Quote:
Originally Posted by redfive
Watched a documentary last night on more 4 called 'UFO's the secret evidence', very intresting in that it seemed to say that the whole UFO thing is cover up for the US goverment's covert aerial research and spying programs against the former USSR that started after the second world war.
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Thanks for the tip, redfive. Caught it on Google Video.
The programme was more balanced than most on the prickly subject of UFO's but suffered from the presenter's (perhaps understandable) desire to fit everything into his own area of interest ... ie. military aviation.
However, I was
very irritated by the mention of the Flying Flapjack in connection to the Roswell incident. Over a film of the prototype V-173 "Flying Flapjack" the presenter asked the question "could this bizarre aircraft be based on
this one (cue picture of German flying disc concept) ... a design drawn from secret Nazi blueprints seized by the Americans after the war?"
Em ... no!
The ultra-low aspect ratio "flying disc" concept was developed by Charles H. Zimmerman during the 1930's (in the US) and the prototype V-173 flew in 1942. If anything, the Germans probably copied Zimmerman's idea! The V-173 and the XF5U it spawned is well documented, and the project was cancelled
before the incident at Roswell.
Also annoying was the presenter's insistence that the New Mexico Police Officer, Lonnie Zamora, could have seen the jet engined "Silverbug" concept. Zamora is said to be a credible witness, but his reports contains the following statement regarding the sound of the object "Not like a jet — know what jets sound like." If he was credible, why ignore that? Zamora also did
not first see the object flying in the sky. The "reconstruction" in the film, with the huge saucer flying over his car, was absolutely ridiculous. Zamora heard a noise and saw a
flame rising into the sky. The first time he saw the object was when he went to investigate what he thought might have been a local dynamite shack exploding. His initial impression of the object was that it was an "overturned white car ... up on radiator or on trunk". Confusingly, he also described it as being like a letter "O", an oval-shaped object without windows or doors, and "like a balloon". Furthermore, he said it was about as big as a medium-sized car, not a giant saucer as shown in the "reconstruction".
Actually, now that I think about it ... it wasn't a very balanced programme ... but thanks for the heads-up!
