NEW UFO SUBJECT FILM SIGHTINGS – AND A FEW OLD FAVES
A slate of new documentaries on the broad spectrum of UFOs/UAPs/ Abductions/Advanced Energy Technology will bombard streaming, DVD and other viewing media this spring and summer season. How good – or reliable – will they be?
Perspective is in the eye of the beholder.
Speaking of which, I’ve listed some favorite feature films (not documentaries) about UFOs, ETs, et. al., after this summary and select trailers of upcoming stuff. Feel free to fire back at me to share yours at: spacepenclub@calumeteditions.com
What new docs is your Chronicler excited about? Probably Ariel, set in Zimbabwe where 60+ school kids in 1994 encountered an object and beings in one of the most convincing Close Encounters of the 4th Kind cases ever, simply because of the honesty and innocence that shapes the children’s multiple accounts of the event – and their reactions many years later. If you watched James Fox’s The Phenomenon, you will already have a window into this world.
Also somewhat intrigued by Above Top Secret: The Technology Behind Disclosure in which we hopefully learn more about how advanced off-planet energy propulsion and or energy systems are the primary reasons for the extreme secrecy – an argument I currently subscribe to (but will unsubscribe if proven otherwise).
CNN—ALL IN WITH A NEW 5-PARTER
The ubiquitous Leslie Kean, who with Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper, broke the 2017 NY Times story in the Pentagon’s secret UFO study has a hand in a new five-part CNN series called UFOs (wt). The advance marketing materials (See summaries and air dates below of all these new works) suggest the series investigates “…. what the government shared with the public [in recent years] versus what went on in the shadows….” Any more illumination of the shadows in this often-murky realm would be a good thing, right? Still, I expect there will be more redundancy than light for the hardcore. But maybe this old, weathered news channel will surprise us.
Quite a few folks whose thinking, work and general opinions I respect like Grant Cameron and others are already giving big thumbs UP for Alien Abductions: Answer. Frankly, the trailer didn’t do much for me, and my skeptic’s guard goes up whenever any show on topic purports to have answers in what may be Ufology’s Achilles heel.
No matter how much I read about this – from alleged “abductees” to claims that these events can be hoaxed using psychotronic non-lethal weapons (and Chapter 3 of my book goes deep on this) – I am always reminded by what the late John Mack cryptically said when he “materialized’ after his fatal car accident in the UK to an abduction research colleague (first reported in Vanity Fair, then in Blumenthal’s book, The Believer and in Chapter 10 of The Space Pen Club): “It’s not what we thought.”
Coming Attractions
ARIEL MAY 20 -- https://arielphenomenon.com/
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnFI1dDG6ZI
In 1994, over sixty schoolchildren witnessed an unidentified craft land outside their schoolyard. Twenty-five years later, this incident is still fresh in students’ memories. They continue to search for answers - and the courage to speak their truth. In this first feature documentary about the Ariel School UFO incident, a young woman returns to her school in rural Zimbabwe - the place that, at the age of nine, shattered her reality. We meet a respected BBC war reporter who reluctantly covered the event, ultimately leading him to risk his career on the one story that haunted him the most. Jeopardizing his reputation is Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack, whose validation of the witnesses made this mass-sighting impossible to ignore.
Including never before seen interviews of the children shortly after the encounter, as well as interviews with them more than two decades later, this story is impossible to ignore and will leave even the biggest skeptics convinced we are not alone in the universe.
UFOs (wt) — JULY
UFOs (wt) unspools the secret history behind the American government’s decades long investigation into the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. From the creators of the hit series Surviving Death, this provocative five-part series investigates what the government shared with the public versus what went on in the shadows; how citizens investigated cases and pushed back for more transparency; and what the future holds for this mystery which is now formally under investigation by the US government. UFOs (wt) premieres this Summer on CNN.
What does wt mean?!
ALIEN ABDUCTIONS: ANSWER – JUNE 24 (DVD release), Streaming on Amazon Prime, others
Watch the trailer: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1970586393/?playlistId=tt15213332&ref_=vp_rv_2
ABOVE TOP SECRET: THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND DISCLOSURE – OUT NOW on Amazon and Apple iTunes
“Multi award filmmakers Blake and Brent Cousins travel across the country to find the real answers to everyone's questions whether we are alone in the universe and expose the above top-secret projects involved with ET recovered craft not of this world. Is there an Alien threat among us, or is the real threat human in nature? Above Top Secret the technology behind disclosure will change the way you think about UFOs, and the world of suppressed technology.”
My 8 Random Go-to UFO/ET Film Fave List
· Close Encounters of the Third Kind: No brainer. For a longtime, the gold standard set in the ‘70s – mostly because of the dearth of good films on topic since the barrage of b-movies made in the 50s and 60s (some quite good, if you like cheesiness). Skip the extended play version (cuz nothing happens!) – and the gooey, sentimental Spielberg follow-up in the genre, ET, The Extraterrestrial.
· The 11th Green: A must-see 2020 sleeper loosely based on the alleged meeting President Eisenhauer had with ETs who landed at an air base in California. It subtlety packs quite a lot into a story that UFO aficionados and newcomers will both appreciate. A Find!
· Arrival: Smart, understated and not your usual hard sell, this 2016 movie focuses on the inter-species communications issues faced when “they” show en masse around the world but no one is sure what they want, or what we want from them. With the always unstoppable Amy Adams.
· Starman: The Dude, Jeff Bridges, puts in a sweet and soulful command performance as a visitor fallen to Earth with the bad guys, the Feds, on his trail, and an earthy love interest who eventually can’t resist – or save -- him.
· Galaxy Quest: Pure escapist delight! Played strictly for yuks, you won’t find a funnier, over-the-top riff on getting tangled up with weird shape-shifting ETs who are almost as hopeless as the humans (who have exceeded their expirations dates in Hollywood) that they seek out to save them from other bad aliens. An All-Star cast (clearly having more fun than any movie set should allow!)
· District 9: Imagine if some interstellar ships with ETs with reptilian-like features came here and got stranded, then socially and militarily ostracized! That’s the troubling premise of this little seen but worthy flick. And for fair-weather cynics like myself – it’s probably more realistic than any of us would care to admit about how things could go once “they” get here and can’t go home.
Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez in Repo Man: Searching for street cred and a very “hot” car.
· Repo Man: How many times have I watched this wild wacko film in different formats including old cable and VHS?! Poor Emilio Estevez’s character can’t find his way in the world until he does, inside the fractured street culture of guys who repossess cars but with a strict code, laid down by the always memorable Harry Dean Stanton. The trouble is, one of the cars is driving around LA with a radioactive ET in the trunk. With a great cast of characters, this barely qualifies as a movie about our favorite subjects. But Miller, another of the lovable losers in this epic 1984 gem, spews some pretty swell lines about consciousness and synchronicity that were so great I had to quote them in my book.
· The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 remake): If you can’t buy Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, then we and our fragile, environmentally threatened planet really are doomed. He warned us, he was exceedingly patient, he tolerated our bullshit. But what happened…humans just don’t listen or give a fig.
