UFO Hunters
By Lisa Fary
UFO Hunters on the History Channel (not to be confused with the forthcoming UFO Hunters on the Sci Fi Channel) has the makings of an Adult Swim cartoon.
There’s the team leader, Bill Birnes, who publishes UFO Magazine and wants to be Fox Mulder in the worst way. There’s the intern, Jeff, who projects the wide-eyed hope for first contact that most Star Trek fans carry within themselves. There’s Dr. Ted, the hardcore scientist who has the task of dashing everyone’s hopes with these things called scientific facts. And there’s Pat.
Pat is the guy who believes, but doesn’t go through the mental gymnastics that the team leader does to characterize everything they see as alien evidence. He’s also the guy who is up to his shoulders in dirt while Dr. Ted is in the lab and Team Leader Birnes is. . . uhh. . . leading the team (which involves a lot of talking and not a lot of getting dirty). Pat also looks eerily familiar – I think I may have met him in a Flagstaff hostel circa 2000. Or just a guy who looks exactly like him. Either way, Pat is my favorite UFO hunter.
There’s even a mad scientist regular – an “experiment producer” who has a dark, dingy lab and is obviously having a ton of fun any time he’s on screen.
The UFO Hunters team investigates UFO sightings, including UFO cold cases, from the perspective of investigative science. In the first episode of the series, the team investigates the UFO sighting before Roswell: Maury Island, Washington. Even though the team meandered a bit in this episode, it was a strong opener because they followed the evidence, it raised some points I hadn’t known before, and there was no definitive answer.
After that first episode though, it’s more difficult to convince Team Leader Birnes that what they’re looking at wasn’t of alien origin, no matter what the science says. The team couldn’t scientifically prove that the mysterious metal bit inside a pasty guy’s inner thigh (most awkward surgery ever) is of alien origin. Ha! The team couldn’t disprove it either! Therefore, it’s of alien origin, says Team Leader Birnes. Dr. Ted clenches his teeth. Pat tries not to laugh.
Being the skeptical believer I am, UFO Hunters raised some questions:
Why the reverence toward Roswell? The Roswell crash has been disproved many times, including on this very website. But, just because it’s been disproved, that doesn’t mean that aliens haven’t been here. We don’t have to believe in every single sighting to believe in the existence of alien life, that we’ve been visited, and that the government knows about it (I’m looking at you, Alien Peeper of Denver).
Is team HQ really inside an observatory? If so, that’s awesome. If I were a mad scientist investigating UFO cold cases, I’d totally have my lair inside an observatory (except I’d paint it hot pink, bedazzle it in glitter, and affix purple marabou around the telescope – I’ve gotta be me). However, I get the feeling that team HQ may really be the home offices of UFO Magazine. Or a set. Guys, it’s OK if team HQ isn’t in the belly of an observatory. But, own it.
I liked UFO Hunters, but probably for the wrong reasons. I wasn’t so much into the cases as I was into the science experiments and the personal dynamics among the UFO Hunter team. What I really want to know is what goes on between them when the camera isn’t rolling.
I’m also curious how the team would react if confronted with an actual UFO. Would Team Leader Birnes be reverent? Would Dr. Ted want to take a swab? I think I know what Pat would do – he’d react like Emilio Estevez at the end of Repo Man.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
