All language subtitles for Out of the Blue - The Definitive Investigation On UFOs (2003) 720p WEB x264.ENG

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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EDGAR MITCHELL: Until
the current period,

or until the last 30 years,
it was conventional wisdom

both in science and theology--
we're alone in the universe,

the whole, single
repository of life

anywhere in the known universe.

Well, no one believes
that anymore.

NARRATOR: In 1961, astronomer
and astrophysicist Dr. Frank

Drake devised the Drake
equation, which calculates

the number of worlds
with intelligent life

capable of technologically
communicating with us.

According to Drake's
own calculations,

there are 10,000
communicative civilizations

in the Milky Way galaxy.

Four decades later,
the Drake equation

has been greatly expanded on
by Dr. Amir Aczel, bestselling

author and Associate
Professor of Mathematics

and Statistics at Bentley
College, Massachusetts.

His latest book,
"Probability 1,"

deals with why there
must be intelligent life

in the universe.

My calculation
of "Probability 1"

goes far beyond what was
explored with Drake's equation.

Drake's equation refers
only to our galaxy.

My calculation goes to the
visible universe as a whole,

which has billions
of galaxies, each

containing billions of stars.

So if you multiply
all these numbers,

you get tremendous odds
for the existence of life.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I think one of the main
changes that has taken place

in recent years in
astronomers' views

of whether or not there might
be other civilizations elsewhere

in the universe has
to do with the fact

that we've discovered dozens
of other planetary systems

around other stars.

Now in most cases,
the planets are

giant planets like
Jupiter, not the kind

that would harbor life.

But where there are
those kinds of planets,

there are likely
to be other planets

too, in those solar systems.

And so we're optimistic these
days about life elsewhere.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

What's the nature of
the universe we live in?

What is our relationship
to the larger reality?

I looked up and all of
a sudden there was this,

you know-- gotta say
it-- flying saucer.

Didn't even make a sound.

Not even a sound.

A little bit of swamp
light appears here.

It goes out, another
one appears over here.

That goes out.

MAN: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

Man, it was just, phew, gone.

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

I saw one, but I don't know
where-- it just disappeared.

INTERVIEWER (ON TV):
There is nothing to hide?

There's nothing to hide at all.

I was a part of the
United States Air

Force cover-up for 18 years.

There's no way,
within the military

or within the government, of
keeping track of something

that is classified.

MAN: Yeah, awful.

It clearly had a shape
to it, and a big shape.

This should be the subject
of rigorous scientific

investigation and not
the subject of rubbishing

by tabloid newspapers.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I am here to discuss the
so-called flying saucers.

The Air Force interest
in this problem

has been due to our
feeling of an obligation

to identify and analyze to the
best of our ability anything

in the air that may have the
possibility of threat or menace

to the United States.

In pursuit of this
obligation, since 1947,

we have received and analyzed
between 1,000 and 2,000

reports.

There have been a certain
percentage of this volume

of reports that have been
made by credible observers of

relatively incredible things.

It is this group of
observations that we

now are attempting to resolve.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: For the last 50
years, 95% of all UFO incidents

have been explained in
down-to-earth, conventional

terms.

These explanations include
misidentified aircraft, weather

balloons, atmospheric
phenomena, light aberrations,

mass hallucinations,
hoaxes, and swamp gas.

However, these
explanations cannot

be applied to the remaining 5%.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The cumulative
evidence in these cases

leads towards a
possible conclusion

that some UFOs are
not of Earth origin.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In this documentary, we will
present unexplained cases

from around the world,
investigate 50 years

of official contradictions
and denials,

and put forth possible
reasons for secrecy.

We will examine scientific
theories on interstellar travel

and discuss the current
movement for official disclosure

on a subject that has primarily
been considered unworthy

of serious investigation.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The case of the Phoenix
Lights began on an evening

in March of 1997.

ANNOUNCER (ON TV):
Late breaking.

You're watching
News 15 at 10:00.

MARC BAILEY (ON TV):
Do these lights belong

to visitors from outer space?

Hundreds of people
across the valley

think it's a
distinct possibility.

Good evening, I'm Marc Bailey.

And I'm Robin Sewell.

Thanks for joining us.

We start tonight with
those strange dots of light

that were the talk of the town.

Tonight--

NARRATOR: As reported,
multiple UFOs were sighted

throughout the Phoenix basin.

Numerous eyewitnesses
were already outside,

looking up into the night
sky to catch a glimpse

of the Hale-Bopp comet.

Yeah, everybody was
excited about the comet.

But in the middle of that,
these very mysterious lights

appeared over Phoenix,
over Maricopa County.

NARRATOR: Michael Tanner is part
of a team of investigators who

received roughly 800
reports from eyewitnesses

regarding the Phoenix incident.

Between 8:15 and 8:45,
we had an enormous craft

at varying altitudes come
right through the center

of the valley of Phoenix,
led by a formation

of orbs that were
clearly visible

through most of this state.

It passed right in front
of us, just about-- right

above eye's length.

My estimate of the size of
the craft from the nose as it

passed us, where we
lived, to the end

of the left wing that
passed in front of us

was over 5,000 foot long.

It's coming across the
sky, and as it's moving,

it's blocking and
unblocking the stars.

There was actually a shape.

It was actually five lights
that were a V, one in front

and two on each side.

And it was perfect.

It was a perfect triangle.

The object we saw, if
we opened up a newspaper,

you could not block out
the object that we saw.

People say, Mike, nah,
you saw a B-2 bomber.

My response was, we could
land all 40 of our B-2 bombers

on the wing of that craft.

If you can picture Camelback
Mountain, a well-known landmark

in Phoenix, something
about four times

that size levitating down
the road with lights on it,

that'll give you an
idea what this was like.

And he says, you're not
going to believe what I saw.

And I said, yes, I would.

I says, that's all that's been
on the news all night long,

is this, this craft.

The community got
pretty excited about it.

There was a lot of-- a lot of
press and borderline hysteria,

almost.

Explanations have been
tossed about-- that they

were flares, that they were
planes flying in formation.

But Marc and Robin, we
checked with the FAA today,

we checked with Sky Harbor, and
we checked with Luke Air Force

Base, and there's been
no official explanation

of those strange bright
lights last night.

NARRATOR: Truck
driver Bill Greiner

was driving south on I-17
towards Luke Air Force Base.

He witnessed several fighter
jets scramble to intercept

two UFOs directly overhead.

I pulled my truck alongside
the west silos, which

faces Luke Air Force Base.

It was, like, right there,
and I was here unloading.

Everything was completely quiet.

It was, like, really eerie.

There was one
right over the base

and then there was another
one out toward Wickenburg,

and these things
were just hovering.

They were huge orbs.

But they didn't make
no sound or nothing.

They were just hovering
right there over the base.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

All of a sudden, I hear
a lot of roaring come

out of Luke Air Force Base.

And here there is two
fighters coming out,

and they had the
afterburners on 'cause

there were huge flames coming
out the back of these things.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ripped right around
the back of me

and shot right for those things.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Then they disappeared on them
and it was just, phew, gone.

The military says the
lights over Arizona

last night were
flares, but the people

who saw the lights
last night say

they couldn't have been flares.

NARRATOR: In central Phoenix, in
what is known as the Sunnyslope

area, the Ley family were
coming home in the early evening

to watch for the
Hale-Bopp comet when

they witnessed a
very large craft

fly directly over their house.

You know, 'cause when
the craft went over,

I really focused on the light.

The tip was right out in the
street and the arm is going by,

and the end of the arm was
at least to that mountain

over there.

It was 600, 700 feet away,
with these huge lights

set inside of it.

And I look inside and
it's, like-- it's wavy.

When you look down the street
on a hot day in Phoenix,

above the street,
like, it's really wavy

and you see everything
kind of distorted.

That's what it looked like up
inside the middle of the craft.

And it just skimmed by.

Didn't even make a sound.

Not even a sound.

NARRATOR: Further
eyewitness testimony

came from Stacey
Roads and her daughter

Emily, who both saw a giant
craft fly over their car.

It was gunmetal black.

It wasn't shiny, it
wasn't invisible.

It was more of a dull,
bluish-black color.

And we both just
stayed there and looked

at it for a couple minutes,
and it was completely silent.

NARRATOR: Mike Fortson
spotted the same craft

from his backyard in
Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix.

When you're looking to the
north, towards Phoenix proper,

the lights of the city
of Phoenix and Tempe

and Scottsdale
and all these here

will form a gray background.

And this was a
black object coming

through a gray background.

We had no problem whatsoever
seeing this vehicle.

We knew it wasn't
really ours because it

was just too doggone big.

Matter of fact,
"profoundly massive"

is a better way to describe it.

We don't really have words
in our language to describe

something that large.

It was huge.

NARRATOR: Councilwoman
Frances Barwood

was approached by a
reporter who complained

about the lack of response
from local government

regarding the sightings.

What this reporter said
was that they had gone

to every level of government,
including the City of Phoenix,

and nobody would talk to them.

