Archive for December, 2007
December 25, 2007 - 7:12 pm - Posted by Administrator
On October 24th, 1968, a UFO was reported in the vicinity of Minot Air Force Base in northwestern North Dakota. It is one of the most well-documented unexplained UFO sightings. The sighting is unique in that the object was seen by witnesses on the ground and in the air, many of whom were military personnel trained in the art of observation and surveillance.
The 1968 Minot UFO sighting has also been the subject of numerous investigations and TV shows, including the US Air Force’ Project Blue Book and the special report by the late Peter Jennings entitled “UFOs: Seeing is Believing”.
In the sixties, North Dakota was on the front line of the Cold War standoff between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The state was home to two of the nation’s largest Air Force bases, numerous early warning radar stations, and hundreds of Minuteman missile silos.
About 2:30 am, Airman First Class Mike O’Connor was dispatched to check on a perimeter alarm which had been triggered at a missile silo several miles from his station. As he drove his navy blue Air Force pickup down the empty North Dakota highway, O’Connor noticed a bright light in a field. O’Connor has said he first believed it to be a bright yard or house light from a nearby farm.
Upon realizing that the light was not a house or yard light, O’Connor reported the sighting. The object lifted off the ground and paralleled the truck until it arrived at the silo. O’Connor reported the object “just hovered there”. Staff Sergeant Bill Smith also reported the object.
The Minot control tower then asked an already airborne B-52 bomber to do a flyby and take a look. When co-pilot Captain Brad Runyon asked what they were looking for, the tower responded “You’ll know it if you find it.”
At 3:35, the controller asked, “And JAG 31 on your way out to the WT fix request you look out toward your one o’clock position for the next fifteen miles and see if you see any orange glows out there?
Jag 31: “Roger, roger glows 31.”
Control Tower: “Someone is seeing UFOs again.”
Jag 31: “Roger I see a…….. (Transmission lost)
3:52 am, Control Tower: “Three one, the UFO is being picked up by weather’s radar also. Should be at your one o’clock position three miles now”
The pilot said, “We have nothing on our airborne radar and I’m in some pretty thick haze now and unable to see out that way.”
For several minutes thereafter, the B-52 experienced communication problems and was out of radio communication with the tower.
Captain Patrick McCaslin was the B-52’s navigator that night. He painted the object on radar and got a return from a large object, about three miles off the plane’s right wing. It appeared to be flying in formation with the bomber. McCaslin has said he witnessed the object “backing off” the bomber, allowing the B-52 to “turn inside of it”.
The object disappeared from radar and the bomber turned back in an attempt to re-acquire it. Co-pilot Runyon soon saw it, apparently hovering just above the ground. The bomber circled the object. Captain Runyon reported the object was 200 feet wide and hundreds of feet long. He described it as being a metallic cylinder attached to a large crescent moon shaped section. In the Peter Jennings special report “UFOs: Seeing is Believing”, Captain Runyon said after several minutes of observation he was fairly sure he was looking at “an alien spaceship”. Something not manmade.
The B-52 was eventually able to re-establish communication with the tower.
4:02, Jag 31: “Our UFO was off to our left side when we started penetration.”
Tower: “Roger, understand you did see something on your left side?”
Jag 31: “We had a radar return at about a mile and a quarter, at nine o’clock position for about the time we left 200 to 14…”
Tower: “Affirmative. I was wondering how far out did you see that UFO?”
Jag 31: “He was about one and a half miles off our left wing at 35 miles when we started in and stayed with us ’til about 10.”
Tower: “I wonder if that could have been your radio troubles?”
Jag 31: “I don’t know…. But that’s exactly when they started.”
4:13 am, Tower: “Jag 31 are you observing any more UFOs?”
Jag 31: “Negative on radar. We can’t see anything visually.”
Tower: “JAG 31, request you have someone report to base ops after you land.”
It has been reported that while the B-52 was circling the object as it hovered just above the ground, an alarm was triggered at a nearby missile silo. Both the outer and inner perimeter alarms were triggered, and the security officer who investigated found the outer gate open, and the inner combination lock had been tampered with. Although this incident has been related on numerous UFO websites and in books on the subject, I have been unable to confirm it’s veracity.
