PAGE A6, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 27, 2021
Top secret UFO documentary lacks believability
BY JORDAN REID
For the Keizertimes
“I want to believe,” read the iconic
poster that hung in Special Agents
Mulder and Scully’s offi ce for more than
200 episodes of the iconic series The
X-Files. It’s a phrase that perfectly
sums up how I feel about the concept
of extraterrestrial UFOs: I would love
for someone to convince me that these
things have visited earth because it’s
a fascinating, paradigm-shifting idea.
But do I believe in little green men from
outer space? Not really, as pesky details
and logic have a tendency to get in the
way. I simply want to believe. This is
the mindset I adopt whenever I con-
sume UFO related media: I want you to
convince me that there are aliens and
I want you to entertain me. Top Secret
UFO Projects: Declassifi ed, a new (and
awkwardly titled) Netfl ix documen-
tary fails spectacularly with the former
thanks to constant illogical leaps, mis-
interpretations of facts, and a complete
lack of skepticism. All of this, plus the
lack of new material and unimpressive
visuals, leads it to fail on the latter as
well.
One of the biggest problems that this
and other similar documentaries suff er
from is the assumption that if a UFO is
real it must mean it is alien in nature.
When discussing a press release from
Project Blue Book, a legitimate attempt
by the US government to investigate the
UFO phenomena from the early fi fties
to the late sixties, Declassifi ed claims
through various “UFO experts” that
it was “the fi rst offi cial admission
that extra terrestrial craft of superior
speed and maneuverability had been
observed in earth’s atmosphere.” I’m
sorry, what? The government states
that it doesn’t know what a few fl ying
objects are and suddenly that’s an
Review
admission that aliens have visited us? It
later says that because the government
initially claimed that it didn’t know
what crashed at Roswell (you know,
that super famous UFO case) before
changing course and saying it was a
weather balloon means that a cover-up
was happening. Or maybe, you
know, they were just reacting to new
information as it arose? These people
clearly want to believe as much as I do;
the problem is that they are willing to
make leaps and absurd interpretations
to get there. A little skepticism goes a
long way when trying to prove why that
very same skepticism is misplaced,
but Declassifi ed just claims that all of
these outlandish things happened and
hopes you don’t think about it harder
than they did.
It ultimately felt like Top Secret UFO
Projects: Declassifi ed was insulting the
audience’s intelligence, and that kept
me from enjoying it. This frustration
threw into relief other issues that the
documentary has, namely poor visu-
als (particularly the CGI), uninspired
music, and a lack of anything new to
say. This is just like any other schlocky
UFO documentary you have seen a bil-
lion times on the History Channel at
2:30 a.m. as you try to fall asleep.
Shouting at me to believe is not
going to make me believe, documen-
tary. Try harder next time.
Top
Secret
UFO
Projects:
Declassifi ed is now available on Netfl ix.
Top Secret UFO Projects: Declassified is now available on Netflix.
Netflix