UFO Whistleblowers: Aliens and The UAP Enigma Exposed (2024) - UFO Documentary Review

It has been just a few weeks since the last documentary about UFOs was reviewed on this site (Top 10 Mind Blowing UFO Crash Cases) and now I have a second one for review. Also coming from Bayview Entertainment, I expected the J. Michael Long directed UFO Whistleblowers: Aliens and The UAP Enigma Exposed to follow a similar light on information style. Instead it was good to see this was more in depth on its subject matter even if I don't think it will make believers of anyone not convinced of alien visitations to Earth.

Over seventy five minutes this jumps around from the 1940's to present day looking at various whistle-blowers who claim that the American government secretly has access to alien technology and alien corpses. It covers the usual subjects such as the Roswell crash and the shady powerful group allegedly going by the name Majestic 12. Also some newer topics were mentioned, such as the weird incident from 2023 where various strange objects were spotted in the skies of America (stating that at least one of these was confirmed to be a Chinese spy balloon). The documentary is more than just various case files, as it also seems determined to provide the information of just what constitutes a whistle-blower, the different forms these might take, methods used to try and supress whistle-blowers and why these people are important for a healthy democracy to function. While here they are mentioned with respect to UFO sightings and recovered technology, it also serves as talking about these people in general, as obviously whistle-blowing is not restricted just to alleged alien events.

The previous documentary suffered by not really featuring a lot of variation, happy to just show some pretty bad looking CG and be done with it. Here there are talking head segments from experts in the field, archival footage from court room reveals, cheesy re-enactments and of course some bad looking CG. There was a certain charm to the cheesy stuff shown here, and the quality of the CG while bad, didn't meet the same low quality as that other documentary I recently watched. It was all narrated by the director, and it was for the most part interesting, whether what is stated is actually real or not. One subject it kept going back to was the suggestion that there has been a long running UFO retrieval and reverse engineering program going on in the U.S, with various archival footage of people claiming this is the case. It was interesting how the modern consensus among believers is that these UFOs aren't from different planets but instead from different dimensions.
Throughout this there was a suitably mysterious soundtrack that I thought fitted this well, the documentary culminates in a relatively lengthy epilogue that ends things on a positive and optimistic note.

I thought that UFO Whistleblowers: Aliens and The UAP Enigma Exposed was better than my expectations. I wish I was a firm believer of this stuff, but I remain sceptical. Regardless, I found the formatting of this interesting, and there was enough variation that it never got stale. This documentary is available on Digital platforms worldwide, including Amazon Prime Video in the UK and USA. It is also available on AVOD Digital.

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Top 10 Mind Blowing UFO Crash Cases (2024) - UFO Documentary Review

                   

Me and my father always enjoy documentaries about aliens and other supernatural and extra-terrestrial subjects. Top 10 Mind Blowing UFO Crash Cases is one such program of that type, this, as the title suggests, takes in ten different alleged instances. Short on substance, but entertaining in that nice brain-dead type of way, there might be not much new or surprising to be found within the forty five minutes here but it was not a chore to get through.

This takes a swift tour of some of the most well documented crashes of unidentified flying objects. Going by the term itself this is true, as to whether these were actually involving beings from other planets or dimensions remains the bigger question. There is no sort of order to these cases discussed, and neither do they all involve crashes itself. Instead, this covers a range of topics, from actual reported crashes to second hand accounts of having been shown alien technology at top secret army bases.

The old classics are on hand, with Roswell being one of the most well known ones shown here. There is not anything new revealed, instead this takes a light on details approach to quickly going over the topics. This was narrated by a variety of different serious sounding narrators, and there were not any talking head moments, or anyone being interviewed on screen at all. There wasn't a balanced approach, with it never explicitly stating these were alien in origin, but not looking at any possible other explanation either. Much of the fast paced editing puts in crude looking animations of aliens, wild artworks of giant crashed flying saucers, and still images. Some, like the Aztec, New Mexico crash have since commonly believed to have been a hoax, yet this isn't mentioned within the documentary, though it does state that official sources have claimed alleged events such as that one were not believed. I guess you could say that goes into cover-up territory, with this often suggesting that crashes reported as hoaxes or dismissed by the authorities were only done so to deceive the public from the truth. 

The content used for each crash often goes off on slight tangents, such as talking about American comedian Jackie Gleason who alleges he was invited to a top secret army base where he was shown remains of aliens and the saucer they arrived in. There is also talk of future technology that came about as a result of crashed UFOs, such as laser technology and new, never before seen materials.
On the one had, this isn't going to make a believer of anyone, nor will it reveal any unheard of cases. Despite that, this was entertaining with a wide variety of different little animations, photos and looped clips as a backdrop to the super serious and dramatic narrators. Written by O.H Krill, and directed by Charles Thompsen, Top 10 Mind Blowing UFO Crash Cases is out on digital platforms, including to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video in the U.K and U.S, and is also out worldwide on AVOD digital platforms.

