[CNI News thanks Dolores Finney for the following story. Dee is one of ISCNI's most active members, and is also an experiencer who participates in a support group for experiencers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Some weeks ago, Dee notified CNI News editor Michael Lindemann that she had been contacted by television reporters who wanted to do a special feature on UFO experiencers, to be aired on CNN. Dee agreed to cooperate; but as plans developed, changed and fell apart, she realized that the TV crew had no intention of presenting a fair or accurate story. Here's how Dee tells it.]
[July 20, 1995] We were approached by a company named Varied Directions out of Maine, who told us they had found our name through a news clipping service. They said they were interested in us particularly because we were considered the most diversified group of abductees in the U.S.; i.e. we had whites, blacks, Indians, and Spanish, which they considered a wonderful mix of people types that didn't exist in other groups.
We were given the choice to vote on whether we wanted to be filmed or not by our director, and the vote was to turn the film crew down. No one wanted to be filmed and go public because of fear of ridicule.
Another month went by and we were contacted again by the company, who said that they wouldn't film our faces, just from the back. Several members said okay reluctantly, and we were scheduled for a visit in May.
One man who seemed quite professional showed up in May for an opportunity to see our facilities, set up shots, and get ideas for the filming which would take place in July. There were a couple women who did not want to be filmed at the meeting in May, so the man just put his camera on the floor with the lens cap on and audio taped the 2 1/2 hour meeting. During his visit to Milwaukee, he stopped at some people's homes to see if he could film them individually, because they had very strong stories. Each person was then telephoned and interviewed at length, long distance, taped, to get their stories again and get verbal permission for the filming.
We were told that we would have to sign releases before the filming could actually be done.
When July came, the crew was to come two days early to do the individual filming, and part of it was to set up my computer and go live on AOL/ISCNI for a short conference to show what the American people were really doing to educate themselves in the UFO/alien phenomenon. The group was excited to think that there would be a four-hour documentary on CNN, requested by Ted Turner.
The film crew did not arrive on the day scheduled, saying that they needed to save money on motels. When they finally arrived a day later, they spent an entire afternoon at Harley Davidson with our photographer who works there, then went with him to Pewaukee Lake, which has been the site of many sightings. My ISCNI participation was scratched from the schedule.
The following day they also spent with the photographer at his home and got many of the photos that had been taken. They had offered him $100 to get all his pictures, which we had said was way too cheap. They settled for $500, which the photographer received.
[When they came to our support group meeting], they stopped one member at the door, a tall, handsome doctor who had written a play about UFOs. They wired him for sound and asked him to pretend to be the moderator. They told no one else what they were doing. The director of the group was ignored and even though they said they had wanted to interview her, they ignored her. When she pressed them on it, they said they weren't interested in an interview with her. The action was staged. The photographer was filmed coming into the meeting and the meeting began.
The one camera was loaded with ten-minute film [cartridges] that they had to change every ten minutes. They did not stop the meeting to change the film, just letting the conversation flow at will with the pretend moderator asking questions, mostly, "What do you think is happening here?" when the stories began flowing. The moderator was wired for incoming sound also, so the questions were being relayed from a truck outside to him, to prompt him on what to ask. Everyone became uncomfortable with the promptings, and they began to realize that they weren't just to tell their stories, but to analyze the situations and put reasons of alien agenda to what had happened to them. No one fell into it and no one posed any reasons. At the end of one hour, the crew said they were out of film and it was over, though the conversation was very lively at that point. They didn't seem to care that people had more to say.
At this point they had filmed only the photographer and one cute black girl. No one else's face had been shown. The crew had been very unprofessional, and very young, most of them only about 20 years old. The man in charge was very surly in his attitude and several members were very upset at his behavior.
The next day, the film crew went to Dundee, Wisconsin, at Long Lake to film a special event which is held every year. People come from all over the country to meet and discuss UFOs, then to climb Dundee Mountain in the evening and watch for UFOs. The bar was full of acrid smoke and had many people on motorcycles there. The members of our group were told to go inside and wait by the door and greet the photographer enthusiastically when he walked into the door. Other people in attendance who we did not know were asked to participate in this greeting also, which was staged. Some film was made of the group meeting, but not much. The main event was to hopefully film a UFO, which did not happen because thunder storms rolled in and ruined the whole evening.
We were told that two other sites to be filmed were a woman in Ohio who has written an opera about UFOs, and a man in Michigan who owns a radio station and invites extraterrestials to call in on the telephone.
It appears at this point that the story CNN is going to tell is one of mockery and pointing at the strange, weird people who say they see UFOs and talk to aliens. One woman from Chicago MUFON (not a member of our group), who they were particularly interested in, was telling them that she lives in two separate dimensons simultaneously and that the aliens direct her every move during the day.
Original file name: CNI - CNN.Dee story
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