Kit:          Testor’s 1/48^th scale Area 51 UFO

Kit #:        576X

Price        :25.00

Decals:     Kit supplied ( 6 panels, a flag, and some alien writing)

Reviewer: Greg Ewald

Notes:       I want to believe

History:   From the historic crash of a weather balloon in Roswell to the modern day drama of Sculley and Mulder, there isn’t really a more colourful slice of “Americana Paranoia” than the mysterious Unidentified Flying Object…especially for all of the conspiracy believers, who think that Area 51 (Groom Lake and surrounding bases) is the home to a pile of alien technology, carefully being reverse-engineered by the USAF and a number of alphabet soup agencies whose underlying goal is the control of every man, woman, and child on our little green marble Earth...

   Pseudo-scientists come out of the woodwork at every sci-fi convention to proclaim the “truth” about the existence of aliens-among-us…full of weird tales of anal probes and breeding experiments gone awry!  But, there is enough hard evidence to cause even the most callous observer to at least have to weigh the facts…some of the photos defy explanation, as so do some of the eyewitness accounts from the last few decades…a tantalizing modeling subject, for sure!

You have to get a bit nervous when the “backround” part of the instructions is longer than the assembly bit…this kit is chock-full of speculation by Bob Lazar (who supposedly worked on the alien ship) in a full blown essay on the front page, and little snippets throughout the rest of the directions.  Also odd is the ability to build the model in three different ways:  simple, intermediate, and complete…with  illustrations of each! 

   Basically, you get two clear salad bowls, and a cleanly molded grey sprue …totaling out at 21 pieces, with two little aliens and a rather large (for 1/48^th) civilian guard wearing fatigues (men in camo?) alongside…The kit I purchase also came with a bonus Alien Gray, 7” tall , 9 bits of no flash plastic…why?  I don’t know…perhaps something for your kid to pull apart or shoot with a bb gun while you assemble the “complete” kit.

   Detail? What detail?  According to the eminent Lazar, the ship was made of an apparently seamless sort of metal, with little other than smooth surfaces…So, not too much for the metal etch crowd here…

    Seriously, if you spend 25 bucks on this without knowing what you are getting, you may be tempted to cause a riot at your local hobby store when you unpack this kit !

 At first, I was furious upon opening the box…it seemed they spent all of their money on the box art and a lot of hocus-pocus, instead of on the kit itself…but, my nearest store has a “no return when opened” policy, so I had to grit my teeth and start to problem solve.

    On the positive side, since the two halves of the ship are clear ( and I must admit, molded exceptionally well)  it does lend itself to a “lit” kit…for those of you with some experience with LED’s and such…and the diorama potential is huge…but …

   This is really a toy kit, even though the unbelievably slick box had me fooled…but I shall have the last laugh. !   Remember all of those tales of German flying saucers??? Can anyone say a 1/72^nd bash Luftwaffe ’46 ????  

Almost too many to list…if you do a google, you will believe that Hitler was cloned into a bunch of space Nazis living in sin in Argentina within minutes…but, here are some of my favourites:

 http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq29-1.htm

 http://www.david-sadler.org/pages/bio/discIsOurs.htm

 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1281221.html

 Review kit courtesy of:      my wallet