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David Marler’s ‘Triangular UFOs’ Is A Landmark Work For Ufology And Should Be Held As A Model For How To Handle The Subject In The Proper Way

With the exception of “lights,” the most common form of UFO reported by eyewitnesses are triangle or triangular-like flying objects.

The classic “flying saucer” or “disk” shaped UFOs don’t come close to the number of triangular UFO reported. That’s according to a survey conducted of 87,000 sighting reports since 1994 collected by the National UFO Reporting Center.

The count was conducted by Peter Davenport, the UFO Reporting Center’s director. He found 11,000 reports of triangular UFOs and 6,460 that were shaped liked disks.

In fact, even the very first modern report of flying saucers were not flying saucers.

On June 24, 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mount Rainier when he spotted nine objects which he described as, “something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear.” He described their movement as “a saucer skipping across the water.” A local reporter fixated on “saucer” and the term “flying saucer” was born.

David Marler

But get this: The first modern report of a triangle UFO predates the Kenneth Arnold sighting by more than 10 years. In the book I’m reviewing today, TRIANGULAR UFOS: AN ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION, author DAVID MARLER tells us about two young men who encountered a giant flying triangular object while walking along a lonely, snow-covered road one night in Alaska. The year was 1936. As the gigantic object approached them, they became frightened and dived into the snowbanks on the side of the road to hide as the fantastic object passed by.

Obviously, this obscure event on a remote rural road in Alaska did not create the sensation as did Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of nine triangle-disks skimming over the skies of Washington, and so usher in the modern UFO era. But it does demonstrate something important — that triangular flying objects have been appearing in our skies for many decades.

That’s part of the reason why this book is an incredibly important contribution to the study of UFOs. Marler chooses to focus on triangular objects, but in doing so, he has made one of the best cases I’ve ever encountered for the idea that UFOs cannot be explained away as something natural or the product of human invention.

The evidence is powerful and persuasive that airborne triangular objects are of nonhuman origin – be that entities from the stars, alternate dimensions, future timelines — or even something else.

Marler doggedly hammers away at the issue with painstaking and relentless presentation of case after case of sightings mostly gleaned from local newspaper reports, but also from the files of those organizations with study the phenomenon, such as MUFON or the National UFO Reporting Center.

Time and again, people from all walks of life tell of their experiences with sightings of gigantic triangular objects that float with utter silence in seeming complete disregard for the laws of gravity and physics. Many sightings report that the triangles travel with the widest side forward rather than “point forward” in weird contradiction of common-sense aerodynamics.

There’s also high strangeness. For example, some reports tell of triangles that shape shift, split in two and reform or take on other forms. Some have rows of windows in which, occasionally, glimpses of occupants are seen. Then there’s the uncanny, gigantic size of the objects. In the case of the famous series of sighting in 1997 “Phoenix Lights” incident, one triangle is estimated to have been 7 to 9 miles long – and was seen by thousands of people.

Darryl Barker created a 28-minute documentary on the Illinois events.

Other cases involve thousands of witnesses as well. Another prominent sighting is the Tinley Park Triangle. Tinley Park is a fast-growing suburb of Chicago. In August of 2004 thousands of people looked up into the night sky to see three bright lights that formed a triangle. UFO investigators located at least 30 videos of the object captured by residents. Although no physical structure could be seen between the lights, video analysis by computer-video expert Terrence Masson and Dr. Ted Acworth indicate that the lights were attached to a solid structure that was about 1,500 feet long.

Early in the book Marler takes us with painstaking detail through the January 5, 2000, sightings of a triangular UFO that was seen and tracked by numerous witnesses, including five police officers, one of who managed to get a Polaroid picture, although of poor quality.

Here Marler demonstrates his almost obsessive detail-oriented approach, relating every niggling instance in laying out the facts of the case. For example, he tells us where a police officer turned his squad car right and where he turned left as he followed the strange object as it traversed across southern Illinois skies. The effect for the reader is often tedious, and yet, instills us with the surety that here is a writer who is a serious, painstaking investigator that doesn’t mess around.

