ExtraTERRORestrial: The Terrifying True Story of Disney’s Abandoned Alien Encounter

Signs of the end

Though fans today remember Alien Encounter as a sort of “misguided,” could-be classic that terrified (and maybe traumatized) a generation, the truth is that this “legendary” show lasted just eight years — 1995 to 2003. The Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Center closed its doors on October 12, 2003. Here are six reasons we suspect Alien Encounter met its demise.

1. THE LOSS OF THE XENOMORPH

There’s just no denying that when Eisner opted out of using the Xenomorph from 1979’s Alien, he also made Imagineers’ jobs a whole lot harder. Not only did they need to construct their own alien from scratch; they needed to quickly and efficiently convey its anatomy, abilities, and attitude to guests — a very, very difficult balance of exposition and action that’s nearly impossible to get right, especially when the creature is only ever seen through fog and strobes.

For example, exit interviews during the attractions Test & Adjust phase revealed that guests just didn’t understand how it was supposedly getting around the auditorium so quickly (since they hadn’t seen that it had wings). As a result, designers had to add new sound effects, lighting, and on-screen footage of the alien, highlighting its wings in an attempt to clarify its abilities — something they wouldn’t have needed to balance if they’d used the Xenomorph, whose physiology and abilities are more widely known.

(Don’t cry for the Xenomorph — Disney’s licensing of the character from Fox didn’t go to waste, as the creature was already in use on the fellow Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride, as seen above.)

2. THE “FRANKEN-STORY”

That said, we can’t fault Imagineers for the “original world” they built around Alien Encounter. When it’s all said and done, they created a commendable mythology for the attraction and for X-S Tech, communicated skillfully in the attraction’s preshows and even its architecture.

However, six months of rewrites and cobbled-together adjustments certainly took its toll on the narrative and its clarity. Odd moments of humor alienated those looking for a thrilling experience while providing no solace to kids strapped in and terrified. It’s clear that the final script for Alien Encounter was essentially written by a committee with many, many rewrites and adjustments along the way.

That’s evidenced by two “alternate endings” tested before the ride’s official opening.

• In one, the alien teleported back to its planet with Clench correctly arriving at the Tomorrowland Convention Center. However, his techs were far too nervous to lift the shield, so exiting guests could hear Clench pounding away from inside demanding to be let out. Ultimately, it was deemed too lighthearted a way to finish the ultra-intense experience.
  
• In an even earlier concept version of the attraction, X-S Tech was revealed to be an evil corporation using humans as test subjects, purposefully releasing the alien to determine humanity’s strength and resilience (possibly hoping humans were weak enough to succumb to an invasion by X-S’s alien race). In that storyline, the Alien revealed itself to be sentient, trying only to communicate with humans. In the big finale, the alien cut the power to release guests from their harnesses, and as they walked down the exit corridor, they could hear the alien massacring X-S’s staff — an ending deemed too dark and too difficult to communicate in such a chaotic attraction.

While neither of those endings became the official ending, elements of each seem to be embedded in the final story, leaving an experience that was admittedly quite uneven.

3. FEAR FACTOR

The truth is, Alien Encounter was terrifying. Plenty of twenty-somethings today recall being absolutely traumatized by it during their childhoods. Even with plentiful signage, guests truly did not imagine that Disney would actually scare their kids. Like, sure, Haunted Mansion is “spooky” to elementary school kids, and Tower of Terror is pretty frightening to pre-teens, but Alien Encounter was enough to make kids want to go home. Not back to the hotel, but home.

Even abundant signage did little to stop the constant swell of complaints from parents who were appalled that they had stepped off of “it’s a small world” or the charming and timeless Jungle Cruise to find themselves strapped in and terrorized by an alien spraying them with the blood of a maintenance worker. It didn’t fit what Magic Kingdom was. Which brings us to number four.

4. THE MAGIC KINGDOM DEBUT

As we know, Alien Encounter was actually supposed to debut at Disneyland, but because Magic Kingdom’s New Tomorrowland had been salvaged from the financial slow-down after Disneyland Paris’s problems, the attraction was prototyped there instead ahead of an expected chain-wide rollout. Our opinion? Simply debuting at Magic Kingdom might’ve been enough to kill Alien Encounter.

After all, in its five decade history, Magic Kingdom has rarely if ever offered an experience that deviates from “G-rated.” It’s a purely fantasy family park where troubles are few and far between. Conversely, Disneyland offers the thrilling and gritty Star Tours, a dark, cursed Adventureland reigned over by Indiana Jones Adventure, the frightening Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy, and the war-torn outpost of Galaxy’s Edge. In other words, Disneyland isn’t afraid of darkness, and it’s frankly quite possible that the “PG-13” experience of Alien Encounter would’ve been right at home in Disneyland’s Tomorrowland had it only debuted there as planned.

5. JEFFREY JONES

 Actor Jeffrey Jones playing the prominent starring role of Chairman Clench was a major coup for Disney and Lucas. The acclaimed thespian and his classic deadpan delivery earned praise in acclaimed films throughout the 1980s and 90s, from Amadaeus to Beetlejuice.

However, in 2003, Jones was arrested on some very disturbing allegations regarding minors. After pleading no contest, Jones was placed on probation for five years and required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. (Subsequently, he was arrested twice for not updating his sex offender registration as required.) It did not go unnoticed that, shortly after his 2003 arrest, Disney closed the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter. Was Jones’ arrest the primary impetus? Probably not. But it might’ve been a cherry on top.

