MUMBAI: Steven Spielberg believes in life on other planets and several of his movies make his statements on the subject easy to believe. Spielberg’s outer space work is the subject of parody in The Top Secret UFO Project, filmmaker R. J. Thomas’ spoof of UFO documentaries.
In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg showed us peaceful aliens trying to communicate with us, and in ET he that creatures from outer space can make great pals. In Taken, his Sci-Fi Channel miniseries, he showed five decades of UFO mythology, including the infamous incident in Roswell, New Mexico. In War of the Worlds, he went back to the 1950s science fiction thrillers he watched as a kid on the late show.
“Spielberg has had a fascination with science fiction ever since he was a kid. When he was 16, he made a film called Firelight. It was a two-hour sci-fi drama that ended up playing at a movie house in Phoenix,” said Thomas.
Based on Thomas’ 2004 novella of the same name, The Top Secret UFO Project chronicles the UFO-related events experienced by a tiny Colorado hamlet called Jasper. According to the film, the town dealt with one unusual event after another in the summer of 1956. After a farmer spotted a flying saucer zipping over his property, scientists rushed into Jasper to investigate, reporters rushed in looking for stories, and government officials rushed in to keep it a secret from the world.
Billed as “the movie the government does not want you to see,” The Top Secret UFO Project, is a parody of not only Spielberg’s sci-fi films, but of the cheesy UFO documentaries of the 70’s like Overlords of the UFO and TV programs like In Search Of.
Thomas plays a documentary filmmaker who, in 2003, discovered some top secret government films pertaining to the Jasper Incident of 1956. This inspired him to make a documentary about Jasper’s UFO story, and to discover the truth behind what really happened that mysterious summer in Colorado.
And what would Spielberg think of this little mockrumentary? “Spielberg has been fascinated with this sci-fi stuff all his life, from the corniest Flash Gordon serial to the actual belief that UFOs exist. My film? I would hope that he would get a kick out of it. But then again, we’re talking about Steve Spielberg here. He is cinema royalty,” Thomas said.
The Top Secret UFO Project is available on DVD at BooksAndSuchMart.com and for viewing online at Google Video.