That this object went from
north of Prescott and Paulden

all the way down
to Tucson and then

was also seen in
Wickenburg, and nobody

would give them any answer.

They either told them
that they were not

going to talk about it at all
or that there was nothing--

that nothing happened.

NARRATOR: Responding to mounting
pressure from his constituents,

Governor Fife Symington
held a press conference.

Oh, I'm going to
order a full, you know,

investigation of
this through DPS.

We're going to make all
the necessary inquiries

and we're gonna get
to the bottom of it.

We're gonna find out
if it was a UFO--

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Later that
day, Governor Symington

held an unscheduled
live press conference

to announce that they
had discovered the source

behind the Phoenix Lights.

FIFE SYMINGTON (ON
TV): Now I'll ask

Officer Stein and his
colleagues to escort

the accused into the
room, so that we may

all look upon the guilty party.

[LAUGHTER]

Now this just goes
to show that you

guys are entirely too serious.

[LAUGHTER]

I think everybody pretty
much laughed at it.

I thought it was
really disgusting.

He was just
dismissing everything

that these people had
seen and said, just

like we're all Looney Tunes.

I just thought that was a
really improper attitude

for somebody in his position.

Nobody in state, local,
federal, military-- nobody

wanted to talk about it.

They didn't want to
interview witnesses.

They said it didn't happen.

They said it didn't
concern them.

There was one councilwoman,
Frances Barwood.

She's the one that spoke up and
said, why don't we investigate?

And then when it came
time for her election,

she lost, and the press,
the media, everybody else

was really trashing her bad.

Why is everybody so afraid?

And the only thing I
can think of is, one,

they were afraid
of their careers.

Which, you know, comes to a
point of what's more important,

your soul or your job?

And I guess to them,
it's their job.

And the second thing
is the scorn factor.

NARRATOR: In 2006, we caught
up with Governor Fife Symington

to find out what really
happened and whether he believed

the military's explanation
that the Phoenix

Lights were just flares.

I was never satisfied
with the explanation

that they were
high-altitude flares.

It didn't look like that.

They were too-- it was
all too symmetrical.

I mean, it clearly had a
shape to it, and a big shape.

And it was a constant shape.

And you can't control
flares that way.

There's just no way
they were flares.

NARRATOR: We also
asked him what he

wanted to accomplish
with his alien stunt

at the press conference.

The hysteria that was
building with Francis

Barwood on the city
council and some others.

And I thought it
was just-- you know,

they were just getting too,
you know, overboard about it.

I mean, it was unbelievable
the hysteria that was building,

and I just felt that there
was a need for some levity,

and we were known, once in
awhile, to pull a prank.

And I dressed my chief
of staff up as a Martian.

We led him in in this
Martian costume in handcuffs

with the Department of
Public Safety police officers

and it was just hilarious.

And it was just a total meltdown
at the press conference.

It was a spoof.

And now I'll ask Officer
Stein and his colleagues

to escort the
accused into the room

so that we may all look
upon the guilty party.

Don't get him too
close to me, please.

NARRATOR: We confronted him
with a tape recording from one

of his many constituents
who failed to find

the humor in this staged event.

It's been a long
time since I've

been put on the spot on TV.

[LAUGHTER]

STACEY ROADS (ON TAPE): Is
this still a matter of ridicule

to him after he came out
on TV with his alien,

making us all look
a little foolish?

We've all remained unwavering
of our descriptions.

A lot of evidence has
been provided since then

and I'm wondering
if he still feels

this is a matter of
ridicule or if he

has taken a new stance on this.

Well, it's a good question.

And of course, as
I said earlier,

I never felt that
the overall situation

was a matter of ridicule.

We certainly took
advantage of it.

Now this just goes
to show that you

guys are entirely too serious.

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah, you know, if I had
to do it all over again,

I probably would have
handled it differently.

But at least I have
the opportunity now

to correct the record,
and that's important.

NARRATOR: In
correcting the record,

he told us what
he would say now.

I would say that, at
that time, over Phoenix,

we all experienced a very
exciting sighting of some kind

of a craft of unknown origin.

Nobody's ever been
able to explain it.

And that it was-- most of us
feel that it was definitely,

you know, of alien origin--
enormous, inexplicable.

Probably one of the major
sightings in modern history

in the country,
'cause a lot of people

saw it in Maricopa
County, and I saw it too.

And we never got to
the bottom of it.

We never found out
what they were.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: The US military's
involvement in the UFO subject

dates back to World War II.

It began with the
sighting by Air Force

pilots of mysterious,
luminous orbs called

"foo fighters," which would
pace aircraft during missions

and then dart away.

They'd fly circles around
anything we've got flying.

That strange behavior
includes the ability

to both hover and move at
extremely high velocity,

to make a right-angle
turns at high speed,

to go straight
up, straight down.

All of this, typically,
without any noise,

without any visible external
engine, without any wings,

without any tail.

We simply could not do
that back 50 years ago.

NARRATOR: In the summer
of 1947, numerous UFOs

were spotted by local
authorities, airline pilots,

and civilians worldwide.

By July, these sightings
made headlines in newspapers

all across the United States,
culminating on the 8th of July

with the alleged recovery
of a crashed disc on a ranch

near Roswell, New Mexico.

The military were
quick to respond.

They sent agents out
all over this area

here to try to get
information on Roswell.

And yet, we stood
back like fools

and said that it didn't exist.

It was a weather balloon.

NARRATOR: 50 years after the
incident, Colonel Phillip J

Corso, formerly a member of
the National Security Council,

revealed that the weather
balloons over Roswell

was a cover story for the
crash of an alien craft.

We had to cover to protect
our own installation,

'cause they tabbed
us as kooks and it

would destroy our organization.

You had to understand
what was going

on in the government and the
climate of opinion and all.

So, discretion
better part of valor,

we just kept it to ourselves.

Only some certain people knew
about it, head to head, brain

to brain-- no paper trail.

NARRATOR: Although the official
position claimed that UFOs

didn't exist, this
secret memorandum

written by General Nathan
Twining suggests otherwise.

The consensus expressed by
the Air Materiel Command

was that "the
phenomenon reported

is something real and not
visionary or fictitious."

The memo continues, "There are
objects probably approximating

the shape of a disc of
such appreciable size

as to appear to be as large
as a man-made aircraft."

In this chaotic climate
and in an effort

to reorganize the US military,
President Truman passed

the National Security Act.

This act built the framework
for America's modern

national security structure.

Among other things, the act
established the National

Security Council and the CIA.

The National
Security Act of 1947

allowed for the creation
of a state within a state.

NARRATOR: Author of "UFOs and
the National Security State,"

Richard Dolan asserts that
the signing of the National

Security Act created an
intelligence infrastructure

capable of maintaining a
very high level of secrecy.

One with an enormous
amount of power,

an enormous amount of wealth,
an enormous amount of secrecy

and latitude of action.

NARRATOR: The level of secrecy
imposed by the US government

on the UFO issue is revealed
in this top secret memorandum.

It was written in 1950 by
electronics engineer Wilbert

Smith, a high-ranking ranking
official in the Canadian

Department of Transport.

After a meeting with a top
government scientist employed

by the Pentagon, Smith was
informed that "flying saucers

exist," and more significantly,
"the matter is the most highly

classified subject in the
United States government,

rating higher even
than the H-bomb."

[EXPLOSION]

In my opinion, I think they
were wary that it would panic

the public if they knew
that someone had vehicles

that had this kind
of performance way

back right after World War II.

NARRATOR: On a clear
night in February of 1951,

Lieutenant Graham Bethune
sat at the controls

of a US Navy transport plane en
route from Iceland to America.

The flight was routine until
Bethune spotted a strange group

of lights below his aircraft.

And we were at 10,000 feet--
this is about 15 miles away.

It came up to us like
that, just about that fast.

And of course, I disengaged the
autopilot to put the nose over.

I thought we'd be able
to go under this thing

and not collide with it.

And when I did, it's
staring me in the face

and you couldn't see
anything out of the cockpit.

We could tell it was a monster,
about 300 feet in diameter.

As it drifted out to our
right, we could see the dome.

NARRATOR: According
to Lieutenant Bethune,

the object remained in this
position for about a minute.

It then accelerated rapidly and
disappeared above the horizon.

Upon landing at an
airbase in Newfoundland,

he was debriefed
and interrogated

by several officers
from Naval Intelligence.

At the conclusion, he was
ordered to never speak

about this incident again.

You accept anything
like that simply

because you're in the
military and that's your job,

defending the country.

And whatever they tell
you to do, you do.

NARRATOR: The identity of the
group responsible for imposing

the secrecy around the UFO
issue was revealed to Lieutenant

Bethune several months later in
a conversation with an officer

from Naval Intelligence.

And I ask him the question.

I said, what happens
to this report?

Where does it go?

He said, it goes to Navy
Intelligence, the Chief

of Naval Operations,
then it goes to a Joint

Intelligence Committee.

And of course, later on, I
learned that was M-A-J-I-C,

which is Majority Agency
of Joint Intelligence.

Now he said, this is
a small committee,

but this committee
determined whether it would

affect our national security.

That if it did,
it would probably

never go anywhere else.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: One of
the main arguments

used to deny the possibility
of interstellar travel

is the question of distance.

The closest star,
Alpha Centauri,

is 4.2 light years away.

If astronauts
traveled to this star

at the speed they
reached the moon,

it would take them
roughly 100,000 years.

ALAN SHEPARD (ON RADIO):
OK, make it smooth.

NARRATOR: Another major
obstacle in obtaining

interstellar travel would be
the amount of fuel required.

When you're driving
a car, the amount

of propellant you have to
carry in your fuel tank

is very small, just a few
percent of the weight of car.

When you're trying to carry
enough propellant to take

a rocket ship vast distances,
even in our solar system,

pretty soon you find yourself
carrying a propellant

just to propel the propellant.

This problem
skyrockets to infinity.

So we'd want to go
to propulsion systems

that very, very high
exhaust velocities.

And with a chemical reaction--
essentially, a barely contained

explosion with a
chemical rocket--

you have a limit to that.

And that limit is
currently almost

met by the Shuttle engines.

You can't go beyond
it very well.

And so we have to go
to some other kinds

of propulsive source.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Even if we could
develop a radical form

of propulsion capable of
obtaining near lightspeed,

Einstein's theory of
relativity tells us

that we would encounter
another enormous problem.

There's a law of relativity
that says that the closer you

try to accelerate something like
a rocket to the speed of light,

the more massive it becomes.

And so it becomes infinitely
massive at the speed

of light, which makes it
impossible to get there.

A new way of thinking
about the universe--

NARRATOR: Physics
professor, Rhodes Scholar,

and author of the national
bestseller, "The Elegant

Universe," Dr. Brian
Greene has been

researching
relativity and quantum

physics for several decades.

Dr. Greene brings up another
problem with traveling

near the speed of light.

If astronauts one
day go to the moon

and beyond in ships that travel
at a substantial fraction

of the speed of light,
when they return to Earth,

relatively really tells us
they will be in for a shock.

Because while they may have
thought a few months went by,

they'll get back to Earth
and they'll see that years

and years-- hundreds,
perhaps thousands of years--

will have gone by.

This is not science fiction.

This is science fact.

So the idea of traveling
between stellar systems

in normal space, I don't
believe, is possible.

We're gonna have to invoke jump
gates from "Babylon 5," or warp

drives from "Star Trek."

And of course, in 100 years,
who knows what might develop?

MAN: Three, two, one, zero.

NARRATOR: Although, at present,
the solution to interstellar

travel may sound
like science fiction,

a growing number
of scientists are

exploring radical
new theories that

may circumvent these obstacles.

We're beginning to discover
in theoretical physics

that maybe our entire
universe is just

a subset of a much
greater universe,

a multi-dimensional universe.

That's being investigated
in modern superstring

and M-brane theory.

In the context of
those theories,

there may be new possibilities
that, so to speak, step outside

of space-time, move
somewhere else,

and come back into our universe
at some distant location.

Einstein teaches us
that the fabric of space

can respond to its environment.

It can warp and curve.

And in fact, the equations
of general relativity

allow the fabric of space
to have severe bends.

So long as you distribute
matter and energy

in the appropriate
way, you can bend

space fairly significantly.

So in principle, it's
possible that if you want

to go from one end of
the universe to another,

you don't have to travel all
along the fabric of space.

Maybe you can bend
the fabric of space,

and then travel from here to
here-- a very short journey--

by a shortcut, a wormhole.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Continuing research
into the possibilities

of interstellar
travel are currently

being conducted by NASA's
Breakthrough Propulsion

team headed by Mark Millis.

What we're trying to do is
break it down into the smaller

steps to attack the
critical make/break

issues of some of the
things we need to find out.

Can you propel a vehicle
without propellant?

Can you conserve
momentum in the process?

The issues of
faster-than-light travel,

the causality violations
and things like that.

Address those in smaller
steps to see if you

can eventually lead that way.

MICHAEL LINDEMANN: Today we have
scientists working for NASA,

working for the US Air Force,
working for British Aerospace,

working for other
firms and agencies

that we don't even know about
that are intent on discovering

how to do star travel.

They have already decided it
can be done theoretically.

Now the question is,
OK, what's the trick?

Let's figure it out.

If you look back 50, 100 years
to what science as we knew then

and what we could
do today, who knows

what we could do in the future?

So I have an inherent
optimism about progress

and I think that what
seems impossible today will

possibly be possible tomorrow.

We're at that point of
imagining these things,

asking these
technological questions.

Clearly that opens the door
to at least the possibilities

that others have
figured it out already.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MAN (ON RADIO): T-minus
15 seconds and counting.

Nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two--

All right, there it goes.

NARRATOR: In 1965, Gordon Cooper
was the last American astronaut

to go up into space alone.

GORDON COOPER (ON RADIO):
see what they think on it.

Now the action that I
have taken is to turn off

my 0.05 g switch gears and my--

NARRATOR: He orbited
the planet 22 times.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[CHEERING]

GORDON COOPER: I
think those already

that know me know that
I've always spoken honestly

and straightforward to you.

I intend to do so today.

NARRATOR: 10 years earlier,
while stationed at Edwards Air

Force Base, Cooper
witnessed an event that

has yet to be explained
nearly 50 years later.

He was supervising the
filming of a precision landing

facility for F-86 fighter jets.

Suddenly, a
saucer-like craft flew

directly over the cameramen.

Three landing gear apparatus
opened and the object

landed on the dry lakebed.

GORDON COOPER: It was
just a typical saucer

shape, that double
lenticular shape, metallic.

And they went out and
picked up their cameras

and moved on out
toward him, filming.

And he lifted off, put
the gear back in the well,

and climbed out at a very
rate of speed and disappeared.

NARRATOR: Cooper
had the film footage

of the strange craft developed.

By the time it returned
from processing,

he had gone up through the
ranks to report the incident.

Finally, with the colonel
telling me the, uh-- you know,

when the film
arrived at my desk,

to put it in a carrier pouch.

There'd be a courier there at
my office by that time already

and they'd arranged for him to
fly in our base airplane back

to Washington with these films.

MALE INTERVIEWER: Did
you watch the film?

We didn't have a
chance to run it.

I had a chance to hold it up
to the window and look at it.

It was certainly good film.

NARRATOR: After
the developed film

was sent by plane to
Washington, it was

never seen or heard of again.

MALE INTERVIEWER: Did you ever
keep in touch with anybody

about it or discuss it?

How would I keep in touch
with anybody about it?

There's no way
within the military

or within the government of
keeping track of something that

is classified, unless you're
directly involved in it,

and I was not.

I went into space to learn
about the universe we live in,

to get new insights, to
go beyond the boundaries

of our known existence.

EDGAR MITCHELL (ON
RADIO): How's this?

Look OK?

NARRATOR: Apollo 14 astronaut
and sixth man on the moon Edgar

Mitchell states in his book,
"The Way of the Explorer,"

that he's never had firsthand
experience with UFOs.

However, he has "met with
credible professionals

within two governments
who have testified

to their own
firsthand experiences

with 'close encounters'
during their official duties.

The only people I
know of that claim

to have been in that position
are former intelligence,

military, and government people
and some contractor people

whose official duties
in the early days

were to investigate
this and know about it.

Those people are under--
were under at that time--

great restrictions
and high security

clearance that prevented
them from telling

the general public about it.

What we photographed
up there affected me

for the rest of my life.

NARRATOR: In 1964, former US
Air Force lieutenant Bob Jacobs

was in the 1369th photo
squadron at Vandenberg

Air Force Base in California.

He was in charge of
photo-optical instrumentation

at a tracking site in
Big Sur, 124 miles away.

His mission was to film an Atlas
rocket go through all three

stages of powered flight.

This particular mission was
part of the Nike Zeus objective

for the development of
an anti-missile missile

during the height
of the Cold War.

All cameras rolled as they
heard liftoff from Vandenberg

over their radio.

MAN (ON RADIO): Six, five,
four, three, two, one.

ROBERT JACOBS: We were
looking down south, southwest,

and the missile popped
up through the fog.

It was just beautiful.

Then our guys on
our M45 tracking

mount with 180-inch
lenses on it got it.

And sure enough, we
could see all three

stages of powered flight as they
burned out and dropped away.

And then, of course, to
our naked eye, all we saw

was a kind of smoke trail
going off into subspace.

So we whoopeed and
shouted and heard the film

wrap off in the BU
telescope and figured,

well, that was our first
big deal and we got it.

NARRATOR: Lieutenant Jacobs
then took the cans of film

down to Vandenberg to have
them developed that night.

The following morning, Jacobs
was ordered to go immediately

to the office of
Major Florence J

Mansmann, the ranking
optical instrumentation

officer in charge.

