Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers

Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Pseudo-documentary about reporter Albert Chop (Tom Towers) who begins to investigate several reports of UFO's and by the end of the film he's convinced that they are in fact real. This movie uses stock footage, documentary footage and reenactments to try and tell people that UFOs are real and throughout the movie we're told a few dozen times that the cases we're hearing about are true. The most annoying thing about this movie is the Dragnet-type narration that runs throughout the running time and it's just so dry and dull that by the ten-minute mark you'll be wishing that you were abducted by a real spaceship just so you can get away from this film. To be fair, it's important to note that this was released when the UFO craze was extremely high in this country and it's clear that the producers were playing this to folks who wanted to know the "truth" even if they weren't really going to get it from this movie. The reenactments are also quite annoying as they never let you actually see the spaceships and usually it's just non-professional actors opening their eyes wide to show what type of shock they're in. The majority of the cases told here are based on true stories but we're never given any clear evidence or any real facts. Instead we're just told over and over that we're supposed to take their word. Another problem with the film is that at 91-minutes it goes on for way too long and considering you really don't get to see anything until the final ten-minutes it would be a lot better skipping this "documentary" and actually watching one of the fake, low-budget films, which would at least give you something to see. I mentioned the final ten-minutes and this is when we see two "actual" UFO films, both in color. Being the early 50s on a hand-held camera, the footage is quite poor but I'm sure the film ended with many people believing that these were actually flying saucers.

This is a One of Kind Documentary (with a dramatization thread) using Non-Actors and Real-Life Flying Saucer Stories from the Late Forties and Early Fifties. It is a Matter-of-Fact Investigatory Film and doesn't even Try to be Entertaining. It just lays out the Facts and Presents the Phenomenon as it Occurred.

Ufologists of Today can have a "gold mine" of a Time going Back in Time to get a Glimpse of what the First Wave of Sightings Looked Like. Nothing is Embellished or Sensationalized. It is Dry and not Distilled. It is Bare Bones and brought to You as Unfettered and Untainted as Possible.

It Capsulized the Early Days of the Flying Saucer Flap and Touches Upon the Mantel Crash, the Two-Time Fly-Over of Washington D.C. in 1952 and Screens the Montana and Utah Amateur Movie Footage in Detail, Slow Motion, and Close Up at the end of the Movie. It also includes the General Stanton Press Conference Highlights. There are Multiple Interviews with Pilots and other Professional Observers.

These are All still with Investigators Today and have Never been Explained. It is a Fascinating Time Capsule. An Historical Expose and a Commendable Effort to Make Sense of the Situation when No One could Then or Even Now make any Sense of it. There is just too much Evidence ("credible people reporting incredible things") to Ignore, yet Not Enough Evidence to make a Conclusive Explanation.

For the Non-Ufologist and Casual Inquisitor of the Subject this may be much too Academic to set through as Entertainment, but as an Educational Tool it still Holds Up quite well and is an indispensable Artifact of its Time and has Importance to this Day.

Highly Recommended for Ufologists and Mainstream Historians, Educators and Skeptics.

The movie stands now mainly as an artifact of its time since the UFO fascination of the 1940's and 50's has largely faded away. In fact, younger folks may not be aware of how widespread the post-war fascination with the skies was. Viewers looking to the movie for entertainment should probably look elsewhere, such as the many entertaining space alien features of the time. Instead, the production takes pains to use only non-actors and documented content, concentrating on the genuinely puzzling instances of UFO's without speculation.

The highpoint, I expect, are the two actual films of unsolved UFO's. They're put into slow motion at the end for more careful study, but remain even then little more than moving points of light. The overall result requires some patience since the narrative sometimes lags. Nonetheless, anyone interested in the UFO phenomenon should not pass up this 1956, 90-minute review.

If you have the slightest interest in the UFO phenomenon then this is a must see. In many ways the word 'fiction' in relation to this movie does it a disservice. Sure everything is re-staged and re-enacted but only to highlight what Press Officer Albert Chop insists really did happen. From a social history point of view it's a little goldmine too. There appears to have been so much respect in American society throughout the 1950's and it oozes through here.

For the serious UFO enthusiast the inclusion of the original Tremonton and Grand Falls UFO footage makes it an invaluable movie from a research point of view.

Trivia question for sci-fi fans: name the 1956 film that featured the talents of Les Tremayne (the general in `War of the Worlds' and the opening narrator of `Forbidden Planet'), Marvin Miller (the voice of Robby the Robot in `Forbidden Planet'), Olan Soule (who had a supporting role in `The Day the Earth Stood Still' and `Captain Midnight'), and Harry Morgan (Colonel Porter of `M.A.S.H.'). Here's a hint: Harry Morgan plays an Air Force pilot whose plane is surrounded by six flying saucers above the Washington, D.C. If all this sounds too good to be true, take a peak at this drama-documentary, based on the experiences of Al Chop, a reporter who served as press liaison for the Pentagon during its investigation of UFO's from 1947 to the early 1950s. Miller, Soule, and Tremayne provide the voices for the narrated portions of the film. Although the movie contains only two brief film clips to serve as photographic evidence of UFO's, the producers build a good case based on the credibility of certain UFO witnesses (airline pilots, military personnel, radar operators, etc.). On a more subtle level, director Winston Jones pulls off a clever trick; he begins the film as a pure documentary, but he gradually modifies this approach and focuses on reporter Al Chop's personal involvement in the UFO investigation. Chop slowly changes from UFO skeptic to UFO believer (and so will you). The climax is a gripping reenactment of a true incident which occurred in 1950, when a group of UFO's cruised above Washington DC for several hours. The voice of Harry Morgan is heard over the radio as an Air Force pilot whose plane is literally surrounded by UFO's, during which Al Chop and a group of bewildered military men cluster around the radar scope, watching in wide-eyed wonder. Dramatically speaking, this scene is far superior to its counterpart in `Close Encounters of the Third Kind'. The most amazing thing about this film is the fact that it was made with the full cooperation of the United States government, and every scrap of evidence it presents was made available to any and all scientific agency who wanted to examine it. Watch it and make up your own mind about UFO's -- but you'll loose some sleep over it before you do. Note: Some reviews mistakenly identify the star of `Unidentified Flying Objects' as Tom Powers, a co-star of `Destination Moon' (1950). The star of `UFO' is actually a Los Angles newspaper reporter (not a professional actor) named Tom Powers, who portrays the real-life reporter Al Chop.