Today the much-hyped film, “The Fourth Kind,” debuts in
theaters with a predictable poster of a pair of other-worldly eyes staring out.
Sci-fi film buffs will remember Steven Spielberg’s sappy 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” where flying saucers outfitted with disco lights buzz lone cars and farmhouses, and in a messianic ending aliens carry a few chosen people skyward in a “mothership” that looks more like a chandelier.
“The Fourth Kind” goes one step further and supposedly presents “real footage” clips from alleged alien abduction cases – the so-called “fourth kind” of encounter with extraterrestrials.
This film is structured as a “mockumenary,” and is being compared to the 1999 film “ The Blair Witch Project.” The Blair Witch has had many imitators including the hyper-hyped “Paranormal Activity” that debuted in theaters a few weeks ago as the deadliest boring horror film ever made.
The “Blair Witch” and “The Fourth Kind” deservedly should be joined at the hip. Ghosts and aliens go together like the early film comedians Laurel and Hardy. Both types of entities scare us: they sneak around at night, they stare at us with those creepy eyes, they often float though the air, their intent is mysterious, and they communicate telepathically.
In fact space aliens described in so-called abduction cases behave much like devils and other imaginary creatures that go back to antiquity. Based on this long history we must have a collective subconscious predilection to imagine such entities. This is especially true of the so-called Shadow Men phenomenon – black apparitions that are equally described at visiting ghosts or creepy aliens.
People were once burned as the stake for saying that they were cavorting with strange creatures (except on blind dates). Now we make them pop culture celebrities like the legendary Barney and Betty Hill UFO abduction case from the 1960s.
My favorite for its blue-collar chutzpa is the Travis Walton alien abduction as described in the book and film “Fire in the Sky.” If I could accept this tall-tale as true it would explain the Fermi Paradox – Why any self-respecting alien wouldn’t be caught dead within 100 light-years of our backwater planet.
Zillions of ghost stories tell us nothing about the prospects for life after death, and likewise UFO tall tales tell us absolutely nothing about life on other worlds. Zip, zilch, zero.
The “Fourth Kind” shows terrified patients who under hypnotic regression recount icky extraterrestrial encounters. The aliens could be arrested for molestation if you could handcuff one. The alarmed state of the patients in the trailer reportedly matches real-life reactions of people who believe they have been abducted by aliens.
The movie revolves around a series of real-life disappearances that took place in Nome, Alaska. Why aliens would go to Alaska to snatch humans is beyond me. With all due respect to the inhabitants of our 49th state, this is not a special place to start looking for the best and brightest of our species.
As Alaskan newspapers have pointed out, the FBI ruled that the disproportionate number of disappearances was likely due to excessive alcohol consumption and the harsh winters. Now if I apply Occam’s Razor – that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed to explain a mystery – then the drunk Alaskans argument wins.
Even more fantastic is the absurd idea that aliens are smart enough to accomplish interstellar travel but have an uncomfortably carnal curiosity about Earth biology. Why should they even care? Do they want to raise us as pets on their home planet and see if we can be housebroken?
Tags: Alien Life, Science Fiction, Skepticism, Space People
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