Olatunde Osunsanmi directs the beautiful Milla Jovovich in The Fourth Kind. Close Encounters was the third kind i.e. contact with extraterrestrials. The Fourth Kind is alien abduction. Apparently, there is a part of Alaska which has had an unusually high number of missing persons and an unusually high number of otherwise credible people who appear to truly believe they have been the victims of alien abductions.

The movie is part documentary and part reenactment, juxtaposing videotapes psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler made of patients with reenactments by Milla Jovovich. I may have a stronger opinion one way or the other, after seeing the movie, but I’m personally on the fence on what to think about alien life forms performing experiments on humans.

By the way, according to the alien interaction scale, the second kind is collecting evidence of aliens and the first kind is just sighting a UFO.

Perhaps Kids in the Hall can offer some insight:

Alien 1: So what’s bothering you?
Alien 2: Ah, lately I just keep wondering what’s the point?
Alien 1: The point?
Alien 2: Yeah. What’s the point of what we do?
Alien 1: Sorry, I don’t follow you
Alien 2: Well, I mean, we travel 250,000 light years across the universe, abduct humans, probe them anally and release them.
Alien 1: Yeah? And?
Alien 2: Well, doesn’t it seem kind of pointless?
Alien 1: I really don’t think about it.
Alien 2: Well don’t you think you should?
Alien 1: No, I don’t think I should. I don’t think I should question the leadership of our Great Leader
Alien 2: Oh, come on. I mean, we’ve been coming here for fifty years and performing anal probes and all that we have learned is that one in ten doesn’t really seem to mind.
Alien 1: Well, do you have a better plan than our Great Leader?
Alien 2: Yes I do, I do have a better plan. My plan is that we don’t travel 250,000 light years, we don’t abduct any humans and — this is the best part — we don’t do any anal probing.
Alien 1: Oh, great plan. Do you realize how many people Intergalactic Anal-Probing employs?
Alien 1: Well back to work.
Alien 2: Aw.
Alien 1: Ready the anal probe.
Alien 2: Anal probe is ready.
Alien 1: Commence anal probing
Alien 2: Couldn’t we at least abduct their political or religious leaders instead of just any idiot in a pickup truck?
Alien 1: I’m sure the Great Leader has his reasons
Alien 2: Well, I’m sure the Great Leader is just some sort of twisted ass freak!
Alien 1: All right. I am now officially ignoring you. Commence anal probing.

Or perhaps Kids in the Hall can not offer any insight on the existence of alien abduction, but it can be very humorous. The first time I ever got strep throat was when I went to go see Close Encounters with my father. I still feel phantom pain in the back of my mouth, when I think about it.

Okay, this is just plain awesome and entirely made my day. I am mostly familiar with Kerrang! for being the well-written and well-photographed hard rock magazine which used to cover a lot of the bands who played Taime Downe’s late lamented Pretty Ugly nightclub in Los Angeles. Apparently, on the other side of the pond, Kerrang! also does radio and television and such. One of their on-air personalities is Nick Margerrison who does a show called The Night Before.

I’m not sure what astronauts have to do with hard rock, but I guess MTV’s early call sign video interlude involved the moon landing, so maybe it all just fits together in some secret cosmic way. At any rate, Nick Margerrison was interviewing astronaut Edgar Mitchell, on Kerrang! Radio, when the famous astronaut casually pointed out that life definitely exists on other planets and aliens have visited earth. The obviously usually-smooth Nick Margerrison is kind of like ha, ha, wait are you serious? He sort of sputters and says wow a lot, while waiting for his interview subject to admit he was kidding.

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell: “We’re not alone in the universe at all . . . The UFO phenomenon is real, although it’s been covered up by our governments for some time.”

On-air personality Nick Margerrison: “I’ve had crazy UFO nuts before, but I’ve never had Dr. Ed Mitchell, the 6th man to walk on the moon, a respected scientist in his own right, announce to me that we’ve been visited by aliens from other planets and they definitely are out there and there’s no debating it . . . I’m just wondering if I’ve stumbled on astronaut humor and in a couple minutes you are going to go I was only pulling your leg.”

The Apollo 14 veteran astronaut goes on to point out that he grew up in Roswell and we really did have aliens come to Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. He says there are aliens who conform to the popular concept of little humanoid creatures with big heads and big eyes. Additionally, we are lucky the aliens are not hostile because we’d be totally gone by now if they were. The record-holder for longest moonwalk ever says that some governments are going to be declassifying their UFO information soon and implies that, in preparation for this, the Catholic church issued a proclamation that

“Belief in life on other planets does not compromise your Catholocism.”

Even more awesome than the conversation between Nick Margerrison and Edgar Mitchell is the conversation between The Night Before producer Alex and the NASA media rep. Kerrang! had the balls to post their producer’s call to NASA where they asked if anyone from NASA wanted to come on the show and comment on Edgar Mitchell’s assertions. Kerrang! did have the consideration to bleep the publicity person’s name and email address though.

NASA PR Person: “He said that? Okay, what do you want me to say to that? . . . That an astronaut said that there were aliens? . . . Let me see who would be willing to dispute what an astronaut says.”

Although the NASA guy says he will get back to the show, he never denies what the astronaut stated, just says he needs to find someone willing to dispute it. As it turns out, apparently no one was willing to go on the radio to refute what the devil-may-care 77-year-old astronaut had to say. NASA merely emailed the show saying,

“Dear Alex,
NASA does not track UFOs.
NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.
Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinion on this issue.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.”

Is Dr. Ed Mitchell telling the whole truth, senile, or pulling a damn funny practical joke? There’s just no way to know, but it makes for great listening. Kerrang!’s interviewer asked him if he was worried for his safety, blabbing stuff like this.

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell: “I don’t think they are knocking anybody off for that any more.”