The History Channel just wrapped up its "Alien Invasion" week of programming (which is offered quite often lately). A more suitable titled might have been "Alien Aversion." Don't hunker down with the popcorn when THC rolls out these back-to-back "investigative" programs hoping for 10 hours of interesting UFO exposés. Be prepared to have a close encounter of the debunker kind.

THC is clearly so biased against even the remote possibility that planet earth is being visited by extra-terrestrial/extra-dimensional life forms/intelligences that it has no qualms making a mockery of almost every classic UFO case we've all come to know about in great detail, even to the extreme of omitting vital information and clearly avoiding experts in the area of UFO research and packing their peanut gallery of experts and pros with debunkers alone. THC's breakdown of the Roswell event spent more time panning a shot of the USAF Official "Case Closed" cover and running meaningless 40's vintage air force stock footage than it did the original Roswell newspaper pages. But what I found most curious was, they told the entire story without once mentioning Jesse Marcel until they had firmly planted their "events strawman" to knock down, and then lightly touched on Jesse's experiences as an afterthought, lining up his testimony (and never mentioning his son's experience with the Roswell metals and materials Jesse brought home that night in 1947) up with "quack" testimonies more akin to the freakish, media-pigs one might find hovering around Roswell's commercialized tourist attraction today. You know something is up when THC chooses not to pan their camera too far to the right when showing the infamous "whether balloon debris" photo featuring General Ramey and omitting Jesse, only an inch away. They certainly didn't bother to quote Jesse, or splice in his amazing filmed testimony (Stanton Friedman's "UFOs Are Real"). No, Jesse sans son was just a 'dishonorable mention.' No mention of the 4 small caskets ordered (strange that the air force buries its battered and broken flight test dummies, eh?). No mention of the Corso data.

Roswell simply never happened and wasn't of interest to anyone until just a few years ago when it was 'dug up' and pieced together by greedy UFOlogists to spawn new material to write about, considering the complete lack of UFO activity in the world since the 40s. This was the overall impression THC presented!

But far more disturbing was their treatment of the Battle of Los Angeles ('42 Battle Of LA'
UFO Encounter), perhaps one of the most interesting of UFO cases from this time period or any other. It's not only very, very rare to find the BoLA even mentioned in a UFO documentary (which alone is peculiar), but to examine it from a debunker's position was even more bizarre.

When one looks at the original full photograph, one sees something clearly nailed in the crossed beams of multiple searchlights. Further, it is clear the object, whatever it was, actually STOPPED the searchlight beams from travelling further into the night sky. World-renowned UFO image analyst Bruce Maccabee's recent analysis of the photo indicates there was, indeed, something SOLID in the midst of those beams of light and exploding AA rounds in the skies above LA that night in 1942.

The entire BoLA was treated as a fairy tale of World War II jitters and mass (Army) hysteria over Japanese invasion. But once again, THC visually played a very dirty trick. Just as they had established a careful shot of General Ramey holding the Roswell "balloon" debris making sure not to show Jesse who was also in the frame, THC's cameras only panned the famous BoLA photograph left to right, showing the ground and searchlights. It never once inched up to reveal that glowing, peculiar, disc-shaped object upon which the searchlights were locked as shells burst in the sky around it. THC even obscured the imagery by overlaying stock footage of WWII searchlight and gunners. There was absolutely no attempt by the producers to offer even the possibility that "something" was overflying LA. It was dismissed as a case of paranoid overreaction. It even seemed to carry a snide and offensive suggestion that UFOlogy itself is to blame for the civilian damages done by the hail of armaments lobbed at the non-existent aerial interloper, back-blaming UFOlogy by more than 25 years (since real UFOlogical research didn't really impact society until the mid 60s).

Next time The History Channel wants you to think they're rolling out a fascinating new series of exposés that will be entertaining and educational, just remember, this is the same channel that tried to convince us last year that Jesus Christ quite possibly could have been a woman. In relation to that, The Learning Channel does a much better job of UFO investigative reporting.

Pay close attention to the convergence of the searchlights and you will clearly see the shape of the visitor within the illuminated target area. It's a BIG item and seemed completely oblivious to the hundreds of AA shells bursting on and adjacent to it which caused it no evident dismay. There were casualties, however...on the ground. At least 6 people died as a direct result of the Army's attack on the UFO which slowly and leisurely made its way down to and then over Long Beach before finally moving off and disappearing.

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In February, 1942, Katie was a young, beautiful, and highly-successful interior decorator and artist who worked with many of Hollywood's most glamorous celebrities and film industry luminaries. She lived on the west side of Los Angeles, not far from Santa Monica. With the outbreak of the war with Japan and the rising fear of a Japanese air attack, or even invasion of the West Coast, thousands of residents volunteered for wartime duties on the home front. Katie volunteered to become an Air Raid Warden as did 12,000 other residents in the sprawling city of Los Angeles and surrounding communities.

In the early morning hours of February 25th, Katie's phone rang. It was the Air Raid supervisor in her district notifying her of an alert and asking if she had seen the object in the sky very close to her home. She immediately walked to a window and looked up. "It was huge! It was just enormous! And it was practically right over my house. I had never seen anything like it in my life!" she said. "It was just hovering there in the sky and hardly moving at all." With the city blacked out, Katie, and hundreds of thousands of others, were able to see the eerie visitor with spectacular clarity. "It was a lovely pale orange and about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. I could see it perfectly because it was very close. It was big!"

The U.S. Army anti-aircraft searchlights by this time had the object completely covered. "They sent fighter planes up (the Army denied any of its fighters were in action) and I watched them in groups approach it and then turn away. There were shooting at it but it didn't seem to matter." Katie is insistent about the use of planes in the attack on the object. The planes were apparently called off after several minutes and then the ground cannon opened up. "It was like the Fourth of July but much louder. They were firing like crazy but they couldn't touch it." The attack on the object lasted over half an hour before the visitor eventually disappeared from sight. Many eyewitnesses talked of numerous "direct hits" on the big craft but no damage was seen done to it. "I'll never forget what a magnificent sight it was. Just marvelous. And what a georgeous color!", said Katie.

--Jeff Rense