Project U.F.O.

Author kjq45 from United States, a fan of Jack Webb's "Project UFO", writes that "Some Universal Studios personnel claim this series never existed." I was a guest star on "Project UFO" under what was then my stage name, Christie Wagner, and I can assure that it definitely existed.

I wonder if the Air Force behind the scenes contributed to taking the show off the air? After all, on the 50th anniversary of Roswell, New Mexico's alleged extraterrestrial craft and personnel sighting and interaction, the Air Force issued a long disclaimer in the media that it was only a "weather balloon" which crashed with "dummies" inside it.

If the space alien phenomenon really didn't happen then it's a non-issue so why issue a disclaimer half a century later? That disclaimer alone, some would believe, confirms that it really did happen.

Christie Wagner

Project UFO was another fine Jack Webb production, but where did it go? Once aired, it never reappeared again. Everything from I Love Lucy, to Green Acres, at least ran on local UHF stations as reruns, but not Project UFO. If this series was struck on 16mm film to the TV stations, not one reel of it fell into collector's hands. The nation's biggest collectors claim to have never owned even one episode. Not available for sale on any format. Some Universal Studios personnel claim this series never existed. I remember seeing these films when they originally aired and believe they were very well done. Might they have been a little too well done? I would love to see them again.

I remember this show, particularly one episode which ended with the two agents at the top of some observation tower with a large white UFO floating away from them. As I recall the FX were actually OK, and the whole thing had quite a cool Close Encounters-type feel to it. Certainly a predecessor to the X-Files, Sci-Fi channel or somebody could re-run this and cash in.

Jack Webb's DRAGNET, ADAM 12 and EMERGENCY were such big hits that his Mark VII productions always had a few other series on the networks (mostly NBC) with various success. Project UFO was definately Jack Webb's baby and he was the one who did the talk show circuit to promote it. Besides his narration, the show followed Webb's trademark of stiff, unemotional acting that gave all his shows a semi-documentary look. His earlier shows introduced the day-to-day realities of police work, paramedics and emergency rooms long before Hill Street Blues and E.R. and without the soap opera scripts. Project U.F.O. was Webb's attempt to bring the then current hit film CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND to television via a straight forward telling of the real people who investigated UFO sightings (known as Project Bluebook, that title was eventually changed to PROJECT UFO because it sounded more interesting). A typical episode would open with a discovery of a burnt out portion of field where a UFO appeared to have landed and took off and the two investigators gathering evidence to support or dispute the premise that a UFO had actually landed. Sometimes the evidence pointed to fraud and sometimes there were no answers and sometimes it was left to the audience to come to their own conclusions. Since there wasn't an attempt to conclude that there actually were aliens the series was a bit dull, there was never any big payoffs. Think of M. Night Shyamalan's SIGNS if it had ended a half hour sooner and that would pretty much sum up Project UFO. Perhaps M. Night Shyamalan was a fan of the series and wanted to do a better version and that's where SIGNS came from.

Does no one else remember this show? I used to watch it when I was in 2nd grade. It lasted for one season and was about these two Air Force guys assigned to investigate UFO sightings. Sometimes they would prove it a hoax and other times it would turn out to be real. From what I can remember (and it has been awhile - I have NEVER seen this show in reruns) the acting and the scripts were not too good. And unlike the X Files, the U.S. governement in this show was truthful and honest.

The creator of X-Files credits Kolcheck: The Night Stalker for inspiration but I am wondering if he saw a few episodes of this somewhere along the way and just forgot it like the rest of the world.