The First Feature-Length UFO Documentary

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

The first feature-length UFO documentary was titled, appropriately, Unidentified Flying Objects with the subtitle, The True Story of Flying Saucers. It was produced by Clarence Greene and released in 1956. Researcher Robert Barrow devoted a blogspot.com site to it titled UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers and posted from June 2008 until July 2025. In his June 12, 2008, post, “The Driving Force: Clarence Greene,” Barrow includes a statement “signed” by Greene, but he tells the reader that he found it on the web “uncredited.”

According to Greene in his July 26, 1967, statement titled, “UFO: Why I Made Unidentified Flying Objects,” one night in August of 1952, a friend called his attention to something in the sky Greene describes as “a sphere of light.” They watched it for about five minutes as it moved, stopped, made turns, and then moved off over the horizon. He later learned that members of the Ground Observation Corps had also observed it.

The next morning, he told his partner, Russell Rouse, and the Greene and Rouse production staff about it. He became aware of the ridicule factor around UFO reports and felt empathy for witnesses who had been victims of it. He tells the reader he “was at a complete loss to understand why there seemed to be such a determined effort to suppress all news of Unidentified Flying Objects by what seemed to be a planned campaign of skepticism and scoffing.” Notably, at the time, there was an intense public interest in UFOs following sightings, both visual and on radar, of UFOs in Washington, D.C., airspace over two successive weekends beginning July 19, 1952. This was followed by a press conference held by the Air Force to answer questions about the events.

The first head of Project Blue Book, Edward J. Ruppelt, describes both events in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. According to him, the press conference “was the largest and longest the Air Force had held since World War II.”

As fate would have it, as Greene was preparing to make his film, Ruppelt was in California working as an engineer for Northrop Corporation. Al Chop, the former public information officer at the Pentagon who dealt with UFO inquiries, was also in California working in public relations for Douglas Aircraft. This is according to James W. Moseley in his 2002 book, Shockingly Close to the Truth: Confessions of a Graverobbing UFOlogist. Moseley interviewed both men together in 1953. Al Chop was in the radar room at Washington Airport on July 26th and observed the unidentifieds firsthand.

According to Greene, he met with Chop, and once Chop was convinced that Greene was going to do a serious film, he gave Greene “a breakdown on Project Blue Book.” Then, Chop and “certain newspaper men” arranged a meeting with Ruppelt, and Ruppelt got onboard. Chop and Ruppelt served as uncredited technical advisors but were featured in news articles about the film.

Greene found out from “some newspapermen” that there were rumors that the Air Force had motion picture footage of UFOs. Greene “confronted Chop and Ruppelt,” and they confirmed the existence of the films, which were designated by the Pentagon as the “Utah” and “Montana” films. The Utah film had been shot by Navy Chief Photographer Delbert C. Newhouse, and the Montana film by Nicholas Mariana. Green got in touch with both men, saw their films, and was able to have them “analyzed by scientists and film experts” who concluded that the objects seen were genuine unknowns. Greene was told by Chop and Ruppelt that this was also the conclusion of Air Force and Navy scientists. Mariana and Newhouse appear, along with their footage, in the film.

Besides having the help of Chop and Ruppelt, Greene also managed to get Major Dewey Fournet involved, who was the senior officer in the radar room during the D.C. flap. Fournet was the liaison officer between the Pentagon and Blue Book. However, even with the involvement of these three men, there was no cooperation from the Pentagon. In fact, then head of Blue Book, Captain George T. Gregory, expressed concern that the movie would bring on 1952-level public relations headaches for the Air Force, and he wrote the following memo dated May 17, 1956, which can be found in the 40-page Blue Book file on the film:

“This film may stir up a storm of public controversy similar to that which USAF was subjected to in 1952 with regard to UFOs, as a result of the unwarranted sensationalism generated by so-called ‘UFO experts’, writers and publishers…”

He also says that in a series of meetings held with advisors, including J. Allen Hynek, “and other pertinent personnel,” it was agreed that ATIC should review the film before its release “for purposes of ‘countermeasures,’” meaning that an official comment should be prepared and “kept in readiness” for the inevitable queries.

A year after undertaking the project, Greene now had the task of putting a film together. This involved “months of interviews with saucer sighters, scientists, Air Force personnel, law enforcement officers, airline pilots, in fact, with anyone who had something to contribute in the way of legitimate information.” Greene points out that the process of verifying all the information down to the minute details often took weeks. As for the filming process, he says, “It was practically a tour of the entire country.”

The film ended up being more docudrama than documentary, and the screenplay by Francis Martin tells the story of the flying saucer/UFO mystery and Air Force investigation mostly from the point of view of Chop, played by Los Angeles newspaper reporter, Tom Towers. The rest of the cast is made up of non-actors as well, and it’s often painfully obvious. Ruppelt is also portrayed.

Unidentified Flying Objects is a black and white film and starts off with the title and credits over a background of a cloud-filled sky that changes with each new credit sequence. The music is generic and of the flag-waving variety, and continues in that vein throughout.

After the opening, a narrator describes the June 24, 1947, sighting by Kenneth Arnold that kicked off the saucer craze that summer, as a re-enactment, minus the saucers, is shown. Then, there is a long sequence covering the Mantell incident, also with re-enactment, which is said to have motivated the Air Force to initiate Project Sign. As an example of a credible witness who reported a sighting, American Airlines pilot, Captain Willis Sperry is presented, who tells his story of a UFO encounter 30 miles out after taking off from Washington, D.C.

After Sperry, the narrator states that on January 9, 1950, “the press reported that Project Sign was closed.” At this point, over 17 minutes in, Tom Towers takes over the narration as Al Chop, and Chop’s story begins with him visiting his old newspaper office in Dayton, Ohio, after his discharge from the marines. His “good friend” and former editor gives him a tip that there’s an opening for a public information officer at Air Material Command. Chop says it was due to his editor’s suggestion that he “walked right into the middle of the flying saucer story.” He then goes on to take a PIO position at the Pentagon. In the course of his employment, he is shown the Montana and Utah films, and ends up experiencing the Washington, D.C., flap up close and personal. At the end his story, in voiceover, Towers/Chop sums up how what he has seen and experienced has affected his beliefs regarding UFOs:

“For me, the evidence indicates intelligence behind the control, and by now, the belief that their source was interplanetary was no longer incredible.”

The Utah and Montana films are then shown for the second time with analysis in text and voiceover, and the movie ends with the questions: “If they cannot be identified as objects known to man… What are they?” “If they are not man-made… Who made them?” “If they are not from this planet… Where are they from?”

Despite the Air Force’s concern, its “countermeasures” were unnecessary. The film opened to mixed reviews and did poorly in the box office, and there wouldn’t be another feature-length documentary film dealing with the UFO subject until 1968’s Chariots of the Gods.