I was looking forward to watching it—the new documentary about UAP (UFOs, for you old-school True Believers) and secret government programs and all that stuff— especially after seeing an interview with its director, Dan Farah, on the Halloween episode of Real Time With Bill Maher.

Now first off, I like Bill. He’s funny (funny being top of the list, really, when someone is a professional comedian), smart, and a critical thinker with a biting wit. He does fumble at his zipper and touch the tip of his nose a bit much, but those are minor affectations or tics, forgivable. If he’s out-of-the-box on topics you and I are not allowed to discuss in any way but the Approved Way (he is) and outspoken in his opinions (he is) he’s also refreshing in his willingness to push back against a tide of moral righteousness, and surprising in his capacity to raise objections even while listening carefully to what his guests have to say. I trust him.

So when he said he’d seen the film and that he was all in, I paid attention. Bill believes the filmmaker’s thesis and the film’s subjects. Reported sightings of UAP have increased in the past eighty years (hard to refute, as the term simply means the phenomenon observed has not yet been satisfactorily explained, and easy to accept since explained things in the air have increased enormously in that time; surely, one might be mistaken for the other from time to time). Knowing what the government knows— that we are not alone; that we are not the most intelligent species in the Universe; and that UAP tend to hover around nuclear sites, capable of messing with our weapons— what? Yes!—is important, maybe more important than anything else ever. That’s the filmmaker’s message, and Bill Maher agreed.

Hoping to get my mind blown, I rented The Age of Disclosure the day it was released, but watched it with the sinking feeling I’d heard it all before. By the second half, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to answer any of my questions.

Serious people (who have provided photographs of themselves in uniform or holding guns while looking into the distance, proof of their seriousness) claim they’ve been deep inside Top Secret government programs. One guy—just one—alleges he’s seen with his own two eyes “non-human” bodies that were recovered from Roswell. Could those bodies have been, I don’t know, ape bodies? Bear bodies? Dog bodies? Were they made of tree limbs? Is there any possibility of a hoax? I’m not doubting his earnestness, but if a five-year-old can run into the kitchen and vividly describe every detail of the dead bird she discovered behind the garage, can’t a grown-ass man give us a decent image of what he saw lying on a Top Secret gurney in a Top Secret underground government laboratory? But all he can say is “non-human,” as if those words alone speak volumes. Another guy has been close enough to UAP that he’s had “biological effects.” Could he be more specific? Did he get a headache, or did a tattoo of a Xenomorph appear on his liver? Did he grow an extra toe? That’s classified.

What you mainly learn in the documentary is that the government keeps things from the public. I mean duh.

And this is my main takeaway: there are no knowledgeable, insider women—no female alien specialists or spaceship experts or Legacy Project alums—worth interviewing The viewer gets quick clips of Kirsten Gillinbrand, Nancy Mace, and (if I recall correctly) a female pilot with a first-person sighting of something she couldn’t explain, but apparently all military intelligence regarding UAP is tied up in xy chromosomes and testosterone. It’s a way dude-heavy film. Make of that what you will. I found it distracting in the same way it would have been distracting if ninety-nine-percent of the subjects interviewed were White. Which, come to think of it…

In conclusion, The Age of Disclosure left me wondering: Are we talking about ET in that Roswell ship, or the Blob? Is there a single woman or Person of Color involved in the secretive boy-club machinations of deep government? What exactly is a “space-time bubble” and how is it different from “what the fuck do we know?”