Jose Escamilla

Jose Escamilla was a ufologist and general woo-meister, whose claim to fame was the discovery of the mysterious "rods" over New Mexico. He described himself as a "producer-director" and said he had "editied film and video for over 20 years." Thus it raises the question of whether or not he edited them to support his own nonsense.

UFO documentaries
Prior to his death in December 2018, he released two "documentary" films, covering the so-called UFO cover-up conspiracy.

In the first, UFO, The Greatest Story Ever Denied, he began by referring back to his since-discredited discovery of the flying rods, before going on to discuss everything from the Roswell incident to the Moon landing hoax as if they were real events. He even told the viewer how to capture "invisible" UFOs on film, in broad daylight. However, besides telling you you need identical cameras, one in night mode, he only made reference to a "special conversion" to the night mode camera, leaving you with no idea how to actually set up the cameras.

The film is accompanied by the obligatory grainy and blurred "UFO" photos to the accompaniment of dramatic music, as well as interviews with people who claim to have been high up the conspiracy ladder, who would be willing to "testify before Congress."

He followed this up with Moon Rising, where he explained how he had the sudden revelation that the Moon's surface cannot be concrete-grey, despite what astronauts and Moon rocks might say. So he came up with the bright idea of looking at Earth's colouration from high altitude and applying similar gradients to the Moon's surface. Clearly he forgot about the small fact of the Moon having negligible atmosphere.

Also in Moon Rising he stated that Kunowsky A, a minor satellite crater of the main Kunowsky crater, is a UFO hovering over the lunar surface. So confident was he of this fact that he even included the image of it in his original movie poster artwork.

Surprise, surprise, he found that using this technique reveals that the Moon is simply covered with alien bases, towers, and vehicles (one of which is "10 times the size of LA"). He went on to use this as a basis for the fake horizon lines in NASA's Moon photos (because they reveal ancient artifacts in the background), and to the fake Moon landings, because the occupants of the Moon had warned Earth authorities off on ever landing there again. In true David Icke style, he went on to raise the conspiracy of why all the world's space agencies feature a chevron design in their logos, before concluding with the fact that SDI is not a myth and was in existence long before Reagan dreamed up the idea, and that nuclear weapons are in space, but in order to defend Earth from space aliens. It's a virtual Gish Gallop of every alien conspiracy you can think of.

Comeuppance
In 2010, Escamilla was due to premier a re-edited version of his film at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. However, his backers withdrew at the last minute – presumably having been confronted with what they were putting their names to – forcing him to cancel the premier and leaving him in serious debt.

In fact, the situation was so bad, that he resorted to pleading for donations both on his TBN Films page, as well as on his Facebook page, where he appeared to swing between begging for money and blaming Dr. Steven Greer, founder of the Disclosure Project, for his failures.