As the UFO subject has escaped the fringe, and has been a mainstay on mainstream television with recent programs like “60 Minutes,” “TMZ,” a live Discovery Channel special, the UAPTF report, and more videos being released by the Jeremy Corbell/ George Knapp/Mystery Wire camp, the UFO community has been spoiled with official releases, Congressional attention, and military videos/sightings.
There’s almost too much stories to keep up with, which is a stark contrast to prior to the 2017 New York Times article/ To The Stars released videos, and the UFO community in a way, has focused attention mostly on UAP videos, rather traditional witness sightings. The New York Times landmark 2017 article was the gateway for other larger outlets to start investigating, and now there are more reporters and organizations covering the topic for the first time. Veteran journalist Ralph Blumenthal previously told punkrockandufos.com that the NYT UFOs stories were becoming “ the most e-mailed , most watched and most everything’d story of the day.” Online “activist” groups like “UFO Twitter” have been a hotbed for debate, and hype for these stories, and more independent UAP enthusiasts and accounts are popping up.
“Great sightings are far and few between, and typically take a lot of research to confirm as something worthwhile,” said veteran UFO journalist from Den Of Geek/Open Minds TV Alejandro Rojas. “ I also would not consider UFO Twitter as a group of researchers, but a group of enthusiasts. So even though UFO Twitter may be ‘spoiled’ by news, it is a community that is easily excited even with less credible ‘news.’ I think that if there are good cases out there, the credible researchers will still do what they can to verify them and determine their veracity and significance.”
Are the traditional witness sighting stories falling by the wayside? Or are the military- centric stories performing so well, outlets and audiences are sticking to the “official” videos, and testimonials? Or can we possibly see more stories of citizen witness UFO videos/ accounts because of the stigma being removed, the serious media treatment, and an empowerment to share their stories inspired by the military witnesses that have come forward?
“I definitely think that as far as UFO stories, people are mainly looking for information that gives them a clearer picture not only about what the government’s involvement with the study of UAP might be, but also what they are specifically looking at,” said editor and co-founder of The Debrief Micah Hanks. “I equally think that one of the reasons the academic community has traditionally remained so hesitant to throw its support behind UAP studies has to do with the lack of information provided by our government, which appears to be content (for reasons of national security) to withhold the majority of the data it collects on this topic.”
Hanks cites Tim McMillan’s piece from last December on transmedium vehicles for The Debrief as overall the site’s best-performing story. The story was an advance of possible findings in the UAP Task Force report.
As the hype around the UAPTF report simmered slightly, UFO enthusiasts have a lot to look forward to when politicians like Andre Carson, who chairs the subcommittee on counterintelligence and counterproliferation on the House Intelligence Committee, calling for congressional hearings on UAPs. Hanks anticipates a small decline in coverage, but that may change with the latest alleged official video drop.
“This was both easily anticipated, and also is a recurring pattern as far as periods in history when UAP have seen widespread coverage, “ Hanks said. “ It will be interesting to see how the news cycle may follow the subject going forward, and although a degree of interest may persist, I’m expecting that we’ve entered a ‘valley’ period so to speak, where we’ll see at least a minor decline in media coverage for a while… at least until the next big groundbreaking story on UAP surfaces!”
-By MIKE DAMANTE
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