I walked into his
office and they

had a screen and a
16-millimeter projector set up.

There was a couch and Major
Mansmann said sit down.

And there were two
guys, as I recall--

two guys in grey suits,
civilian clothes,

which was fairly unusual.

And Major Mansmann
said, "Watch this,"

and turned on the
film projector.

And I watched the
screen and there

was the launch from the day
or two before at Big Sur.

As the Atlas missile
entered the frame,

we could see the whole third
stage, which has two rocket

nozzles like this and one in
the center, a gimbaled one

in the center, fill in our
frame from 100 and-- oh,

about 160 miles.

It pretty exciting optics.

And then on that telescope
we could see the warhead,

the dummy warhead.

NARRATOR: According to
Jacobs, at this stage,

the rocket was
travelling between 11,000

and 14,000 miles per
hour when a saucer-shaped

craft entered the frame.

It flew into the
frame like this

and it shot a beam of
light at the warhead.

Now remember, all this stuff
is flying at several thousand

miles an hour.

So the thing fires a beam
of light at the warhead,

hits it, fires
another beam of light,

and then flies out
the way it came in.

And the warhead
tumbles out of space.

Now, when the lights
came on, Major Mansmann

turned around, looked
at me, and said,

were you guys screwing
around up there?

And I said, no, sir.

And he said, what was that?

And I said, it looks to
me like we got a UFO.

NARRATOR: Nearly
two decades later,

several letters written by
Major Florence J Mansmann

were obtained.

In one dated March 8, 1983,
Major Mansmann corroborated

Lieutenant Jacobs' story.

"In the film, the assumption was
at that time extraterrestrial.

Details would be
sketchy and from memory.

The shape was classic disc.

The center seemed to
be a raised bubble."

Now Major Mansmann said to
me, after some discussion

about it-- he said, you are
never to speak of this again.

As far as you're concerned,
this never happened.

NARRATOR: In another letter,
Major Mansmann describes how

two agents took the footage.

"They did not sign out
for all the footage,

but took out that part
that showed the encounter

and returned the rest of the
film as a 'complete' package.

The one agent stated as he
handed me back the film,

'That leaves you off the hook,
but not off any disclosure--

understood?' Naturally, my
answer was, 'Yes, sir.'"

Major Mansmann
never saw it again

and, as far as I'm concerned,
nobody else ever saw it again.

Certainly not at Vandenberg.

I'm certain that
it left Vandenberg

and went somewhere else.

NARRATOR: Another case
involving nuclear missiles

happened three years
later at Malmstrom

Air Force Base in Montana.

This site is the largest
missile field in the world.

We simply were told
not to talk about it.

We did not talk
about it to anyone.

NARRATOR: As a Strategic Air
Command launch controller,

Lieutenant Colonel
Robert Salas was

one of the men responsible
for the deployment

of nuclear Minuteman missiles.

Three, two, one, key turn.

NARRATOR: These missiles were to
be launched as a counterattack

in the event of nuclear war.

On March 16, 1967,
Lieutenant Colonel Salas

was on duty when he was
contacted by his topside guard

stating that there was
an unidentified object

above the missile site.

--as I can tell, it'll be
past the initiating area in--

NARRATOR: Salas
ordered the guard

to observe and report back
on any further development.

Then he called back
within a few minutes

and was very frightened.

I could tell by his voice
he was extremely agitated.

He said there was
an object hovering

outside the front
gate, a reddish-orange,

oval-shaped object.

And it just hung there quietly.

I went and woke up
my commander and told

him about the two phone calls.

And as I was telling him
about the phone calls,

our missiles went into no-go
condition, one after the other.

We lost nearly 20
missiles that morning.

NARRATOR: After speaking
with his commander,

Salas again contacted
the topside guard.

The guard said that
the UFO had vanished.

Basically, it just
took off at high speed.

It was no longer there.

These missiles are
controlled individually,

so if something did
happen within the system--

the electrical system, let's
say, or the command and control

system-- for one missile,
one launch facility,

it would not affect the others.

One select switch off.

Check.

ROBERT SALAS: And in
addition, these missiles

are separated by miles.

So all these things
point to the fact

that somehow this object was
able to disable these missiles.

NARRATOR: Later that
day, Salas was ordered

to report to the
Air Force Office

of Special Investigations for
debriefing by two OSI officers.

And so after we gave them our
little debrief, the first thing

the OSI guy did is
stand up and said,

you need to sign these documents
not to disclose any of this

to anyone, ever.

And we signed and
basically that was it.

Neither one of them asked
too many more questions

and we were escorted out.

NARRATOR: Several
recently declassified

documents support
Salas' claims of UFO

sightings near Malmstrom.

This preliminary report
dated the 24th of March,

1967 states that "between the
hours of 2100 and 0400 Mountain

Standard Time numerous reports
were received by Malmstrom Air

Force Base agencies of UFO
sightings in the Great Falls,

Montana area."

It goes on further to state
that "reports of a UFO landing

near Belt, Montana were
received from several sources,

including deputies of Cascade
County Sheriff's Office."

Another formally classified
secret Air Force telex states

that "the fact that no apparent
reason for the loss of 10

missiles can be
readily identified

as cause for grave concern
to this headquarters."

In 1993, after
Lieutenant Colonel Salas

had retired from
the Air Force, he

tried to gain access to
official Air Force records

of the incident.

In a letter from the
Department of the Air Force,

he was informed that
"no UFO report affected

national security," making
reference to an attached Air

Force fact sheet which states
"no UFO reported, investigated,

and evaluated by
the Air Force has

ever given any
indication of threat

to our national security."

If 20 nuclear missiles going
down the same time UFOs are

sighted-- nearly 20-- is not
a national security incident,

then I don't know what is.

NARRATOR: If unidentified
flying objects

are capable of disabling our
most powerful weapon systems,

then understandably
the military would

not want to reveal
any information

exposing its vulnerability.

This is confirmed in a letter
from the Department of the US

Air Force which states, "as
regards this subject matter,

mere existence or
nonexistence is currently

and properly classified
per executive order

and exempt from
mandatory disclosure

under the Freedom
of Information Act

because it would reveal defense
capability or lack thereof."

This letter was a
response to an inquiry

made by electronic system
technician Lee Graham.

At the time, Mr. Graham worked
at Aerojet, a prime contractor

to the US Air Force in
developing DSP satellites.

He asked the foreign
technology division

if the satellite
system he worked on

could and had detected UFOs.

Perhaps we need some outside
universal threat to make--

NARRATOR: On five
separate occasions,

Ronald Reagan made references
to an outside alien threat

and the unifying effect
it would have on us all.

One such reference was
made in September of 1987

while addressing
the United Nations.

I occasionally think how
quickly our differences

worldwide would vanish if we
were facing an alien threat

from outside this world.

And yet I ask you, is not an
alien force already among us?

What could be more alien to
the universal aspirations

of our peoples than war
and the threat of war?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Not every
government chooses

to deny the existence of UFOs.

Since the fall of
communism in 1989,

information
surrounding the subject

has become much more
accessible in Russia.

Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich
was one of Russia's earliest

cosmonauts.

He joins the ranks of
an increasing number

of military personnel who have
testified as to the validity

of the UFO phenomena.

Major General Popovich
shared with us

a sighting he had
while flying home

from Washington DC with a
delegation of scientists.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: The pilots
contacted ground control.

Ground control did not
detect anything on radar,

even though the
object could be seen

by all occupants of the plane.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

MAN: Now we're going to meet
the head of Special Intelligence

section of the Center for
Space Communication of Russia,

Major General Vasily Alexeyev.

It's like CIA, but I
don't know how to tell--

NARRATOR: Just outside
Moscow is Star City.

This is the home of the
Russian Space Program.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: During the
Space Race of the late

'50s and early '60s--

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: --the Russians
also experienced

numerous sightings of UFOs.

MAN (ON RADIO):
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: In Star City, we
met with General Alexeyev, who

spoke with us about the
history of unidentified flying

objects over Russia.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: During the Cold
War with the Soviet Union,

the U2 spy plane
was one of the most

highly classified projects.

In the late '50s, Gordon Cooper
was involved with its research

and development.

Being familiar with that
era's cutting edge technology,

Cooper was certain that
the craft he'd seen

was not manufactured
on this planet.

I mean, we didn't have
any vehicles of that kind.

And I was 99.9% sure
that the Russians didn't

have any of that type either.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: By the '70s, the
Russian military began to take

the UFO subject very seriously.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: At this
point, the Soviet Union

allocated a great
sum of money towards

a thorough investigation
of the UFO phenomena.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: After the fall
of the Soviet Union,

glasnost brought about
a new era of openness.

We traveled to Mineral Water, a
city near the Chechnyan border,

where we met with Deputy
Minister of the Interior

Colonel Opravich.

He shared with us
a sighting he had

while flying in a
commercial jet over Russia.

