Contents
1.0 Introduction.
2.1 UFOs
2.2 Science Fiction Films.
3.1 The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
3.2 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
3.3 The Abduction Syndrome (1966-).
4.0 Conclusions.
5.0 Bibliography.
"...few people have ever learned to look up."
Professor George Adamski
The Flying Saucers Have Landed
1. Introduction
Recently in Texas a drive-in cinema audience were distracted from
the screen by a strange glowing object that passed overhead; the
object apparently defied description,making it a UFO. The film was
Independence Day. Many might say that such an occurrence was
inevitable. It is late 1996 and we are currently undergoing a
massive worldwide UFO flap, perhaps the biggest ever. UFOs and their
occupants are being reported in America, Europe, Russia, Brazil,
South Africa, New Zealand, Israel, Australia, Chile, in fact just
about everywhere. Can it be mere coincidence that this fresh influx
of mysterious flying craft should arrive just as the biggest alien
invasion film of them all casts its mammoth shadow across the world?
Is it simply the 20th Century Fox publicity machine going into
overdrive or is there something else going on ? A Newsweek Poll
taken before the release of the massively hyped film revealed that :
- 48% of Americans think UFOs are real.
- 29% think we have made contact with aliens.
- 48% think there is a government cover up of UFO knowledge.
Meanwhile the line between fantasy and reality was forcefully
transgressed by the renaming of Nevada's Highway 375, which passes
through the desert near the secret Air Force base known as "Area
51". The two lane road became "The Extraterrestrial Highway" in an
event sponsored by 20th Century Fox to promote, once again,
Independence Day. The film exploits much of the mythology
surrounding Area 51, a base that allegedly contains recovered alien
flying disks and even the aliens themselves, both dead and alive.
Despite having been filmed and photographed, starred in an
environmental lawsuit against the US government and featured in
several films, TV programmes and advertisements, the US Government
still denies that the base exists. The state of Nevada hoped the
renaming of the road would bring tourism to a poor, barren area. Who
knows what the US military thought. Something must have worked,
however, as Independence Day looks set to become the biggest grosser
in history and UFOs are being seen in the skies and on screens all
over the planet called Earth.
It was a hundred years ago that America was first plagued by
mystery flying objects; on 17 November 1896 an "electric arc lamp"
was seen by hundreds of people as it passed over Sacramento,
California. For the next few months lights were being reported all
across America; there were searchlights, coloured lights, balls of
light and light wheels, all attached to large, mysterious, dark
objects that sound today like airships, though the first dirigible
didn't fly until 1900 in Germany. Like today's "flying saucers",
airships were a popular convention of fantastic literature, featured
in the works of Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe1 amongst others, and
were very soon to become a reality. Some of these reports have since
been discovered to be hoaxes generated on quiet news days by bored
telegraph operators, but they cannot all be dismissed so easily.
Were they prototype airships, hallucinations or something more
mysterious? It is hardlly surprising then that as the sun sets on
the current millennium, UFOs should once again light up the twilight
skies of Western culture.
A century has passed and the technology has advanced, but nobody
is any nearer to knowing the truth about UFOs, whatever shape they
take. A lot of people make a lot of money out of saying they have
the answer, whilst many more just quietly believe as they absorb the
next edition of Strange But True?, Sightings, Out of This World,
Unsolved Mysteries or any of the other television programmes that
regularly cover the topic from both sides of the Atlantic. There are
so many systems of unshakeable and self-perpetuating belief
surrounding the subject that a satisfactory resolution of the
mystery will most likely be impossible to achieve. From the
Spielbergian angels of light who watch over the planet and keep safe
their chosen few, to the paranoid, Kafkaesque world of the
abductionists and conspiracy theorists, the aliens are very real,
and they are here, now.
For the vast majority, however, UFOs are best relegated to the
worlds of science fiction, regularly seen on cinema and television
screens by millions of people world wide. Independence Day has
become something of a phenomenon in America, eclipsing Hollywood in
much the same way as its gargantuan flying saucers do in the film.
Its largely anonymous visitors conspicuously reverse the trend of
two of the other biggest grossing films in cinema history, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. , both directed by Steven
Spielberg and both featuring gentle, benign entities. A scene in
Independence Day in which gleeful UFO watchers form a welcoming
party for the aliens only to have the honour of being the first to
get fried is a direct retort to Spielberg and alien lovers
everywhere. Numerous television programmes have also fictionally
dealt with the issue, from the Quatermass series in the `50's to
today's hugely successful The X Files, which can, in part, be held
responsible for the recent upsurge in UFO mania.
The question of non-human life beyond our planet has fascinated
mankind for thousands of years, so it is no wonder that it should be
such a popular theme for our visual fictions today. Many supposedly
factual television programmes also deal with UFOs, their frequency
largely determined by whether such things are currently in vogue.
Over the last year or so it would seem that they most certainly are;
the furore over the "Roswell autopsy" film (purporting to show real
alien bodies from a 1947 UFO crash) spread to just about every
newspaper and TV Station in the world; a November 1994 episode of
Strange But True? dealing with Britain's most famous UFO incident2,
attracted 12.5 million viewers in Britain, half of the total
audience at 8.30pm; whilst a Network First UFO special, aired in
January 1995 at 10.30pm, was seen by 6 million, a high figure for
that time3. Another sure sign of UFOs' cultural significance is
their use in advertising; in both the UK and the US they have helped
to sell, amongst other things, fridges, cars, beer, soft drinks,
banks and jeans. Spaceman, the song featured in a Levi's jeans
commercial, was number one in the singles charts all over the world
and featured a "Grey"4 alien face on the record cover. In fact UFO
and alien themes have been used in popular music since the 1950's,
famously by the Beatles in the `60's and David Bowie in the `70's;
today they are most visible in the "rave" or "techno" cultures, used
by bands like The Orb ("UFOrb") and Eat Static("Abduction",
"Implant") and appearing on a seemingly endless stream of tee
shirts, necklaces and other club paraphernalia.
What I intend to explore in this essay is the apparently
symbiotic relationship between the representation of UFOs and aliens
on screen in films and television, and the way they are perceived
and described in reality5. That films can directly affect the way
people think, particularly about things they do not understand, is
beyond doubt; people today are still afraid to swim in the sea after
seeing Jaws. I hope to show that the borrowing of themes and imagery
is a two-way process; some times the fiction follows the perceived
fact, and at others the reported fact is quite clearly rooted in
fiction. A clear example of this, rare in its extremity, took place
in England in the late 1980's. In the final episode of the Dynasty
spin-off The Colbys, its main character, Fallon, was abducted by a
UFO; she returned later in Dynasty and detailed what had happened to
her. Soon afterwards a woman contacted BUFORA (British UFO Research
Association) and related an abduction experience that was identical
to the one on the programme; the date she gave for the incident was
the night after the relevant episode had been shown6 and luckily the
investigator recognised the connection. Though such literal
transpositions of fiction onto apparent reality are uncommon, it is
possible to trace many of the key elements of the UFO mythology,
particularly those concerning abductions, back to images from
science fiction film, television and artwork. The Dynasty case is
interesting in that it shows the cyclical nature of this process;
the programme's writers would most likely have been inspired by the
success of two books dealing with abductions released in 1987,
Intruders by Budd Hopkins, and Communion by Whitley Strieber. The
woman who contacted BUFORA, whose story would echo those told in the
books, was in fact describing a dream or fantasy inspired by a
fiction, itself based on reported facts which may themselves be
inspired by other fictions. Ultimately this is a classic "chicken
and egg" scenario; it will be impossible to prove which came first;
ardent believers can always argue that those who created the
fictions in the first place were just unconsciously recalling their
own real UFO experiences. However, I think it would be over
simplifying the issue to assume that the whole UFO mythology has
grown out of science fiction. Currently in our culture the concept
of abduction by aliens is the prevalent paradigm, but perhaps in the
past these people would have reported encountering faeries, gods or
demons.7 In our secular, technology orientated world, the imagery
and ideas of visual science fiction have replaced those of the
ancient pantheons. UFOs are a living mythology for our times; by
studying their role in the most dominant forms of popular culture,
film and television, we can, perhaps, gain some insight into how
such a mythology forms, grows and takes hold of the Western mind.
2. UFOs
It is symptomatic of our post-modern age that if you talk about
UFOs most people will immediately visualise flying saucers from
another planet. UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, so
technically anything is a UFO until it is identified and becomes an
IFO (Identified Flying Object). The term was coined in 1952 by
Edward J. Ruppelt, chief of the US Airforce's Project Bluebook, set
up to investigate UFO phenomena in 1952. Since June 1947 these
objects had just been known as "flying saucers" after civilian pilot
Kenneth Arnold saw nine craft, brightly glowing blue-white, flying
over the Cascade Mountains of Washington state. He calculated their
speed at an amazing 1700 mph and described their motion as
"...erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across water"8; it was a
reporter for the United Press, Bill Bequette, who turned this
statement into "flying saucers", and the story was soon on front
pages all across America. By August 19, 1947, a Gallup poll revealed
that nine out of ten Americans had heard about flying saucers, more
than knew of the Marshall Plan for Europe. That the objects Arnold
described weren't round at all (fig.3) didn't seem to matter; within
days new reports were coming in from all across the nation,
describing flying "saucers", "discs", and "hubcaps", climaxing on
July 4 when 88 reports were made involving 400 people in 24 states9.
