Aliens, Extraterrestrials, Space Brothers

Besides being a well-researched book on extraterrestrial visitations and the infamous the Roswell Incident (UFO ran a red light, crashed, and we put the alien driver in jail and denied bail) and beyond, it’s the title that’s pretty dang clever: Fifty Shades of Greys. Man, that’s funny because greys are what we call aliens, probably because they look so depressed all the time.

Written by Raymond Szymanski, a retired Air Force Engineer, the 2016 book claims that the UFOs and aliens from the outrageous 1947 Roswell Incident were brought to the Wright – Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio to be examined and kept in obscure covered passageways. That’s a pretty bold proclamation. An Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, home of Orville Wright, the guy who invented UFOs? Mr. Szymanski — you just hit pay dirt.

Another coincidence, then, that we’re being invaded with movies and documentaries of our depressed space brothers. Here are a few just released sci-fi movies and UFO documentaries to give you a few more shades of greys…

ALIENS: ZONE OF SILENCE (available now)
“After her brother vanishes from the Mexican desert, a young woman sets out to uncover the truth about his disappearance. When she discovers an extraterrestrial presence, she must risk her life to expose the desert’s otherworldly secret.”

An almost note-for-note rip-off of The Phoenix Incident (2015), The Phoenix Tapes ’97 (2016) and Phoenix Forgotten (2017). Despite the plagiarism, the fact this is YET ANOTHER found footage flick should make you wanna better spend your time elsewhere, like abducting beers.

ALIEN CONTACT: OUTER SPACE (available now)
Many people think of Space as a quiet and desolate vacuum of emptiness, but new evidence reveals that space is rife with activity beyond our comprehension. Just as we sent Voyager and Pioneer probes beyond our solar system, aliens have probes of their own that may have arrived as early as the 1600’s. While Tesla was the first to successfully communicate with neighboring worlds using radio waves, we have received recent signals from intelligent sources. In 1989, Russian Space Probe Phobos 2 photographed a UFO on the surface of Mars just prior to losing contact. Scientists have determined that the craft was real and of a thin elliptical shape over 20 miles in length. We are not alone in outer space and while the aliens may be initiating contact, they could also be here already.”

Seems to me if aliens wanted to contact us they would just send us an IM on Spacebook™ or something. Or maybe its because they haven’t found intelligent life here on Earth worth talking to. That’s probably it.

E.T. CONTACT: THEY ARE HERE (available now)
“E.T. Contact: They Are Here documents the jaw-dropping stories of individuals from around the world who share similar accounts of extraterrestrial and otherworldly encounters. Through a series of groundbreaking on-camera experiments on human DNA, and interviews with leading scientists, viewers will find themselves pondering the nature of their own reality or yet the true origin of the human species. E.T. Contact may ultimately show that the traditionally unexplained is, in fact, far more attributable to science than fiction.”

The trailer for this one is pretty funny as it features straight-faced academics supporting the belief of extraterrestrials’ existence and, by extension, their frequent visitations to learn how our back doors work. Take heed, space brother; I just ate a Taco Bell™ Fiery Doritos Locos Taco Supreme™.

ALIEN CONVERGENCE (available now)
“When flying reptilian aliens begin to take over the world, the remaining survivors must band together and fight back with newly developed fighter jets.”

Aliens can fly? Well dang — that makes ’em even cooler than first thought. Aside from complexion, wondering, though, how this differs from Flying Monkeys (2013)?

UFOs, Gunslingers, Clowns and Snowmen

On the eve of April 2, 2017’s Wrestlemania XXXIII (that’s 33 for all you non-Roman numeral types), The Undertaker is back to win again, something he’s done every Wrestlemania except one in the last three-plus decades. It’s rumored that he’ll retire after this match. Can’t say I blame him; one can only be dropped on your head for so many years before your luck runs out and your skull hits the mat like a freshness expired tomato.

