Message posted by Peter Merlin on October 15, 2009 at 10:02:17 PST:
Well, that was almost as cheesy as I expected but it was still better than "UFO Hunters." They still wasted a lot of air time with shots of desert scenery and rusting automobiles. The narrative was a confusing jumble with too many subjects being thrown at the viewers with little explanation. I mean, why were they talking about the Nazca Lines? Before filming the segment, the producers promised that they wanted to tell the real story of Area 51. They could have done it, too. Think of how much we have learned about Groom Lake since 1997 when "Inside Area 51" first aired. Unfortunately "MysteryQuest" just rehashed the same old stuff: Black Mailbox, cammo dudes, Lazar, Aurora, and the obligatory Tikaboo Peak hike. It was a missed opportunity. There were two egregious errors in the show. First, they perpetuate the myth that Area 51 was an officially unacknowledged facility, that its existence was a secret. We now know that to be untrue as I have documented in my article "It's No Secret: Area 51 was Never Classified" on this web site. The second error was when they showed a telephoto view of the new hangar and then matched it to the wrong building on the satellite image. (By the way, I don't think Glenn was taking credit for discovering the hangar.) I knew the cameras they set up to scan the skies over Groom would be a complete waste of time. They had extremely wide angle lenses, causing any aircraft to appear as a tiny, unidentifiable dot. Video was recorded on a VHS tape deck so the picture quality was extremely low. The crash site investigation was a fiasco. The field producer wanted to visit a mystery crash site so we could find some debris for scientific analysis. I didn't know of any unidentified crash sites in the vicinity but I knew of four Area 51 related crash sites (U-2, two A-12s, and a D-21B). The D-21B crash site was selected because it was the closest to Rachel. When I showed them the largest piece of wreckage at the site, the rocket booster nose cone, I pointed out that it was clearly identifiable through materials and construction methods, Lockheed Skunk Works inspection stamps, D-21 part numbers, and recognizable components that could be checked against photos and technical manuals. I was told I couldn't say that on air. We had to keep it a mystery so that a piece of debris could identified in a laboratory. I thought that seemed ridiculous and wasteful but the producer said "that's what the audience expects." I keep expecting someone to jump all over me about using the Geiger counter. I know that seemed unnecessarily melodramatic but parts of the D-21B were made of magnesium-thorium alloy, a mildly radioactive metal. Dragging the giant telephoto lens up Tikaboo was a fairly pointless exercise. Although we started hiking around sunrise, it took nearly eight hours to reach the summit, by which time the atmospheric conditions were less than ideal. The lens weighed more than 200 pounds in that big crate that was lugged to the top by several teenagers hired in Alamo. Looking though the lens, I began to point out the various buildings and identify them. I was told, "No, don't tell us that. Ask Glenn. He's supposed to be our guide." Of course Glenn said, "What are you asking me for? Pete's the real expert." The only worthwhile thing to come out of the hike was the unprecedented Groom Lake air show. While I found it surprising that they bothered to send a helicopter, it was absolutely astonishing to have the F-16 demo. It really was there just for us. Both aircraft performed for about 20 minutes, repeating maneuvers a number of times as if to make sure the camera crew got good footage. I was grateful for some of the things that ended up on the cutting room floor (if I can use that anachronism in the digital age) and I was also disappointed about some of the material that was left out. At least Glenn and I came through with our dignity and credibility intact. Maybe that's all I can ask.
In Reply to: Re: A new record... posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on October 15, 2009 at 8:29:21 PST:
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