******SAUCER-SHAPED SPOILERS!******

Growing up in the 1970s, UFOs (as they were called then) were wildly popular. I watched alien visitation/invasion movies, such as “The War of the Worlds” (1953), “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers” (1956), and “Invaders from Mars” (1953)–that last one really scared the hell out of me watching it alone on late-night TV at eight or nine years old. I remember even innocuous sitcoms like “The Brady Bunch” had a UFO episode. I also remember many tales of alleged UFO connections in popular media of the time, such as author Erich von Däniken’s book “Chariots of the Gods?” with its theories that every ancient mural, pyramid, or artifact had some link with “ancient astronauts,” aka aliens. Even in my early teens, those kinds of books began to read more and more like wildly speculative, sensationalist drivel.

Not long afterward, director Steven Spielberg would create the “JAWS” of UFO movies with 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” which I was fortunate enough to have caught in first release at the grand Egyptian Theatre (now American Cinemateque) in Hollywood. For sheer cinematic awe, CE3K was, like George Lucas’ “Star Wars,” a game changer. But fictional fantasies, no matter how awe-inspiring, weren’t enough. My curiosity compelled me to look beyond the tangled, New Age morass of popular UFO lore toward more grounded and scientific observations. When I was around 13 or so, my dad bought a 3″ refractor telescope for the family, which was soon supplanted by a 4.5″ reflector telescope. Seeing the elegant rings of Saturn (which almost appeared animated), with my own eyes gave me an immediate feeling of connectedness to the universe. Not in a religious or metaphorical sense, but in a literal one.

Betty and Barney Hill

I used to watch a lot of movies and TV that were well beyond my age demographic in those days, and in 1975, director Richard Colla (1978’s “Battlestar Galactica”) directed a little-seen NBC TV-movie called “The UFO Incident,” which starred the late James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons as real-life married couple Barney and Betty Hill, who claimed to have been abducted by alien beings on a remote back road in September of 1961, during a long drive home to New Hampshire after a vacation in Montreal. The film was based on a book called “The Interrupted Journey,” by John G. Fuller, which included verbatim transcriptions of Hills’ hypnosis sessions with Dr. Benjamin Simon, a prominent Boston-based psychiatrist who claimed to be a skeptic of UFOs.

I was only nine when I first saw the film, but I found the lead actors riveting. Their performances were so raw and vanity-free that they were downright uncomfortable to watch. Based on their performances alone, I found myself believing the Hills’ account of their abduction, since the actors really sold it. I would credit this movie as the first time I took UFO lore seriously. However… did I mention I was only nine years old at the time? A few months ago, I had an hour or so to kill before an appointment in a nearby city, so I spent it at a local Barnes & Noble bookstore. Some 50 years after I first watched “The UFO Incident” on TV as a kid, I stumbled across a copy of its source book, “The Interrupted Journey,” which was featured prominently on a display next to the New Age section–along with astrology, astral projection and pyramid power. Not exactly my forte. Anyway, I was curious, so I bought it, and read it cover to cover over a few days.

Turns out, the surprisingly faithful TV-movie version was almost a verbatim reading from the Hills’ hypnosis tapes. In both the book and the movie, Dr. Simon brings up the matter of skin color, since Betty and Barney were an interracial couple. My own take after reading the book is that their ‘abduction’ was perhaps a safe architecture unwittingly created by the couple to mask a possible, unspeakable hate crime. Interracial couples in the United States of that time often faced such ugliness. For clarity, I don’t pretend to know exactly what happened to the Hills, but in the book and in the movie, there’s a case to be made for a possible hate crime (and perhaps sexual assault) that became concealed by fanciful ‘aliens’ on a benign mission of exploration. It was known that Betty Hill was a believer in UFOs prior to the alleged encounter, since her sister Kathy claimed to have seen one several years earlier, so alien abduction may have been a safer fantasy architecture for her subconscious to draw from. Whatever actually happened, both the book its TV-movie are, as I stated in a review five years ago, “an impeccable account of an implausible tale.” Personally, I believe the Hills believed they were abducted, so perhaps that’s all that matters. We are, after all, the sum totals of our perceived experiences.