A second crucial moment in UFO history came just a few days later,
on July 8, as the headline of the Roswell New Mexico Daily Record,
authorised by the air base commander, announced: "RAAF Captures
Flying Saucer in Roswell Region. No Details of Flying Disks are
Revealed." The story was picked up world-wide, even the London Times
ran a feature, but the next day the airforce revealed that the
wreckage was that of a weather balloon and the story was closed. The
case was forgotten for thirty years until Jesse Marcel, the
intelligence officer who first analysed the wreckage, spoke out to
say that it was, in his opinion, extra terrestrial, and that a
massive cover up had taken place and the Roswell incident is now
viewed by many as the Holy Grail of the UFO world, the key to it
all. But until the early 1980's, rumours of crashed discs remained
on the fringes of ufology10.
At this point began what Ruppelt calls "The Era of Confusion"11.
Were these mystery objects some new military craft undergoing flight
tests, perhaps the Navy's "Flying Flapjack" (fig.4) which bore more
than a passing resemblance to the objects described by Arnold12?
When the military denied this, it was time to look elsewhere, the
Russians being the prime suspects, but it was soon realised that the
reported flight speeds and manoeuvres were far beyond any earthbound
capabilities. A secret "Estimate of the Situation" was prepared by
airforce investigators for the Pentagon, its conclusion, that the
UFOs had to be of extraterrestrial origin, was deemed outrageous and
the report was disowned by Pentagon officials.
The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), was first presented to the
American public in a 1949 True magazine article by former US Marine
Corps Major Donald Keyhoe, entitled, "The Flying Saucers are
Real"13. In the first paragraph Keyhoe concluded that the flying
saucers were from another planet that was observing us because of
fears over our development of nuclear weaponry. The military, by
refusing to answer Keyhoe's questions, were assumed to be
orchestrating a huge cover up. True had a reputation for being
reliable and factual, and the story "hit the reading public like an
8 inch howitzer"14, being considered at the time "one of the most
widely read and discussed magazine articles in history."15 So now,
in less than two years, the two fundamental pillars of the popular
UFO mythology were in place: that they were of extra terrestrial
origin, and that the government and military were covering up what
they knew. There was certainly some truth to this last element. The
1953 CIA Robertson Panel concluded that UFOs were only a threat in
the amount of public hysteria they generated; the Air Force's role
now was to convince the public that UFOs were nonsense, and to
ignore those who said otherwise; as a result Project Blue Book
effectively became a public relations exercise in dismissing the
evidence for UFOs.
Almost fifty years later nothing has changed, the allegations
have just become more extreme. Over the next decades the craft and
their occupants got into closer contact with people whilst with each
new astronomical discovery their origins got further away. In the
early '50's, when the first Contactees, as they were known, met
beautiful humanoids from flying saucers, they were from Venus, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn and offered rides to the moon in their
spaceships. Today if you meet UFO entities you will have been
abducted by short, emotionless "Greys" from the Zeta Reticuli star
system who are primarily interested in your blood, semen or ova for
their genetic experiments16. Interestingly both groups like to warn
of mankind's (always) imminent demise through atomic or
environmental self-destruction, and have a penchant for making
predictions that don't come true.
Throughout this period there has been serious study of UFOs, by
both the military, who tend to keep their findings very quiet, and
civilians, who like to shout them out for all the world to hear. It
is generally accepted by both groups that the vast majority of
sightings can be explained away as misidentifications of various
sorts- stars, planets, hoaxes, conventional and experimental
aircraft, unusual atmospheric phenomena, even flocks of birds- but
there remains a hard core of up to 20% that defy such casual
dismissal and remain unidentified. Countless books, articles and
papers have been written, and research groups have sprung up and
died in every nation, but still there is no explanation for these
stubborn few. Some liken the search to that of physics or cosmology;
where the more you learn, the larger and more complex everything
becomes. Others wonder if the whole point is that we will never find
an answer, that the phenomenon is a psychic or cosmic riddle
designed to encourage mankind's spiritual and technological
development. The question, however, ultimately remains the same:
who, or what, is behind the mystery? Some of the theories for the
origins of UFOs and their occupants include:
- They are all explainable in conventional terms, those that
aren't must be hoaxes.
- They are craft from other planets, solar systems, galaxies or
dimensions.
- They are human time travellers exploring the planet's past and
protecting its future.
- They are spiritual beings or souls, previously described as
angels and beings of light.
- They are psychic projections of the unconscious mind into
objective space.
- They are manifestations of the collective unconscious,
Overmind, world-soul or anima mundi.
Roughly speaking the theorists can be divided into four groups;
the "debunkers", who refuse to accept anything that falls outside of
the boundaries of accepted science; the literalists, who are looking
for "nuts and bolts" metallic craft and their flesh and blood (or,
for the Greys, chlorophyll) occupants; the spiritualists, who look
to the soul for answers; and the psychologists, who seek answers in
the mind. The last two concepts were developed in the `70's and
`80's by researchers17 who, while recognising that the phenomena
were very real to those who experienced them, argued that the ETH
was unable to support many of the "high strangeness" reports that
form a large part of the literature, and seemed closer to meaningful
visionary experience than alien visitation. Obviously there can be,
and are, a lot of overlaps between the groups, and there is no
reason why they couldn't all have discovered elements of the truth.
In fact, such a range of experiences have been reported within the
UFO context that it seems likely that we are dealing with several
different phenomena. All these ideas, however, have been explored
before, in the realms of science fiction.
2.1 Science Fiction Film
The history of science fiction (SF) film is intrinsically tied to
the development of film itself. In 1895 Robert Paul conceived of
using film to create an illusory voyage through time, inspired by
H.G. Wells' The Time Machine of the same year. Soon after this
George M[C1]elies began experimenting with his own cinematic
illusions, culminating in 1902 with Le Voyage dans la Lune, a 21
minute epic featuring possibly the most sophisticated narrative
structure yet seen in a film. Here the concept of space travel was
presented for the first time along with the first aliens, based on
the Selenites from Wells' The First Men in the Moon (1901)18. Since
this point film and SF have enjoyed a long, successful, but troubled
relationship; whilst film is the ideal medium for presenting visions
of possible futures or "what if?" situations, it often lacks the
ability to transfer some of the more complex ideas of SF literature
into visual terms. Attempts to do so have ranged from Wells' Things
to Come (1936) to Kubrick and Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968),
but for the most part SF films have been dismissed as lowbrow and
unimportant, many pointing the finger primarily at the rash of
invasion films of the fifties featuring Communists from outer space
or giant radiation-spawned beasts, all intent on destroying American
civilisation as we know it. Identifying the genre itself is also
difficult: what elements constitute an SF film and differentiate it
from the horror or fantasy genres? Both versions of The Thing (Nyby
1951, Carpenter 1982) feature crashed spacecraft and an alien, for
example, but could be considered as much horror films as SF, the
alien killing most of the cast in a claustrophobic environment;
Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and It! The Terror from Beyond Space (Cahn,
1958) pose similar problems.
Most people, however, will assume that if a film features
UFOs/flying saucers and aliens it must be science fiction. Flying
saucer shaped space craft had been a staple of pulp SF artwork since
the early 1930's , though so had virtually any other shape (the
rocket was still the most popular), and a wealth of non-saucer
shaped UFOs have been reported over the years (fig.3).The first
invading alien arrived in 1945's Republic serial The Purple Monster
Strikes. The first film flying saucers were projectiles rather than
piloted craft and appeared in a Columbia serial of 1948, Bruce
Gentry- Daredevil of the Skies , who successfully fought them off to
great box office success. Like the saucers in 1950's The Flying
Saucer, they were of earthbound origin, the work of an evil mad
scientist; this reflects the fact that most Americans still
considered flying saucers to be of earth bound origin, either secret
US craft based on German technology, or Russian . In the latter film
the saucer has been secretly manufactured by a Russian scientist in
Alaska19 who wants to sell it to the Americans. The Flying Saucer
was actually viewed by the FBI before its release, and rumours of
government involvement were spread about The Day the Earth Stood
Still (1951), some even taking it so far as to say the film was
written by FBI or CIA agents in Hollywood. Whether the government
was concerned about the representation of a Russian character in the
first film and about the anti-war and anti-military message of the
second, or whether flying saucers themselves were the concern we
will probably never know. The extension of this idea is the theory
that, starting with The Day the Earth Stood Still, certain films
dealing with UFOs and aliens were put out by the government to test
the public's response to the concept20, or as a form of public
education, getting them used to the idea of friendly aliens. Not
surprisingly Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
is considered the next stage of the program, the rumour even being
spread amongst cast and crew during production. And a tale
concerning his E.T. (1982) takes the idea even further:
During a screening of...E.T. at the White House in the Summer
of 1982, President Reagan is reported to have whispered
to...Spielberg: "There are probably only six people in this room
who know how true this is" 21.
The huge success of Independence Day, with its deeply anti-social
aliens, has no doubt caused some confusion amongst adherents to this
school of thought, though it probably won't be long before it is
incorporated into the great plan.
Cinema science fiction has often been incredibly successful, with
Spielberg's two films, the Star Wars trilogy and now Independence
Day all ranking as amongst the highest grossing films of all time.
