrin’s 16mm film of a bright white dot skirting the lunar surface. But that stuff got lost as “Hangar 1” went all Michael Bay and regurgitated Monuments of Mars author Richard Hoagland’s mile-high crystal towers on the moon, “interstellar soldier” Randy Kramer’s eyewitness riffs on genetically enhanced super-soldiers pulling picket duty at lunar and Martian outposts, and — no wait. De Void's not gonna make this easy for you. You need to sit through it yourself right here.

Here’s what caught De Void a little flat-footed.

De Void called John Schuessler, Mutual UFO Network co-founder and board member, for his take on “Hangar 1.” As a McDonnell Douglas' erstwhile director of engineering and project manager for Space Shuttle Flight Operations at Johnson Space Center, Schuessler spent a career trouble-shooting real-world challenges on the high frontier. Schuessler confessed he missed Friday night’s show and said “I can tell you that most of us (at MUFON) don’t believe in such a thing (off-world U.S. military bases).” But he also said MUFON’s been caught in a pickle for decades.

“We’ve been accused of being a in black hole where information keeps going in but we never tell anybody everything we’ve got,” he said. “Well, we have files on almost everything. It doesn’t mean we’ve verified everything or that we believe everything we’ve got. So it’s a double-edged sword. Production companies take what they want and they’re free to use artistic license — that’s business.”

Schuessler declined to name names for the record, but he said one cable network decided to abolish all UFO programming because it conflicted with the religious beliefs of its owner. “I’m not kidding,” he said. Which, he added, makes MUFON’s new venue at History — however erratic or sensationalist its UFO productions may be — a gamble worth taking. And here’s why.

“In general,” he said, “this show has done more to open up channels of discussion than anything we’ve ever been involved with before. It’s a tradeoff, but it’s paying off for us, we’re getting more data. And that’s the whole point.

“I haven’t seen Friday night’s show, but I can guarantee you — even as controversial as that one apparently was — people with other parts of the puzzle will come forward. That’s what’s happening. Maybe, in this case, we’ll get confirming information that it’s all wet. But we’re getting feedback from people we’ve never heard from before.”

Well, there you go. Still, De Void can’t help wondering how it would work if the History producers played it straight. On the other hand, maybe this is as good as it’s ever going to get, and the formula strokers really are geniuses.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

The Second-Season Premiere of ‘Hangar 1: The UFO Files’

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Makes sense, but prove it


By Billy Cox
De Void
4-24-15

    The second-season premiere of “Hangar 1: The UFO Files” last Friday night on The History Channel’s H2 subsidiary was, as feared, a stylistic rehash of season one’s attention-deficit-jangled format — overproduced, amped up with gratuitous audio elements, and presenting speculation as fact. Don’t like the narrator's voice? No problem — “Hangar 1” relies on three voices to tell the single story of an alleged UFO encounter with U.S. forces in Vietnam in 1968. Is 43 minutes worth of programming on a single incident too much? No worries there, either. Six segments, roughly seven minutes apiece on multiple cases. You won’t need coffee, man.

What’s a little more disconcerting is how the opening installment, “UFOs at War,” seems to undermine the efforts of the Mutual UFO Network — from whom the case files are ostensibly borrowed — to advance its credibility even as the cable show attempts to broaden its base. Having survived 45 years now largely on the strength of its volunteer members, many of whom are sticklers for accuracy, its televised incarnation is clearly willing to cut corners for drama. Let’s focus on the main takeaway line from last week’s debut: “Lessons learned in Korea and Vietnam eventually led to a change in military protocol that prohibited any engagement with these unidentified aircraft.”

Given the potentially catastrophic countermeasures documented by military pilots, domestic and foreign, during close encounters over the last half century, backing away from a dogfight seems like a prudent option. But MUFON gives no source whatsoever for its claim. Jan Aldrich, an Army veteran who maintains the indispensable historical archives at Project 1947, is puzzled by “Hangar 1’s” logic. “The military always retain the right of self-defense, so a possible hostile act could have a reaction esp. in a war zone,” he states in an email. “... What protocol? No reference given. If you are going to make such a statement, better be prepared to back it up.”

In fact, during the 1950s, the Defense Department took an aggressive stance against UFOs’ repeated and infuriating affronts to sovereign American air space, especially during the Cold War. “The jet pilots are and have been under orders to investigate unidentified objects and to shoot them down, if they can’t talk them down,” stated a USAF flack, one Lt. Col. Moncel Monts. If only someone had saved the memo. But committing that policy to paper, and/or reversing that policy on paper, would be a risky move, according to former NICAP investigator Don Berliner.

“There were a lot of protests back then against the shoot-down orders, but I never saw those orders in print,” recalls Berliner, who went on to establish the Fund for UFO Research. “Maybe those orders were passed from person to person, but writing them down seems unlikely. That would actually confirm their existence and that would blow the lid off this thing.”

Ever the diplomat, Robert Powell, MUFON’s director of research, takes a pass when asked to comment on “Hangar 1.”

Suspicious of USAF behavior during and after the 2008 incident in which a monstro-sized UFO appeared to buzz President Bush’s Texas ranch, Powell co-authored MUFON’s analysis of federal radar records to reconstruct the chronology. Strange how the USAF failed to contribute anything at all to that end, even as the FAA and the National Weather Service had no trouble complying with FOIA laws. Strange how no sentinel F-16s were anywhere near the untranspondered bogey as it prepared to puncture restricted air space above the “Western White House,” especially considering how the warbirds pounced all over conventional planes that broke the zone in 2004, 2007, and later in 2008.

Still, proving the military has a non-engagement policy regarding UFOs is as tall an order as proving it had an open-season directive.

“Unless you’re in a war zone, I don’t think a military pilot would have the authority to fire on an unknown without somebody above them authorizing it,” says Powell. “And opening fire on something just because it’s unknown? What if you screw up and shoot down an airplane or a helicopter? And you risk hurting somebody on the ground, even if you’re in a military operating area. These things are almost mystical — when you fire on them it doesn’t do anything to them anyway.

“I think if we ever shoot at one, it’d have to be over open water, in the ocean.”

So yeah, if you’re going to do a story about what’s fair game in the sky, then please, j-school 101, source the freakin’ policy. Unless, of course, you’re not doing journalism. Then you’re doing “Hangar 1.”