THE MEDIA AND UFOS

I think anyone reading this book will be struck by the fact that the majority of it could never have been written if it had not been for the steady work of local newspaper reporters toiling away at small and medium-sized papers across the nation and world.

Indeed, I was delighted to see that one of the historical accounts cited was gleaned from a Midwest daily newspaper I once worked for as a general assignment reporter back in the 1980s – The Daily Journal of Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

I bring this up because I notice Marler’s book is published by RICHARD DOLAN Press. Mr. Dolan, of course, has been a premier voice in the UFO field for decades. His contribution to the understanding of legitimate, evidence and fact-based study of the issue has been beyond calculation. He has my endless admiration.

However, where I part ways with Mr. Dolan has been his frequent excoriation of the media as “part of the problem” in terms of the frustrations within the UFO community about being accepted as a legitimate field of study. That’s why I was prompted recently to flay Mr. Dolan and his co-author Bryce Zabel in a scathing review of their book, A.D. AFTER DISCLOSURE. (See that review HERE).

To be fair, I have sometimes heard Richard Dolan make it clear that he thinks local, or perhaps second-tier media outlets are doing a good job of reporting the UFO phenomenon, but he contends that the “nexus of control” occurs at the top-tier of the mainstream media level. He has frequently made the dubious (and demonstrably incorrect) claim that major news outlets are “controlled by the CIA” and other dark government influences. (Again, see his argument in A.D. After Disclosure). This is where the otherwise level-headed Richard Dolan tragically falls prey to full conspiracy theory mode psychology.

This view is widespread among the UFO community. Most have accepted as gospel that the media has long played a nefarious, dishonest and corrupt role in not only keeping the truth about UFOs suppressed but but also acting as a proactive agent of outright disinformation.

I offer David Marler’s book as Exhibit A that this is not true. Again, anyone reading Marler’s fine study of triangular UFOs must conclude unambiguously that the media has been the best friend of the ufologist – from the time reporters broke the very first UFO sightings of Kenneth Arnold. After all, it was newspaper reporters who announced to the world in a bold headline that, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch In Roswell Region.”

It was on-the-ground, hard working journalists who first revealed the UFO story to the public — and did not hide it from the public — and they continue to do it every day up to present day. David Marler’s book demonstrates that.

Finally…

So, I find Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation to be among the most important books about UFOs written in decades. In addition to reports of sightings, the author offers critical examination, discussion and proposes a plan of action for future study. Included is an important interview with the distinguished aviation engineer, Professor John E. Allen, Chief of Future Projects for British Aerospace. This offers invaluable perspective from a man who has been on the cutting edge of aviation design for decades. He’s mostly a skeptic, but an open-minded one. His views on what is possible in terms of current man-made technology helps make the case most triangular UFOs cannot be “ours.”

The book is bolstered by forward written by the legendary JOHN B. ALEXANDER Ph.D. An afterward section provides short essays that offer more perspective. These include offerings by Richard Dolan, Mark Rodeghier, George Wingfield, Omar Fowler and Peter Davenport.

Additional Note:

A recent book involving a massive triangular UFO and abduction case has been making some waves recently. It’s by retired attorney Terry Lovelace. I review his book here: INCIDENT AT DEVIL’S DEN

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BLACK SWAN GHOSTS by Simeon Hein PhD

SYMBIOSIS by Nancy Tremaine

PASCAGOULA: THE CLOSEST ENCOUNTER by Calvin Parker

Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

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Reclusive UFO Abductee Calvin Parker Breaks Silence With Book On Iconic UFO Abduction Event At Pascagoula, Mississippi, In 1973: An Important Breakthrough For Ufology

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Review by: KEN KORCZAK

I was 14 years old in 1973. My family subscribed to two daily newspapers — the Minneapolis Tribune (now the StarTribune) and a North Dakota-based paper, the Grand Forks Herald. I was already a news junky and read them both every day.

In about mid-October of that year both papers carried a sensational story about two Mississippi men who were abducted by robot-like aliens with crab-like claws and wrinkled, leathery skin. The men were “floated” into an oval-shaped UFO, subjected to an examination and released after about 30 minutes.

