Before it had even landed on Netflix, The Manhattan Alien Abduction ran into controversy. Now the streamer is getting sued by the woman at the center of the documentary, Linda Napolitano.
For the uninitiated, the new documentary series tells the story of Linda, who went by the pseudonym Linda Cortile in the ‘90s, a woman who claims she was abducted by aliens in her Manhattan apartment.
With the help of UFO researcher Budd Hopkins and his then-wife Carol Rainey, more than 20 witnesses came forward with claims relating to the alleged encounter, describing how they saw Linda floating above her flat in the early hours of November 30, 1989.
But the story was far from over. As Budd’s belief in Linda’s story grew stronger, the details started to shift into what sounded like the plot of a sci-fi movie.
Linda claimed she’d been given an alien nose job, intelligence agents were after her, and she even roped her son into believing they were frequented by extra-terrestrial apparitions.
Carol began to grow suspicious of Linda’s story and her husband’s techniques. When she dug deeper she found discrepancies in both, including letters signed by government officials that appeared to be in Linda’s handwriting.
To this day, there’s never been confirmation that the whole thing was a hoax. However, Linda, now 77, stands by her story, appearing in The Manhattan Alien Abduction to slam the naysayers.
Despite being given a chance to tell her side of the story, Linda has since taken issue with how the story is portrayed – and she’s taking it out on Netflix.
On Monday (October 28), two days before the docu-series landed on the streaming service, Linda filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block Netflix from releasing it.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
According to the complaint, seen by the Independent, Linda isn’t happy with the positioning of The Manhattan Alien Abduction as “a tale of skepticism” and an examination of her “pulling the wool over [Budd Hopkins’] eyes.”
The outlet reached out to Linda via email, stating that while she was eager to provide more details, “Apparently, my attorney doesn’t want me to comment.”
Attorney Robert Young separately said Linda was “egregiously deceived,” and wouldn’t have participated in the Netflix documentary if she had known how it would’ve turned out.
“So, we’ll see,” Young said. “Litigation is a long war, many battles, and I have every confidence that we will eventually prevail.”
According to Forbes’ report on the complaint, Linda said the show makes her out to be “a villain for purposes of controversy and conflict,” but that Carol was illustrated as an expert “skeptic”.
Linda went on to describe Carol as an “embittered, alcoholic ex-wife hell bent on revenge against her husband.”
Netflix has yet to respond to any of the claims. It’s currently unclear whether the lawsuit will move forward.
To learn more about the case, The Manhattan Alien Abduction is streaming on Netflix now. For more documentary news, read about Martha Stewart’s net worth following her Netflix doc, the best Halloween true crime to watch, and how to stream the Whittaker family documentary.