The first and main thing to be said about "Contact" on the Discovery Channel is that it cannot be seen in isolation, but rather as some kind of parallel effort to the History Channel's "Unidentified". Doubtless there is a superficial element of competition here of the "if they've got a programme, we have to have one too" kind; but anybody who sees both series (and I expect there will be many) will realise that what unites the programmes is far greater than what divides them - even if the subject matter is kept somewhat separate and non-overlapping.
Ostensibly the competitor programme is the bigger deal, as - featuring deep Washington/military insiders Luis Elizondo and Christopher Mellon - it coincides with the US Navy's ADMISSION THAT UFO FOOTAGE EXISTS AND IS REAL, albeit with this not necessarily taken as meaning extra-terrestrial.
In contrast, "Contact" - which mainly confines the above story to its first episode - does feature "former" (ha ha ha) people from the CIA, USMC, FBI and so on apparently using a database out of a California HQ to spearhead on-the-ground UFO-related investigations to often-remote bits of the USA and several South American countries (Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil). Not always remote, though, as Phoenix is in there, as well as Arizona Governor Fife Symington, who entirely ridiculed UFOs there while in office, only to take the sightings entirely seriously once he had left the post!
This inclusion of the "Phoenix Lights" makes the point that stories the protagonists act all shocked over are actually wellish-known, so we know that our investigators are ACTING surprised. This is just one element of this show's artificiality. But then that is the point about the "leading us out here to enlightenment with government say-so" mission of the programme, which is presumably expected to reach beyond the ranks of already-committed UFO fans.
A bit paradoxically, the team also extends to a Brit in the (good) shape of Sarah Cruddas, who is presented as a scientist but is actually more of a science broadcaster-journalist (though she does have training in astrophysics to Bachelor level). Her presence is interesting and a bit curious, but her CV notes that when still a kid she won a competition in science that got her a place on NASA Space Camp.
These statuses, the unopposed access the teams mostly get to sites, and the willingness of people (even ex-military and ex-CIA) to talk to them without obscuring of faces etc. all tend to give the lie to the programme's claim that they are courageously uncovering activity by a government (governments) ever-so-willing to cover things up. Clearly, whatever they are doing is with the tacit approval/cooperation of the (US, but also Chilean/Brazilian) government, or at least parts of it/them - and this is the key way in which the programme resembles "Unidentified". An annoying feature here, by the way, is that witnesses speaking Spanish or Portuguese are NOT translated in a proper way, but only in soundbite summaries. Even at my level of Spanish I can tell that, and it looks unprofessional, and offers just one more piece of evidence that the large-scale issues someone wants us to be guided towards here are treated as far important than the nitty-gritty details of what people actually say!
Those of us who have taken (an even more or less sceptical) interest in this kind of topic for years are thus faced with the unthinkable, exciting, amazing truth that these are now the years in which - for whatever reason - the powers that be want us (or at least more of us than before) to be let in gently to the truth which is out there, as it were.
As in "Unidentified", the makers here flirt and tease with the idea that the unexplained aspects covered might as well be foreign powers spying on things or otherwise interfering as they may be aliens - or might even "just" be our own high tech that one branch of the regime has kept secret from others. Sounds reasonable, but probably nobody is very convinced by that, as examples of one side having and the other not having advanced solutions are rather few and far between for very obvious reasons. Similarly, places like Malmstrom AFB in Montana - with missile silos spread out over a vast area - are not where you would want to work on any experimental aircraft, or any funny business of any kind - yet it seems missile control systems may have been switched off there more than once, in association with reported UFO activity.
Frankly, then, "Contact" is showing what "they" want us to be shown (not least UFO interest in volcanoes, lakes (and the water in general) and nuclear facilities), but at this stage I'm more than willing to take what is on offer, with the strong feeling that this is just the beginning of a remarkable process.
"Contact" is not an extremely thrilling watch, and this again seems a deliberate strategy. It prefers to move inexorably on at a steady pace. But overall it is fascinating (even as it is artificial-looking), and all the more so because one only grasps well after the episodes just what the magnitude of its content might actually be.
Why things are working in this way at this point in time is anybody's guess, and probably a more fascinating question than the two series put together...
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