Officially the Chinese government holds that there is no such thing as UFO's from another planet. Their stance is that the reports of such unearthly craft are the products of the fevered insane minds of Americans and other occidental sensationalism. That stance has yet to keep unidentified flying objects from showing up there, it merely means that there are fewer reports that are allowed to be made. Sometimes their problem makes itself so apparent there is little way to completely hide the issue.

On July 7, 2010, at approximately 9:00 p.m. local time, something unknown appeared on the tracking radar of the Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport. Handling nearly fifteen million passengers a year, Hangzhou Xiaoshan is the ninth busiest airport in all of China, serving the city of Hangzhou, the provincial capital of Zhejiang Province. When an unidentifiable craft began to hover above the airport it was necessary for the Airport's officials to act in the interest of air traveler safety. In all, eighteen incoming flights were waved off and directed to other locations as the airport suspended normal operations for four hours. With such activity occurring with an international cast of witnesses, a media storm began as this sighting could not be totally ignored.

A few days later the Xinhua News Agency, a state-run media outlet, reported that an air traffic control official stated that there were no conclusions as to the cause of the sighting. The China Daily, however, reported that "a source with knowledge of the matter" had reported that the object seen over Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport "had a military connection." The report was very ambiguous in that it was not stated anywhere what that connection was or whose military it might have belonged to. To further confuse the issue of this mysterious sighting, a number of photographs purported to be of the UFO in question quickly spread across the Internet. For the most part they were quickly debunked as tweaked airplane and helicopter photos and one old shot dug up from an archive. Even comparing them to actual photographs of the airport show that there is no resemblance to the airport and the buildings in the photographs.

Object photographed over Chongqing, China, July 21, 2010

To compound the problem of people reporting something that the government says does not exist, less than two weeks later, another mysterious object spent more than an hour hovering in the sky over the city of Chongqing's Shaping Park. Witnesses said it looked like four lantern-like objects that formed a diamond pattern. This was not the first time an unidentified flying object had buzzed the city of Chongqing.

Object seen August 23, 2009 over Chongqing, China

On August 23, 2009 what was described as a twinkling V-shaped object spent several minutes hovering in the same spot. The lights which the hundreds of witnesses said flashed red, blue, green, and yellow, was bright white on the ends and red at the V junction. An identifiable airplane that passed near the craft was much lower than the UFO being observed.

Also coming out of China is the excellent video of a large disk making a slow passage over an apartment building in the city of Nanjing on August 17, 2006.

Flying saucer - August 17, 2006, Nanjing, China

The craft was filmed in broad daylight and is such a good capture of a flying disk it is no surprise that many debunkers and skeptics want to decry it as hoaxed. While the rest of the world doesn't get to hear too much about them, it is a sure bet that the Chinese are aware of the strange objects showing up in their skies even if the government doesn't want them to talk about it.

UFO Documentaries provide valuable insights into a world that is seldom seen, giving the viewer contact with the dark and shadowy of night time ghosts in the sky. The footage used in these documentaries is often derived from home video with amateur video taken by people unable to expertly utilise a video camera. This means that the work of the documentarian is difficult and for those talented with editing and content appraisal there exists a possibility to make significant amounts of money.

By working with the plethora of amateur footage available, a well constructed and influential documentary can be constructed. The strong claims that will be made by a good UFO documentary can include the presence of government cover-ups and a social interaction between aliens and the top echelons of global power structures. The hierarchies that exist may in fact be controlled by aliens for no reason other than to amuse them and to test their equipment.

With good footage and editing the documentary can be made interesting and informative to even the most skeptical viewer. The power of the video media is immense and the technology for television broadcasting may have been a gift from a benevolent alien species that wished to provide humanity with a new tool and toy with which to entertain itself.

Only with the greatest of care should the documentarian embark on the potentially hazardous and life threatening pathway of filming UFO's. There have been several disappearances and accidents that can be linked to people trying to film UFO related material, and furthermore, the risk of abduction and dismemberment by aliens is drastically increased.

The worst and most dangerous part of the life of a UFO documentarian is the risk of being hassled and discredited by the majority of the television and film production industry, for chasing a marginal possiblity. Similar problems are experienced by cryptozoologists searching for the loch ness monster, the Yeti and the Sasquatch. The area of expertise required in order to become a UFO documentarian means that most UFO filmers are unable to get serious work in the film industry.

By devoting their time to chasing down imaginative and lonely witnesses in parts of the world so remote that the odds of seeing a UFO are higher than seeing another human being the UFO filmer becomes a strange and isolated figure. Being able to rejoin a culture as needed is crucial to the serious interaction with it, and to recognition and appreciation by other masters of the field.

Care should be taken not to marginalise oneself in a culture such as that of the UFO documentaries. The people encountered can be strange and bizarre, but are also often very nice and likable people with a genuine desire to show the world the truth that UFO's exist. Any good UFO hunter will make sure to provide credit where it is due, and is willing to allow others the opportunity to chase leads if they are unable to do so themselves. If the door is closed then information cannot be shared.