Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs

David Serada, a UFO enthusiast who co-produced this film, interviews the comedian Dan Aykroyd who claims he has had experiences with alien beings. Aykroyd expounds on UFO lore and his own beliefs on matters related to extraterrestrials. Footage of this interview is interspersed with video and film of these flying objects; video clips of a former Canadian defense minister speaking on the subject; audio clips of astronauts speaking of strange things in space; and so forth.

Documentaries dealing with the supernatural and other unprovable theories (usually involving government conspiracies) are endlessly fascinating to me. They invariably come with eerie electronic music, blurry photographs and earnest talking heads. No matter how bad they are, they never fail to give me a spooky thrill, which make them the most surefire horror movies I can rent.

They are also fascinating glimpses into human nature. People who believe in the existence of flying saucers, ghosts, Big Foot, The Loch Ness monster, ESP; in the value of astrology, miracle healing, Nostradamus' predictions; in government conspiracies involving JFK's assassination, the World Trade Center's destruction, the war in Iraq; in various establishments covering up evidence of the true authorship of Shakespeare's plays, of the efficacy of alternative medicine, of the proof that Atlantis once existed—in short, any idea that may be given the unkind label of "crackpot"—are blind to basic principles of logic. For instance, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Believers hear this all the time, but they either deny the principle, or insist that the principle works in their favor. Aykroyd and other believers tell us the debate over the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrials is over: it's time to debate what we are to do about this potential threat.

What about the people who create hoaxes? Some enjoy fooling people; some do it for fame and profit; others are believers who want to prove something they know in their hearts to be true. Billy Meier's 1970s footage of various UFOs supposedly has been debunked even by other UFOlogists. Yet here's the footage again in a 2005 documentary; and it's presented uncritically as proof. No hoaxer ever seems to merit unanimous disapproval, no matter how thoroughly debunked. James Randi can expose the 1970s spoon-bender Uri Geller all he wants: Geller still has a career as a "paranormalist." Randi can expose the 16th century prophet Nostradamus all he wants. That cult won't die either.

Some skeptics make the mistake of being condescending or nasty to true believers. The temptation is understandable. Those who prey on the gullible are despicable. Those who allow themselves to be fooled repeatedly are pathetic. And you can see on the message board for this title how nasty the believers can get in return. But how many of us are guiltless of irrational beliefs? How many skeptics are totally free of a belief in the supernatural? What does it mean that human beings insist on spirituality: on believing in some power that is not open to scientific proof? What does it mean that so many of us pretend that spiritual matters *are* open to scientific proof?

Dan Aykroyd's beliefs are extremely foolish, but he is clearly intelligent and seems to have a good sense of humor. (You might expect the latter of a comedian, but they tend to be over-sensitive and humorless.) The badness of this documentary nearly sinks him; but he stays afloat, even when telling us that he saw those common figures of UFOlogy, the Men in Black, while on the phone with Britney Spears. He probably regretted the interview after two minutes; or at least when Serada asks him about time travel; certainly when Serada closes the interview by saying, "God, God, I thank you, Dan, so much for this interview. … I really believe you are one of the greatest minds in our world at this time." Happily for him, he is shown reacting with a sheepish grin. Serada easily could have inserted one of Aykroyd's deadpan looks.

The "documentary" starts out hopeful with a more or less an objective view at UFO sightings and events around them, but as the movie progresses it becomes more and more of a pseudo-scientific documentary. The interviewer starts asking Dan all kinds of speculative questions like "what would you do if you could move back in time?". This may be acceptable for the discovery channel, but in a movie that wants to be taken seriously (and it seems it does) this completely undermines all credibility. The last line of the "interview" (i had the feeling the questions and answers were recorded separately) is something along the lines of "Thank you for this interview Dan, I really think you're one of the greatest minds of our time". How can you say that to an actor/performer, because that's how Dan describes himself in the movie as well, who has no scientific basis for his speculative stories? I found it a very disappointing documentary with way too many repeats of the same footage an way too much speculation for it to be taken seriously.

I particularly liked Sereda's work on the NASA UFO phenomena and this was really my main reason for obtaining it. I think having Dan Ackroyd in it is good for publicity and will pull in a few more waverers whereas the more ardent information seeker will take pretty much anything novel in the field when it comes out.

I don't know much about what Dan has been up to acting wise since Ghostbusters - but obviously a lot of what he has been doing revolves round detailed research UFOs and anti-gravity technologies as he is surprisingly well up on all the current evidence and philosophy in the field. A bit I found interesting was when Dan was on the phone to Britney Spears and some kind of M.I.B. agency materialized.

