Image: Artist John Humphries with his alien creation
By Jon Donnis
I cannot be the only one who remembers the buzz of the 90s, when a grainy black and white film seemed to show an alien being dissected by men in hazmat suits. It was everywhere. TV news, magazines, whispered playground debates. Was it real, was it fake? For years the footage hung over pop culture like a half-forgotten ghost. Now Sky is bringing it all back with Alien Autopsy (w/t), and I am honestly itching to see how this one unfolds.
Directed by John Dower, the man behind My Scientology Movie and the BAFTA-winning Lockerbie, the new Sky Original docuseries promises to dig deep into what really happened. In 1995, that 18 minutes of footage supposedly from Roswell shocked the world. Some swore it was undeniable proof of extraterrestrials, others thought it was the slickest hoax of the century. As it turned out, a group of filmmakers in a London flat were behind the recreation, but the nagging question never went away. Could they have based it on something genuine?
What excites me most about this series is that it doesn't just stop at the infamous tape. It pulls in the wider history of UFO sightings and obsessions, from Roswell's legendary crash site to Scotland's Calvine photo. And it lands at a moment when UFOs are suddenly headline news again. We've got military whistleblowers talking openly about unexplained aerial encounters, and governments actually taking it seriously. That makes the timing of this show feel spot on.
I can already imagine the mix of nostalgia and intrigue. The vibe of the 90s, when The X-Files was on everyone's TV and conspiracy theories spread by word of mouth instead of TikTok. Combined with today's climate, where we're asking again if we're alone in the universe. That combination feels electric.
The fact that this story has never had a premium documentary treatment before is wild in itself. Dower and the Mindhouse team seem determined to give it the seriousness, and maybe even the playfulness, it deserves. I have no idea if this will settle the mystery or just make it weirder, but either way I'll be glued to it.
Alien Autopsy (w/t) will be landing soon on Sky Documentaries and streaming on NOW. Count me in.
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