ALIENS UNCOVERED: THE GOLDEN RECORD

Writer/Director: Clive Christopher

Rating: ★ ★

The latest polished piece of wildly speculative UFO gibber from showman theorist Clive Christopher is more of the same from the media mini-mogul, who's The All Tales Channel and previous ‘Aliens Uncovered’ pics hue to the style guide he employs here. There is no denying his earnest approach to the eternally-popular E.T. mystery is eminently watchable, but the Arizona-based filmmaker takes some big swings here that don’t often connect. 

A not-entirely cohesive potpourri of pseudo-scientific conjecture, public domain sound-bites, eyewitness accounts and staged dramatics, Christopher takes the 1977 launch of deep-space probe Voyager that contained ‘The Golden Record’, a collection of planet-defining facts that were known as The Sounds of Earth. If you’ve seen John Carpenter’s Starman (if you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you have), you’ll recall Jeff Bridges reciting The Rolling Stones’ lyric, “I can't get no. Satisfaction”, a pop-culture snippet he learned from Voyager’s shiny disc. 

In his opening salvo of fast, fun factoids, the director conjures a conspiratorial web that ties together ex-presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush, iconic astronomer Carl Sagan and the CIA, among other disparate elements, none of which sticks the landing. Dropping in dog-whistle doozies like ‘deep web’ as if the very mention makes them real is counterproductive to inspiring belief amongst all but the most feverish UAP gawkers. 

The mid-section mostly resembles one of those paranormal podcasts whose listeners (i.e., me) will gravitate towards films like The Golden Record, but with pictures. Christopher recounts oft-told stories using already-well circulated recordings, like the weather watcher who tracked lights over Lake Michigan in the mid-90s and the connection between UFOs, comets and the horrible history of the Heaven’s Gate cult. It all amounts to old news being repackaged for a new audience, which is fine, but…you know, old. 

The Golden Record then begins to touch on The Phoenix Lights, one of ufology’s most famous sighting incidents, but pulls up short so as not to pop the weather balloon that will be  Clive Christopher’s next film. Maybe that film will bring full-circle the tidal wave of “What-if”-isms that the director originally posed here, because nothing about how The Golden Record ends references how The Golden Record begins.

ALIENS UNCOVERED: THE GOLDEN RECORD is on selected US V.O.D. channels from July 4. 

ARIEL PHENOMENON

This content was originally published on the Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival website.

Featuring: Dr. John E. Mack. Tim Leach, Emily Trim, Emma Kristiansen, Takudza Shawa, Nathaniel Coxall, Salma Siddick, Luke Neil, Robert Metcalf, Lisl Field, Lady Hwacha, Gunter Hofer and Cynthia Hind.
Writers: Christopher Seward and Randall Nickerson.
Director: Randall Nickerson.

Available to rent at the official Ariel Phenomenon website.  

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

The most compelling case of extra-terrestrial interaction in recorded history is examined from an understated and deeply moving perspective in the investigative documentary feature, Ariel Phenomenon. By revisiting a fateful event that occured 28 years ago on the grounds of a Zimbabwean primary school, director Randall Nickerson not only re-examines with an acute sensitivity the most famous close encounter of the third kind of all time but also the impact on the lives and minds of those who were there.

On September 16 1994, the students of the Ariel School on the outskirts of the Ruwa township were witness to the arrival of an unidentifiable aircraft from which, it is claimed, humanoid beings emerged. Dozens of children aged between six and twelve witnessed associated phenomena in broad daylight - the descent and landing of the silver, saucer-and-dome shaped craft; intense displays of light and a deep humming noise; and, most astonishingly, the appearance and stealth abilities of the craft’s occupants.

Nickerson and co-writer Christopher Seward have exhaustingly compiled (and, given the excellent quality of the archival video content, likely remastered) the news footage of the incident, notably the work of BBC war correspondent, the late Tim Leach. The integrity and honesty of the young people who were present at the event is left in no doubt, and the production ensures their recollections are granted the respect that most figures in authority did not afford them at the time.

