The truth is out there! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the best documentaries about the supposed existence of extraterrestrials.
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00:00 You've said that the US has intact spacecraft.
00:04 You said that the government has alien bodies or alien species.
00:08 Have you seen the spacecraft?
00:09 What I personally witnessed myself is very disturbing.
00:13 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks
00:17 for the best documentaries about the supposed existence of extraterrestrials.
00:22 The wind provides an opportunity to scatter their larvae.
00:28 Number 10. Westall 66, a suburban UFO mystery.
00:33 When it comes to unexplained UFO sightings, this one had a lot of witnesses.
00:38 In this case, the witnesses were a group of over 200 suburban high schoolers
00:43 and their teacher, who saw a UFO fly over their school in broad daylight.
00:48 I just happened to be looking out the window, thinking how to fudge my science report.
00:53 What I saw directly south was something that I'd never seen before.
00:57 A few of the former students feature in this documentary about the experience,
01:01 recounting their memories of the flying saucer purportedly descending near their school in 1966.
01:08 It just gradually lifted, lifted up, and then went off towards the pond.
01:11 To further convince viewers of the odd encounter, the director attempts to retrieve news footage of the day,
01:17 only to find that it has been mysteriously removed from the station's archive. Spooky!
01:23 It still would take me to my grave. What the hell was that?
01:27 Number 9. Connected, the hidden science of everything.
01:31 On its surface, this docuseries doesn't appear to have anything to do with UFOs.
01:36 It covers a variety of topics, from poop to nukes,
01:39 with scientists discussing how each subject connects us with our surrounding universe.
01:44 Clouds reflect sunlight, so that has a strong cooling effect on the Earth's surface underneath.
01:48 But if we're connected to the universe, wouldn't we also be connected to alien life?
01:53 Shortly after the series' release, one viewer found what they believed to be a flying saucer in the episode "Covering Clouds."
02:00 "Here we go!"
02:02 It's difficult to make out the object, as it races past a plane,
02:07 but its similarity to UFO depictions in sci-fi films is uncanny.
02:12 While some have complained about the series' overly enthusiastic host,
02:16 we still think it's a worthwhile watch for those looking to feel closer to the world, or worlds, around them.
02:22 Number 8. UFOs and nukes, the secret link revealed.
02:26 Focusing on a series of declassified documents about unidentified flying objects seen at nuclear testing sites,
02:33 UFOs and nukes isn't the flashiest documentary to delve into the potential existence of aliens,
02:39 but it's thought-provoking nonetheless.
02:41 "It was instant go, instant stop. That object did things that no airplane, helicopter, or any other system that we had in existence could do."
02:54 The film places a lot of importance on the credibility of its witnesses,
02:58 all of whom held important roles at nuclear weapons facilities within the U.S.
03:02 "He called back about five minutes later.
03:05 This time he was screaming into the phone saying they're looking at a red glowing object hovering just above our front gate."
03:14 The former employees primarily described seeing typically shaped "saucer UFOs"
03:19 with solid red or orange coloring, and claimed that they tampered with their crucial high-risk work.
03:25 "And there's a beam of reddish light going down to it.
03:28 I assume they were taking data with that beam. It wasn't destructive as far as I know.
03:32 It had to be a data collection thing. I'm sure they scanned the warhead or something."
03:37 Recreations of each witness' account help give viewers a better idea of what may have been seen,
03:42 while documents detailing similar experiences in the Soviet Union serve to strengthen the link between UFOs and nuclear power.
03:50 Number 7. Curse of the man who sees UFOs.
03:54 "Three weeks later, something else really interested, related, so let's go check that out.
04:00 That's not my car."
04:02 Christo Ropolo hasn't had an easy life.
04:05 His father and fiancé both died, his brother stole his money,
04:10 and his mother disowned him when he tried to convince her to mitigate the situation with his sibling.
04:15 After facing so many hardships, it's not hard to see why he would look to the stars for solace.
04:21 "I make sounds from pictures of UFOs."
04:23 "So then what do you do with that?"
04:25 "Then I put it into a song."
04:28 And yet, the documentarian at the helm of Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs
04:33 never suggests Ropolo's beliefs come from anything other than a genuine place.
04:38 "You can't see them in the daytime, it's because they're working and moving around in a spectrum of light.
04:44 Oh, that was gorgeous."
