Culture Shock 09.26.13: 'Hangar 18' puts all the pieces of UFO mania together

The 1970s were a high point of UFO sightings, alternative history, New Age mysticism and paranoid conspiracies, as well as a few not-so-paranoid conspiracies. As the decade ended, one movie in particular weaved all of those threads together.

"Hangar 18" betrays its low-budget pedigree from the opening shot: a spaceship filling the screen above a planet. It's a shot that explicitly recalls the opening of "Star Wars," except in this case the spaceship is a NASA space shuttle, the planet is Earth and the special effects look more suited to a TV movie than to anything playing on a big screen. But any movie that would so eagerly invite an unfavorable "Star Wars" comparison deserves our attention.

Released in 1980 and quickly forgotten, "Hangar 18" is back, issued on DVD and Blu-ray by Olive Films (olivefilms.com) and looking better than it probably did during its theatrical run.

The film wastes no time getting started. The shuttle we see in the opening is on a mission to launch a top-secret military satellite. But before the launch can occur, the shuttle astronauts spot what looks like an alien spacecraft hovering above them. When the satellite launches as scheduled, it slams right into the UFO, sending the alien craft crashing to Earth and killing one of the astronauts.

From there, the film branches off into three overlapping story lines.

The first follows the team of NASA scientists assigned to study the UFO, which the government has secreted away at the titular Hangar 18. The second involves the politicians trying to keep the UFO crash secret until after the presidential election. And the third follows the two surviving shuttle astronauts trying to prove they saw what they saw and clear their names after they're blamed for their fellow astronaut's death.

If "Hangar 18" were a modern TV show, that would be enough plot for a season-long story arc, but as it is, "Hangar 18" breezes along and clocks in at a bit more than 90 minutes.

"Hangar 18" seems a bit low-rent for a theatrical release, but it would have made for a pretty impressive TV movie of the week. Director James L. Conway ("The Boogens"), who would go on to direct episodes of the various "Star Trek" spin-offs, makes the most of what he has, which includes a solid cast of television veterans, led by Darren McGavin ("Kolchak: The Night Stalker") as the NASA director tasked with leading the investigation.

McGavin's Harry Forbes is a lot like his Carl Kolchak, only Forbes gets to investigate the paranormal with the assistance of the best minds NASA has to offer, while Kolchak has only his trusty tape recorder. Forbes is the most entertaining part of the movie.

Heading up all the president's men are Robert Vaughn ("The Man from UNCLE") as Chief of Staff Gordon Cain and ubiquitous character actor Joseph Campanella as Cain's right-hand man.

The last of the heavy lifting falls to the two astronauts, played by wisecracking James Hampton ("Sling Blade") opposite wooden straight man and future "Hour Magazine" host Gary Collins.

Other recognizable faces include Pamela Bellwood ("Dynasty"), Stuart Pankin ("Not Necessarily the News") and William Schallert ("The Patty Duke Show").

Everything about the movie seems perfunctory. "Hangar 18" covers a lot of ground, so everything is plot, plot, plot with little time for anything else.

As for the plot, it's a crash course in UFO lore, drawing on ideas that became popular in the '70s: alien abductions, government cover-ups and the idea popularized in Erich Von Daniken's book "Chariots of the Gods?" that extraterrestrials visited Earth long ago and influenced humanity's development. There are even "men in black," long before MIBs became a big deal.

"Hangar 18" is entertaining enough in a disposable, Saturday matinee way, but it's truly fascinating as an artifact of UFO mania. This is where all the pieces first came together.

Culture Shock 03.14.13: In search of 'In Search of...'

"This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine."

From 1977 to 1982, that was your weekly warning to take the next half hour of television with a heaping spoonful of salt. It was the disclaimer that introduced each episode of "In Search of... ."

Hosted by Leonard Nimoy, "In Search of..." ran for six 24-episode seasons, and by the time it was done, it had become, in a bizarre way, a record of America's fears and obsessions in the years following Vietnam and Watergate. Before "The X-Files" spelled it out for us, here was a show that dealt in alleged conspiracies and cover-ups, while in search of a truth that was certainly "out there."

