Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)

Interviews and documentary footage combine with the fictional story of an air-force pilot who encounters aliens.

Director:

Winston Jones

Writer:

Francis Martin

Stars:

Willis Sperry, Nicholas Mariana, Delbert Newhouse

Cast

Credited cast:
Willis Sperry	...	Himself (as Captain Willis Sperry)
Nicholas Mariana	...	Himself
Delbert Newhouse	...	Himself - Chief Photographer
Wendell Swanson	...	Himself
Tom Towers	...	Albert M. Chop
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Floyd Burton	...	Dewey Fournet
Gene Coughlan	...	Editor
Bert Freed	...	Dayton Colonel
Stan Gordon	...	Reporter
Marie Kenna	...	Mrs. Chop
Robert Phillips	...	Captain Edward Ruppelt
John A. Sanford	...	Himself (archive footage) (as Dr. John A. Sandford)
William Solomon	...	Scientist
Olan Soule	...	Narrator (voice)
Paul Stone	...	Personnel Official

Storyline

Interviews and documentary footage combine with the fictional story of an air-force pilot who encounters aliens.

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Plot Keywords:

interview | alien | airplane | washington d.c. | u.s. air force | 

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Taglines:

You Will See Them With Your Own Eyes!

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 May 1956 (USA)

Also Known As:

Unidentified Flying Objects

Filming Locations:

Newark, New Jersey, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ivan Tors Productions, Ivar Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

An apparent typographical error led to many sources listing veteran actor Tom Powers (instead of Tom Towers) as appearing in this film. Tom Powers passed away in Nov 1955, about the time this film went into production.

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Goofs

The July 1, 1952 issue of Look magazine did not have Eisenhower on the cover as depicted, but a group of six pictures. One was of an Air Force fighter plane with the same blurb as the film's magazine: 'Flying Saucers - The Hunt Goes On'.

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Connections

Featured in Svengoolie: U.F.O. (1995)

User Reviews

Dull Narration Sinks Documentary Film

Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Pseudo-documentary about reporter Albert Chop (Tom Towers) who begins to investigate several reports of UFO's and by the end of the film he's convinced that they are in fact real. This movie uses stock footage, documentary footage and reenactments to try and tell people that UFOs are real and throughout the movie we're told a few dozen times that the cases we're hearing about are true. The most annoying thing about this movie is the Dragnet-type narration that runs throughout the running time and it's just so dry and dull that by the ten-minute mark you'll be wishing that you were abducted by a real spaceship just so you can get away from this film. To be fair, it's important to note that this was released when the UFO craze was extremely high in this country and it's clear that the producers were playing this to folks who wanted to know the "truth" even if they weren't really going to get it from this movie. The reenactments are also quite annoying as they never let you actually see the spaceships and usually it's just non-professional actors opening their eyes wide to show what type of shock they're in. The majority of the cases told here are based on true stories but we're never given any clear evidence or any real facts. Instead we're just told over and over that we're supposed to take their word. Another problem with the film is that at 91-minutes it goes on for way too long and considering you really don't get to see anything until the final ten-minutes it would be a lot better skipping this "documentary" and actually watching one of the fake, low-budget films, which would at least give you something to see. I mentioned the final ten-minutes and this is when we see two "actual" UFO films, both in color. Being the early 50s on a hand-held camera, the footage is quite poor but I'm sure the film ended with many people believing that these were actually flying saucers.