Storyline
The skeptic becomes a believer in
The Unknowns, an
engrossing look at America's most confounding UFO
sightings.
Assembled and narrated by popular Swedish documentary
producer LEMMiNO, the film hangs its narrative on the
findings of
Project Blue Book, a government-led
investigation into UFO sightings that occurred
throughout the country during the 1950s.
While the
majority of these cases were dismissed as mere
illusions, there were hundreds of sightings that were
ultimately abandoned without plausible explanation. The
filmmaker highlights several of these as yet unexplained
sightings.
The story begins in 1947.
That's the year that aviator
Kenneth Arnold claimed to have witnessed a string of
saucer-shaped objects speeding past him in the air space
over Washington.
His sighting was corroborated by many
additional witnesses on the ground. In fact, there were
over 800 reported sightings that month alone.
The government might have taken a dismissive public
stance to these sightings, but privately they were
mystified and distressed. They mounted a large-scale
investigation of these incidents to determine their
veracity.
If they were to authenticate any of these
incidents, they wanted to gauge what level of risk they
posed to the security of the country.
The investigation was closed in 1969, but questions
linger over the incidents they could not fully explain
in their final report.
The cases explored in the film
involve seemingly trustworthy witnesses - many of whom
were themselves officials in military, government and
law enforcement. These spectators could not be convinced
that their sightings were the result of weather
anomalies or overactive imaginations.
The film draws upon official documents, stock footage,
attractive animations and informed commentary to make
its case. It doesn't seek to find answers; it enjoys
luxuriating in the enigmatic nature of each sighting it
explores.
To the filmmaker's credit, he doesn't seem to
have an agenda.
By the film's end, he asserts that
modern video technology makes it easier than ever to
mount a fake (but convincing) sighting.
Even so, the
early cases profiled in the film are tantalizing and
cannot be dismissed so easily.
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