Way out there

By Mustang Bobby

It’s been twelve days since Malaysia flight MH 370 disappeared on its way to Beijing and nothing has been heard from it since. It’s a complete mystery as to what’s happened to it. That hasn’t stopped any number of people from coming up with theories from the conspiracies to the absurd, including my own snark that it had been abducted to the Delta Quadrant by the Briori as in an episode of Star Trek Voyager.

I was kidding, and in light of the probable loss of life, it was not especially tasteful. But that has never held back CNN, which bills itself rather self-consciously as “the most trusted name in news” the way Fox calls itself “fair and balanced.” But when it comes right down to it, they’re little more than a supermarket tabloid on TV.

Exhibit A:

After a commercial airline pilot had trouble explaining where the missing plane could be, CNN anchor Don Lemon turned Sunday to Brad Meltzer, host of the History Channel’s “Decoded.” The two spoke about the possibility that there may be no logical explanation for why the jet vanished nine days ago.

“Especially today, on a day when we deal with the supernatural, we go to church, the supernatural power of God. You deal with all of that,” Lemon said to Meltzer. “People are saying to me, why aren’t you talking about the possibility — and I’m just putting it out there — that something odd happened to this plane, something beyond our understanding?”

“We all kind of roll our eyes at conspiracy theories, but what conspiracy theories do is they ask the hardest, most outrageous questions sometimes,” Meltzer responded. “But every once in a while they’re right. I think why it’s captured our attention is because there’s no logical explanation right now.”

“I’m not one of those believers that aliens came down or anything like that,” he added. “But you do have to stop and go, how does a jetliner with almost 200 people on it just disappear? How are they just gone?”

Sheesh.

(Cross-posted at Mustang Bobby.)