The Disappearance of Flight 412

The Disappearance of Flight 412 is a rather cheaply made TV movie with really bad sound that doesn't seem to make any point. If there are indeed UFOs visiting our fair planet we can't seem to ever get a handle on it with anything definitive. If they are and the government has documentation they are covering it up. Hardly anything revelatory.

Air Force Colonel Glenn Ford is in charge of a flight group in which one of his flight crews is making some radar equipment checks. They see a strange object in the sky, some Marine jets are scrambled and they disappear off the radar scope. Ford's crew is diverted to a secret base nearby his base that he does not know anything about. But with a little sleuthing he tracks down where his men are gets them out.

Quite frankly he should have dropped it right there, but he pursues it and gets himself in a ringer with General Kent Smith. The conclusion, there really isn't any.

Robert F. Lyons does the best acting job as the colonel in charge of the top secret installation, a really smarmy type. Ford does his usual professional job. But in the final analysis the only people who this film might appeal to are aviation buffs.

**SPOILERS** Four years before the 1947 Roswell Incident was made public in 1978 a film came out about a fictitious UFO cover up that had all the hallmarks of what was really going on in the US military, notably the US Air Force, for some twenty years.

On a sunny summer day a radar plane took off from the Whitney AFB and got caught up with what the US Government has been keeping under the rug since the end of WWII: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's). Are they or are they not real? from another solar system do they come from? and are a danger to the national security of the United States?

The crew of the radar plane spots by sight and their radar system as well as it being confirmed by ground radar an eerie and frighting sight. Three unidentified flying objects moving threateningly towards their plane! Two marine jet fighters are scrambled to confront them or, if necessary, shoot them down. As the fighter jets come within cannon fire of the strange objects they either disappear or are themselves shot down by the UFO's who then make an incredible right angle turn, almost at a standing position, and shoot out of sight at speeds, clocked by the radar equipment on the plane and ground control, of up to 5,000 MPH. What happens next is what we've learned over the years since the movie was made. The radar plane is diverted to an obscure and abandoned air field, the old Digger air base, and the pilots debriefed by members of the SID, Special Intellengence Detatchment. And made to see things the the way the military wants things to be seen, and have the entire incident filed away and forgotten.

Four months later the same kind of UFO incident happens again at the same Whitney AFB and those who suffered through the first one at the start of the film had by then learned their lesson and said of the incident what they were told to say from their higher ups. Not what their eyes and brains told them what they saw and what they knew to be the truth.

Even though UFO's are still considered by many in the news media as mass hysteria at worse or the results of an overworked imagination at best they are real enough for the US military to have covered up and stamped Top Secret and Eyes Only thousands of documents about these elusive objects since at least back to 1947, which shows what those who are in the know really think about them.

The incident that happened in the movie "The Disaperance of Flight 412" is not unique to those who served in the USAF over the last fifty or so years. With intelligently flown aircraft being spotted all over the USA, as well as the entire planet, unopposed with those responsible for the safety of the people not being able to stop them or shoot them down It's no wonder that the government doesn't want this information, if true, to become public.

Jud Taylor directed this TV movie that stars Glenn Ford as Colonel Pete Moore, in charge of the Whitney Radar Test Group that has sent a four-man crew on flight 412 to investigate electrical difficulties, but instead encounters what may either be a blip, or a UFO, but after they are interrogated by a mysterious military intelligence team(led by Guy Stockwell) that does not want to hear about "science fiction", the men find themselves uncomfortably at odds with their own government. Can Col. Moore get to the bottom of this matter, save his crew and all their careers? Reasonably good film defies its low budget and brief running time to tell a well-acted and tense narrative that doesn't provide easy answers, but instead unfolds in a matter-of-fact way, which is most effective. Also stars Bradford Dillman, David Soul, Robert F. Lyons, and Kent Smith.

Once upon a time movies used to be made for TV, and this was one of the better ones. Others have done a good job of encapsulating the plot and cast of characters, so I won't rehash that. For those looking for exciting chases and special effects, this is not your movie. Rather it is a character study, and a good one at that. The crux is openness and truthfulness versus secrecy and obfuscation. Do the people have a right to know the truth about what our government is doing? Under what circumstances is secrecy acceptable? Who watchers the watchers? Serious questions, and just as valid today, if not more so than in 1974, when this movie was made.

Occasionally tense, but ultimately disappointing tale of a routine test mission that witnesses the disappearance of two fighter jets who are scrambled to intercept a suspected UFO. No-nonsense Colonel (Ford) and his Major (Dillman) delve into the mystery when their plane is diverted to a remote, de-commissioned air base in the desert, its crew (Soul, Lyons, Mullavey and Clay) interrogated by Special Investigations Detachment to ascertain what they actually saw, and prevent a national security breach.

All the players acquit their roles with professionalism and competence - Stockwell as the burly, sunglasses wearing head interrogator casts an ominous aura, but his passive threats have no substance (the worst outcome suggested is demotion or demobbing). Familiar actors Jack Ging, Ken Kercheval, Ed Winter, Kent Smith, Morris Buchanan and Jesse Vint have supporting roles of varying proportions, and Soul in particular is dominant in his role as the airmen's fearless leader (the scene in which he stages a daring escape attempt should have been a suspense highlight, alas, it fails to ignite the fading embers).

But despite the capable cast, the tele-movie is really just an introduction to the UFO phenomenon, with little actual substance or depth. A couple of tense moments during the multitude of interrogations, despite the bark, there's no bite.