The CIA, the Movie Mogul, and 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

First contact: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Evidence mounts that iconic 1951 movie was CIA UFO acclimation project 

__________________________

 

• Darryl Zanuck – the movie mogul who oversaw the film’s production – was a CIA asset.

• Zanuck was considered a “friend” of the US government who could be “relied upon” to subtly “insert ideas” into his productions.

• Zanuck helped shape the script for The Day the Earth Stood Still and wanted audiences to “completely accept” that open ET contact could happen “in the not too distant future.”

 

'Battleship' director: "You gotta join the army, motherf**ker!"

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Battleship helmer Peter Berg was interviewed recently by Israeli reporter Jason Danino-Holt. The idea was for Berg to promote his new movie, which sees invading aliens face-off against the US Navy. However, the director was more interested in voicing his opinions on US/Israeli foreign policy in regard to Iran.

In the bizarre interview, Berg challenges the 25-year-old Holt on his military record, asking the reporter if he has served in the Israeli military -- a requirement for Israeli citizens.

When Holt answers "no", the ultra-militaristic Berg is displeased: "What?! How did you get out of that? Are you a draft dodger?... You gotta join the army, motherf**ker!"


The video speaks for itself and also goes a long way towards explaining the remorseless violation of the cinematic medium that is Battleship...

Battleship docks in US cinemas May 18. Read my full review of the movie here...

Battleship: Silver Screen Saucers Review

‘Battleship’: Silver Screen Saucers review

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Battleship’s choppy seas may be confined to the cinema screen, but you’ll still need a sick bag. 

There is a scene in Rob Reiner’s 1984 comedy masterpiece, This Is Spinal Tap, in which the members of the charmingly deluded heavy metal band are read a back catalogue of progressively terrible reviews for their albums to date. The final review as read to Spinal Tap by the rockumentary’s fictional director Marty Di Bergi (played by Reiner) is for their album Shark Sandwich and consists of just two words... “sh*t sandwich.”

With this in mind, a carefully considered review of Peter Berg’s latest directorial effort, Battleship, writes itself: “Battlesh*t.” Tempting though it is to leave it at that and to try to forget about the cinematic assault I recently endured, I must find it within me to mentally revisit this heinous movie-crime, not only in an attempt to cleanse my psyche of its foul stains, but also to take it to task for the vile propaganda it is. This might seem like disproportionately harsh language to be using in the context of what many will no doubt defend as a “harmless popcorn movie,” but the point is that, while Battleshipmay be popcorn fodder, its underlying purpose is to make cannon fodder of cinemagoers – quite literally. Battleship is an aggressively jingoistic, fear-mongering Pentagon-backed military recruitment campaign that revels in fetishising the hardware of war and shamelessly targets the most disillusioned of America’s youth.

In December 2011, Peter Berg shared with journalists in Santa Monica the details of Battleship’s elaborate cinematic conception:

“I went and talked to the guys at [toy company] Hasbro. I said, 'I want to do a film about naval warfare, the modern navy.' They said, 'What's the story?' I said, 'I'm not sure what the story is, but I'll figure one out. But I'm your guy...' [and]For some reason they were like, 'Okay, you're our guy.'” 

And that, apparently, is how two-hundred-million-dollar movies get greenlit in Hollywood today. As it turns out, Berg never did “figure out” a story for his big screen board game; but then, who needs a story when you’ve got Rihanna, massive guns, aliens, and Rihanna shooting massive guns at aliens? Alright, technically, Battleship does have “plot”, albeit a “plot” so weak that the word “plot” must, out of respect to real plots everywhere, remain in inverted commas throughout this review.

Battleship: the game on which the movie is based

“Plot”

The opening moments of the movie are set in 2005 when NASA – represented here by a smug, weasely British scientist and a concerned, more attractive wise-cracking American one – transmit a signal to a nearby star system referred to only as “Gliese” in the hope of contacting intelligent extraterrestrial life.

So far, so factual... sort of. In August, 2009, the Australian government and NASA really did transmit a signal to the Earth-like extra solar planet Gliese 581D in an effort to establish contact. The signal consisted of some 26,000 (carefully vetted) “good will” messages from the citizens of Earth. This proactive approach to alien contact – known as METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) –differs from the traditional passive approach favoured by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which devotes its efforts simply to listening for any potential incoming alien signals.

The METI approach is controversial, however, as some scientists consider it unwise to knowingly alert our presence in the galaxy to any potentially technologically superior civilizations. In April 2010, Professor Stephen Hawking made international headlines by stating his firm belief that humanity should seek to avoid extraterrestrial contact: "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," Hawking said, but added, ominously, "If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the American Indians.” Hawking suggested that aliens "might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet” and would perhaps be “looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

Artist's impression of Gliese 581d

NASA’s recent efforts to reach out to Earth-like planets in our galactic neighbourhood and Hawking’s stated concerns about such efforts have clearly resonated with Hollywood filmmakers. In 2010, the alien invasion film Skylineused as its premise the aforementioned “good will” signal to Gliese 581D, incorporating the facts of this scientific endeavour into its marketing campaign – a campaign that also made use of Stephen Hawking’s ominous anti ET-contact advice (“perhaps we should have listened,” stated the trailer).

Indeed, Hawking’s warning is also referred to in the opening scenes of Battleship. As NASA prepares to transmit its signal to the Gliese system, our wise-cracking American scientist comments that “it’s going to be like Columbus and the Indians – only we’re the Indians.” In any case, the signal is sent and NASA gives itself a hearty pat on the back.

