“Extraterrestrially galactical” or rock-bottom gall?

If you believe, the German TV station ProSieben is content with “Uri Geller live – Ufos & Aliens: The incredible TV experiment“ (about which, as I announced on Sunday, I will report here), you’re mistaken, because Nina Hagen, only by her own description “half human, half angel” and already a guest in Uri’s transgalactical telepathy take-in show, gets a timeslot for a “documentary” afterwards (all quotes my translations):

”Nina Hagen’s ufo hunt – Searching aliens in Roswell”, on Saturday, November 15, 2008, at 22.30 on ProSieben (Germany) (assuming the spoonbender and his aliens finish on time).

In her baggage: A small sunshade, a peace banner and a big load of curiosity.

And an even bigger load of prejudice. Were she really curious, she’d also be interested in the counter-arguments – but that’d be nothing to write home about for the target audience, of course.

Was there really an alien crash in 1947? Did the US Air Force really possess an “unknown flying object”? And was all that covered up by the government afterwards?

The skeptical–sensible reply, of course, is 3x no. But who are the people the shrill Berliner is asking?

Answers to her questions are given by nuclear physicists, ufo authors, visitors of the current ufo festival, and a man who claims he’s half man, half alien.

What qualifies a nuclear physicist for an alien answer? That he, Stanton Friedman, wrote a book about it and…

… frankly admits:

“I’m jealous of Nina, because I never met a ufo. For 50 years I’m examining evidence for flying saucers. Because there is overwhelming evidence that Earth is being visited by extraterrestrial spaceships.”

“Evidence”? I doubt that. “Evidence” only for those who desperately want to believe and almost obsessively ignore real evidence and critical, more plausible explanations. Which surely also applies to the other people mentioned above who were asked, including the “documentary” author herself who says about her own “ufo encounter”:

“Back then I was living in Malibu when I saw a ufo in the middle of the night. I was totally flashed.

Before or after?

Beautiful lights were beaming at me, I had not the slightest feat, magnificent energy overwhelmed me. Three beings were standing in the ufo, but none of them was moving. It was an overwhelming experience.”

Other people call things like that either (drug) intoxication – now I don’t want to allege something illegal here, but from an impartial point of view, you couldn’t rule it out –, dream or hypnagogic/hypnopompic halluzinations. Quote from SkepDic:

These states may be associated with sleep paralysis or other forms of sleep disturbances, including mild brain seizures. Sleep paralysis occurs in the hypnagogic state or the hypnopompic state. The description abductees give of their experience–being unable to move or speak, feeling some sort of presence, feeling fear and an inability to cry out–is a list of the symptoms of sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is thought by some to account for not only many alien abduction delusions, but also other delusions involving paranormal or supernatural experiences.

So what will be the essence of this show? Surely not an objective documentary. In the style of Nina’s comment on the half-man-half-alien guy, I’d say: The viewer is absolutely manipulated. Totally nasty story.

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Link tips:

• Skeptic’s Dictionary: UFOs and extraterrestrials, alien abduction, Roswell.

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Hagen photo © Tomasz Sienicki / Wikipedia