New show questions alien life

Numerous people claim they have experienced alien probes in virtually every orifice and appendage of their bodies. One man claims he was forced to have intercourse with an alien being. No, this is isn't "South Park," Cartman isn't farting fire and it isn't the alien zoo from "Slaughter-house Five either."

"Communion" author Whitley Strieber, who claims to have been abucted by aliens, sheds new light on the subject with "Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us?," based upon the book of the same name.

Opening with an unoriginal high angle shot and a camera dollying down to reveal a host in a black trench coat, you know you're watching an NBC production. Either the special pays homage to "Unsolved Mysteries" with the opening or blatantly rips it off altogether. Either way, it establishes that the subject matter will be other-worldly.

Robert Davi ("Profiler") makes an appropriate narrator for the program. His narrative segments heighten the hyped-up atmosphere of the program as he walks through a dark forest shrouded in fog while he speaks.

Davi takes us to Mexico on our first investigative endeavor, where we meet Jaime Maussan, the host of "Third Millenium," a show about UFO activity in Mexico. Maussan describes a video he received anonymously, shot Aug. 6, 1997, which reveals a large flying object. Maussan argues for its validity, while author and UFO skeptic, Phillip Klass, refutes it. Dennis Muren explains how they could have faked it.

Muren, senior visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic whose eight Academy Awards for work on such films as "Star Wars" and "Jurassic Park," explains it would be easy for any neophyte with a simple computer-aided system to create the effect. Essentially, this is a microcosm for the entire show - someone claims he or she witnessed, experienced, or observed conclusive evidence of UFO's or alien beings while someone else goes to great lengths to contradict them.

Although the first two segments are dry, it gets wilder from there. "Eyewitness" experiences range from seeing bright lights in bed to repeated abduction and forced intercourse with alien beings. Two different people liken the probe experience to a sense of violation or rape, and all of them shriek horribly while they are under hypnosis.

After footage of an unidentified object being removed out of a man's shin, he says, "I had this experience of emptiness sort of like a feeling like a pet had died, a sense of something missing." Maybe the iron alloy removed from his shin.

Despite the extraordinary material "Confirmation" conveys in an exaggerated manner, it is not entirely terrible. There are many learned individuals on both sides who argue their cases in a reasonable intelligent manner, giving both sides of the story. It's not as bad as an anal probe but not as good as sex with E.T., either.

02-17-99