To recap briefly: Ten days ago I got a letter from Vxxxx, my MUFON State Director, asking if I would be interested in being interviewed for a documentary film dealing with "the supernatural and how the public perception of believers has changed over the past fifty years. The filmmakers, Mike & Molly, from Nashville, TN, seemed sincere enough, so I said yes. (NOTE: These are "not "the characters from "Mike And Molly," the hit CBS comedy about funny fat people. No, these filmmakers are neither fat nor funny).
M">Hi Mark,"
"I have bad news. The vehicle that my video crew and I are planning on traveling the country has broken down, and our cross country UFO trip is on hiatus for now. Instead of an in person filmed interview, would you be available for a phone interview on the same date and time? "
"I'll get you some sample questions before then. Basically I'm interested in two things: the effect if the traumatic experience of abdication on individuals and the impact it has on their life, and the search for answers and knowledge of the extraterrestrial as a means of healing that wound. Anyone with a lot of interest in the field of UFOs will I'm sure be useful."Two things bothered me about this letter. First was his use of the word "abdication" instead of "abduction";" I was not comfortable with the idea of being interviewed by someone who didn't know the difference between those two words. Secondly, the idea of doing a phone interview for a documentary film was problematic. If I'm sitting down to do an interview with a guy and he's got a full camera crew and sound crew there, lights, mics, release forms, pretty makeup girl, I'm pretty confident that he is, in fact, making a film. If I'm talking to him on the phone, I don't know who the hell he is or what he's going to use the interview for.
It also troubled me that Mike's ">I resized this picture to make it "Extra Large" because, well... it's kind of funny when you think about it.
I wrote back to Mike and told him I wasn't interested in taking part in his project, and I pointed out that "abdication" is not the same thing as "abduction."
He wrote back to me and blamed the "abdication" boo-boo on spell-check and asked me to reconsider. He was still hoping that a few good interview clips would help him put together a proposal for Kickstarter. Relieved that he actually did seem to have a smidgeon of can-do attitude, I agreed to talk to him after all.
It's all starting to sound as though there's a happy ending in store, right? Wrong. The other night I got this email from Molly ("Warning:" it's long and excruciating):
"My name is Molly X. I wanted to let you know about a situation with which I was recently involved."
"I had wanted to travel across the country to find out more about The Truth, and I shared my interest with a college friend named Mike X. Mike appeared to be very interested in my project, and asked me to work with him on its completion. We had planned to begin our journey last Thursday, and I believe that Mike may have contacted you about conducting an interview."
"We began a blog to keep people informed about our progress. You can read the blog here:"
"http://contactingthecontacted.wordpress.com/"
"
"As you can see from the blog, I discovered upon my arrival in Nashville that Mike was completely unprepared for this endeavor. He had pretended to have gotten experience as a filmmaker, and had told me that he had a support crew and equipment to make a documentary film, but none of that turned out to be true. In short, our plans completely fell apart before they even began because my plans and interests were clearly no part of what Mike was intending to do."
"However, I have just heard from Mike that he plans to go ahead with interviews that were initiated because of my deep interest in The Truth. I am quite concerned about Mike's intentions moving forward, since he seemed complete indifferent to everything that was motiving me to make this trip. He has stolen my ideas and interests because he found out that there were many people interested in our trip, and left me with no ability to proceed to follow my dream."
"To be perfectly honest, I do not know why Mike has done any of this to me (for whom he had been claiming to have respect and friendship), so I did want to alert you to my experience with him in case he is trying to use this for some purpose that would be to no one's benefit but his own. "Now, if you go and read their blog (which I'm not suggesting you do, because it, too, is excruciating), you'll see that a lot of Molly's email to me seems to have been cut and pasted "from "the blog. Call me old-fashioned, but to me there is something slightly suspicious about a cut & paste letter of outrage.
Needless to say, there's not going to be any interview, and we may never know "The Truth" as a result. I can live with that. The question is: are Mike & Molly playing a not very funny and kind of pointless practical joke, or are they just extremely weird people who should be avoided at all costs?
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