Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation’ On History, Where Government Investigations Of Sightings Are Declassified

The idea that we’re not alone in the universe is nothing new, but for the most part, the business of UFO sightings was — at least to the public — limited to individuals with crazy stories. But what if some of the people who reported sightings were respected pilots and military personnel who can corroborate what they saw? History takes a look at the cases that the U.S. government investigated, with info that has been newly declassified. Read on for more…

UNIDENTIFIED: INSIDE AMERICA’S UFO INVESTIGATION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A shot of a bean-like vessel on a fighter jet’s radar. Then a voice over comes on and talks about a New York Times report from 2017 that revealed the U.S. government’s secret agency that investigated UFO claims from military personnel.

The Gist: That agency is the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), and Luis Elizondo, the Special Agent In-Charge at the unit until he quit in frustration over the cases not being declassified. With the help of Tom DeLonge, former member of Blink-182 and the founder of the To The Stars Academy, and Chris Mellon, former deputy assistant Secretary of Defense and Intelligence, Elizondo is putting some these stories — at least the parts he can expose — on the public airwaves.

The first story is a 2004 sighting of a “Tic Tac”-shaped vessel by fighter pilots on a test run from the USS Nimitz just south of San Diego. Elizondo interviews the wingman, who wished to be anonymous, along with her commander, a combat veteran who went in to get a closer look. There was no explanation for this vessel, which hovered over the water, a smooth body with no wings or other flying surfaces, with the ability to dart back and forth and change direction in a way no one in the Navy had ever seen before. No government explanation has been forthcoming.

Elizondo knows this isn’t a fluke because a) the people reporting these sightings aren’t “believers,” they’re experienced military personnel and b) he has footage from three different instances, one as recent as 2015. He shows the footage to two experienced pilots, and they reluctantly agree that it’s could be a UFO.

Our Take: What separates Unidentified from other cable docuseries about unknown phenomena is that the people involved are discussing an actual secret government agency in AATIP, which was based in the Pentagon, investigating sighting claims. But even the people making the claims aren’t kooks getting probed after being abducted from their bedrooms. No, the people who are making these claims are experienced pilots and other military personnel who have seen just about anything and have no incentive to make things up. They know what they saw, and what they saw can be corroborated by their colleagues.

It was also surprising to see who was involved in this group, like former Clinton and Obama staffer John Podesta and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It’s almost like a modern version of Project Blue Book, which investigated UFO sightings from the 1940s to 1960s, debunking the vast majority of claims. There seems to be no reason to discredit anyone on this show, including Elizondo and Mellon (we’re not sure what to think of DeLonge).

But it feels like DeLonge, who is the show’s executive producer, doesn’t trust the impressiveness of the Elizondo and the people he interviews, because he lards the show down with sensationalist music cues, repetitive scene resets from commercial breaks, and narration that is more suitable to a ghost-chasing reality series than one that is trying to say, “Hey, this is a real government thing! And it’s serious, people!”

Parting Shot: Elizondo tells a conference audience that we can either keep our heads in the sand or take them out. Either way, the extraterrestrials don’t care because they’re here.

Sleeper Star: Just an FYI about Christopher Mellon: He has never been a “me first” kind of guy, according to DeLonge. And the fact that he’s on camera talking about this, at great risk to his family’s reputation — yes, he’s from that Mellon family — makes his observations even more impressive.

Most Pilot-y Line: The overall cheesiness of the show’s production takes away from the level of experts and former government officials that are involved in this show.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you can get past the show’s production values, Unidentified may give you new evidence that we’re not alone in the universe.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Unidentified on History