When it comes to the paranormal world, untold truths can often be stranger than fiction. And when UAPs are involved, along with a possible military coverup, you’ve got quite a conspiracy that deserves to be publicized. Small Town Monsters presents Lost Contact: UFOs After Wartime as an example of dark history for the spooky season.

In an unlikely military documentary dipping into paranormal witness testimonials, Contact presents a brief history of unknown flying object reports during and after World War II before fully focusing on the Thomas Mantell incident, which remains the first and only known instance of a U.S. military member losing their life in pursuit of a reported UFO.

On January 7th of 1948, multiple public sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena were reported to a variety of authorities, eventually making their way up to Godman Army Airfield of Fort Knox. Capt. Mantell of the Kentucky Air National Guard was leading four P-51 fighters on a training flight when he received orders to investigate the situation. What began as a routine mission might have become something sinister.

Reporting on seeing something strange, he pursued this anomaly to a high altitude before likely passing out and losing control of his plane, subsequently crashing and losing his life. But what’s read between the lines is where this story gets good.

Was Mantell actually shot down from an unknown enemy? Was he poking his nose into something classified? All these years later, the official explanation of his death seems to have changed multiple times. Could he have been chasing the planet Venus, which at one point was the decision of investigator J. Allen Hynek of Project Blue Book, in declassifying the case. Others have posited he might have been pursuing a weather balloon. Or was it a spaceship? Another educated guess includes the government’s Skyhook balloon on a top-secret mission, but there’s no clear evidence one way or another.

And speaking of evidence, 77 years later, a paranormal investigator claims to have waved his Geiger counter near a piece of Mantell’s aircraft from the crash site, detecting an unusual amount of radiation. With that information, I was hoping to watch an in-depth investigation, digging up anything else that could be unearthed all these years later, in hopes of finding an answer. Unfortunately, that never materialized. Still, the truth is out there… somewhere.

“Some wounds, it seems, never truly heal. And not all heroes die on the battlefield.”

Based on a true story, Lost Contact: UFOs After Wartime follows the life of Thomas Mantell. Photo Courtesy: Small Town Monsters.

I’ve got to admit that I’m a big fan of Small Town Monsters! Initially unaware of the production company, a recent move led me to finding some of its releases on Roku, which had originated on the company’s YouTube channel. Bigfoot Beyond the Trail hooked me, with On the Trail of… Bigfoot, Mysteries & Monsters and Sasquatch Unearthed not far behind, followed by On the Trail of UFOs. I even find myself scanning new releases on the company’s Unexplained TV app from time to time. The Alaskan Bigfoot Highway and Tales from Alaska’s Interior are great — please crank out more docs focused on The Last Frontier, SMT!

To say that I enjoy many of filmmaker Seth Breedlove’s releases is an understatement. As a producer and a director, his approach to the unknown, willing to investigate different story angles with an open mind, when a hard certainty is unavailable is appreciated. That approach is present in Lost Contact, however, whenever his stories don’t focus on that crazy cryptid, they tend to meander a bit.

With a title like UFOs After Wartime, I was expecting an in-depth exploration of multiple reports after different wars throughout the years. Instead, after a brief history lesson, Lost Contact simply focuses on Thomas Mantell. That, in itself, is a great story to explore, but the title is definitely misleading.

As for the storyline, circumstantial evidence is presented, along with still-living witnesses of the event and surviving family members. As character witnesses describe, Mantell was a loyal soldier, willing to sacrifice and serve his country. I have no doubt he was simply following orders from higher command, which ultimately may have led to his untimely death. I was just hoping for a little more information about the incident that was never truly dug up.

I wanted a big reveal from a boots-on-the-ground investigation, which never fully develops, leaving me somewhat let down by its conclusion. What did resonate with me — A LOT! — was the charm on display of small-town life. Having grown up within the same area of Kentucky as Mantell, my personal connection to it is what intrigued me the most about the storyline. Focusing on a young soldier who lost his life chasing an unknown aerial object within American airspace should appeal to many people, and it was even more important to me, as a neighbor from not too far away.

Ultimately, Mantell’s life story winds up an unsolved mystery that truly deserves a realistic attempt at closure by the government, for the family’s sake. While being different from other cryptozoological offerings of Small Town Monsters, I do recommend this film to outsiders not originally from Kentucky, as well as paranormal fans in general. It’s a quasi-history lesson without a moral of the story.

It’s complex, which is why the conclusion of this real-life tale should demand a little more accountability from the authorities… and its filmmakers.