Review – ‘UFOs: Conspiracy Road Trip’

This evening brought to an end Andrew Maxwell’s entertaining three-part conspiracy road trip series tackling one of the most popular and enduring themes with conspiracy theorists: UFOs. Whereas in the first episode on the 7/7 bombings he was able to change the minds of all but one of the five conspiracy theorists, in this episode the ratio ultimately turned out to be reversed. As in previous programmes, each of the five – billed as “British UFO experts” – possessed their own personal reason for believing the things that they did, and each told a story that was quite unique.

Brigitte’s Story: Another Day in LA

The first to divulge the reason for her belief in UFOs being extraterrestrial craft was Brigitte, a likeable mother of three from Devon who some 19 years ago had been working in Los Angeles. Whilst there, she recounted how one day she had been at the wheel of her car approaching at a busy interchange near to the Holiday Inn, when a 45-foot metallic silver hard solid object glided over the back boot of the car in front of her, flying past the Holiday Inn and “ploughing through the tops of trees”. She says that she was “transfixed”, with her hands prised to the steering wheel, her eyes watering and her whole body feeling physically sick. Even some of her fellow UFO believers appeared to be sceptical of her account, for how could an object of such a size pass over such a busy area and be seen by nobody else? Her response was to ask “What if everyone else was transfixed, just as I was?”

At this point in the programme, Brigitte stated that she had had her first encounter with aliens at the age of seven, when they had visited her at home and that since then they had kept coming back for her. However, it was left to near the close of the programme for it to be revealed that moments after her LA UFO sighting, she felt as if she had been sucked through her steering wheel, through the dashboard and the engine, then finding herself in a field before some aliens, who tried to offer her an alien child. She even agreed to participate in a lie-detector test to verify her story, but Maxwell rather humanely decided to intervene and put a stop to it going ahead.

Brigitte’s story led to a visit to speak to the “world-renowned astronomer” Seth Shostak who works for SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Shostak pointed out that current scientific extrapolations suggest that there are circa a trillion planets in our galaxy alone, and the idea that our planet alone hosts life is thus vanishingly small; the galaxy is probably teeming with life, but we have yet to see it. He quizzed Brigitte on her LA sighting and asked why she thought what she had seen was an extraterrestrial craft and whether she had any evidence – such as a photograph – or whether there had been any corroborating reports (there had not). He pointed out that academics were not working on alien visitations for the straightforward reason that the evidence was so lacking and so poor, that it was not worth investigating.

Another member of the group – Darren – made the peculiar claim that there are parts of space that the Hubble Space Telescope will not point at, under order of NASA and the military, for that is where the aliens are located. Shostak, of course, did not subscribe to such an outlandish conspiracy theory, but Darren remained unconvinced, thinking that Shostak’s body language was suspicious. Later, Shostak noted whilst speaking to Maxwell that some found conspiracy theory “to be very empowering” as it seemingly put them above scientists and the scientific establishment.

All five of the UFO believers subscribed to the belief in a joint NASA/US Government conspiracy to hold back information about extraterrestrial visitors, with one of them going so far as to claim that aliens probably controlled the World.

Ben’s Belief: Created by Aliens

The youngest of the bunch – 25-year-old Ben from Durham –claimed that he and his girlfriend saw an orb outside his bedroom window that split into six pieces (although later in the programme he seemed to contradict himself by referring to a different number). For some reason, this had led him to subscribe to a creation theory in which humans – rather like in Ridley Scott’s recent flawed release Prometheus – had been created by extraterrestrials, in their image: “Who’s to say that God wasn’t a living, breathing extraterrestrial?”

Maxwell’s attempt to persuade Ben to look afresh at his beliefs involved a visit to Flagstaff, Arizona where he was introduced to leading evolutionary biologist P.Z. Myers, who noted how remarkable it was that most accounts of aliens described creatures bearing an incredible likeness to “infantilised human beings”. He pointed out how although it was probable that there was life elsewhere in the galaxy, it would be a remarkable coincidence if such beings were to resemble humans so closely, for many of our “features are contingent – historical accidents”; why should aliens not have eyes on the sides of their heads or noses on top of them? Ben seemed to be swayed to some extent by Myers’s argument.

A shop situated on a highway well known for its UFO associations was visited. Unsurprisingly, it contained a great deal of alien-themed tat, and seemed to be doing a reasonable enough trade.

Scott’s Nightmare: Alien Invasion

Next up as the focus of attention was Scott, a 32-year-old telecoms engineer from Swindon. Married with two children Scott had some very unusual beliefs that did not seem to be having a healthy influence upon his personal life. He believes that he has been attacked by aliens in his own home, starting with “a mind attack – breaking down his brain” which was followed by a physical attack. They got closer and closer but he states that he managed to break free. The sort of bedroom scenario he described, appeared to be akin to a nightmarish lucid dreaming state that in former times often gave rise to the concepts of incubi and succubi.

