he program alleges that it really happened and the McPhersons are still missing to this day. It was aired by the UPN network in 1998 and had the nation buzzing wondering if it was real or a hoax. Let's examine the evidence and then decide for ourselves

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THE SYPNOSIS:

It's Thanksgiving and the McPherson clan has gathered at Mom McPherson's in Lake County, MN, for the traditional turkey dinner including eldest son Kurt, his wife Linda and their six year old daughter Rose. Eldest daughter Melanie, her boyfriend Matthew Wilson, middle son Brian, his girlfriend Renee Laurent and youngest son Tommy and his video camera round out the family unit. (We find out later that Mom is a widower.)

Things start out innocently enough. The dining table is brimming with food and family chicanery. Tommy is being a nuisance with his camera and is scolded by his mother. (I think the camera is permanently attached to his left hand and is constantly on so everything is seen from Tommy's perspective.) The family sits down to eat when the power goes off.

Kurt and Brian leave to check the fuse box in the garage and Tommy tags along. Brian tries to open it but is burned by the hot metal and quickly pulls his hand away. His brothers laugh at his misfortune until their attention is drawn outside down the road. The transformer on top of the power pole is fried and throwing off sparks. All rational explanations go out the window when Tommy's camera spies some eerie lights in the woods. They decide to investigate and the camera shuts off.

The camera comes back on and the McPherson boys are in a highly agitated state. They've stumbled upon a UFO that has landed in a nearby field. Tommy tries to keep it still and in focus when two alien figures exit the ship and start zapping a cow with ray gun. The men hightail it back to the house.

They hustle inside and find the women have been busy breaking out about a million candles (?!) The phones are also knocked out. Everything electrical (except the camera he said suspiciously) is on the fritz. Kurt heads to the den and breaks out some shotguns (and the family obviously does a lot of hunting judging by the number of guns) while the women demand to know what's going on and what they saw.

Suddenly the house is swamped with a high pitched sonic attack. Everyone covers there ears except for Rose who seems strangely unaffected. The noise finally subsides and there are sounds that something is outside the house running amok. Kurt tapes a flashlight to the barrel of his gun and takes the keys to the largest vehicle. He tells everyone to sit tight and he'll bring the truck to the front door and they're all leaving. (And in a nice realistic touch Mom is worried about all the food. I worked hard on that turkey dammit!)

Tommy follows Kurt outside but they spot nothing. Tommy confesses that he soiled himself when he saw the aliens (and proves it by panning down to his crotch.) Kurt assures him everybody's that scared. The truck won't start. He pops the hood but before he can open it there is a flash of light and smoke erupts from under the hood. Using the gun barrel he raises the hot hood to discover the battery has melted into a steaming gob of goo.

They retreat back into the house.

The tape jumps ahead. The family is gathered in the living room. Panic hasn't quite got them hysterical yet but they're real close. Mom is nursing a glass of wine and frightfully asks "what do THEY want." The only answer she gets are the sounds of something crawling on the roof. Tommy runs outside and trains his camera up on the roof and catches a fleeting glimpse of something crawling into an upstairs window.

He tells Kurt who leads the way upstairs. After several suspenseful turns a ray of light shoots at him from the darkness. He fires back and the light stops. Kurt orders everyone back downstairs.

The family regroups in the kitchen and tries to plan a course of action when the majority of the group comes down with a massive nosebleed. Only the McPhersons are affected except, again, for young Rose (Matthew and Renee, the non-family members aren't affected either but Linda, Kurt's wife, is.) Everyone crams toilet paper on their noses trying to staunch the flow.

The tape jumps ahead again. Kurt and Brian are going to try and make it to the highway on foot for help. They head to the door when a ball of light crashes into the house and raises holy hell shrieking though every nook and cranny. It's erratic flight plan continues until it slams into Renee knocking her down.

The light blast has put her into a deep coma that they can't wake her up from. Kurt must work to get Brian away from her so they can make a run for the highway again. This time, Kurt, Brian and Matthew will go for the highway leaving Tommy in charge of the womenfolk so they can look after Renee.

The men leave.

The tape jumps ahead about an hour according to the camera's clock but the remaining family only feel a few minutes have passed. (Meaning they've lost an hour or experienced "missing time.") Linda is getting a little panicky, Mom's on her fourth or fifth glass of wine and Melanie has yet another shotgun.

They hear gunshots outside. Melanie and Tommy head out but see nothing. Once back inside the power starts flickering on and off again as if teasing them. The phone starts ringing but no one is there. The teasing continues with rogue appliances, ice makers and stove tops until the house plunges into darkness again.

Everyone starts feeling very hot. It gets worse when they all get a burning sensation on the back of their necks. Tommy pulls Linda's collar back revealing a triangular burn mark. The pain becomes unbearable. Rose assures everyone that it will be over in a minute. (What is with this kid?) She proves right as the pain quickly subsides. Linda asks how did she know but before she can answer the appliances start going haywire again.

