Sci Fi Show Scares Up Lawsuit

Call it "Close Encounters of the Wrong Kind."

A woman who thought she was being hunted by a space alien on her way to a glitzy Hollywood party and later discovered she was actually the victim of a prank for the Sci-Fi Channel's new reality series, Scare Tactics, is suing producers and the cable channel for severe emotional damage and injuries incurred as a result, reports Reuters.

In the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, Kara Blanc, a performing arts teacher, crisis counselor and budding actress, claims she was a "nonconsenting and unwitting victim" when the show ambushed her Candid Camera-style and that she was so frightened that she had to be hospitalized for "physical injuries" and "severe emotional distress."

Also named in the suit were two actor friends of Blanc's, Mathew Mertha and Travis Draft. Her suit accuses the friends of setting her up by telling Blanc they were going to an "exclusive Hollywood industry party at a desert resort" outside Los Angeles. While en route, the trio's car stalled unexpectedly on a road in the sticks. At that point, Mertha and Draft "feigned that they were being seriously physically injured...or killed" by an "alien" which turned out to be guy in a monster suit.

According to court papers, the fear factor was real enough that when Mertha and Draft allegedly told her to get away from the area and run into a "dark, desert canyon area" to escape the evil alien, she believed them.

Of course, little did Blanc suspect that a Sci Fi camera crew and hidden cameras captured her terrified reaction on tape much to her humiliation and embarrassment.

Neither Blanc nor her attorney could be reached for comment. A rep for the Sci Fi Channel refused to comment on the case, pending possible litigation.

When fake aliens start chasing reality show contestants, you know things are about to get weird, but that's the premise behind Scare Tactics, a creepy cross between the voyeuristic pranks of Candid Camera, the scary vibe of the The Blair Witch Project, and all your favorite X-Files-esque conspiracy theories. The series is hosted by former Charmed star Shannen Doherty.

Other episodes in the can include limousine passengers who are chased by "Men in Black" government agents into Area 51, that secret Nevada military base where ufologists and conspiracy theorists claim the government is hiding aliens. Another episode features campers being stalked through the mountains by that mythical creature otherwise known as Bigfoot.

Given their wacky nature it should come as no surprise that the current crop of reality TV shows has spawned lawsuits galore.

A contestant on a pilot for a CBS show that never aired titled Culture Shock sued producers and the network after she allegedly sustained severe back injuries after agreeing to be hoisted up in a "harness of pain" and suspended above the ground for an endurance test supposedly akin to a Native American ritual.

Another infamous stunt which turned out to be no laughing matter resulted in a lawsuit against Pax Television's new version of Candid Camera. A man at an Arizona airport who complied with a phony security guard's request to crawl through an X-ray machine (which was fake by the way), sued the show's producers after injuring himself inside the contraption. The footage never aired.

Other pranks gone wrong included two orchestrated by MTV.

In 2001, two teenage girls slapped MTV with a lawsuit after they were the victims of a Jackass-style stunt in which they were showered with human feces. And last year, a couple sued the music channel for sticking a fake mutilated corpse in a hotel room as part of a stunt for a new show titled Harassment hosted by That '70s Show star Ashton Kutcher.