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.”

 

'Hangar 18', the CIA, and the Mormon Church

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Embedded below is a detailed write-up of my ongoing research into the historical corporate, political and religious connections of the film studio Sunn Classic Pictures -- the early output of which reflected a strong interest in Biblical figures and the idea of extraterrestrial visitation.

In the context of UFOs, the studio is perhaps best known for its 1980 conspiracy movie, Hangar 18...

This article was originally published at Earthfiles.com

 

Related:

Hangar 18 and Predictive Weirdness (by Mike Clelland)

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

Ben Affleck: "Hollywood is full of CIA agents"

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

 

Discussing his new film Argo this week, Ben Affleck has stated that Hollywood is likely teeming with CIA operatives. In a video interview with the actor, The Guardian's Catherine Shoard asks: "Are there many actors in Hollywood who also moonlight as agents do you think?" At this point, Affleck sits forward in his chair and laughs uncomfortably. He replies: "I think there are probably quite a few, yes. I think probably Hollywood is full of CIA agents and we just don't know it. And I wouldn't be surprised at all to discover that this was extremely common."

Shoard then asks: "Are you CIA?" To which Affleck responds, with a strained smile: "I am yes."

Obligatory laughter then follows from Shoard as Affleck adds: "And now you've blown my cover, so there goes my career, so I hope the directing thing better work out."

Argo is the true story of a CIA mission to rescue six Americans holed up in the Canadian embassy in Tehran during the hostage crisis of 1979. Affleck, who directs and stars in the film, is no stranger to working with the CIA. In 2002, he starred in the big screen version of Tom Clancy’s TheSum of All Fears, whichdepicted the Agency as tracking down terrorists who detonate a nuclear weapon on US soil. For this movie, CIA director George Tenet gave Affleck a personal tour of the Agency’s Langley HQ. The actor also consulted with CIA analysts and worked closely with the Agency’s former Entertainment Liaison Chase Brandon, who served as the movie’s on-set advisor.

Affleck’s wife, Jennifer Garner, enjoyed an even cosier relationship with CIA as the star of the Agency-supported TV series Alias (2001 – 2006). Garner even starred unpaid in a CIA recruitment video in 2004.

Incidentally, Catherine Shoard, who conducted the interview with Affleck, was the Commissioning Editor of an article I co-authored in 2009 for The Guardian’s Film Blog examining DoD involvement in Hollywood’s UFO movies. The Guardian also published a major feature article by myself and Dr Matthew Alford in 2008 looking at CIA infiltration of Hollywood.

For the most up-to-date and comprehensive article yet published on CIA involvement in Hollywood, I highly recommend Matthew Alford’s new article co-authored with Professor Tricia Jenkins, which appears in the June 2012 issue of Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies. Read it HERE.

Related:

Ben Affleck, Rwanda, and Corporate Sustained Catastrophe

‘They Live’... again! Cult alien invasion movie to be rebooted, de-radicalized

By Robbie Graham and Matthew Alford

Silver Screen Saucers

They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They Live!

John Carpenter’s cult classic They Live is headed for special edition Blu-ray and DVD this November. The announcement comes amidst ongoing speculation that the movie is to be remade -- or rather rebooted -- in the near future by Cloverfielddirector Matt Reeves.

Based on Ray Nelson's 1963 short story Eight O'Clock in the Morning, Carpenter’s 1988 movie depicted a blue collar drifter (played by Roddy Piper) who finds a pair of sunglasses that allows him to see the stark reality of corporate America, where shops are covered with subliminal signs that say “Submit,” “Stay Asleep,” and “Do Not Question Authority.” The world is being secretly run in this Orwellian fashion by invading aliens who are allied with the US establishment -- the human elite having been promised tickets off-planet when Doomsday arrives.

Carpenter pulled no punches in describing the film's politics. “I looked at the country and thought we were in really deep trouble. This seems like fascism to me, the rise of the fundamentalist right and the kind of mind control they're putting out, the kind of presidency Reagan has had. We haven't got a chance.” 

Unfortunately for Carpenter, his film’s searing vision may have been a key contributing factor in its undoing at the box-office. They Live was pulled just two weeks after its November 4th, 1988 release date. While Carpenter blamed audiences who “don't want to be enlightened,” co-star Keith David had a more conspiratorial take on the film’s failure: “not that anybody’s being paranoid,” said David, “but it was interesting that They Live was number one at the box office... and suddenly you couldn’t see it anywhere -- it was, like, snatched.” 

