By Robert Scucci
| Published
After reading a healthy amount of mixed reviews, I decided it was time to check out Investigation Alien, the Netflix Original docuseries that claims to be looking for all the answers involving alien encounters and government cover ups. Hosted by UFO-obsessed, Peabody Award-winning journalist George T. Knapp, I went into this special with high expectations because it starts out with an attitude that suggests an admirable amount of objectivity before eventually devolving into a series of interviews and Gish galloping across the globe to find answers – so long as they fit Knapp’s narrative, which is peppered with drama and half-baked scientific explanations that don’t really help his cause.
While I can’t claim to be a credible expert on UFOs (barely an enthusiast for that matter), the idea that we’re not alone in the universe is a fascinating one, and the reason I clicked ‘play’ in the first place was to see if there was an actual smoking gun that would change my mind either way.
But all I got was smoke and mirrors while watching Investigation Alien.
I Want To Believe… In A Better Alien Investigation
I’m not going to go into every case study brought up in Investigation Alien, but rather point attention to its narrative framework, which undermines its credibility as soon as you realize what’s going on.
George T. Knapp has been fascinated with UFO conspiracies since the late 1980s, and decided that it was time to finally do a deep-dive involving expert witnesses, like former members of several “three-letter agencies” who can only reveal enough information to pique your interest before saying to the camera with a straight face that that’s all they can say on the matter at the time until further details become unclassified.
To make matters more frustrating in Investigation Alien, Knapp aims to unpack mysterious events like the 1997 Phoenix Lights incident by finding new witnesses to give lukewarm takes on stories that don’t offer any new information or insight to anybody who’s watched an alien documentary before. Throughout its six-episode run, Investigation Alien does raise some interesting questions about the possibility of extraterrestrials visiting Earth, as well as their possible motives, but each and every time actual scientists are brought in to run some tests, the results are either inconclusive or simply raise more questions because they need more time to spend researching the matter.
In other words, “evidence” is shipped out for evaluation, but we never get a definitive answer by the time Investigation Alien concludes.
Suffers From Scripted Interviews
The biggest problem I have with Investigation Alien, is how if a less authoritative sounding figure than George T. Knapp was running the show, the entire docuseries would not hold up under scrutiny (which it barely does anyway).
I have to give credit where it’s due, however, because Knapp has a commanding voice, and a strong grasp on how to sound compelling through his narrations because he’s been a newscaster for decades and knows how to put a story together – especially on a subject matter that’s so near and dear to him. I also don’t want to dunk on him too hard because I’m under the impression that he genuinely wants to find answers to the questions we’ve all asked about alien life, and sincerely thinks this is his life’s work.
But it all starts to fall apart during the “interview” scenes, which are so clearly scripted that if you’ve ever watched an episode of Mountain Monsters, you’ll realize that the only differentiating factor between the two intellectual properties is that the AIMs crew from Mountain Monsters understands the entertainment value in having a bunch of backwoods hillbillies looking for Bigfoot, and lean into how absurd their show actually is. Investigation Alien, on the other hand, plays it straight, but still has the same kind of beats throughout its run making it seem like an elevated version of Mountain Monsters with better vocabulary (and a disappointing lack of Wild Bill).
Whenever Knapp interviews an expert in Investigation Aliens, it’s always with cameras from multiple angles, and sounds like all of the dialogue is being read off of queue cards just out of frame. For the telephone interviews, of which there were plenty, I actually threw on a pair of headphones and cranked the volume to see if I could hear paper crinkling on the other end of the call to confirm my suspicions.
My results were inconclusive. You’ll just have to watch the docuseries and see for yourself.
Frustrating, right?
Streaming Investigation Alien On Netflix
If there’s one reason to watch Investigation Alien on Netflix, it’s its sixth episode, “Alien Identity,” because it takes a unique approach in suggesting that aliens are actually time-traveling humans from the distant future keeping tabs on their ancestors. But still, as interesting as this theory is, it suffers by being a part of the same sensationalist framework that was established in the previous five installments.
If you’re like me and find yourself fascinated with UFO documentaries, but also find yourself not willing to do your own obsessive and extensive research on something that may never be fully explained during our lifetime, Investigation Alien is still an entertaining and engaging piece of investigative journalism. I think of the entire docuseries as a primer for people who are casually interested in the subject, but if you grew up listening to Coast to Coast AM, you’re not going to hear anything new, and you’ll be gravely disappointed.
Investigation Alien is a Netflix Original docuseries, and you can stream it with an active subscription.
