•Ignore the claims made on screen. The movie “The Fourth Kind” is not based on fact.
But the publicity division of Universal Studios decided that the best way to get people to pay to see it is to spread false claims that the movie is a documentary with “archival footage” and “actual case studies” about alien abductions to back up every scene.
Two of the best accounts about this nonsense are a news article by Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News in September and an editorial by Nancy McGuire of the Nome Nugget. Both were published weeks before the movie was released.
The movie was filmed in Bulgaria, which is about as close to Nome as this movie is to the truth.
Since September, the movie people have tried to erase evidence of a Web site that had references to a non-existent publication called the “Alaska Psychiatry Journal” and a biography of “Dr. Abigail Tyler,” the alleged key character. The site was created in August, when the movie publicity began, along with one that contained made-up news stories supposedly from the Nome Nugget and the Daily News-Miner.
It may have been the attention generated by Hopkins’ article on Sept. 1 that put an end to the Web sites that mentioned professional journals, researchers and newspaper articles that don’t exist.
Some of the fake news articles can still be found on sites where they were copied. Two of the stories are an obituary that supposedly was run in the Daily News-Miner and a story about the death of “Dr. William Tyler.”
Neither really appeared in the News-Miner. This is how they were presented on the Web:
Obituary: Dr. William Tyler
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
August 3, 2000
NOME – Dr. William (Will) Tyler of Nome passed away on Wednesday, August 2, 2000. Dr. Tyler’s cause of death is currently under investigation.
Dr. Tyler made his home in Nome with his wife Dr. Abigail Tyler and their two children. Dr. Tyler and his wife moved to Nome in late 1997 to conduct studies of sleep disorders at their Nome practice, Tyler’s Health and Care. He is survived by his wife, son and daughter. A memorial service and burial have yet to be announced pending the closure of the current cause-of-death investigation.
Nome Psychologist’s Death an Apparent Suicide
September 29th, 2000
Staff Report
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
FAIRBANKS – The Office of the State Medical Examiner concluded on Tuesday that the death of Nome psychiatrist Dr. William Tyler was the result of an apparent suicide.
On September 5, Dr. Tyler’s body was found in his home by his wife Dr. Abigail Tyler. At the time Nome police had no evidence of foul play, but Alaska state law requires the Medical Examiner to investigate the cause of death for all deaths caused by violence. The case gained some notoriety in past weeks because of the disappearance of Dr. Tyler’s five-year-old daughter on October 5th.
It’s ridiculous that Universal thought it was OK to use the names of real publications in Alaska and fabricate news stories to market a movie. Even worse, Chapman University in California agreed to allow its name to be used on screen to give credence to the “archival footage” claim.
The university’s reason for being part of the hoax? Everyone knows that movies are not true, a Chapman administrator wrote on a school blog.
As to why Chapman’s logo was allowed to be used in the film, that’s simple: Director Olatunde Osunsanmi went to film school there and seeing the school name will show students how successful Chapman grads are, according to the school blog.
Here is an excerpt of the editorial Nancy McGuire wrote in the Nome Nugget:
"They have fabricated fake stories for their phony archives and also included a few real stories to try to enhance the legitimacy of their web site.
Apparently Universal Studios (owned by NBC) must think that the general public is a bunch of morons and that the truth is so limiting.
Nomeites know that we are not being beamed up by aliens (and that is not why Sitnasuak wants to dispose of the big radio relay antennas on top of Anvil Mountain).
Aside from the fact that the Universal Studio hokey version of Nome depicts our town somewhere in Bulgaria, they felt that they needed to legitimize their fiction by attributing false stories to real reporters in legitimate Alaskan publications. It makes one wonder if they will try to apply this tactic to any other newspaper
in an attempt to fabricate news and legitimize their fiction.
This kind of blatant misuse of the Internet to discredit legitimate reporters and publications needs to stop. Universal Studios should issue a public apology to the people of Nome, The Nome Nugget and other Alaskan news organizations."
You might say this is about nothing more than marketing a dumb movie, borrowing techniques from the “Blair Witch Project.” But it’s also a good lesson in how digital tools can be used to spread misinformation with ease.
The problem is what this means for our future. The deceptive techniques used to hype this movie could be used with greater skill and more sleight-of-hand by companies, governments and individuals to lie about serious issues. The line between fact and fiction will be erased.
“Alaskaman100” may understand he is not Time’s Man of the Year, judging by the evidence in his outhouse, but his ability to discern what is an “obvious ruse” will be reduced as electronic tools grow more powerful.
Most of the phony news stories created for this movie dealt with plausible topics and contained nothing outlandish — an obituary, a suicide ruling and an interview with a doctor about sleep studies in Nome.
There were no clues that they were made up by a marketing company.
This incident contains ready hints about the future of propaganda.
This IS a true story.
For those who consider this comment too wordy, please refer to "I-ask-y's" previous post.
Universal Studios approached us on behalf of Olatunde and asked if we would give permission, and provided us with the script and film clips to review as we made our decision. We read the script and saw the clips where the university's name was to be used, and we immediately understood that this was a piece of enjoyably scary paranormal fiction. We felt it was a very entertaining movie and a good way to pay tribute to our talented alumnus Olatunde for his first big movie.
We find it amusing that some are calling "The Fourth Kind" a "hoax" and are trying to "debunk" the movie. Come on. It's not a hoax - it's a fictional movie, and fiction is always about the willing suspension of disbelief. Writers often weave real elements into fiction to help audiences suspend disbelief. For example, I just watched "The Inspector Lewis Mysteries," a British series about murder mysteries set at Oxford University. Obviously there were no such murders at Oxford, yet the series used the university's real name and even its locations. Was that a "hoax"? Harvard, Notre Dame, the University of Michigan and many other well-known U.S. universities routinely give permission for their real names to appear in fictional movies and TV shows.
"The Fourth Kind's" clever PR campaign -- like those for "The Blair Witch Project" and the more recent "Paranormal Activity" -- is set up to make people suspend disbelief and pretend what they're going to see is "real." But I seriously doubt that people actually believe ghosts and aliens are real because a bunch of movie marketers tell them so. Personally, I give audiences more credit than that.
So as long as it's entertaining, it's ok by you to publish blatantly false articles pretending to be written by real newspapers and organizations?
Wow... there's no way that could be abused...
The dumbing down of America is apparently complete.
Universal Studios is of course just trying to make money but on the backs of alaskans...maybe they should be paying royalties!
How long till there is a lawsuit from the news organizations that were used in this manner. Hopefully not long. I would hope the result would be the court saying that the cast and crew had to make a movie in Nome, during winter, and they have to stay there for at least as long as they did for the previous one. At least that way we would get some truthful results.