Television, however, has had more difficulties in adapting the SF
format to its smaller screen and budget, though there have been
remarkable successes. High quality programmes such as the string of
Star Trek series, which lasted only three years in its first run,
and Dr. Who, which ran for 25 years and is now preparing for a
return, tend to remain enormously popular posthumously. Nigel
Kneale's three Quatermass series from the fifties, which were all
later made into films, also stand out, as do anthology shows such as
The Twilight Zone (1959-64) and The Outer Limits (1963-65).
Quatermass and the Pit (1957) is interesting in that it features
many of the elements that would later arise in discussions about
aliens' involvement in man's evolution22, as well as several aspects
of the crashed UFO tale, exemplified by the Roswell incident. Whilst
the Star Trek spin-off series have tended to be spacebound soap
operas, others such as V (1983) and The X Files (1993) have played
once again on fears of invasion and conspiracy, both proving to be
highly successful. Many of the individual episodes of all these
series dealt with ideas relevant to UFO lore, and, as we shall see
when looking at the abduction mythology, some may have proved
extremely significant in its development.
As case studies I have chosen The Day the Earth Stood Still (DESS)
and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K) because both have been
popular with the viewing public, in CE3K's case spectacularly so,
and this popularity has endured. Both are closely connected to the
UFO culture, clearly demonstrating some of the key ideas of their
time and revealing how the mythology developed in the half -century
since Arnold's historic sighting.
3. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
1951 was a troubled time for America; its boys were in Korea and
the Cold War showed no sign of warming up, in fact it looked set to
get even chillier and nuclear families everywhere huddled closer
together around the warm glow of the television set or radio. But
not too close; paranoia had firmly established itself as the
dominant form of politics in Washington, and Senator Joseph McCarthy
and the House Committee on Un-American Activities had already drawn
up a blacklist of suspected Communist sympathisers within the
Hollywood entertainment industry, causing nervous people in the
community to produce "Red Channels", a list of suspected subversives
within their ranks. It is somewhat of a surprise then that The Day
the Earth Stood Still (DESS), which is openly critical of the
militarist regime and gently mocks the Commie hunters, ever got made
in the first place. Written by Edward North from Harry Bates' 1940
short story, Farewell to the Master , and pacily directed by Robert
Wise, the film strongly contrasts with most others of the period,
including The Thing from Another World, also released in 1951, in
that it sympathetically portrays Klaatu, the alien other, as a
gentlemanly figure to be respected rather than a hideous monstrosity
to be destroyed.
The opening credits are overlaid on views of infinite space that
slowly dissolve to reveal our destination, the planet Earth. We are
thus placed from the outset in an objective position, distanced from
the "childish jealousies and suspicions" of earth politics. This
perspective is continued as we see announcements from all around the
world that a mystery craft has been tracked travelling at 4,000 mph;
"this is not another flying saucer scare..." we are told by a news
reader, "whatever it is, its something real". Then, as if to prove
it, we see the craft itself, a glowing flying saucer, gliding over
the Capitol building in Washington DC and the heads of carefree
American picnickers before settling down on a baseball field, the
very heart of America. The craft is soon surrounded by curious
onlookers, kids pushing to the front, and a horde of tanks and
soldiers, guns at the ready. Klaatu, played by British actor Michael
Rennie, emerges only to be shot whilst reaching into his silvery
one-piece outfit for a gift for the President. At this Gort, his
eight-foot robot assistant, appears and fires a laser beam at the
tanks and weaponry, melting them in seconds. Klaatu stops him with
commands in an alien language, thus reinforcing his peaceful
intentions, and is then taken to a military hospital.
Klaatu tells the presidential secretary that he is an emmsiary
from an inter-galactic federation and that his kind have been
monitoring Earth's radio signals for years, he wants a meeting of
all the world's heads of state in order to deliver a vital message;
but his request is refused as being impossible in a world full of
"tensions and suspicions". So Klaatu escapes and hits the town,
moving in with a family that has lost its father figure to military
violence in World War II. Soon he becomes a surrogate dad to son
Bobby who has a healthy appetite for knowledge, something Klaatu can
provide in an unending supply. He is soon led to the Einstein-like
Professor Barnhardt, according to Bobby "the smartest man on earth".
After a demonstration of Klaatu's power which causes all the world's
power to stop for half an hour, Barnhardt agrees to arrange an
international meeting of scientists. Unlike those of The Thing and
many other SF and horror films of the fifties, the scientists of
DESS are viewed as peaceful and benevolent, living outside the petty
squabblings of war and politics, thus being associated with Klaatu
rather than the government.
Whilst returning to his craft Klaatu gives Bobby's mother Helen
instructions for Gort should anything go wrong; he is then shot and
killed by the military, who now consider him a threat to national
security. Unusually Helen now wields the power in a film otherwise
dominated by and aimed at men; she gives Gort the order "Klaatu
Barada Nikto" and so, indirectly, resurrects Klaatu. Alive once more
Klaatu delivers his warning to mankind. The Earth is threatened with
destruction by man's atomic weapons; the Galactic Federation won't
stand for it, fearing that these weapons will be sent into space,
and Gort is to be left behind as a policeman; if he senses trouble
the Earth will be destroyed. That Gort is a soulless machine, now
left to govern mankind, could be a comment on man's dangerous
obsession with technology, or a call for its peaceful use on Earth (Klaatu
does tell Billy that nuclear power can be used in things other than
bombs). It is interesting that Helen, the film's only significant
female character, should be the only other person able to control
the robot. Is the film suggesting that the world needs a stronger
element of female leadership in order to survive, that mankind
should incorporate rather than dominate the feminine? For the time
these were all subversive notions, especially after a war run and
fought by men whilst women gained power in the home and work place.
This ending is extremely ambiguous. Klaatu seeks to prevent the
Earth from destroying itself with aggression, yet Gort is left
behind as the ultimate deterrent; he will destroy the planet in
response to man's aggression towards his fellow man. We are not
worthy even to destroy ourselves with our own technologies, we must
allow a superior race do it through their own mechanisations. In
effect the planet has been conquered by the aliens; as Klaatu says,
"Your choice- join us and live in peace or face obliteration".
That's not much of a choice. Klaatu's immense superiority is implied
both by his plummy British accent and also by a number of references
to Jesus and the Christian faith. Klaatu, come down from on high,
chooses the name "Carpenter" when he goes out amongst the people to
spread his mission of peace. The authorities are afraid and shoot
him dead, but he is resurrected by his technology of light which
powers everything in the craft. Klaatu tells Helen that only the
"Almighty Spirit" has the power of life and death, not Klaatu's
science. If the "Almighty Spirit" is the father, Klaatu the son,
then perhaps Gort is the holy ghost or guardian angel. Scriptwriter
North said of these references, "It was my private little joke. I
never discussed this angle with Blaustein (producer) or Wise because
I didn't want it expressed. I hoped the Christ comparison would be
subliminal".23
Perhaps taking its cue form Citizen Kane, which Wise himself had
co-edited, DESS makes much use of the media to present the public
and international perspectives of the events of the film,
specifically the flying saucer's landing, Klaatu's escape and the
world-wide power cut. Wise even used real reporters such as Gabriel
Hatter to add authenticity. The language used in these reports
echoes both the speculation about the origins of UFOs and also the
popular metaphors used to describe the Communist threat. When Klaatu
first appears at the Benson household a TV voice is saying, "The
monster must be tracked down like a wild animal... and destroyed...
neutralise this menace from another world." Newspapers dub him the
"Man from Mars" or "A monster at large". Biskind notes that
politicians on both the left and right often spoke in terms alluding
to disasters, wild animals and emergencies, referring to, among
others, "moral termites", "poisonous snakes and tigers" and
"rampaging rogue elephants" 24. Mars has had a long history of
association with possible alien life, from today's microbe laden
meteorite and the mysterious "face" dating right back to 1877. Then
an Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, announced that he had
discovered "canali"25 crossing the planet; this was mis-translated
as canals, rather than channels, thus implying intelligent life and
paving the way for Wells' Martian invaders in War of the Worlds
(1898) and a host of 1950's invaders. That Mars was also "the Red
planet" (its soil causes it to appear red through a telescope)
allowed for endless Communist associations in such films, and this
is most likely the inference in DESS, though of course we know that
Klaatu means no harm.
Coming only a year after the publication of Donald Keyhoe's The
Flying Saucers are Real, an extension of his True magazine article's
assertions about their extraterrestrial origins, DESS can, along
with The Thing, be considered the first film to present UFO's as
space vehicles. Keyhoe also speculated that the aliens' interests in
the planet were due to our new found atomic and nuclear
capabilities. A high proportion of reports were indeed coming from
military sources at rocket test sites in New Mexico and Nevada; so
perhaps his book served as an inspiration for certain elements of
the script, though Harry Bates' story does predate Keyhoe by almost
a decade26. The film itself contains much of interest to UFO
history. A year later America would experience the greatest wave of
UFO sightings ever, culminating in July with radar and visual
sightings over two airports at Washington DC on two consecutive
nights. News headlines read "Interceptors Chase Flying Saucers Over
Washington, DC Air Force Won't Talk", overshadowing the Democratic
National Convention being held in Washington at that time. Air Force
switchboards were jammed with callers asking them not to shoot at
the spacemen, perhaps fearing Gort-style retribution if they did.
