A nest of weasels

If you ever want to dissuade the uninitiated from going near The Great Taboo, show them “Mirage Men,” the 2013 documentary based on Mark Pilkington’s eponymous book. Guaranteed to make an honest broker erupt in hives at the mere thought of parting the veil around the UFO mystery, “Mirage Men’s” anatomy of a government disinformation program is brilliant propaganda, and delivered with the sort of polished confidence that could easily make the “Frontline” rotation.

Directed by British crop-circle debunker John Lundberg, “Mirage Men” focuses largely on the activities of Richard Doty, the now-retired USAF Office of Special Investigations agent who screwed several UFO researchers with phony conspiracy yarns and created enough paranoia to put one of them in a psychiatric ward.