Ryan Phillippe took his son alien-hunting for his birthday

Ryan Phillippe took his teenage son alien-hunting as a birthday treat – but they didn’t find quite the “bonding” experience they were seeking.

The Shooter star, who shares Deacon with his ex Reese Witherspoon, decided to surprise his boy with a special road trip for his birthday in October.

“He recently had his 17th birthday. I didn’t tell him what we were doing, I just said it would be a short road trip,” Ryan told Live with Kelly and Ryan. “So I picked him up and we started heading out to the desert, Joshua Tree, where the crazy rocks are,” he went on.

And while the trip’s outcome might not have been all he had hoped for, Ryan certainly went all out to try and give his kid an other-worldly experience.

“I had rented an alien-themed AirBnb (to stay in) and then revealed the actual attempt of our trip was to try to make contact with aliens,” the actor added.

“There’s a ufologist (UFO expert) called Doctor Steven Greer. There’s a couple of documentaries about him and he has an app and it’s meant to take you through some steps to increase the chance of making some kind of (alien) contact,” he explained.

But father and son hit a roadblock when they got their smartphones out.

“The problem is we went too deep into Joshua Tree and lost (phone) signal so we couldn’t use the app,” Ryan groaned.

He recalled: “We did lay out in the middle of the night in the rocks and had a great father-son bonding moment – but no alien contact.”