Netflix's Encounters Director Says It Was "Really Difficult" to Convince Subjects to Appear on Camera

Encounters helmer Yon Motskin says he had trouble getting UFO witnesses to come forward.

By Adam Barnhardt

Encounters has found itself atop the Netflix rankings as the four-part docuseries dominates social chatter. Even though talk about UFOs and UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena) has never been more prevalent, witnesses were reluctant to come forward to speak about their experiences on the show because of the stigma surrounding the topic. That much is according to Encounters filmmaker Yon Motskin, the skeptic-turned-believer who had a full-time job trying to convince people to appear.

"I thought it would be really easy to get people to participate in this film series, and I was shocked at how hard it was to get almost everybody to agree to be on camera," Motskin tells us. "It was a traumatic event for almost all of these people, and so I realized by the end that we are trying to get people to relive a kind of a trauma. Now, some people it was trauma. To some people, it was just sort of a stigma or shame where they're embarrassed and they don't want to be outed, so to speak, in their community."

According to Motskin, others feared what speaking out could do to them on a deeply personal level.

"Some people lost jobs, some people lost money. Some people watched the dissolution of their marriages or friendships, but almost everybody in the four-part series had no motivation to come forward, and it was really difficult," the filmmaker continues. "It took months and months and months of building trust and making them feel comfortable that we are not out to exploit them, but that we're going to approach this with respect and delicacy and honesty and that we are transparent in our intentions and I'm hopefully we've done right by them."

Chatter over UFOs hit a high point over the summer with a Congressional committee going so far as to host a hearing on the matter. According to one of those who testified at the hearing—former intelligence official David Grusch—the United States has, in fact, retrieved "non-human biologics" from crashed UFOs.

"As I've stated publicly already … biologics came with some of these recoveries, yeah," Grusch said in response to a question from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-NC). When pressed on if those biologics were human or extraterrestrial, the official confirmed "non-human" biologics are what have been recovered from certain UFO crashes.

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"These sightings are not rare or isolated, they are routine," former piltor Ryan Graves added during the hearing. "Military air crew and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena. The stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and challenges national security."

The first four episodes of Encounters are now streaming on Netflix. For more UFO and cosmic tales, check out our ComicBook Invasion hub here.

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