Encounters: Spielberg’s Netflix UFO Doc
A quick review of the new UFO docuseries.
The July Congressional hearing about UFOs (the pros called them UAPs) blew the country’s collective mind. Credible people giving sworn testimony about real UFOs in our airspace was insane, and we all felt like we needed more. Encounters couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.
Produced by Stephen Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, Encounters is a four part docuseries. Each episode covers a specific UFO event, and is filmed at the location of the sighting.
The UFO witnesses are all framed sympathetically. They’re treated with earnestness and they’re definitely meant to be believed. The locations are shot beautifully and the score is atmospheric and moody.
The four events happened in Texas, Zimbabwe, Wales, and Japan. Each is a fascinating story in its own way, but I found the sighting in Zimbabwe to be the most engrossing. In 1994, sixty elementary school kids saw UFOs and an alien one day at recess. They were all interviewed by a Harvard psychiatry professor, and he absolutely believed them. The documentary goes back and forth between the 1994 interviews when they were children and the new interviews for the show, and members of the school faculty spoke on their experiences.
On all four of the episodes, there were scientists and military experts lending their credibility to the project. Encounters was definitely one of the most interesting and informative things I’ve seen on TV in awhile.
Do I recommend it? Yes, especially for UFO enthusiasts.
