1 review
Earnest early effort by producer James Fox and others to inform the public about the U. S. government's decades-long effort to prevent the the truth about UFOs visiting earth from being revealed. One of the film's strengths is its interviews with eyewitnesses, including former military personnel (Jesse Marcel & Phillip Corso) and other credible persons. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, physicist-investigator Stanton Freidman and others knowledgeable on the subject also provide expert testimony. The film also reveals government documents to make its case, and includes some fuzzy videos and photographs (one that has since been revealed as a fake). It also discusses motives for the cover-up, including possible negative implications disclosure could have on society, especially for those whose religious beliefs contain an earth-centric perception of the universe. Today, a quarter century after it's release, we are in the beginning of an era of disclosure wherein many former government officials are speaking out about secret government-funded studies on UFOs and that the discovery that the phenomenon is very real. New, comprehensive studies have been approved by Congress in the latest defense budget, and the Dept. Of Defense is required to provide regular, declassified briefings to the public about its findings. Therefore today, with the cat out of the bag so to speak, "UFOs: 50 Years of Denial" is less a shocking expose about a hidden truth, and more a film documenting how the government successfully hid the truth about UFOs from the public for so many years.