Patricia Ann Teer article (mentioned in brief in last paragraph)

[justins5256]

Paper: Houston Chronicle
Title: Scary "Intruders" is based on UFO reports
Author: ANN HODGES, Houston Chronicle TV Editor
Date: MAY 14, 1992
Section: HOUSTON
Page: 1

MAYBE "The Intruders" is true, and maybe it isn't. Whichever, it's still the
scariest miniseries of this May ratings sweeps.The preview tape I saw didn't
even have the special effects in it, and it scared the daylights out of me.

"The Intruders" is a four-hour drama based on 600-plus case histories of alleged
close encounters with the alien kind. It starts at 8 p.m. Sunday, with the
second part starting at 8 p.m. Tuesday on CBS and Channel 11.

I haven't a clue as to whether it's true, but if it is, I must say, it's
shocking. They've been out there all this time, and none of those abductees or
abductors have made it to the TV talk shows?

Phil . . . Oprah . . . Geraldo . . . Maury . . . where were you?

According to "The Intruders," selected humans have for years been abducted by
lizard-eyed alien creatures not of this planet Earth. Now, those abductees have
even set up their own support groups, and their experiences match up in
virtually every detail. They even include pregnant women who have had sudden
miscarriages, and missing fetuses afterward.

Furthermore, according to this drama, there is some weird quasi-government group
investigating every UFO/alien incident, but not telling anybody about it. This
group is so supersecret that not even the White House knows what it's up to.

Group members have vowed to hide the truth of alien visits and abductions from
the public until they -- and they alone -- decide what the purpose of those
visits is. And to suppress the truth, this drama says, they'll do anything. They
even put a perfectly sane man (played by Ben Vereen) in a mental institution
because they were afraid he'd tell about seeing a UFO that crashed in New
Mexico, killing all the little gray men aboard.

In "The Intruders," Richard Crenna is a psychiatrist, and a skeptic, who becomes
a believer. Two of his patients turn him around, when both are haunted by
visions of abductions and both describe their abductors as little gray men with
lizard-like eyes.

Crenna's Dr. Neil Chase is based on Dr. John Mack, former dean of the department
of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and the consultant on this miniseries.
Mack, too, was a skeptic until he began seeing patients who claimed to have been
abducted. Now he believes them.

This movie's goal, both Mack and Crenna say, is not to convince anybody they're
out there, but "to open your mind to the possibility."

The patients here are fictitious, but "drawn from" actual case histories, and
based on the work of Mack and UFO investigator Budd Hopkins. In the movie,
Hopkins is represented by Addison Leach, a character played by Steven Berkoff.

Chase's patients are Mary, wife of a Nebraska truck driver and mother of one
young son, and Lesley, a single woman in Venice, Calif. Daphne Ashbrook is
Lesley, and Mare Winningham is Mary.

("In the Heat of the Night's" Alan Autry is Mary's husband, and son Timmy is
played by twins, "Kindergarten Cops" Christian and Joseph Cousins. All three
deserve good job notices.)

Mary has a breakdown over those little gray men. They've been picking her up,
frequently, from her farm outside Lincoln. Now she fears they're coming after
her son.

Lesley has had recurring nightmares since a 3 a.m. visit from four faceless
"telephone repairmen." They took her to a spaceship, where little gray men
performed medical experiments, and some of them are having dire consequences.

Mary becomes Chase's patient when she's in California, visiting her sister
(Susan Blakely), and when the doctor realizes that she and Lesley are describing
the same experiences, he is convinced that something extraordinary has been
happening to them.

The movies' little gray men are modeled in the image of those who say they've
seen them, by Oscar-winning creature and makeup creator Robert Short
("Beetlejuice, E.T., Splash and Cocoon"). He worked only from sketches of
abductees, Short said. And when one of them saw the finished work, "That's one
of them, all right," he exclaimed.

It took 25 people to operate the mechanical creatures, but in some of the
background scenes, the aliens are "live." Little gray men are only about 3 feet
6 inches tall, so children wore the costumes in those live performances.

For those who want to know more about little gray men and such, Channel 11 News
is jumping on CBS' movie promo parade next week. Reporter Jim Moore has traveled
all over the country to find the latest on UFOs and abductions, and he'll be
reporting Sunday through May 22 on the 10 p.m. news.

The news breakers

Two Houston couples made it to the $100,000 grand prize round on ABC's
"America's Funniest Home Videos." The winner will be named on Sunday's seasonal
finale (7 p.m., Channel 13). Bill and Lillian Reymer did the video with Daddy in
Baby's crib, and Baby sniffing Daddy's feet. Mike and Debbie LaSalla did the one
of their cat climbing the screen to music. Both couples were in Hollywood taping
the show Wednesday, and they're due home today . . .

Congratulations to Hannah Storm on that big new contract with NBC Sports. What a
great break, and she's earned it. She has done a terrific job as CNN night
sports anchor, and this big new NBC post proves again how crazy some Houston TV
stations were for not hiring her when she still wanted to do local sports in her
adopted hometown. (Her mother, Hannah Storen, lives here, and she was thrilled
at the NBC news.)

This move puts Storm on the supertrack, and she did it herself. It's always been
her dream to work for a network and do the Olympics, and that's what she's
doing. First Wimbledon, then Barcelona. But just now, she has to find a new
apartment. She's giving herself a deadline of June 1 to make the move from
Atlanta to New York . . .

NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries" will have a crew in Houston Friday-Tuesday. They'll
be shooting a missing persons story, on the trail of Patricia Ann Teer Snyder
Carlton, a 51-year-old woman who's been seen in Houston twice since she suffered
memory loss with a brain aneurism in '74.

Author: ANN HODGES, Houston Chronicle TV Editor
Section: HOUSTON
Page: 1

Copyright 1992 Houston Chronicle