He, along with 100
other passengers,

noticed a spherical
object outside the plane.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

NARRATOR: This sighting
led the colonel

to do extensive research
on UFO full incidents

throughout Russia.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: 140 miles north of
London is Bentwaters, England.

In December of 1980, a
United States Air Force Base

armed with nuclear
weapons was reportedly

the site of a series
of UFO encounters

over a three day period.

NARRATOR: Responding to reports
of a possible downed aircraft,

three patrolman were sent
out to Rendlesham Forest

to investigate.

Airman First Class
Edward Cabansag

was one of the security
officers present.

That night, we were
on Security One,

which is in charge
of mobile security

for the Woodbridge base.

And we responded
to Jim Burrough's

sighting of something out on
the edge of the flight line.

Well, the controller
on the radio

broadcast over the
air that go down

and check out a possible UFO.

NARRATOR: Another security
officer present was Airman

First Class John Burroughs.

So it was like me-- it
was Penniston and me,

and then Cabansag to my right.

It was apparent that it
wasn't an aircraft crash.

We knew that much.

NARRATOR: Staff
Sergeant Jim Penniston

was sent down to lead
Burroughs and Cabansag

to investigate the object.

There was a craft of
some sort that was sitting

just inside the treeline.

NARRATOR: As the three officers
approached the alleged crash

site, it became obvious
that it wasn't what

they were prepared for.

Burroughs would say to Jim
Penniston, do you see that?

Do you see?

Do you see what's out there
at the edge of the trees?

It was this bright
lights, you know?

And the only way
you can describe it

is, I guess you'd
call it an object.

At that point in
time, three of us

had direct observation
of the craft.

The closer we would get to it,
we would lose communication,

you know, with central
security control.

NARRATOR: Cabansag was
sent back towards the base

to help transmit
radio communications

between the other
two officers, who

went further to investigate.

The only noise we
heard out in the woods

was the noise of the animals.

Just as Burroughs and
I entered the treeline,

the shape of the
craft was defined.

The closer we got, the more
the white light dissipated.

But what appeared was
a triangular craft.

When we approached
it, it was-- oh, I

say it measured
probably about nine

feet long, maybe six feet high.

A little higher-- maybe
six and a half feet.

The lighting emanated from
the fabric of the craft

and it would
actually move around.

I mean, it would move.

You'd have different
locations where

maybe a little blue
lighting was going

into it, or maybe a little red.

And then there
must've been some type

of lighting underneath of
it, because it silhouetted

the aircraft itself.

What I did that night is
I had my notebook with me.

I went around and started doing
a 360 walk around the area,

taking and recording
my observations.

I was looking underneath
the craft like that.

I had taken quite
detailed notes on that.

"Type of aircraft still unknown.

No apparent landing gear.

No sound, but appears to
be pulsating somehow."

Yeah, it was pretty
nerve-racking.

I mean, when there's something
there right in front of you,

you don't know what it is.

I would go ahead and feel
the craft, which was warm.

There were static
electricity in the air.

"Very warm to touch.

Identifying markings
are on left front side."

As I came around to the
one side of the craft,

there was etching on the--
facing me just above the center

part of the craft itself.

Course, this is done
all freehand as I

was walking around the craft.

But these symbols ran
from left to right across.

And then underneath
that line of symbols

was this, which is triangular,
and some type of circle here,

some type of circle here,
and a larger circle here.

And of course, all this was
filled in with the, like,

the etching part of it.

Like you would etch glass.

So those symbols
were raised and they

had a different feel than the
rest of fabric of the craft.

Liftoff occurred at 2:45 with no
sound, no air disturbance, and

no other identifying markings.

Myself and, at that
time, Burroughs,

we were a fairly good distance--
maybe 30 feet-- away from it.

And we had taken a
defensive position

on that, on the ground.

I mean, it was
threatening to me,

but it wasn't the type that
you were going to shoot on.

And also the fact was
that what would happen

if I would have shot at him?

What good would it have done?

And then it started moving
back in between the trees,

with absolutely no sound,
no air disturbance at all.

Whatever it was,
went up and shot

back up out over the trees,
just like it was there

and it was gone.

"Takeoff.

Unknown speed."

And I write, "Impossible."

NARRATOR: Details
of this sighting

were first made
public when this Air

Force memo was obtained through
the Freedom of Information Act.

It states, "The
object was described

as being triangular in
shape, approximately two

to three meters across
the base and approximately

two meters high.

It had a red light on top and a
bank of blue lights underneath.

As the patrolman
approached the object,

it maneuvered through the
trees and disappeared."

This Air Force memo
was written by Deputy

Base Commander Charles Halt.

General Gordon Williams,
who was commander

of the base at the time, denies
either seeing or authorizing

the release of this memo.

In a tape recording presented
to General Williams, Airman

Burroughs questions how
a story of this magnitude

could escape his oversight,

JOHN BURROUGHS (ON TAPE): How
did Colonel Halt's memo go up

without you knowing
about it and reviewing

it and allowing it to happen?

Anything that left
that base and then was

significant to have
warned government

would have to be cleared by you.

MALE INTERVIEWER: You hear that?

Yeah, I did.

Let me answer that last
part about that memo.

MALE INTERVIEWER: OK.

Yeah, I agree.

That went under the door
and I didn't see it.

No.

Did he have a motivation
in doing that?

Did he think that if
he brought it in to me,

I would have stepped on it?

I certainly would have looked
at it very carefully, because it

had some things in
there that I don't think

we were prepared to defend.

NARRATOR: Lieutenant
Colonel Halt

was most likely motivated to
write this memo because he too

was a witness to a
second occurrence,

as himself states at the
bottom of the document--

"Numerous individuals, including
the undersigned, witnessed

the activities," signed Charles
I Halt, Lieutenant Colonel,

United States Air Force.

He captured the encounter
on his pocket tape recorder.

I believe that he went
out there to debunk

the whole situation
and I think he

got in the middle of a situation
he couldn't explain either.

He came toward us.

It stopped overhead
and sent out a beam.

Now, the beam wasn't
like an ordinary beam

of light that radiates out.

It was a focused beam, like a
laser beam, that illuminated

the ground in a small
circle, probably

two foot or so in diameter.

When I gave the tape that
I made to my superior,

he took and played
it to 3rd Air Force,

to the commander and
the staff, and they all

scratched their head.

And the answer finally
was, it's a British affair.

Leave it with him.

Give it back to them.

Hence I wrote the memo
that has become public.

I think that Halt was
definitely wrong in doing that.

Once that cat was
out of the bag,

you know, I couldn't put Humpty
Dumpty back together again

and it lived its own life.

NARRATOR: What did
happen over a period

of three days at Bentwaters?

Did a UFO actually land at
a US Air Base in England?

That is one explanation,
that it actually happened

as Colonel Halt reported.

The other explanation
is that it didn't.

And in that case, one is bound
to assume that's Colonel Halt

and all his men
were hallucinating.

NARRATOR: The British
Ministry of Defense's position

is that nothing that
took place at Bentwaters

was of any defense interest.

This view is criticized by
former Chief of the Defense

Staff Admiral Lord Hill Norton.

That the colonel of an American
Air Force Base in Suffolk

and his merry men are
hallucinating when there

are nuclear-armed
aircraft on the base

must be of defense interest.

If indeed what he says took
place, did take place--

and why on earth
should he make it up--

then surely the entry of a
vehicle from outer space,

certainly not
man-made, to a defense

base in this country also cannot
fail to be of defense interest.

The public position at
the Ministry of Defense

is that UFOs pose no threat
to the defense of the realm.

Well, I quite understand
such statements--

and indeed, during
my tour of duty,

I probably wrote
statements like that.

NARRATOR: From 1992 to
1995, the British government

employed Nick Pope to
investigate UFO reports.

He now differs with
their position.

While it's true
to say that there's

been no overt hostile
action, it certainly

seems to me premature
to say that there

is nothing of any
defense significance

when you don't
know what they are.

They claim that something from
outside the Earth's atmosphere

landed at their Air Force base.

They went and stood by it.

They inspected it.

They photographed.

It.

The following day, they
took tests on the ground

where it had been and
found radioactive traces.

When we went back out there
in the area the next morning,

after we got off duty, and
found areas where something was

damaged, that's when we
were even more, like, what's

going on, you know?

I think it's fairly well known
that Colonel Halt and his team

examined the landing
site very carefully,

both the damage to the trees
and the three indentations

found on the forest floor
where this metallic craft

was seen to land.

Jim went back two days
later and made plaster casts.

You can see the size.

It's approximately
8 to 10 inches

across and about three inches
deep at the maximum point.

This is cast number two.

He made an impression of all
three of the indentations,

and they were all identical.

NARRATOR: The United
States Air Force position

is that there was a
sighting on the base

witnessed by both
high-ranking officers

and base security police.

However, according to the
United States Air Force,

military personnel mistook
a stationary lighthouse

for a UFO.

I was told to sign
some paperwork stating

that what I saw
out there was just

the beacon that was out
there and that there was

nothing out of the ordinary.