Planet Hollywood

One of the most surprisingly forward-thinking depictions of alien life, albeit for a monster movie, was “The Blob” from 1958, which depicted an amorphous, gelatinous alien mass falling to Earth from a meteor that grows in size as it consumes the population of a small town. Beyond the Blob, most depictions of aliens in pop culture have been surprisingly conservative in Hollywood movies and TV shows. Very often, they’re bipeds with two arms, two legs, two eyes, nostrils, a mouth, etc. Maybe that’s because Central Casting generally requires that aliens be played by human actors in suits and makeup. Until recently, even aliens played by animatronics and puppets have looked very familiar, despite the overwhelming odds against humanoids evolving independently in a different ecosystem on another planet in another star system. To paraphrase the late Carl Sagan, we would have more in common genetically with a tree than we would a visitor who evolved on another planet. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if our actual “first contact” had more in common with the Blob than a pointy-eared Vulcan. Sorry, Star Trek…

The aliens we see in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (CE3K) were a combination of young girls in bodysuits and headpieces supplemented with two animatronic puppets designed and built by Carlo Rambaldi. The first alien to exit the mothership is tall and spindly, and is heavily backlit. It’s skin appears translucent, and we see what appears to be internal organs as it greets the Earthlings with wide open arms before suddenly vanishing inexplicably. After the tall alien disappears, we see waves of smaller, gray aliens with bulbous heads and long fingers. These aliens were played by little girls from a local dance class. As the ‘dancer’ aliens take their chosen human visitor (Richard Dreyfuss) aboard their ship, the last alien we see is an animatronic alien with blinking eyes, who smiles, and returns the five-note hand signals given to it by Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut).

One aspect I very much appreciated about the admittedly too-humanoid aliens seen in CE3K is that they have diversity within their own genome; as we see with the tall, spindly ‘ambassador,’ the long-fingered little girls, and the final wizened alien who communicates with Lacombe. I’ve seen one of the actual headpieces worn by one of the little ‘dancer-aliens’ at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, and up close, under optimal lighting, it’s very crude. It wouldn’t even make a decent Halloween mask, let alone a convincing alien in a big budget film, but director Spielberg and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond clearly understood how to light and shoot them. Both the animatronic aliens and the little girls in tights with bulbous headpieces aren’t entirely convincing, but strong backlighting and diffusing smoke hides most of their flaws.

Around 1978, not long after my young eyes and ears were still dazzled and ringing from the extraterrestrial light show and music fest that was Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” there was a TV show that caught my imagination called “Project UFO” (1978-1979), which ran for two seasons and starred William Caskey Swaim and William Jordan (Jordan was later replaced by Edward Winter) as US Air Force officers working for a fictionalized version of the USAF’s real-life Project Blue Book, which investigated alleged UFO sightings/encounters from 1947-1969. “Project UFO” was an unusual series, since it was presented as a no-nonsense, “Dragnet”-style investigative procedural. More times than not, the alleged UFOs on the show often turned out to be explainable phenomena, or even deliberate hoaxes. This was a surprisingly sober-minded series for the time, with only occasional indulgences. Sadly, “Project UFO” is only available now on low-quality YouTube playlists, or on out-of-print (i.e. expensive) physical media, via Amazon.

Note: Project Blue Book (1947-1969) was created in the wake of the alleged ‘UFO crash’ in Foster Ranch, roughly 75 miles northwest of Roswell, New Mexico in July of 1947. The incident was later revealed to be wreckage from the USAF Project Mogul, a then-classified series of high-altitude balloon (and rocket) flights used to discretely monitor Soviet nuclear testing before satellites made such tests obsolete. The flights were based out of the now-closed Walker Air Force Base, near Roswell. Some believe the ‘alien corpses’ allegedly recovered at the site were, in fact, decompressed chimps used to test high altitude stresses on living beings. At any rate, the City of Roswell–far west of the actual crash site–has made a cottage industry out of being a UFO capital.