Although it's a pretty steady and uneventful interview style, the dialogs between the two and the occasional clip thrown in make the video more than watchable and unlike the vast majority of TV junk UFO/Alien genre programs we're fed - 'Unplugged...' really delivers an informative summary of just what could be going on and more importantly how we should begin DEALING with the situation.

In the 21st century we cannot go on treating this field as a side show or joke - whether out of fear or ridicule we need to grow up as a species, eradicate secrecy and expose the massive black budget spends. This DVD is well worth the time and expense whether you are new to the subject or a seasoned guru of all things alien.

More on the UFO phenomena and how it relates to Omega-Point issues at http://www.utopiated.net

This movie start off reasonably good, trying to portray in a good and objective way that UFOs exist.

It start showing an Indian looking kinda of guy, interviewing Dan Akroyd, like they both had a PhD on the subject, as the movie progress, it becomes increasingly boring, repetitive, and even silly, the interviewer start asking all those sort of personal questions, 'would you go to space an not tell anything if it was required?', 'what would you do if you could do time travel and who would you wanna sit down and talk to', when they were not talking about those trivialities, the Indian looking guy was throwing those incredibly stupid theories that makes the average citizen roll eyes before those UFOlogists, and Dan Akroyd, spend a good 60% of the movies just nodding, 'Do you think they are this?', Dan nods, 'Do you think they are that?', Dan nods again, he does that for nearly an hour and half.

I can't really recommend this movie to anyone, It was very badly made, the filming was also annoying, as both man, The Indian and Dan Akroyd, spend the whole movie looking directly to the camera, and basically, the same logical and the weird theories that were discussed and the footage that is shown during the initial fifteen minutes, are repeated countless times during the interview, making a boring 100 minutes movie, look like a 300 minutes one.

I don't recommend watching this movie, It is a waste of time, It has a small amount of good footage and an even smaller amount of information, but that's it, Dan Akroyd looks specially ridiculous trying to appear as an Einstein and the Indian guy at times looks more interesting in Dan than in the UFO subject.

Rating: 3/10.

What can one say about the UFO scene? There have been times I have been intrigued enough re the phenomenon to read books on the subject and even attend the odd meeting, but in the end it seemed to be a case of death by boredom. Nothing seems to really happen - I personally have never seen a UFO, though I would like to.

I remember writing once to a prominent public figure (Philip) who is a hardcore commentator on significant world events on radio and in the print media(and who is about as far as one can imagine from the likes of David Letterman et al). He daily (it seems) rubs shoulders with leading politicians, scientists, philosophers, artists of all persuasions from countries all around the world. I sent him an article from The Times (London) re a couple of British Airway pilots who had seen a strange triangular craft zip down the side of their commercial airliner - literally "out of this world". it took a great deal of courage for the pilots to make this report. Anyway Philip kindly and politely explained to me how he was in almost daily contact with leading scientists etc. and if there were even a hint that Earth was in some way in contact with ET, they would be shouting it from the rooftops. He also went on to say how the motivation for UFO pronouncements was usually fun or profit. Some people just enjoyed fooling others while others saw it as a chance to make a buck (though a rather hard way to so do, I would have thought).

My wife's mother, who is a very level headed person who successfully raised 8 children, says she saw a UFO during WWII - "like a silvery plate", it apparently hovered for a time before departing at speed. She and I are unfortunately unable to communicate directly due to language so I could not question her directly on this.

I suppose it is a bit like ghosts - there have been so many reports of them over the years it must be true...

As to the film itself, some of the material was interesting. I found the method of presentation irritating, like most current science shows, where unless you keep the audience entertained with gimmicky text and psychedelic presentation, you fear they will lose interest. Ackroyd's presentation was polished and coherent (of course he is an actor) - much of what he said made sense. His closing grin at the end when the interviewer praised him as one of the "greatest minds in the world" tells me he (Dan) didn't take that too seriously.

UFO sightings captured on films or video always remind me of words from the movie Hellboy: Why is is that footage of UFOs, the Yeti, Hellboy... are always blurry and indistinct? Some of the video of vague silvery blobs looks remarkably like a 747 viewed front-on and seen at a great distance through heat haze.

The presentation in the film was repetitious not particularly inspired or comprehensive, and its gaudy irritating manner implied many in the the audience could not think for themselves. Some of the STS footage was interesting though, as was testimony from prominent figures like astronaut Cooper and politician Hellyer. Of course they might be sincerely deluded.

I remain open on the subject of UFOs. With the proliferation of cam-corders with powerful optical zoom lenses, I would expect (if the phenomenon is real) to see significantly better quality footage in the years to come (Yeah, let's bring 'em down to the White House lawn). Nobody seems to really be in charge on Planet Earth so maybe it's time for a helping hand...