[Film Review] The UFO Chronicles: A History Of Mysterious Sightings (2023)

I'm sure I wasn't alone in my UFO fascination when I was younger, it seems as if it was spoon fed to 80's and 90's babies.  My nose was constantly in my parents' volume of The Unexplained, as I learned about flying saucers, hostile aliens and Men In Black. 

This interest was further fuelled by shows such as The X-Files and Strange But True, I couldn't get enough of these visitors from another planet.  So, when learning there was a fresh UFO documentary to absorb, 10-year-old me jumped at the chance of some nostalgia.

The selling point of The UFO Chronicles: A History Of Mysterious Sightings, is that it's written, performed and illustrated entirely by Artificial Intelligence.  This alone offers an uncomfortable vibe throughout, as you sometimes struggle to follow the speed at which information is pumped out.  It doesn't seem to take a breath throughout, as so much is covered in a short space of time.  As all the information is taken mostly from online, it is amusing to hear where popular culture has influenced its narrative - the truth is out there, look to the skies etc.

Exploring information and stories from hundreds of years, in particular from the 1950's to the present day, you can't accuse the film of not being thorough. Everything is covered, from the reported sightings by Christopher Columbus, to the modern-day fascination surrounding UFO 'balloons', with many, many stories in between.  For a film that's AI generated, it surprisingly doesn't dwell on your usual extra-terrestrial topics and time frames, and covers theories even I'd never heard of before, such as Starseed theories and Ultra-Terrestrials.  Also, shout out to my boy Mothman, who also gets some screen time.

The star of the show, however, is the AI generated images.  AI imagery is terrifying at the best of times but use it to depict otherworldly beings and it becomes nightmare fuel! This doesn't apply specifically to aliens and humans, but also to the backdrops set against the stories, which are bleak and haunting.  There's something about AI pictures that will never feel right, probably uncanny valley in effect, and used in this context it becomes quite unsettling.

At times, The UFO Chronicles can move at speed, and it would in my opinion benefit from slowing down a tad, if only to allow you to soak everything in.  However, if you're comfortably versed in ufology, you won't necessarily mind missing the information you already know.  Overall, it's a fine documentary, but it's the illustrations that make this film and I'd recommend watching it for that by itself.

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