Disney does UFOs by Charles Lear. UFO documentaries and television specials play a big
part in introducing people to the subject. Sometimes they're well researched and made with
care by creators with a passionate interest in the subject, and sometimes they're made
mostly for the sake of making money. In the case of a television special
made by the Walt Disney Company titled Alien Encounters from New Tomorrowland that was aired
in five US cities in February March of nineteen ninety five, it was created
as a means to promote a new ride at Walt Disney World Resort. While
fairly typical of the UFO related television presentations of its day, the manner of
fact statements by narrator Robert Yuick to the effect that aliens are visiting Earth in
spaceships and abducting human inhabitants, and that there are government documents that prove this
cost some to speculate that the documentary was made in partnership with US government officials
as part of a disclosure process. This sort of speculation also came about in
the case of a movie that was released under two titles, first in nineteen
seventy four is UFOs Past, Present and Future, and then in nineteen seventy
six and nineteen seventy nine as UFOs It Has Begun. It was written primarily
by Robert Emmeninginger, who also produced it along with Alan Sandler. It has
Rod Serling as its main narrator, and there are appearances by Burgess, Meredith,
Jose Ferrare, Jacques Vallet, and j Allen heinek Emmeneger Is told the
story of the film's production on several occasions, including as recently as two thousand
and eight on video shot outside of the X Conference. His stories as follows.
Ian Sandler had originally set out to produce a series of films about advanced
military technology, but were diverted by an intriguing piece of information offered by their
military contact, Paul Shardele, with whom they were working at Norton Air Force
Base. Chardle, security manager and chief of requirements for the audio visual program
at the base, said he had seen a film of an alien craft landing
at Holloman Air Force Base three years previous. As discussions about possible projects continued,
the idea that one of them be about UFOs came up and was encouraged
by military officials who offered the producers the use of the footage. Emmenegger and
Sandler decided to go ahead with the UFO documentary. According to Emmenegger, Ian
Sandler visited the Pentagon repeatedly and never signed in, which had also been the
case at Norton. He speculates that this was for the purpose of plausible deniability.
He says they met with Colonel William Coleman, who okayed the use of
the film and told them that the Air Force would sponsor the documentary. Emmenegger
explains that this was for the purpose of improving public relations with a military in
the aftermath of the Vietnam War. According to Emmeneger, after a long wait,
Coleman told the producers that the climate created by the Watergate scandal made it
an inappropriate time to release the Holman footage in its place at the end of
the film as an illustrated sequence showing a craft landing in an Air Force base
and a meeting between alien beings and US military officials. According to Emmeneger,
this was based on the film footage that was promised by the Air Force.
Speculation on whether or not the Air Force really had the footage described or was
engaged in a disinformation operation continues to this day. Eineteen eighty four, Michael
Eisner became Disney CEO and started looking for ways to revitalize the parks. They
had success with an attraction based on Star Wars before becoming owners of the franchise
called Star Tours, and Eisner got the idea to create something based on Alien.
Col Gariak posted an article on March twenty third, twenty seventeen, headlined
Disney Extinct Attractions Extra Terror Estriel Alien Encounter on the Laughing Place website. According
to Geriak, older imagineers convinced Eisner that an attraction based on the film would
be too scary and that its R rating made it inappropriate for the park.
However, Eisner liked the idea of a ride involving a malevolent alien and had
the imagineers come up with an original story. What came about was Extra Terror
Estrial Alien Encounter, which, in Gariak's words, softly opened on December sixteenth,
nineteen ninety four. Someone managed to video the full experience offered by the
attraction and it can be seen on YouTube. The visitors are introduced to an
alien run off Earth company called Excess Tech and its latest teleportation technology, and
then ushered into a theater where shoulder restraints lower over them, locking them into
their seats. A demonstration of the teleportation device goes wrong, and instead of
the Excess Tech company chairman being teleported to Earth, a malevolent, carnivorous,
winged creature ends up in the clear plastic receiving tube. The creature breaks through
the tube and there is a blackout as it supposedly stalks through the room.
Lights flash occasionally in a technician sent to fix the electricity is heard being eaten
while screaming. Michel Debchek described the work of the imagineers that created the sensation
that there was a real creature in the room in her article posted April twenty
fifth, two thousand nineteen on the Mental flo Loss website head lined Alien Encounter
the life and death of all Disney World's scariest ride ever. Through strategically placed
speakers and four D devices, riders heard repulsive slurping and crunching noises, then
were sprayed in the face with warm water, making them think they had been
splattered with fresh blood. At one point, harnesses pressed down onto the rider's
shoulders to make it feel as if the monster was crouching on top of them.
Warm air and water released from the seats replicated what it might feel like
if the creature was slobbering down the back of each audience member's neck. According
to Debzak, who links to a June fourth, two thousand Palm Beach post
articles a reference, children often left in tears, and the attraction was closed
in two thousand three, though Disney gave no reason for it. The documentary
made to promote the attraction is classic nineteen nineties euphology, with claims of recovered
crashed saucers and alien bodies, and the existence of secret government documents that proved.
Ever, a good ten minutes is given over to Bud Hopkins and people
with claims of being abducted. Mark Pilkington wrote an article titled Mickey Mouse Conquers
the Martians, which is posted on headweb dot com. The documentary was written
and produced by Andy Thomas, described by Pilkington as a UFO believer. According
to Pilkington, this was after a UFO's summit held in Disney World that was
organized by Don Ecker and included Bud Hopkins, Clifford Stone, and George Knapp
as the special leads up to the promotion for the ride, Urick says,
something that would make any conspiracy theorist perk up here at New Tomorrowland. At
Disney World, scientists and engineers have brought to life a possible scenario that helps
acclimate the public to their inevitable alien encounter. In the article written by bou
Portner headlined Disney Encounter lifts UFO believers, published in the May third, nineteen
ninety five or Land Sentinel, he quotes the Land, Florida resident Don Zangi,
who felt that the government was involved with a special. According to Zangi,
who is described as a counselor of UFO abductees, we believe the purpose
of it is that the government is doing a controlled release of information, and
the best way to do it is through Disney appreciation. Is due to Patrick
Gross, who examines the Disney special in the Stupidity section of its well researched
and informative website UFOs at Close Site. Charles Lear is the author of The
Flying Saucer Investigators, available at Amazon dot com.