For the last couple of months, I have been looking forward to the upcoming movie Battle: Los Angeles. This is a film inspired by the 1942 military attack on a still unidentified object in Los Angeles, set for release in March 2011. Although the 1942 incident did not involve aliens (only an object), this film features a full-scale battle with aliens.

At the same time, there has been another movie in the making. This movie is called Skyline, an independent film, which also features aliens descending on Los Angeles. It is set for release on November 12, 2010, four months earlier than Battle: Los Angeles.

Just a coincidence? Well, that’s for attorneys to decide.

The makers of the independent film Skyline are owners of special effects company Hydraulx. They created the effects for Sony’s Battle: Los Angeles at the same time they were filming  their own L.A./alien movie. Hydraulx is owned by the Brothers Strause (Colin and Greg) who supplied the effects for such films like Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Fantastic Four, as well as some effects for the X-files movie and Avatar.

The legal battle continues with three weeks to go until the first alien battle movie appears on the big screen.

While this is going on, something else has been happening in cyberspace. It is being alleged that all of the UFO sightings we have experienced lately (here and and in other parts of the globe) are simply special effects created by the Brothers Strause. So, around the blogosphere, it is alleged that recent sightings are nothing but a viral marketing campaign to promote Skyline.

The evidence for this accusation stems from a blogger’s imagination after watching the trailer for Skyline. The trailer features mass abductions (like the “disappearing village in China”), as well as lights in the sky that mesmerize the viewer on the ground. It’s all too similar, they say.

So, some bloggers have inserted polls in their posts, or ask you to weigh-in via the comment section, if you think it is a viral marketing campaign or not.

Personally, I think that the internet rumor about the viral marketing campaign is as ridiculous as the “disappearing village in China” rumor (proven to be false, but still making the rounds on blogs). The China rumor was created via the wild imagination of a string of bloggers, based on a single sentence from the signature of another blogger.

I don’t think it is possible that these guys, on an extremely limited budget (and facing legal woes), could pull something off like that.

In the meantime, evidence is being weighed in a legal battle between the makers of two UFO movies to find the truth. As far as the “viral marketing campaign” for Skyline, what evidence is there to support this idea?

The only thing evident to me is that a blogger with a wild imagination came up with the viral marketing rumor, which has sadly gone viral in itself.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a movie soon-to-be-released, called Hereafter. The paranormal thriller stars Matt Damon and is directed by Clint Eastwood. Although I haven’t seen the movie yet, someone else saw it yesterday. Today, she wrote a “spoiler-free review”.

I had been hoping to hear about Dr. Julie Beischel’s reaction to the film. Something better happened today and I got to read a detailed reaction.

Many reviewers will relay a synopsis of the film. They will bestow a final “good or bad” judgment on the film.

However, I wanted to know if the film presents an accurate portrayal of someone who is called psychic. Who would have a better idea than a scientist who actually studies this phenomena?

Dr. Beischel served as the William James Post-doctoral Fellow in Mediumship and Survival Research and Co-Director of the VERITAS Research Program at the University of Arizona, until the program closed in 2007. Soon after, Beischel and her husband, Mark Boccuzzi, founded the Windbridge Institute. Beischel, Boccuzzi and their team, as stated on their website, perform important research on phenomena including the continuation of consciousness after death and the experiences of and information reported by psychic mediums.

Click through at the end to read Beischel’s entire post.

A Scientist’s Spoiler-free Review of Hereafter

Sunday, October 24, 2010
Julie Beishcel, PhD
Director of Research, The Windbridge Institute for Applied Research in Human Potential

I saw Hereafter yesterday after not having been in a movie theater (yay, Netflix!) since Christmas Day, 2007. It was worth the trip.

Hereafter considered life after death through perspectives that were normal, ordinary, and, thus, realistic. One of the people I was with said, “I thought [a certain part] would be more spectacular.” I, on the other hand, thought that the normalcy of the after-death portions of the story were what made it extraordinary. It didn’t treat mediumship, near-death experiences, or after death communication as anything out of the ordinary. The same cannot be said about how some of the characters viewed these phenomena, though.  READ THE REST AT JULIE BEISCHEL’S BLOG SITE

ABC affiliate ABC 15 received several reports last night about lights in the sky in northwest Phoenix, around 8:30 pm.

One eyewitness stated in an email to the station that she saw “what looked like 2 meteors falling from the sky, with flames and sparks trailing behind them, began turning and moving. Lights were going off and on, the flames and sparks would come and go.”

The explanation for the lights came rather quickly, with not one, but two explanations offered.

The first explanation came from Phoenix Fire Department spokesman, Scott Walker, who stated that people were seeing parachute exercises (possibly involving pyrotechnics) in the Deer Valley area. However, he was unable to identify the group performing the exercises.

Later, the U.S. Air Force identified the lights as flares from the Barry Goldwater Range, which is the official explanation for the incident.