In one of his earlier works, The Lichenologist, about Kerry Knudsen, curator of lichens at the University of California, Riverside, Knudsen spends most of the movie staring at very small things before we are treated to the money shot: Knudsen perched on top of a mountain, whipped by the wind and explaining how his youthful psychedelic experiences inspired a lifetime of intense visual study. Never much cared for by his parents, Shepherd was brought up by adoptive grandparents in rural Michigan. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), When present-day Shepherd speaks of his equipment growing, it almost feels as if he were talking of the equipment as if it were another living being. All images are used with permission or licensed. John Was Trying to Contact Aliens is a 16-minute film that brilliantly captures the eccentric 1970s world of UFO hunter John Shepherd, who … Equinox. The new Netflix documentary short “John Was Trying to Contact Aliens” profiles John Shepherd, a Michigan man who tried to contact extraterrestrials by … It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Killip to play up Shepherd’s eccentricity. The House. Though the viewer may get a little melancholic when Shepherd speaks of this, there is also joy in the way he remembers his endeavor and the excitement he always had for it. It is a shot that changes the meaning of the whole film. Following the mandatory postponement of "Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers," new investments have been made into the exhibit. Countless imitations followed, but none with the charm and sincerity of the original. To hear Shepherd and Litrenta speak of each other and smile at each other fills the viewer with a warm feeling, almost as if you were drinking a cup of hot chocolate on a cold evening. document.querySelector("#ads").addEventListener('click',function(){ eventAction: 'click_ads' “I never gave up trying to make contact. gads_event = event; In the new Netflix short documentary John Was Trying to Contact Aliens, Shepherd shows filmmakers the array of inventions he used in order to beam sound into outer space. That John confesses that his life was a lonely one only further underscores the real reasons he wanted to reach out to aliens. His photo portrait, surrounded by bizarre broadcasting kit of his own design, appears in Douglas Curren’s In Advance of the Landing: Folk concepts of outer space – the book TV producer Chris Carter says he raided for the first six episodes of his series The X-Files. Magazine issue While his S.T.R.A.T. document.querySelector("#google_image_div").addEventListener('click',function(){ The latest is John Was Trying to Contact Aliens by New York-based UK director Matthew Killip, which won the Jury Award for a non-fiction short film at this year’s Sundance festival in Utah. Relive an iconic performance from the electronic music pioneers. As years went by, Shepherd kept adding more and more equipment, and at one point, even pooling in money with his grandmother to build an expansion for their home as the equipment began to overtake nearly every room of the house. ... John Shepherd. Watched Greyhound with Tom Hanks and thought it was pretty good. When it comes to hearing about people like Shepherd, most of us wonder: why would he do it? If you have an entertainment scoop or a story for us, please reach out to us on (323) 421-7515. Should Japan dump radioactive water from Fukushima into the ocean? “In 1972, 21-year-old John Shepherd set about building equipment to hunt for extraterrestrials”. Just, different”), Killip beautifully juxtaposes images of the glittering, awe-inspiring galaxy above with faded black-and-white photos of young John—a contrast that speaks to the underlying source of the man’s yearning. The self-taught electronics engineer founded Project STRAT (Special Telemetry Research and Tracking) and converted the house into a something akin to a radio station and high-voltage laboratory. let gads_event; The synopsis states: "A rural electronic whizz broadcasts radio signals into space and monitors for signs of aliens, but makes a more important connection here on Earth.". eventAction: 'view' }); Shepherd even quips on meeting Litrenta, "Contact has been made.". won in 2019), the streaming giant makes a regular effort to bring festival-winning factual films to a global audience. Drifting Dragons Season 2 release date on Netflix U.S.: Kuutei Dragons Season... Is Chernobyl on Netflix, and will it ever be added? }); Yet isolation was not, it turns out, his ultimate fate. Directed by Matthew Killip. But Killip's film brings to the forefront the human behind it, the man who refuses to fit in with stereotypes. John frequently broadcasted sounds from legendary electronic groups Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream in an attempt to make a connection. hitType: 'event', John Shepherd spent 30 years trying to contact extraterrestrials by broadcasting music millions of miles into space. Pic credit: Netflix. That equipment continued to grow, and in the next two years it was migrating into the living room. Netflix supports the Digital Advertising Alliance Principles. Coming Soon. He also remarks that he had very little contact with his mother, who he says was "always a little different than I was." reporters on a platform technologically tailored to meet the needs of the modern reader. The search for the origin of life: From panspermia to primordial soup. },false) hitType: 'event', 'More than 30 active alien civilisations could exist in Milky Way', Who is John Shepherd? Their romance is clearly the reality-altering connection John always sought, and its existence does much to mitigate the sadness of watching John rummage through the remnants of his now-discarded S.T.R.A.T.