Weirdumentary: Ancient Aliens, Fallacious Prophecies, and Mysterious Monsters from 1970s Documentaries

In the 1970s, an incredibly popular new film genre emerged, one that would later be reborn on television. And yet there has never been a book on the subject...until now.

Weirdumentary examines over 45 movies, positioned as documentaries, that began with Chariots of the Gods (1970) and ended with The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (1981). Relying on spurious experts, questionable evidence, and low-budget dramatizations, these pseudo-scientific documentaries examined subjects ranging from the Bermuda Triangle to Bigfoot, from the paranormal to speculative histories. And they made millions of dollars from Americans who repeatedly bought tickets to them at movie theaters. Weirdumentaryfeatures a fun and accessible history of these crazy films, individual entries on all of them, and a plethora of fantastic images. Weirdumentary is a must for fans of the cinema, of pop culture, of the 1970s, and of UFOlogy, the paranormal, cryptids, and all things weird!

Gary D. Rhodes is a Professor of Media at Oklahoma Baptist University. He is the author of Emerald Illusions: The Irish in Early American Cinema (2012), The Perils of Moviegoing in America (2012), and The Birth of the American Horror Film (2018). He is a founding editor of Horror Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Rhodes is also the writer-director of the documentary films Lugosi: Hollywood’s Dracula (1997) and Banned in Oklahoma (2004).