“Alien language” presented by CIA & Disney

By Robbie Graham

Silver Screen Saucers



Nordic aliens in Disney's Race to Witch Mountain (2009).



One of the most eyebrow-raising cases of government involvement in a Hollywood UFO movie in recent years is that of Race to Witch Mountain (2009), which apparently received extensive support from the CIA – albeit in an ‘off the books’ capacity – despite its plot drawing extensively from UFO mythology (with references both to Area 51 and Roswell) and its presentation of a sinister government UFO cover-up.

In 2010, the film's director, Andy Fickman – a self-described “UFO enthusiast” born and raised in Roswell, New Mexico – told me that, although he personally shaped the majority of the film’s UFO-related content, at least some of it was the result of CIA input. The director claims that, in a highly unusual production arrangement, he and his crew were closely assisted by an active employee of the CIA whose advice extended to designing the alien writing seen in the flying saucer during the film’s climactic scenes. 

Race to Wicth Mountain: inside the flying saucer.

Despite my best efforts, Fickman has been unwilling to reveal to me the identity of his CIA advisor, but claims he’s a former Air Force Technical Intelligence Officer, that he had been “very active in Hollywood,” and “had a lot of connections in the computer world and [experience in] satellite imagery.” Fickman said of his CIA advisor:
All of the on-camera alien language in terms of their spaceship and everything – that was all designed by him in the sense [of what] the mathematics of communication would be, so you know... there would be a similar mathematical equation that the government probably has if they were to ever come across an alien race. So a lot of the things we ended up using were things he was bringing to me... and the next thing you know, that’s what I had on screen.

The alien “language” to which Fickman refers appears onscreen in Race to Witch Mountain in the form of holographic symbols aboard the Nordic aliens’ flying saucer. Some are simple, some are more elaborate. Presented below are three of the most frequently recurring symbols that appear in the climactic scenes of the movie...

The question, of course, is what do these symbols mean? Besides them bearing a passing resemblance to certain crop formations (the authenticity of which is debatable), it is difficult to ascribe any significance to them beyond the fact that they were designed by an alleged CIA operative.

Has the CIA, in cooperation with Disney, presented us with real alien symbols / language? If so, to what conceivable end? In all likelihood, the symbols mean nothing, but it would be remiss of me not to throw them out there for feedback. Your comments are welcome.

More information on CIA involvement in Race to Witch Mountain can be found in my article UFOs and Disney: Behind the Magic Kingdom.