Derren Nesbitt will be interviewed at the Cinema Museum in London on Saturday May 25th!

The Italian Section of SHADO website has been updated recently, with news of their next UFO event featuring guest Ian Wingrove (special effects), plus their Q&A with Mike Trim (designer) has been expanded!

On YouTube, I've uploaded a video of my interview with Antonia Ellis (Lt Joan Harrington) from the 2004 San Diego Comic Con!

Here is a nice overview/update on the Staker's car replica!

This UFO movie trailer was posted today on YouTube!

Issue 15 of Andersonic is now available, and this issue includes interviews with UFO special effects assistant Tony Harding and sound editor Tony Roper, plus has an in-depth look at the UFO episode "The Responsibility Seat"!

The Italian Section of SHADO (ISOSHADO) is now accepting membership registrations for 2013!  This year's membership bonus is a replica of the "space junk" poster seen in the UFO episode CONFLICT.  More details (in Italian and in English) can be found here.

Here is an article about Dolores Mantez, who passed away a couple of months ago.

According to this page, the long-delayed UFO film will begin production in the first quarter of 2013!

More sad news this month - UFO co-creator and producer Gerry Anderson has passed away at age 83.

Since the release of the Japanese UFO Blu-ray discs, I've been updating this page with additional details and frame capture comparisons with the old UK DVD release.  For the most part, I think the Blu-ray is an improvement with it's increased detail.  However, as the frame captures demonstrate, there are some areas where Blu-rays are not as good as they should be -- the most glaring example of this is when the aspect ratio suddenly changes from 4:3 to 16:9 in the middle of ORDEAL!

Some sad news -- according to Fanderson, Dolores Mantez (Lt. Nina Barry on UFO) has passed away at age 74.

The Japanese UFO Blu-ray discs have been released!  For now, I have posted some photos here on Facebook (shouldn't require a Facebook account to view).  Note that the discs turned out to be region-free, so they will play on any Blu-ray player around the world!   So far, I've only sampled bits and pieces, and I must admit that I'm a bit dissapointed in the video transfer -- I think we were all spoiled by the restoration work that was done for the previous DVD release, and this HD version was not done by the same people.  Now don't get me wrong -- certainly there is a lot here that looks great, but it's not very consistent, and I swear there are some parts that look worse on these Blu-rays than they did on DVD.  I'll be posting some comparisons in the near future.

On this site, I've merged the "Character Photos", "Hardware Photos", and "Behind-the-Scenes Photos" pages into a single Publicity Photos page, which now has a search engine to help you find what you are looking for.  New photos will appear at the top of the gallery (I've added one new photo of Joanna played by Shakira Baksh).  Also, for those of you on Facebook, I will also add any new UFO publicity photos to this UFO page -- if you "Like" that page, the photos will automatically appear on your Facebook wall when they are added.

During the weekend of November 25 and 26, the RAF museum near Birmingham England will be hosting Cosford Flights of Fantasy, and will be featuring a display of models, costumes, and sets from Gerry Anderson's Space:1999 and UFO!  UPDATE: The new replica of Straker's car based on castings of the original will not be on display at this event, as it will not be ready by then.

I've added a page that contains what's currently known about the upcoming Japanese UFO Blu-ray discs.

From today's The Digital Bits: "Finally, we've got a couple title updates for you. First, we've learned that Network doesn't currently have the U.K. release rights to Gerry Andersons' UFO and Thunderbirds so they can't release Blu-ray versions there. A&E does have the U.S. rights to both series and is considering releasing them on BD. However it's very early in the process so there's nothing concrete to report yet."

(my comment: ITV most likely has the UK release rights to UFO and Thunderbirds, and it doesn't appear that "The Digital Bits" checked with them)

Geneon Universal have posted a trailer on YouTube for their upcoming Japanese UFO Blu-ray Box.  View this in 720p for the best quality.