The circumstances of this sighting, which would eventually become Project Blue Book case #12548, are fairly unique and contribute to the credibility of the sighting. The object was seen both on the ground and in the air. The object was seen by witnesses (sixteen in addition to the B-52 crew) who were on the ground and in the air. Most of the witnesses were not in contact with each other at the time of the sighting. The witnesses were scattered about the area, and viewed the object from different directions. Some were north of the object, and saw it to the south. Others saw it to their north. The B-52 circled the object and observed it from all angles. The object was picked up by multiple radars.
All of these factors would seem to indicate the witnesses were seeing an actual object, and not experiencing an optical illusion which is more common in cases where an object is observed by witnesses in the same location. Project Blue Book attempted to conclude the airmen simply saw the star “Vega” and mistook it for a UFO. Clearly that cannot be the case since a B-52 bomber isn’t capable of circling Vega and viewing it from the other side.
Posted in reality scifi | No Comments »
December 18, 2007 - 2:07 am - Posted by Administrator
A Sound of Thunder is a classic Ray Bradbury story, a tale of time travel and the dangers of corporate greed. Although the film came out in 2005, many movie fans are unaware of it. It made few waves at the box office, and when I asked my sci-fi friend Rat if he’d seen it, he said he hadn’t. I mean, that’s almost scientific. This movie is underground.
Actually, A Sound of Thunder is a Peter Hyams movie, and although I’m a big fan of some of his films [Outland - 1981, The Relic - 1997], this one is not his best.
Edward Burns stars as Travis Ryer, a scientist working for Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley), the CEO of “Time Safari”. Together, they take big-dollar clients on safaris to hunt dinosaurs, all the while being careful to “stay on the path”–a path which they must not step off lest they alter the past, and possibly the present. When something goes wrong, a client accidentally alters the past, and soon time waves are rippling through the present as the world changes in terrifying and unexpected ways. And this is where the movie starts to dissolve into a mess.
A Sound of Thunder tries too hard to be all things to all people, which comes as no surprise considering the screenplay was written by three people. It’s a science fiction time travel film. It’s a dinosaur movie. It’s a monster movie. And the hardest thing to take… it’s a CGI-heavy vision of the year 2055, and in places, the computer effects are almost too good. There are several scenes early in the movie where characters are having discussion outside on the sidewalk, and the computer-generated traffic going by in the background is so distracting that I couldn’t pay attention to the dialogue. The lighting is too good, the cars are too clean, and the traffic noise is too quiet. Plus there are little continuity errors that bugged me as I watched. For instance, to travel through time, the travelers strap themselves into some kind of sled and get shot into a time tunnel, but when they come out the other end, they are inexplicably on foot.
I frequently hear complaints from critics when movies move too slow and trudge on for three hours… this is one of the rare flicks I think they could have taken more time on. It clocks in at 105 minutes, and another twenty minutes could have produced more character definition and a smoother transition between some of the action sequences which come later in the film and seem almost forced into a pre-determined pace.
I should say, I’ve watched this movie twice now, so despite the negative things I’ve said about it, I’ll give it four stars because it was good enough to watch twice.
*** Four Stars
Posted in 2005, Four Star Rating, The Future, Time Travel | No Comments »
December 16, 2007 - 11:07 pm - Posted by Administrator
The cycle of family-oriented, adventurous science fiction movies that began with Star Wars in 1977 hit it’s pinnacle five years later when Steven Spielberg unleashed the movie that would be the biggest family sci-fi adventure ever–E.T. The Extraterrestrial.
An obvious contrast to the space-gallantry theme of the Star Wars films and Alien, E.T. is the tale of an extraterrestrial on a visit to Earth who is mistakenly left behind. Soon he makes friends with a 10 year old boy, Elliot (Henry Thomas), and his little sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore). The relationship grows between Elliot and his newfound friend as they search for a way to “phone home”. Soon, they find themselves pursued by the government.
