All language subtitles for On.The.Trail.of.UFOs.S01E05.The.Stuff.They.Dont.Want.You.To.Know.1080p.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

(Upbeat rhythmic music)

- Hold on.

You might be wondering why
we're rocketing down this road,

in the middle of
nowhere right now.

Let's start over.

(Car engine revving)

This is a road, outside
of Rachel, Nevada,

known as the
extraterrestrial highway.

It was a hot day in July
and we were making our way

to one of the most
infamous ufo related locations

in america, when we
bumped into these guys.

One of the men, who
has a true fascination

in secret government
installations,

brought a friend of
his to see area 51.

Seeing as he had
been there before,

and was willing to lead
us there, we said yes.

On July 8th, the
daily mail ran a story

about a Facebook event
titled, "storm area 51."

This innocuous comical
little parody event

had somehow gathered
over 165000 attendees

in a matter of hours.

And in the days to follow,

area 51 would become
the center of a meme

that didn't want to die.

- But then again, the
name of the Facebook group

is a little disconcerting.

Storm area 51, they
can't stop all of us.

- Out of the blue, Facebook
explodes with this event.

Storm area 51,
they can't stop us all.

(Beatboxing music)

- Alien stalk, we're doing it.

- But honestly.

- I already got my
black light tattoos.

- Plus we have the the
whole storm area 51 thing.

But I think that guy said
don't do it now, that...

- Yeah, because this was
meant to be a prank anyway.

- So okay, with storm
area 51, if you don't know,

on Facebook it started as
an event to be able to go to,

is basically your storm area 51.

- There is really no way,

there's no precedent
for this event,

so there's no way to estimate

how many people
are gonna to show up.

And if you come up to the area,

absolutely do not go
anywhere near the boundary.

Range base security
will be on high alert.

They will not be messing around.

If you go near boundary,

if you even look like you
wanna cross the boundary,

you will get arrested.

- It just so happened, the same
day that the meme went viral

was the very point in time

that we were making
our way to area 51 itself.

Unbeknownst to us,

while the Internet
lost its collective mind

over naruto running and
clapping alien cheeks,

we were at the
gates of this very real,

very serious
government installation.

(Dramatic music)

(Upbeat keyboard music)

- Well, from what I
understand, in different websites,

states something
to the fact that

it's about a two to $3000 fine,

overnight stay in
the alamo county jail,

your vehicle is put
in the impound yard,

about two hours north of here,

and it's about a
hundred to $200 a day.

So basically they're taking
your vehicle (mumbles).

This is Nevada national
security site area here.

So they don't have to
play by the same rules

as the military.

They'll give you an ample
opportunity to go screw up

the rest of your life and
then they'll stop you, yeah.

- I mean that building there

has completely reflective
glass, so I'm assuming...

- There could be
somebody in there

drinking a cup of
coffee, watching us.

- How many times a day

do you think they
see people right here

or down where the cars are?

- It's gotta be the biggest
tourist attraction in the area.

- You're right, they
must just be like

twiddling their thumbs
like, "here we go again."

- When you go to Rachel,

it looks like a dust storm
back there, often with the cars.

We happen to hit it
on a low travel day.

- Can you elaborate a
little bit just in your case

on what your experiences
with the military and all that.

- Well, I used to be a cop
for them and so I was involved

in a lot of cool things.

Not here, but...

- What about
conspiracy theories,

especially those
relating to like

hidden military bases
and ufos and stuff?

- 28 years with them (laughs).

Research or something
like that, I can see it,

but the other stuff,

I don't do the
tinfoil hat stuff at all.

- You can't escape conspiracies
when it comes to ufology.

Nearly as soon as Kenneth Arnold

cited those strange
flying objects in 1947,

the culture of coverups
and hidden agendas

seemed to seep its
way into the subject.

Today, thanks to shows like

the x-files and
project blue book,

ufos and conspiracies
are intertwined.

One thing I've noticed

about this particular
subtopic of the genre

is that it seems to
move far beyond

simply the experiencers
at the heart of the subject

and forces us to ask
some bigger questions

about not just ufos,
but our own government

and the world we live in.

The downside is
that it often does so

at the risk of
rational thinking.

- Maybe inevitably
the study of ufos

has become interlaced
with conspiracy theories.

- It seems as if the
rise of reporting on ufos

coincides with the rise
of conspiracy culture,

and a lot of that has
to do with the way that

reports were handled by
the United States government

when they came in, and
the original official policy

of the air force was
to deny everything

to conduct studies
that would attempt to

and state fairly clearly that

their intention was to
explain everything away.

