Encounters

This is a well made documentary but the topic was not taken seriously enough for me. It might be intentional but not sure, maybe the director and producers aren't believers. What could have been two steps forward for disclosure and understanding just ended up being one step forward, then two steps backward. The pacing was okay but slowed in the final segment. I was entertained but as a believer that we have 'someone' with us from somewhere else, this was a let down. Hopefully any future documentaries will focus on the UAP phenomenon and not muddy the waters with offshoots of people with alternative thoughts and theories that can't at this time be corroborated.

This documentary explores cases of UFO sightings in different places on earth, from giant noiseless orbs of light seen by over 300 residents of Stephenville Texas in 2008 to a spaceship and big-eyed man-in-black seen by 62 students of Ariel School outside Ruwa Zimbabwe in 1994, spaceships and tall long-armed men seen by residents of Broad Haven Wales in 1977 and lights seen over the Fukushima Power Plant after the nuclear accident in 2011.

Featuring interviews of witnesses including those conducted by psychiatrist John Mack of Harvard University who risked his career and reputation when he made sure the schoolchildren of Ariel School were heard, this series also airs dissenting views about the Ariel School sightings.

The opposing stand of one student from Ariel School is like a splash of cold water over the whole incident because it makes sense. As much as I would like to believe the professed UFO sightings by the other students, I can't ignore the fact that children tend to have overactive imagination. The same argument holds for the UFO sightings of school children in Broad Haven.

The Stephenville Texas sightings are the most credible as they are backed by radar data. And I like to believe the Japanese witnesses of the lights over Fukushima Power Plant who think that the lights reduced the severity of the damage and were generated by non-humans who are watching over us and cleaning after our mess.

I'm sure people saw something they can not explain, but that's the only relevation. One guy talking about knowing and having encoubters at night in his bed, clearing describing sleep paralysis. People are suggestible and have very different interpretations of unusual events and novel experiences. Unexplained doesn't necessarily mean extraterrestrial. This series tilts toward conspiracy and apocalypse cultures merging, and a subtle anti or post scientific pov. People are reaching for connection and creating these hybrid belief structures to replace what they have lost in traditional belief structures. Poignant, credulous revelations from real people and one or two skeptics or experts per episode to make it all 'fair and balanced'. Considering who some of the creative and productive crew are, you might think the final product would be better, but in the end it's just a more refined version of the traditional unexplained phenomenon media presentation that H. G Wells and Orson Welles proved was possible.

After seeing several reviews about how the first episode is just about a few possibly crazy people seeing lights in the sky with no evidence, I actually had to check and make sure this was the same show I watched. The "few crazy people" were actually 100s of witnesses, including prominent members of the community who risked their jobs and reputation by going on record. And after the military said there was nothing on the radar but refused to release the data, a reporter still obtained it through FOIA -- and it corroborated exactly what the witnesses described. Obviously this doesn't mean it was aliens...but it was SOMETHING, and that's compelling enough for me.

The filming and storytelling are really great as well. It definitely had me hooked, and doing some Googling later. I'm not sure where such negative reviews are coming from on here, though. Unless they were expecting the filmmakers to interview an actual alien or something...

When you start your documentary or documentary series about UFOs, or anything else really, with a religious fanatic, your credibility is almost immediately shot by most critically thinking individuals. One could argue that critically thinking people wouldn't watch a show like this, anyway, but that's not true. We are always looking for evidence. Expecting someone who believes in an invisible man of the sky is not the way to present it. This series doesn't really present anything else, either. If you are interested UFO phenomena, then watch it at least for that. Just don't expect anything new or evidentiary.