Australien skies (2015) User Reviews

Not as good as the Min Min lights one

[PinkPuffin · 5/10 · 22 April 2022]

I'm kind of watching the director's three "Australian Skies" documentaries in reverse order.

I watched the Min Min lights one first, and was so taken with the way that it was done (quietly, with non of the usual UFO/mysterious phenomena documentary gimmicks), that I decided to watch them all!

I was really looking forward to this, but to be honest, I was pretty disappointed.

The quiet, unassuming style that I enjoyed in the Min Min lights one, was still there, and the Australian laid back approach is the reason I intend to watch all three documentaries, but it was the actual footage shot by the main guest, that I just couldn't get on board with.

I am an open minded sceptic, but have always had a particular fascination with UFOs, although sadly, haven't had any sightings myself.

The guy that had allegedly photographed and videoed 100s of UFOs claims that he attracts them, and "has a feeling", when they are about to reveal themselves. I had no problem with that, but the footage that he has shot, just wasn't believable, barring perhaps the odd few. Anybody that knows anything about photography, knows that if you point a camera up to the sky, (whether day or night) the images captured of an alleged UFO are extremely likely to be distorted, as the lens tries it's best to focus, giving the impression that an image is morphing, changing colour or appearing as a perfect sphere with a beautiful shimmery interior. Even a torch will create that type of effect! To my eye, nearly all of the footage that he's captured looks like helium balloons, plastic bags, birds and even seeds floating down.

I think he's an honest guy, and truely believes that he is somehow communicating with UFOs, but I REALLY have my doubts!

I think the downfall of this documentary is that there were no photographic experts there, to play devil's advocate.

It's very much left up to the viewer as to whether they believe these are genuine sightings or not.

I look forward to Australian Skies 2, but I really hope it is better than this one, and is more objective!

Use a tripod!

[jackmathys · 3/10 · 31 October 2018]

For a film this recent, you'd think a bit of focus might be in order. But these vids are as grainy and useless as anything out of the 50's. One can only conclude that we are being had.

Not a good early impression

[hotjanuary · 3/10 · 25 May 2020]

A documentary that I feel spends too much time explaining how the documentary was made tends to turn me off quick. I'm not really interested in listing to a 'making of a documentary' documentary when it's not titled as such.

Australia has a rich history of UFO reports and I was expecting to hear about the Knowles family encounter, Westall event, and others I might have missed out on.

This show is not my thing.

Uh- Huh

[dixiedoggg · 1/10 · 13 August 2017]

As usual, another tale of UFO's seen by someone with the film to prove it, turns into a ridiculous documentary, that in the end really seems to prove nothing.

So let us travel to Australia with a film producer, who no one has never heard of, as he searches for the guy with the video clips, but first, we get to hear the unnecessary story how the filming location has been changed and the poor guy has to take a 14 hour train trip and blah blah blah... OK, we finally get to meet the guy, 'Damien', and we get to watch as he descends the train platform very slowly to the producers car, who parked at obviously the farthest point from the station. Also we never actually see a train, nor do we ever see any other passengers getting on or off.

Finally we get around to seeing some filmed blobs of light in the sky, filmed either by a guy who has Parkinson's disease or is unable to hold a camera steady for more than a half second. Some more film is shown where the focus is in and out, and we hear Damien tell us he has hundreds of sightings under his belt, and that now the UFOs are following him around and appear over his head about 10 feet away and are the size of basketballs. But unfortunately we never get to see film of any of that, the red balls have been seen 10 times, while the white balls many many times. I am guessing he forgot to carry a camera at those times.

More boring talk and later we are treated to a scene where they are staring at the sky when something bangs into a trash bin next to them and they start to investigate that. Finding nothing they abandon that and head to a canoe trip to somewhere to film more strange sites.

But first we see the difference between a drone and an UFO by sending a drone up in the air and while they film, yep, a UFO is seen. But it is really just a white speck falling behind the drone and could be bird poop for all I know. Now they interview the drone specialist in an obvious faked outdoor shot which just looks stupid. You can tell by looking at the video, that the guys are in front of a screen, with a picture of the field they are supposed to be at, behind them.... If not faked, certainly strange...

Before the canoe trip starts we are presented with another UFO enthusiast, who tells of UFOs flying around with the video being shown, and then how aircraft and helicopters (also shown on video) show up and check out the skies. And the helos are of course black op military spy top secret don't look or we will shoot you helos. And he adds the men in black show up a day or two later, in black cars, and sit and stare at them for hours outside the house, but I guess the camera batteries were dead because we see no footage of that at all.

Now the canoe trip starts and we are treated to a conversation that seems to last forever with more UFO garbage facts that can't be verified, and then we are sitting around the campfire talking implants and such. Yawn.... Somewhere in the show, Damien tells of buying several high dollar cameras to document the UFOs, but all we see is grainy, out of focus shots, and video that is obviously edited for dramatic effects, so none of it proves anything at all except I was stupid enough to watch this BS. In several scenes, he is shown filming with a cell phone camera, what happened to the high dollar cameras he was telling us about ?