And that gave rise
then to a sense that,

from the public standpoint,
that we're not being told

everything that's
actually happening.

- You know, I'll
preface this by saying

I don't think the
military gets in there,

or intelligence gets in there
and leads people astray

because they don't want them
to know the truth about ufos.

They don't want them to
get near sensitive information,

whatever that might be,

and I don't think it really
has anything to do with ufos.

But, the subject can be used

to direct people's
attention in certain ways

because I don't think they
exactly know what's going on.

If they did, we wouldn't
hear about it, right?

Because they'd know

and they wouldn't have
to say anything about it.

- A ufo conspiracy doesn't
need to involve elaborate plots,

shadowy men in black
or any of the trappings

that pop culture has focused on

for the last couple
of decades now.

It can be as simple

as one person of power

choosing to quiet a
report of something

that they simply don't
know how to deal with.

In 1947, something
crashed in the desert

outside roswell, new Mexico,

and in the days that
followed the crash,

the air force made every effort

to not only quiet the
incident, but to Bury it entirely.

Years later, we still don't
know what actually happened

in roswell, despite every
effort by researchers

to ascertain proof,

that it was a crushed
saucer that fell in the desert.

It's possible that

something unexplained
did fall from the sky

and that the real cause
of all the misinformation,

discrediting and
quieting of witnesses

that took place in
the years to follow

who said our own government

didn't understand
what they'd found.

- Moore identified the wreckage
in the Jesse Marcel picture

as a mogul ml-307b
that had been launched

from alamogordo, new Mexico.

They confirmed the crash

would've spread
wreckage over a large area.

And why wouldn't
anyone have recognized it?

Well Moore said no one
around roswell had ever seen one

or was even cleared to
know about mogul flights.

- Roswell is far from the
only case of the us military

quieting the reports
of a high profile incident

involving a uap.

And not all of them are
based in the United States.

- Here in taran, our
incident is one that's

even for ones that
are skeptic, they'll say,

"well, there is maybe
something to that."

So can you describe
more about what you saw or

can you talk about that?

- Yeah, taran was a
city, or is a city in Iran

of approximately two
million people at the time.

- And this happened
in September of 1976.

Over the city, people
had started reporting

seeing strange
lights in the sky.

More and more calls
started to come in

to the local airport about it

and they said, "we
have nothing up there,

so we don't know what this is."

It then got turned over
to the Iranian air force.

- A ufo was spotted by,
not just the local yokels.

Turns out the secretary
of defense for Iran,

the head of the Iranian
royal imperial air force.

They launched an f4,
which was at that time,

one of the top
fighters in the world.

- So the pilot goes up there

and he is in the area where
people had reported seeing this.

And the closer he got,

the more the
instruments on his plane

started to malfunction.

- As soon as the f4
electronics locked onto the ufo,

the electronics on board
the aircraft shut down.

The plane started
to fall from the sky,

as soon as they're
no longer a threat,

all the electronics return.

- He couldn't communicate
and let them know

what he was seeing
or what was going on,

so he got pretty scared.

The closer he got to
this thing, these lights,

the more things
seemed to go wrong.

So he knew at that
point like I got a bow.

I have no weaponry
that's working.

His weaponry, malfunctioned.

I could run out of fuel
if I stay up here too long

and no one knows where
the hell I actually am.

- In the meantime,

the ufo was spotted
by two airline pilots,

over half a million people.

The ufo disappears.

They recall the fighters

and then they spotted
it across the city,

on the mountains, on
the other side of the city.

It appeared to land.

- So he lands, he
reports what he'd seen.

He was told not
to talk about it.

The next day, he and
several investigators

from the Iranian air force
and the CIA in america

went out to look for
whatever that object was

that went into the area.

They never found
anything, but after that,

the CIA, the dia got involved

and it was now an American case.

We were loaning our planes to

the Iranian air
force at the time.

So they wanted to know

what was outmaneuvering
our own technology.

I would imagine the
conversations were not too friendly

and that, just like always,
our intelligence agencies

probably bullied their way in.

But, Purvis jafari, the guy
who was a part of all this,

he was told to never
talk about it and he didn't.

And that came straight
from the CIA at that time.

- Well, simple intimidation
and instruction to secrecy

may seem to run counter

to the more romantic
notion of a conspiracy.

In ufo circles, this sort of
case is by far the most common

and verifiable version
of the government

actively covering
up a ufo sighting.