A 45-minute investigation
on the ground

with a craft that you're
touching and feeling

and observing and
doing a walk around,

to be confused with
lights in the sky

or a lighthouse or--
it's just totally absurd.

Lighthouses don't fly.

They don't go up,
they don't go back.

I mean, you know?

And then you could say, well,
if you were a half a mile away

and you thought
something moved up

and the beacon was still-- the
fact is, we were right on top

of whatever was right there,
so there's no way that

was a lighthouse beacon.

Three competent Air
Force guys saw it,

told not to ever talk about it.

NARRATOR: Georgina Bruni has
been researching the Bentwaters

Incident for over five years.

Her book, "You Can't
Tell the People,"

is the definitive
account of this case.

In May of 2001, she
was one of the first

to receive a number of
previously classified documents

from the Ministry of Defense
about the Bentwaters Incident.

These documents are known
as the Rendlesham Files.

In one of the first
documents in the file,

we have now, in black and
white, that General Gabriel, who

was the chief of the United
States Air Force in Europe,

was handed taped evidence.

NARRATOR: Why would
General Gabriel,

one of the most important
members of the US military

in Europe, be handed
evidence for the incident

unless it was of
extreme significance?

You had the largest attack
fighter wing in the United

States Air Force, OK?

Through the British,
they released documents

admitting that General
Gabriel came down and took

all the information,
and it's proven

that this stuff disappeared.

Where did all the reports go?

You know, we had got
General Gabriel out there,

we had-- who was the top
Air Force general in Europe,

there three days later.

Why was he there?

Well, he's there to
manage what was going on.

He was there for
information control.

He was there to obtain evidence.

He was there for all that stuff
that they're denying happened.

The other significant
factor is that this

is not ufologists talking here.

We have the Defense
Intelligence staff carrying out

their own investigation
and admitting

that the radiation readings were
10 times higher than normal.

NARRATOR: One other document
released in the Rendlesham

Files is this defensive
press line issued by the MOD

instructing the
authorities how they

should respond to the media.

It states that, "MOD was
satisfied that there was

nothing of defense interest" and
"there was no question of any

contact with 'alien beings.'"

We were told not to talk
about it, so we didn't.

What we saw out there was
definitely unidentifiable.

What I saw did not appear
to be man-made it was way

beyond any technology
we had at the time,

and probably even do today.

I could never
identify what it was.

It's why I've always
called it a UFO.

I can say without a doubt
that we're probably not alone.

NARRATOR: In the southwest of
England, just outside Somerset,

there was another sighting.

It was captured on videotape.

MAN 1 (ON TAPE): Got it.

Got it.

MAN 2 (ON TAPE): Yeah, I
think it's coming this way.

Yeah.

MAN 1 (ON TAPE):
Yeah, I can see it.

MAN 2 (ON TAPE): Is it?

It is.

MAN 1 (ON TAPE): That's amazing.

The UFO that you
saw originally was

spotted approximately
about 200 yards

to the left of the aerial mast.

And I suppose it was probably
at about 500 feet up.

It was very low--

MALE INTERVIEWER: Right.

DAVID KINGSTON: --in the sky.

MALE INTERVIEWER: And this is
a radio communications tower?

DAVID KINGSTON: This is
our radio communications.

They've got three
military masts on there.

And it sends out-- one
is a navigational signal,

which is used for aircraft.

The other two aerials
are near the top.

We're not quite sure, but
there is a pulsed frequency

that comes from them.

The actual UFO, from
the time it was first

seen by Rod Dickinson,
who did the filming,

it lasted approximately
12 minutes.

So it was quite a long
period of time for a daylight

sighting to occur.

NARRATOR: We took this tape
to be analyzed by Lucasfilms'

special effects division,
Industrial Light & Magic

in San Rafael, California.

Here we met with Bill George,
an Academy Award winning

visual effects supervisor.

Over the last 20 years,
his special effects

have been featured
in films like "Star

Wars-- The Phantom Menace."

The optical zoom
certainly would--

NARRATOR: He
analyzed this footage

to determine its authenticity.

BILL GEORGE: But there
are several things

that I see when the
footage is running

that tells me that
this was actually

there when this was filmed.

First of all, it's
the shake, the shake.

If you were to give me a
background plate of just

this sky and say, we want you
to take this image of a flying

saucer and match it in, that
something that's technically

very difficult to
do because you have

to match-- putting the
two elements together,

you have to match the shake.

Now, certainly, we have
computers that can track that,

but this is just-- this
is all over the map.

A couple other cues that tell
me that this is actually there

when it was being filmed
was that is going in and out

of focus with the background
because the camera is

trying to compensate
and trying to focus.

It probably has some
sort of autofocus.

So the background
is going in and out

of focus along with the object.

There are these dark things
flying through frame,

and if someone was to
have to put that in there,

they would have to composite
it in behind the birds.

It would be a technical problem.

NARRATOR: Bill George couldn't
say it was a real UFO,

but he could confirm
for us that the object

was not added in later.

Given those clues,
I'm convinced

that this object was there
when this person was taping.

NARRATOR: In 1968,
the UFO subject

was being debated at the
highest levels of government.

The debate was triggered
by a major sighting

over the state of Michigan.

[BEEPING]

And I could see the
lights on either side.

And then the red light
was sort of casting

a glow over the whole thing,
so it looked like a round disc.

When it got to the
top of the trees,

it stopped, and a blue and
a white light come on it.

Good evening.

NARRATOR: Walter Cronkite
reported the incident on CBS.

WALTER CRONKITE: Residents
of the area saw it.

The police saw it.

Sergeant Newell Schneider
of the Sheriff's office

remembered it well
enough to draw it.

MALE REPORTER: What
do you think it was?

NEWELL SCHNEIDER: Oh, if
they call it a flying saucer,

that's what it is.

The Air Force sent
its consultant,

Allen Hynek in to review
what had been going on.

And Hynek, after about one
or two days in the field,

had to face a big
press conference.

He said, well, I don't
know what was going on.

It may have been marsh gas.

A little bit of swamp
light appears here.

It goes out.

Another one appears over here.

That goes out then.

But the illusion as
viewed from a distance

is that the objects have
moved back and forth.

The public was
absolutely furious

and the press kind
of made fun of it.

And Congressman Ford of Michigan
thought he would take action,

and he calls for public
hearings by the Armed

Services Committee.

This matter should be brought--

NARRATOR: In an exclusive
telephone interview,

the late President Gerald
Ford confirmed his involvement

in the investigation.

NARRATOR: Congress
heard testimony

from a number of witnesses.

Former Marine Corps
Major Donald Keyhoe

asserted that there was far
more to UFOs that swamp gas.

In fact, the Air
Force at one time

had a top secret estimate
that these things

were interplanetary spaceships.

Today, we have
over 10,000 cases

at Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base, of which 646 of these

remain unidentified.

The Air Force has been accused
from time to time of hiding

information about UFO.

What do you have to say
to that, Colonel Tacker?

Well, these charges
are absolutely untrue.

NARRATOR: The Air Force
continued to maintain

that it was hiding nothing.

And we've always honored
the accredited media

when they want to investigate
a given specific sighting.

TV HOST: There is
nothing to hide?

There is nothing
to hide at all.

Now, this is not an attack
on the Air Force spokesman

or the project spokesman.

They are simply following
orders to explain away all UFO

sightings as quickly as
possible when they become public

and deny that UFOs really exist.

So it was pressure
from Congress

that led to the study that ended
up not being an open study that

was a few days long.

It ended up by being a project
given to a university that

lasted 18 months.

NARRATOR: In an
effort to maintain

a neutral investigation,
it was assigned

to the University of Colorado.

The university gathered a
team of 11 eminent scientists.

They were to analyze and make
public their conclusions of

the most compelling UFO cases.

As reported in a 1968
feature article published

by "Look" magazine,
the university study

was doomed from the beginning.

The project leader,
Dr. Edward Condon,

appeared to be biased
from the start.

In February of 1967, he
stated, "My attitude right now

is that there's nothing to it."

He added, "But I'm
not supposed to reach

a conclusion for another year."

The "Look" article goes on to
describe how two scientists

were fired over a leaked
memo written by one

of the project's managers.

This memo dictated
what the project's

conclusions were to be before
the project even started.

The leaked memo read,
"The trick would be,

I think, to describe the
project so that, to the public,

it would appear a
totally objective study

but, to the
scientific community,

would present the image of
a group of non-believers

trying their best
to be objective,

but having an almost
zero expectation

of finding a saucer."

When Representative J Edward
Roush read the leaked memo

and all the controversy
published by "Look" magazine,

he urged Congress to take
over the investigation

because he challenged the
objectivity of the study.

His plea was ignored.

Left unchecked, the
project chairman

announced the conclusions to
the anxiously waiting press.

Dr. Condon stated
that "nothing has

come from the study
of UFOs that has

added to scientific knowledge."

It is not a fair
and accurate summary

of the body of the report,
which a summary should be.