In the end, I saw some unexplained night lights and some puzzling footage that probably if analyzed by some pros, could be explained away.

This show was a bore in the extreme... don't waste your time except for a good nap or a good laugh at insipid filmaking at it's worst.

Interesting and definately not crazy

[riheg · 7/10 · 6 February 2018]

5% of americans have seen UFOs. I might have thought these guys were crazy, which you are supposed to think based on what science and media tell us. However I've seen thing and talked to people who I am sure do believe they have seen and filmed non earthly UFOs. Theres even a scientific research station in Norway to study UFO traffic in a particular place, so something is going on. The footage is also convincing, you can find thousands of other crystal clear examples on social media, some by amateur astronomers filmed through high power lenses. So its time to take the subject as seriously as the witnesses do. Its not fair to ridicule these people, and this film presents it in a serious and entertaining way.

Breaking News - There are Lights in the Sky...Next UP...Water is Wet

[rharris-35 · 2/10 · 26 July 2018]

There are two parts to this "documentary" in my view. One is the focus on Damien John Nott, which should be completely disregarded due to his extraordinary claims and the extraordinary LACK of evidence.

The second part, which is actually important, is the automatic "labeling" of people who see "something" in the sky. 100% of the video evidence in this film is "unidentified", and thus are U.F.O's. These do need to be explained and/or identified, but do to the stigma of people claiming to see these objects more often than not, fail to report them. This is a problem.

While I agree with Damien on this issue, his other claims, such as his so called "chip" actually made me laugh out loud. What he explained and the way he explained it is EXACTLY how a common cyst would react.

1000 of sighting and still no clear footage. What's up with that.

[mayhem-52317 · 1/10 · 17 August 2020]

I am generally open minded, but for someone with so many sighting and so much equipment, the footable looked doctored and very unconvincing. And of all the reports of black cars parked out the front of their house, but no photographic evidence. Not convincing.

To the producers, Instead of buys loads of cheap cameras, just buy 1 really good quality 4K camera with quality lenses.

And are you convinced?

[meritcoba · 28 March 2018]

Convinced there is something out there?

Don Meers, the director of this documentary, is at the end. But will you be? And has he reason to?

Australian Skies sees Don Meers, an Australian director, make a trip with one Damien John Nott to Glass Mountains, a hilly location about 30 kilometer above Brisbane. Make a note of that. Nott claims that he sees unexplained phenomena on a daily basis. And he is not alone, others see them as well for Nott is an UFO magnet.

Meers states that it his aim to understand what people like Nott are witnessing, to explain these objects and to see an object himself. Meers method seems to be to fill the bulk of the movie with interviews, of which the one with Nott takes the biggest slice of the cake. We hear Nott making claims in the order of seeing hundreds of unknown objects, having hundreds of witnesses, photos and movies to boot.

This claim must of necessity lead to a selection of movies in which these strange phenomena are shown. And given the claim, one would expect the best of the crop. The ultimate irrefutable footage. And what do we get? We get a small sampling of crappy pixelated clips made with cameras flipping all over the place. Here is a man with hundreds of photos(he actually claims thousands) and lots of footage, but the documentary cannot give anything that is crystal clear. Nor is all of this evidence show examined in anyway. It is just shown. An ironical smile came to me when Nott at some point told how youtube was swarming with fake movies. You mean those movies that are purposely badly made as to hide that they are fake? If your movies are not like that, why do they appear to look exactly like them?

To add some more weight to the documentary Meers goes with Nott on a field trip in the hopes to get confronted by one of those many objects that seem to dodge the heels of Nott. It results in a wake at night for reasons unexplained. Strange objects only come out at night? Are they more visible at night? The crew and certain others stand around pointing at the black sky stating how they see this or that and instead of pointing the professional camera at the indicated objects(one claim: this cannot be seen by the naked eye!) Meers does nothing but instead uses the crappy footage that the others make with their swaying handhelds. Hello?

The remaining part of the movie splits in two parts. One in which the documentary tries to examine(or rather disprove) that the strange objects are drones, the other can best be collected with one term: conspiracy theories. As to the drones, the crew come to the conclusion that it cannot possibly be drones and, in a beautiful dichotomy, concludes that if it cannot be drones then it must be UFOs. Oh by the way, it cannot be planes either, because there are hardly any planes there. Oh aren't there? So let's see what are the busiest airports in Australia? Hmmm... Brisbane is number three of all Australian airports. Would that not amount to a lot of planes?

And then it inevitably comes down to conspiracy theories. If there is something of a litmus test for claims that can be dismissed to the dustbin then it must be the claim that there is some kind of conspiracy behind it all. With great irony Nott makes the claim that it would be odd for the government to send out a soundless drone over populated areas(why not?) and then later into the documentary he has no problem claiming that the government has a helicopter hovering over his house for 45 minutes. And more of this, strange men or the government is on to us. Now any documentary maker worth his metal would at this point have asked the question. Why would they?

