With the viral success of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, we now have controversy over THE FOURTH KIND. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is presented as authentic. The film ends with the movie’s copyright protections and without any production credits. Due to the outstanding, surprising success, there will be PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2.

Now we have THE FOURTH KIND that also deals with the paranormal. In this case, it is alien abductions. My friend Jacques Vallee coined the term. The film’s trailer states that the story is based on “actual case studies”. The movie shows the original footage and then a re-enactment of it by actors, often side by side. It also claims to use never-before-seen archival footage that is integrated into the film.

Actress Milla Jovovich tells us that she is playing a real person, psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler. In Nome, Alaska, there have been a highly unusual number of disappearances and bizarre deaths. This is a fact. But are they the work of hostile, unfriendly alien beings?

Like others who saw an advance screening of the film, I did some research online. Is Dr. Tyler a real person or a fictional character?

On September 1, 2009, an investigation by the Anchorage Daily News tried to debunk the validity of the film’s premise, and its relation to actual disappearances that have occurred in and around the town of Nome. There still remains a mystery surrounding the deaths of many of Nome’s residents, though the consensus is that the high rate of alcoholism combined with the harsh landscape surrounding Nome may account for a majority of the disappearances.

Or, maybe Nome residents got tired of the cold and just ran away.

Also, according to the Anchorage Daily News, no one has heard of Tyler. So the question remains, is she a real person or a creation of the filmmakers? Is THE FOURTH KIND another BLAIR WITCH PROJECT?

When the paper asked Universal if the whole movie was a fake, the studio had no comment.

What is amazing to me is that nobody in Nome, Alaska has ever heard of alien abductions. The sheriff (Will Patton) thinks Dr. Tyler is causing her patients to kill and wants to arrest her! For what? Being a clueless psychologist? I know Alaska is far away, but Dr. Tyler and all of Nome, Alaska has never even heard of alien abductions or abduction stars Betty and Barney Hill. The Hills claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrials on September 19-20, 1961.

Theirs was the first widely-publicized claim of alien abduction, adapted into the best-selling 1966 book The Interrupted Journey and a television movie. The Hills’ saga began the decades of countless people claiming to have nightly visits from aliens from other planets. I met Betty Hill and know many people who claim to be repeat abductees. Most abductees have many children withtheir alien rapists living on other planets.

I consider famous abductee, the author of Communion, Whitley Strieber, a friend, having known him for at least 20 years. I was a member of MUFON (The Mutual UFO Network) for many years and often contributed articles to the MUFON Journal.

When we see the “real” Dr. Tyler interviewed, she is creepy. She looks heavily sedated. I would rather see an alien in my bedroom than her. I hope she is not seeing patients anymore. And her hypnosis technique is seriously flawed. She should have instructed her patients to remember the event as if they were watching a movie instead of experiencing it.

They scream their heads off and land in the hospital.

I do love the ending, though the movie is an original mess.

However, the alien abduction phenomena needs a revival. Abductees who have no more tales to tell need a clever movie to interest people again in their fanciful stories of being sexually abused by superior aliens lusting for their valuable DNA.

This is the first major film by writer and director Olatunde Osunsanmi, who is a protégé of film director Joe Carnahan (who did a terrific directing job on NARC and SMOKIN’ ACES). The film was shot in Bulgaria and, as long as we never see the people shown here in commercials, each of us will have to decide for ourselves if this is a real documentary or a good thriller.

Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and answers every email. You can contact Victoria directly at masauu@aol.com.