“In the end, what you believe is yours to decide.” These are the words of actress Milla Jovovich that open The Fourth Kind, a film based upon the work and supposedly real life video footage of the research completed by Dr. Abigail Tyler in Nome, Alaska. According to the film, Nome has had an extraordinary number of people go missing over the years for a town of its size and is of specific interest to the FBI. The anomalies present in Nome have been of particular interest to Dr. Tyler’s husband, Will Tyler, who, in the midst of conducting a study into the possible reasons behind the disappearances, dies mysteriously and unexpectedly, leaving his two kids behind and Abbey with nothing but old notes, dictations, and a ton of questions. As Abbey picks up where her husband’s study left off, she begins to discover disturbing similarities among her patient’s experiences that soon lead her to believe the direct cause of many of the unusual occurrences in Nome may be due to forces that are not exactly of this world.
The film itself is presented in a way that purposefully meshes the real life experiences of Abigail Tyler (seen and heard through dated “actual” video and audio recordings) with a dramatized version to more fully recreate the events that occurred. There are frequent flashbacks to an interview at Chapman University with the real Abbey Tyler as she relates what exactly happened to her and how she felt before, during, and after her study. Upon first glance, Abbey does not look like a normal, healthy young woman. She looks as though something has eaten away at her soul over time, leaving her a sad and disturbed looking individual. As she recounts her stories and episodes of visits from patients, it begins to become clear why she looks so haunted.
Many of the patients Abbey has been seeing in Nome, a small Alaskan town accessible only by airplane, complain of a similar problem: trouble sleeping due to the presence of an owl outside their window and the creepy feeling that they are not alone, that something is right outside their door. After getting many of the same answers from different, unrelated people to the same questions she decides to take the study one step further. Using the technique of hypnosis, Abbey hopes to discover what exactly her patients are seeing and feeling while they attempt to sleep. Nothing can prepare her for what she is about to see.
As her patients relax and, in a trance-like state, begin to allow outside, subconscious forces to alter their minds, one by one they recall their experience: lying awake, trying to sleep, seeing the owl, then realizing it’s not actually an owl. It’s something much worse, much more powerful and terrifying. They begin to convulse and shriek, then almost immediately wake up, shaking in extreme and intense fear. While Abbey investigates her patients’ strange and unnerving reactions she begins to have some disturbing experiences of her own while attempting to sleep, one of which results in an audio recording consisting of a bone-chilling, disembodied voice shouting something in Sumerian, an ancient, dead language over the petrifying sounds of Abbey’s blood-curdling screams. After consulting an expert in the field of Sumerian and deciphering some of the voice’s utterances and remembering the feeling of being taken away against her will by some force that night, Abbey’s mind starts to turn to the only viable explanation that she sees left. She begins to consider the possibility that she, as well as her other patients, are the victims of encounters of the “fourth kind”: alien abduction.
Even though it seems the only “other worldly” explanation for what is happening is an abduction theory, I believe Abbey and her patients are missing a much more obvious and very real possibility which is demonic possession. I do not believe that it is any coincidence that all of Abbey’s patients, and even Abbey herself, are unable to recall any part of their experiences or what they saw or were feeling without being under hypnosis. They must open their mind and make it susceptible to an outside force, one that may not necessarily be good or even invited in. The chilling images of their distorted bodies and sounds of their disembodied voices immediately conjure up images of the demons that Christ Himself cast out of people in the New Testament. At one point, one of the voices even claims to be God, the I Am, Savior. There is no more telling sign of an evil spirit than one who claims to be God. Abbey herself uses the word hopeless to describe the feeling of the presence inside her and goes on to say that, “It cannot be God, but it can pretend to be.”
I think that Abbey and her patients would have seen things much differently if they had taken the time to consider the possibility of demonic possession or other forces of evil rather than alien abduction. I was actually surprised that there was no mention of it for the entire film. As Abbey gets more obsessed with the idea of these experiences and capturing them on film or on tape, the more dangerous and intense everything becomes. They do not mention whether or not any of them have been saved or have the presence of Christ, the One with the power to expel evil, in their lives making their journey into hypnosis and trances even more particularly frightening.
If they had been true believers in Jesus maybe they would have been more likely to recognize the presence of evil for what it was, but by attributing what was happening to aliens or something of that nature it made it all seem like something that was worth further investigation. If they had realized the kind of forces they could be dealing with, though, I believe this film would have had a very different end. By choosing to go down the path of investigation through hypnosis they all made a choice to interfere with some pretty powerful things that they didn’t understand and whatever these things were had a profound a life changing affect on all who were involved. Now, whether they were alien or truly were demonic, I don’t know that we will ever really know; but, as it was in the beginning, “In the end what you believe is yours to decide.” Be warned though, once the possibility of possession is in your mind, the disturbing images from this movie may be extremely hard to get out.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:19 am
tell milla that they are demonic spirits and the owl is a living depiction of the bohiemian owl , the only way for normal people to test the spirit is to command the entity that they are talking to,to confess that Jesus Christ is the son of GOd and that he came to earth to save mankind , if the spirit can not confess this it is a demon ,
demons now control more than half of our population and influence and large chunk of the rest , this is why america is slipping down the toilet , you’ll know the end has come if the legalize incest ,
November 10th, 2009 at 1:11 am
I 100% completely agree with what you’re saying about the demonic possession aspect of this movie. That was the first thing I said to my boyfriend when we walked out of the theater; that I didn’t believe any of it was alien abduction, but it had several similarities with demonic possession. I’m glad someone else agrees with me!