The bulk of conspiracies
tend to revolve around

craft objects and
secret installations.

While roswell was
the first purported crash

to make the mainstream,

it wasn't the last and it
certainly wasn't the only one

to involve the government
and a military base.

While area 51 gets
all the attention,

it's Wright-Patterson air
force base in Dayton, Ohio

that comes up far more
often in official documents,

recovered via freedom
of information act requests

involving unknown objects.

- So Wright-Patterson
air force base in Ohio

has long been a focal point

of those studying
the ufo question.

The fascinating thing is that

when we look at that region
of the country, of course,

in Pennsylvania nearby, we
have a very famous incident,

the kecksburg ufo incident,
where something crashed

and was recovered
and also potentially taken

to Wright-Patterson
air force base.

- Well, I remember
that night very clearly,

December 9th, 1965.

Thursday night, i'm
listening to a radio station

in Pittsburgh, and
there's breaking news

of this brilliant, fiery
object that was seen

from Ontario, Canada over
Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

So multitudes of people saw
the object as it passed over.

As the evening went on,
more information came in

that whatever the object was,

it apparently fell
into a wooded ravine,

near low woods of kecksburg,
in westmoreland county.

Then you had the local
fire departments come in,

searching for a
possible downed aircraft,

and then soon after
the military arrives.

And multitudes of witnesses,

including reporters
on the scene,

confirmed the fact that
the military was here.

So we know army and
air force were involved.

We later learned from
various sources that

the object left this area

on a large military
flatbed tractor trailer

with a tarp over it, and went
to lockbourne air force base

near Columbus, Ohio,
under very heavy guard.

I was told they backed the truck

and the object into a hangar.

They set up a security
perimeter around it.

They were given
a shoot to kill order,

to anybody who
approached that hanger

without the proper clearance.

It stayed here for a short time

then continued on the
Wright-Patterson air force base

and where it's at
today, we don't know.

- A lot of people
believe that alien bodies

and crashed debris,
were whisked off

to Wright-Patterson
air force base.

The idea again is that
it was secreted away

so that it could be kept
from the American public

and so that military specialists
could study the hardware

and determine exactly
what we were dealing with

and possibly back engineer it,

as some conspiracy
theorists say.

- So how does a conspiracy
theory begin its life and,

is there any way to peel back

decades of lies
and disinformation

to get at the truth of what
may really be going on?

In some ways, the
only approach available

is to simply ask the
questions that need asked.

Questions like, what does
the government have to gain

from covering up ufos?

Where does the
cover up originate?

Where does the
cover up take place?

Or what are we even
covering up to begin with?

- I think there's
a lot of reasons

why the government
would conceal ufos.

I mean the most conspiratorial
kinda out there fringe idea

is that they're in
cahoots with the aliens

and so they don't
want us to know.

The air force has been trying

to protect us from
them over the years

and that now they kinda
have more ability to do that.

Others have felt that

perhaps there's been
a train of technology.

Some people have
said that they allow,

the government allows them to

abduct people in
exchange for technology.

- So you are of the outfit
that we do have materials

that the government
has materials

that have been
recovered from ufo crashes

or do you think that's
all some elaborate...

- Allegedly (laughs).

I don't know because
I'm not a scientist,

I haven't seen the
parts, and like I said,

I don't, I'm not gonna pass
judgment on something.

I'm gonna sit there and
listen and I'm gonna watch.

And as far as I can
tell, there's pieces,

apparently physical
pieces of something,

that people say fell
off of or came off of

some crashed
anomalous flying thing.

- Now, proponents of that
theory point to things like

our rapid advancement
in technology,

military hardware, like the
stealth bomber and so forth.

They say, "oh there's no way
we could have developed that

on our own with the place
we were at technologically.

You know, it's too
much of a leap."

- But over the
years, I've kinda felt,

and others have
talked about this too

is that, you know, if you're
a general in the air force

or in charge of the airspace
over the United States,

how likely would you be
to admit that, you know,

you don't have control
over our airspace.

Even if the public
wouldn't freak out,

just for your own credibility,

you wouldn't necessarily
be too excited about

sharing that kind
of information.

- It is kind of curious
when we look at the details

of some of these theories.

Of course, area 51,

which is constantly
in the media, it seems,

has long been a focal point

of some of those
conspiracy theories.

- Area 51s fame is so widespread

that many completely
overlooked the true nature

and incredible actual
objective of the place

in favor of focusing
on its ufo lure instead.