The newspaper stories were accompanied by intriguing pen-and-ink drawings of the bizarre alien creatures and also a sketch of a blue-glowing UFO.

Even as a teenager, I was profoundly struck by the fact that such an amazing account was presented in two mainstream newspapers. It gave the story an added jolt of legitimacy to my young mind. Now 45 years later, that feeling remains.

Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker in 1973.

Normally sensational stories like this appeared only in the National Enquirer or FATE or UFO magazines, but the Pascagoula incident was a case that somehow transcended standard divisions of journalism. It’s almost as if the event carried with it an intuitive sense that something real must have happened. The story circled the globe in top-tier newspapers and broadcast media around the world.

One of the many sketches of the “alien robots” that grabbed the two men and floated them into a UFO.

It’s just one of the reasons that the Pascagoula abduction has always remained among the most vexing and iconic UFO incidents of all time. Furthermore, skeptics, including guys like Philip Klass and Joe Nickell, threw everything they could at the story of the two abductees, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker. But the pushback of the knee-jerk naysayers seemed to ring hollow and fall flat. A sense of strained desperation characterized debunking attempts.

Another fascinating aspect of the case was the difference in the way the two men subsequently dealt with what has happened to them. The older man, Charles Hickson, a Korean War combat veteran, shipyard foreman and solid southern working man, spent the rest of his life talking about it, granting hundreds of media interviews, writing a book and even occasionally hitting the lecture tour.

But young shipyard welder Calvin Parker, just 19 at the time, wanted none of it. He suffered a nervous breakdown a week after the abduction and essentially went into hiding thereafter. The general impression has been that Parker sent himself into a kind of self-imposed witness protection program. This created an aura of mystery about Parker which has ever since bolstered the “high strangeness” mystique and legacy of the Pascagoula UFO abduction event.

So when I heard a few months ago that Calvin Parker had not only resurfaced but was coming out with a book to tell his side of the story — after all these decades! — my anticipation meter redlined! What would he have to say? And better yet, would he reveal new details about one of the greatest UFO cases off all time?

Artists impression of Pascagoula UFO.

Well, after reading Calvin Parker’s PASCAGOULA: THE CLOSEST ENCOUNTER I am not disappointed. Despite some agonizing drawbacks to this book (which I’ll discuss in a bit) — this direct witness/abductee account provides enough additional information to make it one of the most important contributions to ufology in recent years.

I say that because, other than the enduring influence of the Pascagoula event, this case essentially went cold more than 40 years ago. Unlike other famous incidents, such as Roswell or England’s Rendlesham Forest encounters, where new clues and evidence have continued to trickle out over the years, Pascagoula was essentially a “one and done” happening that presented little opportunity for further investigation.

Hickson on site of the event, 1973.

But Calvin Parker’s book has changed that. For one thing, it provides the testimony of several local residents who were in proximity to the area where the abduction event took place. They offer credible, objective accounts of having seen a UFO like the one described by Hickson and Parker in the area in a time frame before and after the event.

But the bombshell of this book for me is the revelation that Calvin Parker underwent 90 minutes of hypnotic regression with none other than the famous ufologist BUDD HOPKINS in 1993, twenty years after the event. Parker never received a copy of the tape Hopkins made of the session. Worse, Hopkins died in 2011. The fate of the Parker regression tape seemed that it was lost.

Dr. David Jacobs

But now thanks to the dogged work of long-time British UFO investigator Philip Mantle, the tape was found and its transcript is presented in full in this book. The way the tape was found is an interesting anecdote in itself — it turns out is was in the possession of another venerable ufologist, Dr. David Jacobs. After Hopkins’ death, Jacobs was entrusted with Hopkins’ documents and materials. He agreed to provide the tape for this book.

Scottish writer David Lindsay

The transcript itself reads like a surrealist masterpiece. It’s almost like something concocted from the mind of DAVID LINDSAY while retaining the flavor of an honest southern man who spent his life working with his hands, living in small towns and leading a simple life.