Steven Spielberg would further explore aliens with 1982’s “E.T.”; a smaller, more intimate spiritual successor to its epic predecessor, and it became one of the most successful movies of all time. Personally, I’m a bit more lukewarm to “E.T.” than others of my generation, but the movie evolves Carlo Rambaldi’s alien animatronics to the next level, and they better stand up to visual scrutiny. For mobile shots, ET was also played by a 12-year old actor (Matthew DeMeritt) in a suit. With its big blue eyes, expressive face, long fingers and almost nonexistent legs, it’s not impossible to imagine this creature hailing from the same inclusive genome as the aliens seen in CE3K. Like those aliens (and we humans), ET breathes oxygen, communicates orally, and is easily mobile within Earth’s gravity. Even if ET evolved on another planet or moon within our own solar system, it’s unlikely he’d survive on our planet without protection, let alone live comfortably in the suburbs. He doesn’t even wear a breathing mask…

The 1990s saw the benevolent aliens of CE3K and “E.T.” take a darker, more paranoid turn in TV’s “The X-Files,” which ran from 1993-2002, with two movies (1998/2008) and two short seasons in 2016 and 2018. The series followed FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) as they investigated standalone monster mysteries (à la “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”) as well as an ongoing conspiracy of colonizing aliens in league with a shadowy government cabal. Speaking as a former fan, I used to be nuts about this show, and watched it faithfully through its first five seasons. However, after 1998’s “The X-Files: Fight the Future,” my interest began to wane. The few times I tried getting back into it, the mythology had grown too dense, and I simply gave up. “The X-Files” featured several kinds of extraterrestrials, including some standard issue-grays, as well as some mysterious shapeshifters. There was also a creepy, black oil alien virus known as ‘Purity,’ which was more in keeping with the truly alien and amorphous “Blob” mentioned earlier. “The X-Files” deserves kudos for its multifarious alien species.

Written by Dean Devlin and directed by cowriter Roland Emmerich, 1996’s “Independence Day” combines the global, devastating spectacle of “War of the Worlds” with the shadowy conspiracies of “The X-Files” wrapped in the blockbusting, crowdpleaser trappings of popular 1970s disaster films, such as “Earthquake” and “The Towering Inferno.” The movie features an all-star cast, including Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith, Mary McDonnell, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch and Brent Spiner from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The aliens of this film aren’t very well developed, looking like hybrids of the Martians from “War of the Worlds” with a touch of the xenomorph from “ALIEN.” These unnamed alien invaders seek to conquer Earth for its real estate, drain it dry, and move on to the next habitable planet. They’re like locusts, as described by Bill Bullman’s President Thomas Whitmore. That these aliens can survive and thrive in our ecosphere actually makes sense for this movie, since they came to Earth for the express purpose of colonization.

Based on the 1985 book by Carl Sagan, 1997’s “Contact” features Jodie Foster as radio astronomer Ellie Arroway, whose tenacity for scanning the skies pays off, as aliens broadcast a complex signal from the star Vega with schematics to build a pod that will allow a single human passenger (unlike the book’s five) to access a wormhole network for a human-alien summit. Addressing the incredible distances that quarantine us from our neighboring stars, this network of wormholes doesn’t quite defy real world physics, though it provides enough wiggle room to tell an engrossing story. Like the mysterious monolith-making aliens of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” we never actually see the true appearance of the alien that Ellie meets on her journey, as it assumes the form of her late father (David Morse) to make things “easier” for her. The ending throws in a bit of “X-Files”-style ambiguity, suggesting Ellie’s voyage may have been a hallucination she experienced shortly after launch. However one interprets the ending, “Contact” is one of the best sci-fi films of the 1990s, and offers the most likely ‘first contact’ scenario between intelligent aliens and landlocked humans–via radio emissions or old analog TV signals, which have far greater reach than spaceships.

Based on the 2021 novel by Andy Weir, 2026’s “Project Hail Mary” features the most inventive and detailed alien physiology I’ve yet seen in a movie. PHM sees middle-school teacher turned reluctant astronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) shanghaied for a dangerous interstellar voyage to the star Tau Ceti to solve the mystery of “astrophage,” a deadly disease that’s causing a dangerous dimming of all stars in our local group, save for Tau Ceti. Attempting to solve the riddle and send a possible cure to Earth, Grace finds he’s not alone. Enter “Rocky” (James Ortiz), a native of the 40 Eridani trinary star system, who’s also arrived at Tau Ceti to find a cure for astrophage and save his species. Through a series of gestures, symbols, computers, and airlocks to retain their respective atmospheres and temperatures, Grace and Rocky learn to communicate, and soon form the first friendship between a human and an Eridian. Rocky was born on a hot, eternally dark, cloud-shrouded world with an ammonia atmosphere and heavier gravity. Rocky’s species evolved a hard outer carapace with five spider-like limbs and no sight organs. For sight, Rocky uses an acoustical, sonar-based ‘vision’ that is far more sensitive than human hearing. The intelligent, resourceful Rocky has an appearance and physiology as far removed from humans as is possible from a book and movie produced by humans. Kudos, Andy Weir.