The key figure in the film’s narrative is Emily Trim, a middle-schooler at Ariel at the time of the encounter and now an adult struggling with the memories and emotions it conjures in her. Trim returns to Zimbabwe from her Canadian base, where she reconnects with teachers and fellow students and her catharsis is warmly defined and tracked through to its uplifting conclusion.

But the confusion and sense of abandonment that she and her childhood friends experienced whenever they expressed their realities of that day has scarred them. One experiencer reveals to the camera that after all these years, she has still not told her husband of her Ariel encounter; some are speaking out for the first time in decades for Nickerson’s cameras. In its depiction of how the events of September 16 unfolded, Ariel Phenomenon segues into a potent study of how corrosive to one’s spirit the denial of truth can be.

It is a theme carried over into those that tried to show their support for the Ariel kids. Leach saw his standing within the hallowed halls of ‘The Beeb’ deteriorate as he took his account of the visitation to the highest levels to get it told. The other key figure in the documentary is Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Dr John E. Mack, the Harvard academic who interviewed the schoolchildren and openly declared that their version of events were to be believed. Despite his credentials, Mack would become persona non grata amongst the tenured professors when his case studies in alien abduction and its associated psychology got swept into pop culture status and the university discredited him publicly.

In a media landscape where dime-a-dozen ‘Are we alone?’-type pseudo-docos litter the streaming channels, Ariel Phenomenon appears positively barebones in its frank presentation of evidence and emotions. Nickerson forgoes such B-grade standards as ominous narration or laptop CGI, instead relying upon the memories and voices of those who were there. 

Having crowdfunded the project and undertaken to self distribute his film, Randall Nickerson has fought the long battle to bring the story of the Ariel kids-turned-adults to the screen, and his investment in the truth of both their experience and subsequent struggles is profound. Its thrilling retelling of a complex sociological event aside, the finest achievement of Ariel Phenomenon is the platform that it provides those burdened by a truth kept secret to recount openly the moments that changed their lives forever.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FIFTH KIND

Featuring: Steven M. Greer
Narrated by Jeremy Piven.
Writer/director: Michael Mazzola

AVAILABLE ON:

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

So you’re deep into today’s iso-skimming session on your preferred streaming platform and you happen upon Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, the latest speculative-doco from UFO theoretician Steven Greer. You’ll have a look because...y’know, UFO stuff is pretty cool, and much of what makes ‘UFO stuff’ cool is certainly in the mix. Greer’s offsider, filmmaker Micahel Mazzola, has collated all manner of unexplainable points of light glimpsed by shaky-cam; woodlands lit by physics-defying ‘golden orbs’; and, incredulous accounts of bewildered pilots, trying to fathom the black-&-white footage from their cockpit cams.

But Greer, the movement’s opinion-dividing frontman (is he this generation’s Carl Sagan or a new-age P.T. Barnum?), claims to be at such an advanced communicative juncture with beings from beyond that his third feature documentary assumes that they not only walk among us but, if we invite them nicely, they’ll join us around a campfire. This head-first plunge into the maybe-world of extraterrestrial co-existence occasionally hurtles mesmerically into next-level conspiracy theorising, but there is undeniably plenty to mutter “Damn, I knew it!” about for those who want to believe.

The ‘Fifth Kind’ of close encounter (or ‘CE5’) involves the most spiritually enlightened amongst us reaching out with pure thoughts and kindly hearts to the occupants of interplanetary/transdimensional craft and beckoning them to our realm. A combination of Greer’s skill with the anecdote, a bevy of highly-credentialed talking heads and footage of CE5 disciples across the world staring longingly skywards build to a crescendo (and website/app plug) that feels legitimate. Single frames of ‘light beings’ walking amongst remote gatherings of believers and conjecture that these entities travel through portals to appear in our skies instantaneously is fascinating, but non-believers are likely to dig in over such claims.

