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Creators and visitors recall Disney World’s short-lived ExtraTERRORestrial, its origins as an Alien movie ride, and the role of… George Lucas?
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Creators and visitors recall Disney World’s short-lived ExtraTERRORestrial, its origins as an Alien movie ride, and the role of… George Lucas?
Read by Lawrence Kao and written by Clarisse Loughrey. Theme song by Lofi Geek.
Read by Lawrence Kao and written by Clarisse Loughrey. Theme song by Lofi Geek.
The original article on The Companion: https://www.thecompanion.app/2020/12/14/the-myths-and-mysteries-of-disney-worlds-nightmare-attraction-extraterrorestrial-alien-encounter/
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You're listening to the
Companions audio articles, a new
series that features our best
stories on the companion. I'm
Lawrence Kao. I grew up in
Southern California, only 15
minutes away from Disneyland. As
a kid, I didn't realise just how
lucky I was. Every time I
reached a certain number of
hours of community service,
making it onto the honour roll,
or even just relatives visiting
from abroad, I would find myself
giving tours of the happiest
place on earth. By the time I
was in high school, even my
marching band would be invited
each year to perform down Main
Street and our compensation, a
day off school to explore the
park we knew so well. However,
having one of the world's
greatest theme parks in your
backyard did have one drawback.
It meant never getting the
opportunity to visit Disney
World, the much bigger park in
Orlando. You would hear stories
on how much better it was.
Although, I don't know if I
always believed them. I guess
that's how much of a homer I am.
Nevertheless, I was left
curious. One of those rides was
this mysterious mythical out of
place attraction. And that's the
story I'd like to tell you about
today. Written by Clarisse
Loughreythis is the myths and
mysteries of Disney Worlds
nightmare attraction.
ExtraTERRORestriall Alien
Encounter. You hear the crunch
of splintering bones of Gulf.
hot, sticky breath trickles down
the back of your neck. You are
not alone. Here in the deep,
lonely, dark. Whatever this is
this crawling thing. It's not
human. You want to run but
can't. It sat on your shoulders,
lightly digging its claws into
your flesh, a screen. Then
another one. A spray of liquid
hits your face was that spit?
Blood. Only those who lived
through it may remember. But in
the late 90s You could
experience all of this and more
in the most magical place on
Earth. Walt Disney World in
Orlando, Florida. for just under
a decade ExtraTERRORestrial
Alien Encounter sat in the
Tomorrowland section of Disney's
Magic Kingdom. Somewhere in
between the Coca Cola stands and
the giant bins of plushies.
Here, you'd come face to face
with a ravenous slobbering alien
teleported into the room from
some distant planet. After the
lights went out, it would run
around eat a few guests caused
some havoc before eventually
being teleported away. You'd
walk back out into the bright
Florida sunshine, relieved that
you'd survived such a harrowing
adventure. Alien Encounter was a
Theatre in the Round style
attraction, installed into the
space previously occupied by
Mission to Mars, an opportunity
for guests to experience all the
simulated thrills of space
travel. It contains two separate
show theatres, each
accommodating around 180 guests.
Its history is brief, but
shrouded in myth and hearsay. It
first opened for previews on the
16th of December 1994, but was
closed after less than a month
long before the general public
ever had the chance to see it.
Disney's Imagineers the parks
design team retooled the show
and ready to for an official
opening on 20th of June. It
attracted near instant
notoriety. There was talk of
traumatised kids and incensed
parents who couldn't believe
that a drooling carnivorous
alien had crashed landed into
the middle of their perfect
holiday. It was so frightening.
It seemed really out of sync
with the rest of the rides at
Disney says Kirsty Ward, who was
only eight years old when she
first went on alien encounter.
When you're six the boundaries
between what is free reality and
what is not are blurred, says
Callum Birrell, remembering a
family trip to the Magic Kingdom
in 1996. On some level, I
probably understood that it was
all part of the gag. But any
rational part of my brain was
overridden by the sheer,
visceral and nightmarish
elements of the attraction.
Alien Encounter would eventually
close on the 12th of October
2003. In its place, Disney would
open Stitch’s Great Escape!,
which took advantage of the
popularity of Lilo & Stitch’s
puppy-like, blue-tinted
extraterrestrial star.. But in
many ways, it was the same
attraction. Only with the scares
now replaced by chilli cheese
burps than mischievious tickles.
Stitches Great Escape had his
final run on the sixth of
January 2018, with Disney this
year, confirming that the ride
was closed for good. The space
now lies empty, waiting, but the
memory of Alien Encounter lives
on. It's one of the only Disney
rides to have masked a genuine
cult following. Though the
company has buried almost all
reminders of its existence, fans
will still enthusiastically
trade T shirts, pins and
plushies Disney's Parks had
never seen anything like it
before. And they may never again
Alien Encounter may have been
inappropriate, says Callum but
it had integrity. It wanted to
make me cry, and it did. Terror
incognita. I have my own memory
of Alien Encounter, or to be
more specific. I have a memory
of missing out on it. My family
were on a Disney World trip at
some point in the early 2000s.