In six months of 1952, 148 US papers carried over 16,000 items on
UFOs27, even Life Magazine , a cherished American institution, ran a
feature headlined "Have We Visitors from Space?". This featured
comments from top scientists and examined ten of the best cases from
Air Force files; its conclusion echoed the thoughts of people
everywhere; "What power urges them on at such terrible speeds
through he sky? Who, or what, is on board? Where do they come from?
Why are they here? What are the intentions of the beings who control
them?" This being before the 1953 Robertson Panel, even the Airforce
made use of the UFO mania, using them to recruit people into its
Ground Observer Corps.
So many people were seeing and reading about UFOs that it could
only be a matter of time before someone claimed to meet their
occupants, and this dubious honour was bestowed on the colourful
"Professor" George Adamski. A Polish immigrant, Adamski had tried it
all as a soldier, sign painter, factory worker, successful
bootlegger during Prohibition , leader of The Royal Order of Tibet
(a 1930's Californian religious group) and failed science fiction
author (Pioneers of Space, 1949). But it was his November 20, 1952
meeting with a visitor from Venus that drew him world-wide
attention, including a meeting with the Queen of the Netherlands,
and, according to his supporters, a secret reception with Pope John
XXIII, who died two days later.
The meeting with the alien took place in the California desert;
Adamski ventured out alone with a camera and telescope after seeing
a cigar shaped "mothership" whilst saucer spotting with friends. He
then noticed a strange looking man in a ravine:
There were only two outstanding differences that I noticed as I
neared him. 1. His trousers were not like mine. They were in style
much like ski trousers and...I wondered why he wore such out here
on the desert. 2. His hair was long, reaching to his
shoulders...but this was not too strange for I have seen a number
of men who wore their hair almost that long. ...I realised that I
was in the presence of...A HUMAN BEING FROM ANOTHER WORLD!28
The man was about five foot six, had blonde hair, grey eyes, high
cheekbones, a finely chiselled nose, an even coloured suntan and did
not look like he had to shave; "The beauty of his form surpassed
anything I had ever seen...and I became very humble within
myself."29 That Adamski is reported to have had loose affiliations
with Californian Nazi sympathisers in the 1930's must raise
questions about his perfect being, although he wouldn't look out of
place on a Californian beach either.
The men communicated through telepathy and sign language. Adamski
learnt that he was from Venus; he had come to warn man that he must
stop his warlike ways and that his nuclear weapons were a threat to
universal harmony. He was also told that many other Nordic Venusians
were already living amongst us on Earth and Adamski would later
describe meetings with these "Space Brothers" in bars and burger
restaurants in Los Angeles. After a brief tour of the Venusian's
scoutship, during which he was allowed to take pictures, though his
camera jammed, the two men parted, and Adamski detailed his
experiences in a best selling book. Many others would follow his
lead, meeting men and women from all over the solar system, the
women being "tops in shapeliness and beauty" and having no need for
bras. It is clear that parts of Adamski's story are ridiculous and
others owe much to DESS; that he was a notorious con artist is also
without doubt, once quoted as saying " If it wasn't for FDR30 I'd
never have had to get into the flying saucer business". But he was
never caught out and never retracted his story, which grew
increasingly complex, involving trips to the moon and involvement
with government agents amongst other things. Ridiculous as his
claims sound today, nobody has been conclusively able to reject all
his many films and photographs as fake, and others have seen and
photographed similar objects all round the world.
The Contactees, particularly Adamski, have remained a divisive
subject amongst ufologists ever since, some seeing them as a
regrettable farce, others as exemplary of the bizarre and complex
nature of the subject. It is unlikely the truth about the Contactees
will ever be known, but whatever the case, their stories laid down
further groundwork for the development of the UFO mythology. Many
elements, such as the human looking aliens who live amongst us on
Earth, and the aliens' fears for the Earth's destruction have become
staple elements in the abduction scenario of the 1990's. It is
possible that these may have their roots in the science fiction of
the fifties, but such themes have been central to myth, religion and
visionary thought since time immemorial, their recurrence in The Day
the Earth Stood Still and other films being intrinsically connected
to the collective fears of the time. Then it was the threat of
nuclear destruction that hovered over the West; today it is
mankind's destruction of the environment, not just a threat but a
reality, that brings the other down to Earth.
3.2 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
By the time Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K) was
released in late 1977, (March 1978 in Britain), the world was in the
grip of perhaps the largest UFO frenzy since the summer of 1952. It
is certainly interesting to note that CE3K was the subject of the
then floundering Columbia Pictures' most ambitious advertising
campaign in its fifty year history; special two page ads,
introducing the concept and explaining the title, were placed in 27
US newspapers a full six months before the intended release date.
The campaign was gradually built up to a fever pitch in the ensuing
months, fortunately coinciding with (and no doubt influencing) a
renewed public and media interest in UFOs. A long and unrevealing
trailer explaining the title was also shown at cinemas during this
period. Public enthusiasm for the UFO subject matter was likely to
have been greatly encouraged by this constantly generated sense of
anticipation as, indeed, it was after the film's massively
successful release.
Steven Spielberg had always had a fascination with UFOs and their
occupants and liked to remind interviewers that he was born in 1947,
the same year that spawned the first wave of "flying saucer"
reports. In 1963, at the age of 16 he made his first 8mm film, a two
hour epic called Firelight which showed a special group of
scientists investigating UFOs and ended with an invasion of
malicious aliens. After reading the much publicised accounts of the
1961 UFO abduction of Betty and Barney Hill31, Spielberg wrote a
story called "Encounters" about two teenage lovers who see a UFO.
Partly written during the filming of Jaws, CE3K was originally
titled "Watch the Skies" in the words of the final warning from The
Thing from Another World (1951) - and was centred on a US Air Force
officer frustrated at having to cover up UFO reports for the
government. The script was submitted to writer Paul Schraeder for
what Spielberg deemed a disastrous rewrite, though he kept the new
title, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and, allegedly, the
mystical and psychic elements of the story. This new title referred
to a classification system for UFO encounters developed by Dr. J.
Allen Hynek32, regarded by many as the father of "Ufology". From
1952 to 1969 Hynek was the astronomical and scientific advisor to
the US Air Force's Project Blue Book; although initially highly
sceptical, he came to believe that the phenomenon did have an
objective reality and made its study his life's work. Spielberg used
Hynek's book The UFO Experience (1972) as the basis for the film's
events, and hired him to act as technical advisor during the
production (he has a cameo in the final landing sequence).
The film's plot follows the paths of two ordinary Americans and
an international group of scientists as they search for the meaning
behind a series of encounters with a non-human force. Though the
audience are given privileged viewpoints for most of the special
effects sequences, we never know more than the protagonists about
what is going on at any point; we do, however, witness both groups
as they are gradually drawn to the destination of their impending
contact at Devil's Tower, Wyoming. The suburbanites, Neary (Richard
Dreyfuss) and Guiler (Melinda Dillon) both experience confusing
visionary impressions of the site that are only clarified (or
channelled) by its appearance on the television news, a medium they
can better comprehend than telepathy. The scientists, led by
Frenchman Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut), follow a series of
enigmatic clues around the world before being presented with sounds
which they translate into sign language and which their computers
then translate into global grid references. That both groups need
their heavenly messages interpreted technologically before they can
fully understand them unconsciously parallels the theories of many
analysts, including eminent psychoanalyst Carl Jung33 and Jacques
Vallee34, who see UFOs not as extraterrestrial spacecraft but as
modern, technologically based interpretations of visionary
experiences that would once be explained in terms of gods, angels or
demons. The choice of Truffaut, who in reality had some difficulty
speaking English, to play Lacombe adds another element to this theme
of communication; he needs an interpreter to speak with his fellow
humans, but it is he who communicates with the emergent entities at
the end, transcending human language through light and sound and so
echoing the role of the film maker.
The film itself plays heavily on both the perceived reality of
the UFO phenomenon and the audience's perception of the reality on
screen. Elements from cases reported to Hynek are lifted from their
original contexts and redeployed in new ones for plot and visual
effect. In the film a red/orange ball of light is seen trailing
behind the larger craft like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan35 or the
trailing dwarf/rabbit/bear etc. seen in so many Disney cartoons36.
Similar lights make up a high proportion of UFO reports, but their
behaviour in the film is purely for sympathetic effect. Also misused
for dramatic purposes are the poltergeist effects that herald the
arrival of the aliens in the Guiler household, such as banging
doors, smashing bulbs and animated household objects. Such
disturbances are frequently reported by experiencers of UFO
phenomena, but are almost always separate incidents to the UFO
encounter itself and are hardly ever reported as being manipulated
by the entities. An aerial shot added for the Special Edition37
shows the mothership casting a shadow as it passes over fields; in
the film it serves to preview the climactic revelation of the huge
craft whilst also adding a solid material dimension to its
existence, but in reality shadows are very rarely mentioned in
sighting reports, only lights.
One of the central themes of the film is communication and
language, so it seems in poor faith that it should rely so heavily
on trickery and artifice for its effect. The best example of this is
in a sequence midway through the film, where Neary, the everyman
character with whom we are most expected to identify, joins a group
who have gathered at the point where he first encountered the UFOs.
In the distance lights are seen to appear, coming closer towards the
on and off screen audiences; John Williams' stirring score adds
tension to the moment and in doing so masks any diegetic sound.
