Alien Abduction: The McPherson Tape (Incident in Lake County 1998)

 In 1998, The UPN network presented a documentary titled Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County in which depicts the McPherson family being abducted by Aliens. 

 This recreation of a supposed real tape was filmed using home video to give the appearance of the taping of actual events and has thus led to confusion about its validity. The question remains of where the real tape, if there is one, can be found.

The tape tells the story of the McPherson family gathered for Thanksgiving dinner. The camera is situated in Tommy's left hand. The power goes out. Kurt and Brian go to check the fuses; Tommy follows with his camera. Brian makes attempts to open the box and gets burned. A transformer atop a pole down the road is throwing sparks. Tommy's camera finds eerie lights in the woods. They go investigate.

They find a UFO in a field nearby. Two aliens exit the ship and zap some cows with ray guns. The boys rush back to the house. The men gather some shotguns. Suddenly, there a high-pitched noise and everyone but six-year-old Rose is affected. After strapping a flashlight to his gun barrel, Kurt grabs some keys. He is going to get the SUV and they are all going to leave.

Kurt goes outside; Tommy follows. The truck doesn't start. They try to check the engine, but a light flashes starts smoking. He opens the hood to discover a melted battery. They return to the house. The family is gathered in the living room. Crawling sounds are head on the roof. Kurt leads the way up the stairs, where he is greeted by laser blasts and responds with shotgun blasts. He tells everyone to go downstairs.

A ball of light comes into the house and knocks Renee into a deep sleep. The men leave to find help. The tape jumps ahead an hour and they suffer some lost time. Gunshots can be heard outside and the power starts to flicker. Everyone starts feeling a burning sensation on the backs of their necks. They discover triangle-shaped burns.

Everyone is now hysterical as more shots can be heard outside. Tommy goes outside to discover a couple of mangled shotguns but not his brothers. The camera turns to the woods where we can see strange lights and two figures approaching. Everyone goes back in the house; they barricade the door. The camera is set down and the picture goes black.

Tommy then gives a tearful testimonial and wonders if he'll live to see tomorrow. He searches all the rooms and his bedroom and then suddenly comes face-to-face with an alien. He drops and we see Tommy frozen in a trance-like state. The tape stops. The family and their guests haven't been seen since.

The tape is a depiction of a supposedly real incident; the actors' credits roll at the end. There are many components from pop-culture's alien abduction scenario and that makes this tape a bit suspicious. Whatever you believe, this is an eerie and highly entertaining piece of footage.