You know that movie Fanboys, where a bunch of Star Wars fans break into Skywalker Ranch to get a copy of Episode I for their dying friend? Apparently, that kind of thing was once easier to do than you’d expect — though these guys who successfully broke onto the set of Star Trek: TNG didn’t have such noble goals.

According to Memory Alpha, the story of the “Paramount Stage 9 Interloper”s began on March 10, 1988, when (at least) two fans of The Next Generation broke in to film their own behind-the-scenes documentary on the U.S.S. Enterprise. One guy acted as both director and host, calling himself “Captain Stone” — though we’re pretty sure we only count three round pips on the collar of his uniform, which would denote his rank as “commander” (then again, official Starfleet regulated uniforms don’t zip in the front and they certainly don’t include white socks, so perhaps we’re being pedantic). The other guy held the camera and didn’t appear to be very good at it judging by how annoyed Captain Stone gets over the course of the 30 minute video.

Of course, the trespassers weren’t successful. Eventually, they were caught by security and fled, leaving the camcorder behind. The video itself remained lost to the ages until it was first uploaded onto Youtube in 2007, and then again just yesterday (it had been taken down at some point in those 7 years).

It’s a bit long, but worth watching — like any good TNG episode, it has slow, deliberate pacing with some decidedly great character moments from our captain and his, err, crew. Our favorite definitely has to be at 12:13 seconds in, when Captain Stone tries to get out of one of the sick bay biobeds and ends up knocking the whole thing ever, because it’s too heavy.

The only thing that would have made this better? A cameo from the actual captain of the Enterprise. We imagine it would have gone down like this.

(via Norman Chan on Twitter, image via Star Trek: The Next Generation)

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