Silence is a key factor of any UFO report, and thus far the
approaching lights make no noise, even as they are nearly upon us.
Suddenly the music climaxes and the lights are shown to belong to a
helicopter, the sound of its blades filling the soundtrack in the
absence of incidental music (figs.10,11). Although this is an
effective suspense sequence, by manipulating the audience's
perceptions in this way it does serve to further muddy the unclear
waters of UFO reality. In a film that presents itself as factually
based (albeit loosely), this is arguably irresponsible, though
hardly uncommon. 38
Much has been made of the religious aspects of the film; one
reviewer commented that "...one feels like an unwilling guest at an
evangelical meeting"39; another saw it as little more than "...a
commercially adroit exploitation of `70's pop mysticism and
religious euphoria."40 There is certainly some truth to these
statements, but they are missing the point. Of course there is a
strong element of religion in the film; its tag line "We are not
alone" could equally be used to promote The Church ,and for many
people the belief in extraterrestrial life is a religion in itself.
It requires faith in the unknown, and, like any religion, concerns
the role and place of the individual in the cosmic scheme of things.
Spielberg himself spoke of it as "the cosmic entertainment", saying
"If you believe, it's science fact; if you don't believe, it's
science fiction."41 This statement sums up many of the problems that
the UFO phenomenon presents and is especially revealing in that it
refers to a fictional film that for many may well be construed as
"science fact".
Certainly CE3K portrays the extraterrestials as awe inspiring,
seemingly all powerful beings that transcend the forces of nature
and can even control them, their arrival signalled by swirling
portents in the clouds and blinding lights on the ground. Although
they can inspire fear in those they touch with their presence, such
as the mother of Barry Guiler, when they finally appear they are
childlike, smiling and radiant. As Pauline Kael noted in Newsweek
magazine; "God is up there in a crystal chandelier spaceship, and he
likes us." The childlike appearance of the aliens gives them an
innocent quality, implying that mankind has lost its innocence and
must recover it The adult and authority figures in the film, the
military, Barry's mother and Neary's wife, are initially afraid of
the beings, or don't believe in them and so don't want others to,
but those who never lost or have retained their sense of wonder, the
scientists, the child Barry and Neary himself , embrace them and are
so granted entrance into the their magical world.
Tension between the scientists and the military is a key staple
of many SF films, The Day the Earth Stood Still being an exemplary
case, but doesn't translate into the perceived reality of the UFO
mythos. Proponents of the "nuts and bolts" school of thought
maintain that the only scientists who have knowledge of the ETs'
craft and biology, or are even interested in it, are already part of
the conspiracy to cover up the evidence; all other scientists refuse
to accept the truth of the matter. Science programs such as SETI
(Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), itself once partly
funded by Steven Spielberg, are seen as merely further distractions
to keep the truth out of the public eye. As with many elements of
the UFO mythology, that this makes little sense is not important,
belief requires faith over reason.
On its release CE3K hit a nerve with both the American and
British publics, even being chosen for the Royal Film Performance;
this was apparently due to its lack of sex and violence, but those
in the know were well aware that Prince Philip was a long-time
subscriber to Flying Saucer Review, then the world's premier UFO
journal42 . Its success at the box office was shadowed only by the
phenomenon of Star Wars, previously considered a dark horse; the
huge impact of both these films suggests that the world needed an
escape from itself at the time. America was still stuck in a post
Watergate, post Vietnam gloom; Britain swamped by unemployment,
strikes and societal dissatisfaction. UFOs proved a popular
distraction. Jimmy Carter, inaugurated as President in July 1977,
had made it a campaign pledge to open the Government's UFO files to
the public, having seen one himself in 1969. But so secret were
these hundreds of reports, many of them held by the CIA and National
Security Agency, that not even the President could secure their
release, even though it seemed that around the world skies were
aflame with mysterious coloured lights.
The situation grew so extreme that in November 1977, the prime
minister of Grenada, Sir Eric Gairy, called a United Nations meeting
on the subject of UFOs. Delegates were shown CE3K to get them in the
mood, but, as a mocking front page Times article noted, the fact
that many countries sent female delegates indicated a low level of
perceived importance43. The Times itself, however was as swept up in
the subject as anyone else; its Index for 1977 lists UFOs under
"Space", but from 1978 they had their own section. In the period
1977-79 it featured 45 UFO related pieces, covering reports from
Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Poland, South
Africa, Israel and the USSR, sometimes up to three a day, as well as
editorials, comment and even political cartoons.
The climax in Britain came on January 18 , 1979 when UFOs were
the subject of a House of Lords debate, the motion being that the
government should make public what it knew about them. The motion
was defeated but resulted in the formation of The House of Lords All
Party UFO Study Group, whose chairman, the Earl of Clancarty, was
himself an established author in the subject. Other newspapers,
notably the Sun and The Daily Express, were also hot on the trail,
the latter paper having the exclusive serialisation rights to the
script of CE3K and sponsoring ufologist Jenny Randles to cross the
nation collecting people's stories ( she was simultaneously
promoting the film at cinemas for Columbia). In her words; "This...
demonstrated the amazing impact the film had on society, but it did
not provoke waves of new UFO sightings as sceptics vociferously
predicted. Instead it encouraged witnesses to report old sightings
which they had previously kept secret for fear of ridicule."44 John
Spencer, author and Chairman of BUFORA (British UFO Research
Association), the country's largest UFO group, for which Randles was
then Director of Investigations, recalls; "(the) group received one
of its largest upsurges in memberships...during the publicity
campaign prior (to), and the first few months after, the release of
the film...we also received very large numbers of sighting
reports..."45 Other sources46 state that, after the film, sighting
reports broke records around the world, as much as quadrupling the
normal figures. However, a Gallup poll taken in America in 1978
shows that the increase since 1973 in the proportion of people who
thought UFOs were real, as opposed to imaginary, rose byonly 3% to
57% ; the "don't knows" remained at 16% for both years.
So whilst Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a monumental
financial success world-wide and undoubtedly helped raise public
awareness of UFOs to new heights, it is still difficult to prove
that it actually caused the flood of global sightings that took
place in the months surrounding its release. Certainly the
pre-publicity would have inspired people to "keep watching the
skies" and so to misidentify celestial and man-made objects, but
there were numerous credible reports from all over the world between
1976 and 1978. Cases which attracted particular attention were; in
Bass Strait, Australia a plane and its pilot disappeared, his last
radio message being "unknown aircraft now on top of me"; and in
Fujian China, two children were killed and 200 others injured when
3000 people panicked at an outdoor cinema as, reportedly, two huge
humming orange balls flew low over the crowds (they were not
watching CE3K). Where the film's impact is more visible, however, is
in retrospectively examining the fast growing mythology of UFO
abductions.47
3.3 THE ABDUCTION SYNDROME (1966-?)
In the 1950's some people feared an alien invasion; for many in
the 1990's they are already here. The story goes something like
this. In July 1947 an alien craft crashed near Roswell, New Mexico;
four bodies were recovered, one of them still alive. Keeping this
event secret was considered so important that President Truman
authorised the setting up of a secret satellite government, code
named Majesty or Majestic, to deal specifically in UFO and alien
matters. The beings were humanoid, about four feet tall with no hair
or ears, holes for a nose, a slit for a mouth and large, black
"wraparound" eyes through which they communicated telepathically.
These are the "Greys" from the Zeta Reticuli system, and many of
them are living here on Earth in several underground bases all
around the world; one is in Dulce, New Mexico, one deep in the
militarised zone of the Nevada desert, another still in a mountain
in Puerto Rico. The surviving Grey from Roswell lived for a number
of years; soon contact was made with others of its kind48 and the
Majestic group made a deal with them. In exchange for alien
technology, including that used in Stealth aircraft and
anti-gravitational propulsion systems, the Greys would be free to
carry out genetic crossbreeding experiments on humans. Their purpose
is either to repopulate their own dying planet with Grey/human
hybrids, or to prepare them to take charge of the Earth after
mankind's destruction in 2012. The people chosen by the Greys are
the abductees, and according to one poll49 there could be up to
fifteen million of them in America alone.
Those that believe the abduction scenario aren't necessarily
unintelligent, its chief proponents include New York artist Budd
Hopkins; Temple University Professor of History, David Jacobs; and
Pulitzer Prize winning author and Harvard psychiatrist, John Mack.
There are a number of variations on the experience; in fact,
"uncontaminated" reports are rarely identical, closer to visionary
experience than cold reality, but the version most subscribed to in
America is known as the Classic Abduction Syndrome (CAS).
The scenario as it now stands has been developed since the early
1980's, though abductions had been a lesser known part of UFO lore
since a Brazilian case in 195750. It wasn't until 1966, however,
that they were brought to public attention by the story of Betty and
Barney Hill, a multiracial couple from New Hampshire, considered by
CAS proponents as the "blueprint" that all other abductions should
follow. Their 1961 experience took place, like many such encounters,
whilst driving at night; they remembered seeing a bright
multicoloured light in the sky which followed them and eventually
stopped not far from their car, where they saw that it was a big
"pancake-like" aircraft. Barney got out and looked at it through
binoculars and was shocked to see faces staring down at him from a
row of windows; panicking, he jumped back into the car and they
drove on. Next they heard a high pitched beeping sound coming from
the boot of the car after which they arrived at their destination
two hours later than expected and feeling groggy and disorientated.