We'd come across an ominous
looking building, with its tall
spire and darkness within it
stood out like a half gangrened
thumb. The warnings plastered
all over the entrance. A
frightening theatrical
experience. Loud noises total
darkness triggered a family
meeting. My father, our
designated lab rat will go in
alone and report back. I'm not
sure what my brother and I did.
In the meantime, maybe we just
poked around the gift store. But
I do remember the exact moment
my father returned. Ashen faced
his head shaking vigorously. We
avoided all talk of a the
encounter for the rest of the
trip. And so I've had to
carefully construct an image of
the ride from the various video
recordings and written
descriptions now tucked away on
the internet. You would first
arrive at the Tomorrowland
interplanetary convention
centre, where the right is meant
to take place by invitation of
an alien corporation known asX-S
Tech and its chairman, LC
Clench. The queue line with
screens detailing other schedule
events like the championship pet
show and the Walt Disney
company's pan galactic
stockholders meeting. As always,
the parks never miss an
opportunity to break the fourth
wall. An alien with a curved
elongated skull, a pre fame Tyra
Banks so her voice was dubbed by
another actor within detail the
history of X-S Tech, “the
galaxy’s leader in innovative
high technology”. Their slogan,
“Those Who Seized”, already
seemed to hint that something
more nefarious could be at play.
Guests were ushered into a
demonstration room, overseen by
X-S Tech's most advanced cyber
robotic performance unit to
date. Simulated intelligence
robotics, or SIR for short, and
Tim Curry's smooth haughty
tones, sir, we'll talk through a
new teleportation system before
pointing to Skippy the days
guinea pig, a big guide,
elephant nose scamp of an alien
he'd sit in a glass tube off to
the side and who nervously at
every beat of service speech. At
the press of a button, Skippy
disappeared and a Bluster of
flashing lights and garbled
squeaks as the tube at the other
end of the room would start to
pulsate. And voila, Skippy
returned in barbecue form
sizzled to a crisp,
after tiring of the creatures
protestations, sir would
teleport Skippy once more,
leaving him in indefinite
suspended animation. A set of
doors with Then open to a second
circular chamber. rows of seats
were centred around a
teleportation tube much larger
in size this time. Guests would
be seated before harnesses
descended from overhead. Here,
we'd be introduced to two more
X-S Tech employees Spinlock and
Dr. Femus. Their plan was to
transport a guest, not just
across the room, but across the
entire span of the universe. As
machines scan the audience for
suitable volunteer, there'll be
a sudden interruption by Clench.
You'd hear yelling in the
distance as he stumbled into
view his sentences odd and
hasty. He would be the one
teleporting now, and it had to
happen fast. Somewhere in the
chaos, a lever was pulled in the
teleportation signal passed
through an unknown planet on its
way to Earth, accidentally
picking up a hitchhiker it was
trapped in the tube now, as the
fog cleared its features would
gradually come into view,
glowing eyes, razor sharp teeth,
horns, pincers, spindly limbs
and to translucent wings,
unfurling like Battle standards.
In a panic state, it would start
to smash its head and limbs
against the glass, the tube
would break just as the room
felt dark. You'd then hear a
chorus of screams, some pre
recorded and some from your
fellow guests. I remember my mom
trying to come from me, telling
me that it was only make belief,
but she was largely drowned out
by the sound of my own screams
says column. The thrum of wings
signalled that the alien was
moving through the room, landing
on guests and pushing down on
the restraints. I also think my
dad who sat behind me may have
tried to wind me up at some
point before it started grabbing
my arm Kirsty recalls, but this
could just be an effect of how
scared I was. At one point, a
confused mechanic, actually, a
cast member with a flashlight
would walk down the catwalk
above everyone's heads. He'd be
promptly eaten as blood dripped
down on the audience. Alien
Don't eat me eat this one. It
pre recorded cry will bring out
the alien settled behind you. It
snarled. sniffled then lit the
back of your head. Right at that
moment, Femus would lower the
creature back to its cage
attempting to return it to its
home planet. With the
teleportation malfunction, and
explosion sent alien guts flying
across the room. Oh, my mouth
was open a voice in the crowd
with yelp. At least you are free
alien encounter was created to
induce the feeling of pure
terror, not the electric thrill
of a roller coaster. And for the
90s it was a genuinely radical
thing to see, not only in Disney
World, but in any of America's
major parks. Intensive immersive
horror experiences are now
commonplace thanks to the
exponential growth of universals
halloween horror nights where
each year its parks will play
host to evermore elaborate mazes
and scare zones. Even Hong Kong
Disneyland has hopped on the
bandwagon since 2007 is offered
seasonal horror walkthroughs
inspired by properties like The
Nightmare Before Christmas, or
Alice in Wonderland. But, for
the most part, Disney has always
been about the creepy, never the
outright scary. Think of the
ghoulish right expressions of
the operators on the haunted
mansion with a Twilight Zone
Tower of Terror. Think of their
dimly lit hallways, elegantly
peppered with cobwebs. In fact,
the Imagineers, who first worked
on the Haunted Mansion would
frequently clash over the rise
proposed tone, a compromise was
reached. The right starts out
eerie and foreboding, but ends
with one big phantasmal party.