Spielberg has a grasp of family and the humor found in mundane life at home. The portrayal of family life with Elliot, Gertie, and Mom Mary (Dee Wallace) is somehow reminiscent of Richard Dreyfus’ family in Close Encounters… it speaks to you, and somehow you yearn for it. I remember watching E.T. and being envious of Elliot and the idyllic life he led in his California cul-de-sac. For the record, if you can make your audience feel that way, it’s a difference of like, a hundred million dollars. Maybe more.
At any rate, for those of us who love big budget blockbuster science fiction movies at the box office every fourth of July, we all owe a huge ‘thank you’ to the financial success of E.T.–once the box office returns came in, the tally ensured that science fiction would never again be considered an inferior genre, unfit for full support from the studios.
Someday when I retire from writing this blog, there will be less than twenty flicks with a five star rating.
***** Five Stars
Posted in 1982, Alien Contact, Five Star Rating | No Comments »
December 16, 2007 - 10:19 pm - Posted by Administrator
The USS Nimitz is cruising on maneuvers just off Hawaii. The aircraft carrier’s decks are crammed with modern jet fighters. Suddenly, the Nimitz steams into a strange magnetic storm. When the ship emerges, the crew find themselves transported to 1941. December. Just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Kirk Douglas plays the duty-bound Captain, faced with the question… “If I can prevent Pearl Harbor… should I?” As a guy who’s always been intrigued by Alternate History, I’d love to see a series of movies where we did prevent Pearl Harbor and how it would have changed the course of history.
My memory of the marketing campaign before this movie came out is that everybody was talking about the premise. “If you could, would you?” There was an unusual amount of buzz.
The Final Countdown is in my book of “must-see time travel movies” but fell short of excellence in my opinion. Good movie, but not great. Primarily because I always felt a little bit cheated that I didn’t get to see a squadron of Japanese Zeroes taken out by some American jets, and the question posed by the movie never really got answered. I will reveal no more than that in case you haven’t seen the movie.
This movie is big with Navy men and women, and many have commented on the accuracy with which Naval operations are portrayed. This is another one I’d like to see them re-make.
*** Three Stars
Posted in 1980, Three Star Rating, Time Travel | No Comments »
December 16, 2007 - 4:01 pm - Posted by Administrator
The early seventies could be considered a dark age of science fiction films. Both in terms of their modest success at the box office, and the tone of the films holding focus.
Films like The Omega Man (1971), The Andromeda Strain (1971), Soylent Green (1973), and The Stepford Wives (1975), dominated the science fiction box office… all light on special effects and heavy on thought provoking visions of the future. Westworld is another entry in this fraternity of films. It is presently scheduled to get a remake in 2009.
Written and Directed by Michael Crichton [The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park], Westworld is a vision of a future where Delos has become the most popular vacation destination in the world, a place where humanoid robots are a reality, slaves to the whim of man, and (supposedly) incapable of harming a human. When robots start going crazy, tourists Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) find themselves being stalked by a homicidal, unstoppable robot gunslinger, incredibly portrayed by Yul Brynner.
Westworld hit theatres at a time when the public consciousness was consumed by an emerging scandal called Watergate, Vietnam, and the AIM’s occupation of Wounded Knee. At the same time in history, the Supreme Court ruling on Roe vs. Wade overturned the states’ ban on abortions, the World Trade Center and Sears Tower domintaed skylines in New York and Chicago for the first time, and America’s first space station, Skylab, was launched. So it should come as no surprise that Westworld is loaded with questions. Who are we? Where are we going? Will humans be victims of their own ambition?
Westworld succeeds marginally at addressing some of these questions, but falls short, like many flicks of the era, in the special effects department. See Westworld for Yul Brynner’s portrayal of the Gunslinger, and don’t laugh too loud at some of the effects.
*** Three Stars
Posted in 1973, Artificial Intelligence, Robots/Cyborgs, The Future, Three Star Rating | No Comments »
December 15, 2007 - 9:08 pm - Posted by Administrator
It! The Terror from Beyond Space is your typical fifties science fiction movie… spaceships, rubber-suited actors portraying alien monsters, special effects that may or may not work as intended, and so forth.
