J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot to Explore the ‘UFO’ Mystery in a New Docuseries for Showtime

J.J. Abrams is ready to get to the bottom of unidentified flying objects, and Showtime is giving him the platform to do just that. Abrams’ Bad Robot and Glen Zipper are behind “UFO,” a four-part docu-series that will look at the phenomenon of mysterious objects in the sky and “what clandestine influence the American government, lucrative private companies and the military may have in shielding the truth behind extraterrestrial phenomena to further their own agendas.”

Mark Monroe (“Icarus”) and Paul Crowder (“Riding Giants”) will direct the series, which comes as new attention is placed on what the government knows about UFOs, and what it may or may not be telling us. The series comes in the wake of a 2017 New York Times article that revealed that the Pentagon had been secretly tracking UFOs for years.

The Pentagon has even declassified some footage of events like the time in 2015 that U.S. Navy pilots saw objects moving and changing direction in indescribable ways. A recent released classified government report on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) —better known as UFOs — didn’t seem to clear anything up, only to confirm that no one seems to know what these things are.

Per Showtime, “UFO” will explore “unsettling theories of a subject that recently reached national headlines, and has historically been the focus of powerful politicians and CEOs, while average citizens pursuing the very same truth have been ridiculed and ostracized.” Bad Robot and Zipper Bros Films will produce the series for Showtime; all four episodes will be uploaded at midnight on Sunday, August 8, and premiere on the linear channel later that night at 9 p.m. ET.

“The series examines the history of the phenomenon through cultural and political touchpoints, including shocking testimony from eyewitnesses across the country,” according to Showtime. “As the conversation grows more bizarre and reaches the mainstream by virtue of credible investigations into alien encounters, UFO confronts the most enigmatic questions of all: Why do we believe what we believe? And what is the elusive truth beyond this decades long mystery?”

“UFO” is executive produced by J.J. Abrams, Glen Zipper, Mark Monroe and Sean Stuart along with Ben Stephenson and Rachel Rusch Rich from Bad Robot. The series is co-executive produced by Kevin Lincoln and produced by Maren Domzalski and Paul McGuire.

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