The Undertaker would make a great horror movie icon after he hangs up his tights. What screams horror more than “you can’t kill a dead guy”? While you ponder that, here are a few upcoming horror movies that’ll no doubt give you a headache…

PHOENIX FORGOTTEN (April 21, 2017)
“In the spring of 1997, several residents of Phoenix, Arizona claimed to witness mysterious lights in the sky. This phenomenon, which became known as The Phoenix Lights, remains the most famous UFO sighting in American history. On July 23, 1997, three high school student filmmakers went missing while camping in the desert outside Phoenix. The purpose of their trip was to document their investigation into the Phoenix Lights. They were never seen again. Twenty years later, Sarah Bishop, a documentary filmmaker and younger sibling of one of the missing, returns to Phoenix to delve into the their disappearances and the emotional trauma left on those that knew them. Nothing can prepare her for the shocking discovery of a tape from the night her brother and his friends disappeared.”

This sounds exactly like The Phoenix Tapes ’97, right down to the premise of found footage and video cameras that never seem to run out of juice. With four other movies using The Phoenix Lights as a plot device (not counting the numerous documentaries), you’d think aliens would get their lawyers on the copyright case. Given the current state of affairs, it would be a hoot to have an illegal alien sue the U.S.

THE DARK TOWER (July 28, 2017)
“The last gunslinger, Roland Deschain has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O’Dim, also known as the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in the ultimate battle as only Roland can defend the Tower from the Man in Black.”

Not sure how they’re gonna pull this off as its based on EIGHT Stephen King novels, beginning in 1982, and kitchen sinks it with themes of dark fantasy, science fantasy, horror, and Western. (What — no Acid Jazz Goth?) But hey, it still sounds like a good excuse to sit in a movie theater while munching on light bulb heated popcorn and sipping from smuggled airline bottles of Mezcal.

IT (September 8, 2017)
“When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, a group of young kids are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against an evil clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.”

The clown is about to get down. The original It (1990), based on the Stephen King novel of the same name with 100,000 pages in 37 formats, was a mini series made for sanitized television programming. But the new It is a movie and will probably carry a triple XXX rating. Or maybe an R. Doesn’t matter; as long as it doesn’t water itself down for TV like the original. (Disclaimer — Tim Curry did a pretty good job as Pennywise. Everybody else, not so much.)

THE SNOWMAN (October 13, 2017)
“Detective Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose pink scarf is found wrapped around an ominous-looking snowman.”

Detective Harry Hole. Sounds like a serviceable porn star name. And Snowmen wearing scarves? That’s pretty fashionable for someone made out of a non-flavored Slushee™. Wonder if it was a nice silk ascot or one of those cheap knock-offs you get at 7-Eleven™? Seems to me, though, that snowmen should be wearing leg warmers. Now THERE’S a timeless fashion statement.

Rechargeable Aliens

The found footage “movie” The Phoenix Tapes ’97 is YET ANOTHER attempt to cash in on the REAL EVENT of UFOs buzzing the Arizona night skies back March 13, 1997. It was on the news, so it had to be real.

Four smelly guys pile into an RV and go on a man date in the Arizona desert, filming every tedious dialogue interchange along the way. During the night, loud explosion-y booms are heard and meteors are seen crashing into the desert mountains. [Spoiler: this was the ONLY cool thing about the movie.]

Daylight brings more questions, like how to air out the RV and where is one of the dudes. And what the heck was shaking the RV at night and making stomping noises on the roof? I’m thinkin’ pranking frat brothers, but likely it was extraterrestrials. Kinda the same thing when you think about it.

As they argue like whiny b*tches and abandon the stalled RV and wander back towards civilization (they weren’t that far off; you can hear a dog barking in someone’s back yard), they see those famous patterned lights in the sky and go WTF?!?

One by one, each gets drug off into the night with the video camera still running. You sorta kinda maybe get a glimpse of the aliens, whose legs appear to be riddled with arthritis. But my issue is with the camera. That thing kept running (with night vision) long after they four guys were slipped a date rape drug and probed. Video cameras back in 1997 could barely hold a charge and were notorious slow to recharge, which was not done the entire time. (So an RV battery conks out overnight, and a video camera battery lasts all through the abductions?) And to think I was gonna buy an RV.

I believe in UFOs. I do not believe in 1997 video cameras. So there.