NARRATOR: Three decades
later, Dr. Peter Sturrock

an astrophysicist from
Stanford University,

takes a close look at some
of the case studies never

mentioned in Condon's summary.

The Condon Report is
really a complex document.

If you're looking for what they
thought were wild goose chases,

you'll find those.

If you're looking
to see whether there

any intriguing cases that were
really challenges to the staff,

you'll find them.

And if you want to see whether
the staff thought anything

was what they called,
quote, "a real UFO,"

you'll find that too.

There are two regular
visual cases analyzed

by McDonald and Thayer.

NARRATOR: Another case
summary was that--

PETER STURROCK: And there
are two photographic cases

analyzed by William Hartmann who
he thought were possible UFOs.

PETER STURROCK: But
they do not feature

at all in Condon's summary.

The part that most
people read, the part

that the press referred
to, were the few pages

of recommendations
and about one chapter,

a short chapter of
summary, that were

written entirely by Condon.

NARRATOR: While the
panel of scientists

conducted an objective
investigation as requested

by Congress, the
project leader appeared

to have ignored the data
and asserted that there was

nothing to the UFO phenomena.

On December 18, 1969,
the New York Times

quoted Dr. Condon saying it "was
a bunch of damned nonsense,"

and that he was sorry
that he "ever got involved

with such foolishness."

Condon's 30-year-old conclusions
are still being used today

as a benchmark to
prevent further official

scientific investigation.

One of the problems
with so-called UFO

research by debunkers is
they ask the wrong question.

Their question
is, what are UFOs?

Really what they're saying is,
are all UFOs alien spacecraft?

And the answer,
of course, is no.

The proper question is, are any?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MAN 1 (ON TAPE):
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]

WOMAN (ON TAPE):
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]

MAN 1 (ON TAPE):
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]

MAN 2 (ON TAPE):
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]

It was, you know-- it
was shaped like a saucer.

I hate to use those
trite terms, but that's

what it was shaped like.

I looked up and all of
a sudden there was this,

you know-- gotta say
it, flying saucer,

you know, kind of
looking like it was

not particularly far above us.

If you look at tree
limb, it seems to me

that when it floated across
the road, it was to just about

that far away.

You saw that it
was actually moving,

but the fact was it
just went-- zoom!

And it was just gone.

Nothing we had
at the time could

fit the description,
size, shape,

or performance of this craft.

MAN (ON TAPE):
[SPEAKING SPANISH]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: It appears
that many people in power

are being kept out of the loop
regarding the UFO phenomenon.

At the same time,
covert operations

being conducted by the
military-industrial complex

seemed to have escaped
government supervision.

In the councils
of government, we

must guard against
the acquisition

of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought,

by the military-industrial
complex.

NARRATOR: In his farewell
address to the nation,

President Eisenhower
cautioned the public

about the relationship
between the US military

and the industrial sector
which supplies the military

with weaponry and equipment.

Eisenhower felt that
if gone unchecked,

the military-industrial complex
would become too powerful.

The potential for
the disastrous rise

of misplaced power
exists and will persist.

We must never let the
weight of this combination

endanger our liberties
or democratic processes.

Well, I think he was telling us
the military-industrial complex

will stick you in the back if
you are not totally vigilant.

And I think he felt like
he had not be vigilant.

I think he felt like he
trusted too many people.

NARRATOR: Brigadier
General Stephen Lovekin

served under President
Eisenhower in the White

House Army Signaling Agency.

He recalls Eisenhower's
concern with the

military-industrial complex.

He realized that he
was losing control.

He realized that this, this--
the phenomenon of whatever

it was that we were
faced with was not

going to be in the best hands.

And that, that-- those were
the-- as far as I can remember,

that was the expression
that was used--

"It's not going to be
in the best hands."

NARRATOR: Almost as great as the
mystery surrounding the origin

of UFOs is the wall of denial
encountered even by the most

powerful citizens in the land.

In October of 1969,
President Jimmy

Carter, who was then governor
of Georgia, had a UFO sighting.

He filed a report with the
National Investigations

Committee on Aerial Phenomena.

In the report, he
described a sharply

outlined, self-luminous object
about the size of the moon.

It maneuvered silently
in front of 10 witnesses.

At a recent book tour,
we asked President Jimmy

Carter about his sighting.

What happened to--

MALE INTERVIEWER: The UFOs.

I don't really know
what happened to it.

I saw one, but I don't know
where-- it just disappeared.

MALE REPORTER: Well,
this is a first.

A president and--

NARRATOR: During Jimmy
Carter's presidential campaign,

he promised to make public what
the government knew about UFOs.

In an effort to fulfill this
promise, President Carter's

scientific adviser Frank
Press wrote a letter

requesting that NASA
lead the investigations

into the UFO phenomena.

When news of this
pending investigation

reached Air Force Colonel
Charles Senn, he wrote NASA.

In closing, he
stated, "I sincerely

hope you are successful
in preventing a reopening

of UFO investigations."

Whatever activity is going
on, to the extent that it is

a clandestine group, a
quasi-government group,

a quasi-private group,
it is without any type,

as far as I can tell, of high
level government oversight.

And that is a great concern.

NARRATOR: In December
of 1977, NASA officially

declined President
Carter's request,

proposing that it "take no
steps to establish a research

activity in this area."

MALE INTERVIEWER: Did you
ask when you were president--

[BEEPING]

MALE BROADCASTER (ON RADIO): The
American Broadcasting Company

and affiliated stations
present "Headline

Edition" with Taylor Grant.

TAYLOR GRANT (ON RADIO):
The 509th Atomic Bomb Group

headquarters at Roswell, New
Mexico reports that it has

received one of the discs,
which landed on a ranch

outside Roswell.

Colonel William Blanchard
of the Roswell air base

refuses to give details of what
the flying disc looks like.

NARRATOR: New Mexico
congressman Steven Schiff

was pressed by his constituents
into making inquiries

regarding the Roswell Incident.

I think a number of people
getting their information

from news stories-- not in
all cases, but in many cases--

are not getting all
of the information.

NARRATOR: In a 1997
radio interview,

he recalls what happened
when he made inquiries

with the Department of Defense.

NARRATOR: After a second attempt
with the Department of Defense,

Congressman Schiff
was again referred

to the National Archives.

NARRATOR: Evidently, former
director of the FBI J Edgar

Hoover was also denied
access, as he stated

in his own handwriting
in July of 1947--

"We must insist upon full
access to discs recovered."

Hoover continued,
"The Army grabbed

it and wouldn't
let the Bureau have

it for cursory examination."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We will stand against
the forces of--

NARRATOR: A more recent
inquiry was apparently

made by President Bill Clinton.

Let us stand up
and talk against it.

NARRATOR: He asked
Associate Attorney General

Webster Hubbell to investigate.

Webb Hubbell and Bill
Clinton were old friends.

In his book, "Friends
in High Places,"

Hubbell recalls a special
favor that President Clinton

made after he first
came into office.

"'Webb,' he said, 'if I
put you over at Justice,

I want you to find
out the answers

to two questions for me.

One, who killed JFK?

And two, are there UFOs?'
He was dead serious."

Hubbell had looked into
both, but wasn't satisfied

with the answers he was getting.

When we asked Mr. Hubbell about
this incident, he replied--

NARRATOR: We contacted
President Bill Clinton

and received this letter.

It is a response from NASA
stating that "No government

agency is currently responsible
for investigating UFOs

because there is
no factual evidence

that alien life exists
on other planets

or that UFOs are
related to aliens."

See, this is what
you'd be up against.

Who are you gonna see?

The moment you go see
somebody, they'll say,

oh, we can't tell you.

It's top secret.

What are you gonna do?

You have to walk out.

So you see how the
government operates?

How they can-- you say you
should go there and ask them.

Who you gonna go to?

Even with the
experience I had being

on the top of the
government all the years,

I couldn't tell
you who to go see.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Paris, 1999.

The most important UFO study in
recent decades is made public.

This was presented to the
President and Prime Minister

of France, urging diplomatic
action with the US

through the European Union.

The report was
compiled by the COMETA

group, which investigated
over 500 UFO cases

from around the world.

This report, which
came from a high level

group of French military
officers primarily,

as well as some scientists,
is the most strongly worded,

pro-UFO document ever
written in any language

that has been made public
by a group of this stature.

NARRATOR: The COMETA
group consists

of generals and admirals of
the French military as well

as top-level scientists,
such as-- Andre Lebeau,

director of CNES, the
French equivalent of NASA;

General Bernard Norlain, former
Commander French Tactical Air

Force; and Jean-Claude
Ribes, the former director

of the Observatory
at Lyon, France.

The title of the report
is "UFOs and Defense--

What Must We Prepare For?"

Now, it's 92 pages of
text after that title.

NARRATOR: The COMETA
group received

data collected by numerous
scientific agencies.

Much of its content
was based on reports

from military and
civilian pilots.

This official document was an
internal military investigation

that was never intended
for the general public.

The report also contains a
selection of photographs.