Now, for the first time, "In Search of..." is available on home video: a mammoth 21-disc DVD box set containing all six seasons of the original series, all eight episodes of the 2002 Sci-Fi Channel revival hosted by Mitch Pileggi of "The X-Files" and the two pilot episodes hosted by Rod Serling.

Before "Ghost Adventures" and "Ghost Hunters," "Ancient Aliens" and "Finding Bigfoot," even before Art Bell first took to the overnight airwaves with "Coast to Coast A.M.," "In Search of..." brought ghosts, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and other paranormal phenomena into homes across America. It caught the zeitgeist of the era, when interest in strange phenomena and the boundaries of science, pseudoscience and fantasy seemed to reach a peak, spurred on by the publication in 1968 of Erich von Däniken's best-selling hodgepodge of mythology and UFO lore, "Chariots of the Gods."

Casting Nimoy as host was a stroke of genius. Then as now associated with his role as the sober-minded and logical Mr. Spock, who better was there to get viewers to take seriously notions like "animal ESP" and the lost civilization of Atlantis?

Almost as important was the show's music, by disco producers Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, which gave the proceedings an appropriately creepy atmosphere. (That's a soundtrack, issued on vinyl in 1977, begging to be re-released.)

If you believe in the paranormal, this DVD set is like Christmas. Yet even if you are a skeptic — as I am — it is a fascinating, if frustrating, look at persistent myths in earlier stages of their evolution. While Mr. Nimoy's fashions are dated, most of the subjects the show investigates are still fodder for basic cable. They still haven't found bigfoot.

But some "In Search of..." topics are one with their time. If you were born after 1980, you probably don't remember when Americans were terrified of killer bees making their way to the U.S. from South America. Nor do you remember when looming climate change wasn't global warming but "The Coming Ice Age." "In Search of..." tackles both, and makes them seem truly terrifying.

Then there's the Bermuda Triangle. Almost no one talks about it anymore, but the area defined by Miami, the island of Bermuda and San Juan, Puerto Rico, was once known for strange goings on and vanished boats and aircraft. Now, with hindsight and better record keeping, we know this heavily traveled area of the Atlantic doesn't even have an unusually high number of disappearances.

Yet unlike most of the paranormal and conspiracy-theory shows now on the air, "In Search of..." can still surprise you. An episode about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart flirts with the outlandish before settling on a more prosaic explanation. And an episode about the Trojan War is actually too skeptical. The latest archaeological evidence indicates the conflict remembered in Homer's epic poem probably did happen, in some form.

In retrospect, "In Search of..." does give us important insights, just not the ones its producers imagined. It's a slice of life from America at its most paranoid and neurotic.

Culture Shock 01.28.10: Who wants to be a paranormal investigator?

Night vision is scary.

If you have a pair of night-vision goggles and like stumbling around in the dark, maybe you can be a ghost hunter.

It's all the rage. At least three cable channels currently air shows devoted to "paranormal investigations." And ghost hunting doesn't take any special skills. The hosts of Syfy's "Ghost Hunters" are plumbers, which I guess can be useful if your toilet is haunted. And who hasn't seen something scary in a toilet?

Airing since 2004, "Ghost Hunters" — the granddaddy of the current crop of paranormal TV shows — has spawned two spin-offs, "Ghost Hunters Academy," where aspiring paranormal investigators learn the tricks of the trade, and "Ghost Hunters International."

Again, these are not difficult skills to master. Mainly, it amounts to wandering around creepy, abandoned, decrepit buildings and attributing every creaking floorboard and drafty room to a ghostly presence.

It's so easy, college students can do it, which they do on A&E's "Paranormal State." The show follows members of the Paranormal Research Society at Penn State University as they try to bust ghosts and cast out evil spirits.

I've seen about a half dozen episodes of "Paranormal State," and two of those led the Paranormal Research Society to Alabama. Make of that what you will, but I blame Kathryn Tucker Windham, whose "13 Alabama Ghosts" books used to have half of my elementary-school classmates believing their houses were haunted.