Its official name is either
groom lake or homey airport,

although, obviously, don't
try getting a commercial flight

into kxta or you might find
yourself shot out of the sky.

- The geographical
spot of groom lake

is called home plate.

Take offs are smooth
from groom lake.

- The land where
area 51 sits today

was acquired in 1955 and
encompassed 38400 acres of land.

Today, it's much
larger than that.

The base is a testing
ground for aircraft

such as the u-2's biplane,
the a-12 and the f-117.

It's a still
functioning facility

with a massive number of
personnel working on site.

The most are private contractors

who fly out of mccarran
international airport in Las Vegas,

on the infamous,
unmarked Janet airplanes.

Today there's more
fiction than reality

floating around online
regarding the base

and separating the
two is nearly impossible

without speaking to
someone in the know.

Most of this was kick
started in the late 80s

by a man named Bob Lazar.

(Rhythmic rock music)

- Hi, I'm Bob Lazar.

During late 1988 and early '89,

I worked on the
propulsion systems

of extraterrestrial vehicles

for the United
States government.

Between December
of '88 and April of '89,

I worked as a
senior staff physicist

in what has to be the most
secret project in history.

My place of work was a
facility at an area known as s4

on the nellis air force
range in central Nevada.

Area s4 is located,
approximately,

15 miles south of the infamous

area 51 installation
at groom lake,

where the u-2 and sr 71
fire planes are developed.

- So just fall of 2019 we see
this huge interest in area 51,

and it really took a lot
of people by surprise,

but it's not entirely
a new phenomenon.

Area 51 has captured

American's hearts and
imagination for many years.

A lot of this
started post roswell,

where there was a debate about

where the wreckage
was being taken

and they knew it was taken
to a secret government facility.

And this really got
solidified with Bob Lazar

coming out in the 80s with
what was happening at s4

and the testing of
alien technology,

particularly alien technology
as a result of roswell.

- Area 51, I will
call it mythology.

And when I use
the term mythology,

it doesn't mean that
it's not necessarily true,

but it's a story out there that
cannot usually be confirmed.

And this is one of those
where one person came out

and said that he worked
on back engineering

alien technology at area 51.

- Well, of course the
rumor was that, you know,

Bob Lazar was working out there

reverse engineering
extraterrestrial spacecraft

and maybe they possess
alien bodies on ice out there.

Something to that effect.

- There's at least one
live alien living there.

- There definitely
is one live alien,

regardless of what
Bob says today.

- We're talking about Bob Lazar.

During December and January,

December of 1988,
January of 1989,

when he was working out
there, he sat right in that chair,

whenever he'd come
back from the test site,

and he'd tell me what
he saw, you know.

- Bob Lazar, of course,
came forward in the late 80s.

This was at a time
when, you know,

area 51 was being put on the map

and that was the place to
go if you wanted to see a ufo.

- You have people like
Bob Lazar, for example,

coming out, making
claims in the 1990s

about having worked
at a portion of area 51.

And his claims didn't
happen in a vacuum,

and they happened at a
time when a news reporting

was a major way that people
received their information.

- He was interviewed
by George knapp,

a very credible,
investigative journalist,

who says that he has
had unnamed sources

who have remained
anonymous that confirm

that he really did that.

But unfortunately these
people aren't coming forward.

So we just have this one person.

Otherwise, we don't
really have any information

that ufos were
investigated at area 51.

- Where they originally
built the nuclear rocket,

all that facility is there.

This is the famed yucca mountain

where they ran a story.

Stop, this the Greenway,
that's the new strip there.

Ttr is up there.

Your orientation of
the runway is there.

On December 23rd...

- I knew Bob Lazar before
he worked at area s4.

- We were wondering if
you'd want to talk about Bob.

- Okay, no Bob was a
skeptic, bordering on debunker.

Several months we met
at John Larry's house,

he came and he says, "you
guys were totally freaking right.

I'm working on
one of the things."

And he explained it all
and he says, "come on out.

We'll go out and watch it.
They fly every Wednesday night."

- So he said we got
one and he also said

we have one off planet
or one that was a copy

of something of that...

- He says, he was told
that they shot it down

and it had a big
dent in the side.

So we went out on
a Wednesday night,

dark, 30 in the morning,
and we're in a cut

where the road's like
20 feet downhill and it's,

and we could see him
flying around, and so...

- What kind of
maneuvers, I mean, was...?

- Just dancing around.