Disney's parks after all our
family parks, and that's how
they've always been in space.
Everyone can hear you scream.
Alien Encounter owes its
existence to a single piece of
technology binaural sound which
describes the effect of
recording on two separate
microphones with the intent of
creating a kind of 3d sphere of
sound. On the ride. Individual
speakers are mounted onto the
shoulder restraints next to each
ear. screams could be made to
sound like they were coming from
the person sitting next to you.
To give the impression the alien
was moving around the room.
Banks of subwoofers would create
heavy pounding vibrations that
felt like footsteps, water
spring boilers and air blasters
installed into the row in front
could stand in for drool blood,
breath, or an explosion of guts.
A soft textile tube with air
blown through it served as the
aliens tongue. Falling Walt
Disney's death in 1966, the
company fell into somewhat of a
slump. Following Walt Disney’s
death in 1966, the company fell
into somewhat of a slump. We
witnessed the era of The Black
Cauldron (1985) and Return to Oz
(1985) – strange, dark films
that barely made a dent at the
box office. In the late 80s,
Michael Eisner took over as
chairman of the company and kick
started a full scale
rejuvenation. In animation. He
ushered in the Disney
Renaissance that began with the
little mermaid in 1989. He
oversaw Disney's takeover of ABC
and ESPN, while also making sure
the parks fell in line with the
tastes of contemporary pop
culture. In 1987, Star Tours, a
motion simulator through the
many planets of the Star Wars
franchise became the first
attraction based on a non Disney
property. It was a massive hit.
So Eisner naturally began to
ruminate on what else its
creator George Lucas could offer
the parks having already served
as the executive producer on
Captain EO in 1986, a 3d film
headlined by Michael Jackson. At
a meeting with a director
alongside key Imagineers and
executives. The idea of binaural
sound was offered up, an idea
started to percolate, a sci fi
themed haunted house attraction,
where the technology could be
used to give the impression, a
monstrous alien was on the
loose. Tom Fitzgerald, who
served as the creative lead on
Star Tours, was enamoured by the
concept and went away to develop
it further on his own. Dan
Molitor joined the project as
its official writer in 1988.
mere months after he'd first
started working for Disney, I
wrote dozens of scripts created
video animatics and mock ups he
tells me after I reached out to
him to ask a few questions about
the behind the scenes process. I
worked with the rest of the
creative team to develop visual
styles, special effects, sound
design, and the design of what
would become the final creature.
That part of the story has
always been uncontested. It's
the rest of Alien Encounters
history that's ended up riddled
with rumours and half truths.
Some say the concept for the
ride originates from an aborted
Nostromo attraction, which would
have taken place inside of the
iconic spacecraft from 1979's
Alien and outfitted guests with
laser guns so they could shoot
down Xenomorphs a little like
Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger
Spin, which exists today. The
first iteration of Alien
Encounter then was supposedly
based on the film, though senior
imagineers. were horrified at
the thought of an R rated
property in the parks. Others
claim Lucas was behind a
discarded storyline with a major
twist that the extraterrestrial
was friendly and only wanted to
escape. In truth, Lucas had very
little to do with alien
encounter.