Betty read all she could about UFOs and began to suffer a series
of nightmares involving their encounter. In them, the car was
surrounded by small men dressed in military uniforms who took Betty
and Barney onto their glowing flying saucer; the men weren't
frightening, and behaved in a very businesslike manner; Betty
described them as having big noses like Jimmy Durante51. On board,
Betty was subjected to medical tests and probed with needles,
including a painful injection into her navel with a very long needle
that she was told was a pregnancy test. Afterwards she was shown a
star map and tried to remove a book, being an avid reader, but was
forced to put it back; the aliens told her she would not remember
anything after being returned to the car. Barney too was troubled,
suffering from ulcers and genital complaints and even undergoing
psychiatric therapy. Eventually they both linked their problems to
the UFO sighting and were referred to an eminent psychiatrist, Dr.
Benjamin Simon, who hoped to uncover the source of their problems
through hypnotherapy. The use of regressive hypnosis has become a
standard part of abduction research; often practised by alien-hungry
amateurs, asking leading questions and searching for what they want
to find; it may well be the root of the CAS. Many hold the belief
that hypnosis acts like a truth drug, but this not the case; Dr.
Simon himself stated, after treating the Hills, "it must be
understood that hypnosis is a pathway to the truth as it is felt and
understood by the patient. The truth is what he believes to be the
truth..." 52
The couple were regressed independently over four sessions.
Betty's story was entirely consistent with her dreams; Barney had
kept his eyes shut through most of his ordeal, though he remembered
a tube removing sperm from his penis53 and described the aliens as
"Nazi like", having big "wraparound eyes" (though not black) and no
noses or ears. Betty later retracted the Jimmy Durante noses once
she had heard Barney's version of events, perhaps realising that
they sounded ridiculous. That the Hills saw something strange in the
sky is generally accepted- a nearby Air Force base radar reported an
unknown over the area at the time of the encounter- but what
happened afterwards is, however, entirely questionable. The close
similarity between Betty's dreams and her hypnotic recovery of the
event was something Dr. Simon found very unusual, leading him to
believe that the event was an imaginary dramatisation of inner
conflicts over their multiracial marriage, initially triggered by
the fear of their UFO sighting54. Skeptics state that such
experiences are formed from UFO and alien imagery drawn from various
cultural sources, and released from the unconscious mind by anything
from fear to exposure to strong electromagnetic fields.
Arguing the reality of abductions, proponents state that there is
no cultural precedent for the various elements that make up the
scenario; others55, however, have shown that there is a wealth of
material from which the abductees might draw such imagery and ideas.
It is especially interesting to look at the Hill case in this light.
Betty's story bears remarkable similarities to the 1953 film
Invaders From Mars, popular at the time of its release, and likely
to have been shown on TV before late 1961. Bearing in mind that
Betty first experienced her abduction in nightmares after reading
UFO books, and that dreams collate themes and imagery from many
disparate sources, it seems quite possible that the viewing of even
such a conspicuously low budget film after having been through a
frightening UFO encounter might impact on the unconscious in some
way. In the film a flying saucer lands and unleashes big nosed
aliens with large slit eyes56 who kidnap people, pacify them with
lights and implant mind control devices in the backs of their necks;
one scene has a young woman placed on an operating table as a needle
is stuck into her neck. An ambiguous overhead shot of the operating
theatre, dominated by a large metal conduit leading from the ceiling
to the curved floor, might easily be interpreted as showing a long
needle inserted into a human stomach, complete with navel. Barney's
version of events only came out during the four hypnosis sessions,
and we can assume that Betty had told him her dreams on a number of
occasions in the two years that had passed since the incident; in
this way the detail of the sperm removal process could be seen as a
male analogue to the female pregnancy test that Betty underwent. It
is the differences between their descriptions of the aliens that are
most revealing; Barney's did not have big noses, they were
Nazi-like, and, intriguingly, had large eyes which "are talking to
me", something Betty made no mention of. A possible source for this
image lies in an episode of the science fiction anthology series The
Outer Limits entitled The Bellero Shield; it was aired on February
10, 1964, twelve days before the first session in which Barney
mentioned the aliens' eyes. The programme featured an alien with
large eyes that stretch almost to the sides of its head, an image
that was apparently well publicised in advertising for the series;
at one point this alien says "all who have eyes, have eyes that
speak". Whilst it can never be proven that these were the sources of
the imagery in the Hill accounts, the similarities cannot be ignored
and so must be considered significant57.
These are not the only abduction precedents in popular science
fiction, in fact there are almost too many to list58. Some films
feature abductions explicitly, such as Fire in the Sky, which
retells the dubious Travis Walton case of 1975, and the TV film
Intruders , based on the Budd Hopkins book that, along with Whitley
Strieber's Communion, initiated the first huge wave of abduction
mania in the mid 1980's. Other less conspicuous influences may
include The Manchurian Candidate (1962) which features many of the
elements of the CAS, but here the abductors are the Korean military
rather than alien beings. It includes an abduction, conference with
the captors, brainwashing and screen memories, all key CAS
components. The film played on the popular, much feared public image
of brain washing and mind control that was used in anti Korean
propaganda during the 1950's and is now making a big return amongst
conspiracy theorists. Some even point to known mind control
experiments such as MKULTRA as being a significant part of the
reality behind the whole UFO abduction syndrome59.
In his book Secret Life, CAS proponent David Jacobs claims that;
"even Star Trek, which has been seen probably by more Americans than
any other science fiction television show, has no plots that
resembled the abduction scenario60". Clearly he doesn't watch Star
Trek. Both the first episode , The Cage (1966), and a double episode
story, The Menagerie, aired later in the series and using footage
from the pilot, featured plots that almost precisely mirrored the
abduction scenario. In the story, Captain Pike61 is kidnapped by
short, bald aliens with enlarged heads (fig.21) who put him in a
glass cage with a human woman. They communicate telepathically and
have the power to control people's minds, creating delusions and
hallucinations in order to telepathically experience the extreme
human emotions that they are incapable of feeling themselves. They
want the captain to breed with the woman in order to use them as
workers to rebuild and repopulate their dying planet. Themes of
aliens kidnapping and impregnating humans, coming from dying planets
and using implants, telepathy and mind control have been consistent
themes in science fiction film and literature since the pulp
magazines of the 1930's, so to deny a link between popular culture
and the abduction myth is entirely ridiculous.
So why are today's aliens for the most part62 grey, emotionless
and featureless except for their huge black eyes, and why are they
experimenting on us in this way? Certainly the aliens from Close
Encounters of the Third Kind have played an important role in the
visual development of the abductors. CAS proponents would say that
this is because they were based on real aliens, which is not true;
the aliens were built up from various designs over a long period,
and at the last minute Spielberg demanded that their heads be
changed as he considered them too menacing63. Perhaps the Greys are
an unconscious portrait of Western Man itself; many see our times as
colourless and emotionless, ruled by grey leaders and grey
technology and driven by the cold desire for wealth and property.
The beings resemble human foetuses, so perhaps they are
representations of our future children, born out of the current
state of humanity. Enlarged heads and eyes (insect-like and vacant
of colour and emotion) are seen by David J. Skal to represent the
vast amounts of information and imagery that we are required to
intake every day through our eyes from television and advertising,
so that the head swells and the rest of the body withers away.64 The
abduction scenario arose simultaneously with our increasing
awareness of the horrors of vivisection and animal experimentation
carried out by supposedly cold and indifferent scientists, abductees
often saying they felt like lab rats. Those who see the Greys in a
more forgiving light compare them to scientists briefly abducting
and tagging endangered species in order to monitor them and preserve
their futures.
One of the most spectacular of all abduction reports is said to
have taken place in Manhattan, New York on 30 November 1989. It
involves all the classic elements of conspiracy and, ultimately,
confusion. Linda Cortile reported to abduction researcher Budd
Hopkins that she had been floated on a blue beam of light from her
12th floor apartment, located opposite the busy New York Times
loading bay, and underwent the standard abduction procedure onboard
a UFO. Over a year later Hopkins received a letter from two men,
Richard and Dan who claimed to have been security officers escorting
United Nations Secretary Perez de Cuellar across the city when their
car stalled and they saw Mrs. Cortile and aliens float into a large
UFO which then flew into the East River and disappeared. Months
later another woman came forward and claimed to have witnessed the
event from Brooklyn Bridge. The story was publicised by the media
all over the world, and Hopkins is in the process of releasing a
book about it. But an investigation by George Hansen, Joe Stefula
(once state Mutual UFO Network director for New Jersey) and Rich
Butler found the case even stranger than it at first appeared.
Cortile claimed to have been kidnapped, threatened and sexually
harassed by the two "security officers" (who later appeared to be
CIA agents), yet refused to make a police report. There were many
serious discrepancies between the statements of those involved, yet
the case was aggressively defended by some of the most prominent
figures in American ufology. Most relevant to this study are the
striking similarities between Cortile's story and a book called
Nighteyes, by Garfield Reeves-Stevens, first published in April
1989, a few months before Linda Cortile first told her story to
Hopkins. Hansen, Stefula and Butler detail some of the striking
similarities between the book and the Cortile case65; these include:
- Cortile was abducted into a UFO hovering over her high-rise
apartment building in New York City, so was Sarah,a character in
the book.
