Question:

I have searched everywhere for the video of that family that was abducted from their home at dinnertime that was on TV. Was that family ever found? What do you know about the McPherson family abduction video?

Answer:

"McPherson Family's Video Is The Sole Testament To The Missing Family's Fate"

UPN will present a one hour special centered around an alleged videotaped account of a family's purported encounter with what may be extra-terrestrial life forms when "Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County" airs January 20th (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET/PT). The recently acquired videotape is the sole testament to the fate of the McPherson family, missing since last Thanksgiving Day.

Apparently recorded and, at various times, narrated by the family's 16-year-old son, Thomas McPherson, the startling footage shows the family gathering with friends to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 27, 1997. A series of strange occurrences, caught by the camera, culminate into what appears to be a frightening encounter with strange creatures.

During the special, several people who claim to have had similar experiences relate their ordeals, plus experts on aliens discuss the authenticity of the videotape."

Alien Abduction Experience and Research investigated this videotape broadcast of a family allegedly abducted from their home on Thanksgiving night in Minnesota. The videotape begins with an interesting premise, that the McPherson family from Lake County was abducted on Thanksgiving night and never heard from again. The 16 year old son Thomas is the avid photographer who videotapes and periodically narrates the family's escapades as they scramble from one unbelievable event to another.

Simultaneous nosebleeds and matching red triangles on the women's shoulder blades are intended to inspire awe. Interviews with legitimate researchers in the field are interspersed with action-oriented video clips of the family supposedly reacting in fear. However, the quality of acting is low, and even worse, is supposed to be genuine, but no one seems truly frightened. One video expert claims the videotape is authentic and not doctored. He is probably correct because while the videotape may be authentic, the story itself contains critical flaws.

The real question as we see it, is could these events have happened plausibly? Starting from the beginning of the videotaping at 6:20 p.m., we are told these people are waiting to sit down for their Thanksgiving dinner. Yet this kitchen is quite clean. The turkey is uncarved in the center of the table. No one nibbles or snitches any food to eat. No one even looks hungry! How unlike a real family! The young granddaughter about age 7, never once says, "I'm hungry." How odd.

Once the mysterious alien activity begins outside, the father gets out his shotgun; the electric power fails, and the older sons are mobilized to help the father. Interestingly, the father is clearly left-handed by the way he pumps and handles the shotgun. The two older sons are left-handed by the way they open the fuse box and handle the flashlights and other objects. Thomas also appears left-handed because he uses his left hand to wipe his face or scratch it occasionally. Obviously, the genetic characteristic for left-handedness runs in this family on the male side. Only about 5% of the world's population is left-handed. But there is a reason we are mentioning this characteristic.

Outside the house, the photographer, who may not really be Thomas, and a brother scoot across the field and encounter an odd-looking UFO. Two aliens step out of the UFO and approach an animal on the ground. The taller alien blasts a laser beam of orange light into the animal. But guess what? The alien is holding the laser tool in his left-hand! Can you imagine a left-handed alien? What a coincidence! Next to the left-handed alien is a shorter alien, who just stands there quietly. The short alien is about the height of the young granddaughter. To us, it appears the two aliens are actually the left-handed Thomas and the little granddaughter.

Back inside the house, the family suddenly hears a piercing shrill sound. All the family members cover their ears and wince except for the young granddaughter, who quietly watches the others. We are sure that if the sound were genuine, she would have covered her ears like the rest of the family.

Later, the family truck is discovered smoking from the steam heat of a melted truck battery. However, one of the brothers opens the truck hood easily with bare hands and never gets burned from the heat or says "ouch." This tells us the hood is not hot and the battery melt down was faked.

Back inside the house, the women finally get a turn to show their stuff. They experience simultaneous nosebleeds from the left nostril and shortly thereafter two of them discover matching bright red triangles on their left shoulder blades, probably applied by the left-handed men in the family! The nosebleeds are neat and tidy, unlike the messy nosebleeds abductees report. Later the women experience sudden and intense itching and begin scratching furiously all over, except for the young granddaughter who watches them quietly. If this event were real, the granddaughter would be scratching as furiously as the women.

We next decided to examine the physical evidence unrelated to the actual story by examining timepieces. Recognizing the photographer's precision with always date and time-stamping the film, we wanted to see if it matched the wrist watches in the videotape. We ran the videotape through digital analysis looking for discrepancies. We slowed down the videotape and viewed each wrist watch frame by frame. We isolated the clearest frame and included it below. Note the video camera time-stamp this frame with 9:20 p.m. The brother's wrist watch is upside down from this view. But if you tilt your head sideways, you can see that his wrist watch is not showing 9:20 p.m. at all. It is more like 4:40 p.m.

Note the timestamp of 9:20 p.m. and wrist watch show two very different times!

The next photograph is from the last scene of the family's videotape. This last scene is Thomas panning most of the bedroom with his video camera to convince us the room is empty, although he does not pan behind himself. Then the door opens and the son videotapes the alien entering his bedroom. The camera looks head-on into the alien's face with its slightly hairy scalp. The next camera angle switches to the son's face below as he reclines helplessly on the bed. Our question is, who is changing the camera angles? Who is videotaping at this point? It is obviously not Thomas.

Final scene is of Thomas, the story's photographer, reclining on bed and looking up helplessly at face of alien.

Our conclusion is the storyline is clever but the acting is unconvincing. The show's producer has been careful to repeatedly claim "alleged" so that when the truth finally comes out, they can stand back, smile and say to the world, "Oh well. We never claimed it was real." The only benefit gained from watching this show is seeing familiar UFO experts and abductees express their opinions. We wonder if this show will give the government a new scheme for relocating citizens under the witness protection program.