He was busy with other projects
and wasn't that interested
Molitor says a copy of his
script was sent to Lucasfilm for
approval. So he's not sure that
anyone at the company actually
read it. The director's name
only appeared in the rights
marquee as part of contractual
obligations, since he'd been in
attendance during its initial
conception. And while there was
a version of Alien Encounter
that included the Xenomorph it
was neither central nor
essential to the project's
future, largely because of the
Disney MGM Studio project, which
opened in 1989. It is now called
Disney's Hollywood Studios, and
Eisener's belief that the parks
needed more IP based
attractions, the company was
actively pursuing outside IPs
says Molitor. When working on
the initial concept, Fitzgerald
crafted two different versions,
one the feature to original
characters, and one that could
be built around Ridley Scott's
Alien. The latter would have
integrated Sigourney Weaver's
Ripley in both video and
animatronic form as well as the
Weyland Yutani Corporation. But
as Molitor makes clear, both
were pretty much the same, and
very close to what was
eventually built. As time went
on, Disney's efforts to
accumulate outside IPs began to
stall. Largely because studios
like Fox and Paramount had
started to develop their own
theme parks, and the alien
concept fell by the wayside. to
the newly opened Disney-MGM
Studios. Fox had agreed to let
an animatronic Xenomorph and
Ripley appear as part of the
Great Movie Ride, which
transported guests through
iconic scenes from films like
The Wizard of Oz (1939) and
Casablanca (1942). The pair
remained there until the ride’s
closure in 2017. Tomorrowland
belongs to me. Alien Encounter
was first proposed for
Disneyland as part of its
botched Tomorrowland 2055
renovation, which envisioned an
intergalactic future awash with
visiting aliens and strange,
clandestine crystals. Here,
Alien Encounter would have been
wrapped in an imposing Art Deco
facade, taking a cue from the
biomechanical chimaeras of HR
Giger imagination, and featuring
pillars that took the form of
hunched, oppressed humanoids.
Though the development of
Tomorrowland 2055 went on for
several years, it never really
excited anyone. Molitor admits.
It was eventually scrapped when
financial troubles connected to
the opening of Disneyland Paris.
Then Euro Disney in 1992, saw
major projects cancelled across
the board. The company instead
focused on a $100 million retro
futuristic makeover of the magic
kingdom's Tomorrowland, inspired
by the pulp space comics of the
1930s intergalactic payphones
and metallic palm trees
included. The Alien Encounter
project was revived only to face
another long stretch of
obstacles. One of the most
difficult, which was never
really overcome was trying to
figure out how scary it would
be, says Molitor. There was a
clear and sometimes heated
divide within the Disney team,
much like battles over the
Haunted Mansion in the 1960s
some Balt at the overt horror
elements, others argued that the
park could do more to appeal to
teen guests. You'll often hear
the story of how Eisner son
Breck after an invitation to
Disneyland. bullishly declared
that places lame dad, the
chairman was quick to heed those
words. In the late 80s fantasy
lands video propolis theatre
would transform nightly into a
neon drenched, pop blasting
dance club. But as Molitor
laments these two sides were
never able to reconcile, and the
attraction suffered as a result,
trying to please both sides
while ending up pleasing no one.
It didn't help that the
project's migration between two
different parts mended often
paths between teams and
competing visions. The iteration
the first open for previews in
1994. Featured instead of Tim
Curry, sir, a more hospitable
robot by the name of Tom 2000,
or the ‘Technobotic Oratorical
Mechanism’ series 2000, voiced
by Phil Hartman, the man behind
The Simpsons' Troy McClure. But
the all singing joke cracking
host failed to prepare audiences
for what really lay ahead.
Imagineers spent the next six
months trying to redress that
balance at this point, Molitor
left the project and Mike West
took over as writer. There were
issues to the binaural sound, as
Molitor explains, they require a
quiet environment in order to
work. But rather than quietly
sitting there and fear guests
did what anyone but a diluted
Imagineer would do scream their
lungs out at its first public
showing and despite the
protestations of Imagineers
several children were allowed
into the audience. As soon as
the lights started to dim, a
small boy began to weigh on Mom,
get me out of here, get me out,
get me out. It was hard to get
back control of the room after
that point. The live actor the
mechanic on the catwalk was
added as a way to shift the pace
of the show. There were other
smaller changes to the audio and
to the physical effects. But it
was never quite enough to save
Alien Encounter, which spent its
entire run, treated as if it
were the black sheep of the
Disney World family. Today,
there are still a handful of
signs of its existence. At
California Adventures Guardians
of the Galaxy Mission: breakout,
you'll find a paper invoice from
X-S Tech left out somewhere in
the queue. As Molitor says, I
think the right audience would
have embraced the show even back
then. Perhaps it didn't belong
in the Magic Kingdom. So close
to the ever smiling mechanical
children of it's a small world.
Perhaps it was just ahead of its
time. Disney has since gone out
of its way to accommodate older
guests, Epcot now regularly
boasts food and wine festivals,
while places like Star Wars
Galaxies Edge. Pandora – The
World of Avatar, and the
upcoming Avengers Campus have
expanded on the very idea of
what a Disney park should look
like. With the Alien franchise
now under Disney's ownership,
thanks to its takeover of 20th
Century Fox, the company now has
a swathe of R rated film
franchises that eventually, they
will want to take advantage of.
Is it too wild to dream that
Alien Encounter might one day
return? Will we ever see a
Xenomorph crawling through the
vents of Tomorrowland? The most
magical place on earth could do
with wreaking a little havoc.
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