Brett Lambert

Close Encounters of the Third Kind was right, according to filmmaker Robert Nichol - we are not alone. Nichol's new documentary, Star Dreams, explores the mystery of crop circles, which he believes are created by aliens and act as a message to uplift humanity during a point of crisis for this Earth.

Nichol is taking his film on the road across the country and makes an Edmonton stop tonight at the Provincial Museum, with a screening at 8.

"I've fallen in love with these crop circle images since 1995," says Nichol. "Here we are, being communicated to by a higher intelligence, and we're ignoring it."

Nichol produced, wrote and directed the feature to help change people's perceptions of crop circles.

"I wanted to lift these circles off the field, so to speak, and put them in the public imagination. For some crazy reason, it's working. Audiences are falling in love with this film. They're coming out and leaving the theatre feeling uplifted and hopeful."

Nichol sees the phenomenon of crop circles as a communique to humankind, inviting a greater human awareness to emerge.

"It's a form of high-level communication, mind to mind. There's thousands of circles and each one has its own message. They're trigger mechanisms, bypassing the rational mind, and they affect us on a deep psychic level."

The film takes on the common perception that the crop circles are hoaxes.

"Probably less than 10% are hoaxes," says Nichol. "How can you get 11,000 circles all over the planet in many different countries? It defies common sense."

Despite Nichol's strong beliefs, he's not about to force any of them down skeptics' throats.

"I'm not trying to convince anyone who refuses to be convinced," he says. "I just put this before the public and it'll either resonate with them or not."

Star Dreams is the first in a planned six-part series on UFOs.

The rest are slated to deal with extraterrestrial (ET) contact.