Meanwhile, in a nondescript grimy American bar, we are introduced to the hero of the piece – a devilishly handsome young slacker and petty criminal (he steals a burrito in an attempt to woo the girl of his dreams) by the name of Alex Hopper – a man whose potential could fill a battleship if only he had the right outlet for his natural skills and derring-do. But, hold on there; wait just a minute now... Alex’s brother, Stone Hopper (no, really, that’s his name), is an officer in the US Navy. Can Stone help his brother realise his true potential? Help him win the heart of his dream girl? Help him become a worthy American citizen? You bet your Top Gun shades he can! “It’s time for a new course of action!” Stone hollers in his brother’s face, “A new direction! A game change! You’re joining me in the Navy!”

Cut to 2012: seven years have passed and LieutenantAlex Hopper is now the Tactical Action Officer aboard the destroyer USS John Paul Jones, while Stone is the commanding officer of the USS Sampson. Alex is also now in a long-term relationship with the burrito girl, Samantha (Brooklyn Decker), and wants nothing more than to marry her, but, for some reason, can only do so by first seeking her father’s permission. Only problem is, her father just happens to be the steely-eyed Vice Admiral Shane – Alex’s commanding officer (played by Liam Neeson with, shall we say, an avant-garde take on an American accent).

"You're gonna need a bigger boat": aliens attack in Peter Berg's Battleship (2012)

Before Alex has chance to seek Admiral Shane’s approval, however, a fleet of five alien ships decides to answer the signal NASA sent out seven years prior. One ship crashes in Hong Kong, while four others settle in Hawaiian waters. The US destroyers Sampsonand John Paul Jones promptly break off from the international war games in which they are engaged in order to investigate. How the rest of the “plot” unfolds is entirely predictable and frankly not worth writing about. Suffice to say, maritime battle mayhem ensues within the confines of a large force field erected by the aliens. The force field is intended to protect the alien craft from human attack, but, unfortunately for the hapless ETs, actually seals inside it the aforementioned destroyers, as well as the Japanese vessel, Myōkō. Although Sampson and Myōkō are obliterated by the aliens, slacker-come-good Alex Hopper and his destroyer, the John Paul Jones, go on to save the world – but not without a bit of help from an unexpected source: in the final act, just as you think it’s safe to remove your anti-cheese goggles, a moustached troupe of crusty WWII veterans hobbles in to save the day with their trusty battleship – the heroes of old stepping forth once more to serve their country in its hour of need.

In the Navy...

It is important to note that Battleship was produced with the full support of the US Navy. This means that – in exchange for the use onscreen of the Navy’s coolest, shiniest hardware – the US Department of Defense (DoD) has been granted contractual power to significantly influence the content of the movie and how it is sold to the masses.

The DoD has lent extensive co-operation to Hollywood for over sixty years in exchange for the right to edit scripts with the principal aim of encouraging recruitment and retention of military personnel.However, in practice the Pentagon’s remit is more wide-ranging, as it frequently promotes its own – rather sanitised – version of US history and politics, as with its removal of a key character in Black Hawk Down (2002) who in real life had been convicted of raping a twelve-year-old boy; when it removed a joke about “losing Vietnam” in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies(1997); or when it cut images of US Marines pulling gold teeth from the mouths of dead Japanese soldiers in the WWII movie, Windtalkers (2002).The number of examples along these lines could – and indeed does – fill a book (David Robb’s Operation Hollywood: How Hollywood Shapes and Censors the Movies).

Censorship aside, Battleship is all about turning cinemagoers into sailors, and not since Top Gun (1986) has a movie been geared so brazenly toward naval recruitment. In a Battleship promotional featurette (also made with cooperation from the Navy), director Peter Berg says:

“I have a good relationship with the Department of Defense and they know that I love soldiers and I respect the warrior spirit of any soldier, anywhere in the world... As a result, they’ve opened up their doors to us in fairly unprecedented ways.”

The last time the DoD opened its doors to Hollywood in “unprecedented ways” was for the production of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The end result was both UFOlogically fascinating and – unsurprisingly for a Hollywood-DoD collaboration – nauseatingly propagandist.

The Pentagon: Washington, D.C.

But back to Battleship. The fingerprints of Pentagon staffers can be found on almost every page of the movie’s threadbare script. In one of the earlier scenes, Alex tells a young boy curious about naval hardware: “battleships are great” but destroyers are “just awesome!” Throughout Battleship’s run-time, the entire process of combat – from preparation of weaponry and selection of targets, to the devastation the Navy inflicts upon its enemy – is techno-fetishised by Peter Berg’s leering camera. Indeed, the movie is jam-packed with phallic symbolism – I lost count of the number of lingering, close-up shots of long, wet, erect gun shafts shooting their load – and whoever chose to have AC/DC’s “Hard as a Rock” accompany our introduction to the destroyer USS Ronald Regan is either a comic genius or the real life Stan Smith from American Dad.

Even the process of physical rehabilitation is techno-fetishised in Battleship. Yes, that’s right, thanks to cutting-edge DoD rehabilitation technologies, never has there been a better time to be maimed in the armed forces. Enlist today and – providing you’re lucky enough to be injured in combat – you too can learn to walk again in super cool, futuristic simulated environments! You know, like you’re in Star Trek or something! You can have full use of indoor climbing-walls and work out in a shiny DoD gym! As if all of thatweren’t enough, you too can get fitted with awesome, terminator-style prosthetic legs (all the better for kicking alien ass with!) and learn to use them on guided strolls through the stunning Hawaiian countryside with your very own attractive female physician (Brooklyn Decker)!

Yet more evidence of DoD script “input” is evidenced in the immediate aftermath of the aliens’ first strike when a sailor shrieks: “It’s the North Koreans, I’m tellin’ ya!” Russia and China are also considered as possible culprits – the Pentagon never missing an opportunity to paint a target on those countries it considers a threat to national security. Similar ground was trodden in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, in which the U.S./Autobot alliance is seen busying itself by dispatching black-ops military teams around the world to assist in solving human problems, with “the world” being represented onscreen by “the Middle-East”, and “human problems” taking the form of an “illegal nuclear site” in Iran.

The aliens of Battleship

But the true enemy in Battleship is, of course, extraterrestrial in nature. And, in supporting this movie – by officially shaping and approving its content – the DoD implicitly supports the message that potential extraterrestrial life poses a grave threat to US national security. This is hardly surprising, though – after all, post 9/11, there’s almost nothing in all of creation that doesn’t pose a threat to US national security. To be clear, while aliens in Pentagon-backed movies undoubtedly do represent perceived terrestrial threats (North Korea, Iran, etc.), they are not merely cinematic allegories. As humanity now moves rapidly closer to answering the question: “Are we alone in the universe?” hawkish eyes at the Pentagon no doubt view the notion of open ET contact with considerable suspicion and concern (justified or not) – just as shareholders in the defense industry undoubtedly view it with glee. Without a perennial threat to national security, America’s multi-billion-dollar war machine is without purpose, without function. From the perspective of the military-industrial-complex, then, providing support to Hollywood’s UFO movies is as much about encouraging public fear of potential ET life as it is about drumming-up fear of human adversaries.

Face-off: Alex Hopper goes head-to-head with an alien soldier in Battleship (2012)

In keeping with previous Pentagon-backed UFO movies (such as War of the Worlds, the Transformersfranchise, Battle: Los Angeles, etc.), US military leaders as depicted in Battleshiphave no prior knowledge of ET visitation. This is to be expected: plotlines involving a pre-existing DoD cover-up of UFOs are a strict no-no for filmmakers wishing to gain Pentagon support – as Steven Spielberg learned in 1976 during the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

Also notable in Battleshipis that the Secretary of Defense himself (here played by comedy actor Peter MacNicol) is a vaguely perplexed – almost bumbling – character content to take orders from military leadership and be yelled at and ignored  by naval admirals who don’t like his orders. In this sense, the US military – and the Navy specifically – is depicted as a relatively autonomous institution free to exercise its military might for any cause it deems righteous. The message to potential recruits is clear: the Navy is not a political institution – it’s just freakin’ cool!

Incredibly, in addition to DoD cooperation, Battleship also received support from “The Science & Entertainment Exchange’. Established in 2008, “The Exchange” is a program of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that, according to its website, “connects entertainment industry professionals with top scientists and engineers to create a synergy between accurate science and engaging storylines in both film and TV programming.” The goal The Exchange is “to use the vehicle of popular entertainment media to deliver sometimes subtle, but nevertheless powerful, messages about science.” If the NAS’ message about science in Battleship is “extraterrestrials are invasive creatures to be avoided at all costs” then message received, loud and clear. As for the NAS’ goal of creating “a synergy between accurate science and engaging storylines”, that’s an epic fail.

Witness, for example, the movie’s aliens – a species that, despite having mastered interstellar travel, is still reliant upon 21st Century explosives (only marginally more advanced than our own) and cumbersome flying ‘machine-bombs’ to wage war. So, although in real life the US military has in its arsenal weaponized laser technologies, in Battleship the superior alien invaders do not. Even more bizarre is that, although we have long had the means to detect and image heat signatures of people and objects using infrared technologies (such as FLIR), again, apparently the aliens of Battleshipnever thought to develop their own gadgets along these lines; consequently, successfully evading them on foot is as simple as hiding behind the nearest bush or wall (seriously, this actually happens in the movie – on several occasions).

Battleship's aliens: fond of thrash metal

We learn very little about the aliens themselves, although, judging by their bald-headed, goateed visage, it would seem they’re big fans of thrash metal. As regards natural weaknesses, we are told the aliens are “sensitive to sunlight”, but this potentially interesting narrative device is quickly thrown to the wayside as the Navy soon realises the aliens are even more sensitive to its big-ass guns – just as the ill-prepared aliens in Battle: Los Angeles (2011) were sensitive to the Marines’ bazookas. If hostile aliens really do decide to invade one day, we can only hope they’re as technologically and strategically inept as Hollywood imagines them to be.

Of Battleship, Berg says proudly: “It’s been a long time since the world has seen what we do over here in America with our military and just how strong we are.” Thank goodness, then, that the actor-turned-director has stepped up to the plate with his new movie. For what better way to project American power than to kick some extraterrestrial heinie while flying the stars and stripes on the international stage?

As 2,796 words is 2,795 more than Battleship deserves, I’ll abandon ship now with a desperate appeal: please, Hollywood, shining beacon of creativity and wonder that you are, end your relationship with the military – creativity and destructivity do not a good marriage make. And while you’re at it, end your sordid affair with ‘that’ toy company. To date, working side-by-side, Hasbro and the DoD have assaulted us with two G.I. Joes, three Transformers and a Battleship. One shudders to think what might be next...

