Anyone who’s interested in UFOs is probably familiar with the term “Project Blue Book.” That was the name of the top-secret U.S. Government investigation into the UFO phenomenon during the 1950s and ’60s, and for years Ufologists have pored over the trove of declassified (though in many cases heavily-redacted) files that have since been released from the now-defunct program, looking for clues that aliens have visited Earth. Now, a new series on History is adapting some of those files in a semi-fictionalized new series that blends the facts with a little fantasy.
The series, Project Blue Book, stars Game of Thrones star Aiden Gillen as a 1950s astronomer who’s hired by the U.S. Government to look into people’s UFO sightings. And while he starts off as a skeptic, he soon discovers that the government may know more about aliens than they’ve been letting on. “This is not a little green men show. This is more of a government conspiracy show with a great sci-fi twist — and also a character piece,” showrunner Sean Jablonski told EW, who were granted exclusive access to the show’s trailer and first image. “Everything we see is and is not what it is. We’re not gonna take the position, certainly not early on, that little green men are running around and it’s just a question of finding them.”
The trailer looks awesome. The period setting of the ’50s, the Golden Age for UFO sightings, is pitch-perfect, and it looks like some legendary real life sightings will also make their way into the series (we’re pretty sure that’s the Flatwoods Monster highlighted in the first half of the trailer, probably the coolest UFO sighting ever reported). Project Blue Book is produced by none other than Robert Zemeckis, the director behind classic films such as Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Cast Away, the Back to the Future trilogy, and the alien-themed Contact, so the storytelling and productions values should both be out of this world, so to speak. The series will make its debut on History sometime this winter, so keep watching the skies until then.
