A four-part documentary exploring a range of mass UFO/UAP sightings in Wales, Zimbabwe, Texas and Japan.

‘You know what mothers are like. They can tell when you’re lying, but [Mum] was absolutely convinced that what I was saying was the truth.’

Oh dear. Surely even the most devout UFO investigator might concede that this plaintive assertion by one of the Broad Haven school children – now in his fifties – recalling his supposed Close Encounter outside his Primary School in 1977 is setting the bar for the standard of proof pretty low. My mum believed me, honest!

Nor was I impressed by the Harvard Psychiatry Professor, the late John Mack, whose justification for believing those claiming alien contact was that the intensity of their reactions was too great to have been generated by anything other than actual experience. Seriously? He was a psychiatrist? Did he ever meet a human being? Perhaps he was the alien…

In fact, there are rather a lot of ‘experts’ wheeled out whose primary argument is essentially: ‘They can’t have been making it up.’ To which I’m sure I’m not alone in having shouted at the telly: ‘Ehm, yes they can.’

However, despite – or because of – the lamentable nature of most of the evidence presented in Encounters, the series is very watchable, intelligent and a cut above many of the other risible UFO documentaries I’ve snorted my way through over the years.

To his credit, I don’t think that director Yon Motskin is particularly interested in proving the case one way or another. The series looks amazing. It’s immaculately produced, and, without a narrator, it respectfully allows each contributor to tell their story and make their case, skilfully trusting the viewer to draw their own conclusions. I sense that Motskin is agnostic, focused instead on what it is that sightings (especially mass sightings) mean culturally and politically; and what deeper human need the telling and sharing of the associated stories fulfils.

The final episode does this strikingly in its analysis of Japanese sci-fi culture in the aftermath of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it’s hard not to be moved by the Zimbabwean who feels that his very identity as an African was questioned when his account of his encounter was disbelieved by a white teacher.

My frustration with the series is that even if Motskin’s focus is elsewhere, it’s something of a missed opportunity not to pursue the more intriguing technical evidence such as the US Navy footage, the video of the Fukushima lights and the radar evidence from the Texas sightings with a bit more journalistic curiosity.

As for the Fukushima lights, perhaps Motskin is indeed letting his scepticism shine through when he recreates them convincingly with the help of simple VFX. It’s a nice artistic touch, but it made me laugh out loud. I wonder if it was supposed to.

Verdict: Encounters is eminently watchable, no matter where you sit on the UFO spectrum. It’s not there to change anyone’s mind, but it does effectively shine a very earthly light on what the idea of UFOs means to us as lonely and insecure human beings. 7/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com