The impression I got, although
there's no confirmation was,

"okay, it's your
night to fly it bill."

"Okay, let's see what it'll do."

I mean that's the
impression I got

the way it was flying around

doing all kinds of crazy things.

It was almost like somebody
that knew how to fly

was having a ball with
the ultimate flying machine

flying around doing
crazy aerial maneuvers.

- You didn't sit up closer?

- No, no.

All we could see
was bright lights,

looked like star light or...

We were saying,
"what the hell is that?"

There's lights, there's
the camel dudes,

I think they're called,
and all the hills above us,

shining headlights down on us.

So they want Bob Lazar,
and so we said, "screw this."

We hopped in our car,
and we're heading back.

Now, we're on a
pretty good dirt road

doing maybe 60 miles an hour,

these guys are in
(mumbles and laughs).

We get down to the main highway

and there's a sheriff blocking
the road, so he stops us.

Takes all of our ID,
gives us a big chewing out.

Bob gets chewed out.

About an hour later,
we go back home

with stories to
tell, but it was...

- What do you think is
actually going on in area 51?

- Probably not much now,
cause it's got too much publicity.

Remember that at the time,

we were in a pretty severe
cold war with the Soviet union

and the first photographs
I ever saw of area 51

came from the Soviet union.

But no, I don't think
they do much of any

testing out there anymore.

- Despite it's place in
mythology and pop culture

area 51 remains an extremely
secretive military installation

whose activities we
still aren't really clear on.

We know that there
was testing of aircraft

which took place on site,

but as to verifying any of the
claims made over the years

regarding aliens and ufos,
well, it's all still a mystery.

In some ways, area 51 is
best viewed as a microcosm

for the conspiracy culture
permeating the subject.

While evidence of coverups
and shadowy goings-on exist,

there's no real proof

and all we're left
with is speculation.

Does any of the
theorizing taking place

regarding this particular topic

actually offer any consolation

that we still have no idea

what's flying
around in the skies?

- At the heart of
conspiracy theory,

I think is the desire
to explain everything

in a satisfying way.

Tied to that is the sense
that the world is out of control.

(Crashing noise)

It's falling apart
right before our eyes.

We want there to be a
reason that that's happening.

And conspiracy theories
do us the service of saying

there is a nefarious plot.

There is a plan.

- So in folklore studying
conspiracy theories,

there's oftentimes this
underlying sense of disbelief

about why people would
even buy into the concept of

relating to any kind
of conspiracy theories.

However, when
you really delve deep

and you begin to look
up the conspiracy itself

as well as the numerous
amount of rumors

that really generate
that conspiracy theory,

you find that more
often than not,

the people who are
providing those rumors

have had a historical
experience that explains

why they would buy into
that conspiracy theory

in the first place.

- The fact of the matter is,

conspiracy theory, properly
understood, of course,

led to things like the
American revolution

in the sense that, we
were pretty sure that

we were being ripped off

by the government
of Great Britain

and decided to do
something about it.

- So the governmental distrust
really is not a new concept,

nor is it one that's
completely unfounded.

- People who like
and value freedom,

in order to really be free,

you have to have as much
of the facts as you can have.

(Dramatic music)

- It kinda sounds like
there might not be anything

going on out here, other
than like sort of traditional,

yeah, military craft
testing and things like that.

- Yeah, there's a lot
of speculation about

how much might be underground.

The hangers there are
massive and, of course,

there's one of the longest
runways in the country.

Do I think they're still
working on some stuff there?

Maybe.

They might be housing some
stuff, maybe storing it there.

But I think with all the
attention it's gotten...

- Yeah, I mean you
can literally go into the

little alien and ask them
for directions to area 51.

So like this place has
become part of the lure,

like more so than probably
any other piece of ufology

other than maybe like roswell.

Everyone knows area 51.

- Right, and that's
the whole thing,

is there's such a mystery
of the, of the not knowing.

Is there anything alien there?

Was there ever
anything alien there?

And besides that, even if
that is something that we made,

did we get that technology
from something off planet?

- Coming up on the next
episode of, on the trail of ufos.

- It's behind us here, brown
mountain, north Carolina,

and the black mountain range

just outside of
the linville gorge.

- So we turned and look
the opposite direction

and there they were,
just whizzing around.

It's kind of a strange
movement that they were making,

and to me it reminded
me like an Ember

that comes off of like a fire.

- If you take it just as it
is, it's a ufo phenomenon.

It's an unidentified
aerial phenomenon.

(Upbeat music)