They Liveopened at number one at the US box office and easily made its $4m investment back over its first weekend. By the second weekend, it had dropped to fourth place but still made $2.7m. It also received good reviews, with the notable exceptions of the two newspapers at the very centre of power -- the New York Times and the Washington Post.  

It’s easy to see why Keith David was suspicious of higher level involvement. As part of the film’s marketing campaign, the distributor, Universal Pictures, published an advert that showed a skeletal alien standing behind a podium in suit and tie, with a mop of hair strangely similar to that of the Vice President-elect of the United States -- the much maligned Dan Quayle -- who Carpenter elsewhere called “a prototype: mindless.” The ad was headlined: '”I know human beings. Human beings are friends of mine. You sir, are no human being!'” The Presidential election had taken place just a few days prior on November 8th prompting one major US paper to comment: “If the new administration is starting a list of enemies, Carpenter may have put himself at the head of the line.”

Regardless of the circumstances of They Live’s abrupt termination, it is clear that it was way out in the blue yonder politically, leaving it exposed and defenceless. Sponsors were unwilling to provide product placement, including Rolex, who Carpenter had asked to be associated with the wrist watch used by the aliens as a two-way radio. “We tried to use real advertisements; I wish I could get a little of that,” Carpenter said, “but it's a film that's anti-advertising; no one wanted to give their permission.”

So, will Matt Reeves’ rumoured upcoming They Live reboot face similar obstacles? Unlikely, as the director seems to be opting for a de-radicalized take on his source material, telling Deadline:

“I saw an opportunity to do a movie that was very point-of-view driven, a psychological science fiction thriller that explores this guy’s nightmare… Carpenter took a satirical view of the material and the larger political implication that we’re being controlled. I am very drawn to the emotional side, the nightmare experience with the paranoia ofInvasion of the Body Snatchers or a Roman Polanski-style film.”

A disappointing approach, perhaps, but a logical one. If the radical politics of Carpenter’s original vision struggled to breathe in the corporate Hollywood of yesteryear, today they wouldn’t stand a chance.

They Live Special Edition arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on November 6. For details, see here.

‘The Cryptos Conundrum’ review: spies, lies, and veiled threats

Silver Screen Saucers

Guest Review
By Shepherd Johnson

I've read The Cryptos Conundrum, it makes L. Ron Hubbard look like Hemingway; it really is that bad. The book glorifies the CIA. It's very tedious. Chase Brandon goes into a history of the CIA against a backdrop of alien visitation with some New Age theosophy thrown in. He also crams just about every conspiracy theory he can think of into the book: JFK assassination, Loch Ness Monster, the mystery of how the pyramids were built, etc. The book is clearly a public relations effort used to promote the CIA while exploiting the popularity of UFOs and aliens.

This is the first time the CIA has overtly expanded into using literature as a propaganda tool. Note that I said "overtly". Of course the CIA has acknowledged that they have cooperated with some movie productions, but this is the first time for a book. On the first page there is a disclaimer saying that the book was submitted to the CIA's review board so no classified information was leaked to the public. The CIA often does this when former employees write books, but in this instance, this is clearly a ploy to make the book more mysterious. Of course the CIA probably did review the book, but this is what is known as a limited hangout, which is essentially hiding the truth in a wrapper of lies. 

Chase Brandon

Of course there is no classified information leaked in the book, but the CIA and Brandon want people to think that there is a possibility that there could have been. It is interesting that Brandon chose Coast to Coast AM to launch his book promotion. So that says that the target audience is the conspiracy/UFO community. Chase Brandon was the CIA's Hollywood liaison officer. That meant that when a TV/movie production company wanted to shoot a scene in the lobby of CIA HQ they had to go through him and if a production company wanted CIA cooperation in return the CIA expected input into the script, production, etc. I'm willing to bet that this book has already been optioned for a movie, probably before the ink was dry on the last chapter. Chase Brandon is a CIA propagandist; any foray that such a person might take into the public sphere should always be looked at with suspicion.

Note from Silver Screen Saucers Editor Robbie Graham:

Brandon's fictional book -- which he has repeatedly insisted should be read “between the lines” because, he says, it contains a great deal of “truth” -- features a fleeting but intriguing sub-plot about a nosey journalist who begins investigating the activities of the book's protagonist, Chalmers (clearly modelled on Chase Brandon himself). The journalist is intent on blowing the lid off a conspiracy involving Chalmers. In his book, Brandon writes that the journalist “had run across the name of Jonathan Chalmers, a ‘senior government official’ who seemed to be a thread of continuity throughout whatever mysterious activity the federal government and the CIA seemed to be up to.”