Face-to-face with ‘Battleship’ aliens

Silver Screen Saucers

New clip shows alien unmasking (SPOILER!)

Battleship arrives in US cinemas May 18.

The aliens of 'Battleship'

Silver Screen Saucers

A new featurette for the upcoming alien invasion movie, Battleship, gives us a close up on the aliens themselves, revealing their design and how came to be realised onscreen through performance capture technologies...

Battleship docks in cinemas April 12.

‘Battleship’ movie: “Real Heroes,” reel propaganda

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

A new behind-the-scenes featurette for the upcoming alien invasion movie Battleship has just surfaced online. Titled “Real Heroes,” the three minute video is not so much a promo for the movie as it is a shameless recruitment ad for the US Navy, which, in lending its full support to the production, has been granted contractual power to significantly influence the content of this two-hundred-million dollar bucket of popcorn and how it is sold to the masses.

 “I have a good relationship with the Department of Defense and they know that I love soldiers and I respect the warrior spirit of any soldier, anywhere in the world,” says director Peter Berg. “As a result, they’ve opened up their doors to us in fairly unprecedented ways.”

The last time the DoD opened its doors to Hollywood in “unprecedented ways” was for the production of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The end result was both UFOlogically fascinating and – unsurprisingly for a Hollywood-DoD collaboration – nauseatingly propagandist.

 “It’s been a long time since the world has seen what we do over here in America with our military and just how strong we are,” Berg enthuses in the propaganda short featurette.

Thank goodness, then, that Berg has stepped up to the plate with Battleship. For what better way to project American power than to kick some extraterrestrial heinie while flying the stars and stripes (and believe me, they’ll be flying) on the international stage?

Battleship docks at cinemas this May.

Related:

'Battleship': Silver Screen Saucers review

Transformers 3: Silver Screen Saucers review

'Battle Los Angeles' bombs with critics

Hollywood propaganda post-9/11

A History of Government Management of UFO Perceptions through Film and Television

Hollywood propaganda post-9/11

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks upon us, I thought it might be fitting to draw attention to a new book on the subject of post-9/11 Hollywood propaganda entitled Screens of Terror. Though not dealing with UFOs, the book should nevertheless appeal to anyone with an interest in media manipulation and Hollywood's depictions of controversial political issues in the post-9/11 world.

This from the publisher:


"Right from the first moment, the 11 September 2001 attacks and the 'war on terror' were closely associated with film and media. In an effort to 're-brand' US foreign policy, Washington consulted with the advertising and PR industries and within days of 9/11 - itself often described as being 'like a movie' - also consulted Hollywood. It seemed that film-makers might be about to cooperate with a major, long-term propaganda offensive, harking back to the films of the early Cold War era or even those of World War Two. Screens of Terror examines whether such expectations have been borne out. It asks:

� How far have the film and TV industries been supportive of the 'war on terror' and how far have they been critical of it?
� How has the war film genre developed since 9/11?
� How have other popular genres responded to the 'war on terror'?
� How have film and TV represented the enemy Other and the Western Self?

Ten years on, this volume brings together European and North American scholars working in politics and international relations as well as in literature, film, media and cultural studies to take stock and assess the shape and significance of the post-9/11 cultural moment."

Among the scholars to have contributed to Screens of Terror is my colleague Dr Matthew Alford, whose excellent book Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy is a must-read for anyone interested in the politics of Hollywood and the powerful interests working tirelessly to exploit this so-called 'dream factory', both from outside and within.

As for the topic of UFOs & 9/11, debate is currently stirring at the After Disclosure site, where Bryce Zabel and Nick Pope are asking to hear your thoughts on whether or not these two distinct and highly divisive topics should be mixed in the public mind. So, let your thoughts be known.

Related viewing:

Hollywood and the War Machine...

Related articles:

Lights, Camera, Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood

In the Parents' Best Interests: The Deep Politics of Hollywood

Michael Moore: I Was the Most Hated Man in America

UFOs and Disney: Behind the Magic Kingdom

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

The role played by Hollywood in shaping our notions of potential alien life has long been a subject of fascination and contention in the UFO research community. Although there seems to be a consensus among UFOlogists that big screen depictions of UFOs serve to acclimate the populous to the reality of the phenomenon, opinions diverge on whether this acclimation effect is the product of design (inferring the existence of a "Hollywood UFO conspiracy"), or is merely the result of a natural cultural process driven by generic trends and stemming from a simple recognition among Hollywood executives that, when it come to the box office, aliens sell like hotcakes. Within this ongoing debate concerning UFOs and Hollywood, the name of one studio consistently has rung out over the decades – Disney. The House of Mouse has overseen the production and/or distribution of numerous UFO and alien-themed movies in recent times, with the best known examples including Flight of the Navigator (1986) Signs (2002), Lilo and Stitch (2002), Chicken Little (2005), Lifted (2007), I am Number Four (2011), Mars Needs Moms (2011) and the forthcoming John Carter (2012). 

Once Upon A Time...

The Disney/UFO connection can be traced back to 1953 when the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel recommended that the US government make efforts to strip UFOs of their "aura of mystery" through the exploitation of mass media including television and motion pictures. In this context, the panel highlighted Walt Disney Productions specifically as a potential conduit for its propaganda. The panel’s singling-out of Disney made sense given the animation giant’s then firmly established working relationship with the US government: during World War II Disney made numerous propaganda shorts for the US military, and in the 1950s corporate and government sponsors helped the company produce films promoting President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" policy, as well as the retrospectively hilarious Duck and Cover documentary, which depicted schoolchildren surviving an atomic attack by sheltering under their desks.