November 10th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I believe they are demonic spirits like you say,but what happened to the little girl? 5
November 12th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I walked into this movie believing that these were episodes of demonic possession, and like the red doorknob and other red items in the movie “Sixth Sense”, which to most people were overlooked as signs that things were not as they seemed, every twist of Abbey’s investigation only further confirmed, to me, that my suppositions were correct. Your analysis is spot on; yet I do wonder about the little girl disappearing through the roof. ?????
I am a Bible reading Christian, and recently did an intensive study of Revelation. I have wondered for some time how the masses would be coddled and subdued into accepting the things described in Revelation, particularly the death by head wound of the new world leader and his seeming “resurrection” three days later; and the bringing to life of the idol. I’ve noticed over the last decade that Hollywood has released an absurd number of movies with an alien theme, (a percentage of them compared to total movies released would be an interesting statistic), which coupled with the rash of UFO sightings, could be a way of raising the level of acceptance of the naive that there are indeed aliens. My husband is a aeronautical engineer with a Masters degree, and his scientific love has always been physics, so we discuss the physical scientific aspects of actual alien visitation occasionally. When one understands the physics of the possibility, it becomes quite absurd to believe actual aliens could be visiting this planet. Add to that the ridiculousness of their aim, what people claim to see, the absurdity of a “crash” here, and many other unexplainable events, it becomes clear that even if they COULD manage to get here, the entire argument crumbles from a total logic breakdown. Demons are a much more likely, and unfortunately overlooked, explanation.
To the point, the world will much more readily accept “alien” powers than demonic ones as an explanation for the things to come. Satan’s greatest achievement has been in convincing man he does not exist. Those with eyes should keep them open; when the visitors from another planet “reveal” their presence, you can rest assured they are demonic in nature. Keep your trust in Jesus and do not be afraid; God’s got our back.
As a footnote: I found it interesting that in the beginning of the movie, grace was said at the table, in Jesus name. Another Hollywood swipe at the powerlessness of our God? Boy, are they in for a surprise!
November 14th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
From what I’ve researched (briefly albeit) Abbey Tyler is made up. There’s no record of her being a psychologist according to some who say they looked into records in Alaska.
The disappearances from Nome have been found by the FBI to be people getting lost while drunk as they went back and forth to and from surrounding villages according to other postings on the net.
But even if it is true, demonic possession / oppression is much more likely than aliens (unless you want to consider demons ‘alien’). Satan dreams of being God; the evidence of the entity calling itself god is evidence that the entity is more likely a demon rather than an alien from another planet.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:06 am
That’s interesting that no records of Abbey Tyler exist. If she indeed is a made up entity, well, the film surely had me fooled. The way they used the “real” video clips paired with the disclaimer from the lead actress herself made for a very convincing case that what we were watching was actually real. But then, that’s the way the enemy works isn’t it? He convinces us that something that we are seeing, feeling, or experiencing is real, when in actuality, it is a lie. He is, after all, the father of all lies. His success in our lives completely relies on his ability to get us to believe lies. So I definitely agree that many things that are attributed to aliens today, instances other than what we saw in this particular film, could very well be and probably are rather episodes of demonic activity that Satan has duped us into believing are “alien.”
I think the mysterious disappearance of Abbey’s daughter that night should also be attributed to the devil’s lying tactics. Abbey could never remember anything that happened when she was “abducted.” If it truly was a demonic spirit that was inhabiting her body during these episodes then I would say it’s safe to assume that she could be led to do any number of horrible things, including making her daughter disappear, and have no recollection of doing so. I do not think it is any coincidence that her son still blames her for the disappearance of his sister. I think deep down he knew that Abbey herself had something to do with it.
I think it’s very interesting how much “aliens” and the influence of other worldly forces get us to thinking about spiritual things and the world that exists beyond the purely physical one. Throughout all of it, no matter what our personal beliefs about the existence of other planetary life and aliens, it is most important to remember that we serve a God who is completely in control and The Authority of all of it. No matter what else may or may not be out there, God is The God of all of it and everyone and everything in it. In the end, every knee and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, whether they be here on this planet, or zillions of miles away.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:36 am
To the question of Abbey Tyler’s existence; I am now not convinced she is real; and whether there was any actual video footage or whether any of these events actually happened. The entire story is now a subject for close scrutiny. People much more savvy than I have looked further into this:
http://allthewritesites.blogspot.com/
http://newsminer.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Film+fakery%20&id=4388713&instance=blogs_editors_desk
Hollywood at it’s finest; if the entire story is a hoax, the director and marketers did a great job of fooling people, making for good entertainment ala War of the Worlds; Orson Welles would be proud!. Will we ever know the truth? Maybe; Achem’s Razor is a good measure to use. However, that does not change my opinion that “alien” encounters are really demonic, and that gullible and naive people can unintentionally open the door to them, which is not a worry for anyone who puts their turst in Jesus!
November 20th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
The names were changed so you wont find Abbey Tyler to be a true name just as all the other names.As far as religion goes,it could be possible that God himself took the little girl.I mean what else could have possibly happened?If she was possesed and killed her daughter they must have found a body.Like it is said everything works to the will of God.So possesion or influence from demonic spirits could have been involved,hence the suicide and the murders yet at the same time GOd controls it all according to the scriptures.