Who Needs TV Writers Anyway?

It's probably a function of being exposed to Chariots of the Gods? at way too early an age, but I've always had a soft spot for conspiracy/occult/UFO crap. I've watched Loose Change at least twice, own a handful of Scientology texts, and have spent way too much time reading about Madame Blavatsky. One of my all-time favorite bookstores is Fields Book Store in San Francisco, which is stuffed with tomes on channeling, "I AM," Eckankar, and every other stray bit of untraditional spiritual thinking you care to name. If you believe that Aleister Crowley and L. Ron Hubbard had aliens build the pyramids that will house the shadow government once the missiles launch on August 13 at midnight, Fields probably carries a couple of magazines on the subject.

I don't believe in a bit of it, but I get suckered into this stuff the same way some folks fall for fantasy baseball, and for the past few months my crazy-talk needs have been well served by WUFO-TV (Ch. 49). Launched with little fanfare in November, the channel is, as founder Michael Gravino told DCRTV, a home for the "alternative knowledge genre featuring programming which comes to you direct from the authors, researchers, producers, and reporters." In other words: low-quality video of UFO conferences featuring even lower-res images of alleged spacecraft.

And much more: Since the holidays I've processed a lot of information on crop circles, military testing facilities, revisited the rock-on-Mars-that-looks-like-a-dude's-head theory a few more times, and heard an argument that a hieroglyph of a snake on the wall of a pyramid tunnel may, in fact, be an image of an early light bulb. (Centuries before Edison!) Tune in now: Coverage of NASA's secret missions starts at 2:30 today.