These photos were subjected
to scientific analysis

in an effort to
determine authenticity.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

COMETA also examined
physical evidence,

such as plant and
soil samples taken

from alleged landing sites.

One such case occurred
on January 8, 1981

in Southern France.

There was only a single
witness to that event.

He was working in
his small farm.

Late one afternoon, he
heard a whistling sound.

NARRATOR: He looked up
and just above the trees

was this strange craft.

It descended and landed 30
feet away in his garden.

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

He told his wife
about it in the evening

and she thought
that he was joking.

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

PETER STURROCK: They
went back in the morning

to look at the area and they
found traces on the ground.

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

The scientists came
out in a week or two

and they took further
samples of soils.

They also took
samples of plants,

and the analysis of the soil and
plants were very interesting.

They were carried out
quite professionally.

And there was evidence of
compression of the soil

and there was a clear
evidence of damage

to the plants, the
kind of injury that

could happen because
of heating-- due

to microwaves, for instance.

So there was good physical
evidence in that case.

And moreover, there
were two kinds

of physical evidence--
injury, damage to the soil

and damage to plants.

NARRATOR: Despite the
physical evidence,

the small town of
Trans-en-Provence

labeled the farmer as a
flying saucer fanatic.

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

NARRATOR: A number of cases
analyzed by the COMETA group

came from military pilots
involved in UFO incidents.

One of the most dramatic cases
occurred in September of 1976,

when a Phantom F-4
jet flown by a pilot

from the Iranian Royal
Air Force attempted

to fire a missile at a UFO.

In the same instant, the pilot's
fire control console and radio

went dead.

At this point, a smaller craft
emerged from the main UFO

and circled around the jet.

The pilot then took
evasive action and power

to his controls returned.

He escaped unharmed.

In this report, they say,
in effect, UFOs are real.

Ergo, the extraterrestrial
hypothesis may,

in some cases, be
the best or only real

answer and cannot be ignored.

They are technological.

They do things that
we probably can't do.

And, all that being
said, this obviously

constitutes a major concern for
global defense and security.

NARRATOR: When the
report was completed,

it was given to a number of
leading French journalists.

One of these was Bernard
Thouanel, the editor of "VSD."

"VSD" is a French weekly
magazine, like "Time Life."

We are a general
press publication.

It's not specialized in
UFO sightings at all.

NARRATOR: The COMETA
group allowed "VSD"

to publish the
report, provided it

was not manipulated in any way.

If the public was aware
of the COMETA Report,

then the COMETA
Report was not going

to disappear in any
kind of official

or semi-official dark
hole, so to speak.

Then the COMETA Report
became a public fact,

and it remains a public fact.

NARRATOR: To date, the report
has not been officially

published outside of
France, and so far,

only one article published
in the "Boston Globe"

has appeared in the US press.

LESLIE KEAN: I
applied a very high

standard to the story because
of its controversial nature.

I was basically retelling
what the generals

and the other people had
concluded in their report.

I looked at government
documents that

dealt with the issue of
national security and UFOs,

which was what the generals
were dealing with in France.

NARRATOR: Despite
her thoroughness,

Leslie Kean encountered
much resistance

in getting the story published.

LESLIE KEAN: I went to
many papers, many of whom

I'd published with in the past.

People laughed,
hung up the phone.

The subject matter is
ridiculed in the media.

And so even though I was dealing
with facts in this article

and high-level journalism,
they weren't interested because

of the subject matter.

This was really,
really frustrating,

because I thought this was
an extremely important story

and I know that
it was newsworthy.

Most Americans have
never heard of it.

The group hasn't published
an English translation

that anybody can get ahold of.

And they seem to be on the trail
of saying, hey, you Americans,

you're holding back technology
that you've learned from flying

saucers from your allies.

So it's a message to the
Pentagon, not to the public.

They know the Pentagon
knows they're real.

So it's an important
report for what it says.

No other report with names, with
people, with excellent cases--

this is not anonymous
reporting now--

has come close to
taking as strong

a stand that some UFOs are
extraterrestrial spacecraft.

NARRATOR: In 2007, the
French National Space Agency

CNES released a half
century of previously

classified UFO reports.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

A group calling itself
the Disclosure Project

is in Washington this week
calling on Congress to hold

public hearings on UFOs.

Is there really life
on other planets?

Some former military
and government

personnel say they have proof--

--group of people who claim
they have seen UFOs is calling

on Congress to open hearings.

What do members plan to
do with their information?

They hope Congress and
President Bush take notice.

[APPLAUSE]

MALE REPORTER: Before a crowd
of believers and skeptics,

with cameras rolling, members
of a group calling itself

the Disclosure
Project stood up one

by one to tell personal
experiences involving

what they say are UFOs.

I have with me the voice
tapes of the controllers

that were involved.

I have a copy of the original
of the video that we took,

which is rather interesting.

And it's called the UFO
incident, Japan 1648,

I believe the number was.

It happened on November
the 18th, 1986.

When it was all done, the
CIA-- one of the CIA men

told the people they were
now sworn to secrecy,

that this meeting never happened
and this event never happened.

We have another--

NARRATOR: The Disclosure
Project was formed

by Dr. Steven Greer in 1993.

Since then, he has
gathered together

over 200 military and
civilian witnesses

who experienced UFO events
during their official duties.

We had ground visual, ground
radar, airborne visual,

and airborne radar confirmation
of some of these sightings.

NARRATOR: Witnesses ranged
from FAA controllers

to military communications
specialists.

And I can clearly recall
seeing a message that

went through my crypto center
which said that a UFO had

crashed on the island
of Spitsbergen, Norway

and a team of scientists were
coming to investigate it.

NARRATOR: Many witnesses
provided official documentation

of their event.

Out of the National Archives,
I have the 18-page official

Navy and Air Force report.

So the truth is here.

I will testify under oath
before Congress that everything

that I have said is true.

[APPLAUSE]

I think it's time
to open the books.

NARRATOR: In October of 2002,
former White House Chief

of Staff John Podesta urged the
release of secret government

UFO records.

He cited the importance to
the public of declassifying

government documents.

It's time to find
out what the truth

really is that's out there.

We ought to do it, really,
because it's right.

We ought to do it because the
American people, quite frankly,

can handle the truth.

And we ought to do it
because it's the law.

NARRATOR: It's not surprising
that government officials

of this stature are
requesting the release

of official UFO information,
because sightings

over major cities persist.

In December 2006, a number
of United Airlines employees

witnessed a disc-shaped
craft hovering over Chicago's

O'Hare Airport for two minutes.

The incident was reported
in the national media.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[CHATTER]

WOMAN: Oh my god!

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Often in
reliable UFO cases,

the official explanation is
more unbelievable than the event

itself.

I had the evidence that
a crash did happen here.

And then the red light
was sort of casting

a glow over the whole thing,
so it looked like a round disc.

I saw one, but I don't know
where-- it just disappeared.

People say, Mike, no,
you saw a B-2 bomber.

My response was, we could
land all 40 of our B-2 bombers

on the wing of that craft.

I would go ahead and feel
the craft, which was warm.

There is a serious possibility
that we all being visited

and have been visited
for many years

by people from outer space,
from other civilizations.

That it behooves us, in
case some of these people

in the future or now
should turn hostile,

to find out who they are,
where they come from,

and what they want.

Well, if the accounts
are to be believed,

yes, there have
been ET visitation.

There have been crashed craft.

There have been material
and bodies recovered.

And there is some group
of people somewhere

that may or may not be
associated with government

at this point, but
certainly were at one

time, that have this knowledge.

The thing you have to
remember is that absolute power

corrupts absolutely.

When you've got the
knowledge and the budget,

nobody looking
over your shoulder,

there's a great temptation
to think that you know best.

To heck with the public, they
don't know enough to have

a sensible opinion.

That's unfortunate.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

I just wish that government
entities that are involved

in trying to always
stop the investigation

or put out some flaky story
about some observation that was

legitimate-- I don't know
why people just don't stop

and, and-- and in government--
and just sort of, you know,

open the books for everybody.

We all ought to be included.

It's something that
we should embrace

and not be fearful about.

That's-- that's how
I feel about it.

Since the subject is clearly
of great interest to the public,

I think that the scientific
community owes it to the public

to really pay attention
to the subject

and make a thorough,
extensive, and careful

investigation, and then share
with the public whatever

they find.

MALE INTERVIEWER:
A story this big,

there's no way it could be
kept secret from the public.

What do you say to someone
like that, who says that?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: If structured
craft of unknown origin

are penetrating our skies, the
people best equipped to know

are the military.

And we will provide you
with all the information

that you need.

NARRATOR: Numerous
military witnesses

are prepared to testify in
great detail that need immunity

from their security oaths.

Congress is currently
being lobbied

to provide a platform for
such testimony, but so far,

to no avail.

The discovery that we are being
visited by extraterrestrials

would be one of the
greatest in human history.

Such a discovery
would profoundly

alter the perception
of ourselves

and our place in the universe.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]