Comments on Strange Universe Tape [4 msgs]

From: campbell@ufomind.com (Glenn Campbell, Las Vegas)
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 15:46:34 -0800
Subject: Comments on Strange Universe Tape [4 msgs]

Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 12:23:05 -0700
From: Robert Knight <blacksun@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Area 51 Alien tape on Strange Universe

This tape was one of the worst public rip offs that I have seen. If this
indeed was done at Area 51 it belongs to the tax payers, and I suggest
that anyone stupid enough to buy this tape should make millions of
copies and give them out free. It looks like Rocket Films is about to
make a windfall from a cheap dime store alien head and idiots from the
general public!!

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Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 21:30:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Side Show Marc <mstuder@paul.spu.edu>
Subject: Re: AREA 51: Alien Interview

Studer Delurking,

I saw the footage on SU and I have to totally agree with Ian. Rocket
Pictures makes a big deal about the footage not hidding the alien or
misdirecting the audience like on "Alien Autopsy, then shows the thing
sitting in the dark with only parts of it's head visable. You give 30
bucks to go down to "Mask-O-Rama" and thirty minutes with some Lowell
lights and I'm sure  I can produce comparable results.

The other thing that I found bogus was that you couldn't see the
aliens mouth. It appeared to be covered with a mask or lost in the
blow-up of the video frame. It seems to me that if your making an
alien suit, the mouth and nose area would be a real trick  to get
right and if you can get by by covering it up, you've saved yourself a
ton of work.

"Victor's" back story was even more hoaky than the video. Ian's right
when he said that it sounded scripted and to me it seemed like the
lines were written by a person who was trying to make the actor sound
either military or "offical." I found the part where Victor was saying
"This interview is terminated" over and and over again sounding like
it came from a very bad movie. When I was fifteen I wrote dialouge
like this.

Show me a tape of an alien walking around in good light in a credible
setting from a source other than anonymous tape in the mail, a flakey
concert promotor, or a Cormonesqe movie studio.

I'm sorry for sounding like I'm on a soapbox here but it seem like
every time this kind of crap surfaces it becomes debated ad nausem...

[I agree, and on that note... -MJP]

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Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 21:51:36 -0500
From: Dave Bethke <film@eleven.com>
Subject: Alien Interrogation at Area51?

I didn't see the SU program, but I am bothered by the method, mentioned
in other posts, of getting the tape out.  Wrapping video tape around
ones hand will certainly put folds or creases on the tape, along with
oil and dirt from ones skin. While great care will result in very minor
creases, dirt and oil, they still will be noticeable when the tape is
played.  This shows up as narrow bands of video noise, "snow", that come
and go as the tape passed the playback heads. Processing of the video
signal may minimize this but it could never be eliminated.  In
professional use, the rule is to never touch the tape.

Dave Bethke (bethland @ ix.netcom.com) on the fringe of Houston

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From: Glenn Campbell

I was on the road when the episode aired.  I turned on the TV in my
motel room, and there it was, and I managed to sit through the full
half hour.

First impressions: Robert Dean, Whitley Strieber and the cornball
"Victor" struck me as utterly phony -- the worst actors this side of a
Mexican soap opera (Mi corazon!).  It brought a tear to my eye to hear
Strieber's outrage at how that poor little critter was treated.

I can't pinpoint what I felt was wrong, but there seemed to be nothing
authentic about their speech.  They were each feigning emotion, not
really expressing it.  I think the face can reveal these things as
clearly as a lie detector can.  Real feelings are accompanied by
automatic reactions which these people did not display. (It makes me
sentimental about Bob Lazar: at least his emotional responses seemed
right.)

"This interview is terminated!" -- Who wrote this material? He belongs
on the staff of "Baywatch." I tried very hard to see if "Victor" was
Sean Morton with a beard, but the shape of the head is wrong.  Sean,
in fact, got only a single sound bite.

In summary: It is Art Bell material!