Aliens, Children and Television

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     Interesting query!  Does television have an effect on how our children behave?   Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?  I can remember my parents going to PTA meetings to protest the local television station televising the "Three Stooges" .  Their objection was it being too violent and not the sort of things that should be on the air. (No guessing how old I am now!)  I also remember the TV series "Superman" being blamed for kids jumping out of tall buildings thinking they could fly!  So why is it unreasonable to believe that television shows may be desensitizing our children?

     Karyn Dolan  (see her bio below)  has raised this very issue.  She has been thinking a lot about how various media is acting to desensitize people, mostly children to the inevitable occurrence and ultimate acceptance of aliens on our planet!

     Although the U.S. government, and any shadow government, may disagree, there does exist evidence that UFOs, Aliens and Extraterrestrial beings have been on this planet for a very long time.  There have been aliens and alien abductions mentioned in the bible. Beings with big black eyes are depicted on rock paintings, wall paintings, petroglyphs, stone monuments and tablets dating thousands and thousands of years ago from all over the world !  These beings have been shown to have different types of air crafts. Although Kenneth Arnold in 1947 is credited for helping the press coin  the term "flying saucer", from his description of the UFO he saw,  the actual crafts seen and reported have many different shapes.  Similarly the number of alien species reported have been extremely large, but common to many of  them is their big black eyes, their short stature, power of telepathy or communication without speaking and ability to enter rooms through walls or closed windows.  This is not to say that all alien species posses these characteristics. Take for instance the Insectiods / Manta who's appearance is similar to a Praying Mantis insect and has been reported to be as much as seven (7) feet tall!  The ever popular reptilians that resemble lizards and have scales.  On the other side of the spectrum are the Nordics / Agathartians or the Pleiadans who appearance often resembles that of Earth humans.  None of these species have big black eyes and most are not short.

     Although early in history there were many sightings, it wasn't until the Roswell Incident in 1947,  that many people actually believed there was strong evidence  to support that Aliens and UFOs did exist and, simultaneously, that the government was trying to cover them up.  The radio show broadcast, War of the Worlds,  is just one incident in which the media was responsible for creating a preconceived notion as to alien conduct and national security.  In a telephone interview with Karyn Dolan, she is not so sure that the broadcast wasn't a test of human reaction toward UFOs in spite of the disclaimer by Orson Wells in 1938.  If this was a test, human kind failed miserably.  Many people tuned in late to the radio show and believed the World was in alien turmoil.

     Of importance to this event was the fact that the government found itself overwhelmed with calls and inquiries of UFO sightings.  Was there a threat to national security?  According to Karyn, in 1948, the Air Force,  in a serious attempt to investigate this threat initiated Project Sign at the request of  General Nathan Twining.  Project sign, Dolan states, concluded that, "the craft were most likely of extraterrestrial origin."  Rejected by the USAF, Project Sign was dismantled by by an arrogant General Hoyt Vandenberg and replaced with  Project Grudge and still later by Project Blue Book.

       So now you are saying, "Yawn, this is all good, Larry but get to the point, I'm missing work here!" 

     During this time, it wasn't the actual alien ships or UFOs that could harm national security. but public hysteria  and as Karyn puts it, "the need to control public perception by limiting access to information about [the UFOs]."   Karen further states, that as a result, the Robertson Panel, with Director, Howard Percy Robertson, issued a report in 1953 finding that "UFOs pose no threat to national security; however, public interest could overwhelm military operations and should be curbed!

     LET THE DEBUNKING BEGIN!   This "curbing" resulted in a reduction in public interest in "flying saucers" and could be accomplished by the use of mass media, including television, motion pictures and popular articles.  Enter Walt Disney who, along with MGM, and United Artists were invaluable as a channel of communication in reaching a mass audience. Movies were made to distract the public from "flying saucers" and focus more on educational films involving the exploration of space and possible colonization of the moon!  Aliens and UFOs now seemed less important and became the subject of ridicule.  Of course Project Blue Book dismissed most reports of UFOs as nonsense, of human origin and left the most serious reports which could not be explained as "classified".  Even today, serious reports of UFOs get very minimal coverage in the news and are rarely reported more than one day and are even more rarely updated. 

      The Roberston Report produced an effective message that reports of UFOs are all really nonsense.  Their "debunking" effectively humiliated any attempt to seriously study or report a valid UFO report from anyone, including former President Jimmy Carter.  Television shows were now free to continue this debunking effort as it saw fit.  Consider the many shows that have been created.  See my follow up reports::

Aliens, Children and Television!  1933 to 1969
Aliens, Children and Television!  1978 to 2004

    Increasingly, television shows have been directed towards a younger audience in an attempt to familiarize children with alien and extraterrestrial images and thereby reduce their fear of them.  Karyn asks the all important question: "Should we be concerned?"  Further she writes, "It's undeniable that if adult minds can be controlled, children's minds can be controlled far more easily.  The younger the better, in fact."  Are children capable of making distinctions concerning good and bad or nice and not nice at an early age?  She shows that Yale University published a study in the November 2007 issue of Nature which concluded, " . . .children as young as 6 and 10 months not only have the ability to identify a 'helper' rather than a 'hinderer', but are also able to identify themselves with the helper."  It make sense therefore,  that to effectively mold public opinion on any topic, reach the youngest audience possible. Those with fewer preconceptions thereby making it more difficult to change their opinions, once formed!  So why are children more likely to be afraid of Santa Clause than with an alien?  Perhaps because they are exposed to aliens daily and through familiarity, have lost their fear.  Santa only comes once a year! 

     People trust things they know.   Ever heard of the term "exopolitics"?  Generally it is a term used to determine what sort of political relations would occur if aliens existed and if they visited the Earth. Karyn expands on this to state that exopolitics " . . . has attracted a large contingent of people who believe the aliens are here to help us and that we should listen to them and follow their instructions."  Cattle mutilations, abductions, probes, hypnotic suggestions, impregnation, hybrid offspring with humans, taking people away from their homes, bedrooms and familiar surroundings, should we trust aliens?  Are aliens our Space Brothers as the Vatican may imply?  Where do these beings come from?  What do they want with us?  Our government, through non-disclosure is certainly not any help.  Who do we believe about close encounters with these beings?  Karyn wisely points out that, "the whole point of television is not to entertain us, it's to sell us something; merchandise, an image, or an idea."

     Children do not have the experience and tools needed to judge and process information, thereby making them more vulnerable to more dangerous things.  Isn't this amazing, Karyn points out, "We teach our children not to talk to strangers, not to accept rides in strange cars.  Some of these shows are telling them the opposite, . . ."  Is there enough information about these beings to make an educated, rational decision regarding your child's safety?

     So maybe an agenda is out there to make the next generation of humans more trusting and accepting of an encounter of extraterrestrials  The moral here  is not  that we need to trust or not trust aliens, but that as parents we need to pay closer attention to what it is our children watch and do,  and teach them to make good decisions on their own without depending on the media to give us a predesigned conceptions of how an stranger (alien) will act!  In other words . . . we have to "Teach Our Children Well".

 PLEASE NOTE:  All care was taken to make sure all references and images were from sources which I believe allowed reproduction or are free of copyrights, trademarks, etc. and/or are allowed to be used as instructional/education material.   Proper credit was given in my usage and if I am in error, please forgive me, notify me and the offending material will be removed.  Thank you!

 © 2009 by Larry Rimbert  All rights reserved
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