And there lies the central weakness of the documentary. Remember that Meers wanted to understand what happened to Nott(and others), what these objects are and be confronted with one himself. Next to the question, are there even objects(this goes without saying apparently) Meers doesn't even try to be critical. He lets Nott talk on end in the documentary, but Meers never poses one critical question. Nor does he consult others outside the circle of ufo adaptees. Meers hands the UFO people a platform and uncritically allows them free reign to spout their claims without any critical opposition. I think that this is called: playing tennis without the net.

My take is that Meers wasn't convinced by what occurred during the making of the movie, he was already convinced when he started to make it. And this makes him biased and the documentary useless. This is documentary is preaching to the choir, it is utter pointless to convince anyone with a critical mind.

Worth it if you're interested.

[Nemesis42 · 10/10 · 15 August 2020]

Some interesting speculations, and if the subjects are not complete liars, some interesting experiences. A pity that they had so much photographic gear much of the time but captured little fresh footage. But it's understandable.

The times I've seen UAP I've been too involved to go in and pick up the camera. What happens is that you don't want to waste one second doing anything else but watch the thing.

A message to you wanna be intellectuals, likely from the fundamentalist extremest mob that labels itself 'The Sceptics', whom are wielding reductionism in your reviews - wait until you see one. Then you'll change your tune.

10 stars to balance out the closed minded here.

You gotta be kidding

[sykespj · 1/10 · 5 May 2020]

At times I thought some of the 'actors' were going to lose their straight face and burst out laughing. You don't need a canoe to get to the spooky Sunshine Coast community near Caboolture where supposedly horses have gone missing. And it is hardly in the middle of nowhere. I reckon any Year 11 film student could pick any number of issues with the film presented. Ed Wood would be proud of these guys for keeping his legacy alive. The dumbest UFO movie ever made.

One Of The Worst Documovies About UFOs I've Ever Watched

[theparanormalcode · 1/10 · 1 July 2021]

Sadly, people in this field think they know more than they actually know. The video evidence is poor at best and the dialogue is boring. The evidence doesn't show real UFO's, we are seeing planes, balloons, bugs etc. Knowing what I know can debunk every one of the videos claiming to be UFOs. Sad, boring and just plain wrong for the reality we all live. It's gullible people hoping you don't know more than them. We DO, I DO! 4 Stinkweeds - zero stars.

Dude needs a tripod- I turned it off half way through.

[isabear07 · 2/10 · 10 July 2023]

Spoiler-Balloons, birds and a whole LOT of fuzzy jerky film.

When you start off a film filming the guy walking out of a train station, you know it's gonna be lame.

All this guy's footage is fuzzy, extremely jerky and the one that was clear, it cut out just as you could see a shape.

The guy thinks "they're talking to him" and that he's special. Yikes that's mental illness.

I did NOT catch before hand that it's called AustrALIEN skies. SMH.

And when we got to "they're not really stars, they sit up there and pretend to be stars", I turned it off.

Lots of helicopters are black (medical ones in the US for starters)...yeah this is a whole lot of edging toward Q silliness. Nope.

Nothing to see here.

[MikeHunt1075 · 1/10 · 22 December 2020]

A bunch of footage of birds and drones filmed on the sky from miles away show by a camera man with Parkinson's around a lying interviewee trying to make this thing sound entertaining enough to make a buck.

Same footage every year

[pwilmotts · 3/10 · 8 August 2020]

With the world now having billions of people with HD cameras and telescopes we still see footage similar to decades ago, you see all their cameras and TRIPODS but all the footage is at full zoom and shaking like its filmed whilst riding a motorbike on a motocross track. Most of the clips a school class could replicate with a drone, tape, roll of tinfoil and led light. Guy says he has seen hundreds..... after a couple you would stick a tripod outside with telescope and camera attached. I want to believe, guess I will have to wait.

Chilling and Intriguing

[heidi_helen · 8/10 · 18 January 2023]

This documentary gave me chills. As an Aussie fascinated in this topic, it was really interesting to see it from an Australian perspective and sightings that happen here. There seems to be something special about Damien Nott with UFOs following him around. The fact that helicopters, people in black suits, and parked vehicles show up after a sighting is chilling. The fact that people have been talked out of sharing their experiences also makes me wonder why officials don't want the mainstream to know about this.

I like that the film explores flying drones to show how they are different from sightings. I like also that the film isn't definitive saying they are definitely extraterrestrial but that they could be explained by other things. Not knowing what something is definitely brings immense curiosity!

I would have liked to see more experts examine footage. But overall, it's a very intriguing documentary and I look forward to watching the others in the series.

AUSTRALIEN SKIES 2: CONTACT OF INTEREST

[danielbooroff · 8/10 · 29 May 2021]

The above documentary is definitely one of the better ones.

The incredible regression at the end was mind blowing and some really good video evidence of UFOs.

Leaves you with some burning questions and definitely wanting a follow up documentary.