Released on Tuesday, James Fox’s new documentary The Phenomenon, offers a historical inquiry into UFOs. Or what the U.S. Military refers to as “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.”
Long seen as a preserve of conspiracy theorists and occultists, UFOs have attracted new interest in recent years. In large part because of the New York Times‘ 2017 publication of videos showing 2004 and 2015 U.S. Navy UFO intercepts off the U.S. East and West Coasts. The Navy doesn’t know what the objects in those videos are, but assesses with high confidence that they are not of United States, Chinese, or Russian government control. Referencing those incidents, The Phenomenon breaks news by getting a former Pentagon intelligence official, Christopher Mellon, on the record as the New York Times’ source.
Still, the documentary isn’t focused so much on the Navy UFO incidents as it is on the broader post-World War II history of this subject.
Centering on more credible witnesses, such as military observers, Fox documents how UFOs are not something new. He examines the so-called “Foo Fighter” wave of UFOs that were seen by American pilots over Europe and the Asia-Pacific during World War II. Fox also studies the heavy occurrence of UFOs in and around nuclear sites. The correlation of UFO reports and the development of the atomic bomb is seen by some analysts as a critical point of note. Again, Fox breaks news here, getting former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the record as saying that UFOs have, on occasion, even interfered with U.S. nuclear weapons systems (note that the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered). This nuclear interference has been previously — and extensively — reported by Robert Hastings. However, to have Reid, who was instrumental in the forming of the Pentagon’s 2009-2017 UFO program, corroborate that reporting is important for its political salience. On that point, we should note that Sen. Marco Rubio, current Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is now demanding a new Pentagon report on UFOs.
Fox’s documentary is bold but necessarily grounded. The vast majority of witnesses he references either come from military backgrounds, have held high security clearance positions in government, or the defense sector. For example, Fox carefully documents the strange case of Lonnie Zamora, a police officer who in 1964 said he’d stumbled upon a UFO in the New Mexico desert. Zamora’s case was special in that it involved a credible witness and left physical trace evidence.
While Fox focuses on documenting the seemingly incredible, he does so in a way that calls for more questions rather than conclusions. This also applies to his examination of the most extraordinary UFO sightings, such as an event that involved dozens of children at a Zimbabwe school in 1994.
Fox’s seriousness has earned the documentary maker the praise of Lue Elizondo, who formerly headed up the Pentagon’s previous UFO research incarnation, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. According to Elizondo, “The Phenomenon sets a new benchmark for disclosure and is the most accurate and informative documentary ever made about UAPs. The film will help the Pentagon’s new UAP Task Force in its efforts to inform the U.S government about the reality of this enigma.” Elizondo suggests that Fox’s documentary will only grow in credibility as more government documents are released.
There is no question that there are charlatans in this field. It’s also absolutely true that most UFOs can be explained by weather conditions or misidentified observations of conventional aircraft. It’s also true that we know far less about what’s going on with the rare UFOs than what we do know. But this is a subject that demands, and within government is now getting, serious attention. Whoever wins the November presidential election, UFOs will be a rising issue over the next four years. Fox deserves credit for laying a foundation for better public understanding, and the need for more questions.
Watch the trailer below.
