Hilbert College

 Annotated Bibliography:

UFOs in the Media

- Home - Students - Tutorials - Student Papers -

Sparks, Glenn G. (1998) Paranormal Depictions in the Media: How do they affect what people believe. Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 22, no. 4.

This article tells about studies conducted by Sparks on the effects of mass media. His first experiments were to determine the effects of scary movies on children. Later, he performs a study on college students. First he has them answer a survey including a discussion of their paranormal beliefs. Two weeks later, the subjects were divided up into five groups and each group viewed an episode of the tv program Beyond Reality with different types of disclaimers run at the beginning. His second study took an episode of Unsolved Mysteries and edited out every UFO, leaving blank skies where UFOs would be. One group watched the doctored version and one watched the unedited version. The third study used magazine articles, and varied in the amount of scientific expertise included. The fourth study used an episode of the CBS news show 48 Hours. The fifth study asked people about their media exposure (what tv shows they watched i.e. The X Files) and their beliefs in the paranormal. The conclusions say that there is a measurable impact of the media on belief in the paranormal, but much more specific testing must be performed to provide better evidence.

Jaroff, Leon. (1995) Weird science: catering to viewers' growing appetite for the paranormal, new TV shows obliterate the line between fact and fiction. TIME magazine, v145, n20.

This is a proof and commentary on the fact that TV produced a boatload of new shows about the paranormal in the mid-90s to coincide with the surge in belief in the paranormal.

Klass, Phillip J. (1996) That's entertainment! TV's UFO coverup. Skeptical Inquirer, v20 n6.

More proof of the surge of paranormal TV as well as hard evidence supporting the severe pro-believer bias exhibited by these shows; including both fluff like Sightings as well as more believed programming like 48 Hours and 60 Minutes.

Farren, Mick. (1999) Conspiracies, Lies, and Hidden Agendas. Renaissance Books.

This book is an alphabetical listing of strange happenings. It contains a good, specific description of the Majestic 12 documents, Area 51 and other lesser known paranormal happenings. It also has a wonderful bibliography which helped me find more stuff elsewhere.

Condon, Dr. Edward U. (1969) Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects Conducted by the University of Colorado under contract to the United States Air Force. E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc.

This was supposed to be the be all-end all publication on UFOs. Contains a lot of broad "debunkings" of UFO sightings in general, as well as case-by-case debunkings. There are also some wonderful photographs reprinted of plates flying through the air and "Film Defects." It also contains one of my favorite statements ever made: The word debunking means to take the bunk out of a subject. Correctly used, one cannot debunk a subject unless there is some bunk in it.

Friedman, Stanton T. (1996) Top Secret/Majic. Marlowe & Company.

This book is about the Majestic 12 documents. Supposedly, MJ-12 is the coverup of a secret colonization arrangement made between aliens and President Eisenhower. This book describes the members of the original group, the briefing documents and the operations manuals involved. It also includes information on how the MJ-12 documents skirted the Freedom of Information Act and how the entire fiasco was treated by the government. It also contains a chapter on the "Alien Autopsy" footage supposedly taken in Dallas. The topic was snatched up by Fox and London's Channel four, but their coverage was inadequate.

Fawcett, Lawrence and Barry J. Greenwood. (1984) Clear Intent. Prentice-Hall, Inc.

In a flurry of acronyms and big words, this book seemingly tells all. It begins with a discussion of the Freedom of Information Act and Project Blue Book (In an interesting side note, this book's cover was blue, as were the covers of four other books on the same subject). Everyone that wrote to the Air Force asking about UFOs received an information packet about sightings.. Following is a chapter on black helicopters and Project Stigma. Subsequent chapters describe the involvement of the CIA and the FBI. There are several Appendices which are mostly ugly mimeographs of CIA memos with most of the good parts marked out with black magic marker. One page has everything marked out except for the words "Top Secret" at the top and bottom of the page. The most interesting thing this book had to offer was reprints of an "Unidentified Flying Object Report" form. It even has a place to denote its "Size compared to a known object... held at arm's length."

Craig, Roy. (1995) UFOs. An Insider's View of the Official Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press.