This incident had unfortunately precipitated his belief that Earth is being subjected to an alien invasion, which he has been preparing to combat for over a year. His preparations include the gathering of supplies of tinned food and ready meals and an axe for self-defence. His main fear that had arisen was that of “alien mind control” which had led to him making a tinfoil hat to help protect his brain: “a simple force-shield”. We saw his wife applying this to his head and him then donning a woolly hat before appearing in public. One of the things that he most enjoyed about his trip to the USA was the opportunity to practise shooting aliens (well, cardboard cut-outs of them) with a sub-machinegun and a handgun. Maxwell asked if he could not concentrate on something other than aliens and arming himself to protect his family from them. Thankfully, by the end of the programme Scott had at least agreed to drop this harmful alien obsession, which must be both good news and a relief for his wife and young children.

Darren’s Obsession: Animal Mutilation

Next came Darren, a 33-year-old “hard-boiled UFO investigator” from Shrewsbury who investigates crop circles, animal mutilations and alien abductions (se seemed to have a particularly unappealing obsession with the mutilations, about which he gathers “lots of information” in his capacity of head of a UFO group). He believes that the military works with aliens on a biotech lab in the country and that he has been targeted by aliens, by a laser-beam to be precise (and you can’t get much more precise than a laser) in a field. He says that he felt like he’d been electrocuted.

Maxwell’s tactic to try and convince Darren that such beliefs were perhaps less than rational was to introduce him to “a seasoned UFO investigator” named Chris O’Brien whose theories were even more outlandish. However, both men shared a special interest in animal mutilations, and O’Brien led the group to the type of farmland where such attacks are alleged to take place. He possessed a range of strange theories, including collaboration between the UN or some other international organisation and aliens in targeting animals and removing specific organs, claiming that this had something to do with cancer research. Alternatively, he attributed it to an “ancient predatory presence” consisting of “interdimensional beings” that could move into our world and remove animal organs and other parts for their own specific uses, which he claimed could include cookery. Rather than make Darren re-evaluate the oddity of his own beliefs, he instead thought that there could be some credibility in O’Brien’s tales.

Frankie’s Vision

The last of the five – a full-time mum from Logan named Frankie – told Maxwell of her experience out of earshot of the others. She said that nine years ago she “had a mind-bending experience” in her kitchen listening to Kylie and that the back of her spine lit up with energy and that a back part of her brain that she’d never used before switched on. She had a vision of a spaceship city, and realised in an instant that aliens and humans co-exist in different realities. Although she did not wish to meet him, psychologist Michael Shermer publisher of the Skeptic Magazine, was invited onto the coach. He stated: “we investigate all sorts of pseudo-scientific baloney”. Frankie described him as “a two-bit hustler” and was only willing to give him five minutes as she thought that his position was “bullshit”.

Despite Frankie’s negative preconceptions, Shermer’s visit was well received, and his description of “anomalous psychological experiences” had everyone listening. He noted that they were often brought on by sleep deprivation, and gave one example of a phenomenon common to climbers on K2, who often sense that there’s another climber on the rope when there’s not actually anybody there. Shermer asked: “Are there aliens out there? Can they come here? Most scientists think that life is teeming in the galaxy. We are very irrational, emotional beings who misinterpret things all the time.” The mind can play strange tricks on people, and nobody is immune. What does differ however, is the manner in which individuals choose to interpret unusual experiences and psychological phenomena, with some, not unnaturally, wishing to externalise these internal glitches as it were, rather than admit to themselves that their experience has been a product of their internal world.

Area 51

Having failed to make much if any headway in challenging the beliefs of his five UFO conspiracy theorists, Maxwell took them to what must be the UFO conspiracists’ favourite location: Area 51. Before doing so however, they visited John Lear who had worked at the military facility over a long period for the CIA. He, it turned out, had one of the strangest tales of the evening, claiming that the two Roswell crashes in 1947 left behind them two live aliens and three dead. One remained alive whilst he was there and resided in “a big half sphere”. However, the aliens are not allowed to give us an overt message, and have been around for billions of years. This in itself was odd enough, but Lear was to make even wilder claims such as: the Earth is 11 billion years old, whereas the Moon is 20 billion years old and was fabricated in the middle of Jupiter. He also pointed at a picture of the barren surface of the Moon and claimed to be able to see a city, an aeroplane and trees, and that at least 1.5 billion people lived on its surface! There was of course nothing in the picture other than craters, shadows and dust, but that is not what this old man could see. Ben was shocked by this, but, oddly, the others were not.

