Hoaxes from Space: Two Recent Hoaxes

The Return of the Chronovisor

Remember the Chronovisor, the TV-like device that supposedly recorded Christ's crucifixion? You'd think this would've died a quiet death ages ago, but nope. On Wednesday's Coast to Coast AM, Andrew D. Basiago told listeners about his childhood involvement in a secret governmnent time travel program called Project Pegasus (not to be confused with the science labs). Basiago has made many startling claims over the last few years. Earlier this year, he announced his discovery of numerous life forms in NASA photos of Mars, including tiny humanoids in blue uniforms, plesiosaurs, and a Centipede Lady.


The Fourth Kind

There's been a lot of buzz about the recent alien abduction move The Fourth Kind. Not because it's a good movie (it's totally not), but because of the slick hoax at its core. You see, the filmmakers are pretending they've made a dramatic recreation of actual events that occurred in and and around Nome, Alaska, in October of 2000. The dramatic hypnosis sessions in the film are intercut with "real" footage of the "actual" hypnosis sessions conducted by Dr. Abigail Tyler. Every time an actor appears onscreen, their character's name is given - even though every single name aside from the Tylers' have supposedly been changed. We are led to believe that Nome was plagued by abductions, mysterious disappearances, and suicides for many months - all related to alien abductions. At the film's end, we are told that Dr. Tyler's young daughter, Ashley, is still missing after being sucked out of her bedroom by a floating spaceship. It is implied that Abigail's late husband, Dr. William Tyler, shot himself because he couldn't handle the trauma of alien abduction. And two people are left permanently paralyzed by their abductions.

The biggest problem with The Fourth Kind is that the filmmakers have demonstrated a very poor grasp of how ufology really works. They don't seem to understand that every sighting, every close encounter, every hoax attracts mega attention within UFO circles - instant and intense attention. How is it possible that a decade-old case involving suicides, murders, and multiple unsolved disappearances slipped beneath the UFO community's radar? It isn't. This stuff didn't happen. Don't believe me? Try to find Drs. Abigail and William Tyler, or missing child info about Ashley Tyler. You won't find a damn thing. Searches used to lead to a movie tie-in website, but even that has been flushed down the memory hole.

With so many "real" and bizarre close encounter accounts on record, why create a new story and pass it off as genuine? Why not tell us about the Ariel School sighting in Zimbabwe, or the famous encounter in Papua New Guinea, or the Cash-Landrum case?
As a hoax, The Fourth Kind just wasn't worth the effort.