UFOS OVER EARTH: Fayetteville Incident

History Channel -- Original Air Date: January 2009

MUFON'S crew is back with the last (so far as I know) in this UFO series.  This episode covers the January 2007 "Fayetville Incident."  The story starts with 5 guys on a fishing trip who spot strange lights in the sky.  Later, one of the men, Chris, reports seeing a stange, shimmering alien being (though his story sounds like a waking dream to me).  Soon, they're talking to more witnesses, some of whom claim to have experienced missing time.  Eventually, Chris gets hypnotic regression to recover his "lost" memories.  (This is not a proven and reliable scientific technique -- quite the opposite, in fact.)  He relates a fairly typical alien abduction scenario.  The team creates animations based on the witness reports.  They conduct psychiatric interviews, and see no signs of psychosis, though they do say the subject, Chris, is subject to fantasies.  The team is convinced this man is not hoaxing, but does that mean what he says is real?  A polygraph expert says the witness isn't telling the truth regarding the events of that night (the alien and abduction).  The team is disappointed with these results, but they confront Chris.  He says he believes the story he tells, despite the polygraph results.  MUFOn checks for similar sightings, and find none in the area, but there is one in Wisconsin -- which, though described as similar, doesn't seem to be a very close match to the animation.  (Should it be surprising that two people from different areas can have similar delusions?)  The MUFON folks, though, think it's likely not a conicidence.  The show concludes that this is a "real phenomina" -- though they don't clarify whether "real," for them, means psychological or physical.

I can see why this show, the weakest of the set, wasn't broadcast alongside the other two.  It consists mostly of taking heads doing interviews, and very little else.  That the team pushed through to the polygraph is admirable, but their "desire to believe" is more evident here, perhaps, than in the other episodes.