Chalmers doesn't take kindly to the journalist's snooping and duly arranges to have him assassinated.

The name of the journalist... "Robert Graham".

Alford (left) and Graham (right)

My colleague Dr Matthew Alford and I are among only a very small handful of writers in the world to have published articles about Brandon since he left the Agency’s Entertainment Liaison Office in 2007. In 2008, we co-authored a major article on CIA involvement in Hollywood for The Guardian newspaper. The feature -- which was published as a cover story for the paper’s “Arts” section and which is now one of the most widely read articles of its kind on the Internet (Google “CIA and Hollywood”) -- discussed Brandon’s ties to the Hollywood screenwriter Gary Devore, who disappeared in suspicious circumstances in 1997. In 2010, we wrote another cover story, this time for Fortean Times magazine and with a much tighter focus on Brandon. That same year, we co-presented our research into Brandon at the University of Westminster at the Fortean Unconvention. We also spoke about him on BBC radio’s Movie Cafe show.

Brandon suggests that people read his book “between the lines”. Well, reading between the lines, it seems a certain former CIA operative is a little peeved at a certain British writer or writers. Anyway, moving on...

In addition to the above book review, Shepherd Johnson has also drawn my attention to a related photo essay he compiled in 2009, the subject of which is the CIA’s Camp Peary, “which figures prominently in Chase Brandon's book,” says Shepherd, “only he calls it “Camp McLeary” and locates it in “Virginia's Tidewater Peninsula area” and near Williamsburg, Va.”

Shepherd notes that “this is the actual location of the CIA's trade-craft school which he [Brandon] reveals in the book. The CIA uses the cover of the Defense Department and the site is officially called "Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity”. It's the site of the “underground Area 51” in the book [The Cryptos Conundrum] where they have taken the dead aliens.” 

I have posted three of Shepherd’s Camp Peary photos below. For the full photo essay, see here.

Shepherd Johnson's articles and photographs have appeared on various websites including, CBS News, Coast to Coast AM, Prison Planet and Cryptome. Print articles include Fate Magazine. Living in Virginia in close proximity to Washington D.C., he has covered many issues involving politics and national security. He is currently researching the various aspects of the U.S. government's involvement with UFOs.

‘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...

Lights, Camera… Disclosure?

By Bryce Zabel

Silver Screen Saucers Consulting Editor

Exclusive to Silver Screen Saucers from material originally published in A.D. After Disclosure.

___________________________________________

Some UFO researchers believe that the entertainment industry is part of the effort to acclimate the public to accept the concept of alien life. Hollywood, it has been argued, has collaborated with the intelligence community to release disinformation, and at other times leak a few details to prepare people for eventual contact with non-human life.

Certainly several 1950s movies look like CIA-sponsored attempts to deal with Roswell. Researcher Bruce Rux cited 1951’s The Thing from Another World, considered to be the first realistic flying saucer movie, which reflected certain elements of the crash and recovery at Roswell four years earlier. The film’s maker, RKO, was up to its eyeballs in intelligence assets. It was owned by billionaire defense contractor and test pilot Howard Hughes, plus it was a subsidiary of Time-Life, which was owned by CIA-connected Henry Luce. The movie also captured the essence of the Top Secret government study, Project Twinkle, which was then classified.

Some of the other movies of the era look suggestive, also. Several key industry players had connections to military intelligence and later the CIA.

On set: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Edmund H. North, the screenwriter of the 1951 UFO film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, had worked in the Army Signal Corps during the Second World War. It would seem that the secret-keepers wanted to float some trial balloons before the public, and that Hollywood producers were happy to oblige.

If so, their message seems unclear. Although The Day the Earth Stood Still demonstrated alien tough-love, many other movies from this period were invasion-oriented. They included Earth Versus the Flying Saucers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The War of the Worlds. Were these also examples of CIA influence? And were they the result of official policy, or some unauthorized leak?

If there is continued intelligence community influence amid the out- pouring of ET-related movies today, it is even harder to know what the message is.

