6 Essential UFO/UAP Documentaries To Watch (Before The Invasion)

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Parts of the featured image are furnished by NASA.

Human fascination with the unknown has always included the mysterious sightings of UFOs, aka UAPs.

With full disclosure potentially on the horizon in 2024, I found it fitting to share my favorite documentaries about the Phenomenon.

Here are the best UFO documentaries you can watch online right now.

6. A Strange Harvest (1980)

The Emmy Award-winning documentary A Strange Harvest (1980) by investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe isn’t about the nuts and bolts of UAPs per se but is still connected to the phenomenon.

A Strange Harvest is about the mysterious cattle mutilations that seem to be connected with people seeing strange orbs in the night sky.

The strange phenomenon of cattle mutilations is a worldwide phenomenon where parts of the animals are surgically removed with laser-like precision and often without any blood trace – or they have been drained of blood completely.

No one has been able to crack this yet – not even the FBI, who launched an investigation into the field in the 1970s.

It’s hard to come by, but you can sometimes find it used on eBay on VHS or digitally on Dailymotion.

5. Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers (2018)

Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers by Jeremy Corbell is an interesting movie about Bob Lazar and how he worked on understanding and reengineering alien technology from downed alien space crafts at Area 51.

Since 1989, he has kept telling the same story repeatedly, and apparently, he hasn’t made a dime from it. The whole thing seems like quite a nuisance to him, which only helps make his story more convincing.

His attention to detail and knowledge of things officially proven true years later make his story compelling.

However, things have surfaced that put small cracks in his story.

Fx, the mysterious hand scanner (the Identimat) that measured bone structure as a type of security at the site, was shown in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of The Third Kind in 1977, which is 12 years before Lazar’s initial interview (around the 0:14 mark):

There’s no doubt that Bob Lazar is a brilliant guy, and I honestly don’t know what to believe.

But whether you believe him or not, Bob Lazar is such an interesting profile, and his story is so compelling that it made the number 3 spot on this list.

Bonus: Here’s the full interview with Lazar on the Joe Rogan Experience:

4. Unacknowledged: An Exposé of the World’s Greatest Secret (2017)

Unacknowledged: An Exposé of the World’s Greatest Secret from 2017 by director Michael Mazzola addresses how UFO secrecy has been ruthlessly and systematically enforced – and why.

The movie addresses how the government and a top-secret military-industrial complex have kept the world black since the 1950s.

We also get to see UFO footage that, until the film’s release, had never been shown anywhere else.

The film is built around the research done by American ufologist Dr. Steven M. Greer and interviews and briefings with high-level people from the CIA, Pentagon, and government officials.

While I generally don’t always agree with Greer’s views, I still think this movie highlights some interesting covert aspects of what might have happened to the debris from Roswell, among other things.

3. Out of the Blue (2003)

Out of the Blue (2003) is easily one of the best documentaries ever made – even today. It was directed by James Fox (which you’ll also find at the top of this list) together with Tim Coleman and Boris Zubov.

The documentary makers do an excellent job of curating the best footage of UFOs from the 1960s until the film’s release (one year before the Nimitz encounter).

It only features some annoying reenactments, and Peter Coyote does a great job narrating the film.

2. The UFO Phenomenon (2021)

The UFO Phenomenon (2021) by Australian channel 7NEWS is an excellent documentary that also deals with UAPs in the skies of our Southern Hemisphere.

The documentary is brilliantly presented and researched by five-time Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist Ross Coulthart. And it’s beautifully filmed!

Thumbs up to the camera crew – what a fantastic job, guys!

You can watch the whole documentary for free above.

1. The Phenomenon (2020)

The Phenomenon by director James Fox is the best documentary film ever made on UFOs, period!

This is it if you only have time to watch a UFO documentary.

The producers behind The Phenomenon have done a great job at meticulously hand-picking the best footage, some unusual statements of disclosure from some VERY high-authority people, and some of the best and most credible cases ever recorded.

It’s also nice that the producers have included many examples from worldwide. With UFO documentaries, you sometimes get the impression that this is a local US phenomenon.

But this movie shows cases from Russia, Europe, Zimbabwe, Australia, and South America and a few bits and pieces from Asia.

We also dive deep into the historic political cover-up of UFOs in the US and a discussion of what the implications might be.

There are a few “plot”-holes in the movie. Where did Jacque Vallée retrieve the alien metal samples from that we see in the movie? Why isn’t this addressed?

Despite the few flaws, this film removed the last bit of doubt about us being alone in the Universe and changed my mind from an “if we get to see aliens” to a question of “when we all get to see aliens.”

Closing Thoughts

I’ve been fascinated by UFOs and the thought of aliens visiting my entire life.

At the same time, I’ve been frustrated due to the grainy footage and often repeated stories about the Roswell incident. So, I’ve resorted to watching sci-fi television shows and movies instead.

Remember to check out my list of the 70 best sci-fi movies of all time.

But since the article Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program in the New York Times was released on December 16th, 2017, many exciting new footage have emerged along with credible eyewitnesses.

So I’ve found myself deep in the UFO (or UAPs, i.e., Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, the official term now) rabbit hole again.

The recent UAP debate in mainstream media and my love for sci-fi movies led me to write the article How Accurate Is Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Really?

The idea for the article was triggered by an interview with the former leader of the Pentagon’s secret UFO program – AATIP – Luis ‘Lue’ Elizondo in GQ Magazine.

In the interview, Lue states that he finds Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind very close to what Lue knows about UAPs and that Spielberg must have had some insider feeding him information. So, of course, I went down the rabbit hole.

What do you think? Are we alone in the universe? Or did I miss an important film? Let me know in the comment section below.


Author

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  • Jan Sørup

    Jan Sørup is a indie filmmaker, videographer and photographer from Denmark. He owns filmdaft.com and the Danish company Apertura, which produces video content for big companies in Denmark and Scandinavia. Jan has a background in music, has drawn webcomics, and is a former lecturer at the University of Copenhagen.

2 thoughts on “6 Essential UFO/UAP Documentaries To Watch (Before The Invasion)”

  1. Ariel Phenomon by Randall Nickerson & the new James Fox MOMENT of CONTACT Both great information on lost events re- investigated with still obtainable witnesses .

    Reply
    • Hi David

      Thank you for the comment. Both of these are on my watchlist. I haven’t have time to catch them yet, but will soon. I’ll probably have to update this article after that from what I hear 😉

      Best, Jan

      Reply

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