In the kickoff episode to the sophomore season of "UFO Hunters," researcher Pat Uskert illuminates a glaring paradox. The reality-show team is investigating an Illinois case Uskert describes this way:
There's a lot of evidence we've gotten, there's a lot of witness testimony spread over a wide geographic area, and the case is really fresh - it's current.
So why is "fresh" and "current" airing on The History Channel?

Confession: De Void bailed on the inaugural version of "UFO Hunters" after its first couple of unendurable episodes. Electrified by grab-action zooms and seizure-inducing quick cuts, and backscored with rattler-in-the-mailbox atmospherics, "UFO Hunters" provided a vanity platform for UFO Magazine publisher Bill Birnes, a hyperkinetic hambone whose unending flow of "new evidence" sent him dashing off for 50-year-old cold cases like he'd just heard the hell-song of a five-alarm fire. Maybe the series got better as the season progressed. De Void didn't care.

But if this year's pilot show - which airs Wednesday night at 10 - is an indication, maybe "UFO Hunters" learned something. True, the narrative is still overproduced where it needn't be, as if the producers didn't trust the strength of their material. And visual gimmickry abounds.

But this time around, Birnes' showboating antics appear to be on a tighter leash. More importantly, by de-emphasizing the cold case components that justify its presence in The History Channel, "UFO Hunters" may have evolved into something approaching damned good journalism.

Wednesday night's spot, "Invasion Illinois," investigates the large UFO that buzzed the Tingley Park area southwest of Chicago on the evening of Aug. 21, 2004. The Illinois incident claimed at least 100 witnesses and 15 videotapes, one of which tracked the trianglar array of fixed red lights for 18 minutes.

UFO and a plane 1
© Roger WilliamsIn the image above, the jet is in the middle of the photograph, emitting a contrail. The UFO is in the bottom right. The other spots are smudges on the lens.
By comparing simultaneous videos recorded at different locations, researchers were able to determine the UFO stretched 1,500 feet from end to end, or the equivalent of six Boeing 747s. And it may have been part of a worldwide incident. Similar sightings were made the same night in Texas, Canada, and Australia. An Aussie witness even grabbed a video - which looks like two of the Tingley Park objects linked together.

In the "UFO Emergency" segment, scheduled for Nov. 5, the crew revisits the Trumball County, Ohio, sightings of Dec. 14, 1994, and connects them to similar incidents, before and after, in other parts of Ohio, Michigan and Illinois.

Embroidering this installment are the police/dispatcher interviews, complete with recorded chatter as
UFO and a plane 2
© Roger WilliamsAfter sharpening and enhancing the object, image analyst Terrence Masson and UFO Hunter Ted Acworth conclude the object is real and appears to be silver, saucer-shaped and tumbling end over end.
multiple law enforcement agencies pursued the UFOs. Most intriguing is a dispatcher's unsuccessful attempts to get radar verification from baffled control-tower operators nearby, even as an officer is describing the lit-up phantom he's trying to chase.

If you're on the fence about what UFOs are, "UFO Hunters" won't help clarify matters. But this is pretty strong stuff. And it's refreshing to see cops going on record to publicly confront what our military will not: Something very weird is happening in our skies, and we can't stop it.