I may be off target a bit, but I have to praise one of the most moving extraterrestrial science fiction movies ever made, 1952′s “Red Planet Mars”.

I’d seen it on television back in the late 1960s and now that I’m watching it in a new state of mind I’ve got to admit as a student of UFOlogy it’s not only socially powerful but it’s hysterically funny in it’s foresight and introspection.

It’s a movie that takes place at the beginning of the Cold War. When the United States and then Soviet Union were rapidly building up their arsenals to blow up the Earth to save it from one another’s ideologies. Typical human behavior to say the least.

The story wraps around the discovery of a young scientist and his wife who use a communications device to contact Martians. They detect the Martians via series of telescopic images showing signs of industry going on. They struggle to get a message back from the Martians but to no avail until the scientist’s son suggests the mathematical equation for Pi be used. That does the trick and soon the Martians and humans are chatting up a storm.

That may sound like a good thing but as any UFOlogist worth their salt who has read the declassified CIA sponsored Robertson Panel document, you can tell what happens next. That document exposed the drive that some in government planned to squash any UFO information, spy on UFO groups and discredit witnesses. The Martians tell about how they’ve solved the challenges of longevity and energy and peaceful relations. Needless to say as soon as the oil and insurance and banking cartels on Earth hear about it, riots break out, labor unions protest, and industries collapse sending the West into a tailspin.

It looks like the past ten years worth of global news except for the Osama Bin Laden thing.

Soon the US is forced to stop broadcasting the messages to the public as total chaos ensues. Adding more contrast to the mix is that the man who really invented the device to communicate with Mars is a drunk ex NAZI recluse living in the Andes mountains who is dealing with shady Soviet henchmen who are intercepting the US’ Martian broadcasts in order to use the information to undermine them. The crusty old drunk NAZI scientist is a movie unto himself as he’s such a character.

Things get worse for the Americans, bankers, and Soviets as the Martians answer the question as to why they’ve not blown themselves up using their technology by stating that belief in God and Christ is what kept them going and that we Earthlings had the opportunity 2,000 years ago but haven’t gotten the picture yet.

That leads to the Soviets dealing with a revolution that has the peasants in Russia upending the government.

Things go from bad to worse quickly as the evil drunk ex NAZI scientist’s secret lair is destroyed in an avalanche and he somehow makes it to America and confronts the good guy scientist with a plot twist that really spoils the milk.

I’ll leave the story there as there is an even bigger plot twist to come and I want you all to enjoy the flick.

The importance of this movie is that it addresses concepts that information about the US and foreign government’s reluctance to release UFO/ET data. It really explains it much.

The direction is fine, the performances are of surprisingly high quality with Peter Graves as the heroic scientist, Andrea King as his scientist wife who delivers a performance that may knock you out. She gives some dialogue that rips right through the mind and heart.

Herbert Berghof as the evil scientist is superb and would have made a great “Fearless Leader” from the classic “Bullwinkle and Rocky” animated cartoon by the great Jay Ward.

You just want to reach into the screen and punch Berghof’s character in the face a dozen times over he’s so rotten.

This is a must have movie for fans of sci-fi, UFOlogy, the Cold War, and religion.

Any villain who quotes from Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” has got to be seen.

Some critics pan the movie because of it’s religious bend however writers John L. Balderston and John Hoare put together a tight script nonetheless.

It’s black and white but that gives it an extra sense of drama and goes hand in hand with other sci fi flicks of that era that didn’t fear to give God a voice.

So go out and get some popcorn and see a movie from the golden age of UFOlogy.