The hypnotic regression suggested that much more occurred either during the original Pascagoula event itself — but more likely through a series of alien visitations upon Calvin Parker from the time he was six years old and throughout his life. Furthermore, the narrative of the transcript includes unsettling, shifting focuses in time, brutal and violent interactions with alien beings and jarring vignettes featuring random bits of imagery that add mystery and drama.

I’ll say no more and let readers discover the rest for themselves.

British ufologist Philip Mantle

Before I get on with some final business I think it’s important to recognize veteran British UFO researcher PHILIP MANTLE for the role he played in breathing new life into the Pascagoula UFO incident. It was Mr. Mantle who approached Calvin Parker and urged him to write this book. Mantle also published it under his FLYING DISK PRESS stamp.

I should not be be underestimated what a major coup this represents to the world of ufology — and Philip Mantle is the guy who pulled it off. Mantle has been one of the U.K. longest and most irrepressible UFO investigators for decades. It required someone with his connections and skills (such as tracking down the Hopkins tape) to provide Parker with the encouragement, morale boost and platform to break open an exemplar of classic ufology. (NOTE: See my review of Philip Mantle’s novel: ONCE UPON A MISSING TIME).

Now a bit of pain: It truly grieves me to say that the editing of this book is awful, both in terms of the way certain content choices were made in presenting certain blocks of information as well as in respect to run-of-the-mill typos, punctuation errors and spelling.

Charles Hickson published his own version of the Pascagoula abduction event in 1978.

I almost never play “Grammar Police” in my reviews even when it is warranted, but in this case we have a book that could and should take its place as a classic among the shelves of the best UFO literature — but the lack of proper editing mars the overall effort.

I was thrilled that the editors did a superb job in retaining the sound and cadence of Calvin Parker’s deep-southern Mississippi drawl — but to then sprinkle it with British spellings for words like humor (humour) and center (centre) jar on the ear like potholes in an otherwise well-paved road.

Another major problem: In the Hopkins transcript portion, some lines are often miscued as “BUDD” when “CALVIN” is actually speaking and vice-versa — such a snafu is inexcusable for a document of such importance and relevance.

But to end on a positive note, this book includes a lot of excellent photos and illustrations. I was especially delighted to see updated photos of Calvin Parker as he is today.

I was thrilled and gratified to finally read Calvin Parker’s story after all these years. It returned to me that feeling of wonderment I experienced as a 14-year-old so many years ago growing up in a small town in northern Minnesota, where I spent every clear night out in the backyard with my 6-inch Newtonian reflector observing the stars and pondering: “Who might be out there?”

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MANAGING MAGIC by Grant Cameron

EXTRATERRESTRIAL ODYSSEY by Rocky Kvande

LOST ON SKINWALKER RANCY by Erick T. Rhetts

THE CIRCLE AND THE SWORD by Nigel Mortimer

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Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

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Veteran UFO Investigator Grant Cameron Makes His Case: U.S. Government Has Been Managing A Subtle, Controlled Disclosure Strategy For 70 Years

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Review by: KEN KORCZAK

Who is the most important person in ufology today?

Forget Steven Greer or Tom Delong or Stanton Friedman or Linda Moulton Howe or Richard Dolan or Leslie Kean or Steve Basset or Timothy Good or Luis Elizondo or Robert and Ryan Wood or Michael Salla — or even the now mostly silent Jacques Vallee.

The most significant figure in the study of UFO phenomenon today is this guy: GRANT CAMERON.

Cameron, a well-mannered Canadian from the Great Plains city of Winnipeg, has been doggedly seeking the truth about UFOs for 42 years. He was unwittingly thrust into this role after a personal encounter with the famous Charlie Red Star in 1975.

That was the name given to a blood-red, pulsating ball of light that amazed people dwelling in a series of small towns in southern Manitoba near the North Dakota border.

The Charlie Red Star UFO was captured in many photos as it cruised the countryside of southern Manitoba from 1975 to 1976.

For an incredible two years, Charlie Red Star haunted the skies of this sparsely-populated, wide-open prairie landscape dotted by small farming communities. The conservative, no-nonsense folks of the region could only gape in wonder at the bold aerial antics of the unfathomable object gamboling across their heavens.