Earlier this month, A&E launched a new series, "Paranormal Cops," about four Chicago police officers who arrest the living by day and confront the dead by night. I hope they're better at catching crooks than they are at catching ghosts.

Not to be left out, Travel Channel airs my favorite show of the bunch, "Ghost Adventures."

As a Travel Channel show, "Ghost Adventures" goes to the some of best locations — places that are downright creepy whether or not they're haunted. But apart from that, "Ghost Adventures" has the most entertaining cast of ghost busters.

Zak Bagans is the team's leader. With his spiked hair and tight, Ed Hardy-like T-shirts, he is a stereotypical alpha male. His main investigative technique is to yell at any ghosts who may be present and dare them to attack him.

If any ghosts have ever taken Zak up on that offer, I missed that episode, unfortunately.

Next is Nick Groff, Zak's second in command. Nick tries to copy Zak's alpha-male routine, but he's nowhere near as good at it. He'll always be just a wingman.

And then there's Aaron Goodwin, the team's equipment technician.

Alas, poor Aaron. He's the one the ghosts supposedly always pick on, to the point that Zak and Nick often use him as bait to lure ill-tempered spirits into showing themselves.

Again, if this trick has ever worked, I've not seen convincing proof of it.

I'm not a scientist, but I'm amazed at what counts for evidence during these so-called investigations.

Motes of dust filmed on night vision are "spectral orbs," and low-frequency ambient noises caught on tape are voices from beyond.

I don't blame the average person for not knowing that our brains are wired to detect patterns, sometimes even where no pattern exists. That's cutting-edge neuroscience. But you'd think expert paranormal investigators would be familiar with the concept. Then they'd be more skeptical about what they see and hear.

Or maybe critical thinking is a special skill.

Culture Shock 11.05.09: Be all the Jedi that you can be

"The Men Who Stare at Goats" is probably the most unlikely film that can justifiably lay claim to the phrase "based on a true story." The film, which opens Friday and stars George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, is based on author and documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson's 2004 nonfiction book of the same name about a top-secret psychic spy unit within the U.S. military.

Just in case you missed that, I'll repeat: The book is about the U.S. military's top-secret psychic spy unit.

The movie version takes certain liberties. For instance, Clooney's character is a composite of several people, and the movie itself is played mostly for laughs. The book, however, is Ronson's best attempt to get the goods on probably the strangest program on which the U.S. government has ever squandered taxpayer money.

If you've ever listened to much late-night talk radio, you may already know part of the story.

One of the players is Maj. Ed Dames, who was a frequent guest on the "Coast to Coast A.M." program back when Art Bell was still its host. Dames claimed to be — and in fact was — a member of a secret "remote viewing" program intended to spy psychically on potential threats to Truth, Justice and the American Way. Remote viewing means just what it says. It means viewing events occurring someplace else, often on the other side of the world, and possibly seeing into the future, too.

When Dames wasn't safeguarding the American Dream, however, he was attempting to unravel deeper, more meaningful mysteries, such as the true identity of the Loch Ness monster.

Eventually, for whatever reason, Dames went public and told his story to credulous broadcasters like Bell. He also went into business, teaching others how to perform remote viewings. Not too long ago, on late-night TV, I saw a commercial for his remote viewing training seminars.

During his appearances on Bell's radio show, Dames made a lot of wild and inaccurate predictions, some of which Ronson chronicles in his book. One was that President Bill Clinton would be killed in April 1998 while playing golf. Eleven years later, the former president is still hitting the links, along with the lecture circuit.

The military eventually shut down its psychic spy program, claiming it had yielded no practical results, and this is one instance when I'm prepared to take the government at its word. But in the aftermath of 9/11, it seems like some of the military's experiments in unorthodox techniques — the ones that don't violate the laws of physics — have resurfaced.

While Dames is probably the most famous figure to emerge from the U.S. government's flirtation with the paranormal, he is merely a supporting character in Ronson's story. The main players are Lt. Col. Jim Channon, who sought to remake the U.S. Army using New Age philosophy, and Channon's main supporter, Maj. Gen. Albert Stubblebine, who commanded the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command from 1981 to 1984.

