Triangles in the sky

"Secret Access: UFOs on the record" is an interesting documentary about the UFO phenomenon from a non-sceptical viewpoint. It features investigative reporter Leslie Kean, British UFO expert Nick Pope (a.k.a. "the real Fox Mulder") and a somewhat repentant ex-governor of Arizona, Fife Symington. The documentary attempts to prove that the UFO phenomenon is real, consistent and "material". People are seeing actual craft. At the very end, the producers reveal that they believe in the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis.

UFO cases featured include the Rendlesham Forest incident, the Phoenix Lights and the Belgian UFO wave. There are also two lesser known observations (at least from my horizon) from Alaska and Chicago respectively. Witnesses include air traffic pilots, people from the military and police officers. As usual, the proper authorities feigned ignorance, came up with ridiculous explanations or mocked the witnesses. Ex-governor Symington admits that he saw the Phoenix Lights himself, but felt he couldn't go public with the information for fear of being ridiculed or creating hysteria. An interesting admission! The incident at Rendlesham Forest was (officially) not seen as a threat to the national security of Britain, despite having taken place near a heavily guarded NATO base stashed with nuclear missiles!

At least if the witnesses are to be believed, the UFOs looked like physical objects, often triangular-shaped, but had the ability to both shape-shift and disappear out of view almost instantaneously. This weird mixture of the physical and the non-physical seems to be typical of many UFO observations. Of course, the recurring triangular shape and silent flight of these objects make me suspect secret test flights of Stealth bombers or similar airplanes. The Belgian authorities apparently suspected the same, but USAF denied everything in an official statement (Belgium is a NATO member). The "supernatural" behaviour of the UFOs suggests either that the witnesses don't know what they are seeing, or that the phenomenon is paranormal.

Obviously, we could be dealing with different kinds of phenomena wrongly lumped together: most UFOs, after all, are not triangular shape, and it's difficult to find a completely consistent pattern in the great mass of UFO observations.

Be that as it may, I think "Secret Access" has at least demonstrated that something very strange is going on in our airspace and (perhaps) inside the heads of our duly elected officials and the military (but then, *that's* hardly news).

I don't think "Secret Access" is as good as "Out of the Blue" or "UFOs in South America", so I'm only going to give it three stars, but don't take it from me, watch it yourselves...