“Here kitty, kitty, kitty….”
Way back in 1979, director Ridley Scott and writer Dan O’Bannon brought science fiction horror to another level with Alien. Starring Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley and an ensemble cast that featured Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, and more, the film became an Academy Award winner and launched a franchise that is still successful to this day. It also inspired Disney Imagineers to create their own terrifying alien experience: Walt Disney World’s ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter.
Designed as a theater-in-the-round experience, ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter featured dozens of sensory overloading visuals, sounds, and direct contact with the audience. It used lights, animatronics, sound effects, water, pressure effects, and air-filled tubes to trick the audience into believing that an alien was on the loose in a darkened room.
As with any Disney theme park attraction, the story is set up in the line queue. For the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, a story about the X-S Tech Corporation is told in which the audience learns about the company’s newest technological advancement: teleportation. The audience then sees a somewhat successful use of the technology and then they proceed to the theater.
Once inside the theater, the audience meets Spinlok and Femus (portrayed by Kevin Pollak and Kathy Najimy), who, along with Clench, the company’s chairman portrayed by Jeffrey Jones, decide to give the audience a demonstration of their technology using the tube at the center of the theater. Clench decides to teleport himself to the audience but during the teleportation, Clench is teleported to another location and a giant alien joins the audience instead.
The alien goes on a rampage in the room. The lights go out and the creature runs through the crowd, breathes on them, attacks X-S Tech workers, and drips and sprays blood or saliva (both if I remember correctly) on the audience members. Eventually the alien is returned to the tube and destroyed, saving the audience.
The experience was originally supposed to feature a Xenomorph from the Alien franchise, but Disney shut down the idea due to the fact that the experience would be too scary for younger audience members. That being said, the eventual end result of the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter was actually very scary. It was also extremely fun. I had the opportunity to experience the encounter myself with my wife on our honeymoon. It was a highlight for both of us on our visit to the Magic Kingdom.
The experience officially ran from 1995 to 2003 with a soft opening in December of 1994. It was replaced in 2004 by Stitch’s Great Escape which I’ve also had the pleasure of experiencing. Stitch’s Great Escape is essentially the same story but with a toned down experience that includes farts, snot, and other Stitchy things. It catered to children and focused more on light comedy instead of sheer terror. The show proved to be less popular than its predecessor and was closed in 2018. Disney permanently shut down the attraction in July of 2020.
There are videos of the alien encounter on YouTube and other sites if you would like to check out the experience for yourself. I really enjoyed the attraction and was saddened to hear that it closed down. I liked the Stitch version of the attraction also, but the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter was, at least in my opinion, a far superior experience.
In case you’re wondering, there was one Xenomorph located in the park. At Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios, the alien (along with Ripley) was featured as part of the Great Movie Ride. I also experienced this ride on two of my trips to the park and, sadly, it was shuttered in 2017. It was an amazing attraction, especially for hardcore film lovers such as myself. For a real treat, check out this article featuring the staff of slashfilm.com recounting their own memories of that attraction.
Were you one of the folks lucky enough to experience the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter or even the Great Movie Ride before they were closed? Let me know what you thought about them or even Stitch’s Great Escape in the comments section.
Thanks for reading my post. More Disney spookiness is headed your way tomorrow!
Ken's Alternate Universe! 