That the Robertson Panel highlighted Disney is significant in that the Panel’s general recommendation to debunk UFOs through media channels is known to have been acted upon in at least one instance: this being the CBS TV broadcast of UFOs: Friend, Foe, or Fantasy? (1966), an anti-UFO documentary narrated by Walter Cronkite. In a letter addressed to former Robertson Panel Secretary Frederick C. Durant, Dr Thornton Page confided that he "helped organize the CBS TV show around the Robertson Panel conclusions," even though this was thirteen years after the Panel had first convened. In light of this case alone, it seems reasonable to assume that the government may at least have attempted to follow through on the Robertson Panel’s Disney recommendation.

With this in mind, consider the case of the Oscar-winning Disney animator Ward Kimball. Best known for creating iconic Disney characters such as Jiminy Cricket and The Mad Hatter, Kimball also worked as Directing Animator on Disney classics including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) and Pinocchio (1940). While at a MUFON symposium in 1979, Kimball claimed that the United States Air Force (USAF) had approached Walt Disney himself in the mid-1950s to request his cooperation on a documentary about UFOs that would help acclimate the American public to the reality of extraterrestrials. According to Kimball, in exchange for Disney’s cooperation, the USAF offered to furnish the production with genuine UFO footage. Kimball claimed that Disney accepted the deal and – ever faithful to Uncle Sam – began work immediately on the USAF project. It wasn’t long, however, before the USAF reneged on its offer of UFO footage. When Kimball challenged the USAF Colonel overseeing the project he was told that "there was indeed plenty of UFO footage, but that neither Kimball, nor anyone else was going to get access to it." The Kimball case, though, seems to be at odds with the Robertson Panel’s recommendations, which were to debunk UFO reality through media channels, not promote it. But perhaps another faction within the military-intelligence community – one with a UFO acclimation agenda – had similarly recognised Disney’s propagandist potential? We can only speculate.

Disney’s Alien Encounters

A tantalising case of alleged Disney/government UFO collusion is that of the 1995 documentary Alien Encounters from New Tomorrowland, which officially was produced with the sole purpose of promoting Disneyworld’s then-new ‘ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter’ ride. Yet, the content of this curious "promotional" documentary was viewed with suspicion by UFO researchers for the following reasons:

 - Throughout its forty-minute run-time, the documentary’s presenter/narrator, Robert Urich, makes numerous declarative statements to the effect that UFOs are one-hundred-percent real and extraterrestrial in origin. Such statements include: "For nearly fifty years, officials have been documenting routine alien encounters here on earth; "More than one alien craft crashed and was recovered for secret U.S. military research. The most famous case took place in July of 1947 just outside the community of Roswell, New Mexico"; and "Indications are that government, military and scientific leaders will soon release nearly a half-century of official documentation of ongoing alien encounters on earth."

- The documentary tells us of alien microbes found in meteorites in Antarctica that had been analysed by NASA. At the time the documentary was televised in 1995, NASA was indeed analysing a Martian meteorite recovered from Antarctica, and had indeed reached the tentative conclusion that it contained fossilised microbial alien life. The inclusion of this information in Disney’s 1995 documentary is intriguing, however, as NASA did not make a formal announcement about its findings until August of 1996 – 17 months after the documentary was televised.

- The actual ‘Alien Encounter’ ride received very little screen time, with the vast majority of the documentary’s content being focused on UFOs and extraterrestrials as a factual reality. The ride itself seemed like an afterthought.

- The documentary was aired in only a handful of US cities at seemingly random times on selected dates in February and March, 1995, with no advance notice – a rather odd marketing strategy considering its purpose was to promote a major theme park ride for families.

For the reasons cited above, many in the UFO research field felt that Disney’s Alien Encounters documentary was an effort by the powers that be to prepare us for Disclosure – a subtle test of public reaction to an official declaration that we are not alone. But in the sixteen years since the documentary was produced, not one UFO researcher has attempted to contact the film’s writer and director, Andrew Thomas, in order to learn the truth of the matter. So, in February 2011, I decided to do just that.

In an hour-long telephone interview, Thomas revealed to me that he had been selected by Disney for the documentary project based on his background in reality television, having been the original producer of the phenomenally successful TV show, Cops: "Making things exceptionally real was the line of work that I was in at the time," he said. The other key factor was Thomas’s previous position as head of "special marketing" for Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) in the mid-to-late 1970s. Regarding Close Encounters, Thomas explained that marketing executives at Columbia Pictures were concerned that Spielberg’s chosen title for the film made it sound "suspiciously like a pornographic movie, because no one had any reference to what that vocabulary meant." This was where Thomas came in:

"Eighteen months before the film [Close Encounters] was going to premiere... before we’d even sold it to audiences, we had a campaign to introduce that vocabulary and make it part of the vernacular, so when the film opened-up everyone would know what was being discussed, and there wouldn’t be any question. So what I did was I worked with a planetarium to create a planetarium show that was about twenty-minutes long... you sit down and a UFO shoots across the planetarium dome and then the audience is trained on how to figure out whether that was a meteor, a comet, or actually an extraterrestrial. We managed to bus-in tens-of thousands of kids from all around the country on the pretence of seeing an educational planetarium show, but what they really got was a sophisticated message to explain to them that extraterrestrials and UFOs are real and what an encounter of the first, second and third kind actually meant."