This movie takes place in the distant future of 1973, by which time we’ll surely be flying to the planet Mars. And hence, the concept… a mission to Mars has been wiped out with the exception of one survivor. A rescue mission bringing the survivor back to Earth is then menaced along the way by a unknown alien which has apparently stowed away on the ship.
If that premise sounds a little familiar, it may be due to a similarity to a much higher profile movie which came later, Ridley Scott’s Alien. Internet fans and non-fans have long insisted Alien bears an uncanny resemblance to this film. And in this viewer’s opinion, I would agree, not that I see anything wrong with that. Both movies take place on spaceships with multiple levels. In Alien, the alien is held at bay with flamethrowers. In It!, with a blowtorch. In Alien, the creature is pursued through the air vents. There’s a nearly identical scene in It! There are other similarities as well.
In the end, It! The Terror from Beyond Space is a low budget, poorly produced attempt at realizing a good science fiction concept. Special effects that couldn’t be created in the fifties were simply avoided with directing tricks. For example, the ship’s passengers rig a vent shaft with grenades to keep the alien out. When the alien comes through the shaft, the director cuts to a shot of the crew listening to the explosion on an intercom several levels above, thereby eliminating the need to show the explosion. However, when the camera returns to the vent shaft, which by all rights should be a smoke-filled environment due to the explosion which just happened, the rubber-suited alien comes out of the vent shaft a full ten seconds before the special effects crew remembers to blast some smoke into the scene. Either it’s a mistake that was overlooked, or it was ignored due to a time and money crunch. Either way, it’s a good example of why I can’t watch too many sci-fi flicks from the fifties.
Anal Probe Rating: It’s two hours of discomfort and you won’t remember it tomorrow.
Posted in 1950's, Alien Contact, Anal Probe Rating, The Future | No Comments »
December 15, 2007 - 3:13 am - Posted by Administrator
Imagine for a minute, Ellen Ripley, the baddest chick in the whole goddamn galaxy, played by… Meryl Streep?!?
It almost happened. Producers Gordon Carrol and David Giler were actually considering Streep for the part of Ripley. Luckily for movie fans, Streep passed on what she said was after all “only a horror film”. The Producers then settled on Sigourney Weaver.
In retrospect the choice seems clear. Lieutenant Ellen Ripley can only be portrayed by Sigourney. And the concept is simple. The Nostromo, a civilian mining vessel, has been contaminated by an unknown alien organism which grows exponentially over several days and has acid for blood. The Alien goes on a killing spree, striking from the shadows.
Many have called Alien a gothic horror film first, and a science fiction picture second. In this reviewer’s opinion, the fact that it’s both is what amazes. Without sacrificing anything, Director Ridley Scott entrances with realistic sets, special effects, and story detail that paint a rich picture of the Weyland-Yutani space mining industry in the coming century, and simultaneously horrifies with glimpses of an H.R. Giger-designed alien terror never before realized onscreen. Alien has consistently ranked in the top five of hundreds of Halloween scary movie lists.
An oustanding supporting cast including John Hurt as Kane (whose death scene is one of the great horror moments), Tom Skerritt as Dallas, Veronica Cartwright as Lambert, and Yaphet Kotto as Parker, are all stalked to their deaths by the increasingly menacing alien. Soon, Ripley and the Nostromo’s cat Jonesy find themselves the only survivors, and they’re forced to flee for their lives.
Alien has become a cultural phenomenon, spawning five sequels to date. It influenced a whole generation of science fiction movies to come, including Outland (1981), and Predator (1987). And oh yeah, it won an Oscar. It’s good.
Turn up the surround sound, turn off the lights, and watch. I wish I could get that feeling again.
***** Five Stars
Posted in 1979, Alien Contact, Alien Invasion, Artificial Intelligence, Five Star Rating, Suspended Animation, The Future | No Comments »
December 14, 2007 - 12:36 am - Posted by Administrator
Note: Many say Outland’s story was patterned after High Noon.
