In 1995, Disney released a UFO documentary that coincided with the opening of a new ride, Alien Encounters, at Tomorrowland in Orlando’s Disney World. The ride, interestingly, was designed by George Lucas, an early link between Lucas and Disney World, a subtle hint of things to come when Disney bought out Lucas in 2012.
If you’ve never heard of Disney’s exploration of the UFO phenomenon, it’s not surprising. The 43-minute documentary was only shown once in five states and then shelved. Curious. It’s also bizarre to see Michael Eisener, then chief executive of Disney, almost matter-of-factly telling viewers that UFOs are real and aliens are here, and that the government was hiding the truth. Clearly, the documentary was created in coordination with the new ride, but the ride was promoted in the video as a means of preparing the world for the eventual revelation that they are here.
Apparently, Disney got tired of waiting for Disclosure. They closed the ride in 2003. Some said it was too scary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wKGyIbyo8iY
This link is about the ride being shut down.
My husband and I went on this ride many, many years ago and I thought the same thing, why are there little kids in here! Well my first thought was why am I here because I am a huge fraidy cat. I hate the sounds in your ear, breathing and alienish noises. But after the ride the sheer excitement of it all was thrilling and the ride was something we talked about for the rest of the day. Fast forward to 2011 and my whole family made the trip to Disney. This time we had our children with us and my parents. I had to go back on the ride. We waited and I reminded my husband what to expect and spent the duration of the waiting time in line getting nervous as the ride built up the excitement by the story line that is acted out while you wait. After being strapped in the lights went off and the silliness began. Yes silliness. Out popped that dorky little alien character from Lilo and Stitch! What!??? What happened to the scary alien, the sound effects, the breathing, the breaking glass and fear factor. Gone. Just an escaped Stitch and a hungry one at that. It was corny and my kids were upset I made them wait outside with Grandma and Grandpa for 30 minutes. Hmmm…to upsetting maybe?
Interesting! You had the Before and After experiences! What marked differences.
I had never heard of this ride, either. I can’t imagine that people enjoyed being scared like that, especially little kids, but hey I don’t know who would ever want to watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, either. How many of those have they made now?
BTW, I saw “Beasts of the Southern Wild” yesterday and can only say it is a “hmmm-er” of a movie. How in the world did it get a Best Picture nomination? The 6-year-old girl is very very good, though.
interesting your posting this now because the past couple of weekends my daughter has had her weekend classes and her 6 yr old has been home with me – which means, with the frigid weather, that we have been housebound and more than usual tv watching – one of the things about which i was going to email you all was the increased number of children’s cartoon shows [and others] that now include some sort of major reference/characters etc to aliens and extraterrestrial everything – i mean, it’s incredible – and i was thinking that by programming [literally and figuratively] the children to this concept/reality, disclosure is, in fact, taking place already – anyway, neat post, as usual!
How odd, never heard of the ride previously.
We have,or had a similar ride at Seaworld on Queensland’s Gold Coast,called
The Bermuda Triangle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle_%28Sea_World%29
there are a few shots of the ride in this article –
https://www.thethemeparkguy.com/park/sea-world-australia/photos
Better still here is a video of the actual ride-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h2W_dliFLg
Funny! The bermuda triangle?!
I remember the ride well. We took the whole family when I was a senior in high school and both Jennifer and Douglas were traumatized when we left it. circa 1996. It wasn’t so much a ride as it was one of those “experiences” because you sat in a dark theatre and things happened around you. The combination of tricks on the chair (mist, something whipping your ankles, etc) and the actors running around and yelling behind you was pretty intense, for the kiddies especially. (But that was sort of the best part – my traumatized little siblings!)
I had not heard about the documentary so that is really interesting. I did know that Lucas was involved in the ride, I think there was an explanation about it then. The site of the ride is something Pixar now…if I remember correctly I think it might be Toy Story but its been about six years since I was there.
Thanks for sharing.
Megan was always too small to go on that ride when we went.
how strange………..I had no idea about this.
We didn’t either until we ran across this. We went to disney when our daughter was younger, but had never heard of this ride!