UFOs/UAPs in the News Again

Steering back from aliens to the UFO side of things, UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) have recently been renamed as UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) in news media. Personally, I find ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ too vague; it implicitly adds ball lightning, swamp gas, and other bizarre weather formations into the mix, too. Let’s be honest; when we think of UFOs/UAP, we tend to think of solid objects. Not necessarily alien spacecraft, but possible drones, spy planes, falling meteors or other objects, so I prefer the cozy acronym of UFOs.

With that, UFOs have recently become popular again, thanks to the release of the United States’ National Archives on UAPs. Frankly, many of the photos and information released in this latest National Archives dump have been released before, so this is more a refresh than a reveal. It also feels carefully timed to take attention off more pressing matters within the United States, such as new wars, rising costs of living, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and an increasingly alarming consolidation of executive power. Looking at these latest images, all I see are lots of grainy, barely-visible, black & white images supposedly gleaned from modern US Navy fighter jet cameras and other sources. Most of the ‘objects’ that seem to move at physics-defying speeds can be explained away as a parallax effect; an optical illusion where stationary objects seem to move at impossible speeds because the observing camera itself is actually moving (all motion being relative).

Despite living in an age where just about everybody carries a high-definition movie camera in their pocket or handbag, no one seems able to capture a definitive, irrefutable image of a UFO, let alone an alien. Neil deGrasse Tyson once half-jokingly suggested they just stick a modern iPhone camera on US Navy fighters to get better quality images. At least those images would be in color, and not black & white. Hell, my old iPhone has captured images of rocket launches from an Air Force Base over 200 miles from my house. These alleged UFO/UAP photos from the National Archives are nothing but a distraction. Moving on…

My Own Two Bits

Admittedly, I lack the optimism for extraterrestrial first contact I once had as a kid, because adult-me is too keenly aware of the tremendous distance between even the local stars in our neighborhood of the galaxy. It simply doesn’t make sense to send living beings across light-years of interstellar space just to play tag with the US Navy, or to catch-and-release a married couple on vacation. With that level of technology, remote observation of Earth would be far safer, just as we explore the outer solar system and beyond with robotic probes and space-based telescopes. And given the violent, warlike tendencies of this planet’s inhabitants, any alien visitors would be well advised to keep their hands and feet inside the saucer when passing Earth.

Perhaps the question is do I believe in alien life? I certainly believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, but I prefer to know, not believe. However, if one of the remote probes of our solar system finds even microbial life on Mars, Europa or Titan, it would mean that life independently evolved twice within the same star system–which automatically doubles the prospects for life throughout the universe. So yes, I believe in the possibility of life beyond Earth, but extraterrestrial intelligence is another matter. Would we even recognize true extraterrestrial intelligence? What if the dominant intelligence of another planet were ocean-dwellers, like the whales, dolphins and cephalopods of our own world? Have we accurately gauged intelligence within our own species? Does intelligence automatically carry the baggage of self-destruction? To borrow an Elton John song lyric, perhaps emergent intelligence is like “a candle in the wind,” giving off a rising light and warmth that is quickly self-extinguished.

Personally, I think if we ever discover true, irrefutable proof of intelligent life beyond Earth, the wisest course would be to leave it alone. Given the current state of political instability on our planet and the divisiveness within our own genome, we are not ready to make contact. If aliens are more advanced than we are, they’d recognize this for themselves–the same way sensible people would know better than to engage a dangerous wild animal in conversation. If they were less advanced, isolating them becomes all the more critical, since our very presence (given our current levels of destructiveness and intolerance) would inevitably cause harm.

Perhaps simply learning we are not alone in the universe might give humans the philosophical pause we need to get our act together. Maybe if we lose our naïveté of being Earth’s schoolyard bullies, we might be ready to accept and perhaps even embrace the varieties of life from another world.