Part one of this book is presented like a road journal. Craig worked for Condon on the University of Colorado project. It explains investigations in various locales including the northern Pacific coast, and such well known towns as Halberg, New York and Stella's Motel in Pennsylvania. Basically, Craig tracked down the photographers behind the grainy prints on the nightly news. The second part of the book, titled The Production, Content, and Impact of the Condon Report. He ends his book with the charming line: And, while space on Earth is limited, there is unlimited room in the collective mind of mankind for mystery, for awe, for reverence, for love, for wonder--and for UFOs.

Hynek, J. Allen. (1972) The UFO Experience. Henry Regnery Company.

Hynek was a scientific consultant to the US Air Force on UFOs. He wrote this book because people kept asking him to recomend a good book on UFOs. The first part of the book tells about UFO reports and sightings. Part two breaks the sightings down into prototypes: Nocturnal Lights, Daylight Discs, Radar-Visual, and Close Encounters of the First, Second and Third Kinds. The third section is about Project Blue Book and the University of Colorado report.

Klass, Philip J. (1983) UFOs:The Public Deceived. Prometheus Books.

This book is a collection of short chapters on various subjects. It includes stereotypes of UFO sightings: The Airline Pilot's UFO, Astronomers' UFOs, and, my personal favourite, UFOs with a Message. One of the exceptionally good chapters is on Travis Walton's Abduction. This became a basic template for many other UFO abduction stories.

Unknown Authors. (1999) War of the Worlds. Online: http://www.war-of-the-worlds.org

This is a very good website about the War of the Worlds broadcast.. Complete with creepy background music, the site gives a detailed report of H.G. Wells, Howard Koch and Orson Welles' brainchild broadcast on Halloween of 1938. The show was fake, but this site says that simultaneously, there was actually an alien invasion. Anyway, the spoof was presented in an uneasy time, 1938 was the start of World War II in Europe, and Roosevelt's New Deal.. CBS's Mercury Theater staged an interruption of the usual dance music and Orson Welles read for an hour a dramatic depiction of Martians landing on earth and fighting. There are about eight accounts of people heading for the hills with their shotguns, and even one confirmed suicide. This was one of the first media scares based on UFOs.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Columbia Pictures, 1977.

This movie is seen as either the pinnacle or pitfall of UFOs in the movies for the 1970's. It is based on Hynek's book cited above, and is about the three kinds, and especially the third kind, of UFO contact. I've seen this movie at least four times, and it still gives me the creeps. It portrays aliens much like other movies carrying it's zeitgeist like Flight of the Navigator and Star Wars.

Dirks, Tim. (1996) Review of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Online: http://www.greatestfilms.org/clos.html

Tim Dirks does an exceptional job of summarizing and reviewing the movie. He notes that the film is based on Hynek's book and some other interesting Spielberg tidbits.

The X-Files, numerous episodes. Executive Producer, Chris Carter. Fox networks. Pilot air date: September 10, 1993.

At first slated as a cult hit, Fox's award winning drama The X-Files bases its major plotline on the Majestic Twelve project. A small super-elite are responsible for preparing the world for colonization. Meanwhile the main characters, FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, chase after little gray men, Mulder's kidnapped sister, and a slew of other strange happenings. The X-Files is a very mainstream example of UFOs and aliens in the media. It portrays them as real, and almost as big a threat as your own neighbors. Keep in mind your neighbors can be pretty dangerous as well.

Lunn, Andrew. (1997) Exploring the Myth of the Men In Black. British UFO research association and the International Society for UFO Research. Online: http://www.isur.com/articles/mib_lunn.html

This article is about the Men In Black. Supposedly, the US Air Force has a special division of men, who wear black suits, and visit people after they've had an alien encounter and convince them otherwise. MIBs have been immortalized in the media, both in the film Men In Blackand the popular television series The X Files. The article says that the Men In Black are a myth. The accounts of MIB sightings are strange. People describe them as having no facial hair and after their encounter, their phones ring repeatedly and there is no one on the other end. The article, however, is unconvincing to whether or not MIBs actually exist.