It is on this point that Greer spins some of the uglier theorising inherent to his point of view. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind posits that Joe Public has been sold a deceptive narrative by a covert government/mainstream news media/entertainment industry cooperative for the last 60 years. Mazzola uses clips from Mars Attacks, Predator, Men in Black and the Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’, to drill home the notion that the images fed to us are meant inspire fear in alien contact. Blame is placed at society’s feet for its blind subjugation to the 'lies' spun to us; an accusatory stance that states, ‘If you believe the establishment, you are part of the problem’. The hard-sell meanness of such an approach will turn the inquisitive away far quicker than harmless pseudo-science and new-agey spiritualism.

Whether he is a channeller of profound consciousness or a pitchman par excellence (most likely, a bit of both), Greer knows how to produce a speculative documentary that takes hold of the viewer and refuses to let go (for a whopping two hours, no less). The craft he and Mazzola employ to keep hearts and minds engaged even while eyeballs are heading backwards is often remarkable. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind won’t make you believe any more than you do, nor will it spin too many sceptics 180°, but it will help us understand the complexity of a different set of beliefs. 

LOVE AND SAUCERS

Featuring: David Huggins.
Director: Brad Abrahams.

Rating: 4/5

Director Brad Abrahams makes a lot of smart storytelling decisions from the very first frame of his documentary Love and Saucers, an account of one man’s ongoing and intimate experiences with beings of unidentifiable origins and of the struggle to reconcile a ‘normal’ life with the intrusion of denizens from beyond our realm.   

From his home in Hoboken, New Jersey, 72 year-old artist David Huggins makes the fantastic claim directly to camera that, “When I was 17 I lost my virginity to a female extra-terrestrial.” A natural camera presence that imparts his abduction memories with a compelling earnestness, Huggins timelines key moments from his childhood during which groups of ‘greys’, mantis-like insectoids and hairy beasts with glowing eyes would visit him on the grounds of his family home in rural Georgia. The purpose of the visitations is finally revealed when, alone in a wooded clearing, a pale-skinned seductress named Crescent engages the teenage Huggins and the coming-together of human and alien species takes place. 

Abrahams is entirely aware that such claims are usually met by the wider population with derision and only serve to conjure notions of B-movie/pop-culture silliness. His camera floating towards the front door of Huggins’ home just as the visitors might, the director’s opening salvo of imagery and audio cues embraces this cynicism, interspersing recollections of the encounters with zooms and jump-cuts that play like comic-book panels.

He reveals that Huggins is a sci-fi nerd, with a collection of over 2000 films (on beautiful VHS, no less), many of which deal directly with themes of alien visitation (Howard Hawk’s The Thing from Another World, 1951), interspecies genealogy (Bernard Kowalski’s Sssssss, 1974) and otherworldly home intrusion (Lewis Allen’s The Uninvited, 1944). The filmmaker almost seems to be setting his subject up for a takedown, positioning Huggins’ as a man living a sheltered life, perhaps unable to disengage from some form of childhood trauma (a boozy, womanising father who tended towards intolerance and violence is recalled).

But the Canadian-born director, who brought a level-headed decency to his 2015 swamp-monster doco short Swan Song of The Skunk Ape, has loftier ambitions than scorn and cheap thrills. As hinted at by the title, Love and Saucers is a heartfelt profile of an entirely ordinary man, albeit one whose life has been shaped by extraordinary events. Abrahams curbs the stylistic flourishes of his first act and embraces the softer, genuine emotions and real-world sensations that Huggins lives as his relationship with Crescent extends into adulthood. Although claims of hybrid children and visitation phenomena in the heart of New York City are no less astonishing, the human bond that Huggins shares with his decidedly non-human circle of friends dissolves any remaining fissure of viewer disbelief or ridicule.

Love and Saucers also speaks directly to the curative relationship between the artist and his art. Huggins recalls his relationship with the visitors via canvas, his simple yet striking surrealist oils capturing the detail behind the encounters and freeing him of deeply embedded memories. These include some graphic renditions of the intricate physical relationship he shared with Crescent; the X-rated Files, as it were.