Grant Cameron – who previously had zero interest in UFOs – suddenly knew that he would spend the rest of his life trying to find an answer: “What was that thing?”

Now, more than four decades later, he feels he has an answer. He sums up his conclusion with a single word: “Consciousness.”

Grant Cameron

More than anything else, the central most important aspect of the UFO phenomenon is the idea that Consciousness is primary and material reality is secondary. If you want to understand UFOs, you must start there, Cameron says.

Furthermore, if you stay mired in materialism – specifically, the paradigm of material, nuts-n-bolts science – your fate in the UFO field will be an agonizing entanglement in one bizarre rabbit hole after another – it might even drive you insane.

Cameron has avoided insanity, however, or even evolving into an eccentric UFO weirdo. He’s maintained a kind of grounded dignity. He has diligently sought answers while living gracefully with uncertainty and staying close to facts.

But that doesn’t mean he has rejected high strangeness out of hand. Cameron has since embraced a lot of way-out-there stuff, from the accepting the reality of ETs interacting with us daily to the existence of trans-dimensional portals that can punch us through to parallel worlds. (NOTE: See Cameron’s video documentation of Xendra Portals HERE

This book, MANAGING MAGIC, sticks to slightly more practical matters, however. A few years ago, Cameron said he was done with investigating UFOs. He concluded that chasing lights in the sky and sifting through endless classified government reports obtained through FOIA requests was fruitless.

Recent release of a U.S. Air Force F/A-18 fighter jet footage of a UFO exploded speculation that the government was about to reveal more of what it knows about UFOs

But just like Michael Corleone’s famous lament from Godfather III – “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in” – Cameron felt compelled to write another UFO book. That’s because of what he believes he now knows about the issue of Disclosure – official government disclosure to the public about the reality of UFOs.

A huge portion of the UFO community has been foaming at the mouth for decades, excoriating the government for withholding information from tax-paying citizens who have a right to know . In fact, ranting and raving about oppressive and corrupt government secrecy is an almost inseparable issue from the central premise of UFOs itself within ufology circles.

Government secrecy fosters delicious conspiracy theories and a self-righteous “feel-good” outlet for venting and blaming the powerful elite for the condescending way they treat the masses. The evil cabals at the highest levels of society have earned our virtuous rage of the sainted public.

Let’s face it – playing the victim is a guilty pleasure for many people — perhaps even when justified.

Cameron now believes, however, that our government has likely adopted the correct course all along – that course is an extremely gradual disclosure designed to drip-drip-drip out UFO information over a period of decades.

Doing it that way is for our own good, Cameron says. That’s because the actual truth behind the phenomenon is so bizarre, so enormous, so weird and so epistemologically shattering – a long, drawn-out disclosure is the only responsible thing to do. In the conclusion of Managing Magic he writes:

“After decades of work on the disclosure problem I have become much more sympathetic to the position the government has taken, and how they have handled the situation they were handed in the 1940s.

“Many in the UFO community will say that full disclosure should be a simple thing and done ASAP. The more I view the evidence, the less I agree with that position and the more I see a potential for disaster were that approach to be taken.”

He also states near the beginning of the book:

“The American government is taking the lead on this measured disclosure. When the facts get reviewed, this becomes very evident.”

This view is anathema to so many in ufology. Again, the endorphin rush they get from the righteous indignation they feel at the hands of a deceitful government is a fundamental aspect – in an ironic sort of way – of why people get enthralled by the UFO issue in the first place.

Rock star turned UFO investigator Tom DeLong.

Dr. Steven Greer.

Cameron offers a blunt assessment on some of the biggest names in ufology today – especially rock-star-turned-ufology-star TOM DELONG, former front man for the band Blink 182. Another is DR. STEVEN GREER the emergency-room-doctor-turned-self-proclaimed-greatest-ufologist-of-all-time.

Cameron points out what these two men have in common: They are both supreme ego maniacs. As such, they have been easily manipulated by government disinformation agents who are only happy to use them to leak both factual UFO information to the public – and disinformation when it suits the government strategy of a nuanced, subtle and gradual disclosure process.

