Project U.F.O.

I always kind of felt sorry for Jack Webb, he created a cultural icon like Dragnet, first as a sensational radio series and then in two long running tv shows. How could he possibly top that? He spent the rest of his life trying to top Dragnet and couldn't do it. Project UFO was his last series before his death in 1982. Webb brought the same approach to this show that he used with Dragnet. He believed that viewers wanted realism and "just the facts". He used actual material from the files of "Project Blue Book". This was the study the United States Air Force did about unidentified flying objects and the reports of people who claimed they saw one. The study revealed that most of these reports were people being mistaken about what they saw or hoaxes. BUT there were about 10% of the case that COULD NOT be explained. These were the cases that interested Mister Webb and he brought them to life in this fascinating series that was cancelled far too soon. The two actors who were the investigating Air Force Officers were like Friday and Gannon in Dragnet, only they were investigating an "out of this world" mystery. The one I remember most was a young actor named Caskey Swaim. He had never really acted before and landed a starring role in this show. He did an amazing job as did Edward Winter. Do you believe in UFO's or life on other planets? If you did or not, this series was really interesting and entertaining. I wish they would put it back in syndication. One case I wish that they would have profiled was a case in Austrailia in 1978, interestingly this case happened when this series was on the air. It involved a young pilot named Frederick Vallentich who was flying a private plane over Bass Strait. He disappeared without a trace and no trace of him or his aircraft was ever found. Shortly before, he had radioed that he was being followed by a UFO and then he said that it was right on top of him! The ground controllers heard a strange metallic grinding sound and then silence! Vallentich's father said that he believed that his son had been abducted by aliens from another planet.

UFO investigations by the US military.

I remember watching this in my 70s youth and I found it reasonably entertaining. However, I think I was a bit turned off by the formal nature of the two leads. Not saying their acting was unrealistic or anything like that but in this period there was another investigation-into-the-weird series going on - Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974) - and when I was a kid I warmed to that more light hearted approach to lead characters.

I always liked the footage of the actual UFO encounters. When watching today I think I heard a sound effect from Star Trek Original Series (1966) and at one point I almost thought I was looking at stock footage from This Island Earth (1955) - today it looks very retro!

Not sure if I would ever bother getting this show on DVD (if it is available?) but I would suggest a few screenings on Youtube if you have time to kill.

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.

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.

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.