Dean Alioto Episode 94: Found Footage
Episode 94: Found Footage
Dean Alioto studied film at both University of Southern California and San Francisco State University. Predating both The Last Broadcast and The Blair Witch project, Alioto’s found footage movie Alien Abduction: Incident In Lake County, featured a family being abducted by aliens, as told from the point-of-view of a family member’s home video camera. The footage was purportedly found by a sheriff in Lake County. For two decades, Alioto’s TV special has generated conspiracies worldwide and has been studied by top experts in the field of UFOs and alien abductions.
Alioto’s theatrical film debut, Crashing Eden, won several national and international awards. The dark satire was praised by Variety, singling out Alioto’s writing and his ability to work with actors. Alioto’s second film, L.A. Dicks, told the story of two Los Angeles detectives who pitch their real-life cases to Hollywood. The film went on to receive the Spirit Award at the Toronto International Rebel Fest Film Festival.
Dean goes over his early influences, and his desire to complete his first film, by a certain age. Dean discusses the making of his film, and how he came up with the concept. What he didn’t know was that the style of filming, would go on to a meteoric rise. Michael asks what Dean first thought, when he saw the trailer for “The blair witch project”. The film he created, made it’s rounds in UFO circles and it ended up at the International UFO Congress in 1993. Many considered the film to be “real”, and government conspiracies ran rampant.
Michael asks Dean, what classic UFO cases he finds to be legitimate. Both Michael and Dean agree, that the mass sighting in Zimbabwe in 94′, was most likely real. 62 school children between the ages of 8 & 12 witnessed a UFO over head, before seeing “strange creatures”, on that morning. A BBC television crew were first on the scene to follow it up. In November 1994, Harvard professor of psychiatry John E. Mack visited the school and filmed interviews with the children.