That’s the crux of what Cameron is trying to tell us here. Our government, in fact, IS disclosing UFO information to us – but it is also misleading us with smoke screens when it wants to. The government is threading a delicate middle path between disclosure and disinformation – this middle way is designed to gradually acclimate the public over a period of many years – a necessary strategy to avoid catastrophic consequences.

But be warned: This is complicated.

Cameron’s thesis toils under the burden of that complication. I advise the reader to consider the information in this book with great care. The potential to misunderstand what Cameron is telling us is considerable. There are occasions in which the author would appear to contradict his own theories – but I believe that’s an artifact of the tangled labyrinth we necessarily must stumble through. The truth about UFOs is the the proverbial, “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, hidden inside an enigma.”

With Managing Magic, Grant Cameron makes a heroic effort to light a pathway through the most vexing labyrinth ever to confront mankind.
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EXTRATERRESTRIAL ODYSSEY By Roger Kvande

SELECTED BY EXTRATERRESTRIALS By Bill Tompkin

PASSPORT TO THE COSMOS By John Mack M.D.

LIGHT QUEST By Andrew Collins

SEARCHERS By Ron Felber

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Web-based movie series “Milgram & The Fastwalkers” Out-Xs the X-Files

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Review by: KEN KORCZAK

Think of a soap opera, but not the kind with impossibly handsome doctors and lawyers tangled in sleazy love affairs with achingly gorgeous women — no, instead imagine a soap opera that has UFOs and alien abduction as its central premise.

Well, that’s what you get with the first season of MILGRAM & THE FASTWALKERS, a micro-budget but heroic attempt to take ufology to the streets serial-TV style … well, Internet-platform style, that is.

But wait a minute — I want to jump right ahead and say that while Season 1 of ‘Fastwalker’ was indeed rather soapy, Season 2 quickly evolves into something much more sensational, and by sensational, I mean sensationally good.

Milgrim & The Fastwalkers easily out-Xs The X Files, in my opinion, and I loved the X Files.

But this is better. Read on.

Here’s the premise: Brilliant psychiatrist Richard Milgram (Richard Cutting) has his career in high gear having just won the prestigious “Pullman Prize” for penning a brilliant book, while his practice has a mile-long waiting list of people who desperately need one of the world’s best shrinks.

In the meantime, a young, career-climbing lawyer has developed a real problem. She’s the lovely Sally Lemm (Walker Hays), beautiful as a summer day — but tough, cold and hard-bitten as the worse kind of A-hole lawyer you ever want to meet

Her career is crumbling because she is being taken up, up and up into the frightening interior of a UFO operating room where nasty aliens are giving impregnating her with alien hybrid seeds, only to terminate her pregnancies whenever they see fit. And then they do it all over again.

Ms. Lemm eventually finds her way to Dr. Milgram, who is skeptical at first, but gets pulled toward where the science is taking him — to the astounding realization that this whole alien abduction thing just might be real.

Dr. Milgram is certainly based on the real, world-famous and late Harvard psychiatrist DR. JOHN MACK. Like Milgram, Mack had won the Pulitzer Prize for a brilliant book, and was among the most eminent psychiatric doctors in the world. Like Milgram, Mack was drawn into the endlessly bizarre world of ufology when he dared conclude that his many patients complaining of alien abduction were not crazy — that what was happening to them was probably real.

Dr. John Mack, Photo by Stuart Conway

Mack’s distinguished career was rocked to the core. Harvard elites formed a kangaroo court and tried to revoke his tenure and spit him out like a bad oyster — but Mack was saved thanks mostly to the efforts of attorney Daniel Sheehan (of the Pentagon Papers case), who pulled his fat out of the academic-witch-hunt fire.

Portraying Dr. Milgram in the image of John Mack is just one thing that this intelligently written series gets right. Finally, here is a serial dramatic production channeling the UFO phenomenon which goes beyond all the surface cliches of ufology. It gets at the truly mind-bending, far reaching implications of what is most likely the most important sociological/scientific/spiritual issue of our times.

