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WhatToWatch
WhatToWatch
Entertainment
David Hollingsworth

Netflix adds doc about 'credible' alien abduction — it's perhaps the strangest show of the year

A still from Netflix's The Manhattan Alien Abduction.

Netflix has added The Manhattan Alien Abduction, which tells the story of a New York woman who claims to have been abducted by aliens in the 1980s.

In what’s possibly the strangest docuseries to drop on the steamer this year, The Manhattan Alien Abduction tells the seriously odd story of a woman called Linda Napolitano, who's among those interviewed in the show.

In November 1989, Linda was just your average mum of two when she was allegedly abducted from her 14th-floor apartment in Manhattan. She was plucked from the window and dangled over the city before being taken into the UFO. "They saw me hanging outside my window in a beam of lights," she says in the spooky trailer, which also includes a claim 23 witnesses saw what happened. Linda adds later: "It's not easy to believe, let's face it. But these aliens, if they want you they’re gonna get you."

Another voice says: "I don’t know why they're keeping it from the public, but we're not alone." Another interviewee describes how her husband found Linda's claims "very, very credible".

Netflix promises viewers never-before-seen-footage of these extraordinary events.

The makers tease: "This is the true story behind one of ufology’s greatest mysteries which is still a source of controversy on social media and online forums. But few know that a filmmaker was embedded at the heart of the Manhattan abduction and filmed it all."

Not surprisingly, given the extraordinary claims, Linda was accused of a hoax. "How do we know what’s real?" somebody asks in the trailer. It looks like a strange and haunting documentary and also a fascinating one. Anyone who enjoyed The X Files is sure to enjoy the series. A newspaper published at the time ran with the headline: "New York housewife taken by aliens". And 35 years on the story is still running and what's especially interesting is it looks like key players all feature in the docuseries.

The Manhattan Alien Abduction is on Netflix now.

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