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3.0 out of 5 stars
First half is good, second half is not, January 4, 2003
Here we have two features of quite different quality. I enjoyed the segment on the mysterious crashes of the Comet, even though the solution to the mystery was reached decades ago, making me question why it is on a Mysteries and Myths video claiming to produce answers which "the world can now be told." Frankly, I had never heard of the Comet aircraft, so I learned a good bit from watching this. The Comet was essentially the first jet airliner, capable in the early 1950s of traveling 1700 miles, flying at 500 miles per hour, and providing room for 36 passengers. The British had achieved quite a coup by producing a jet airliner before the Americans did, but after a safe first six months, a series of nonfatal accidents began and were quickly followed by several catastrophes. Several Comets basically exploded in mid-air, and it was not until one of the wrecked planes was dredged up from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and reconstructed that the cause of the mysterious crashes was discerned. I frankly did not enjoy the feature on the possibility of alien visitation. First off, it is basically impossible to even begin examining the subject in just 25 minutes. The feature dealt mainly with old accounts such as the Los Angeles raid, Roswell, and the 1952 UFO flap over Washington, D.C. It mentioned abductions only in passing, and offered little data from the past two decades of sightings and discoveries. While it initially tries to be objective, the story takes on a distinctly debunking air as it progresses. Photos and videos that no ufologist would even blink at (and have never cited in any study I have ever been privy to) are offered as examples of how easily the public can be fooled. Thankfully, the infamous swamp gas theories are not mentioned, but the obligatory "it was just Venus" excuse is here in full force, and an irrelevant laboratory demonstration of small lights being generated when stone is compressed to the breaking point is given way too much attention. The best and most inexplicable cases of UFO sightings are never mentioned, as the video basically ignores those cases that cannot be explained away in true debunker style. In terms of truly examining the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation, this video is essentially worthless.
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