The Revealing Truth of Ufos, Secret Aircraft, Cover-Ups & Conspiracies: Area 51
One of the most significant developments in the 1990s, and in specific relation to Area 51, was the way in which the world of entertainment jumped on the bandwagon. Numerous sci-fi-themed and conspiracy-driven television shows incorporated Area 51 into their stories. Seven Days, which aired on CBS, made notable use of Area 51. The time-travel-themed show ran from 1998 to 2001 and utilized the now less-than-secret base as the hub from where secret traveling in time took place. Stargate SG-1 did very much likewise, using the theme of back-engineered alien technology secretly held at the facility.
The 2008 hit movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which starred Harrison Ford, made a less-than-subtle nod in the direction of Area 51 by referring to a secret government storage area as Hangar 51.
Unsurprisingly, The X-Files got in on the action, too. In 1998 in a two-part episode, Mulder and Scully find themselves in distinctly deep water when they head out to Area 51 in search of evidence that the U.S. government is hiding alien technology. Then came Dark Skies.
It was in 1996 that NBC unleashed a much-talked-about and still widely remembered UFO-themed show: Dark Skies. It was the brainchild of Brent V. Friedman and Bryce Zabel. The show was not destined to last, however. It ran for just twenty episodes, from September 1996 to May 1997. The show focused on the world of two people caught up in a Cold War-era conspiracy of extraterrestrial proportions: John Loengard and his girlfriend, Kim Sayers (played by Eric Close and Megan Ward). When news of the show first surfaced and the nature of the show—that of a man-woman team—many thought: “X- Files rip-off.” It turns out that it actually wasn’t.
In The X-Files, the extraterrestrial angle was always shrouded in ambiguity: were we really being visited by aliens? Was the UFO phenomenon just a cover for highly classified experiments of a genetic and mind-control nature undertaken by top-secret, “black-budget” programs? Dark Skies, however, was very different. As the viewer learns from the absolute beginning, undoubtedly, the Earth is being invaded by hostile E.T.s, something that John and Kim find out very early on. Whereas The X-Files was inspired by UFO history and classic cases, Dark Skies took things a big step further by taking real people with ties (large, small, and alleged) to ufology and inserting them into the expanding plot.
We’re talking about the likes of Area 51, Dorothy Kilgallen (the journalist who died under questionable circumstances on November 8, 1965), President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and even the issue of the U-2 spy plane that had such deep ties to Area 51. Dark Skies then had its finger on the pulse on certain controversial issues and people that appear in the pages of this very book, which is why I give it far more page space than The X-Files.
The story line is an interesting one: after he and Kim move to D.C. and become immersed in the world of politics, John stumbles upon a massive UFO conspiracy and is soon incurring the wrath of both the MJ-12 group and the man running it, Frank Bach, played by the late J. T. Walsh. In no time, however, John finds himself accepting one of those offers you can’t refuse: he joins the secret group of alien hunters.
Things become very dicey, however, when the aliens target Kim and seek to make her one of their own. In reality, the alien menace is actually a small creature not unlike the face-hugging things in the Alien movies starring Sigourney Weaver. Via the mouth, the creatures make their way to the brains of those unlucky enough to cross their path and seize control. Fortunately, the “Ganglions”—as the pesky, little critters are known—can be beaten. Providing that infection has not set in to an irreversible degree, it’s possible to return the victims to their normal states of mind, albeit not without an occasional and slightly sinister equivalent of falling off the wagon.
As the relationship between John, Kim, and MJ-12 gets ever more fraught and filled with tension, the pair go on the run, fearful that it’s not just the aliens who want them dead. Shades of The Fugitive spring to mind as each week a new hazard surfaces and John and Kim seek to learn more about the E.T. threat, have clandestine meetings with Bobby Kennedy, and do their best to stay alive.
The fact that Dark Skies got cancelled (no, it wasn’t due to the threats of a real MJ-12-type group but something even worse: low ratings) means we’ll never know what the exact outcome of the show would have been. We can, however, make a few educated guesses. It’s a fact that all networks, actors, producers, and directors would love to have a highly successful show under their collective belt that runs for years and years (NCIS and The Walking Dead spring to mind), but Dark Skies was never meant to last.
The idea was to split the entire story across five seasons—and five alone. The plan was for the story to begin in the early 1960s (with flashbacks to the Roswell affair of 1947) and to reach its finale in the early 2000s when the countdown to the ultimate battle between them and us begins. Dark Skies was a highly thought-provoking show that deserved to have had its full run. It probably did not please those who run Area 51.
https://scienceandspace.com/ufos/an-alien-interview-and-independence-day-part-2/