"Go back to the beginning, to the Kenneth Arnold sighting. The phenomenon described by Arnold was a group of boomerang-shaped objects that moved
like saucers skimming across a water surface. But the report was garbled in initial press reports, leading readers to believe that the alleged objects were saucer-shaped. Subsequent reports, amplified by cinema and television, spread the "saucer" or "disc" image of UFOs to people all over the world. And while many different shapes have been reported for UFOs over the years, the majority of reports have been of saucers or discs, a clear indication that witnesses are seeing what they expect to see, and reporting what others accept as the norm."
"There is also compelling evidence that the appearance of UFO occupants, as widely accepted among "contact" adherents, arose out of a particular episode of a television series. Barney Hill, who was allegedly abducted by beings from a UFO in the early 1960s (the initial case of this type), went into therapy and was hypnotized in the course of his treatment. Under hypnosis, Hill described the eyes of his abductors as "speaking." This peculiar phrase had been used by an extraterrestrial character in an episode of the ABC-TV series "The Outer Limits," which had aired only days before Hill's hypnosis session. The episode was "The Bellero Shield;" the alien portrayed was bald, essentially featureless in face and body, and had swept-back eyes, just as Hill sketched under hypnosis. Although other early reports of UFO occupants varied significantly from Hill's (probably inspired by other stereotypical alien images), his description is the one that has saturated popular culture via the media."
"In 1975, NBC-TV broadcast a dramatization of Hill's experience in a made- for-TV film called "The UFO Incident." Many millions of people watched this allegedly true story and learned what aliens are supposed to look like. A couple of years later, Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" became one of the most popular motion pictures ever made, depicting beings similar to those in Hill's description. Public perception of the "standard model" alien was further influenced by the cover of the 1987 best- selling book "Communion," an allegedly true account of alien contact, which sported the expected image. Had Barney Hill's hypnosis session taken place earlier, or had the ABC network scheduled the "Bellero Shield" later, we would in all likelihood have a different "standard model" alien." READ MORE.
