Remember when people paid real money to watch bug apocalypse documentaries?
Documentaries used to be about more than just true crime and celebrity deep-dives. Gary D. Rhodes' new book Weirdumentary: Ancient Aliens, Fallacious Prophecies, and Mysterious Monsters From 1970s Documentaries (May 2025, Feral House) is a lavishly illustrated history of how America spent the 1970s watching theatrical documentaries about psychic Russian ladies, ancient astronauts, and bugs plotting humanity's downfall.
These films asked the big questions, like "Was Jesus an astronaut?" and "Can you talk to plants?" with deadly seriousness. The genre reached its peak with The Hellstrom Chronicle — a movie featuring a scientist warning about insect supremacy, which won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature even though the scientist was a fictional character, a fact that wasn't revealed until the end credits.
The Weirdumentary genre evolved from the 1960s "Mondo" films that showed shocking (and often racist) footage under the guise of anthropology. Producers eventually hit a formula that had broader appeal: combining gorgeous cinematography with spooky narration and questions about whether aliens built the pyramids or telekinetic housewives could make appliances float in their kitchens.
The genre's godfather was a Swiss hotel manager named Erich von Däniken who stole 400,000 francs from his employer to go hunt for ancient alien evidence in Peru, Easter Island, Mexico, Lebanon, and Egypt. His book and subsequent film Chariots of the Gods launched a whole industry of questioning-everything documentaries.
These weren't small-time productions. The films featured dramatic narration by icons like Boris Karloff, Arthur C. Clarke, Leonard Nimoy, Omar Sharif, and Rod Serling. Warner Brothers got in on the action with The Man Who Saw Tomorrow about Nostradamus. Producer Alan Landsburg turned this stuff into an art form, bringing us In Search Of… with Leonard Nimoy and gems like The Outer Space Connection and The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena.
Rhodes' thoroughly researched book recalls an era when mainstream audiences happily packed theaters to ponder whether the Bermuda Triangle was a portal to another dimension. The book's packed with rare promotional materials and behind-the-scenes drama, including the story of how one guy sued The Hellstrom Chronicle for filming his bug-freakout without permission.
As Landsburg put it: "We're not trying to present definite answers, just to ask possible questions." They also gave audiences exactly what they wanted — permission to believe in the weird and wonderful.
I miss the days when conspiracy theories were fun and not society-destroying monsters.
Also, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow is my favorite "Starring Orson Welles as his weirdo self" flick.
I miss the days when government leaders did not believe conspiracy theories.