That's the last straw for everyone. Panic has given away to hysteria. There are more gunshots heard outside. Tommy heads out and films the remains of two shotguns. One's barrel is melted down while the other has been surgically sliced in two. There are no signs of his brothers or Matthew. He spies more weird lights in the woods and we can make out two sinister shapes approaching. Tommy orders everyone back inside.

Once in, Melanie tells Tommy to but the damn camera down and help them barricade the door. He sits it on the bathroom vanity and the picture goes dark.

A short time later the camera comes back on and Tommy gives a tearful confession and a recount of the days events and prophesizes that he probably won't live to see tomorrow. He takes up his camera but finds an empty house.

His search continues to his darkened bedroom but it is empty too. He pans around to leave and comes face to face with an alien. He's cut off in mid-sentence. The alien approaches him. He drops the camera and it reveals Tommy is frozen in a trance like state. The alien closes in and the tape stops.

The McPhersons and they're guests haven't been seen since.

The End

So, did this really happen? Is the tape authentic or a hoax?

Well, if you stick around long enough, you'll get your answer with the closing credits. Especially the particular credits of Shari Khademi as Alien #1 and Myles Wolf as Alien #2. In fact the actors who played the entire family are credited in the credits.

So it was all a hoax brought to you by executive producer Dick Clark. (I guess his lack of aging could suggest that he is one of THEM or a result of one of their genetic experiments.)

The program debuted almost a full year before The Blair Witch Project but remember there were a rash of films around this time dealing with "this really happened" subjects as seen through video taped accounts of the characters filming there own descent into madness or their eventual demise. (See also The Last Broadcast.)

After it's premiere, UPN called for a web poll where you could vote whether you thought the tape was authentic or not. The network caught holy hell from viewers who didn't find it very funny but blasphemous. I guess they didn't stick around for the credits.

Even without the credits there are plenty of clues that the film is a hoax. Thanks to the X-Files, alien abductions and the little green men's agendas have become so much a part of pop culture that everyone knows all the components that consists of one. Alien Abduction: ILC does it's damndest to cram them all in to the point where it becomes ridiculous.

First is the snafu in all the electrical equipment or the blackout phase. Second is the nosebleeds suggesting that the family has been abducted before and been implanted with tracking devices in their noses. The aliens have upgraded too with more triangular shaped implants stuck in the body at strategic points for more data collection.

Then there's also the lost time effect where the victim is zapped with a bad case of jet lag after losing the set amount of time. I'm surprised that they left out the most popular form alien probe (you know what I'm talking about) and was sorely disappointed that no one complained that their butt hurt after experiencing lost time.

Then there was the whole thing with young Rose. At the beginning of the program they showed pictures of all the missing people. When Rose's picture came up I think we we're supposed to notice her HUGE almost alien like eyes. (They attacked the photo with Adobe Photoshop to make sure we noticed.) Is Rose an experiment of seedy alien breeding purposes? I think they want us to think so. Why else would she be so calm, unaffected and clairvoyant during the proceedings?

While watching the recent alien invasion movie Signs the little girl in that movie reminded me of the little girl in this film. In fact I thought the little water fetishist was an alien experiment too. (I was wrong but at least the aliens in AA: ILC brought a ray gun with them in case they ran into a closed door.) After the memories of this program had been drudged up I thought I had this thing taped and have been digging through my huge pile of unlabeled tapes ever since. Two months later I finally found it.

To try and give the McPherson's tape some credibility the program is interrupted several times by experts and other alien abductees to try and explain things. The McPherson film is creepily effective but completely falls apart during these interruptions by the experts. The actors in the staged film hold the bluff while the experts appear to be on the verge of laughing at us at any moment.

There is the medical and psychological experts who've had experiences with abductees. Then there's the special effects expert who claims the effects are impossible to fake followed by the scientific skeptic with a pocketful of rational explanations (who must be smart because he's got the complete set of World Book Encyclopedias stacked behind him) and the obligatory man in shadow screaming it's all a government conspiracy. (And everyone of them is bogus too as confirmed by the film's credits.)

The only exception is Stanton Friedman. Friedman is a nuclear physicist  who was a regular on Art Bell's radio program before old Art got a little too preoccupied with the end of the world around Y2K. Friedman believes in the existence of extraterrestrials and has some interesting theories on why they're here and the effects of electro magnetism and microwaves on the human body.

Friedman was duped into being on the program not realizing he was the only real expert but holds no animosity towards the producers. He still believes what he believes.

Do I believe in extraterrestrials? Yep.

Do I believe that they're here, running amok, mutilating cattle, giving people anal probes and in cahoots with the government trying to assimilate their way in and take over? Maaaaaybe.