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On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors (2022) - Documentary Review

On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors is the latest documentary from Small Town Monsters (Momo: The Missouri Monster, Terror in the Skies), and from the title it should be super obvious this is part of their UFO series. This one, the press release states, 'takes viewers into the most disturbing aspect of UFOlogy'. I would perhaps say one of the most typical aspects, that of cattle mutilations. As I began to watch this however, I realised that despite that long being associated with UFOs, I didn't actually know that much about it. With Small Town Monsters never failing to make interesting documentaries I was happy to explore the topic.

Directed by Seth Breedlove, investigator Shannon LeGro (On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky) once again takes on the lead role. The eighty minute doc was filmed in Colorado and is made up primarily with various interviews with eye witness accounts who have been involved in some way either with seeing unexplained sightings in the sky, or having owned cattle that has then been found mutilated. It starts with a brief history of cattle mutilations, something it later returns to with a segment about the very first recorded cattle mutilation (was actually a horse nicknamed Snippy). There are various subjects covered here outside of that particular event, as well as lights in the sky, there are parts about people who have been apparently abducted by UFOs in the area, the notion of secret underground military facilities inside hollow mountains, even a part about the mysterious silent black helicopters that are linked to the subject matter.

To add spice to what is being discussed there are the usual assortment of both artwork and simple CG effects used to simulate UFOs in real world settings, nothing too amazing was shown with these but they added flavour. One part that I didn't think worked as well was a glitching effect used with the editing, usually when switching between various photos of dead animals. Still, the interviews themselves feature a bunch of eclectic people, from farm owners, to a particularly haunted looking man talking about his abduction experience, to the owner of a UFO based tourist trap who says she has had many unexplained sightings over the years of being based in the area (and who owns the skeletal remains of the previously mentioned Snippy). Intercut are many wide scenery shots, and shots of LeGro gazing out at various locations. Again set in America, I never get tired of seeing the countryside, the flat plains of Colorado lending themselves well to the idea that so many sightings could have happened here. As to the explanations, there isn't anything concrete concluded, with an admission that with so many more knowledgeable people exploring this and not finding answers, that they too couldn't really pinpoint the actual cause. Being firm believers, or at least very open minded to the idea of UFOs, there is no challenging of peoples accounts, but I didn't expect there to be, and am kind of glad there wasn't as many of the people being spoken to seemed genuine.

I didn't think the subject matter quite fitted the press release, but regardless, there was plenty here that I hadn't really ever looked into before and so it was interesting to watch and listen. Maybe not the most exciting of documentaries but I enjoyed my time with this, with Small Town Monsters documentaries there is a rhythm to them that I always find quite chilled and this was no exception. On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors debuts on major streaming platforms on April 5th, from 1091 Pictures.

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On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky (2021) - UFO Documentary Review

Aliens are quite possibly the first kind of monster that I ever got into. I remember as a child my dad had quite the collection of books on the subjects of UFOs and I would spend hours flicking through them, mainly to look at the pictures admittedly. On the Trails of UFOs: Dark Sky is the latest documentary from Seth Breedlove (The Mark of the Bell Witch, Terror in the Skies). This is a follow up to the 2020 episodic series, On the Trail of UFOs. For this documentary paranormal researcher Shannon LeGro takes centre stage as she heads around mainly West Virginia in order to record a series of first hand accounts from witnesses of UFO phenomena.

This is a beautiful part of America so this has plenty of lovely looking scenery which is an immediate plus. It also happens to be quite an interesting documentary, the reason I brought up my childhood memories of looking through my father's books is that this doc touches on subjects that I hadn't really read too much about since then. Any fear that a multitude of witness testimonies would lead to boredom were also ill founded. I don't know if it is due to the lazy Sunday I am having but the mostly low thrills accounts of strange lights and objects being viewed in the dark skies was interesting see. None of the people interviewed seemed like they were crack pots and the questions being asked by LeGro were not sensationalist. Sure the documentary as a whole goes partly in this direction with recreations both in the form of drawings and CG recreations but it even goes as far to say just because these are UFOs people are seeing it doesn't necessarily indicate the presence of aliens. It may err towards the paranormal but there is a more rounded look than expected such as one part that focusses on the possibility of there being secret government test bases in the area of reported sightings.

As well as interviewing people there are also a couple of sight visits, one actually has the surprise of LeGro and her crew actually spotting their very own legitimate UFO sighting that they also manage to capture on camera which felt like something quite cool. Another visit to a cavern system seemed a bit pointless, I never really understood why they went there to conduct an interview even if it made for a change of location. There was a good pacing here I felt. Throughout the interviewer questions the witnesses as to whether there are any nearby mines in the area, the reasons behind this are left mysterious until the final part of this where it is suggested the UFOs could be originating from inside the Earth, not necessarily about the hollow Earth theory (extremely briefly touched upon) but more that there could be hidden bases in the area. The most interesting topic for me was the men in black part. This has been muddied in recent years thanks to the popular sci-fi films but these real accounts led to some of the more creepy moments of Dark Sky.

There is so much supernatural and paranormal incidents in America that I don't think Seth Breedlove will ever run out of topics to explore. A UFO documentary that only involves sightings in one state of America is testament to the amount on the subjects that exists in modern day USA. There may not be too much here that would surprise people with at least a rudimentary knowledge of UFOs but it is all presented in a way that is interesting, informative and most importantly entertaining to watch. On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky comes to VOD on August 3rd.

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