{"id":18194,"date":"2019-01-09T00:25:59","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T16:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/for-ufo-fans-history-channels-project-blue-book-show-rings-all-too-true-to-life\/"},"modified":"2019-01-09T00:25:59","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T16:25:59","slug":"for-ufo-fans-history-channels-project-blue-book-show-rings-all-too-true-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/for-ufo-fans-history-channels-project-blue-book-show-rings-all-too-true-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"For UFO fans, History Channel\u2019s \u2018Project Blue Book\u2019 show rings all too true to life"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_472573\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-472573\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-472573\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/190105-blue2-630x351.jpg\" alt=\"Project Blue Book\" width=\"630\" height=\"351\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/190105-blue2-630x351.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/190105-blue2-768x427.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/190105-blue2.jpg 981w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-472573\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u201cProject Blue Book\u201d turns some of the best-known UFO tales into a TV series, starring Aidan Gillen as investigator J. Allen Hynek. (History Channel Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cProject Blue Book,\u201d the History Channel TV series making its debut tonight, takes its inspiration from classic UFO cases of the 1940s and 1950s \u2014 but for UFO fans who gathered to watch a Seattle preview of the first episode, the show hints at the shape of things to come as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou won\u2019t believe how many productions are coming down the pike right now to basically red-pill the public,\u201d Michael W. Hall, the founder of a Seattle-area group called UFOiTeam, said at the screening. \u201cThe truth is out there, and guess what? We\u2019re going to have to \u2018fess up to it right away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProject Blue Book\u201d fictionalizes the real-life X-files of pioneer UFO investigator J. Allen Hynek. So it was natural for.Hall&nbsp;\u2014 an attorney based in Edmonds, Wash., who styles himself as the \u201cParanormal Lawyer\u201d&nbsp;\u2014 to put out the word to the more than two dozen UFOiTeam members to attend November\u2019s movie-theater preview.<\/p>\n<p>The series takes its name from the real-life Project Blue Book, a U.S. Air Force campaign that investigated UFO reports starting in the 1950s. Hynek was the scientific consultant for the project, as he was for two earlier investigations known as Project Sign and Project Grudge.<\/p>\n<p>The trained astrophysicist eventually came to believe that some UFO sightings were genuine mysteries and deserved more serious scrutiny. Nevertheless, the Air Force shut the project down in 1970 .<\/p>\n<p>Hynek, who passed away in 1986 at the age of 75, is a kindred spirit for UFO enthusiasts \u2014 and particularly for folks like Maureen Morgan, who is Washington state director for the Mutual UFO Network, also known as MUFON.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan and other MUFON investigators take reports like the ones chronicled in \u201cProject Blue Book\u201d very, very seriously.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGenerally when we call and interview everyone who submits a report about a sighting, invariably the first thing that comes out of their mouth is, \u2018You\u2019re going to think I\u2019m crazy,\u2019 \u201d she said. \u201cAnd then I remind them who they\u2019re talking to and say, \u2018No, we\u2019ve probably heard it before.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p>MUFON isn\u2019t the only organization documenting anomalous aerial phenomena. The National UFO Reporting Center, or NUFORC, has been compiling records for decades. The center\u2019s current director, Peter Davenport, has his headquarters in an converted ICBM missile site in Eastern Washington.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Project Blue Book: First Look at New UFO Drama Series | Coming This Winter | History\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0uf6RT4Tzu4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Washington state has a rich history of UFO sightings&nbsp;\u2014 going back to 1947, when private airplane pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing weird-looking aircraft flying past Mount Rainier at incredible speed. News stories about Arnold\u2019s claims gave rise to the term \u201cflying saucer,\u201d and set the stage for the Roswell UFO incident weeks later.<\/p>\n<p>Another 1947 UFO sighting in the Puget Sound region, known as the Maury Island Incident, entered local lore as well (and spawned a documentary that\u2019s available to watch online).<\/p>\n<p>The first few episodes of \u201cProject Blue Book\u201d focus on different locales&nbsp;\u2014 starting with North Dakota, the setting for a UFO incident reported by an Air National Guard pilot in 1948.<\/p>\n<p>In the series premiere, Hynek (played by \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d veteran Aidan Gillen) is recruited by the Air Force to track down an explanation for the pilot\u2019s sighting. He takes the job more seriously than the Air Force wants him to, however, and eventually runs up against shadowy spies and the infamous Men in Black.<\/p>\n<p>Other early episodes take on the case of the Flatwoods Monster (West Virginia, 1952) and the&nbsp;mystery of the Lubbock Lights (Texas, 1951).<\/p>\n<p>Will \u201cProject Blue Book\u201d become a phenomenon of \u201cX Files\u201d proportions? Based on the premiere, the show seems a bit too&nbsp;earnest to strike that chord. Throwing in some quirky \u201cMonster of the Week\u201d episodes and the geeky Lone Gunmen might liven things up. But that might clash with Hynek\u2019s straight-arrow vibe.<\/p>\n<p>The series\u2019 serious tone&nbsp;certainly suited the folks on the UFOiTeam. For them, anomalous phenomena aren\u2019t merely fodder for a retro TV show. In this age of media mistrust and government dysfunction, maybe programs like \u201cProject Blue Book\u201d are in line with the temper of the times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout the MUFONs and the iTeams, without the National UFO Reporting Center, there is nothing out there, and it will revert to the deep state, whatever,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cIt will go back to the same people who were behind Project Blue Book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The History Channel\u2019s \u201cProject Blue Book\u201d premieres tonight. Check local listings for times.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cProject Blue Book\u201d turns some of the best-known UFO tales into a TV series, starring Aidan Gillen as investigator J. Allen Hynek. (History Channel Illustration) \u201cProject Blue Book,\u201d the History Channel TV series making its debut tonight, takes its inspiration from classic UFO cases of the 1940s and 1950s \u2014 but for UFO fans who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5086,4482,4551,4552],"class_list":["post-18194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-project-blue-book","tag-science-fiction","tag-television","tag-ufo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}