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Phantoms opens (1998). In this big-screen version of the novel by Dean Koontz, adapted by the author and directed by Joe Chappelle (Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers), two sisters arrive in a small Colorado town to find dozens of its residents dead and the rest mysteriously missing. With the help of a local sheriff and a brilliant scientist, the women trace the cause of the deaths to a deadly, intelligent, centuries-old monster lurking underground. Peter O'Toole (Creator, television's Gulliver's Travels) heads a cast that also includes Ben Affleck (Armageddon) as well as Scream graduates Rose McGowan and Liev Schreiber.

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J. G. Ballard is born (1930). Between his cataclysm novels of the early '60s, and 1972's Crash, Ballard produced short stories. One collection—The Atrocity Exhibition, aka Love and Napalm: Export USA—was printed in the USA but blocked from distribution in that country, partially because of Ballard's use of such real-life public figures as Ronald Reagan as characters.

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Richard Dean Anderson is born (1950). Richard Dean Anderson has two outstanding genre roles to his credit: MacGyver (1985), in which he solved problems using his noodle as often as his muscles; and Stargate SG-1, starring as Jack O'Neill, an Air Force officer who leads the SG-1 special forces team through the stargate to other planets. Richard was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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SCIFIpedia Timeline for January 23