I’m writing this in May long before Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day comes out. I love when Spielberg plays in the science fiction genre, and I am very excited to see what happens in his new film. But I also realized it had been forever since I watched the Leslie Bohem created miniseries that he executive produced.

Over the course of ten episodes, Bohem explored the modern UFO mythology, creating characters and their families and allowed them to interact with alleged UFO events throughout the 20th century.

The first epiosde, Beyond the Sky, was first broadcast on 2 December, 2002 and was directed by Tobe Hooper.

The episode opens during World War II and we see Captain Russell Keys (Steve Burton) and his B2 encounter some foo fighters (unknown balls of light which plagued some flights during the war), and then he and his crew vanish…

Only to return home as a war hero at the end of the war, haunted by a memory he can’t quite recall. He wants to get on with his life, marrying Kate (Julie Benz) and starting a family. He’s haunted by nightmares and strange bruises that appear on his body. As his men start dying he has to confront what really happened to him, and them.

We are also introduced to the devious captain, later major, Owen Crawford (Joel Gretsch). He’s working for Colonel Campbell (Michael Moriarty) who, after some ground work on what became known as the Roswell Crash, is locked out.

He and his aides (one of them played by John Hawks) scheme and work their way into the project. Campbell even goes so far to marry Campbell’s daughter, Anna (Tina Holmes) and starts a family of his own.

And that Roswell crash, two aliens survived for a time. One held by the government, and he see their telepathic abilites, but have no clue as to their intentions.

Another is able to escape, making it all the way to Sally Clarke’s (Catherine Dent) home front. Her two kids are a little unsure of John (Eric Close – I wonder if he was cast as a nod to his Dark Skies series). He appears to be human, but he seems to have some strange abilities.

And sooner or later, Crawford is going to come looking for him.

But E.T. is able to go home, but not before leaving Sally with a blessing (?), she’s pregnant.

The stage is set for the story to grow as we are introduced to families, alleged UFO events and reports, and some fairly solid visual effects (for the time and the budget they were working with).

The series was obviously shot in Vancouver, though it does it’s best to stand in for locations around the U.S. and you can tell, because the cast is stacked with familiar looking faces to fans of The X-Files.

The series is soldily written, Bohem’s script does a nice job of marrying human drama with alleged UFO events, and all of it is heightened by the narration of a young Dakota Fanning, who is relating this story from some episode in the future.

I’ll look forward to revisiting this, I don’t remember much about it, so it should be like watching it anew. And you know I love a good story that explores UFOs and aliens. You attach Spielberg’s name to it, and it ends up being a must for me.