A three man space shuttle crew (including Gary Collins and James Hampton) encounter a UFO in space while launching a satellite. The odd man out gets decapitated when the satellite and UFO collide, sending the alien ship down to Earth where the US government snags it. They place it in Hangar 18 so the head of NASA (Darren McGavin) and his team can study it. Things get complicated when the President's Chief of Staff (Robert Vaughn) goes overboard on covering the story up ("The election is just two weeks away") and creates a fake story about the two astronauts being responsible for their colleague's death (this makes things easier how?). Of course, our two heroes have seen CAPRICORN ONE and aren't going to stand for this cover-up. This is pretty standard stuff but an enjoyable 97 minutes thanks to the lead performances. Well, Collins does have one screeching bit. Vaughn probably did only a couple of days work as they always cut away to him orchestrating things in his office. The leaps the filmmakers take with him are hilarious (his team has a file on the town layabout who saw the UFO land) and the plot holes are plenty (if silence is necessary for these two weeks pre-election, why not lock up the two astronauts you already have detained). The film opens with a "this is a true story about our government" scroll so the audiences knew the real deal.
