Our conversation resumes with Bruce talking about the transition from the 1950's silly UFO movie era to the early 1960's days of The Outer Limits and subsequent other thoughtful television programs and we find out if the films of that later era also changed or if they stayed silly. We find out how Bruce sees a connection between the closing of MK-ULTRA and the subsequent change in portrayal of UFOs & ETs on television.

Moving along chronologically, we discuss Star Trek and its creator Gene Roddenberry. Bruce talks about how NBC protested the interracial crew on the USS Enterprise, the difficulties of the original series trying to stay on the air, and Roddenberry's post-Trek struggles. Bruce then details how Roddenberry's 1970's post-Trek malaise led him into a run-in with UFO contactee group "The Nine" and how they tried to influence Roddenberry's thinking on UFOs. He also briefly talks about another pair of TV show creators who were influenced by the Nine, the creators of Fireball XL5 and Space 1999.

Next we touch on the series V, a request from usofe.com member Lone Gunman. Bruce talks about why the show is typical for the 1980's Reagan era, the reasons why it probably didn't last too long, and some of the underlying UFO mythos that were featured in the series. This leads to some side discussion on how cable TV reinvigorated serialized television.

Staying within the TV / alien realm, we talk about The X-Files and Bruce gives his take on how the series' UFO information was pretty "scattershot," describing it as a "grab bag" of different theories. Within the framework of Bruce's thesis of an ongoing UFO education program, he details what he sees as the strategy behind The X-Files as far as shaping what people think of the phenomenon.

Wrapping up our coverage of influential series from the 1960's, we then briefly discuss The Twilight Zone. Bruce talks about the UFO-themed Twilight Zone episodes and what sort of messages were imparted in those particular installments of the series. We then discuss Bruce's critique, in Hollywood v. the Aliens, of Whitley Strieber.

We then look at the international fare as far as UFO-oriented films and TV series go. We begin with Doctor Who and Bruce talks about the explosion in popularity for Who in the US in the early 1980's and how the BBC then made critical changes to the series which nearly killed it. He details how similar elements could be seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Tying this back to earlier in our conversation, Bruce also details some of the elements of The Nine that found their way into Star Trek: TNG.

Staying within the international realm, we then discuss Nigel Kneale and his famous work the Quartermass Trilogy. Bruce talks about how elements of the Quartermass series were mirrors of what was really going on behind the scenes in the US/UK at the time and what the government may have known about the "UFO menace" at the time. We get Bruce to speculate on whether Kneale had an "inside track" to this information or if he was just a visionary. Bruce also talks about Kneale's The Stone Tape and how it has a subtle scene near the beginning which suggest Kneale's true feelings on Mars.

Next we discuss the James Bond series of books & films and how they stand as "living proof" that government uses film and television shows to seed information out to mass public. Bruce begins with From Russia with Love and details how the portrayal of the "Lector Device" mirrors real developments in WWII that hadn't become public knowledge at the time of the book's publication in 1957.

Additionally, Bruce explains how Bond author Ian Fleming was one of only a handful of people in Britain that knew about those advancements during the war. Moving to potential UFO knowledge held by Fleming, Bruce talks about how, in the book Dr.No, the main villain is essentially an ET grey who topples rocket launches and abducts humans, both attributes of the UFO phenomenon that weren't known to the mainstream when the book was written in the late 1950's. Bruce also talks about On Her Majesty's Secret Service which saw strong mind control themes.

Wrapping up our UK coverage, we talk about the much discussed British TV special Alternative 3 from 1977. Bruce reveals how one of the aims of the program may have been to sour the public on the idea of mind control as it came out right at the same time as the Church Committee in the US was investigating MK-ULTRA. He then talks about some similiar War of the Worlds style faux-documentaries that appeared in later decades. He speculates on what may have been the goals of such programs.

We move on to talk a bit about Japanese UFO-themed programs and how their portrayal of aliens changed over the years. Bruce notes how in the 1950's and 60's, US financed films from Japan, such as the Godzilla movies, did have evil aliens in them. He then details how the transition into anime & manga saw a completely different portrayal of the aliens.

Returning to American soil, we discuss the portrayal of UFOs & aliens in sitcoms and note how it seems like every show had their token UFO episode in the '60's and '70's. We talk about what seems to be the overriding message in most, if not all, of those sitcoms with UFO episodes. Bruce speculates on how that theme ended up being so predominant in the sitcom fare of that era and why, if the government would want to coverup the UFO information, they would even put those sorts of concepts into entertainment fare. This segues into some discussion on how any sort of government program to seed UFO information into the public is not unilateral and that there are opposing factions at work with much different agendas. To that end, we return to discussing The X-Files and how it went from basement level ratings to media darling in about two years.

