There is no doubt that the entertainment business has been huge driving influence in the UFO community for years now. A huge part of our perceptions of ET, their craft and intentions have been formed by how these things have been portrayed in books, sci-fi, movies and television. Now it's streaming video, YouTube, podcasts, radio shows dedicated to the subject...the list goes on and on. And while some of these productions are good most are not as so many get way out in fantasy land, dark conspiracies, bizarre theories and subjects that just over dramatize, cheapen and sensationalize the field. This is a truly nightmarish landscape for many of us that take this field very seriously. Until I had my own experience in 1990 I was pretty agnostic to the whole idea of UFOs due to the tabloid papers of the 70's and 80's. I found the stories laughable and just plain stupid but there were thousands of people that sucked up every bit of it. You know the type. Gems like these...
First of all, for the most part, shows dealing with the UFO phenomenon are there for entertainment. There will always be a little of truth with a lot of added dramatic license to make the program more viewer friendly.In other words, the truth doesn't really matter. What DOES matter are ratings. These shows DO have disclaimers but like most TOS that we run into everyday, we don't stop to read the fine print. People see a show with a lot of drama thrown in and never think to research the subject content and find out how accurately it's being portrayed, research who the key players are in a story, get a different perspective from an expert of that stone glyph that looks like a helicopter or some solid talk from that guy that's been doing this over fifty years. As a friend and I discussed, there is a fan club mindset about all this that is generated by the entertainment industry. Fan club mindsets demand instant updates, gratification, info, new pics, the low down..you name it. Think of the followers of the Kardashians, Bieber..Cyrus..so on. People that are nurtured under this mindset in the UFO world actually believe there should be a new hard core, solid UFO case coming out all the time. The entertainment can't stop, the lights can't stop flashing, and the bells can't stop ringing. This type of mindset contributes nothing to the field of serious UFO study and the truth of the matter is that good UFO cases are far and few between. They don't just pop up on a regular basis.Producers know this and so they will add all sorts of filler to inflate the most mundane cases. By the time they get through with it a small white orb has been turned into a UFO sighting and story of a huge scale. But like those supermarket tabloids, people by the millions suck every bit of this stuff up. Why? Because they want to believe and it's easier for some to believe in the fantastic than the mundane.
Sadly, until we discover the truth of the UFO phenomenon, I don't think serious ufology can ever get a final divorce from the side show that is attached to it at the hip. I've discussed this with my fellow folks in the field many times over as it can be really distressing. It seems the very nature of the subject serves as a magnet for the weird and wacky. I think the best we can do is to continue to stand on solid ground, try to educate as many people as we can as to what real UFO investigations entail, get the news out about known hoaxes, suggest the better books and authors on the subject and encourage learning some basic astronomy as so many people don't know what is supposed to be in the night sky such as visible planets and bright stars, showcase the best cases in blogs and forums. We have a lot tools and opportunities to try to guide people to a better and more realistic way of seeing this thing. Some will take it to heart and some won't but if we're serious about this, then we should never stop trying to guide people to the best footing of this very slippery slope we call Ufology. The truth is out there and I feel that we are getting closer to it but it won't come from the latest episode of "Alien Undercover Agents."
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