- Dan and Richard initially claimed to have been on a stakeout
and were involved in a UFO abduction in during early morning
hours; so were, Derek and Merril, the two government agents in the
book.
- Linda was kidnapped and thrown into a car by Richard and Dan;
Wendy in the book was similarly kidnapped by Derek and Merril.
- Linda claimed to have been under surveillance by someone in a
van; vans were used for surveillance in the book.
- Dan was hospitalized for emotional trauma as was one of the
government agents in the book.
- During the kidnapping Dan took Linda to a safe house on the
beach; during the kidnapping Derek took Wendy to a safe house,
also on the beach.
- Budd Hopkins is a prominent UFO abduction researcher living in
New York City and an author who has written books on the topic; he
is mirrored in the book by a character called Charles Edward
Starr.
- Before her kidnapping, Linda contacted Budd Hopkins about her
abduction; like Wendy in the book.
- Linda and Dan had sometimes been abducted at the same time and
communicated with each other during their abduction; Wendy and
Derek shared the same experiences in the book.
- Dan expressed a romantic interest in Linda; Derek became
romantically involved with Wendy in the book.
- Photographs of Linda were taken on the beach and sent to
Hopkins; In the book, photographs taken on a beach played a
central role.
The incredible, almost monotonous, number of similarities between
these two stories cannot be dismissed as coincidence. Somebody is
pulling somebody's leg here, though who is doing what to whom will
probably remain a mystery. What is sure is that the determination of
Hopkins and his associates to accept the case as true and heavily
publicise it before doing any real investigation must cause us to
tread very cautiously indeed when dealing with even the most
seemingly respectable UFO groups and publications. Hopkins didn't
check the weather conditions of the night in question, nor did he
check up on elements of Cortile's story that later proved to be
untrue. Yet the leaders of two prominent U.S. UFO groups accepted
and publicised his findings uncritically and largely rejected the
work of Hansen, Stefula and Butler. Those who know Hopkins say that
he is a sincere and honest man who genuinely believes in what he is
doing; but with this case it seems that he has allowed rumour and
myth to completely engulf reality66. Cases such as this act as a
double edged sword for researchers into UFO phenomena. Without them
there would be little public awareness of the issues surrounding the
mystery of the Abduction Syndrome; yet the continually promoted
stories of Grey aliens and UFOs are themselves serving as screens,
obscuring what may be the real issues behind these bizarre personal
experiences.
4 EXTRO
In this piece I have demonstrated some of the ways in which UFO
lore can be traced back to various visual and thematic elements from
science fiction. In my view, however, rather than being reason to
dismiss the entire UFO problem as a fantasy generated in human
psychology, the relationship demonstrates the overwhelming
complexity of such phenomena. At most it shows that what people see
in the sky is to some extent governed by the popular cultural motifs
of the day, in our case flying saucers and little grey aliens, but
it doesn't solve the problem of what is happening in the first
place. I have shown, for example, that the rigid confines of the
classic abduction scenario, developed in a vain attempt to make
sense out of these baffling reports, have their basis in a case
which is itself very shaky. But it is the CAS which is most visible
and media friendly, its proponents attempting to standardise the
abduction experience by pushing aside as "screen memories" those
elements of reports involving the high levels of strangeness that
constitute the bulk of most encounters with non-human entities
Reports from countries other than America, and to a lesser though
increasing extent Britain, feature an amazing variety of colourful
creatures, often rooted in the cultural history of the area. But
America's cultural dominance of the world is fast spreading into the
realms of UFO experience and the Greys have started to proliferate
elsewhere.
There is no doubt in my mind, however, that something extremely
strange is happening to these people; the narrowing down and
categorising of their experiences is just a human way of dealing
with what we do not understand, and it is here that the influences
of popular culture are felt most strongly. Many people who undergo
these experiences want to be told what has happened to them, calling
on the visible "experts" who appear on TV or write books to do so.
Often they are referred to abductee support groups where beliefs are
reinforced and memories reshaped; this is how the mythology becomes
reality. Gradually the inherent flaws in the CAS are becoming more
widely recognised; but while the media can still make mileage out of
alien kidnappers, change is likely to be a slow process, especially
when the alternatives are complex and undefined. That some UFOs are
truly unidentifiable is beyond doubt. There have been too many
reports from reliable and multiple witnesses, too many radar and
visual correlations by pilots, too many films and photographs, too
many blacked out military and government documents. For them all to
be hoaxes, misidentifications and hallucinations seems more unlikely
than most of the other explanations put forwards over the years.
The conspiratorial alliance of government and Greys is easily
tracked back to the "Majestic 12" papers received by ufologists in
the early 80's that were soon shown to be misinformation, albeit
from military sources hoping to prevent the accidental uncovering of
real secrets. The result was successful; the stories were elaborated
upon by subsequent writers and ufologists still spend more time
arguing amongst themselves over the authenticity of such stories
than they do actually investigating UFOs. In these suspicious times
hardly anyone trusts their government anymore, so it is not
surprising that such ideas flourish, particularly in America where
many civilian militia groups have worked UFO conspiracies into their
anti government belief systems. An Arizona militia group is run by
Bill Cooper, a shadowy figure who claims to have worked for U.S.
Navy Intelligence and regularly used to speak at UFO conventions.
Timothy Mcveigh, the prime suspect in the recent Oklahoma bombing,
blames an implant in his brain for his actions and described several
UFO encounters to police investigators. The phenomenal success of
The X Files, which uses many elements of the UFO conspiracy in its
story lines, is testament to the popularity of such ideas. It's
tripartite credo; "I want to Believe; The Truth is out there; Trust
No One" is a concise expression of the hope, faith and paranoia that
drive the popular UFO industry. Many viewers still believe that the
X Files stories are based on real cases67, thus securing the
conspiracy's hold on the popular imagination for a few more years
and keeping UFOs in the public eye.
As more planets are discovered to be capable of sustaining life,
so the potential reality of extraterrestrial contact will become
more concrete; it is hardly likely then that aliens are ever going
to disappear from the popular imagination. In fact just the opposite
appears to be true as a fresh onslaught of big budget alien invasion
films prepares itself for attack in the wake of Independence Day68.
Men in Black, Mars Attacks, Area 51: The Movie, The X Files Movie,
Starship Troopers- all of these and more are set for release within
the next year or so, and all deal with various aspects of UFO
conspiracy theories. For the ardent believers, this is either the
final approach towards the unveiling of the truth or the secret,
inner government's way of making sure that such ideas are laughed
out of fact and into fiction. But for most it is just an
inevitability of the collision between popular consumer culture and
the modern mythological process. Independence Day and, most likely,
its successors are unlikely to create any new directions in the UFO
mythology for they simply its children, its hybrid spawn. Ufology,
like most of Western popular culture, has already begun to feed back
on itself, rehashing old ideas for a hipper, harder to please
audience; going nowhwere fast.
That 1996 marks a century of both UFO reports and cinema seems
uncannily appropriate for both exist on the borderlines of fantasy
and reality, and both work on the human mind somewhere between the
conscious and the unconscious. As a wise man once said, a UFO expert
is "a person who knows everything there is to know about UFO's
except what they are, who's in them and where they come from"69.
Solving the mystery is going to require as much time spent looking
inwards at the vast expanse of the human mind, as it is staring out
into the great unknown of space.
Until then, keep watching the skies.
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Films
The Day the Earth Stood Still. 20th Century Fox 1951. (Dir.
Robert Wise; s. Edmund North)
Invaders From Mars. National Pictures Corp. 1953 (Dir. William
Cameron Menzies; s. Richard Blake)
The Thing From Another World. Winchester Pictures. 1951 (Dir.
Christian Nyby; s. Charles Lederer)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Columbia 1977 (Dir./s. Steven
Spielberg)
Television
Quatermass and the Pit. BBC 1957
The Outer Limits United Artists / ABC. 1963 -65 "The Bellero
Shield". 1964
Star Trek; Paramount / NBC. 1966-69 "The Cage" 1966; "The
Menagerie" 1967
The X Files. 20th Century Fox 1993-
Science Fiction
Balaban, Bob, Close Encounters of the Third Kind Diary. London
1977.
Biskind, Peter, Seeing is Believing. Random House, New York 1983.
Johnson, William, editor, Focus on the Science Fiction Film. London
1972.
Hardy, Phil, Editor, The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction Movies
.London 1986.
Kawin, Bruce F., Children of the Light; Grant, Barry K., ed., Film
Genre Reader. London 1986
Kyle, David, A Pictorial History of Science Fiction . London 1977.
Skal, David.J, The Monster Show. London 1994. Slade, Darren and
Watson, Nigel, Supernatural Spielberg. London 1991.
UFOs
Brookesmith, Peter, UFO: The Complete Sightings. New York 1995.
David, Jay ed., The Flying Saucer Reader. New York 1967. Fuller,
John G., The Interrupted Journey .London 1966, rev. 1980.
Good, Timothy, Above top Secret .London 1987
Good, Timothy, Alien Liaison. London 1991.
Hansen, George, Stefula, Joe & Butler, Rich : A Report on Hopkin's
Napolitano Case. Various Internet postings, 1993 .
Hough, Peter and Randles, Jenny, Looking for the Aliens. London
1991.
Hynek, J. Allen, The UFO Experience. London 1972.
