Die Alien-Entführung von Manhattan

A lot more intelligently done than it has any right to be, given the subject matter.

I'm a skeptic in every possible sense of the word, to the extent that it's arguably been a detriment to my life in some ways - and I absolutely wouldn't say I've been convinced of the existence of aliens after watching this series. If anything - it indicates to me at least that even your average person is, in theory, capable of convincing anyone of anything.

And yet - it's so pragmatically well-made, so even-handed and balanced, I can't help but have questions. Yes, Linda strikes me and probably anyone with common sense as fame-hungry and maybe prone to deceit, but look at how she's living - this isn't the life of someone riding off the riches of a lifelong con, this is someone who sincerely believes this happened to her. And honestly - I'm open to it.

This is not an investigative piece of documentary filmmaking. At most, there are presented 2 sides of a story that was thin on details even when new 25 years ago. Unfortunately, the only sane voice in the series - that of Carol Rainey - cannot be encouraged to speak more on the matter because she has died. The only voices left to speak to this are those of the alleged abductee and her son, whose face never appears on camera. There is no evidence provided by the filmmakers to support the assertion that the "Johnathon" that appears on camera is even the son of Linda, who is the main subject of the story.

The filmmakers missed every opportunity to support or refute the claims made by the participants in the series. Was there a city wide blackout in 1989 on the alleged date of the abduction? Are any of the alleged witnesses still alive? What are the opinions of Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (the former UN Sec-Gen who is named-checked throughout the series)? What happened to the alleged implant in Linda's nose? What are the well-known issues with hypnotic regression therapy? I don't know, because the filmmakers don't provide the simplest form of fact checking.

If you watch this, understand that the series is not an attempt at journalism. At least I hope that wasn't the intent of the filmmakers. What is presented is exactly what the title of this review states: an interesting subject with no legs on which to stand.

Simply put, I don't really remember seeing a worse ufo or mystery documentary.

• The show is spread into 3 parts for no reason since what you see or hear is extremely repetitive. The whole first part feels just like a trailer, and the following parts don't get much better. The show doesn't respect your time and just wastes it with repetition
• Many very basic questions that pop into your mind get unanswered and the show does very little to pursue them. Something like involved characters at least trying to explain what exact effort was done to explain some of the phenomena.

I feel it just wasted my time.

I'm going to start this review by saying that I do believe that we aren't alone in the universe. There being other civilizations in the universe is far more likely than that we're all alone. BUT... Just because other civilizations exists, doesn't mean that they have found their way to us, or even know about our existence.

I went into this documentary with an open mind. The real skepticism started already in part 1 of the documentary when Linda claimed to be scared, Budd told her to come to him, and she said she was going to do her makeup first.. like.. girl, what!? If you truly were scared you'd leave the apartment as soon as possible.

Part 3 of the documentary was a big clownfest that even ended with Linda openly threatening Carol.. Will Linda face any consequences for that?.. probably not. Linda also claimed that nobody believes Carol, but nah.. I, and probably many others, believe in Carol's theory. I'm not sure if Budd was in on it all, but he most certainly did cherry pick among the information that was given, because he wanted to believe Linda sooo bad.

I kind of feel like I've wasted my time watching this. Do I recommend it? Meh.. I feel like it's up to you if you want to waste time learning about this hoax or not.

And owing to spoilers I can't say exactly why - I can say that I'm unbiased on which way I want for this to be proven true - although granted the romantic in me wants for the abduction to be proven sound and valid - but the scientist in me can't help but to applaud this women's doggedness and dedication to methodically and meticulous pursuit of the truth, however damaging to her relationships that may be - I can not express the admiration I have for someone to be this stalworth and true to one's ideals and principles ideals - what an absolute pleasure to have been able to see this thoughtful documentary take shape over three episodes into its inevitable conclusion

Brava.