We've all been burned by supernatural movies that are billed as "Based on a true story." For every well-documented case like "The Exorcist" or successful stunt like "Paranormal Activity," there are a dozen swindles like "The Haunting in Connecticut" that use the illusion of truth to peddle preposterous notions.

Since the Roswell incident in 1949, there have been enough credible reports of UFO encounters that inventing new ones hardly seems necessary. So the new movie "The Fourth Kind" starts with the advantage of our susceptibility and effectively leverages it. Actress Milla Jovovich introduces herself, assures us that these alien abductions really did happen in Nome, Alaska, in 2000 and then appears in re-enactments that run side-by-side with "actual footage" of the psychologist who investigated them, Dr. Abigail Tyler.

Surely Milla Jovovich wouldn't lie.

If you buy the premise, then you might be intrigued when several of Dr. Tyler's patients are hypnotized and reveal that a strange white owl was really an alien. And you might be spooked when time-coded surveillance footage show locals levitating and shadowy figures demanding obedience as the tapes go blank.

If, on the other hand, you're a skeptic from Missouri, you'll start noticing the puppet strings. There's something "Blair Witch" about the lack of coverage of these decade-old abductions until websites started sprouting a few months ago.

"The Fourth Kind" is technically proficient enough to keep us intrigued; but we shouldn't have to Google a movie to know if we were scared.