Spotlight glares at space aliens

By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published May 30, 2008 at 9:50 a.m.
Updated May 30, 2008 at 9:50 a.m.

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Space aliens seem to shy from publicity, poking their heads above shrubs, flying their craft in deep forests, but never, say, agreeing to appear on the "Today" show.

This morning in Denver, a man will show a video of what he claims is a real space alien, and he says the national morning shows have shown great interest.

Jeff Peckman, 54, is sponsoring a ballot initiative to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission in Denver, so the Mile High City will be ready if visitors come from a distant star.

That and the video, which he hasn't yet shared with the media, have turned Denver temporarily into Roswell, N.M.-east for UFO believers and for media that know a good story. The Evening Mail in London and the CBS Early Show are among those interested, Peckman says.

Fascination with photos and videos that purport to show mysterious creatures and space aliens has a long history.

Back in 1917, two upper-class English girls cut out some fairies from a picture book, positioned them cleverly around their rooms and gardens, snapped some photos and got famous.

It wasn't until 1978, when someone finally noticed the similarity between the fairies in the photos and the fairies in a 1915 book called Princess Mary's Gift Book that the so-called Cottingley Fairies photos were proven to be hoaxes. Three years later, the girls, still very much alive, 'fessed up, but in the tradition of good hucksters everywhere, said that while four of the fairy pictures were contrived, the fifth one was real.

It didn't hurt their cause that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, declared himself a believer in the fairies.

This time, the believer in the authenticity of the space-alien video is a Colorado Film School instructor. The video was not taken by Peckman, but by Stan Romanek, a native of Colorado Springs who often has reported UFO sightings.

"There is no doubt in my mind that (Romanek) did not post-produce this material," Colorado Film School instructor Jerry Hoffman said Thursday. "In other words, it is not a trick done in special effects."

Hoffman said the figure, popping its head up from underneath a window, appears to be "the real thing."

In recent years several claims of space aliens have been shown to be hoaxes, which hasn't stopped the believers from believing.

On a dark rural Georgia Highway in 1953, a police officer stopped to see why three frightened young men were out of their pickup truck and staring at an object on the asphalt.

It was a bizarre two-foot tall creature that looked like a space alien.

The media descended on Georgia, and the boys got their 15 minutes of fame, embellished by their tale that they'd seen a whole posse of space aliens in a flying saucer, but their truck had just hit the one. A local veterinarian said it sure seemed like an alien to him.

But the next day officers from the Georgia Crime Lab noticed the alien looked a lot like a shaved Capuchin monkey whose tail had been cut off.

Confronted with the evidence, the boys confessed. Seems like during a poker game, one of the boys bet that he could get his name in the local paper within a week — and he did.

• May 30, 2008

  10:12 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jmcdade writes:

  Photos and videos cannot be used to determine the truth or falsehood of a claim. It is too easy to fake images. There is no such thing as a photographic or video expert who is capable of saying that any image or video is authentic. It is true that some experienced and well-trained analyst can pick out obvious traces of trickery or special effects, but nobody can claim to make an absolute pronouncement one way or the other.

  People are feel to believe what they will, but mere belief is not good enough to convince me. Finding the truth can be a laborious and trying experience. The only way to confirm the existence of aliens is to come into possession of a warm (or cold) body of an alien life form and subject it to thorough scientific testing. The same standard of proof holds for UFOs, Big Foot, Unicorns and Leprechauns.

  An example of hard proof is the lunar rock and soil samples returned from the moon by the astronauts. Those rocks have withstood legitimate scientific analysis and testing for decades. I know that they came from the moon despite the wild claims of a few conspiracy theorists an their dimwitted followers.

  This particular alleged alien video is fairly cheesy. If I were to make video of an alien outside my window at night, I would certainly turn out the inside lights. The fact that this videographer failed to dim the lights is one of the first factors to rouse my suspicions. Another flaw in this fake video is the inadequacy of the illumination of the head in the window given the apparent lighting level at the window. The lighting properties appear to be uneven. It is also suspicious that these people will not release the raw video, in it's entirety, immediately. That makes this look more like a money making venture than an honest attempt to report earth-shaking news

  Thanks, Jim McDade

• May 31, 2008

  12:05 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  happymike44 writes:

  All I know is it is time to buy bottled water.Then tin foil for the anti mind control hats.This guy might be wrong but let's say he is not.Any Idea how we are going to deal with this problem.Well BO knows how to deal with aliens give them whatever they want and hope they will go away.

• May 31, 2008

  12:32 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  LarryWBryant writes:

  == In Time, the Evidence Will Speak for Itself (if You're Patient Enough to Let It Happen) ==

  Out-of-hand labeling a citizen's videotaped evidence as a "fake" doesn't necessarily make it so. This sliver of evidence represents only a fragment of the witness's multi-year story. As Mr. Peckman's web site amply points out, there's lots of evidence awaiting further distribution and hands-on analysis by competent authority. Instead of making snap judgments, how about doing your homework as to the UFO-E.T.-related documentation amassed by various federal agencies during the past 60 years? Go ahead, Mr. McDade, leave that armchair and start doing your homework. After that, maybe you'll be inclined to sign the following online petition:

  http://www.petitiononline.com/etaffai... .

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