Monday, October 4, 2010

Retrieving the Norm After the Storm


I like October. It's a month when people can at least pretend to be scared when All Hallows Eve rolls around. I think of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker in October, too, and of a certain October years ago when UFO reports saturated the area where I live.

Folks rightly SHOULD HAVE been frightened last month, when Leslie Kean's astounding UFO book hit The Big Time, and the remarkable efforts of Robert Hastings and Robert Salas brought UFOs and military nuclear missile base involvement to the National Press Club. The excitement peaked and hit a few hopeful spots, but public interest now slides back to economics, politics and sports.

I can only speak for myself, but in another two years or so fifty years will have passed since I became aware of the UFO phenomenon. Even as a high school student, I wrote numerous letters to the editors of area newspapers, spoke publicly and went on radio talk shows (my appearances weren't exactly equivalent to an Edward R. Murrow broadcast, but the incredible Wendy Connors, now retired from UFO research and documentation efforts, converted my old audio tapes to digital format for her vast "Faded Discs" sound archives of olden days, and my squeaky teenage voice will live on in infamy -- or until Byte Monsters from a distant galaxy come to earth and eat everything preserved digitally).

There were lectures at the public school and university level. There was TV. There was a course taught at a college. There were national magazine articles written for small payments in return. There were rewards of public awareness, but there was also intense frustration and the spending of more money than I would ever recover just to keep the UFO evidence out where people could find it. But -- this was important.

And still we wait. For something to happen. Will it? Did it? Dunno. Far easier to go back to TV athletic events and forget the cares few care about anyway.

And monsters? Ha, we got-cher monsters right here. To many folks, UFOs and monsters are all the same, so what the heck? While other younger and/or more informed UFO researchers continue beating their heads against walls of lethargy, officialdom and increasing social dumb-nation, maybe I'll just feature monsters during October. After all, everybody loves monsters, particularly when they become profitable. UFOs? Not profitable. Stuffy science, and no stadiums or scoreboards necessary.

And speaking of frightening things, remember a couple entries ago when we mentioned the proposed NY mosque near Ground Zero? I forgot to warn you of one essential: Mummies.

I can almost guarantee it. If they build that mosque, we'll have worries far exceeding radical Islam, because it won't be two years after its grand opening before mummies will be walking the streets of New York and scaring the population to death, one by one (see photo for just one example of the horrors awaiting us). Now do you understand the implications?

Yes, I know, I know. UFOs have apparently compromised the world's nuclear missile sites, and the U.S. alone counts among its citizens honest active duty and former military personnel willing to risk their reputations and honor to tell a story that must not be dismissed -- but, hell, we have monsters and sports and Hollywood personalities and. . .

Hmm. Speaking of entertainment, what is it with these new TV shows? The Event drove me bonkers from episode #1 when the title character somehow managed to sneak a big ol' handgun onto a commercial flight, a flight watched over by an air marshal, no less. By episode #2, if other viewers weren't ready to pass out while trying to keep track of all the time regressions, I certainly was. And, wow, the visitors look just like us, even down to their winter clothing. I'm sure all of this could lamely be explained, eventually, but I won't be hovering around in anticipation, because I expect a brutal cancellation first.

Werewolves what about werewolves? Sick of 'em yet? ABC-TV's The Gates featured werewolves that look like. . .like wolves. Wait a minute, they ARE wolves, ordinary wolves! Did somebody forget to hire the special effects team? And Vampire Diaries? Vampire Dullaries, dude. As last season concluded, this poorly scripted, yet (not surprisingly) heavily viewed teen TV favorite promised werewolves. What did the CW network deliver? A werewolf that looks like a wolf because it IS a wolf, looking even more ridiculous because somebody obviously messed with its appearance digitally. Couldn't they have at least put a Lon Chaney, Jr. Wolfman mask on it?

Yes, that's entertainment, and cheap fictional thrills and athletic monotony will win out over disturbing UFO incidents in real life every time. Here, let me tell you about a baseball team of mummies playing opposite zombies to huge crowds in Brooklyn. . .