Stanton Friedman's influential documentary weaves a tale of government secrecy surrounding an alien invasion aimed at dehydrating our soil, mutilating our cattle, and probing our posteriors. Evidence is presented by way of dubious eyewitness testimony and dozens of blurry photographs and film clips. Some are hoaxes (Trent's truck mirror, Heflin's toy train wheel, Meier's model saucers, several anonymous hats and hubcaps, the medieval "discus" forgery and the Walton and Meier abduction stories). Others include birds (Lubbock '51), clouds (Brazil '58, Utah '72), lens reflections (Colorado '63), a street lamp (China '42), a moth (Minnesota '65), an airplane (Catalina '66) and a squid fishing boat (New Zealand '78).
Some cases are more complex.
The Roswell case is a composite of two unrelated incidents: a 1947 weather balloon and some 1950's Air Force crash test dummies. The incidents were linked by Stanton Friedman 30 years later, giving rise to the Roswell conspiracy theory, first widely publicized via this documentary. A key component of the conspiracy hadn't developed yet at the time the film was released: the claim was made soon afterward that a genuine alien saucer was replaced by a smashed-up weather balloon - yet, the documentary features the balloon wreckage and calls it an alien saucer. This is consistent with the initial testimony of Maj. Jesse Marcel: that the Army said it was a weather balloon, but that he knew otherwise because "it wasn't like any weather balloon I've ever seen."
The Betty and Barney Hill case also combines two separate incidents. Conducting my own research, I came to the conclusion that the UFO was a Sikorsky H-5 helicopter. The abduction was a combination of dreams and cryptomnesia. The saucer and its occupants bare a striking resemblance to many science fiction films and characters. It is known that Betty saw Invaders From Mars (1963). I submit that she also saw Killers From Space (1954) and any number of saucer films and TV episodes featuring bald aliens and extraterrestrial surgeons.
Here's my concise scene-by-scene analysis.
By order of appearance:
Catalina 1966: Small airplane.
McDivitt/Gemini V 1965: Booster rocket.
Gordon Cooper 1951: Probably weather balloons (regardless, Cooper had completely lost his mind and credibility by 1978).
Colorado 1963: Light reflection or lens flare.
Santa Ana 1965: Toy train wheel.
Romania 1968: A hat.
Yugoslavia 1974: A hat.
Carter 1969: Barium cloud test (solved recently by a diligent researcher).
Brazil 1958: Lenticular cloud.
Brazil 70s: An insect.
Brazil 1976: Bird or bug.
Brazil (Rio) 1978: Bird, bug, cloud? No context is given; it's just a blob.
Thailand 1973: Again, just a blob.
Wendelle Stevens: Believed & promoted the Billy Meier hoax. Not a credible witness or ufologist.
Twining memo: Not a word of the memo mentions or suggests aliens.
Oregon (McMinnville) 1950: Ford sideview mirror.
France 1954: A bird (probably a crow).
Utah 1972: Lenticular cloud.
Dr. Richard Haines: "real physical phenomenon" doesn't mean "aliens."
Ohio 1973: Probably a mirage or reflection. Credibility weakened by the UFO flap of October 1973.
Stanton Friedman's work as a "space scientist" doesn't make him an expert on aliens.
China 1942: Street lamp. The "pointing" person isn't pointing at anything; they're carrying something on their back.
Rome 98 CE: Lenticular cloud.
London 1870: Probably a flock of birds or the migration of insects.
Switzerland 1975: Fake saucer (Billy Meier).
Brazil 1954: A hat.
Rome 216 BCE: Lenticular cloud.
Peru 1967: Hubcaps.
"Discus" over England 1290: Forgery from 1953.
France 1461: A meteor.
New Zealand 1978: Squid fishing boat.
Argentina 1977: A bird.
Canada 1975: No context. Could be anything.
Japan 1978: Probably a toy.
Hawaii 1974: Bird or bug.
Switzerland 1975: Fake saucer (Billy Meier).
France 1974: Fake saucer.
Landing sites (several): Nothing in the photos suggests alien involvement.
Minnesota 1975: Dead grass on high school football field; cause unknown. However, the UFO seen landing there was, I believe, a flock of horned larks.
S. Africa 1956: Weather balloon.
Hoover: "The L.A. case" refers to a fake saucer found in N. Hollywood on 7/10/1947, 2 weeks after the first flying saucer report. Note the Hoover memo is dated 7/15.
Roswell debris: A weather balloon.
Roswell alien bodies: Air Force crash test dummies in San Agustin, New Mexico, c. 1950.
Iran 1976: Nothing in the story proves alien involvement.
The first country to obtain access to such technology will have the power to...what?...crash saucers in the New Mexico desert?
Goldwater's quotes don't prove aliens.
Travis Walton 1975: Hoax.
Polygraph tests are not proof of aliens.
Wisconsin 1978: Fake saucer.
Belgium 1955: A bird.
Minnesota 1965: A moth.
May 1957: Flares.
Feb 1967: Probably the moon or Venus.
Pascagoula 1973: A bad dream.
Betty Hill UFO 1961: A helicopter.
Betty Hill abduction: A dream, inspired by science fiction films (Invaders From Mars, Killers From Space, The Flight That Dissappeared).
Marjorie Fish star map: Coincidental resemblance, rendered inaccurate when celestial data was updated in the '80s or '90s, after which Fish admitted the maps no longer matched.
Hypnosis doesn't prove aliens.
Chile 1952: Birds or bugs.
Italy 1978: Bird or bug.
Uruguay 1977: Hubcap.
Lubbock 1951: Flock of plovers.
Iceland 1954: Probably lens flare.
Uruguay 1977: Hubcap (again).
Billy Meier 1975: Hoax.
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