I first had the idea for “Alien Prophecy” (formerly “The Oracle”) in late January, 2003.  I had been filming classroom documentary footage in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and found out that the space shuttle would be returning to Earth on Saturday, February 1.  I changed my flight to LA to a later time and arrived at Cape Canaveral—the mission’s point of origin and destination.  There was a group of us in a room with a live audio feed from the Houston Space Center, which was managing the shuttle’s descent.  The NASA employees told jokes.  We tracked the shuttle’s return over Hawaii.  California.   Arizona.  Then we lost contact.  One of the NASA employees said that’s normal—it always happens at a certain altitude.  We waited.   No word from Houston.  A few minutes later one of the NASA employees suggested we go outside and scan the sky.  He pointed to a specific area of the western horizon that the shuttle usually passes through.  We gazed into the distance.  Just a faint wind.  People made calls on their cell phones.

Columbia had burst into flames in the skies over Texas.

The audio feed from Houston remained silent.  The NASA employees said nothing.  Ten minutes later we heard a single statement from Houston:  “Search and rescue teams have been dispatched to the Dallas Fort Worth area.”  Fifteen minutes later they lowered the flags at Cape Canaveral to half-mast.

I thought of the families waiting at the nearby landing strip—waiting to share in a moment of triumph.  Instead, as the minutes passed, they realized they would never see their relatives again.

I wanted to tell this story.  But making an Apollo 13-style film about the Columbia disaster on a micro-budget was not going to be practical.

Many outlines and rough drafts later the idea morphed into “Alien Prophecy.”  One of the main characters in the film is Jason Hernandez (played by Eddy Muñoz), designer of the next-generation space shuttle.

Perhaps years later, in a small way, Columbia is re-born.

Lawrence Franzen