'UFO' Trailer: Showtime And J.J. Abrams Think The Truth Is Out There

UFO sightings have been going on for decades, but in 2017, the New York Times released a story revealing that the Pentagon had been secretly tracking UFOs for years. It was something of a sea change, rekindling the debate about UFOs and aliens all over again. Now, Showtime and J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions have the four-part docuseries UFO delving into the phenomenon, as people continue to wonder if we're alone in the universe.

I am not a believer in the idea that aliens have zoomed on down from some distant planet to fly around Earth. But I do love watching documentaries and docuseries about this stuff. The strange and explained are like mother's milk to me, so I'm all-in on UFO, a four-part docuseries coming from Showtime this summer. While UFO-themed docs are a dime a dozen, this latest entry into the pantheon of Unidentified Flying Object-based entertainment was inspired by the 2017 New York Times report that the Pentagon has been secretly tracking UFOs for years. As the Times story revealed:

For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon's C Ring, deep within the building's maze.

The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.

Here's how UFO is being described: "UFO is a four-part docu-series from J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot and Glen Zipper exploring our fascination with unidentified flying objects, and what clandestine influence the American government, lucrative private companies and the military may have in shielding the truth behind extraterrestrial phenomena to further their own agendas."

The series comes from directors Mark Monroe (Icarus) and Paul Crowder (Riding Giants), and will explore "unsettling theories of a subject that recently reached national headlines, and has historically been the focus of powerful politicians and CEOs, while average citizens pursuing the very same truth have been ridiculed and ostracized."

Here's more info:

Ignited by the bombshell New York Times story in 2017 revealing that the Pentagon had been secretly tracking UFOs for years, the series examines the history of the phenomenon through cultural and political touchpoints, including shocking testimony from eyewitnesses across the country. As the conversation grows more bizarre and reaches the mainstream by virtue of credible investigations into alien encounters, UFO confronts the most enigmatic questions of all: Why do we believe what we believe? And what is the elusive truth beyond this decades long mystery?

UFO premieres on Showtime on August 8.