A look inside Hollywood and the movies : ON LOCATION : Your Typical Movie About Small-Town America With Typical Alien Kidnapers

On a chilly night in Snowflake, Ariz., in 1975, five loggers witnessed the abduction of one of their own by extraterrestrials. Townspeople refused to buy the quintet’s account of their co-worker’s disappearance, even after all breezed through polygraphs. Was it murder? Or a morbid hoax?

Things got stickier yet when the victim, Travis Walton, returned five days after the incident with virtually no recollection of his bizarre Close Encounter.

The real-life incident provides the basis for “Fire in the Sky,” a project producer Joe Wizan has been threatening to make for six years. The searing title notwithstanding, “Fire in the Sky,” an $18 million production due out next spring, should not to be carelessly lumped into the sci-fi genre.

Asked if the UFO visitation movie is laden with special effects, Wizan says “No. Well, 90% of the movie is not. This film is about people on the street. Small-town Americana.”

“I liken this one to ‘The Last Picture Show,’ ” picks up director Robert Lieberman. “The veneer of the film is more like ‘Paris, Texas,’ or ‘River’s Edge.’ ”

“What specifically intrigued me,” Lieberman goes on, “is that no one in the past had approached this material from a very earthbound, realistic small-town story. And trying to tell it from a human side rather than a sensationalistic extraterrestrial side.”

Lieberman directed Paramount’s 1991 holiday quickie “All I Want for Christmas,” but it was his earlier “Table for Five” that brought him to the attention to veteran producer Wizan.

When Lieberman descended on Snowflake during pre-production for his new film, he found the town too built up and modern to pass for 17 years ago, he says.

Oakland was finally settled on as the perfect locale for the shoot. Oakland, Ore., that is. Basing themselves in the larger, nearby Roseburg, the company will soon wrap up the location stuff before they move on to Industrial Light & Magic, where the otherworldly footage will be taken care of.

Robert Patrick, not seen much since his menacing turn as the sophisticated T-1000 cyborg in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” is genuinely excited about playing a more, well, conventional role.

“In real life, I’m just like anybody else,” Patrick says into the phone during a break during this typically long shooting day.

Patrick’s character is Travis Walton’s close buddy, who experiences a sudden lapse in sensibility and abruptly flees the scene during his pal’s ordeal. The actor will now have a chance to show all the emotions he couldn’t express as Schwarzenegger’s resilient “T2” nemesis.

“They think we’re covering up something,” explains Patrick of Snowflake’s populace in the film. “That’s when my character, especially, becomes very incredulous. It’s like, ‘My God! I’m born and raised here. You’ve known me my whole life. You don’t believe me but I’m telling the truth!’ ”

Lieberman is using Roseburg residents for all the extra help, and a goodly number of the speaking parts have been given to Oregonians. They get to watch big stars such as James Garner, D. B. Sweeney and Henry Thomas (“E.T.’s” Elliott, coincidentally) ply their trade. But in the beginning, at least, the townsfolk didn’t know they also had the infamous T-1000 in their midst.

“For a while there, I was pretty much inconspicuous,” Patrick recalls, “and no one really picked up on it. But now, word’s out and I’m getting a little more attention.

“And I think once they look in the eyes, they see it.”