The group next headed to Area 51 itself and foolishly, given that it is a top-secret military base, strayed past the checkpoint and were promptly made to lie on the ground at gunpoint until the local sheriff was able to extricate them from their situation. It seems to me that the only mystery about Area 51 is why anyone would think that there should be some extraterrestrial cover-up, for it is a top-secret military base where the U2, stealth bomber and who knows what else has been tested. Indeed, the Las Vegas author Annie Jacobson who is an expert on Area 51 has interviewed 74 men who lived and worked on the base and not one mentioned an alien or alien life-forms. For her, the UFO myth seems to fit with the CIA’s deliberated policy of information and disinformation, with stories of UFOs providing a convenient cover for top-secret spy planes (this was also a common tactic in the Soviet Union). She claims to have come across a lot of information that the CIA deliberately uses UFOs as convenient cover, and this explanation strikes me as eminently logical.

However, Jacobson had one last peculiar twist to add to her explanation: one source had claimed that Stalin had sent a saucer-shaped craft to the US in 1947 piggy-backing on a larger aircraft, that it had crashed in the Arizona Desert and had subsequently been held in Area 51. It was claimed that its crew were “non-consenting airmen who had been surgically altered to look like Martians.” Surgically mutilated Russians flying a top-secret Soviet saucer? Stalin may have been a scheming sadist who cared little for human life, but this story sounds like a piece of contemporary military folk myth.

Conclusion

Andrew Maxwell proved to be an affable host and presenter throughout this programme and its two predecessors, and it left me wishing to see his earlier documentary on 9/11 which I missed at the time of its screening. That in this last episode he enjoyed scant success in getting the programme’s participants to reconsider their views illustrates how powerful some conspiracy theories are, and how they can be employed as a framework that some find personally meaningful in making sense of the world. It is just unfortunate, however, that subscribing to some conspiracy theories can have negative implications for some of us, as Scott’s wife and children discovered.

Brigitte's LA UFO

Review: 7/7 Bombings: Conspiracy Road Trip

This evening witnessed the broadcast of the first in a three-part series on conspiracy theories with the theme being the 7/7 Bombings; the second and third instalments will deal with Creationism and UFOs. Hosted by comedian Andrew Maxwell (I hadn’t heard of him either), I initially feared, given that is was screened on BBC3, that this offering from the BBC would be from the same stable of “in-depth” documentaries as have previously been hosted by Stacey Dooley, a young woman possessed of all of the gravitas of a helium balloon. Thankfully, this was not to be the case, with Maxwell putting aside his comic persona for the evening and doing a decent job of narrating the piece, questioning each of the conspiracy theorists and attempting to get them to see that “the official narrative”, as they would term it, was actually the correct one.

The four conspiracy theorists came from quite different backgrounds: Layla, a 32-year-old journalist and part-time model; Davina, a 20-year-old Muslim convert and law student; Tony, an ex-security worker and CCTV operative, and Jon, who was described as a “political activist” (i.e. presumably unemployed) from a group calling itself “We are Change”, which from the appearance of its website seems to be some sort of anarchist/Far Left platform akin to Indymedia.

At the start of the documentary, all four believed that the 7/7 bombings were not the responsibility of the men who carried them out: Shehzad Tanweer, Siddique Khan, Hasib Hussain and Germaine Lindsay, but it was the documentary’s express intent to challenge and change these perceptions by presenting them with rebuttals of their pet theories. One of the most interesting aspects of the documentary proved to be how resistant to evidence and logic some of the four proved to be owing to their deeply held and emotionally-charged beliefs, illustrating the lengths to which some people will go to validate a firmly held conviction that is buoyed up by emotional fervour rather than evidence. It seemed, especially for Tony, that to challenge the theory was to in some way question and undermine some aspect of their sense of self.

The four bombers detonated themselves in the bloodiest terrorist act witnessed in Britain (if one excludes the Lockerbie bombing) killing 52 victims and wounding over 700, yet unfortunately the conspiracy theories articulated by the group of four possess a certain resonance with a segment of the population, for an opinion poll carried out by Channel 4 News in 2007 revealed that 24% of its sample of 500 “British Muslims” believed that the 7/7 attacks were planned and implemented by the Establishment.