04:46 Though he admits to often playing the "Scully" to Ropolo's moulder,
04:50 he admits that the things he saw with him are genuinely strange and unexplainable.
04:54 "I found myself playing Scully to his moulder more often than not.
04:58 But I don't deny that I saw some weird stuff, too."
05:01 It's a doc that will leave you wondering if the truth really is out there in Monterey, California.
05:07 "We never found the origins of the screams, and this creeped me out.
05:11 Something weird was going on and I couldn't explain it.
05:14 I walked away wondering if Christa was just a magnet for the bizarre,
05:17 or if Monterey had a dark sci-fi secret below the surface."
05:21 Number 6. Alien Autopsy, Fact or Fiction?
05:25 "This is purportedly an alien. I question whether you would just spend two hours on it.
05:31 One would surely spend weeks, months, if not years."
05:35 In 1947, something happened in Roswell, New Mexico, but it likely wasn't this.
05:41 Alien Autopsy aired on Fox in 1995, purporting to be a documentary film about its title subject.
05:48 Although it has since been debunked, with its filmmakers admitting to faking its content,
05:53 the impact it had on viewers cannot be dismissed.
05:56 It captured their imaginations and sparked heated debates across the country about its supposed legitimacy.
06:02 "You cannot fake a motion picture that easily.
06:06 It would require an amount of technical know-how, of sophistication,
06:10 that would make the operation not worthwhile."
06:13 Due to the film's popularity, Fox quickly scheduled two reruns of Alien Autopsy to follow the initial airing,
06:20 promising that the new broadcasts would add more footage for the public to "dissect."
06:25 Each one brought in more views than the last,
06:27 and helped ignite a public interest in extraterrestrial life that has lasted into the present day.
06:32 "The organic quality of the legs and the feet, all that looks very good."
06:39 Number 5. Love and Saucers
06:41 Far too often, UFO documentaries can come across as exploitative of their subjects.
06:47 There's a sense that the film is laughing at the people they are portraying, not with them.
06:52 Thankfully, this is not the case with Love and Saucers.
06:55 "I don't ask anyone to believe a word I say in regard to whatever this is."
06:59 The unconventional tale of romance focuses on a 72-year-old man
07:04 who paints pictures of the encounters he claims to have had with aliens throughout his lifetime,
07:09 including a female alien that he says is his lover.
07:12 "I see a woman sitting under a tree, and she gets up and she starts coming toward me."
07:19 In spite of his unorthodox beliefs, he appears to be warmly received,
07:23 not only by the film's documentarian, but by his son and surrounding neighbors.
07:28 "I admire him, that he believes in certain things, and nobody has to judge nobody else."
07:35 It's a refreshingly kind-hearted view into a wonderfully weird world
07:39 that we can only hope exists in this reality.
07:42 "I knew they were going to come back. I cleaned up the house, washed the dishes, had to be spick and span."
07:50 Number 4. The Unexplained
07:53 Who better to host a docuseries about UFOs than Captain James T. Kirk himself?
07:58 "Is it possible that extraterrestrial spacecraft are repeatedly visiting our planet at so-called UFO hotspots?"
08:06 The Unexplained covers a variety of bizarre and mystifying topics,
08:10 from the existence of Mothman to horrifying deadly cults.
08:14 But the episodes most relevant to its host's sci-fi background
08:17 are those focused on the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
08:21 "Those lights that people saw over the city, that was actually flares that we dropped."
08:26 The first of these episodes is a fairly basic primer on conspiracies of government cover-ups,
08:31 titled "The Truth About UFOs."
08:34 However, Shatner takes a more in-depth look at the phenomenon in the show's fifth season,
08:39 in an episode covering UFO hotspots.
08:42 Extraterrestrial experts are interviewed about the infamous Skinwalker Ranch, Phoenix, Arizona,
08:47 and several other key locations known for their repeat visits from beyond the stars.
08:52 "Can you replay that?"
08:53 "Yeah, hold on, what did it disappear into?"
08:55 "We'll go back and replay this."
08:57 "Is it a portal? Are we seeing portals open?"
09:00 Number 3. Out of the Blue
09:02 Whether you believe that there is life on other planets or not,
09:05 unidentified flying objects themselves are undeniably real.
09:09 Sometimes there are things flying or floating in the sky that we just can't explain.
09:14 They're unidentified.
09:16 "We were told not to talk about it, so we didn't.
09:19 What we saw out there was definitely unidentifiable."
