J.J. Abrams To Produce 4-Part UFO Docuseries For Showtime

UFO Showtime Poster, J.J. Abrams US-Ireland Alliance's 15th Annual Oscar Wilde Awards
Showtime;Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

J.J. Abrams is no stranger to science-fiction, but now the Rise of Skywalker director will be taking on UFO phenomena in a four-part documentary series.

UFO premieres on Showtime on August 8, where all four episodes will drop at midnight ahead of its linear transmission at 9 PM. Abrams serves as executive producer alongside directors Mark Monroe (Icarus) and Paul Crowder (Riding Giants) for a show that is set to explore the unsettling theories of a subject that recently reached national headlines. The series looks at why average citizens pursuing the truth have been ridiculed while powerful politicians and CEOs are free to investigate behind closed doors.

The docuseries comes after recent reports in the New York Times of the Pentagon beginning to take the existence of UFOs more seriously. Several Navy pilots had reported seeing unidentified objects in the sky and the U.S. government has looked into the reports. While the U.S. Defense Department claims to have found no evidence that the objects military personnel saw are alien spaceships, they can still not explain them. An unclassified report is to be released to Congress on June 25.

Showtime’s docuseries will look at what clandestine influence the American government, lucrative private companies and the military may have in shielding the truth behind extraterrestrial phenomena to further their own agendas. It will also feature shocking testimony from eyewitnesses across the country as it examines the history of the phenomenon through cultural and political touchpoints.

Former President Barack Obama touched on the subject of UFOs when he appeared on the Late Late Show With James Corden last month. “What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they said,” he said. “We can’t explain how they move, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern. And so I think that people still take seriously, trying to investigate and figure out what that is.”

UFO, premieres August 8, Showtime