Page 9 - 200712 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - December 2007

UFOs, Innocence and Movies 9 9 UFOs, Innocence and Movies How UFOs Lost Their emerges, and as he holds up a gift which he has How UFOs Lost Their Innocence brought for the President, he is shot and Innocence wounded by a soldier who misinterprets the at the Movies alien's gesture as a hostile movement. At this at the Movies Continued from Page 8 point, Gort, Klaatu's eight-foot robot, leaves the Continued from Page 8 spaceship and fires a kind of laser beam at the assembled military and instantly melts all In 1993, Chris Carter, creator of the weapons and armaments. Klaatu halts Gort television series The X-Files for Fox, before it destroys anything--or anyone--else, fashioned a blend of UFO mythology, and the alien's peaceful intentions convince the increasing public distrust of the government, officers that he has come in peace. Klaatu is and a growing interest in the paranormal that taken to a military hospital where his wound can during its peak season in 1997 attracted an be treated and he can be placed under guard. estimated 20 million viewers per episode. According to the mythos developed by Carter, Klaatu makes it clear that he has come as an the alien invasion had begun in prehistoric Before the series was cancelled, viewers learned ambassador from an intergalactic federation of times and had been rediscovered by the U.S. that the aliens had the ability to possess human planets that has been keeping Earth under military and a secret branch of the government bodies with their larvae, thus allowing them to surveillance for centuries. Now that Earth's in 1947 after the crash of a flying saucer at pass undetected and to accomplish an incredible science has advanced to the nuclear age and the Roswell. number of negative historical events--from the planet's influence may soon be extended beyond FBI agents Fox Mulder (David assassination of John F. Kennedy to the conflict its own atmosphere, he has been sent to deliver Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) in Vietnam, from the murder of certain a message of utmost importance to all the heads declared to their audience that "the truth is out celebrities to popularizing the use of of state. When Klaatu perceives that his request there." However, because the truth was being recreational drugs among young people. will be refused, he escapes from the hospital and covered up by an ultra-secret and exceedingly The summer blockbuster Independence moves anonymously into a rooming house, ruthless government agency, they must "trust no Day (1996) followed a War of the Worlds plot posing as a man named Carpenter. one." Although Mulder and Scully made side line in which aliens blow up half the nation, The alien emissary becomes friends excursions to investigate various aspects of the including the U.S. capital, and are about to with Bobby (Billy Gray) and his mother paranormal, the UFO scenarios comprised the destroy the world. A tough U.S. President (Bill Helen(Patricia Neal), and the boy leads him to glue that held the series together and kept the Pullman) and two heroes (Will Smith, Jeff Professor Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe), a physicist, fans returning week after week to chart the Goldblum) who manage to pilot the spaceship who is impressed, rather than frightened, by agents' progress in cracking the ultimate case that a clandestine branch of the government has Klaatu's superior knowledge. The scientists in that would force the secret government to admit been hiding in a secret underground base since the film are depicted as dedicated individuals the truth about aliens. Before the series ended in the Roswell crash in 1947 manage to save the who are trying their best to live outside the May 2002, both Scully and Mulder had day. political bickering and backstabbing of the Cold themselves been abducted and Scully, earlier War era and who are willing to arrange for declared unable to have children, had borne a The UFO Contactees Klaatu to address an international assemblage of child under mysterious circumstances. the leaders of world science. Realizing that The theme of Dark Skies, the lead In 1951, the same year that audiences Earth's heads of state are too chauvinistic to set television series in NBC's 1996 Saturday night were jumping out of their theater seats watching aside their petty differences and listen to his "thrillogy," was that history as the viewers The Thing, Robert Wise released the classic The message, Klaatu arranges a demonstration that learned it in school was a lie. One of the "truths" Day the Earth Stood Still, which presented a no one on the planet will be able to ignore: He that the series revealed was that in 1947 wise and peaceful alien, who came to warn shuts off all power and machinery on Earth for President Harry S. Truman ordered an Earth's politicians and scientists that they must one hour. extraterrestrial spacecraft shot down over cease their experiments with nuclear power or Considered a threat to national security, Roswell, after an alien ambassador had risk annihilation from extraterrestrials who will Klaatu is killed by the military and his body demanded the unconditional surrender of the not tolerate unbridled human aggressiveness. placed in a cell. Before he was shot, however, United States. Subsequently, whatever Actor Michael Rennie's portrayal of the soft- he advised Helen what to do if anything should resources could be recovered from the scraps of spoken alien "Klaatu," provided a model happen to him. She approaches the massive the demolished alien craft were doled out to extraterrestrial emissary for generations of UFO Gort and speaks the order, "Klaatu Barado various giants of American industry to be freely contactees yet unborn. Nikto," a command which enables to the robot incorporated into our own technology--and a As the film opens, a flying saucer does, to restore life to Klaatu and brings the film to its sinister and ubiquitous super-secret government indeed, land near the White House lawn, in a conclusion and the alien ambassador's final agency known as Majestic 12 was created to baseball field in Washington, D.C. Within message to all of Earth: "It is your choice. Join monitor any undue alien interference in our minutes, the craft is surrounded by armed us and live in peace or face obliteration." political and social structures. military personnel and armored tanks. Klaatu Continued on Page 11