Channon wrote the manual for the First Earth Battalion. The battalion was never formed, but the manual advocated techniques that would supposedly turn U.S. soldiers into sensitive, caring Jedi warriors who could see the future, become invisible and even walk through walls. According to Ronson, Stubblebine was especially keen on that "walking through walls" bit, but Stubblebine's nose wasn't.

One of the soldiers Channon trained could supposedly kill a goat just by staring at it, and Ronson's search for that soldier makes up most of the first quarter of his book.

Unsurprisingly, nothing seems to have come from the paranormal aspects of the First Earth Battalion, but where there are Jedi, there are inevitably some who embrace the Dark Side.

Ronson uncovered information linking some First Earth techniques to the incidents of torture and abuse at Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison. If being exposed repeatedly to Barney the Dinosaur's "I Love You" song isn't torture, I don't know what is.

Any story that starts with psychic soldiers and ends with the War on Terror has got to qualify as unlikely. But that doesn't make it untrue.

Looking back at the first year of shocking culture

After writing this column for one year, it’s time to look back and see where some of the past year’s stories stand.

Dec. 7, 2006: I wrote about the newfound respect some science fiction writers, Philip K. Dick in particular, are receiving from traditional literary circles. That trend continued in 2007, when Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Lessing, 88, is the oldest person ever to win the award. Her long career includes two notable transitions. She went from communist to anti-communist and from “serious” fiction to science fiction.

The latter move upset some critics, among them Harold Bloom, who said, “Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable ... fourth-rate science fiction.”

But Lessing is unapologetic. “What (critics) didn't realize was that in science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time,” she said in an interview.

Good for her.

Jan. 4, 2007: I wrote about the new comic strip “Lio” by Mark Tatulli. Since then, “Lio” has increased its following. It now appears in about 275 newspapers worldwide, including The Daily. And that was enough to get Hollywood’s attention.

A live-action film based on the strip is in development.

Jan. 11: Time magazine named “You” its Person of the Year in recognition of ordinary people flooding the Internet with blogs and videos.

The flood continues, and it may be making its biggest impact in politics, where citizens are bypassing the “old media” to spread the word about their preferred presidential candidates. You get a sense of how revolutionary that is when a “second-tier” candidate like Ron Paul raises more than $4 million in one day when his online supporters stage a fundraising drive.

Feb. 1: I continue to receive e-mail about my column on self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Brown, who still hasn’t demonstrated anything that looks like real psychic ability. Perhaps that is why she has moved on to write, with the help of “her spirit guide Francine,” an absurd book titled “Secret Societies ... and How They Affect Our Lives Today.”

March 15: Marvel Comics killed off one of its most recognizable heroes, Captain America. He is still dead, but someone else is set to don an updated version of Cap’s red, white and blue costume. I still say the original Cap will return — eventually.

July 12: A cryptic marketing campaign for an upcoming sci-fi/horror film by producer J.J. Abrams (“Alias”) had fans scouring the Internet for clues. As it turned out, the Web sites www.ethanhaaswasright.com and ethanhaaswaswrong.blogspot.com, which many thought were promoting the then-untitled movie, were for an unrelated role-playing game.

At any rate, the film now has a name, “Cloverfield,” and it opens in theaters Jan. 18.

July 19: “Harry Potter” fans were eagerly awaiting the final book in the saga while trying to avoid spoilers that had leaked online.

By now, everyone who cares knows who lives and who dies. Also, Dumbledore is gay, but we didn’t learn that until months later.

Sept. 6: I wrote about a study published in Nature magazine, which found that the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is almost as accurate as Encyclopaedia Britannica. A spokesman for Britannica then e-mailed me a rebuttal, which included links to stories critical of Nature’s findings.

“Dozens of the so-called inaccuracies they attributed to us were nothing of the kind; they were the result of reviewers expressing opinions that differed from ours about what should be included in an encyclopedia article. In these cases Britannica’s coverage was actually sound,” Britannica responded.

After reading up on the controversy, I’m siding with Britannica, although I still think Wikipedia is an amazingly successful experiment.