by Pale Rider


Robert Stone, 1992

... a crucified metallic figure, a robot, or “spaceman.” This sets the tone for a depiction of UFO believers as followers of a modern religion rather than a science.

The world’s first recognized flying-saucer craze, or “flap,” happened in 1947 when the pilot of a light-plane reported seeing several flying disks in formation over Mount Rainer in Washington state. Aliens have been descending in the media ever since, especially in Hollywood fare like THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) and E.T.–THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982). Rather than interview the usual showbiz types, like actors, directors, authors, or NASA spokesmen, filmmaker Robert Stone trains his camera on surviving members of the first wave of UFO gurus, who, like disciples of a new messiah, lectured and published at length on their supposed meetings with the friendly “space brothers.”

Once heralded in newspaper headlines like 20th century prophets, these aging contactees languish in obscurity, their speeches on interplanetary peace and nuclear disarmament as outmoded as the stop-motion special-effects in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956). Daniel Fry, who says he rode in a disk on July 4, 1950, is shown in his dotage, spontanously whistling “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” At one point, he goes into a trance to psychically channel the aliens’ ongoing transmissions, and blurts out what sounds like an imitation of two Earth ham-radio operators reading call signs to each other. Much screen time goes to Howard Menger and his still-worshipful wife Connie. Menger claims to have voyaged to a city on the moon with his space friends (he brandishes indistinct photos) and, using ordinary household items, demonstrates what he says is the secret of flying-saucer propulsion. Most tellingly, however, Menger asserts that his handsome, manlike moon pals are far more attractive than the later enigmatic invaders of “The X Files” and Whitley Strieber’s bestseller Communion (adapted as a feature in 1989). Like an over-the-hill movie diva, Menger declares he’s tired of being ignored and wants the big bucks. That’s a refreshingly frank attitude. Other contactees argue over whether Jesus Christ was a spaceman or the Son of God who liked to hang out with the spacemen. Meanwhile, avid collectors of rare UFO memorabilia treat first-editions of books by Howard Menger and the even more notorious Doug Adamski like holy relics. Yet there’s little appetite for the themes they contain, about aliens coming to rescue mankind from atomic doom. Vintage footage of a landmark international 1958 flying-saucer conference reveals these UFO evangelists in their heyday. Young and placidly optimistic, they look ahead to peace and harmony being wrought by the good space brothers.

Hardcore initiates into UFO lore may find that FAREWELL GOOD BROTHERS skips too lightly and selectively around the histories, or that it clearly disbelieves the literal authenticity of these yarn-spinners. Yet–despite some of Stone’s mischevious editing– it avoids making a mockery of its human subjects, although some of them do a good job of it themselves. In a manner both winking and wistful, the movie hints that a grassroots movement reacted to the Cold War and Hiroshima/Nagasaki nightmares by conjuring up a firmament of near-divine visitors, unimaginably advanced, powerful, gentle, and here to enlighten and save mankind from itself. Mr. Menger has a point about modern “true” alien sightings, and their penchant for scary abductions and monstrous dissections in the night. Why did pop mythology get so sinister? In any case, it did, and left these pioneering crackpots behind.

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