Going back to our chronological timeline, we discuss the 1970's UFO offerings. Bruce starts by talking about the early 70's, under the Nixon and Ford administrations, and the sort of themes that emerge from the programming of that era. He discusses Phase Four, a Saul Bass film, which saw sentient ants acting essentially as we expect UFOs to act, creating crop circles, mutilating animals, and attacking people. We also hear about the deep esoteric elements that can be seen in the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show. Bruce details how the film is both the story of a UFO abduction and also the classic tale of "the watchers."

This leads to some discussion on Stanley Kubrick and what he may have been privvy to when he was making such classics as 2001 and, later, Eyes Wide Shut. Bruce talks about the potential "insider" who helped Kubrick get his break in Hollywood and also we get him to speculate on the nature of Kubrick's death and if it was nefarious or not. We also briefly talk about Nixon's uneasiness with sex and how it comes through in the UFO films that were made during his tenure in office.

Following along the timeline, we move into the Carter years, which saw perhaps the most thoughtful UFO films to come along in quite some time. Bruce talks about the money that Carter earmarked for "UFO study" and how it suspiciously mirrored the budget for Close Encounters of the Third Kind which came out about a year later. Bruce details how much of UFO information in the movie isn't quite explained within the film and didn't make sense unless one actually looked into the UFO phenomenon and then they saw many of the subtexts of the piece. Bruce theorizes that this is intentional, as the film is meant to seed the information and inspire people to do their own investigation into the phenomenon. He also talks about one of the often over-looked aspects of Close Encounters: the massive level of hype that preceded its release.

Explaining how not all films of the Carter era were pro-UFO, Bruce talks about another, equally hyped film of the time, Demon Seed by Dean Koontz. This story revolves around a sentient supercomputer that uses implants, mind control, and even aims to create some kind of hybrid being. He then covers another Carter-era film that portrayed the ETs as frightening: Alien.

We then talk about Star Wars, look at the elements of The Nine that could be found in it, and speculate on how informed Lucas was about these esoteric elements. This segues into some discussion on another "major" pro-ET film from the Carter years: Superman. Bruce explains how the films introduces the concept of a positive co-mingling between aliens (Superman) and the rest of the human race and even, in the latest version of the franchise Superman Returns a hybrid baby between Superman and Lois Lane.

Starting to look at the transition from Carter to Reagan, Bruce talks about the changes that happened in popular franchises Star Wars and Superman when this transition occurred. Bruce laments how Star Wars went from a thoughtful space film to a more tamed kid-friendly film and reflects on the major change from Superman 2 to Superman 3. Jumping back a bit, chronologically, we then talk about Hangar 18 which came out during the Carter years.

Wrapping up the Carter years, we talk about In Search Of ... and how it was the first of its kind as far as magazine style shows that investigate the paranormal. Bruce details how the program was pre-dated by a slew of badly made psuedo-documentaries about various paranormal subjects during the 1970's. We find out if these documentaries were sincere in their quest to discuss the phenomenon or if they were purposely poorly made to discredit the subject. Bruce talks about Overlords of the UFO as an example of the latter. We also get Bruce's take on the later programs of a similar vein: Unsolved Mysteries and Sightings.

Bruce Rux was an actor for twenty years, and is still current on his Actors' Equity card though he hasn't performed on stage since the early 1990s. He appeared in perhaps eighty shows, winning numerous acting awards in several states. Bruce received his BA in theater from Loretto Heights College in Denver in 1979, and an MA in Mass Communications, emphasis on playwriting, from Kansas State University in 1988. In 1980-81, he performed for a year with Wayne State University's prestigious Hilberry Classical Repertory Theater in Detroit, toward an MFA that was never completed. He won the first annual Jerome D. Johanning Playwriting Award in 1987 at K-State, for his four act historical drama, The Grave Affair, which he directed as an American College Theater Festival entry the same year. He has written several plays since. For the past ten years, he has been an upscale security officer (USO) for Wackenhut.

Bruce has studied UFOs his entire life. After the Mars Observer probe failure in August of 1993, Bruce wrote to share his findings with several researchers in the field and with a few elected representatives. As a result, he found himself invited on ancient astronaut author Zecharia Sitchin's first tour of Egypt in the Spring of 1994. During that trip, Bruce decided to write a book containing the results of his own UFO research and conclusions, which resulted in Architects of the Underworld: Unriddling Atlantis, Anomalies of Mars and the Mystery of the Sphinx in 1996. The following year, he wrote a companion volume that turned out to be even more massive, Hollywood Vs. the Aliens: The Motion Picture Industry's Participation In UFO Disinformation. Both were published by Frog Books in Berkeley, now part of Random House.

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2 hr 12 min
7.1.09
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Bruce Rux

Volume 2 of 3