So I wanted to reflect on a paranormal anniversary for this post before I realized there was a current story that dovetailed perfectly with it: 2017 marks the 70th anniversary of Kenneth Arnold’s UFO sighting which marks the beginning of the modern UFO era. Right on time, pranksters are calling up Donald Trump’s new “alien” reporting hotline to report visitations from beyond the earth. Here’s the scoop from ATI…

On Thursday, the BBC reported that Twitter users had started a campaign to prank call the offices of VOICE, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security meant to “serve the needs of crime victims and their families who have been impacted by crimes committed by removable criminal aliens.”

A signature piece of VOICE, which Trump authorized via a January executive order and which opened on Wednesday, is the hotline it makes available for the aforementioned victims.

On Twitter, users encouraged others to report “alien encounters” to VOICE immediately, but probably not the kind of aliens that VOICE had in mind.

As Stephen Tatton tweeted, “Just called in an alien attack from Planet Voltron.”

Meanwhile, “Carlos in California” tweeted that the criminal alien he sighted appeared to be in poor health. “Called Trump’s ‘VOICE’ hotline for people to report ‘illegal aliens’,” he wrote. “I reported seeing a bloated orange humanoid.”

According to Buzzfeed News, enough people actually acted on invitations like these to impact the affairs of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, whose representative was not too pleased about the onslaught of trolling.

“There are certainly more constructive ways to make one’s opinions heard than to prevent legitimate victims of crime from receiving the information and resources they seek because the lines are tied up by hoax callers,” a spokesperson told Buzzfeed News.

Here’s a cool short video about the start of it all back in 1947

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This year we celebrate three decades since Aliens was released in 1986. Aliens is one of those unlikely sequels that manages to re-imagine the elements of an original film, and find another way to tell a similarly timeless story. The original Alien is a haunted house movie in space — a horror film featuring an unforgettable monster. The second film includes the spooky, claustrophobic atmospherics, and the drooling monster from the original, but it places these into a sci-fi actioner headed by one of the strongest heroines in 20th century cinema. Here’s some of Roger Ebert‘s review from back in the day…

…”Aliens” is absolutely, painfully and unremittingly intense for at least its last hour. Weaver goes into battle to save her colleagues, herself and the little girl, and the aliens drop from the ceiling, pop up out of the floor and crawl out of the ventilation shafts. (In one of the movie’s less plausible moments, one alien even seems to know how to work the elevator buttons.) I have never seen a movie that maintains such a pitch of intensity for so long; it’s like being on some kind of hair-raising carnival ride that never stops.

I don’t know how else to describe this: The movie made me feel bad. It filled me with feelings of unease and disquiet and anxiety. I walked outside and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was drained. I’m not sure “Aliens” is what we mean by entertainment. Yet I have to be accurate about this movie: It is a superb example of filmmaking craft.

The director, James Cameron, has been assigned to make an intense and horrifying thriller, and he has delivered. Weaver, who is onscreen almost all the time, comes through with a very strong, sympathetic performance: She’s the thread that holds everything together.

The supporting players are sharply drawn. The special effects are professional. I’m giving the movie a high rating for its skill and professionalism and because it does the job it says it will do. I am also advising you not to eat before you go to see it.

Gory, scary and a great follow-up to a great film, Aliens is a perfect movie to highlight during this month of horrors. The 30th anniversary is just sort of the slime on top here, like the tiny gnashing jaws that come out of the monster’s bigger, gnashing jaws, at least through this second film the Alien franchise was one that kept on giving.

Here’s the Making of Aliens…

Stay Awake!

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The great hero of the 1982 cult film Liquid Sky is Anne Carlisle: Carlisle co-wrote the screenplay, plays both the male and female fashion model leads in the film, and even authored the movie’s novelization. The flick actually did well on the festival circuit after debuting in Montreal, and according to Wikipedia it was the most successful independent film of that year. Of course, 1982 was seven years before 1989′s Sex, Lies and Videotape kicked off a new wave of indie film mania. This flick came out too early and it never really got the attention it deserved, which is actually hard to believe once you know what it’s about. Here’s what The Awl had to say about this uniquely bizarre film…

Liquid Sky is one of the most visually ambitious films ever made about fashion, heroin, New Wave clubs, UFO saucers, ordering Chinese food and having them put it on your tab, the Empire State Building, androgyny, neon and tin foil. The 1982 cult classic may be the perfect embodiment of camp. Unlike contemporary low-budget cinema, which prizes an aesthetic of apathy, Liquid Sky makes its efforts visible.

I can’t possibly top that introduction. Come for the drugs and bisexuality, stay for the amazing synthesizer score and the dazzling, go-for-broke visual style. Here’s Liquid Sky (NSFW)…

Stay Awake!

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