Clearly, then, Thomas was a natural choice for Disney’s Alien Encounters documentary, the entire purpose of which, according to the director, was to promote the ride itself. Thomas told me that Disney had requested a documentary "about the history of mankind and aliens. Not a film history, but more of a realistic approach... a special about the history of UFO sightings," with Disney’s only stipulation being that "the last five minutes had to focus on the ride." Thomas confirmed to me that, instead of giving the documentary network time, Disney’s plans from the outset were to "seed it into independent television stations across the country."

Chain structures in meteorite fragment ALH84001

But why did Thomas’s documentary take such a strong stance in favour of UFO/ET reality? He summed-up his approach as follows:

"I figured... instead of asking people to question ‘could it be possible?’ to just adopt the point of view that this [alien visitation] has been going on for 50 years, everybody’s known about it... And I thought it fit with the hyperrealistic nature of the ride that we were eventually trying to promote... I did it really kind of naively – I said to myself 'okay, I’m going to believe this right now, and I’m going to believe everything and I’m going to collect all this stuff and construct what would be a documentary if we all just had a consensus that it [the UFO phenomenon] was real...' We didn’t make up anything, but it certainly surprised the people at Disney."

Somewhat disappointingly for conspiracy theorists, Thomas claims to have written the script in just a few hours while flying back from Florida to his home in Los Angeles. "There was nothing to it," he said, "it just kind of came out, it was easy." Furthermore, Thomas claims to have conducted the vast majority his research at the National Archives and stressed that, beyond these archival visits, "there was no direct government contact" on the production. "I didn’t get any special access from anybody," he said.

But how did Thomas come to acquire his information about the NASA meteorite? "I found it on the Internet," said the director, matter-of-factly:

"It wasn’t a big secret. NASA had been doing that – they’d been getting meteorites... and inside I believe they were finding some complex amino acids, some material that could only be produced organically, that sort of thing, so it was an easy jump [in logic]. And the reason that NASA released the information months later is because they take their time. They don’t find something and release it. They find it and they study it."

Thomas’s meteorite information did raise a red flag at Disney, however: "They called me in and they said ‘we’re really concerned about this thing about NASA exploring rocks in Antarctica.’ I told them it was absolutely true and to let me go back to the office and I’ll get the material [sources] so they can check my facts... no big deal. So it wasn’t any big secret, it was just that the official [NASA] announcement came later."

Former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner

There were aspects of the Alien Encounters project, however, that even Thomas considered strange – not least of all was the fact that Disney CEO Michael Eisner took a direct interest in the documentary, personally vetting its content and even filming his own introduction for the piece:

"I thought it was really odd because to me this was kind of a minor marketing project, but they [Disney] put a lot of weight into it. I mean Eisner doesn’t have to stop walking down the street to pick up a twenty-dollar-bill – it’s not worth his time. But they had him look through this. And he filmed this intro to the show. I didn’t do that. He had his own film crew take him out to a sound stage and film his own intro, which I thought was just really surprising."
Also surprising to Thomas was Disney’s inexplicable TV scheduling for the documentary, which he described as "completely counter-intuitive," because "it played on independent stations in the afternoon at like 2 o’clock or 3 o’ clock, or some horrible time when no one would be watching it."

Overall, Thomas’s testimony punches serious holes in the theory that Disney’s Alien Encounters documentary was a government-sponsored UFO acclimation effort. Yet questions remain; indeed, some of Thomas’s statements only add fuel to the fire: why was Michael Eisner so personally invested in what – on the surface at least – was a minor TV marketing project? And why the bizarre and "totally counter-intuitive" TV scheduling for the documentary?

Indulging the conspiratorial interpretation of events for a moment: if powerful UFO-related interests were involved in the documentary – perhaps having recommended Thomas knowing what he would produce based on his sophisticated work on Spielberg’s Close Encounters – then Thomas himself would likely be oblivious to this fact. He would have been a pawn in a much larger game, so to speak. I’ll be the first to admit that this interpretation sounds farfetched; but it is not entirely beyond the realms of possibility. Certainly, during the time the Alien Encounters documentary was produced in the mid-1990s, Disney was working closely with the Pentagon on two separate pro-establishment Hollywood movies: In the Army Now (1994) and Crimson Tide (1995), both of which received generous production support from the Department of Defense in the form of expensive military hardware and on-set advice from DoD personnel. Indeed, Disney’s continuing willingness to support establishment power structures was effectively demonstrated more recently when it released the TV movie The Path to 9/11 (2006), which was heavily skewed to exonerate the Bush administration and blame the Clinton administration for the 9/11 attacks – provoking outraged letters of complaint to Disney from former high-level Clinton Administration staffers. The nature of Disney’s output makes sense given the company’s historical ties not only to the US defence department, but to the arms industry also. Even now, a long-time Directors Board member of Disney is John Bryson – also a director of The Boeing Company, one of the world’s largest aerospace and defence contractors.

President Obama with Disney/Boeing director, John Bryson

Despite Disney’s demonstrably cosy relationship with secretive institutions, however, and putting aside a couple of unanswered questions regarding the documentary’s personal vetting by Eisner and its curious TV scheduling, there simply is no direct evidence to suggest that Alien Encounters was ever anything more than marketing project for a theme park ride. However, a much more compelling case for Disney/government UFO collusion recently has come to light.

