Because another major difference that distinguishes Witness of Another World from almost any other UFO-related documentary, is that it doesn’t attempt to pigeonhole Juan’s experience into the stereotypical framework of the extra-terrestrial hypothesis neither does it seek to explain it away in terms of psychiatric aberrations or psycho-social delusions, the way Western ‘rationalists’ have tried to downplay the impact of close encounters in our society with the unfortunate outcome that witnesses and abductees are even more discouraged from seeking professional treatment, and are vulnerable to adopting paranoid mythologies of alien invasion and sinister hybridization programs, peddled by researchers who tend to weed out those pesky little details in the witnesses’ accounts, that move away from a simplistic interpretation of alien interlopers displaying their superior technology. Whether Juan Pérez, or all the reporters and UFOlogists who have looked into the case ever since it became widely publicized by the Argentine press in the early 80’s, have managed to correctly interpret the encounter and its implications, is another matter entirely. If the viewer is not moved by the anguish visible in Juan’s face, by the honesty in his words, and if the tears running down his cheeks are not enough to convince you that something REAL happened to this man and others like him, which has scarred him for life (both figuratively AND literally) and haunted him ever since, then no amount of official documents with ‘top secret’ seals will serve to change your mind. Instead of bothering with trying to gather material traces, tissue samples, blood tests or the expert testimony of authorities that could ‘confirm’ such a story, the film focuses instead with something more important, which unfortunately most UFO investigators tend to overlook: the impact –physical, psychological and emotional– that these incredible experiences have on those fortunate (or unfortunate) to live them. Director and writer Alan Stivelman is not terribly preoccupied with convincing his audience of protagonist Juan Pérez’s dramatic close encounter of the third kind in September of 1978, back when he was just a young, innocent boy growing up in the rural setting of the Argentinian pampa a seemingly unremarkable child with the most common name in all of Latin America –“Juan Pérez” is the Spanish equivalent of “John Smith” or even “John Doe”– who was suddenly face to face with the greatest mystery of our modern age, and was thrown into a whirlwind of confusion, celebrity and ridicule for which he was never able to fully recover. Witness of Another World ( Testigo de Otro Mundo) disregards that format in its entirety.
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