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Media Coverage Of Missing Jet Turns Supernatural

Doug Mataconis
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I haven’t posted anything about the now nearly ten day old story of the missing Malaysian Airlines 777 mostly because it didn’t appear to me that there was any news to report. For more than a week now, we’ve been dealing with rumor, conjecture, and misinformation all being reported as news while cable news channel anchors struggle to fill airtime by engaging in guessing games, consulting Twitter to find out what “the people” think happened to the airplane, and playing with models of 777s and cockpit voice/data recorders on the air. No network has gone more over-the-top with this coverage than CNN, which has devoted nearly every hour of its live broadcasts to the saga of the missing plane even when there isn’t any actual news to report.

This new experiment in journalism seems to have reached it zenith last night, when host Don Lemon invited speculation that, well, has no basis in reality:

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been missing for so long that CNN is speculating whether its disappearance had something to do with the “supernatural.”

After a commercial airline pilot had trouble explaining where the missing plane could be, CNN anchor Don Lemon turned Sunday to Brad Meltzer, host of the History Channel’s “Decoded.” The two spoke about the possibility that there may be no logical explanation for why the jet vanished nine days ago.

“Especially today, on a day when we deal with the supernatural, we go to church, the supernatural power of God. You deal with all of that,” Lemon said to Meltzer. “People are saying to me, why aren’t you talking about the possibility — and I’m just putting it out there — that something odd happened to this plane, something beyond our understanding?”

“We all kind of roll our eyes at conspiracy theories, but what conspiracy theories do is they ask the hardest, most outrageous questions sometimes,” Meltzer responded. “But every once in a while they’re right. I think why it’s captured our attention is because there’s no logical explanation right now.”

Here’s the video:

If this plane isn’t found by the end of the week, I expect this guy will be showing up on The Situation Room with Wolf Blizter:

Aliens

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20 responses to “Media Coverage Of Missing Jet Turns Supernatural”

  1. Tillman Avatar
    Tillman

    Radio actually beat TV news a couple of days ago, when NPR was talking about Feinstein’s on-the-Senate-floor challenging of the CIA and the CBS nightly news did a large segment about a missing Malaysian airplane.

    It was interesting the first couple of days, but the amount of attention it’s received here is ludicrous.

  2. CB Avatar
    CB

    “People are saying to me, why aren’t you talking about the possibility — and I’m just putting it out there — that something odd happened to this plane, something beyond our understanding?”

    Well, Don, you should ‘point out’ to those people that they should grow up and learn to suss out the plausible from the bullshit. And then you should not air their idiotic ideas on your NATIONAL FRIGGIN’ NEWS NETWORK.

    It’s so completely minor in the grand scheme, but this kind of stuff just pisses me right off. Our failed media experiment in action.

  3. Donald Sensing Avatar
    Donald Sensing

    The Tinfoil Hat Brigade was on this days and days ago.

  4. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    Perhaps a dinosaur on the Malay Peninsula swatted the plane down?

    I realize that that explanation is probably not extraterrestrial enough for the
    supernatural tin foil hat folks, but for now I’m going with it.

  5. Franklin Avatar
    Franklin

    @Tillman:

    It was interesting the first couple of days, but the amount of attention it’s received here is ludicrous.

    I disagree. It wasn’t interesting at all at first – an unknown malfunction sent an airplane into the ocean? BFD. *Now* it is interesting, but only when new (and verifiably true) bits of info come out.

  6. Dave D Avatar
    Dave D

    Didn’t ABC make a documentary about this years ago called LOST? They’ll never find the plane because the island moves!!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. Stonetools Avatar
    Stonetools

    Maybe the plane made it to Shangri-La by flying through a portal to the eighth dimension that was located in the Pacific equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle…Anyway that’s as possible as any explanation I’ve heard so far, if we are going to include the supernatural.

  8. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    This new experiment in journalism seems to have reached it zenith last night, when host Don Lemon invited speculation that, well, has no basis in reality:

    I think the word you were looking for is nadir, rather than zenith.

  9. grumpy realist Avatar
    grumpy realist

    Obviously catapulted into another dimension through UFO technology secretly installed on the plane by reptoids from Antares masquerading as humans.

  10. Bleev K Avatar
    Bleev K

    Wow. I just remembered why I don’t have the cable anymore.

