Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation is a new History mini-series about the Defense Department’s interest in UFOs. Some people might be skeptical because of History’s less than stellar reputation when it comes to UFOs as well as the other subjects that dominate conspiracy theories. However, it should be mentioned that Unidentified has a much closer relationship with the truth than a lot of the TV network’s other output, meaning that it could be worthwhile viewing for people who are interested in UFOs but have managed to maintain a sense of skepticism about them. Here are 10 things that you may or may not have known about Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation:
1. Based on Real Occurrences
For starters, it is important to note that Unidentified is based on real events. In fact, some readers might have already heard about them, seeing as how they were the subject of an article in the New York Times. For those who are curious, the gist of the article is that UFO encounters are a real phenomenon for U.S. Navy pilots, though that isn’t the same as saying that there are actually extraterrestrial vessels operating on our planet.
2. The Occurrences Were Treated with Seriousness By the Defense Department
One of the reasons that UFO enthusiasts have been excited in recent times is that the New York Times article made it very clear that the Defense Department has been treating these UFO encounters with seriousness. For instance, there is the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program that is said to have analyzed the data collected from these UFO encounters, which makes sense because studying an unknown to determine whether it should be considered a threat or not is definitely something that falls under the purview of the military. However, there are some people out there who take it a bit too far by assuming that this supports their belief in the existence of extraterrestrial vessels operating on our planet.
3. The Occurrences Neither Prove Nor Disprove the Existence of UFOs
Instead, the most reasonable position at this point in time is that the occurrences neither prove nor disprove the existence of UFOs in the sense of extraterrestrial vessels. After all, there are other potential explanations for the UFO encounters. However, it is important to note that what has been revealed did nothing to disprove the idea of extraterrestrial vessels either, meaning that interested individuals will have to wait for something more meaningful to come out, assuming that it ever does.
4. One Potential Explanation Is a Terrestrial Vessel
One potential explanation is that the UFO encounters were created by a terrestrial vessel rather than an extraterrestrial vehicle. It is important to note that the UFO encounters described in the New York Times article happened on the coast, which is the kind of place where one would expect advanced terrestrial vessel looking for more information to show up rather than the U.S. interior, where they would be much more vulnerable to interception.
5. Another Potential Explanation Is a Technical Issue
Another potential explanation is that the UFO encounters were the products of bugs and other technical issues. In part, this is because the UFO encounters happened when the U.S. Navy pilots had just had their radar systems upgraded, which is the time when one would expect such issues to come up. However, it should also be noted that there are cases in which the radar systems told the U.S. Navy pilots that there was something that their head cameras couldn’t pick up, which is reason to wonder whether the radar might have been the source of the problem.
6. There Are a Lot of UFO Encounters
With that said, the Defense Department hasn’t been able to come up with an explanation for all of the UFO encounters reported, which isn’t particularly surprising with the limited data as well as the sheer number of such incidents. As such, even if the bulk of these UFO encounters have relatively down-to-earth explanations, it is still possible that some of them were caused by extraterrestrial vessels. Of course, whether that is actually the case or not is a whole separate issue.
7. There Are Some Pretty Notable People Involved in the Mini-Series
It is interesting to note that there are some pretty notable people involved in the making of the mini-series. Naturally, some of the U.S. Navy fighters will be interviewed on Unidentified. However, there is a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence named Chris Mellon involved as well, which provides it with a bit of additional credibility.
8. Not Too Prone to Excess Enthusiasm
History shows have a bad reputation for taking a piece of evidence before using it to spin some very fanciful narratives, meaning that it is perfectly natural for people to be skeptical about their claims. However, Unidentified is much more subdued in this regard, thus making it more believable when compared with some of its counterparts.
9. Variety Reviewer Thinks It Wasn’t As Compelling As It Could’ve Been
Having said that, there are negative reviews as well. For instance, the Variety review states that while there was genuinely interesting material in the form of the interviews included in the episode of Unidentified that was available for review, the way in which the show was presented as well as the figures involved in the presentation meant that it wasn’t as serious and wasn’t as compelling as it could’ve been under other circumstances.
10. Visually Uninteresting Footage
Besides those complaints, the other problem that the Variety review had was that the footage for the show wasn’t particularly interesting from a visual perspective. To some extent, this was understandable because UFO footage tends to be pretty underwhelming. However, that wasn’t enough to change the fact that showing planes flying in the sky wasn’t enough to make up for that lack.
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