Following up on yesterday's news, here is the manufacturers web page for the upcoming Japanese UFO (and Thunderbirds) Blu-ray discs!  I think this confirms that this is in the original 4:3 aspect ratio and also includes the original English mono audio (along with a 5.1 English track and a mono Japanese track).

The good news?  UFO will be released in high definition on Blu-ray disc in Japan on December 5, 2012!  The bad news?  These are very expensive... around 325 US dollars!  Here is the listing on the Japanese Amazon.com.  As for the aspect ratio, the description seems to indicate that it is 4:3 (the original aspect ratio), which would mean that this is not the same cropped transfer that was used for the American TV broadcasts from 2006.

The fan film "UFO: 2099" (Part 1) that was recently shown at the Alpha: 2012 convention is now on YouTube!

Issue 14 of Andersonic is now available, and this issue includes an article about the unfilmed UFO script "The Patriot", plus a review of the UFO episode MINDBENDER!

The Ed Straker Herald is out with a new edition - the "Girlie" edition, which features serial updates, short stories, articles, and artwork!

In Portland Oregon USA, the Hollywood Theatre is going to be showing an episode of UFO and Space:1999 on Thursday August 23!

Here is a very rare (and expensive) item on eBay -- a pair of UFO pajamas!

The folks who created the spoof video UFO:1999 are now working on another installment, to be shown at the upcoming Space:1999 convention in California. Here is a promo video for the new installment.

The new UFO Blu-ray disc from Germany is (as suspected) a standard definition release, with the following details:

• 9 episodes on a single Blu-ray disc
• Standard definition PAL: 576x720 resolution, 25 fps, 4:3 aspect ratio
• Not region-restricted, but you'd need a player that can play PAL
• About the same quality previously released on DVD
• MPEG-2 video encoding, each episode around 2gb, total disc contents 18gb
• Most episodes contain 2 audio tracks - English and German (192kbps mono)
• Some episodes only have English audio (with German subtitles)
• No deleted scenes, special features, or commentary tracks
• The packaging incorrectly says "Widescreen" and "16:9"

EagleTransporter.com's "The Captain's Store" has released a new model kit of the Alien craft from UFO!

The good news? In Germany, UFO has been announced for release on Blu-ray disc! The bad news? WIth nine episodes crammed onto a single disc, this is most likely not in high definition.

Great news for lovers of Straker's car! A replica is now being made using molds of the original car (which has been rotting away in someone's backyard for many years). More details and photos can be seen here.

It appears that last week's rumor might be false -- TheDIgitalBits.com has contacted A&E, and were told that A&E is still working on their previously planned Space:1999 Blu-ray release... so perhaps there is also hope for a UFO Blu-ray from A&E at some point...

Rumor has it that A&E has discontinued all of their Gerry Anderson titles on DVD & Blu-ray in the USA, due to poor sales.

Actor Philip Madoc, who appeared in the UFO episodes A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES and DESTRUCTION, has passed away at the age of 77.

In Miscellaneous Collectibles, added scans of the UK UFO Viewmaster booklet!

The most recent episode of the TV series "Fringe" (episode title: "Novation") featured a UFO TV series lunchbox! Here's a clip on YouTube.

The Wikipedia spoof site "Uncyclopedia" now has a humorous entry for Gerry Anderson's UFO!

Filming started yesterday on the British science-fiction film "UFO"... oh wait, this is not the remake of the "UFO" television series, but something completely different!

The website for the UFO film has been updated with a note from the producers, stating that the release date has been delayed until the Summer of 2013, and also a movie poster has been added to the "Gallery" section.

Some sad news - Keith Wilson (UFO assistant art director, costume, and set designer) has just recently passed away.

The Italian Section of SHADO website has been updated with the possiblity of an Italian UFO event in October, a possible precursor to the UFO spacecraft in a 1960's episode of THE AVENGERS, ISOSHADO T-Shirts, UFO being released on DVD in Portugal, a modified Product Enterprise Gay Ellis model, and a computer-generated Straker's car!