UFOs: Past, Present, and Future documentary
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | May 1973 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Beings & bodies (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic) |
| People | Robert Emenegger, William Coleman |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 75 |
| Year | 1973 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1973 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
In 1973 Los Angeles producers Robert Emenegger and Allan Sandler were making a documentary about UFOs when, Emenegger later said, Air Force officers encouraged the project and promised them real film of a 1964 UFO landing at Holloman Air Force Base. The footage never arrived, and the resulting film, UFOs: Past, Present, and Future (1974), narrated by Rod Serling, showed the landing only as a dramatisation.[1][2]
Origins
Emenegger said the idea dated to 1971, when he was asked to make a film using Defense Department and NASA material; accounts differ on whether the request came from officials at Norton Air Force Base, the Defense Department or the Republican Party, and writer Jason Colavito notes that the sources conflict. Emenegger said Air Force officers, including former Air Force spokesman Colonel William Coleman, gave the team access to people and bases.[1][2][3]
The Holloman landing
Emenegger said he was promised footage of a landing at Holloman in which a craft touched down and its occupants met Air Force officers. He said it was withdrawn before release, reportedly because the timing was wrong amid the Watergate scandal. The film instead presented the event as a "hypothetical" dramatisation with illustrations and footage of radar rooms and jets, and a claim that a few seconds of real footage appeared in it was later shown to be part of the re-enactment. Emenegger said drawings of the craft and its occupants were made with officials present who had the film.[1][2]
Later versions and assessment
The film was re-released in 1976 and 1979 as UFOs: It Has Begun, with commentary from Jacques Vallée, and was nominated for a Golden Globe. Emenegger told the story in detail from the early 1990s. The Air Force has never confirmed it and no footage has surfaced; some researchers think the officers were testing public reaction or running a disinformation exercise, and Emenegger later appeared in the documentary Mirage Men, which explores that possibility.[1][3][4]
People and topics
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Robert Emenegger — Producer of the 1974 documentary UFOs: Past, Present, and Future.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- William Coleman — Former Air Force spokesman linked to official UFO policy and the 1974 Emenegger documentary.
- Holloman Air Force Base — An Air Force base next to White Sands.
- Disinformation — False information spread deliberately to mislead.
On the Timeline
- Howell McConnell and post-Blue Book analysis (28 October 1972) — An NSA official tells Vallée a Wright-Patterson office kept secretly analyzing UAP after Blue Book.
- Great Lakes shoot-down claim (1973) (June 1973) — A Navy instructor claims a UAP was shot down by a missile and secretly moved by rail to Great Lakes.
See every 1973 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- UFOs: Past, Present, and Future — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "What have we learned from the Holloman landing story?", PsyHub (Substack) · psyhub.substack.com · archived copy
- Jason Colavito, "UFOs: It Has Begun" · jasoncolavito.com · archived copy
- Mirage Men — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- A UFO landing at Holloman AFB? — Podcast UFO · podcastufo.com · archived copy
- web.archive.org · web.archive.org · archived copy
- youtube.com · youtube.com · archived copy
Further reading
- Holloman Air Force Base — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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