Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County
| Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Dean Alioto |
| Written by | Dean Alioto (story) Paul Chitlik (teleplay) |
| Starring | Benz Antoine Kristian Ayre Gillian Barber Michael Buie Emmanuelle Chriqui Marya Delver Katlyn Ducharme Ingrid Kavelaars Aaron Pearl Bart Anderson |
| Release date(s) | January 20, 1998 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County (Alien Abduction: The McPherson Tape in Australia) is a re-enactment of a supposedly genuine home video of an alien abduction of a family in Montana that was shown on the United Paramount Network (UPN) network in January,1998.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The tape tells the story of the McPherson family gathered for Thanksgiving dinner. The power goes out, so Kurt and Brian go to check the fuses; Tommy follows with his camera. Brian makes attempts to open the box and gets burned. A transformer atop a pole down the road is throwing sparks. The boys then see eerie lights in the woods, so they go investigate.
They find a UFO in a nearby field. Two aliens exit the ship and use ray guns on some cows. The boys rush back to the house where the men gather together their shotguns. Suddenly, there is a high-pitched screech and everyone but six-year-old Rose is affected. After strapping a flashlight to his gun, Kurt decides to get everyone in his SUV and leave.
Kurt can't get the truck doesn't start. They check the engine after there is a flash under the hood. They discover the battery has melted so they return to the house. The family is gathered in the living room, when they hear scrabbling sounds from the roof. Kurt leads the way up the stairs, where he is greeted by laser shots and responds with his shotgun. Everyone the retreats downstairs.
A ball of light floats into the house and puts Renee into a coma. The men then leave to find help. The tape jumps ahead an hour and the family is suffering from "missing time". Gunshots are heard outside and the lights starts to flicker. Everyone feels a burning sensation on the backs of their necks where they discover triangle-shaped burns.
The group becomes hysterical as more shots come from outside. Tommy discovers a couple of mangled shotguns, but not his brothers. The camera pans towards the woods where there are strange lights and two approaching figures. Everyone races back into the house, where they barricade themselves in. The camera is dropped and goes black.
Tommy then gives a tearful testimonial, a la "The Blair Witch Project", and wonders if he'll live to see tomorrow. He searches through all the rooms and suddenly comes face-to-face with an alien. Tommy drops the camera and stands frozen in a trance-like state. The tape stops. The family and their guests haven't been seen since.
Though tape is a depiction of a supposedly real incident, the actors' credits roll at the end.
[edit] Production
Created by Dick Clark Productions,[2] and directed by Dean Alioto, the film portrays a family named the McPhersons being abducted by extra-terrestrials in Lake County, Montana. It is a recreation of The McPherson Tape, a home video that was claimed to depict an alien abduction. The fact that it is a recreation of another tape has led to confusion over which was the original tape. The entire incident was filmed on a home video camera by the actor who played the McPhearson's youngest 15-year old son. This was to appear as though it was a film of actual events.
[edit] Controversy
The program caused a level of confusion and controversy upon its initial telecast that echoed earlier reality-muddying incidents such as Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast.[2] Very much like the Orson Welles' broadcast, the Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County aired on UPN[3] immediately following Real Vampires: Exposed!, which offered a tabloid-like investigation of vampires", leading some viewers to believe that Alien Abduction was also portraying real events.[4] Another way in which this video misled its viewers was the way in which it was filmed. The style would soon be made popular through The Blair Witch Project. Genuine UFO researchers, including Stanton Friedman, were not informed of the nature of the show by the program's producers,[2] and controversy and confusion also centered on the lack of disclaimers.[2]
Debate over the hoax nature of the program occurred on Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards,[2] where the program's status as fiction was exposed thanks to the character of Tommy McPherson being linked to actor Kristian Ayre.[5] The program was also proved to be a hoax when an interview with the Lake County Sheriff's department stated that no one named McPherson lived in Lake County at the time.[6] Some viewers continued to insist that portions of the program were fabricated but that the McPhersons' experience itself was real, and others that the program itself was evidence of a conspiracy. The show was subsequently broadcast in New Zealand on TVNZ, with a disclaimer that its authenticity was still a topic of dispute in the United States.[3] TVNZ nevertheless cut the show's final credits, "prevent[ing] New Zealand audiences from noting that the McPhersons were played by actors."[7]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Roscoe, Jane and Hight, Craig, "Degree 2: critique and hoax" in Faking it - Mock-documentary and the subverion of factuality (Manchester University Press, 2001) ISBN 0-7190-5640-3, pp. 151-155
- ^ a b c d e Roscoe & Hight, p. 153
- ^ a b Roscoe & Hight, p. 154
- ^ Roscoe & Hight, p. 152
- ^ Roscoe & Hight, p. 153-154
- ^ 1. “The Union Democrat - Google News Archive Search,” http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ACpZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=K0cNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5376,2129683&dq=alien+abduction+incident+in+lake+county&hl=en.
- ^ Roscoe & Hight, p. 155
[edit] External links
- Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County at the Internet Movie Database
- A review of the film
- A second review
 |
This ufo-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