Maxwell spent a week with the conspiracy theorists, starting out in Leeds where they were introduced to a resident of Beeston named Sasha, who had lived opposite Shehzad Tanweer and knew two of the other bombers. Davina’s belief in a conspiracy theory rested upon her conviction that the personalities of the “Muslim boys” simply did not fit with the atrocity that they had committed. She posed the question as to whether they had been “forced to do it”. Sasha herself noted that a great deal of suspicion had grown up between Muslim and non-Muslim residents since 2005, but stated her belief that the bombers had been “innocent” and that the Hamara Centre – which is where the bombers had spent a great deal of time together – had nothing to do with terrorism as “they were good Muslim boys” who didn’t go to London to kill people. This delusional thinking was demolished by a Muslim academic named Dr Russell Razaq, who specialises in terrorist psychology. He noted how the three bombers sequestered themselves in the Hamara Centre until two or three in the morning, long after it had closed, with nobody else present. Talking long into the night, the three reinforced and radicalised each other’s worldview, free from the observation of others. Davina appeared impressed by this reasoning, and conceded that the apparent discrepancy between their characters and their actions could be accounted for in this way.

The group then took a minibus to Luton, where the three bombers who had set off from Leeds met up with Germaine Lindsay in a Luton car park. This is where one of Jon’s pet theories – that the train times had been “falsified by the Government” because the 07:40 from Luton had been cancelled – was challenged. All four were given the task of pretending to be one of the terrorists, and of making their way from Luton Station to the various points in London where each had detonated their devices. Contrary to their expectations, they made it to the designated locations at just the time that the bombers had – with three of the bombers simultaneously detonating their devices at 08:50 – thereby disproving Jon’s assertion that this had not been possible. Nonetheless, Jon remained convinced that elements in the Government had deliberately planned an operation to murder citizens to legitimise its ongoing war in Iraq and to secure access to oil. Even by the end of the documentary, having been confronted with much more evidence disproving his theory, he held dear to his paranoid leftist delusion that the 7/7 bombings had been planned as “a justification to continue those wars in the Middle East” and to support the spread of “British imperialism” around the world. Tony too was of a very similar mindset, thinking that “big business” also had something to do with it.

Tony had been convinced that there was something fishy about some CCTV footage having gone what he termed “deliberately missing”, with Jon concurring that 20 minutes of missing footage from the Tube “reeks of an inside job”. Brian Paddick, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met on the day was unable to convince the duo otherwise.

The four were introduced to a survivor of the Edgeware Road Tube explosion – Jacqui Putnam – who had seen Siddique Khan reach down and detonate his bomb, yet this convinced neither Jon nor Tony. Davina however, dabbed away a few tears, and at this point came to recognise that the four had committed this crime. Jon and Tony were now taking the line that the four had been “patsies” to cover for a “parallel operation” by the security services.

An Imam – Dr Naseem – was visited, who made the ludicrous claim that the Government had planned the suicide bombings to incite hatred against Muslims, a view with which Jon and Tony enthusiastically concurred.

Layla stated that she had some doubts over who had detonated the bombs, for she had heard that they were already in the trains and had been detonated remotely from beneath. However, an explosives expert explained that none of the trains had derailed, which would have occurred had bombs been planted beneath the carriages. This was the moment when the penny dropped for Layla, who promptly discarded her previous belief in the bombings having arisen from a conspiracy theory, the nature of which she had not elaborated to any great extent. A bitter row then later ensued between Layla and Tony and Jon, with Layla stating that neither of the two men believed in logic. This caused particular offence to Tony, whose argumentativeness appeared to grow out of his innate truculence.

It was Tony who also scoffed at the idea that homemade explosives could be powerful enough to cause the blasts, a belief blown apart like the bus in a quarry demonstrating the power of an improvised device using black pepper and hydrogen peroxide.

In pithy fashion, Maxwell turned to Tony and Jon and said: “Can you not have some more fucking doubt in these online idiots?!” A fair point. By now, Tony conceded that Maxwell had made him realise that “it was a cock-up rather than a conspiracy”. Not Jon though. Jon continued to stick to his conspiracy theory. Whether or not he also believes that the world is controlled by a global elite of lizards was not made clear, but it would come as no surprise to learn that he subscribes to such lunacy.

Although this documentary appears to have caused something of a furore in the press, it was a decent programme that sought to undermine some frankly outlandish conspiracy theories held by a worrying minority of people about the atrocity on 7 July 2005. The words of a father about his 22-year-old son David, who died that day on his first solo trip to London as he stood next to Siddique Khan, summed up the loss that many experienced, and will never be able to replace owing to the actions of a small group of violent Islamists: “I’ll never ever stop feeling angry about the death of my son”.

There are others like them in our towns and cities today, and it is to the credit of the security services that so many would-be bombers have been intercepted before being able to carry out their plots. Islamism is what caused these deaths, and it is Islamism that must be rooted out to ensure that this never happens again. Many so-called 'truthers' are apologists for and enablers of Islamism, and their ravings deserve no credence, just as Islamism deserves no place in our country. Who do they think made Shehzad Tanweer's 'martyrdom' video? MI5? Their position is delusional and risible.

Jon, Davina, Andrew, Layla and Tony: Conspiracy Road Trippers