"Ezekiel saw the wheel. This is the wheel he said he saw. These are unidentified flying objects that people say they are seeing now. Are they proof that we are being visited by civilizations from other stars? Or just what are they? The United States Air Force began an investigation of this high strangeness in a search for the truth. What you are about to see is part of that 20-year search."
Project: U.F.O. aired for two 13-episode seasons on NBC, in 1978 and '79. Produced by
Dragnet creator
Jack Webb, the show exploited, like Steven Spielberg's
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the high interest in U.F.O.s among the general public in the 70s. But, being a Jack Webb production, it hewed to the
Dragnet (and
Adam-12) formula, of straight-forward, matter-of-fact dramatizations of allegedly "true" cases of U.FO. sightings and extraterrestrial encounters.
In each episode, two officers of the United States Air Force - in the first season, Major Jake Gatlin (
William Jordan) and Staff Sergeant harry Fitz (
Caskey Swaim), in Year 2, the Gatlin character was replaced by Captain Ben Ryan (
Edward Winter) - would investigate two or three alleged sightings and encounters (all supposedly based on the Air Force's "Project Blue Book" files), which would be dramatized for the audience. This called for a huge number of miniature spaceship models (created by
Brick Price), as well as some imaginative alien creations... and some less-than-imaginative ones; this is another 70s genre show (
Ark II, Space Academy, Mork & Mindy) that rented out
Bill Malone's Robby the Robot replica for an episode.
My memories of the show are somewhat vague; I
do recall watching it every week, although I was mostly interested in seeing all the cool spaceship models. Because they had several "encounters" to dramatize each week, the show went through more spaceship designs than any other TV show of its era, except maybe
Space: 1999. I suspect that it was the cost of all these special effects sequences that led NBC to cancel it once the ratings began to dip.
Other problems were that the main characters were given virtually no depth of personality, and there was no humor on the show to speak of. Everything was presented dryly and straight-faced, and while some of the dramatizations were genuinely creepy, the show's format required that the investigators ended up explaining a way a certain percentage of the sightings as hoaxes or mistakes. While this may have reflected the Air Force's actual Blue Book findings, I think viewers might have been turned off by that. I know that
I preferred it on the few occasions when they decided they
couldn't just dismiss a U.F.O. event with some dull, mundane explanation. I wanted those aliens to be
real!
Anyway, I haven't seen
Project: U.F.O. in years, so I have no idea how the show holds up - if at all. I'd like to see it again, though - if only for all the alien spaceships!
And yes - this show
was called
Project Blue Book in syndication and in some international markets. But it was officially
Project: U.F.O. when it aired in its original network run, so please don't tell me I got the name wrong - you can check out the opening titles for both seasons
HERE.
I kinda remember this show. You hit the nail on the head about it being dry and humorless...but what turned me off was that all the cases were explained away.
ReplyDeleteAha! I was about to say, "I remember a show like this, but it was called 'Project Blue Book'." As a youngster I remember liking it; I doubt if it will hold up well.
ReplyDeleteYouTube offers a look at some of the Project UFO if you care to revisit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xgHmPJK45g&NR=1
ReplyDeleteI'd have to agree about Jack Webb as being dry. I'd never even heard of this series. I did like the UFO British series and the USA Invader series however.
I remember watching this with my dad. But I remember it as Project: Bluebook.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I recall seeing either within an episode or else in a magazine article about an episode that one of the UFOs was detailed with parts from the Space: 1999 Moonbase Alpha kit! (It may even have been the top of the yellow colored one pictured above, but I don't remember for sure.) CR
ReplyDeleteWe had this series in the UK in the 1970s, (1979, I guess) in an afternoon for children. A couple of years ago, the British Sci-Fi Channel showed it again.
ReplyDeleteIt's still watchable, each case can turn out to be explainable or not... Though many of the episodes are completely devoid of drama or humour.
In terms of nostalgia, and working out which close encounters you dreamt or saw on TV as a kid, it really needs a DVD release. The variation of UFO effects and aliens is certainly imaginative.
I seem to recall that each time they decided the UFO was some natural phenomenon, at the end of the episode we would see the real UFO flying away or something.
ReplyDeleteI have all the episodes and there was some humor provided by Caskey Swaim as Sgt. Fitz, sort of in the same vein that Jack Webb and Harry Morgan used to provide in Dragnet. It's not much, and it's not always funny but it's there. I would love to know when and where this show was ever called Project Blue Book. I never ran across this series in syndication here in the U.S. and both overseas airings I'm aware of both carry the Project U.F.O. title. I used to wait as a kid for each new episode to see what kind of spacecraft would be shown that week. I contacted Brick Price years ago to ask if any of the spacecraft had survived all of these years. He had one leftover from the series, and offered it for $10,000.
ReplyDeleteJust a little steep for me...LOL. However he was a nice guy to take time to reply and talk to me a bit about the show.
I do remember this. I used to watch it at my grandparents house because they were able to pick up the NBC affiliate much better than we could.
ReplyDeleteYou said it well when it comes to getting frustrated with the USAF debunking all the sightings. I felt the same way.
I recall one episode where some farm wife saw a glowing elf critter pop its head in her window. That freaked me out! We lived on a farm after all. Of course my grandfather said he would have shot it! Good job, gramps - start an intergalactic incident.
This was one of my favorite shows from my late junior high, early high school years. My dad and I would watch it every week. He was always fascinated with stargazing and outer space, and I guess I followed in his footsteps in that area. I also remember the "elf" critter episode, and I agree: creepy as hell. My favorite episode was in season 2 and called The Superstition Mountain Incident. In that episode, several aliens meet up with humans and leave a couple of pure magnesium artifacts behind. If I remember correctly, they also said they would return to Earth on December 24, 2011 and make themselves publicly known, so we don't have too much longer to wait.
ReplyDeleteA little belated- but I just watched a couple of shows for the first time since I saw them on their original run.The sets certainly show 70's vintage but holds up fairly well. Unlike some I appreciated the Jack Webb approach as being true to a real investigation. This show treated the subject seriously and with respect. The UFOS are still cool although I do think though that the attempt to explain them away hurt the show-leaves the viewer feeling slightly cheated. But that was the Jack Webb way- just the facts maam.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching this show every week as well but outside of a few guest stars and the change in the lead between seasons, not a whole lot more. And I remember it well being called 'Project UFO'.....I think on NBC.
ReplyDeleteI was 11 and 12 when this show was on and it scared the crap out of me. I lived way out in the country of Western N.Y. and in a lonely farmhouse with lots of big windows. I also had started reading and there were lots of UFO books out around that period of time. So when this show was on, I was nervous as a cat in room of rocking chairs. I couldn't even go into the bathroom to brush my teeth for fear of seeing a face through the bathroom window beside the sink. As an adult I have watched a couple of episodes on Youtube and it looks less intimidating. Special effects very much of the time. But as a kid who was sure that aliens were going to land in the apple orchard outside my window, this series was very effective.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see a DVD release of this series.
I was on one episode of this show!
ReplyDelete