Area 51, Groom-lake, Dreamland, The Ranch, whatever you prefer to call it is really an actual top secret government military base where they really do test top secret ultra high technology military hardware weapons in secret away from the public's prying eyes. This important part of the story is a fact not and not fiction. Just because this much is true and that it is meant to be kept a secret does not mean that it is all right to go ahead and create your own fantasy about 'aliens' and extraterrestrial flying saucers and make whatever ridiculous nonsense up that you want and still call it this film a serious 'documentary'. These purported 'experts' are all basically just plain frauds telling the same old tired worn out alien cliché story over again and never even once conceding the even remote possibility that these are actually man made craft using man made technologies. But instead they are all just insisting that all of this technology comes from another race of beings in another solar system altogether and perpetuating their myths by selling the public some very mediocre and not even mildly entertaining consumable garbage with all of their scientific babble and pseudo scientific thinking. They would have been far better off by just calling this film a total science fiction fantasy and gone all out with the special effects by having the aliens just pop out of no where and actually physically abducting Bob 'The Fake' Lazaar during his 'interview' and transporting him to Zeta Reticula where he belongs so they could do some physical experiments with him because maybe that's what happened to him in the first place to make him so strange to begin with. This would have made this film much better and I would have given it a much higher rating.

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The problem with DREAMLAND: AREA 51 as a documentary is that it's entirely one-sided with no attempt at balance. If you wanted to see a biased story in which a bunch of believers explain why they think there are secret aliens and alien spacecraft hidden by the American government, then this is the documentary for you. If, however, you'd like to hear the other side of the story from those who refute these claims, you'd be better off checking elsewhere.
This British-made effort is clearly a labour of love for writer/director/narrator Bruce Burgess, whose aim is to reveal the secrets about Area 51. There are a lot of interviews with respected individuals in the UFOlogy field, and these are quite entertaining, although I could have done without the lacklustre recreations which they always seem to throw into these documentaries. The bits where Burgess and his crew actually visit Area 51 and its environs are the best parts, very suspenseful, but there are far too few of them.

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Dreamland Area 51 answered many of my questions about UFO's and is one of the greatest films outlining just where they are and how they have been researched by the United States Government. Filmmaker and journalist Bruce Burgess (Broken Dagger) go into great detail about the very secrets the Government are hiding from the American People. This film clearing shows you just where these UFO's have been sighted and how the Government is manufacturing their own models of what UFO's look like and even the people that operate these machines. Very important scientists have verified what is going on in the Las Vegas desert and mostly in New Mexico. If you really want to know what is going on view this great documentary film and find out the truth.

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This documentary was the first video in the Dossiers OVNIS collection. The covers labels it as Best documentary at 1996 EBE festival but frankly, it doesn't equal the X-files episodes about this same military area. Sure the facts are troubling but the video is totally redounding and in addition awfully presents the interviews in bizarre, nightmarish setting : in the dark, with echo effects,… In my opinion, the question to determine if the lights are UFO or military planes is boring ; the testimony of the engineer saying he was working with a real alien Gray translator is really BS : the only interesting time in the documentary is when the reporter does his work on the ground, tries to go to the base and follow the plane ; The ending about Reagan's speech in the UN warning about an alien threat seems also really surreal but this moment is however an easily verified 100% true fact !

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I guess if you're a UFO enthusiast, this might be one of the definitive documentaries in your collection. I have only a nominal interest in the subject, but found the subject matter to be intelligently researched and presented here. Still, it's almost fifteen years old and I don't know if I learned a whole lot I didn't already know about the UFO phenomenon.
Like Project Blue Book, the only official investigation by the U.S. government into the subject of unidentified flying objects, commissioned by President Truman in 1952. The project was closed in 1969, purportedly with no new information to be added to what was already known and classified. The film offers the intriguing question however, was Blue Book real or a smoke screen to hide what was really going on? Interesting.
Most of the documentary centers on the recollections of a Robert Lazar, a scientist who had 'Majestic' clearance for a research project in Area 51, the Holy Grail of UFO researchers. Though vetted for top secret security clearance, Lazar goes ahead and reveals what he knows and had seen while working at 51. He claims first hand knowledge of being inside an alien space ship, paying particular emphasis to cramped quarters and no objects with sharp corners. On the flip side, one questions Lazar's credibility with his admission to and conviction for pandering back in the Eighties.
Still, there's some intriguing stuff here, like the government's construction of a 'flying disc simulator', flown for the first time in 1960. And we weren't the only ones. Apparently Russia has their own version of Area 51, called Saratov, an air base two hundred miles outside of Moscow. Their Project Tarayoka (don't know if the spelling's correct) also produced a flying saucer, although looking a lot clunkier than the one we put together.
So in the end, I don't know how much one gets from any of this. If you're going to dive in full time, I guess this is a pretty good starting point. Keep in mind that pretty soon you'll hit a stone wall, as anything the government might know about aliens and UFO's is officially denied. That might be changing though. Just a couple of weeks ago, the United Nations named an Ambassador to Outer Space. Now there's a job I'd like to have.

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