Sean Connery plays space Marshal William T. O’Niel, a family man doing his duty in space while his wife and son await his return to Earth. He is assigned to provide security at a mining colony on Jupiter’s moon Io. When miners start exhibiting bizarre behavior (one commits suicide by going outside without a pressure suit), O’Niel investigates and finds evidence that the miners are using a lethal narcotic, encouraged by “The Company” because it increases the miners’ productivity. Unfortunately, the villain(s) turn out to be space hitmen, which lends the movie a very pedestrian shoot ‘em up climax. Peter Boyle co-stars as Sheppard in a rare non-comedic role.
The highpoint of Outland would have to be the special effects. Anytime you get to see a space miner decompress and explode in a mess all over the inside of his spacesuit, well that’s pretty hardcore.
When I saw Outland, it was the first time I saw an “outer space” movie where the technology was portrayed in a more realistic fashion, NASA style. As versus the more elaborately set The Empire Strikes Back which came out exactly one year prior.
This film was directed by Peter Hyams, and one of a sci-fi trio that he directed in the late seventies and early eighties, including Capricorn One and 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
*** Three Stars
Posted in 1981, The Future, Three Star Rating | No Comments »
December 13, 2007 - 11:32 pm - Posted by Administrator
Alien Nation is a cops-and-drug-dealers tale masquerading as a science fiction movie. Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a place for that story in the realm. I just remember feeling deceived once I saw it in the theatre… the marketing campaign had left me to expect a hardcore alien contact movie, and instead I got a buddy cop movie where one of the cops was an alien. I don’t know… I didn’t dig it.
Aliens arrive on Earth, refugees looking for a new home. Of course we allow the “Newcomers” to settle among us. Everything will be cool, right?
Alien Nation stars James Caan as Detective Matthew Sykes, forced to partner with a “Newcomer” cop named Sam Francisco (Mandy Patinkin). Together they investigate “Newcomer” crimes influenced by a powerful alien psychotic drug.
The script isn’t entirely without sci-fi merit. The idea that the Newcomers were deathly afraid of water was interesting. It seems water to an alien is the same as battery acid to a human. And the concept of aliens arriving on Earth in spaceships will always be a sci-fi staple. I just wish I hadn’t wasted my $6.50 to see this one.
Alien Nation was also the basis for a semi-successful TV Series of the same name.
I give Alien Nation the lowest rating available:
The Anal Probe: It’s two hours of discomfort, and you won’t remember it tomorrow.
Posted in 1988, Alien Contact, Alien Invasion, Anal Probe Rating, The Future | No Comments »
December 13, 2007 - 10:23 pm - Posted by Administrator
This movie had the misfortune of being “that other virtual reality movie” at a time when everybody was salivating over The Matrix. Unfortunately, that meant this movie was largely overlooked.
Craig Bierko plays Douglas Hall, a computer scientist working on an intelligent, autonomous computer simulation of 1930’s Los Angeles. Humans can experience and interact with the simulation through virtual reality immersion.
Hall’s boss, Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl), meets an untimely end, and Hall is forced to enter the computer simulation, hunting for clues about the death of his mentor. Gretchen Mol plays Fuller’s daughter, and Vincent D’Onofrio steals scenes as Hall’s long-haired assistant Whitney.
Hall’s investigation leads him to question human existence and the nature of being “alive”. There’s also a small matter regarding what happens if you die while plugged into “the simulation”, but I won’t spoil it for you. This is another science fiction movie with a surprise ending that will knock you out… if you don’t figure it out first.
Mol, Bierko, and D’Onofrio all portray multiple characters in this film, and they all pull it off swimmingly. Recommended viewing. I almost gave it five stars.
**** Four Stars
Posted in 1999, Artificial Intelligence, Four Star Rating, Surprise Ending, The Future, Virtual Reality | No Comments »
On October 24th, 1968, a UFO was reported in the vicinity of Minot Air Force Base in northwestern North Dakota. It is one of the most well-documented unexplained UFO sightings. The sighting is unique in that the object was seen by witnesses on the ground and in the air, many of whom were military personnel trained in the art of observation and surveillance.
