Skeptoid's next feature documentary is...
Skeptoid Media continues the tradition of providing fun fact-based information for all.
So, yeah. It’s going to be about UFOs. Sort of.
I will open by reiterating a couple of points:
This Substack is Brian’s personal project. It has no affiliation with Skeptoid Media.
Regardless, I am the Exec Director of Skeptoid Media, and since it’s public, I can tell you that our mission statement opens with:
Skeptoid Media promotes media literacy, curiosity, and critical thinking through engaging and educational multimedia content. By instilling the principles of scientific reasoning and skepticism, we encourage our audience to discern fact from fiction and science from the sensational, thereby building and fostering skills that last a lifetime.
That’s a pretty broad mission. There are a lot of things we could talk about, a lot of different possible topics to focus on. So why UFOs? (Our last movie was about UFOs.)
OK. So. We are strictly an indie production house. We receive no outside funding. Our films are financed by private grants and donations by people who agree that our mission is an important one. It all converges upon me to decide what the next film will be. And I’m in that position because I’m good at it.
As an indie, our distribution is going to be mainly algorithm driven. More AIs will decide whether to carry our film than humans. So we look at metrics like: What are people typing into TV apps when looking for something to watch? The phrasing there is important. People type different things when they are searching on:
A web search engine, like Google
A podcast app
A TV app (like AppleTV, Hulu, Netflix, the list goes on)
Searching their phone or computer for something
Asking an AI a question
Thus the important of phrasing. I don’t care what people search for on Google; for this purpose, I care what they type into their TV app. What words, what order, what phrasing. Whatever’s most popular, that’s the vehicle for our next film.
As a nonprofit we have the luxury of being mission driven, not profit driven. Meaning we want to improve the world, and we don’t have to abandon that goal in favor of doing something more profitable for ourselves.
However, it turns out that those two motivations intersect. Kind of a lot. When a film is popular, more people see it, and its message has a greater impact.
Impact statements are crucial for a nonprofit. Our major donors want to know (rightfully) what impact we had this year. We are teaching basic science literacy and the importance of scientific skepticism and critical thinking. The more impact we have, the more people benefit from our message.
Something like 25 million people have watched The UFO Movie. That’s impact.
So when we look at the data, we’re able to find a specific genre where we will have the most impact. Our message will be the same no matter what the genre is: I can write a script to teach scientific skepticism whether the vehicle is UFOs, Wild West gunmen, flying wing mechanics, or a sneak peek inside the LEGO factory.
Sign up here to get the emails about the film, and how and when you can become a part of it: https://theufo.movie
And so, as of the end of 2025, the data tells us that if we have the word UFO in the title, we will have more impact than any other keyword would give us. So here is how I’m going to make a great film that makes the world a better place, yet has the self-ridiculing term UFO in its title:
