Ufo Youth Outreach

Back again after an intense week of working on my Hynek book... writing about the first time the good Doctor actually went out in the field to investigate a UFO incident, and it's a pretty cool story.

But in the midst of my busy week I got a call from Vxxxx, my MUFON State Director, who said, "Mark, I have a proposition for you." She explained that a news crew from CNN was going to come out to her and her husband's isolated desert bunker house in the middle of nowheresville, Arizona, to get some video of her husband training fresh-faced new MUFON Field Investigators. The catch was that Jxx, the new MUFON President, who set up the shoot, wanted the fresh-faced recruits to be "young." Meaning just out of diapers.

Naturally, Vxxxx thought of me first.

What could I say? I was flattered, of course, but I burst out laughing and said, "But Vxxxx... I'm not young (I'm not sure which was more difficult: admitting I'm not young or pronouncing "Vxxxx"). She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Well, how old are you? Fifty-three," came the reply.

Vxxxx gasped. "What? You're fifty-three? I thought you were thirty!"

Then came my turn to gasp. "Thirty! I thought you were going to guess that I was twenty!"

"

Which one is the real UFO Investigator? Which one is me?

Okay, that last part didn't really happen. I was happy with thirty and I told her so. But she wasn't in the mood. She was sorely disappointed that I couldn't be part of the TV shoot. "Here I was all set to pay your way to fly out here to Arizona to be in the segment! Now I have to keep looking..."

Sharp readers will notice a couple problems with this scenario. One: Why does the Wisconsin State Director live in a bunker in the Arizona desert? I'm still trying to figure that one out. Two: Why does a 53 year-old seem like a youngster in the ranks of MUFON? I don't know, but you can be damn sure I'm going to use it to my advantage from here on out. Three: Young people watch CNN?

It's going to take me a while to figure that one out, but while I'm thinking about it, there's this to chew on:

In her delirium, Vxxxx told me about some of the workings that had gone into setting up this gig with CNN, most notably that Jxx, the MUFON National Director, insisted on young, 20- to 30-something trainees, so that MUFON would look cool and youthful. I told Jxx that wouldn't exactly be accurate," Vxxx told me, But he just said, 'Oh, come on, do you think anything you see in reality TV is real?'"

So there you have it. MUFON is founded on lies, and Jxx and Vxxxx expected me to be a part of their web of deceit, depicting MUFONers as being all cool, hip, handsome, funny, well-dressed, articulate, charming, brilliant and sexy when in fact, aside from me, there is no one in MUFON like that at all.

Origin: chupacabra-digest.blogspot.com