  11. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    There’s clearly only three possibilities here:

    1. The plane was transported into the past, in which case the investigators should be looking for it at La Guardia airport in 1992.
    2. The plane was transported into the future, in which case the investigators should be looking for it at De Gualle in 2056.
    3. The plane arrived when it was supposed to, in which case the investigators should be looking for the coworker who went nuts.

  12. grewgills Avatar
    grewgills

    One word…
    RAPTURE

  13. Tyrell Avatar
    Tyrell

    There are many airplane and ship disappearances with no explanation or conclusion. There are many things in the scientific world that we do not yet understand. That does not mean that it is some sort of weird, bizarre event that has no basis in fact. There are many mysteries that have been solved. We know that many airplanes and ships have disappeared without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle area of the south Atlantic. Scientists will some day solve these mysteries. Many scientists know that there is something unusual there that we just don’t understand yet. It could be that the airplane encountered some sort of magnetic anomaly that rendered its instruments useless and the pilots became disoriented. Or some sort of other physical unknown.
    Let’s remember that at one time an eclipse was thought to be the end of the world . Now we understand an eclipse to make perfect sense. And the programs on History Channel and Discovery have scientists and researchers carrying on methodical scientific investigations. One problem is the government keeps so much information of these events classified, even when they occurred decades ago. We must ask ourselves why. (See “Kecksburg Incident” in which a government coverup included illegal property seizures, intimidation and abuse of private citizens, seizure of film from reporters, and threats: all from some secret government military agency. Documents relating to this incident are still classified. They will never be released.)

  14. Scott O Avatar
    Scott O

    Some passenger probably coveted one time too many and God got really mad.

  15. rodney dill Avatar
    rodney dill

    @grewgills: They were the only true christians left. Sorry, everybody else.

  16. ernieyeball Avatar
    ernieyeball

    @Tyrell:..See “Kecksburg Incident”

    OK T. This is what I found.

    Living up to its name, the Science Fiction Channel premiered a sensationalist “documentary” on October 24, 2003, claiming that a “UFO crash” in Kecksburg was “a second Roswell.” The reality is that a major fireball meteor was widely seen at that time, and studied extensively by scientists. Several scientific papers were published about it in astronomical journals. The supposed “crashing UFO” reported from Kecksburg matches exactly with the great fireball in time, and in direction. http://debunker.com/Kecksburg.html

    And this.

    “In fact, Kean completely ignored the contradictory witness statements that she received first-hand, and instead went on to publish a book in 2010 titled UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, where she repeated Callahan’s testimony in full on page 222… the fact that the data was immediately released to Maccabee to do a full public disclosure immediately following the event blows both Kean and Callahan’s claim of secrecy completely out of the water. And the fact that Kean ignored the contradictory evidence offered to her first-hand does the same to her journalistic integrity.” – Ryan Dube.
    http://debunker.com/texts/kean.htm

    As I have requested anytime I hear citizens claim that outer space aliens exist among us…bring me one, just one and I will believe.

  17. Tyrell Avatar
    Tyrell

    @ernieyeball: “contradictory statements” – okay, in some cases did occur. But overall those who saw the object before it was taken away on a large flatbed trailer gave similar descriptions: an acorn or bell shaped object with strange writing on it. (These were independent statements. ) Documents that have been released have large areas blacked out. What is agreed on by the people there is that a military group came in, moved people from the scene, took control of property, took cameras from people, pushed people around: this without any warrants and most had no identification. This could well have been a Soviet spacecraft. But why the secrecy now? Lesson: when something like this occurs, do not call in the police or military. Call every tv station and reporter you can find.
    These people never received any apology, explanation, or renumeration. See “Kecksburg 50 Years Later” : by a local tv station.

  18. Kolohe Avatar
    Kolohe

    @Stormy Dragon:

    Nah, the people pushing that malarky are obviously quite high.

  19. ernieyeball Avatar
    ernieyeball

    @Tyrell:..“contradictory statements”

    Here’s a couple of contradictory statements:

    Tyrell says:Monday, March 17, 2014 at 19:27 “Documents relating to this incident are still classified. They will never be released.”

    Tyrell says:Tuesday, March 18, 2014 at 09:51″Documents that have been released have large areas blacked out.”

  20. rudderpedals Avatar
    rudderpedals

    Along with the dreck, as always there are a lot of good facts and speculation here: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-290.html

    For the facts as they come in, Aviation Herald is the go to place: http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b&opt=1

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