Across the Universe: What lurks in 'Dark Skies'?

"The UFO Incident" (1975): This TV movie starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons told the story of Betty and Barney Hill, who claimed to have been abducted by aliens on a rural road in New Hampshire in September 1961 and subjected to physical examination. The Hills' claims were never definitely proved -- but they were never fully disproved either. The aliens were not harmful ... just thorough.

Related: Q&A with Keri Russell of 'Dark Skies' | Video: Watch the trailer for 'Dark Skies'

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977): OK, so the aliens in Steven Spielberg's masterpiece end up being kind of nice guys who want to take Richard Dreyfuss on the ride of his life. But before that they engage in all kinds of inexplicable behavior, like kidnapping kids, causing blackouts, rattling around in people's houses and leading cops on high-speed pursuits. Does any of it make sense? Nope.

"Cocoon" (1985): How hostile could an alien race be if one of their representatives is Brian Dennehy and another is the daughter of Raquel Welch? That's what the residents of the local retirement home have to decide when they stumble upon alien pods in the abandoned swimming pool next door -- and for once, the humans mess things up instead of the aliens. Yet the aliens are still nice enough to offer to take them to their home planet.

"Communion" (1989): You wouldn't be that far off the mark if you actually mistook Christopher Walken for an alien being himself (he's kind of eccentric that way). Walken plays real-life author Whitley Strieber, who based his book on his own personal experience of being contacted and abducted by otherworldly entities.

"The Abyss" (1989): These aliens spend most of the movie hiding out and occasionally sending the first CG tentacle to poke around inside the underwater oil platform where the story takes place. It's only when curiously dated tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union reach a boiling point that they show themselves -- in a big way. We'd lay down our arms too if we saw this ship -- the size of one of the Great Lakes -- rising out of the ocean.

"Fire in the Sky" (1993): Another abduction story, this time based on the alleged 1975 incident in which Snowflake, Ariz., resident Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney) was whisked away by a beam of light in front of three friends and subjected to far nastier examinations than Betty and Barney Hill ever underwent. Walton's ordeal in the movie is truly frightening, and the real man insists it happened to this day.

"Signs" (2002): M. Night Shyamalan throws all kinds of alien visitation lore into his often creepy movie, including crop circles, lights in the sky and attempted abductions, but focuses his story on one family (led by Mel Gibson) instead of the worldwide phenomenon happening around them. It's just too bad that he can't quite justify having his aliens come to a planet where 71 percent of its surface can kill them.

"Dark Skies" is out in theaters Friday, Feb. 22.