Race to Witch Mountain

Directed by Andy Fickman – a self-confessed "UFO buff" born and raised in Roswell, New Mexico – Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain (2009) depicts the arrival on Earth of two blonde-haired, blue-eyed, human-looking extraterrestrials (UFOlogy’s ‘Nordics’) and their plan to save their own dying planet from total atmospheric degradation. In a September 2010 interview, Fickman explained to me how he had sought to ground his movie as firmly as possible in UFOlogical reality by personally schooling his cast in UFO history: "I would spend time with my actors literally just going through ‘UFO 101’ – we’d watch every DVD that was out there, every documentary; I would give them book, upon book, upon book."

Although the vast majority of the film’s UFOlogical content came from Fickman, at least some of it was the result of CIA input. In a highly unusual production arrangement Fickman claims he was closely assisted by an active employee of the CIA whose advice extended so far even as to designing the alien writing seen in the UFO during the film’s climactic scene. Fickman is unwilling to name this advisor, but claims he is an Air Force Colonel with a background in Technical Intelligence, that he had been "very active in Hollywood" and "had a lot of connections in the computer world and experience in satellite imagery." Fickman said of his CIA advisor:

"All of the on-camera alien language in terms of their spaceship and everything – that was all designed by him in the sense [of what] the mathematics of communication would be, so you know... there would be a similar mathematical equation that the government probably has if they were to ever come across an alien race. So a lot of the things we ended up using were things he was bringing to me... and the next thing you know, that’s what I had on screen."

While on-set, Fickman took the opportunity to ask his CIA man some probing questions: "In typical ‘can’t confirm, can’t deny’ manner," said Fickman, "no matter what I would personally ask him about anything from ‘who killed Kennedy?’ To ‘what happened at Roswell?’ He always played it with a nice smile that implied 'I don’t think you have the security clearance for me to talk to you about anything.'" The CIA advisor also recommended that certain UFOlogical content be removed from the script: "there were things we got rid of in the script that he was just trying to follow logic on from a protocol standpoint," said Fickman, although he would not elaborate on the nature of the changes made.

Andy Fickman, director of Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

Fickman further claims that he was afforded a visit to NORAD’s sensitive Cheyenne Mountain facility in 2008, where – accompanied by his CIA advisor – his team spent 12 hours taking photographs and talking with on-duty military officers, including the heads of NORAD. "We wanted our Witch Mountain to resemble what NORAD and Cheyenne Mountain look like inside," he said. "We took a thousand photos and then by the time they released us into the wilderness maybe we had three hundred that had been approved for us to somewhat copy [for production design purposes]."

Incidentally, Fickman’s Cheyenne Mountain visit took place just a few weeks after the high-profile Stephenville Texas UFO sightings. Remembering that witnesses had described seeing fighter jets in pursuit of the Stephenville UFO/s, Fickman raised the incident with NORAD officers: "I asked the question of all the NORAD people point blank: ‘so, what about those jets – did you guys release those jets?’ And after a kind of thoughtful pause, the guy in charge said ‘hypothetically, if something had invaded US airspace, we would have responded in kind. I have no indication one way or another that jets ever pursued any unknown object at the time you’re referring to.’" Fickman found NORAD’s ‘non-denial denial’ to be "very telling."

The CIA, for its part, claims to have had no involvement in Race to Witch Mountain. In an email to the author, Paula Weiss, Media Spokeswoman at the CIA Office of Public Affairs, said: "We have no knowledge of any CIA officer having assisted with this film…It’s very easy for outsiders, including Hollywood film people, to assume any US intelligence officer is CIA when in fact he could be from DIA, NSA, NGA, etc. Sorry I can’t resolve this for you based on the available information."  

Fickman was puzzled by the CIA’s denial. When I asked the director whether or not the CIA man could have been retired from the Agency and had been acting in a private capacity (as is the case with a number of ex-CIA operatives in Hollywood, including Robert Baer, Milton Beardon and Chase Brandon), he replied: "there’s no way we would have had what we had, had he not been an active CIA employee..." Indeed, throughout the NORAD visit, Fickman claims he relied heavily on the influence wielded by his CIA man: "Nothing happened at NORAD without him flashing his card and making his calls."

Fickman believes it was due in large part to the fact that his military and intelligence advisors were secured "through back door channels" that his production was granted such extraordinary access to the inner-workings of the national security apparatus, but he insists there was no hidden agenda behind his government’s uncharacteristic generosity in this regard: "All of a sudden I was in places that I don’t know I would have been had I gone through normal channels. I don’t think there was anything abnormal about what they were doing, I just think it was [that] phone calls were being made and doors were sort of opening."

Fickman’s claims carry with them the weighty implication that the CIA may be operating in Hollywood beyond the dry remit of its media liaison office, which is to provide "impartial advice on matters of accuracy and authenticity" in relation the CIA’s image while on set, and certainly does not extend to accompanying a director on a private trip to NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain facility, nor designing fictional alien language for a feature film in which the CIA itself is not even depicted.

