Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, June 3: MIRAGE MEN
John Lundberg’s exploration of government disinformation policies had its world premiere last year at Sheffield. It went on to screen at Seattle, Fantastic Fest, Canberra, DOXA, Stockholm, and Sebastopol Doc.
Lundberg’s intriguing film posits that the US military has been the source of much of the would-be evidence and labyrinthine theories behind UFO conspiracies for the past several decades, part of an elaborate campaign of targeted disinformation to discredit those who might chance upon classified, covert projects. Particularly compelling among its cast of talking heads – representing close encounter witnesses, UFOlogists, authors, and the like – is former US Air Force counterintelligence officer Richard Doty, who is forthright in revealing his part in a systematic program of false information that led a WWII veteran to lose his mind. In itself a perfect addition to the countless conspiracy theories around extraterrestrial visitations that have sprung up since the Cold War and its inculcation of paranoia and fears of invasion, there’s enough here to suggest that what the doc proposes is true while still casting just enough doubt to leave the viewer still wondering.
what (not) to doc 