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Portland Community College is offering a niche new area of study this spring: UFOs.
“From Film to Real Life? UFOs, UAPs, Government and the Media” is an online class listed for non-credit in a category of study called “cultural exploration.” (Other offerings include low-cost Hawaii travel, foreign films and a “waterfalls and wine” tour of the Columbia River Gorge.)
The class is the brainchild of longtime local television news producer Brian Anslinger, the executive producer of KRCW’s lifestyle show Everyday Northwest. Previously, Anslinger worked as assistant news director and executive producer at KATU-TV.
Part of his mission with the class is to help students decode the confusing landscape of UAP sightings and research. (UAP, or unidentified aerial phenomena, is the updated name for UFOs, unidentified flying objects. Anslinger accepts both.)
“Having been looking at this subject for a long time and different aspects of it, I thought, gosh, if you see what’s happening on Capitol Hill or read headlines, I don’t know how you make sense of what’s actually going on,” Anslinger says.
Over his years at KATU, he produced several segments on UAPs. For example, he interviewed former Navy pilot Ryan Graves who testified to Congress last year that UAPs are “a national security and an aviation safety problem.” Graves, the first active duty pilot to come forward publicly about regular sightings of UAPs, is also scheduled to speak at McMenamins UFO Fest on May 17.
The new PCC course runs April 18-May 23. Students will study the testimony of government and military insiders about UAPs and examine the coverage of UAPs in mainstream media, on social media and in films and television. The class will also examine the potential impact that the disclosure of non-human intelligence (aliens) would have on humanity and provide a safe place for people to ask questions.
“There’s such a stigma around this topic,” Anslinger says. “When you bring up a UFO in a conversation, people snicker or laugh. But this is a topic a lot of people are curious about.”
ATTEND: “From Film to Real Life? UFOs, UAPs, Government and the Media,” Portland Community College, pcc.edu. 6:30-8 pm Thursdays, April 18-May 23. $69.