Yes, ufology is hopelessly infected with the lunatic fringe, but at the same time, has captured serious attention of some the most brilliant minds in the world, including the aforementioned John Mack, but also others, such as Jacques Vallee, Carl Jung, J. Alan Hynek, Horace Drew, Gordon Cooper, Laurance Rockefeller, Edgar Mitchell — and many other movers and shakers in science and industry.

Two other things that make Milgram & the Fastwalkers a superior production:

Character driven plots: The creators do not rely on the sensational aspect of the UFO phenomenon to carry the entire narrative. This saga is deeply character driven, and there are a lot of them! Milgram and Sally Lemm are the major players, but they are surrounded by well-fleshed out characters with all the normal problems of everyday life — from Milgram’s boozy, sex-starved wife, Evelyn (Kate Revelle), to Fred Robinette (John C. Bailey), Migram’s fellow psychiatrist with an addiction to gambling, to Lisa Hill (Danielle Davy), a repulsively seedy, scruples-free journalist hell bent on digging dirt to further her own career.

Punchy Script: The screenplay often sores to delightful levels with crackling, cut-to-the-bone dialogue that will spin the mind of the viewer like an alien brain implant. A prime example is a sizzling (and darkly humorous) scene in Episode 3 of Season 2 when hapless mechanic Kevin (Joe Hansard), a frequent UFO abductee, is confronted by the wonderfully freakish Claire Tighlman ( Victoria Guthrie) — who is almost certainly some kind of alien (probably a “reptilian” disguised as a human) — who badgers and bullies Kevin while simultaneously dishing out an awful kind of tough love.

I want to make mention of another scene that lifts this series to a higher level of authenticity. It’s in Season 2, Episode 6 in which Sally Lemm is paid a visit by a MIB (Josh Davidson), one of ufology’s infamous “Men In Black.”

I use the word “authenticity” because the scene captures the real flavor or the incredible weirdness of the MIB phenomenon, and while an element of wry humor is involved, it doesn’t present the MIB event as a shallow Hollywood joke as did those silly the Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones movies.

It seems clear that the scene leverages two of the most famous real MIB events, the first as reported by Jacques Vallee in his book, Confrontations. The incident occurred in 1976 near a small lumber town in California called Happy Camp. After numerous UFO sightings and confrontation with aliens, a local restaurant in the small town received a strange customer one day. Vallee describes it this way:

“… a stranger who had never been seen in town happened to stroll into Lois’s Cafe … all conversation stopped when the man came in. He ordered a steak dinner but proved unable to use a knife and fork, and eventually left without paying … he had pale skin and ‘oriental’ eyes. He wore a bizarre sort of shirt and no coat, although it was the middle of winter. He smiled constantly at people in a strange, forced grimace. Among the peculiar things he did during his extraordinary dinner was a brave attempt to drink Jell-O out of a glass.”

The other MIB event the scene takes a cue from is from the book, CAPTURED! by Kathleen Marden, the niece of famous UFO abductee Betty Hill. In this book, Marden describes a frightening MIB visit to a medical doctor who had hypnotically regressed a young man who had experienced an abduction event. Part of the doctor’s bizarre conversation with the MIB involved the MIB asking the doctor to hold a coin in his hand. Marden writes:

“(The MIB) told the him to hold (the coin) in his outstretched hand. he told him to watch the coin, not him. He did this and saw the penny change to a silver color, then to a blue color, become hazy, indistinct, and vanish .. the MIB said no one on this plane would ever see that coin again.”

The MIB then tells the doctor that Barney Hill (Betty’s husband) “knew too much” and that his heart had been taken in just the same way the coin had been made to vanish. This very same scene is played out with Sally Lemm and her MIB visitor, except he vanishes her ring instead of a coin.

The point is, the star and writer of this UFO show, Richard Cutting, has clearly done his homework and is delivering to his audience a script that is inspired directly from the pages of some of the best books on the subject. It imbues this drama with a depth and intelligence rare in shows about the UFO issue.

Again, I want to emphasize that Milgram & The Fastwalkers really hits its stride and becomes something special in Season 2, but I recommend you watch from the beginning, starting with Season 1, which is composed of 12 short episodes of just seven to 20 minutes each.

Let’s hope there is a Season 3.

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