The Man Who Loved UFOs, directed by Diego Lerman, is based on the true story of the journalist Jose Jaime Maussan Flota, who claimed that life beyond Earth was not a figment of imagination. Throughout his career, he tried his level best to substantiate his claims, to find evidence, to prove his theories, but in the end, the world came to know that it was all one big lie. The people who wanted to believe in his narrative still did, but he was not able to provide a single piece of evidence that could substantiate the credibility of his theories. So, let’s find out what happened in the film and if Jose told such lies intentionally or unintentionally.
Spoiler Alert
What happened to Jose in Sanai?
I believe what happened with Jose in Sinai played a key role in shaping his ideologies and also making him delusional. It is not a hidden fact that in real life, too, all the claims that Jose presented in front of the Mexican authorities were refuted because he had no evidence to back them up. So basically, Jose was a part of the six-day war in the Middle East, and he was stuck in the Sinai desert without food and water for multiple days. He believed that during that time, he saw something in the sky, which he later said was a UFO. In my personal opinion, Jose was hallucinating. I don’t deny that he would have felt an eerie presence due to all the fatigue and dehydration, but if truth be told, it was merely a figment of his imagination and nothing else. It left an imprint on Jose’s subconscious mind, and I don’t think even he knew the kind of impact it would have on him in the future. So, in The Man Who Loved UFOs, we saw that Jose was taking an interview when he suddenly felt sick and became unconscious. He woke up in the hospital, and the doctors told him that there could be multiple reasons why he lost consciousness. That’s when Pedro Echevarriaza, the president of Cerro Mining Cooperative, came to meet him and asked him to do a story on his city, Candelaria. The place was known for many reasons, but Pedro wanted to boost tourism there, and that’s why he wanted his city to feature on national television. Pedro told Jose about how, back in the day, many people sighted UFOs there and believed that there was a treasure hidden in the mountain caves. Pedro told Jose very clearly that he only wanted him to boost tourism and nothing else, but Jose only heard one thing, i.e., the UFO. He went to Candelaria, and the only thing he did there was to fabricate evidence to try to prove to the world that whatever he felt in Sinai, whatever he told them about Candelaria was all true.
How did Jose fabricate evidence?
Jose literally scammed the people of his country. He cast actors and people and told them to accept on camera that they, too, saw extraterrestrial beings in the sky or at least felt the presence of something otherworldly in their vicinity. There is a scene in The Man Who Loved UFOs where we saw that Jose told a little boy to make his performance more convincing so that the country believed that whatever he was saying was the truth. The most surprising thing for me was that overnight this man became a sensation, so much so that people waited for just an autograph of him. Jose also did a TV show, and I must say that broadcasting outlets supported him because all they wanted was TRP, and they didn’t care if whatever he was doing was right or wrong. I believe Jose would have been one of the pioneers who started the culture of spreading fake news just for the public. In the film, we saw that Checho and Sapo, his superiors, were in awe of him, and they felt bad for not trusting his instincts since the very beginning. They didn’t care if they were feeding lies to the people of the nation or not, all they wanted was their show to become popular. Surprisingly, Jose’s daughter didn’t believe him one bit, and many times, she asked her father why he was spreading the lies. Jose remained in denial from the start to the end, and he promised his daughter that he would provide her with solid evidence to prove his claims.
In The Man Who Loved UFOs’ ending, Jose called for a helicopter, and he saw a shining light in the sky, which he believed to be a UFO. Later, he went inside one of the caves in the region and got stuck there. The news channels hyped him up, and the narrative that was sold to the nation was that the man was risking his life to bring the truth to light. When Jose was rescued from the cave, he became a national hero, and the masses somewhat bought into his narrative, primarily due to sensationalism.
Did Jose Believe That Aliens Existed?
The problem I had with The Man Who Loved UFOs is that it left an element of doubt in the minds of the viewers when the true story was that everything was plain and clear. In real life, Jose Jaime Maussan Flota wasn’t able to provide any evidence to substantiate his claims. There was a scene in the film where Jose was told that the burnt grass he found on the hill was not anybody’s doing. Probably, that was the moment when he started entertaining the fact that aliens did exist. From finding alien corpses to extraterrestrial engravings in the cave, the man told all sorts of lies. I do think that at that moment, it could be possible that his judgment would have been impaired, and he would have believed his imagination to be a reality due to some mental health issues.
When I researched about Jose’s real life events I felt that his stay in Sinai had a huge role to play in the scheme of things. Also, he had people around him who supported his claim; probably that’s why he became even more delusional. His daughter questioned him on each and every step, but he remained adamant about the fact that life beyond Earth was not merely a figment of his imagination. At the beginning of the film, we saw that he suddenly became unconscious, though later in the medical reports, nothing came out. I believe that Jose was not of sound mental health, but he had such a reputation that people couldn’t negate his claims upfront. Even his assistant, Chango, was influenced by his narrative, and started to think that there were probably aliens around them.
Where is Jose now?
In reality, Jose’s theories were nothing but a hoax, though he never came to terms with that fact, probably because he was way too delusional to see the reality. Jose stays in the outskirts of Mexico City, and he stands by whatever he said in the past. He still encourages enthusiasts to research about Unidentified Flying Objects and not get demoralized by what people say or believe. Jose still believes that scientists are not aware about the magic of nature and what all mysteries the universe holds within its grasp. He still, quite confidently, sticks to the fact that he mummified alien corpses and that he has solid evidence that could prove the existence of aliens. Jose is still pretty much active as of now, and he organizes meet and greets with his fans, his ardent believers, on a regular basis, who strongly feel that whatever he did, whatever he speculated was actually true, in spite of his inability to provide any evidence to substantiate his claims.
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