Jacobs, David M., Secret Life. London 1992.
Jung, Carl, UFOs: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. London
1959.
Kottmeyer, Martin, "Entirely Unpredisposed", Magonia #35, Jan. 1990.
Kottmeyer, Martin, Gauche Encounters. unpublished.
Kottmeyer, Martin, "Pencil-Neck Aliens", REALL News, Feb. 1993.
Kottmeyer, Martin, "The Saucer Error", The Skeptic, Vol. 8 #3. 1994.
Ruppelt, Edward, The Report on UFOs. New York 1956.
Spencer, John, Perspectives. London 1989.
Thompson, Keith, Angels and Aliens. New York 1991.
Vallee Jacques, Dimensions. New York 1989
1 Poe's The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaal (1840) and
The Balloon Hoax (1844) were inspirational to Verne's A Voyage in a
Balloon (1851) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Balloons
and airships played a large role in 19th century science fiction art
and writing.
2 At Woodbridge, a joint British and American airforce base in
Suffolk, in 1980. Suspected by many to have been a covert military
operation.
3 Viewing figures from UFOs and the Media: The Cover-up that
never was by Neil Nixon. In Fortean Studies Vol.2, 1995.
4 The currently predominant type of alien, associated primarily
with the abduction phenomena. (See sections 2, 3.3 and the
appendix).
5 Obviously the use of the word "reality" is ambiguous when
dealing with UFOs and related phenomena. Many would deny that they
were a part of our reality at all. My own research and experience
has lead me to feel that such phenomena do manifest objectively in
our reality, but as to what they actually are, I have no fixed
ideas.
6 John Spencer, Perspectives ( London 1989)
7 In section 2.3 I will be looking at the abduction phenomenon in
greater detail.
8 Martin Kottmeyer, The Saucer Error. In The Skeptic, Vol. 8 #3,
1994
9Peter Brookesmith, UFO: The Complete Sightings (New York 1995)
10Popular term coined to describe the serious investigation and
researching of UFOs, now used also to mean UFO history. A ufologist
is someone who studies UFOs.
11 Edward J. Ruppelt , The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
( New York 1956)
12 Even as late as 1950 a Gallup poll reported that 92% thought
the UFOs were secret American aircraft, whilst only 5% thought they
were of extraterrestrial origin and 3% from Russia. From Intercept
but don't Shoot by Renato Vesco.
13 ibid.
14 ibid.
15 ibid.
16 Both these groups will be looked at in greater detail in part
3.
17 Primarily Jacques Vallee and Jenny Randles, following the lead
of Carl Jung. See bibliography.
18 Interestingly, Wells describes the Selenites as "...having
much of the quality of a complicated insect...there was no
nose...had dull bulging eyes at the side. There were no ears." This
is highly reminiscent of today's "Greys", described by so many
abductees.
19 The objects that Kenneth Arnold saw in 1947 were flying North
to Alaska or Canada.
20 Orson Welles' famous 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast
that caused such a panic has also been seen in this light.
21 Timothy Good, Alien Liaison, ( London 1991)
22 Popularised by Eric von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods?
(1969), all of whose archaeological assumptions have since been
shown to be incorrect.
23 Quoted in Seeing is Believing; Peter Biskind. References to
Jesus and other spiritual leaders as having been alien emissaries
would later become standard fare in UFO literature. See, for
example, R.L. Dione, God Drives a Flying Saucer (1973)
24 ibid.
25 These lines are now known to be an optical illusion caused by
the eye's linking up small dots on the planet's surface.
26 That most elements of UFO lore can be found in earlier SF
writing is certainly true, but falls outside the scope of this
piece.
27 Edward J. Ruppelt, The Report on UFOs
28 George Adamski and Desmond Leslie, The Flying Saucers Have
Landed ( London 1953) in Jay David, ed., The Flying Saucer Reader,
(New York 1967)
29 ibid.
30Franklin Roosevelt, who repealed Prohibition in 1933 31 To be
examined in section 3.3
32 A Close Encounter of the First Kind involves the clear
sighting of a UFO.
-
A Close Encounter of the Second Kind is when a UFO physically
affects a person or their environment.
-
A Close Encounter of the Third Kind is one which involves the
sighting of entities in association with a craft.
-
Abductions (see section 3.3) are sometimes referred to as
Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind.
33 Carl Jung, Flying Saucers - A Modern Myth of Things Seen in
the Sky ( London 1959)
34 Vallee is a French scientist and author of many important
books about UFOs. He was a close associate of Dr. Hynek. Francois
Truffaut's character, Lacombe, is based on Vallee, though their
ideas on the subject are very different.
35 That the US pilots released from the mothership have not aged
in forty years also gives the aliens' home a Neverland quality.
Speilberg always wanted to film Peter Pan and did so with Hook in
1991. There are many parallels between reports of UFO encounters and
tales of faery lore.
36 e.g Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
37 In 1980 Spielberg released a "Special Edition" of the film, a
compromise for Columbia who wanted a sequel; although it featured
new footage this was actually about fifteen minutes shorter than the
original. The main addition was a special effects sequence showing
Neary's ascent into the huge mothership; a spectacular light show
that serves no real purpose. Considering Spielberg's interest in the
Hill case, it is disappointing that he did not make more of this
opportunity.
38Jacques Vallee has stated that some modern UFO phenomena could
result from the external manipulation of the percipient's senses by
outside forces. It could also be argued that Spielberg is pointing
out how easily the senses can be deceived and so mistake a
helicopter for a UFO (though its rotor blades would probably be
clearly heard from a distance).
39 John Pym, Sight and Sound, 1978.
40 Andrew Gordon, "The Gospel According To Steven Spielberg".
Literature and Film Quarterly, Vol. 8, #3. 1980.
41 Interview in Sight and Sound. Vol. 46, #2. 1977
42Timothy Good, Above Top Secret (London 1987).
43 The Times; November 30 1977. Things were obviously very
different then!
44 Jenny Randles and Peter Hough; Looking for the Aliens; (
London) 1991
45 John Spencer; personal correspondence.
46 Neil Nixon, "The Media and UFOs: The Cover Up that Never Was".
In Fortean Studies #2, 1995.
47 In her book Abducted, written with her sister Kathy Mitchell,
Debbie Jordan describes finding signs of a break in at her home
during a period of high strangeness. A video tape had mysteriously
appeared in the VCR and on the floor in front of it were spread
several drawing pins, face up. The video tape was Close Encounters
of the Third Kind.opkins Hopkins
48 The ending of CE3K is supposed to be based on this event which
occurred at Holloman Air Force base, New Mexico in 1964.
49 The 1991 Roper Poll on Unusual Personal Experiences, since
heavily criticised and largely discredited. For example, dreams of
floating or of UFOs were seen as indicative of "real" experiences.
50 This case was always considered a little too strange to be
taken seriously, involving a young farmhand, Antonio Villas Boas
having sex on a spaceship with a buxom, green faerie-like woman who
barked like a dog.
51 Then a popular Jewish American comedian.
52 Keith Thompson , Angels and Aliens ( New York 1991)
53 This detail was removed from early accounts, including the
1966 book The Interrupted Journey by John Fuller, as being too
embarrassing and unsettling.
54 The Hills' experience was made into a successful TV film in
1976, The UFO Incident , which is surprisingly open minded about the
possible explanations for what happened.
55 Most notably cultural historian and "badfilm" buff Martin
Kottmeyer in Entirely Unpredisposed, Magonia #35, January 1990 and
Gauche Encounters: Badfilms and the UFO Mythos (unpublished).
56 Perhaps a reference to the Asian enemies of America in Korea
and Japan.
57 Under hypnosis Betty made reference to The Twilight Zone
series; when asked about this she said, "I never see the Twilight
Zone...but I had heard people talk about it". John Fuller, The
Interrupted Journey (1980 Edition).
58 Other films featuring aspects of the abduction scenario
include; Village of the Damned (1960); Mars Needs Women ( 1966 ) and
Killers from Space (1954).
59Martin Cannon, The Controllers ( unpublished?) Availiable from
various Internet sites.
60 David Jacobs, Secret Life ( London 1992)
61 Captain Kirk was not featured in the pilot episode.
62 Not all the aliens are grey. Reptilians, insectoids and the
familiar Nordics all crop up regularly in contemporary accounts, all
of course having a good heritage in popular science fiction and UFO
culture.
63 Bob Balaban, CE3K Diary ( London 1977)
64 David J. Skal, The Monster Show (London 1994)
65 A Report on Hopkin's Napolitano Case by George Hansen, Joe
Stefula and Rich Butler (Linda Napolitano was the pseudonym used by
Linda Cortile until recently).
66 Hopkins has just released a book about the case, "Witnessed",
Pocket Books 1996. It will be intersting to see whether he mentions
the above report. I suspect that he might not.
67 The first episode featured a statement saying that the story
was based on real events; elements of reported cases are used in an
extremely loose fashion, though usually in unheard of combinations.
68The Internet site for Independence Day includes a forum for
people to describe their UFO and alien abduction experiences. It
also features a summary of current UFO belief, involving underground
bases, abductions and genetic experimentation.
69 Larry Fawcett and Barry Greenwood, Clear Intent: The UFO Cover
Up ( Prentice Hall 1984)
Micky Mouse
Conquers the Martians