09:24 The true debate is whether these objects are manned by alien pilots,
09:28 and it's a debate that Out of the Blue confronts head-on.
09:32 Speaking with scientists, former government employees, and everyday eyewitnesses,
09:37 this comprehensive documentary attempts to paint a fuller picture of UFO sightings around the world
09:42 as a means of convincing viewers of the existence of extraterrestrials.
09:46 "Enormous, inexplicable, probably one of the major sightings in modern history in the country
09:53 because a lot of people saw it in Maricopa County, and I saw it too.
09:56 And we never got to the bottom of it. We never found out what they were."
10:01 If you're looking for some alarmingly convincing evidence,
10:04 but don't have time for a full series, this is likely the doc for you.
10:08 "Smith was informed that flying saucers exist, and more significantly,
10:13 the matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States government,
10:17 rating higher even than the H-bomb."
10:20 Number 2. A Strange Harvest
10:22 Structured like an investigative news report, A Strange Harvest took a serious look
10:27 at the serial disfigurement of cows that had plagued ranches since the 1950s.
10:31 "From everywhere I go, they tell me that it's predators, which I do not believe."
10:36 "Why do you feel differently?"
10:39 "Because I don't feel a predator can do these things."
10:41 While one might initially assume the perpetrators were predator animals,
10:45 the witnesses interviewed in this documentary suggest that the criminal is actually of extraterrestrial origin.
10:51 "The incisions a lot of times look like some type of burner, laser."
10:57 Alternate theories, such as the idea that a military aircraft could have been tampering with the animals,
11:02 are tested, but ultimately thrown out.
11:04 The film even features a therapy session with an alleged UFO abductee,
11:08 who describes seeing the cows subjected to testing firsthand.
11:12 In spite of the documentary's journalistic approach,
11:15 its ideas are presented with tense and unnerving score.
11:19 "I was horrified at the thought of what could do this in broad daylight."
11:23 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
11:28 Aerial Phenomenon. A UFO is witnessed by 60+ children in Africa, but no one believes them.
11:34 "If I had to describe that day, the first thing that I remember is the light and the sound,
11:38 is the main thing that just strikes me, and then the two shadows."
11:42 Ancient Aliens. Its theories are controversial, but its popularity cannot be denied.
11:47 "You're going into a frequency and harmony to actually talk directly with those beings that are supernatural."
11:56 Top Secret UFO Projects Declassified.
11:59 Declassified documents give UFO experts a mountain of new data to investigate.
12:05 "You get in touch with publishers of key papers, you talk to the three networks,
12:09 and you say, 'Look, you've got to play ball with us.' And they did!"
12:13 TMZ Presents UFO Revolution. Something is out there, and the US government knows it.
12:19 "A genuine disclosure of the UAP UFO subject would be the most earth-shattering thing imaginable."
12:26 Mirage Men. Disturbing first-hand accounts from ex-government employees provide a good scare.
12:32 "The public, who happens to get a glimpse of the thing from time to time,
12:36 if they're convinced that it's from Venus, and there's no way it could be our military,
12:40 well, hey, that's awesome. Hell yes."
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12:56 Number 1. Alien worlds.
13:01 If aliens exist, what would they look like?
13:03 Alien worlds rejects the popular idea of little green and grey men,
13:07 and instead offers science-based looks at what kinds of creatures may actually be able to survive on other planets.
13:14 "All living things have the same needs.
13:18 To feed.
13:22 Reproduce.
13:30 And evolve."
13:35 These segments play out like nature documentaries from another world,
13:39 describing how each of the invented extraterrestrials might be able to survive in spite of their harsh surroundings.
13:45 "If life can exist here, it could exist on any number of worlds in the universe."
13:53 Far from a solely CGI-based science fiction,
13:56 the show also makes sure to provide context for each of the ecosystems it constructs,
14:01 and describes hostile environments on our own Earth as jumping-off points.
14:05 "At the top, a constant wind blows between the cold and hot sides of the planet."
14:11 It's refreshingly creative, and the perfect blend of sci-fi and reality for UFO enthusiasts and animal lovers alike.
14:19 Do you believe in life on other planets?
14:21 If not, do you think any of these documentaries could convince you?
14:25 Sound off in the comments.
14:26 "Running the protection for that particular program, and that's helping me cover something for years, I might even feed the fire."
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14:41 [outro music]