Nick Redfern

Jun 08 2007-Earlier this week I received in the mail a DVD copy of Paul Kimball’s latest UFO documentary, Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings, which was made for Canada’s Space Channel.

This is a film that I have been looking forward to seeing for a long time: last summer, while we were both in the UK, Paul was telling me about some of the cases he would be using, and the commentators, researchers, authors and investigators who had agreed to come on board and be interviewed. And, as a result, it became pretty clear to me that this was going to be a good one. And indeed it is.

Thankfully, this is not some half-hearted effort, put together on a shoestring budget, with bad visuals, muddled voice-overs, and cheap special-effects. Rather, it is an excellent, thought- provoking and illuminating study of some of the most profound UFO cases on record.

The premise behind the production of Best Evidence is intriguing: Paul arranged for a multitude of leading lights in ufology to submit their "best" cases, and was finally able to whittle that huge array of reports down to those ten that appeared to offer the best evidence in support of a genuine UFO presence in our midst.

So, which incidents made it?

Well, coming in at number 10 (Yes, I know I sound like a DJ counting down the pop charts!) is the strange series of encounters that occurred at Nuremberg in 1561, in which countless UFOs were seen by awe-struck townsfolk - a story that continues to both intrigue and mystify people to this day. And both Stan Friedman and Don Ledger stress the important point that, as the Nuremberg case demonstrates, UFOs are nothing new, and stretch back centuries - if not even longer. At number 9 is the startling story of the Skylab encounter of 1973 - an encounter that involved three trained astronauts who were witness to a huge UFO, possibly 800 to 1,000 feet in diameter. As Brad Sparks notes, it is the credibility of the witnesses that really makes this event a strong one.

Then comes a notable encounter in Canada’s Yukon in December 1996, which - importantly - was supported by the independent testimony of various individuals, all of who were certain that some sort of huge object of unknown origin was operating in the Yukon skies on that winter’s night more than a decade ago. Stan Friedman discusses the Mother-ship scenario, and we are left with the question: was the giant Yukon UFO the cosmic equivalent of a Navy aircraft-carrier?

Case number 7 is both a profound and unsettling one, since it involves the apparent disabling by a UFO of the nuclear warheads (or at least the disabling of the ability to launch the nukes) at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana in 1967. Captain Robert Salas, USAF (Ret.) provides excellent, credible commentary on his own personal recollections of the affair and, today, is of the opinion that the intelligences behind the UFOs were trying to get a dramatic message across: get rid of your nuclear weapons.

Canada’s Shag Harbor encounter of October 1967 follows next. Although a UFO incident, it could quite easily be argued that in this case, the 'U' in UFO stood for 'underwater' just as much as it stood for 'unidentified'. With accounts of UFOs zipping in and out of the waters of Shag Harbor, of a concerned Canadian and US military, and seemingly highly advanced unidentified technology skulking around both in our skies and beneath the waves, this is a case that is truly eye-opening. Don Ledger, who is one of the leading investigators of the case, provides much food for thought.

Case number 5 is that of Kelly Johnson - of U2 spyplane fame - whose sighting in 1953 of a 200-foot long UFO is surely one of the most important on record; given the man’s background and integral role in aviation history. And Stan Friedman makes the important and highly valid point that if anyone was in a prime position to know what we, the human race, were flying in our skies back then, it surely would have been Johnson. Yet, the fact that Johnson concluded that he had seen something truly extraordinary only amplifies the nature of the case, and hits home the fact that a small number of UFOs do appear to be true unknowns.

While there are certainly countless examples of alleged UFO caught on film or camera, perhaps none provokes such debate as do the famous McMinville photos taken by farmer Paul Trent in 1950. And, it is this encounter in UFO history that makes number 4 in Best Evidence - with commentary and endorsements provided by Bruce Maccabee.

At number 3 is the controversial Rendlesham Forest, England UFO landing of December 1980 that can arguably be classed as the British Roswell - at least, in terms of commentary, numbers of people involved, and books written on the subject. Colonel Charles Halt, USAF (Ret.), and former Ministry of Defense man Nick Pope talk about the case - lights in the sky, object moving in the woods, elevated radiation readings found at the scene, the list goes on. And Halt surely makes the understatement of the whole show when he notes that the aftermath of the affair - that, he says, included USAF people being drugged and hypnotized, and the confiscation of radar-tapes showing the movements of the UFOs - was "quite interesting." I’ll say!

Coming in at a close second: the Iranian Air Force’s "UFO dogfight" of 1976, that saw two Phantom F-4’s implicated in a striking UFO encounter over the nation’s skies, and that also saw the Phantom’s utterly out-performed, and - more disturbingly - profoundly affected in terms of weapons and electrical systems being temporarily shut down by the unknown visitor. And as Stan Friedman notes with respect to the fact that the Iranian’s launched two of their state-of-the-art aircraft in hot pursuit of the UFO: "You don’t scramble if you’re not worried." Indeed.

So which case makes number one? The 1957 encounter of the USAF crew of an RB-47 aircraft, who were shadowed for more than two hours and across more than a few US states by a distinct unknown. With aerial observations, airborne tracking, ground radar-based confirmation, and a plethora of trained, high- quality observers, the RB-47 event is one that makes Stan Friedman pose the question: "What more can you ask for?" And there you have it.

Of course, there will be those who will inevitably ask: "Hey, why wasn’t the [insert name here] incident discussed?" Well, the answer to that question is that this Top 10 list was one based solely upon the responses provided to Paul by those researchers that he polled.

There will always be those who will disagree with the cases presented, and I can personally think of one or two others that I would have included had it been my Top 10. But, regardless of that, Best Evidence is a first-class production, with strong cases, good production and special-effects, a fine narration from Kris Lee McBride, and solid commentary from a host of researchers and investigators.

And Best Evidence is refreshing for two other reasons, too: number one, it doesn’t try and force-feed a particular theory for the UFO presence down our collective throats. It merely hammers home the fact that some presence, some unknown, is most assuredly among us.

And, second, you will find no debunkers in this production. Now, I’m not against having the views of those of a skeptical nature presented in a show such as this - it can, sometimes, provide a welcome balance to get both sides across.

But what I am against is this mentality of so many shows (and channels) that interview UFO researchers with the sole intention of having them knocked them down by some debunking type with a few letters after their name.

In the case of Best Evidence, however, it is those who were personally there and those that have dug deep into the cases in question that are given air-time; rather than the myriad debunkers who prefer to pontificate from the comfort of their armchairs; and who, in many cases, have done zero personal research into the things they are babbling on about.

The final word I will leave to researcher and author Mac Tonnies, who is quoted in the closing moments of Best Evidence as noting that, if real, the UFO presence on our world appears to be influencing both the way we think and our own mythologies, and that "this is a sacred thing to be messing with."

Paul tells me that the show has been getting rave reviews and plans are already moving to have Best Evidence broadcast outside of Canada. So, keep watching the TV listings: you definitely don’t want to miss this one.