Spielberg and E.T., 1982

Consider the career of Steven Spielberg. When he developed Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977, some wondered if he was part of a government acclimation program. Spielberg has always denied this, saying that he simply believes in extraterrestrial life and knows a good story when he sees one. Although such a denial is to be expected, Spielberg’s choices in this genre support his position. His films have hardly been limited to a monochromatic meme about contact, something one might expect if he were receiving inside information. His early films, such as Close Encountersand E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, both portrayed the Others as benevolent scientists. His later treatments, however, showed no such optimism. Taken, his epic television series, depicted abductions as the core UFO secret, The War of the Worldspresented Martian predators wiping out humanity, and his television series Falling Skies featured the resistance against an alien invasion of Earth. Spielberg has also been behind such diverse projects as Men in Black, featuring Earth as a cosmic way-station, the historical fantasy Cowboys and Aliens, and Transformers, with its robotic threat. The easiest explanation for this extraordinary diversity of treatment is that Steven Spielberg, like other people, reads the literature.

The same can be said for the rest of Hollywood. During the 1990s, TV series such as The X-Files (“The Truth Is Out There”) and the historical conspiracy Dark Skies(“History Is a Lie”) portrayed the government as involved in a UFO cover-up and willing to go to almost any lengths, often extra-legal, to maintain the secret. Both were subject to much speculation, usually either as a means to prepare the population, or else to provide disinformation.

Yet, why would the covert elite authorize dramatic content highlighting their own lies and deceit? If anything, Hollywood’s natural method of operation may work in opposition to Disclosure. Its product is of such uneven quality, its messages so diverse, that any citizen hungering for its truth will receive only confusion.

If the Breakaway Group indeed had been using Hollywood as a means either to prepare the public for the eventual truth, or else to obfuscate and bury the truth still deeper, the moment of Disclosure will have caught them off guard, as it will have caught everyone else.

Bryce Zabel is co-author with Richard Dolan of A.D. After Disclosure: When the Government Finally Reveals the Truth About Alien Contact, which will be published in May 2012 by Career Press New Page Books of New York.

A.D. After Disclosure is available for pre-order at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.  Join the A.D.discussion at AfterDisclosure.com and on Facebook.

The Good Guys Dress in Black, Remember That: How Movies and Music Rewrote MIB Lore

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Exclusive artwork courtesy of David Sankey

The line between documented UFOlogical fact and speculative pop-cultural fiction has always been blurry, but it disappeared in spectacular fashion back in 1997 with the release of the hugely successful Men in Black. As any student of the UFO subject knows, civilian encounters with the enigmatic ‘MIBs’ have been documented for decades in relation to mysterious aerial objects, and those who have been unfortunate enough to attract the attention of these black-clad mystery-men typically describe them as creepy, imposing and outright threatening in their behaviour. But Steven Spielberg’s big-budget production (based on the comic book by Lowell Cunningham) re-spun MIB-lore in favour of the Men in Black themselves and of government secrecy surrounding the UFO phenomenon. It was a message encapsulated by Will Smith’s Grammy Award-winning title rap for the movie’s soundtrack:

The good guys dress in black, remember that

Just in case we ever face to face and make contact...

We’re your first, last and only line of defense

Against the worst scum of the universe

So don’t fear us, cheer us

If you ever get near us, don’t jeer us

We’re fearless...

Let me tell you this in closin'
I know we might seem imposin'
But trust me, if we ever show in your section
Believe me, it's for your own protection
Cuz we see things that you need not see
And we be places that you need not be
So go with your life, forget that Roswell crap
Show love to the black suit, cuz
That's the Men in
That's the Men in...

And, well, you know the rest.

In the minds of the many unfamiliar with UFOlogy, Men in Black would now and forever be associated exclusively with a movie and a song of the same name – with science fiction cinema (and Will Smith) rather than reported historical encounters. Moreover, MIBs went from being sinister witness-harassers to heroic “galaxy-defenders.” Such is the power of entertainment.

This power that entertainment – particularly cinema – wields over our perceptions of complex political issues was something legendary 20th Century Fox Production Chief Darryl Zanuck understood with crystal clarity. In 1943, while serving with the Army Signal Corps, Zanuck said: “If you have something worthwhile to say, dress it up in the glittering robes of entertainment and you will find a ready market... Without entertainment, no propaganda film is worth a dime.”

The Men in Black franchise may not be movie propaganda in the traditional sense (in that it was not pushed into production by the state for political ends), but it serves the UFO-related interests of the national security state nonetheless in its presentation of a just cover-up of extraterrestrial visitation orchestrated by a covert, yet entirely righteous organisation that, by necessity, operates without legal oversight for the good of all mankind.

If the time ever comes when Disclosure is forced upon the US government and the President is called upon by his citizens to justify the UFO secrecy that has metastasised for over sixty years behind the most impenetrable layers of America’s national security state, he need not prepare an elaborate speech, but say, quite simply: “Go watch Men in Black.”