6. EISNER’S INTERFERENCE

 Michael Eisner was known to become very personally invested in key pet projects. Maybe the man just didn’t have a good sense for it, because other projects he enthusiastically supported were the Declassified Disasters: The Backstage Studio Tour, DisneyQuest, Dinoland, Disney’s California Adventure, Superstar Limo, and Walt Disney Studios Paris. Eisner was a man of great ambition who — at least early in his tenure — invited equal ambition among creative types. He recognized the power of film and of bringing that to life inside the Disney Parks.

But when Eisner turned on a project, he did so ferociously. Alien Encounter was perhaps a victim of his infamous micromanagement. He couldn’t leave well enough alone and instead tinkered and retooled the show at every step rather than leaving it up to the professionals. Eventually, he lost interest in the project. Perhaps out of embarrassment, he just let it be until a better option came along… and before long, it did…

Stitch’s Great Escape!

Frankly, though the terrifying tale of the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter ends with its closure in October 2003, it’s hardly to end of the story. After all, when X-S Tech closed up shop, it marked the end of the ambitious (and exceedingly short-lived) New Tomorrowland that had debuted just a decade before. Though the land itself still maintained the pulp sci-fi styling of “the future that never was,” it was merely gilded shell once the original inhabitants and the land-wide continuity they played a role in were wiped away.

The epic and short-lived era of Eisner’s ambitious “Ride the Movies” mantra had come and gone (doubtlessly quelled by the big budget Disneyland Paris), and quick-fix, low cost character injections became the M.O. of Disney Parks management. Tomorrowland, in particular, became a blank canvas for the “Pixarification” of Disney Parks, with attractions based on Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo displacing original classics like the Lost Legends: If You Had Wings, The Timekeeper, and California’s Submarine Voyage all in the matter of a decade.

Which is why the story of the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter now shifts its focus to the next inhabitant of those theater-in-the-round auditoriums in Tomorrowland.

After a year of closure, in November 2004 the attraction re-emerged from behind construction walls as Stitch’s Great Escape!, featuring the alien protagonist of 2002’s Lilo & Stitch. Now, the Interplanetary Convention Center had been recast as the Galactic Federation Prisoner Transport Center, with guests recruited as trainees in the cosmic government’s justice system. Their mission? To observe the arrival of a dangerous, Class 3 prisoner being beamed into the Center.

Re-using Alien Encounter’s premise and effects, the new show involved an escaped Stitch spitting on guests, burping in their faces, firing laser cannons into the crowd, and jumping repeatedly on guests’ shoulder restraints. Though the inclusion of the marketable and merchandise-friendly Stitch was no doubt seen by Imagineers as an improvement on the horrifying alien and the genuinely scary premise of old, it turned out that there was much more to it than it might’ve seemed on paper. If you dare strap into an attraction often called “the worst Walt Disney World attraction ever designed,” make the jump to our Declassified Disasters: Stitch’s Great Escape! feature to finish the story — a sort of depressing sequel to this Lost Legend.

Times a’changin’

Tomorrowland ’94 tried something brave… something we’ll probably never see from Disney again: it was an entirely original land created in the minds of Imagineers, marked by entirely original attractions with entirely original characters. The “world-building” Imagineers managed in this Tomorrowland would go on to inspire other “immersive” worlds of interconnected plots.

The outrageous ornamentation of the land’s Factory Pomo sci-fi styling was an impressive (if, to some fans, offensive) attempt at turning back the clock and disassociating Tomorrowland from reality. It was a clever way of creating a sci-fi complement to Paris’ fantasy future — both equally “timeless.”

Yet, even the “evergreen” Tomorrowlands of the ’90s turned out to be shaped by the pop culture and styles of the decade. Especially devoid of the substance that made it work, the style of Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland lasted another two decades before becoming an obvious remnant of another time. Beginning in 2018, a slow-but-steady process began dismantling the land’s alien spaceport styling, tearing down those metallic fins and spaceships, and gradually revealing the ’70s simplicity that had been hiding underneath the whole time.

Though the transition has been slight, the introduction of a new Tomorrowland entry marquee in September 2019 seemed to cement the definitive direction going forward: a return to Magic Kingdom’s now-nostalgic ’70s style. Of course, even if Tomorrowland were perfectly restored to its ’70s architectural origins, Monsters Inc., Stitch, Toy Story, and the new Modern Marvel: TRON Lightcycle Run won’t exactly feel like natural fits. Even in the (unlikely) event that Alien Encounter had survived to today without a character overlay, the coming Space Age redesign of the land likely would’ve spelled its doom…

But then again, Disney’s $71 billion acquisition of Fox in 2019 brought 1979’s Alien into Disney’s catalogue for good…

Seize the future

We wanted to take the time to build this Lost Legends walkthrough because, just as “tomorrow” becomes “today,” it’s easy to wake up and find that “today” has become “yesterday.”

Even now, new fans join the Disney Parks community every day. Some are of a new generation just becoming old enough to appreciate the parks, while others simply didn’t know what all the parks had to offer until today. Either way, this new generation is full of folks who never got the chance to experience Alien Encounter or other Disney rides that disappeared before their time. We hope that this entry — like the rest of our Lost Legends — helps fill in the blanks where hazy memories and YouTube videos can’t.

Until next time, remember the words of Chairman Clench: “If something can’t be done with excess, then it probably shouldn’t be done at all…”

Er… uh… X-S.