Mirage Men is a 2013

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

directed by

John Lundberg John Lundberg (born 5 December 1968) is an English artist and documentary filmmaker. His work is concerned with Ostensive definition#Ostension in folklore, ostension. Underpinning all of his work is an interest in how myth and artifice can sh ...

, written by Mark Pilkington and co-directed by Roland Denning and Kypros Kyprianou. ''Mirage Men'' suggests there was a conspiracy by the

U.S. military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. U.S. federal law names six armed forces: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and the Coast Guard. Since 1949, all of the armed forces, except th ...

to fabricate

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes ...

folklore in order to deflect attention from classified military projects. It prominently features Richard Doty, a retired special agent who worked for

AFOSI The Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI or AFOSI) is a U.S. federal law enforcement agency that reports directly to the Secretary of the Air Force. OSI is also a U.S. Air Force field operating agency under the administrative guid ...

, the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The film had its world premiere at the 2013

Sheffield Doc/Fest Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest; abbr.Sheffield International Documentary Festival or SIDF) is an international documentary Film festival, festival and industry marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The festiv ...

in the UK on 13 June 2013, its North American premiere at the 2013

Fantastic Fest Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas, focused on fantasy, horror, sci-fi, action and cult films, the largest genre festival in the United States. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse. Lisa Dreyer ...

in Austin, Texas on 22 September 2013, its Australian premiere at the

Canberra International Film Festival The Canberra International Film Festival (CIFF) is an annual film festival held in Canberra, Australia. It is a cinema celebration across an 11-day program in October/November each year. It is a showcase of films from Australia and around the gl ...

on 31 October 2013 and its Nordic premiere at the

Stockholm Film Festival The Stockholm International Film Festival () is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year since then during the second half of November, and focuses on emerging and early career fil ...

in Sweden on 10 November 2013. Mark Pilkington's book about the project, also called ''Mirage Men'', was published in 2010 by

Constable & Robinson Constable & Robinson Ltd. is an imprint of Little, Brown which publishes fiction and non-fiction books and ebooks. History Constable & Co. was founded in 1795 by Archibald Constable, and became the publisher of works by Sir Walter Scott. In ...

Reception

Critical reception for the documentary has been positive.

Twitch Film ScreenAnarchy, previously known as Twitch Film or Twitch, is a Canadian English-language website featuring news and reviews of mainly international, independent and cult films. The website was founded in 2004 by Todd Brown. In addition to films, ...

said the film was "Scary, unsettling" and "offered profound food for thought". Electric Sheep magazine called it "one of the must see documentaries of the year".

Ain't it Cool News Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book proj ...

called the film "a real head trip" and said they were "glued to

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...

seat".

Influence and aftermath

''Mirage Men'' has been excerpted in the

Adam Curtis Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of '' Pandora's Box'' (1992) marked the in ...

documentary ''

HyperNormalisation ''HyperNormalisation'' is a 2016 BBC documentary by British filmmaker Adam Curtis. It argues that following the global economic crises of the 1970s, governments, financiers and technological utopians gave up on trying to shape the complex "real ...

'' on

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available Over-the-top media service, over-the-top on a wide range of devices, including Mobile phone, mobile phones and Tablet computer ...

. American novelist

Ernest Cline Ernest Christy Cline (born March 29, 1972) is an American science fiction novelist, slam poet and screenwriter. He wrote the novels '' Ready Player One'', '' Armada'' and '' Ready Player Two'', and co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation ...

credits the ''Mirage Men'' film as an influence on his novel and screenplay '' Armada'' in which the government has known for decades of an alien invasion and has been funding sci-fi films and videogames in order to prepare people for war. In 2025, the Wall Street Journal revealed that hundreds of Air Force personnel had been told, falsely, that there was "a secret program to harvest alien technology". The piece described it as "a long-running practice" that was "like a fraternity hazing ritual that spun wildly out of control." https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/ufo-us-disinformation-45376f7e

References

External links

* * {{IMDb title, 2254010, Mirage Men 2013 films Documentary films about the United States British documentary films Conspiracist films 2013 documentary films UFO hoaxes 2010s English-language films 2010s British films English-language documentary films UFO-related films

Reception

Influence and aftermath

See also

References

External links