Project Blue Book, Episode 5 Review: “Foo Fighters”

“Foo Fighters” is an episode that returns to ideas introduced in the first episode: the songs on the radio, Fuller, the newness of the abbreviation “UFO.” Hynek decides to confide in Quinn about the hospital he was taken to by the unknown man (Though at what point he decided it was a hospital, and specifically a hospital for the procedure to erase songs from the minds of veterans with UFO encounters, is unclear – Project Blue Book takes advantage of its based-on-history status, but the carnival feels like an “only on TV” location, if ever there was one).

Even the term “foo fighters” was first mentioned to us in “The Fuller Dogfight” and hasn’t really come up since. It’s Hynek’s turn to ask Quinn to disobey orders this week, when he wants to investigate the radio broadcast Fuller told the police about before escaping (And it’s official – Fuller was never released and would still be in the hospital if the generals had their way). While Quinn was all about disobeying orders when it was a cause he believed in, his fervor takes a nosedive this week. He agrees because he’s able to come up with an excuse that will pass muster, but it’s like the space monkey never happened and he’s back to his old skepticism.

With all of the flip flopping over what’s real and what’s not, it was nice to hear Hynek declare something unequivocally impossible — the antenna the UFO survivors are using to make contact doesn’t have enough power to reach outer space. That’s not to say he’s discounted the possibility that they saw something. As continues to be the case, their stories match up to a degree that impossible to ignore, and while today you’d be quicker to call scam because technology makes it possible for people to corroborate their stories, we just went through an episode where Mimi couldn’t get in touch with her husband.

Speaking of Mimi, it’s interesting to see her nosy neighbors turn on her in response to the police car parked outside her house. Instead of being concerned, they immediately assume the worst, trying to pick apart the ethnicity of her last name and being racist on top of paranoid. This is not a pretty time for America, and you can understand why UFO sightings were more prevalent (Unless UFOs are real, and then the timing simply makes it easier to sweep them under the rug).

Fuller’s suicide is concerning for a number of reasons. First, there’s the show’s use of real people. The real pilot who had a dogfight with a UFO was named Gorman and continued to work for the air force until his retirement as a Colonel. This is a complete rewrite of his story, and even with the name change, it’s misleading for anyone who is going to believe this is what actually happened. Then there’s the indication that Hynek is going to be blamed for his death, and that the triangle was a subliminal message for Fuller to take his life. There’s the government hiding UFOs and then there’s the government killing its citizens. Nothing about this bodes well.

Project Blue Book airs Tuesdays at 10 PM EST on History.