We Are Not Alone: UFO Documentary Review

We Are Not Alone is a documentary starring, directed and produced by Serena DC. Who according to her own website is a talk show host, reality tv star. Author and self love and dating expert. Interestingly she left off director and producer in that long list of credits. It seems Serena wears a lot of hats. She certainly seems to be a bit all over the place which reflects her work on this documentary.

Surprisingly for someone who has been invested in entertainment, paranormal phenomena, pop culture and more as both an individual and journalist/reviewer this was my first time hearing of her. So this piece of work serves as my first impression of Serena and what she can do. I can objectively say I’m not impressed.

I’ve enjoyed a number of documentaries on the possibilities of UFOs over the years, from television (In Search Of) and movies (Encounters) to radio shows (Coast to Coast AM). Most have had their merits, while some have strained credulity. We Are Not Alone borders on being laughable at times. I found that there was very little in this documentary that I could even attempt to take seriously. Serena doesn’t help things with her opening, which presents her as having a lifelong love of the stars in the skies above which somehow led her to interviews the stars of Hollywood. Quote, “As soon as the cameras are turned off I get back to my real passion, hanging out with the stars in the sky”. If that’s the case why isn’t this film being done by Serena the astronomer or ufologist? She unknowingly creates a disconnect in credibility with her opening and it gets worse as the movie goes forward.

There are a number of significant problems with the documentary. Tonally it’s all over the place, trying to be serious and yet often ending up goofy. Its structure and pacing are another. While a good doc will convey facts there is a need to tell a story to maintain interest in the material and not just a dry presentation, to take the audience on a journey (very often an emotional one). Documentaries like all media are manipulative by design even when telling “the truth” there is usually a desired conclusion as a goal of the project. These are films, not the news.

We Are Not Alone does not suffer from being a dry retelling of factual events. It tries but fails to take itself seriously (probably to fill its run time) to the point where I fell asleep watching it (at noon). Most of the guests could be considered for lack of a better word kooky. One in particular was a woman who as a girl experienced the hauntings that inspired The Conjuring AND she saw a UFO the size of Manhattan! I don’t know whether she is unfortunate or fortunate.

Serena herself undergoes past life regression hypnotherapy in a scene I can only describe as poorly acted. She learns that through meditation one can telepathically communicate with and summon UFOs to your location, something she claims to have done herself. Good things aliens have nothing better to do than be on speed dial for human’s entertainment. There is the use of bizarre animatics for flashbacks. The faces of those involved have been scanned to create a sort of video game level of uncanny valley to these sequences instead of just having the guests or actors reenact these past encounters. It’s a baffling choice in terms of presentation, especially when the material is already falling into vein of the likes of Finding Bigfoot, Ironically, Serena even talks to a Bigfoot “expert” with her tongue fully in her cheek at this point.

There is a story of a person who’s hearing was restored by a UFO encounter. Why aren’t he and his doctor appearing in this film? That would have been some terrific evidence to have his doctor confirm that he had been deaf and now wasn’t while this individual shared his story? The most seemingly credible witness of these events is Dr Steven Greer Ufologist (his doctorate comes from a BS in biology), instead is the one who tells this story while sharing photos of “aliens” so indistinct that bigfoot photos look like 4K by comparison.

In the end, there is no credible evidence presented, a lot of pseudoscience and mysticism and absolutely anything that led me to consider the possibility of aliens visiting Earth to be a reality.

SCORE:
1 out of 5