Audience Member
Documentary of U.S. test base too secret to be public. Home to advanced research and development of alternative flight, the area known as Area 51 has a 26 mile guarded perimeter.
A clip from the film here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpaPMA8A2js
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Wfm_x51_area51_warningsign.jpg/220px-Wfm_x51_area51_warningsign.jpg[/img]
SEE the film here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOaiOMHS7ZA&feature=related
Most of these UFO films rely on weird camera angles, shadow lighting, strange soundtracks. This is no different. Still, this one is compelling.
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Wfm_area_51_landsat_geocover_2000.jpg/250px-Wfm_area_51_landsat_geocover_2000.jpg[/img]
NOTES:
1 ...most refer to this mysterious region as Area 51. Since the late 1950's the skies above Dreamland have been home to an array of unidentified flying objects .
2 Dreamland was a British made documentary (narrated by Bruce Burgess) from 1996 regarding Area 51 in Nevada.
3 Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. It is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles (133 km) north-northwest of Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield. The base's primary purpose is undetermined, however, based on historical evidence, it appears to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems.
4 Unlike much of the Nellis range, the area surrounding the lake is permanently off-limits both to civilian and normal military air traffic. Radar stations protect the area, and unauthorized personnel are quickly expelled. Even military pilots training in the NAFR risk disciplinary action if they stray into the exclusionary "box" surrounding Groom's airspace.
READ here for more detailed information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/19/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Written by Bruce Burgess (I believe he also directed it, but there is no official credit for that)
I picked this up off of the $1 bin at Wal Mart earlier this week, because whenever I see DVD's for $1, I always make it a point to pick up at least one (last week I grabbed two episodes of The Master with Street Fighter featuring Sonny Chiba as a bonus feature) just to always have something extra to watch. Plus, it's a dollar, there are much worse ways I could waste that money, but instead I enjoy getting a movie out of it.
Journalist Bruce Burgess explores Area 51 and the American obsession with its secrecy. In true journalistic fashion, he tries to surmise what is happening there, and the film never takes on an overly conspirital tone, like so many television programs on TLC often do. He presents multiple scenarios and facts, and then proceeds to examine them one by one, if only to get a better understanding of what exactly Area 51 is all about.
Like any good investigative journalist, Burgess attacks this subject from all angles, interviewing people that have claimed to work at Area 51 and are now coming forward, people that claim they were conspiracy victims of Area 51 employees, scientists that have spent time studying the obsession and facts about Area 51, attempting to see something from the vantage point of a helicopter, approaching people that may be linked to the site, and even examining declassified government video of tests and contraptions that have been developed at the site.
First off, he spends a bit of time talking to and deconstructing the story of Bob Lazar. Lazar claims he was an Area 51 employee that worked on the site, and was brought in to study and reverse engineer what he believed to be alien technology. Lazar's story is somewhat convincing, and at the same time Burgess pursues people in the government, to get a confirmation or denial of Lazar's employment with the site. Lazar claims he was the victim of a conspiracy, that once he came out and said he was a former Area 51 employee, he was routed and his life made a living hell. Burgess is neither able to confirm or deny any of Lazar's allegations, as he is repeatedly hung up on, told there is no comment, or just plain ignored all together. This makes Lazar's story a compelling one, but Burgess is not so quick to make a judgement either way. He dissects Lazar's stories, and weighs the possibilities and probability of such scenarios that Lazar describes. Burgess makes no claims as to the validity of Lazar's story either way, he merely presents what he has found, like a true investigative journalist.
Next, Burgess studies the history of UFO sightings, and with a few supposed employees, or ex-employees of Area 51, discusses the possibility of what these unexplained sightings of crafts and moving lights over the desert sky just might be. Again, Burgess never leans either way, he presents what he can find, and includes possible explanations and scenarios as to what these unidentified objects might be, but he makes no suppositions.
Throughout these processes, he interviews a lot of skeptics, scientists, and engineers, who weigh their professional opinions on what these occurances consist of. Once again, these people give their opinions, but the viewer is not led to believe one thing or another, they are left to decide through their own decisions and opinions.
Towards the end of the film, Burgess begins to get as close to Area 51 as he can, taking a helicopter up within 1 mile of the No Fly Zone over Area 51, where he and his pilot are promptly and repeatedly warned to stay a safe distance away as a matter of national security. This piques the interest of the journalist, and after safely staying course and not flying into restricted airspace, the filmmakers approach the airport where they have learned Area 51 employees fly out of on a daily basis. He attempts to gain information at the gate, asking the sheriff's deputies that guard the airport who he can talk to for information, but he is denied anything and told to leave very sternly. He also spends some time at the borders and signs, where the signs tell civilians about the authorized use of deadly force for any trespassers.
After numerous calls and a lot of research, Burgess gets ahold of a man that was pretty high up in the ranks of people that have knowledge about Area 51, and the man leads him to a few conclusions, but in many sensitive areas he says he cannot comment.
Finally, Burgess studies films that have been declassified by the government, of different types of flying machines, the kind of saucers that the government was producing themselves, which basically fit exactly what Bob Lazar was talking about. A lot of what Lazar says fits a lot of the molds of information that Burgess was able to discover, but at the same time, it neither confirmed or denied anything explored throughout the film. He does go out on a few limbs, talking to people that claim to have been abducted, and that have seen alien crafts up close, but he makes no claim to their merit.
Burgess is a great documentarian in the way in which he presents his ideas, he just puts them out there for the viewer to decide for themselves. He does put a bit of his own commentary into them however, explaining how before this research he was a skeptic himself, but after his research, he has been converted to a believer that Area 51 houses some type of alien-related activity, mainly based on the way he was treated when trying to research the subject.
I really enjoyed the interviews that this film went through, I didn't find it to be silly or unfounded like so many of these DVD's often tend to be. Bruce Burgess is an honest and skilled researcher and journalist, and I was very entertained by the way he presented his ideas and the few facts he was able to discover. I just wish more documentary filmmakers that do investigative pieces took more cues from Burgess, I believe it would lead to a lot more interesting documentary material. This was worth much more than the $1 I paid for it, this is why I keep buying these movies, I've found quite a few gems over the years, including a 3 hour Capone documentary that I still watch on a pretty regular basis when I have nothing else to do.
8.2/10
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/08/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Hard to follow, but worth struggling through if you're a fan of Greenday's Billie Jo Armstrong
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/10/23
Full Review
Audience Member
so boring i watched 15 min and turned it off
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
Full Review
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