Encounters: The Hidden Truth was an hour-long TV series that featured real-life stories of paranormal phenomena. The format featured a host and a team of reporters presenting 3 or 4 stories per episode dealing with UFOs, crop circles, exorcism, prophets, psychics, reincarnation, and other supernatural phenomena, in a news/documentary style. The stories unfolded through witness interviews and reenactments of the events. The host and reporters discussed their reactions to some of the stories. Encounters aired on the Fox network and was used mainly as a summer replacement series and fill-in show for other canceled series. The show first aired during the summer of 1994 in the time slot before Fox's hit series The X-Files. The show then aired sporadically with different nights and times. In the final 3 editions of the show, Steven Williams replaced John Marshall as the host. Two of those episodes aired in November 1995 and the final episode aired on January 23, 1996.
Episode 1
Encounters looks at reports of human abduction by aliens and talks to several people who claim to be abductees. It also looks at plate discovered at the site of a crop circle in Grasdorf and examines several significant UFOs sightings by pilots and air traffic controllers.
Episode 2
Encounters looks at a haunted Alabama neighborhood is the town of Selma, investigates reports of cattle mutilations throughout the United States, talks to a Minnesota couple who are having a problem with their haunted house, and interviews famous Gulf Breeze UFO witness Ed Walters.
Episode 3
Encounters looks at the disappearance of pilot Frederick Valentich in Australia, a real-life exorcism of a young boy by the Catholic Church in the eastern United States, an exorcism session performed by a Luthor minister in Arizona, a psychic detective who is working on a case, and several children who claim to have lives past lives.
Episode 4
Encounters looks at the prophecies of the mysterious 16th century seer Nostradamus and the modern prophet Edgar E. Cayce, talks to several modern psychics who claim to see visions of future disasters, interviews a man who gained prophetic abilities after a near death experience, and talks to people who claim to be sensitive to earthquakes.
Episode 5
Encounters investigates the secret military base Area 51 in Nevada. It looks at some of the best recent video evidence of UFOs shot in Pine Bush, New York and Gulf Breeze, Florida. It also features stories on how to fake a UFO photograph, a horror movie that was mistaken for a real alien encounter, and people who are suffering from alien implants.
