An alien abduction reveals a bizarre and unsettling twist in man’s relationship with his best friend.  Are dogs and men truly what they seem?    

SYNOPSIS:

A test pilot and a state-of-the art fighter plane goes missing. Scientists, an FBI agent and an air force crew follow his flight path to find out what happened, only to be abducted by a UFO themselves.

Inside the UFO craft, they discover a variety of canines caged and experimented on. The also find a bizarre lab full of hybrids, all with canine features.

Further exploration reveals they are watched by seven-foot-tall aliens who have a dog-like appearance. The aliens seem to be taking direction from hissed commands emanating from large apertures on the walls of the craft. Under apparent orders, they manipulate the humans into entering a chamber which contains a mini-jungle world.

The humans have no choice but to traverse the room to escape. Along the way, they encounter football sized bee-like insects, which vaguely resemble dogs, which become aggressive after the FBI agent shoots one. One person is stung to death, but the rest escape.

Near the exit, humans come upon a mud pit where huge beasts float. A sound rouses the beasts and they attack the group as they flee toward the exit. They also appear to be canine hybrids, with hippo bodies, but huge mastiff heads replete with gigantic teeth.

The group barely manages to escape when the hippo-dogs balk at killing the main protagonist after taking his scent.

Back in the main chamber of the spaceship, they see the missing experimental jet, now swarming with aliens. They approach it, and under apparent instruction, the aliens flee. At the plane, the group finds the pilot semi-conscious and naked in the cockpit. He has been dissected as he's covered with scars and is mentally unhinged as a result, babbling about "something worse" than the dog-aliens,

From afar, the aliens have gathered around devices, including a monitor screen. They beckon the humans over, but only one remains. He tells them through a translator screen that they are a species that has roamed the universe for 1.8 million years, after their planet was destroyed. He demonstrates how they altered themselves genetically, via a holographic depiction of a dog-alien retrograding into something like a wolf over many generations. The aliens have bred and placed their retrograde hybrids on a variety of worlds, and eons later return to check the outcomes. A wolf-like hybrid was placed on earth, and it survived to create the variety of canines that now exist. They have gathered "samples" on their craft.

An older scientist has an "ah-hah" moment when the apertures continue to command the dog aliens. He asks if they were alone on the trip. After hesitation, two apertures detach from the wall to hover before the human group. They are transparent; inside of each sits a gigantic, emaciated humanoid, more head than body. They speak is hissed tones to explain they are our "cousins" who retrograded themselves genetically to place the first men on earth. The humans realize they are "samples" to be examined. The FBI guy loses it; shots one of the dog aliens who growls when he threatens one of their "masters". The humanoids kill him, then order the dog-aliens to prepare the humans for further study. They express delight that several of the humans are of "breeding age". At the end, a huge portal opens, showing the Earth in the distance. The ship slowly spins to face outer space, then accelerates into the great unknown...

RETROGRADE