Although Alien is often considered one of the best sci-fi horrors ever made, the fact that it's set in the future somewhat precludes it from being cited as an influence in potential hoaxes and the like.

After all, nobody in the film doubts the alien is real or anything and the film plays with the conventions of sci-fi and horror and brings them together. Why are we bringing this up? In a recent interview with Vice, one of the original cast of 1979's Alien - Yaphet Kotto - has spoken up about his experiences with aliens; something that's followed him most of his life.

Kotto, who played Parker, believes that he saw his first alien when he was 9 or 10 years old. "I remember being told I couldn't go outside, so I would look out at the streets of my neighborhood in the Bronx, watching the kids play stickball. When I turned around, a figure was behind me, it was at least five or six feet tall with an elongated head. It appeared, then jumped to the back of me and disappeared. From that moment on, it was one experience after another which culminated into my sighting in the Philippines and during the filming of Alien."

In the interview, Kotto goes on to describe how he saw a UFO "the size of Yankee Stadium turned upside down" over his house in the Philippines, and how the experience messed him up for several days. Yet, in spite of all this, there doesn't appear to be any hard, conclusive evidence of any of Kotto's experiences.

Despite this, Kotto is still adamant of what he saw and what's he experienced - and he's not even doing it to promote anything, either. "This is the reason why I never talked about it after that movie (Alien) because of course, they'd say, "oooh, he's trying to promote his movie." Well, I'm not promoting anything now... This is the time to reveal this because no one can connect it to anything that's a financial gain or form of media exposure. now, if someone asks me if I ever experienced anything that's remotely close to an alien, I'll say "damn right I did." It's happened since I was nine years old and has continued since then."

You can read the full interview here, and judge for yourself.

 

Via Vice