The Lies We Are Told
August 30, 2011)

Synopsis:  A journalist investigating the fascination and mania behind the supposed end date of the Mayan Calendar, December 21, 2012, begins putting together the truths behind an elaborate facade of lies told by the governments of the world to their people, in an effort to secretly prepare them for an impending disaster they know is about to arrive.  This conspiracy is deep and touches on every aspect of daily life, from the popular media, to the economy, foreign policy, scientific advances, and many other areas.  The first clue to this mystery is given during an interview with an archaeologist, a specialist in the Maya, who claims to have knowledge that the ability to read Mayan glyphs is a hoax perpetrated by the government to instill the date of December 21, 2012 in the popular consciousness.  Further investigation leads to the uncovering of an almost unimaginable web of lies leading to a final conclusion of staggering implications.

Plot Points:
Lie:  Archaeologists decoded Mayan hieroglyphs in the 1950's, to the point that many of them are understood.
Truth:  Yuri Knorozov was secretly an agent for the government who falsified "Ancient Writing of Central America" (and other publications) in order to help popularize the supposed date of the end of the current age in Mayan mythology and their calendar system.  The purpose of this was to instill that date deeply in the psyche of the world's population.  Most archaeologists actually believe that such writings can be read, but this is simply due to the fact that a very plausible system was created to interpret (falsely) the hieroglyphs.

Lie:  The Cold War was a real, ideological conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States that brought us to the brink of nuclear war.
Truth:  The U.S. and Soviet Union, along with a variety of other governments, fabricated this conflict after World War II in order to justify an almost unlimited build-up of weaponry and military power in preparation for the event to come.

Lie:  The Space Race was a "proxy war" between the Soviet Union and the U.S., culminating in both nations having a significant presence in space.
Truth:  Like the larger Cold War, this "race" was a fabrication designed to funnel large sums of money into space programs for the purpose of placing probes at various places in our own solar system, as well as developing a variety of listening technologies, such as radio telescope arrays, on Earth itself.

Lie:  Movies, television shows, novels, and other media about alien invasions have penetrated the public consciousness due to their popularity.
Truth:  These stories are funded and supported secretly by the government for the sole reason of conditioning the public to the very notion of an alien invasion and how mankind may have to form resistance movements simply to survive.  It is easy to name a couple of dozen movies, television shows, novels, etc. covering this topic, with new ones arriving every year, and the most recent ones (Independence Day, V, Falling Skies, Battle: L.A., and others) showing violent conflict and mankind fighting back against overwhelming technological superiority.

Lie:  America has become the world's peacekeepers, using its military might to aid other nations and strike back against her enemies.
Truth:  A large standing military is useless without a core of seasoned, battle-hardened veterans, so, each decade since WWII has seen some form of military action designed to instill actual experience in the military (Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia and a variety of NATO police actions, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Iraq).  Now, as the date approaches, the troops are being returned to home soil in preparation for events to come.

Lie:  The economy is in shambles, with little hope to recover in any easy or quick manner, and there seems to be very little that can actually be done.
Truth:  The government has no concern whatsoever for the long-term economy.  For seventy years they have been funneling incredible resources into "black" projects, and putting the country into a debt hole it could never climb out of, simply because they realize that after next year, the economy will be of no concern at all, and those who survive the event will begin from scratch anyway.

The Pieces of the Puzzle:
The truth that is slowly uncovered during the course of the movie is that the major governments of the world (U.S., U.K. China, Russia, and a few others) have known since 1947 that on December 21, 2012, the Earth is going to be invaded by an alien species.  The Roswell incident was real, and an alien ship did crash-land in the desert of New Mexico that summer.  The occupants of the crash were dissident members of an alien race intent on conquering other species and claiming scarce resources in the galaxy, either wiping out or enslaving all they came across.  These dissidents had left ahead of the invasion fleet, coming to Earth with the sole intention of giving us as much warning as possible.  Since crossing a known distance in space at a known velocity requires a given amount of time (even with many theoretical forms of faster-than-light travel), they could give a very accurate date as to when this fleet would arrive.  However, fatally injured by the crash-landing, this was all of the information they could impart to us before their deaths.

With this information, the governments immediately began formulating a plan to resist this invasion.  Realizing open military conflict was most likely a futile gesture, the plan consisted of two parts.  The first was to prepare the militaries of the world for this coming conflict, and hope that it would not be a wasted effort.  To this end, vast sums of money were funneled into military buildup all over the globe, under the pretense of the Cold War, and several conflicts were manufactured (by both the U.S. and USSR) for the express purpose of having combat-ready veterans available and able to pass knowledge to those around them.  More massive amounts of money were poured into scientific endeavors, notably "black" projects attempting to reverse-engineer technology recovered from the crash site, and space exploration, with the goal of placing listening devices all around our own solar system (in the hopes of advance warning in case the date proved inaccurate).  As a note, now that such devices circle nearly every planet in our solar system, and some have even nearly left it, all funding for such projects has been slashed, having outlived its usefulness.  In addition, our latest conflict has gone on unchecked for almost a decade, although now the push is to have our combat-hardened veterans on our home soil in time for next year.

The second part of the plan was to prepare for the worst, in the event that military conflict was truly pointless.  To this end, the "UFO phenomenon" was manufactured in the popular media, funded by the various world governments, in order to prepare the people of the world for the concept of this forthcoming invasion, and to plant the seed of armed resistance against the invaders at all costs, as opposed to capitulation or surrender.  Tacticians well understand the effective of asymmetric warfare against a superior force, and have attempted to instill these concepts in the public (ala the Viet Cong, Mujahedeen, etc.).  Endless movies, books, television shows, UFO documentaries, etc. have been secretly funded by the government for almost seven decades.

Conclusion:
After being on the run from many encounters with those attempting to maintain secrecy at any costs (including murder), the web of lies unravels through the investigative and journalistic efforts of our protagonist, and they come to the realization, at the end of the film, the true reason behind the conspiracy.  Shocked to uncover the truth, they attempt to warn others, but are met with skepticism, scorn, and laughter at every turn.  In the end, it doesn't matter, as they have discovered these truths too late, and the events have already begun to unfold.  The audience is shocked to see the invasion begin as the credits roll.  Will mankind survive?  Have the efforts of the conspirators been effective, or misguided?

As a possibly better alternative, the film could consist of "real/recovered" footage (ala films like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, The Fourth Kind, etc.) of an investigator/pair of investigators criss-crossing the country, on the run from authorities as they track down and interview sources about this conspiracy; arriving too late in some instances, their sources having already been silenced; and ending with their attempted warning of the public about the impending invasion.  They are now missing as well, the footage having been copied and sent to several media sources before they vanished.