Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2021

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2021 Retracing UFO episodes, we will be able to comment on the scientifi- cally valid scenarios and the ethical and social issues faced by the au- thors and screenwriters. The episode that opens the series, “Identified”, was conceived as a pilot episode and as such is not slow to present the leitmotifs of the se- ries: the threat that comes from space, the existence of aliens kept secret, the human events that inter- twine and sometimes identify with those of the enemy. “Identified” be- gins with a gory scene against three earthlings who were secretly film- ing a flying saucer that landed in a woods. The three unfortunates have a bad end, but their footage, recovered by the authorities, gives a significant boost to the creation of SHADO. In this first episode, it is al- ready clear why the aliens have tar- geted the Earth: they see in our species a “reservoir” of organs to be transplanted into their battered bodies (for them, we are not much more than laboratory animals, a condition to think about). It is not difficult to recognize in this scenario a reflection of Christiaan Barnard’s feats, who carried out the first heart transplants over the years the UFO storyline was drawn up. Apparently, the writers seem to ig- nore the problems associated with

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