This show is reasonably enjoyable as an introduction to the UFO phenomenon for those who are not otherwise well versed in the history of observations and attendant theories. Unfortunately, the utility of the show ends there.
There is rampant misinformation: incorrectly cited personal names; incorrectly cited (or just plain mispronounced) place names; and incorrect (sometimes woefully so) dates. (The biggest offender in this department, by the way, is William Birnes, J.D., Ph.D.) I can almost deal with this.
But what truly turned me against this show was the "revelation" that some loser had "decoded" the string of ones and zeroes that Sgt. Jim Penniston said he received "in my mind's eye" from the Rendlesham Forest UFO in 1980. How could anyone decode a random string of ones and zeroes and have any confidence in the result? What language do the aliens use? Is the binary ASCII or, perhaps, EBCDIC, or do the aliens have their own code? How remarkable that they believe in Roman characters! Worst of all, there are supposedly geographic coordinates --of the legendary island, Hy Brasil, no less! These are floating-point numbers. Amazing that they were decoded! Are they represented in mantissa/characteristic form with two sign bits? Are they fixed-point? Are they recorded in Intel format? PDP-11 format maybe? Why not CDC Cyber-6000 format? Anyone who claims to be able to ferret out useful information from a random bit string is full of it, and anyone who puts this "information" on his TV show should be shot.
There is rampant misinformation: incorrectly cited personal names; incorrectly cited (or just plain mispronounced) place names; and incorrect (sometimes woefully so) dates. (The biggest offender in this department, by the way, is William Birnes, J.D., Ph.D.) I can almost deal with this.
But what truly turned me against this show was the "revelation" that some loser had "decoded" the string of ones and zeroes that Sgt. Jim Penniston said he received "in my mind's eye" from the Rendlesham Forest UFO in 1980. How could anyone decode a random string of ones and zeroes and have any confidence in the result? What language do the aliens use? Is the binary ASCII or, perhaps, EBCDIC, or do the aliens have their own code? How remarkable that they believe in Roman characters! Worst of all, there are supposedly geographic coordinates --of the legendary island, Hy Brasil, no less! These are floating-point numbers. Amazing that they were decoded! Are they represented in mantissa/characteristic form with two sign bits? Are they fixed-point? Are they recorded in Intel format? PDP-11 format maybe? Why not CDC Cyber-6000 format? Anyone who claims to be able to ferret out useful information from a random bit string is full of it, and anyone who puts this "information" on his TV show should be shot.