Human memory is weird. We like to think of memory as some kind of infallible video playback system, but it isn’t like that at all. Instead, our brains do their best to “re-create” the sounds and sights of past experiences, with varying results. We get stuff wrong, make stuff up and don’t even realize it.

Film, on the other hand, stays pretty constant. The picture and sound quality might degrade a bit over time, but you won’t find the scenes playing out of order, or lines changing, or Christopher Walken inexplicably turning into Willem Dafoe. Our confused brains are capable of making all these mistakes, and more. Have you ever tried describing a film to someone, only to realize that you were accidentally combining elements from two completely different movies? Our brains are full of all kinds of random junk and sometimes things leak all over each other, especially since we keep seeing the same actors in different roles. Did Captain Kirk really foil a crime by clinging to the windshield of a speeding 1982 Ford Mustang driven by a Romulan or are your Star Trek memories being corrupted by an episode of T.J. Hooker?

Even iconic film lines can be misremembered by legions of people. Humphrey Bogart never actually says, “Play it again, Sam” in Casablanca (1942).

The fragility of memory actually makes for a compelling subject in some films. Memento (2000) famously plays out in reverse, with each new scene actually taking place prior to the one before. This conceit cleverly helps to convey the confusion of the main character (played by Guy Pearce), who suffers from anterograde amnesia and is incapable of making “new memories.” He doesn’t know what happened to him 10 minutes ago, and thanks to the peculiar film structure, neither do we. This leads to some unique situations. In one scene, Pearce’s character finds himself running through a trailer park, without knowing why. Spotting another character, he thinks “Oh, I’m chasing this guy.” Then the man shoots at him and the voice-over corrects itself; “No, he’s chasing me,” as the runners reverse direction. Another film that manages to draw dramatic tension from memory loss is The Alzheimer Case (a.k.a. The Memory of a Killer)(2003), about a Belgian hit man trying to secure his own safety from his former employers before symptoms of early onset Alzheimers make it impossible for him to follow his own plan.

With the passage of time, our conscious memory of a film might narrow down to just a handful of scenes or images. What do you remember most about Bambi (1942); the cute animals, or the fact that Bambi’s mother gets killed by hunters?

In addition to being voted “the worst film of all time,” Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) is the subject of a curious urban legend, which states that the flying saucers that appear in the film are actually paper plates. The story seems to have originated with the 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards by Harry and Michael Medved, a classic bit of “bad film” appreciation that elevated the movie to near-legendary status. In the book, the authors interview an unidentified “director’s assistant” who states: “The flying saucers? I know they look like pie-tins, but they were actually paper plates.... I mean, they were decorated and all, but basically they were paper plates. Anyway, when we wanted to show the saucer blowing up at the end of the film, we soaked one of the plates in gasoline, lit it with a cigarette lighter and then told somebody to toss it toward the camera. It looked sensational.”

The story may be awesome, but the pictorial evidence just doesn’t back it up. The flying saucers don’t resemble paper plates in the least. They’re smooth, shiny, dangling from visible fishing line and while they do look absolutely ludicrous, they clearly aren’t made of paper and never once get tossed toward the camera. As for looking “sensational,” well... it’s a matter of opinion. Did the director’s assistant lie? Possibly, or maybe he’s just confused. Perhaps there’s a deleted scene of burning picnicware hurtling towards the camera. Maybe the guy is thinking of another movie he worked on. Or maybe he’s remembering a drunken party instead of a film shoot.

The weird thing is, viewers keep believing the paper plate story, even after watching the film. The interviewee’s assertions may not be factual, but they seem to be catching. It’s just such a beloved and well-established bit of lore, and it makes for a handy distillation of the film’s lovable ineptitude.

“Plan 9 From Outer Space is so bad...”

“How bad is it?”

“It’s so bad that the flying saucers are made out of paper plates!”