Behind the Scenes

The real reasons for the CIA adopting an "advisory" role on Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain (as well as on numerous other Hollywood productions) were pointed to in a solitary comment by former Associate General Counsel to the CIA, Paul Kelbaugh. Whilst at a College in Virginia in 2007, Kelbaugh delivered a lecture on the CIA’s relationship with Hollywood, at which a local journalist was present. The journalist (who has since requested anonymity, but who is known to me) published a review of the lecture which related Kelbaugh’s discussion of the 2003 Disney-produced thriller The Recruit, starring Al Pacino. The journalist noted that, according to Kelbaugh, a CIA agent was on set for the duration of the shoot under the guise of a consultant, but that his real job was to misdirect the filmmakers: "We didn’t want Hollywood getting too close to the truth," the journalist quoted Kelbaugh as saying. In a blunt email to my colleague Matthew Alford, however, Kelbaugh denied having made the public statement and claimed that he remembered "very specific discussions with senior [CIA] management that no one was ever to misrepresent to affect [film] content – EVER." The journalist stands by the original report, and Kelbaugh has refused to be drawn into further discussion of the matter.

As a closing thought on Disney’s establishment ties in relation to the UFO question, in January 2011, the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) staged its 5th Annual Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF) – a major International business convention which this year featured keynote speeches by the likes of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Intriguingly, this year’s GCF event also featured a special panel discussion entitled: "Contact: Learning from Outer Space," in which names such as Stanton Friedman, Jacques Vallee, Nick Pope and Professor Michio Kaku addressed the wide-ranging implications of UFOs and potential extraterrestrial life. How is this relevant to our topic? Well, it might not be, but the primary sponsor of the GCF event was Boeing – a company highlighted by Disclosure Project witnesses as being a key player in UFO-related ‘deep black’ programmes and which you’ll also recall is linked at a directors-board-level to the Walt Disney Company – and a key note speaker at the event was none other than Chairman of Walt Disney International, Andy Bird. UFOs, Disney, Boeing, even former heads of state – all under one roof, so to speak. It proves nothing of course, but is nevertheless worthy of mention in that it brings to mind what the famous ex-CIA operative Robert Baer once told me regarding the Hollywood/Washington relationship: "All these people that run studios – they go to Washington, they hang around with senators, they hang around with CIA directors, and everybody's on board." Certainly, Disney has long been "on board" with supporting government and military power structures; as to whether or not this support extends to an involvement in some indefinable "Hollywood UFO conspiracy" is impossible to say. For now, at least, all we can do is weigh-up what little evidence is available to us and each draw our own conclusions as to precisely what UFO secrets – if any – might lie behind the Magic Kingdom. 

Copyright © 2011, Robbie Graham

This article was first published in UFO Matrix magazine: Vol. 2, Issue 1: Summer, 2011.

What is 'UMBRA'?

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS POTENTIAL PLOT SPOILERS FOR A FORTHCOMING MOVIE

"UMBRA" is a Latin word that refers to "a dark area, especially the blackest part of a shadow from which all light is cut off."

"UMBRA" is also a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) code word used to denote the highest-level compartment of Communications Intelligence (COMINT) - also known as Special Intelligence. Notable in this context is a "Top Secret UMBRA" NSA affidavit dating from October 1980 which gives reasons why certain information relating to UFOs is exempt from disclosure.



Now, UMBRA is to be a Hollywood movie. A paranoid thriller, to be precise, "about a man who finds an old cassette tape which reveals a horrifying secret."

Details of this movie first emerged back in 2009, when Roger Donaldson was attached to direct and Nicholas Cage to star, but budgetary concerns about the production - as well as Cage's numerous other movie commitments at the time - meant that it never really got off the ground.

The movie's original screenplay was written by newcomer Steven Karczynski and was leaked online in June 2009 and reviewed by a handful of bemused amateur critics. The consensus was that an intriguing and gripping conspiracy thriller in the vein of Coppola's The Conversation was torpedoed in its final act by an unexpected sci-fi twist. The screenplay itself is no longer viewable online, but the reviewers' original comments remain, and they confirm what many will already be suspecting: UMBRA is - or, at least, was - a UFO movie.

The script reviewers' comments are not entirely revelatory, but they do tell us that the would-be movie's plot features a "top secret government agency... apparently powerful enough to employ trained killers, track citizens, intercept phone calls and emails, and gain access to private security deposit boxes." The NSA immediately springs to mind, even if it is not explicitly referred to.

One reviewer noted that "the last name of the man who escaped in the script is 'Lazar'" - a possible nod to Bob Lazar, who famously thrust Area 51 into the spotlight in the late-1980s.

The screenplay's ending apparently is ambiguous, but one reviewer speculated that, in the film, "aliens were harvesting humans for their chromosomes or cross-breeding with them or turning them into surrogate wombs 'ALIEN' style."

"I am a little confused," wrote another reviewer, and asked "was the government trying to stop them [the aliens], were they part of it [the conspiracy], or was there little left of the government that wasn't alien?"

Any questions concerning UMBRA's original incarnation are likely to remain open, however, as the script is now being re-written by Joe Carnahan (The A-Team (2010)) who will also direct the movie for Endgame Productions (the film originally was to be produced by Relativity Media). Whether or not the script's alien element will survive its reboot is uncertain and there is no release date for the movie as yet, though it is unlikely to hit cinemas before the end of 2012 as new director Carnahan is currently tied up with another project entitled The Grey (not alien-related).

Intriguingly, UMBRA's original director - Roger Donaldson - worked closely with the Pentagon on the political thriller Thirteen Days, and with the CIA on Agency pet project The Recruit. Donaldson also directed the alien movie Species. While new helmer Joe Carnahan's production history isn't nearly so interesting as Donaldson's, UMBRA - if and when it reaches the big screen - is nevertheless certainly one to watch out for.