Great find! And in HD too! I just might watch it again when there’s nothing decent on TV (I shouldn’t have to wait long). Actually, I think they made a couple seasons’ worth of episodes (that I don’t think were all aired here) after that big pilot. I’ll bet they’re on there too.

PS. Is it me tempting fate here or is there actually a surprising derth of Flying Crockery believers commenting these days – just a couple at least on this thread versus many, many more on the previous UFO related ones? I thought we might be flooded with them here but not so far. A hopeful sign perhaps? Or famous last words?

Eh, I think perhaps the credible just have “flying saucer fatigue”? I remember when I was young; and I was still very much into UFOs, alien abductions, conspiracies, etc etc; coming across a book on UFOs (again, a subject I was interested in) and thinking “Great. Another one! I’ll bet it’s got all the favorites – Aurora, Texas; the “Battle of Los Angeles,” Roswell, NM; Thomas Mantell, ’52 Washington, DC; Betty and Barney hill, Shag Harbor, Gulf Breeze, the Rendlesham forest incident, yadda yadda. Yawn.” I think it’s the first time it really occurred to me that there must not be that much “there” there, if all the books I could find kept repeating the same old stuff over and over. Considering the number of self-described UFO “researchers”, it sure started to seem like they really weren’t turning out a whole lot of new research.
Perhaps belief in an alien cover-up is self-limiting? The more you read about it, the less new stuff you find and the more boring it becomes?

Clearly this was John Critchon performing his mini “shuttle” tests… we know the real shuttles will never be retired!!! Where he warps into a Peace Keeper fight and kills the commanders (captains?) brother, because clearly the brother is insane. Then it gets better!

By your reaction I’m assuming they didn’t just introduce the viewer to manatees and conclude with “case closed”?

Sadly, no.

The “doco” is in the linked article if you’re curious – bad fiction passed off without (english anyhow) disclaimer as fact.

It really is sad, though. The History Channel used to have some fantastic science programs. One that I really enjoyed was called “How the Earth was Made.” It’s about the changes the Earth saw, from its start as a molten lump of aggregated bolides to the present day and beyond.

Think I might’ve seen that one or one like it. Love to see genuinely good docos like those – guess we can always hope they screen it as a repeat now and then. It is also be available for viewing via Youtube – click on my name here. One area where youtube is really good.

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PS. Is it me tempting fate here or is there actually a surprising derth of Flying Crockery believers commenting these days – just a couple at least on this thread versus many, many more on the previous UFO related ones? I thought we might be flooded with them here but not so far. A hopeful sign perhaps? Or famous last words?

Interdimensional vortex = not known to be possible;

Even if we imagine that it was possible, I have a very hard time believing that creating one would be simpler than creating a rocket.

Cool! Thanks for the explanation (and answer to my question of why they’d repeatedly use such a wacky pinwheel rocket in the first place)

@39 MTU: Conjecture is putting it politely!
“History Channel Bull****” didn’t have the same ring to it

It really is sad, though. The History Channel used to have some fantastic science programs. One that I really enjoyed was called “How the Earth was Made.” It’s about the changes the Earth saw, from its start as a molten lump of aggregated bolides to the present day and beyond.

One thing I really liked about it is that it doesn’t just spout facts at you – it looks at the history of various scientist’s hypotheses for things like plate tectonics or the oxygen catastrophe, and the evidence that eventually was discovered for these things, with periodic brief “reviews” of said evidence. It really gives you a sense of the detective work involved in science, and HOW all these factoids got into the textbooks in the first place. It’s one of the few science series I’ve ever seen to do this.

See for instance this via PZ’s blog :
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/06/10/the-wages-of-pseudoscience/
where one pay TV channel screened an apparently serious “doco” on mermaids! Mermaids for pity’s sake. Aaarrrggh!

By your reaction I’m assuming they didn’t just introduce the viewer to manatees and conclude with “case closed”?