Abrahams doesn’t ignore the abduction phenomena, acknowledging that much of the imagery and emotions that Huggins imparts is common amongst abductees. The production references the works of the late author and experiencer expert Budd Hopkins and the observations of Prof. Jeffrey Kripal, lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Texas’ Rice University to give credence to the details in Huggins’ recollections and to counter any concern that his beliefs are the result of emotional or psychological stresses.

Ultimately, these sequences merely enhance the purely humanistic perspective that Abrahams seems most determined to impart. As intrinsically fascinating as first person accounts of extra-terrestrial interaction prove to be, it is how one man has dealt with such moments that most enthuse the filmmaker. In a film with an act of intergalactic seduction at its core, it may be the image of an elderly man sitting contentedly in a car after his first gallery showing that resonates most profoundly.

Love and Saucers: Trailer from Brad Abrahams on Vimeo.

CURSE OF THE MAN WHO SEES UFOS

Featuring: Christo Roppolo, Dennis Deakin, Laurence Cefalu, Steve Cefalu, Jim Culcasi and Gregg Maldanado.
Director: Justin Gaar

Rating: 4/5

Despite a title that vividly conjures a 50’s B-movie aesthetic, Justin Gaar’s documentary feature provides a great deal more than the thrilling, occasionally giggly charms of an old-school alien invasion pic (though it supplies a little bit of that, too). Dissecting an ageing, eccentric UFOlogist’s obsession with lights in the sky along California’s central coast, Curse of The Man Who Sees UFOs deftly combines the joyous ‘I Want to Believe’ ethos of fan-favourite X-Files episodes with an unexpected and ingratiatingly warm human insight.

From a purely cinematic perspective, endearing UFO nut, synth-music composer and part-time horror effects designer Christo Roppolo possesses the kind of boisterous personality and towering physicality that makes him the ideal on-camera subject. When Gaar (holding the camera and narrating, though never revealed) first meets the slightly bedraggled but infectiously enthusiastic Roppolo, the disorientation that the director experiences in the presence of such a larger-than-life, left-of-centre force of nature is palpable.

When Roppolo unleashes the unbridled passion that drives his obsession, the impact is breathtaking (and often laced with salty adjectives). This is partly because of his storytelling skill, as in one graphic recounting of public defecation that may have been brought on by the UFO presence; less funny are memories of a childhood visitation, when he describes ‘Bullwinkle the Moose’ confronting him and his terrified younger sibling. But it is his hours of legitimate footage of unexplained phenomena in the skies over Monterey, Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove that legitimises and fuels his fixation.

The content is largely the shaky-cam, long-zoom blurred-focus variety, but there is no denying that much is ‘unidentifiable’, including pulsating colours, red orbs and triangular shapes, often flying in perfect unison and exhibiting non-linear trajectories. Gaar adopts the crucial role of sceptic, accompanying the viewer through stages from broad disbelief to a succinct revelation-of-sorts. The director acknowledges that there is a military base nearby, but does not give screen time to Air Force whistle blowers or weather experts eager to explain away Roppolo’s often compelling vision.

Where Garr’s film soars is not in its account of flying saucer worship but in a second-act refocusing on Roppolo’s past, encompassing such unexpected thematic developments as artistic dreams unfulfilled, family tragedy and betrayal and emotionally crippling grief. Gaar contends that his subject’s myopic enthusiasm for and unique bond with the sky visitors may have a great deal to do with a soul-crushing period of sorrow. The director’s observations are perfectly positioned to enliven the narrative; they spin a likable study of a UFO enthusiast who may be onto something into a dissection of a man haunted by memories and struggling with the melancholy of ageing emotions.

A terrific debut work, Gaar’s film exposes not the facts behind the UFO craze, but a man determined to leave a lasting legacy from the remnants of a life that promised a great deal more. In searching for the truth out there, Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs reveals that a more profound understanding of reality can be found in one man’s existence.

The film’s title, in fact, is perfectly appropriate, given that it captures the burden of Christo Roppolo’s misfortune in life, his proclivity for swearing when excited and the mixed blessing of being able to see what others can’t.