All language subtitles for UFO.2021.S01E01.WEBRip.x264-ION10_3_English

[low whirring]

[whirring accelerates]

[static]

[beep]

pulsing, dramatic music

[man]
What the hell is that thing?

[woman] I saw this huge
saucer-shaped vehicle.

[woman 2] I've never seen
anything like that before.

[man 2]
It wasn't blinking or nothing.

Was just like a ball of light.

[man 3]
Whoa.

It's got
three triangular lights.

-[pilot] Well, if there's a--
-[pilot 2] Look at that thing!

[pilot]
It's rotating.

[man 3]
It's extremely quiet.

It's definitely not an airplane
or a helicopter.

I don't know what that was.

[Leslie Kean]
For decades,

UFO witnesses were laughed at.

They're just told
that they can't talk about it.

"We don't want to hear about it.

Maybe you're a little crazy,
if you even saw it."

[man 4] No, whatever that is,
that's huge.

[Kean]
But we're at a place right now

where we are beginning
to realize

how strange it is and how
little we really understand.

Imagine if it was acknowledged,

officially, that UFOs exist.

That would be
a big paradigm shift.

[birds chirping]

[newswoman] Intelligence
agencies have six months

to release all the information
they have on UFOs.

It's part
of a $2.3 trillion-dollar bill

signed back in December.
The report needs

to contain analysis
of any UFO data

as well as name any possible
security threats that they pose.

slow, pulsing music

Thousands of newly declassified
documents on UFOs

from the CIA

now accessible on the Internet,

and you can thank
a UFO enthusiast

for that massive dump of docs
now known as Black Vault.

[John Greenewald Jr.]
With the passing of this bill,

a lot of people think
this is it.

This is when the government and
the military is gonna come out

and reveal the truth behind
what these UFOs or UAP are.

[Aucoin] Seemed like
they were aware of our presence,

'cause they would actively move
around us.

[Greenewald] We know that there
was the UFO research program.

We know
they enlisted scientists,

people that could look
at this information,

whether it be witness testimony,

photographs or film reels.

hypnotic, pulsing music

There is so much to dig into.

[man] What we've been doing
is simply looking

for flying objects
that are where

they're not supposed to be.

But on the one in a million
chance that it really is E.T.,

we kind of want to know that,
too.

[Greenewald]
I think the media's attention

to the UFO topic
absolutely fueled then

the public's response
for demanding answers,

for demanding action

and to encourage senators

like Marco Rubio to say, "Hey,

this phenomena is real.

You should investigate it."

Tell them it's a threat,
tell them

that it's encroaching
on military installations,

all of a sudden, you got that
Senate Committee on Intelligence

pretty darn interested on what
intelligence can be gathered,

and they're 100% on board
trying to get to it.

December of 2017,

The New York Times
really put the reality

of what they called
a-a UFO research program

out there into the cosmos,

and people ate this up.

That was one
of the biggest stories,

if not the biggest story,

that the New York Times
digital edition ever had.

[keys clacking]

[Kean] I've been writing
for many years

about unconventional phenomena,

large mysteries
that really intrigued me

but are not usually covered
by... journalists.

It's not easy
to get The New York Times

to cover a subject that's

not fully documented.

Particularly if it's an issue
like this,

where politicians,

although they may be interested,

they're afraid to deal with it.

[newsman] Recent report
by The New York Times

unveiled the existence of
a real-life X-Files department.

It's a five-year
secret government program

to investigate
mysterious flying objects.

[newsman 2] The Pentagon
now confirms the existence

of a secretive UFO program

tasked
with investigating reports

of unidentified flying objects.

[Brian Todd]
Tens of millions of dollars

for the project
were pushed through

by former Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid.

The New York Times says
Reid acknowledged to them

that he and two other senators

did not want public debate

on the Senate floor
over this program.

gentle, pulsing music

"Real UFOs?
Pentagon Unit Tried to Know."

Pretty amazing.

hypnotic, pulsing music

The Department of Defense
had a program

called the Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program,

and we all call it AATIP,
which is the acronym.

They had had this program
since 2007,

whose purpose was to study UFOs.

The funding was not made public,

so nobody knew about it.

This is the first time
it was on the record.

What instigated
the whole thing was the fact

the director of the program
resigned

in October, two months
before the story came out.

I was fortunate enough
to have a meeting with him

literally the day he resigned
or the day after.

And he wrote a powerful letter
to the Secretary of Defense,

James Mattis, at the time,

explaining why he was leaving,

which had to do with the fact

that there were
not enough resources provided

for what he considered to be
a national security issue.

[newswoman]
Do you believe

that-that life
from somewhere else,

while you ran this program,

came here, visited, observed?

There is very compelling
evidence that we, uh...

we m-may not be alone,

whatever that means.

[Kean]
After our story came out,

there started to be briefings

for various committees
in Washington.

The New York Times
has a huge impact.

It opens the door

for things to happen.

[reporter] I wondered if
the president will show his...

degree of transparency
on, uh, this issue.

Uh, I'm not aware of any plans
the president has to, uh...

uh, make public
any information about this.

I would be interested in knowing

if there's
some other people here.

[newsman]
I don't believe it. Dan?

-I believe it.
-[Dan] Listen...

UFOs? Any UFOs?

Did you ask about that?

I've certainly asked about it.

And?

Can't tell you.

-Sorry.
-Okay.

All right,
I'll take that as a yes.

-[chuckling] Why not?
-'Cause if there were none,

you'd say there was none, right?

Feel-feel free to think that.

I do.

-[horns honking in distance]
-[jackhammering]

[Diana Walsh Pasulka]
I remember when I woke up

the day it came out.

It was a bombshell, right?
That's what it was.

pulsing, tense music

I'm a research professor.

And I research the connections

between technology
and religious belief,

among other things.

That article just electrified

the whole environment
of the study.

I got phone calls from Harvard.

I got phone calls
from Princeton,

from academics everywhere.

[man]
What is that?

[Pasulka] These are things that
academics don't want to touch.

[pilot]
My gosh.

They're all going
against the wind.

[Pasulka]
We have scientists

who studied
the phenomena anonymously

to keep their careers intact,
frankly.

[Avi Loeb]
Scientists have a problem

discussing the possibility

of extraterrestrial
intelligence.

They-- It's out
of the mainstream,

and it should not be.

[Pasulka] It's almost
like the Invisible College.

Back in the 1500s,
the Invisible College

was a word for the scientists,

like Francis Bacon,

who were kind of making headway,

but the church would kill them

if they knew
what they were doing, right?

[man]
There it is.

[Pasulka]
People who study the phenomena

won't talk to each other
about it.

They just won't. And
so I thought, "What is that?"

And I thought, "You know,
it's really like Fight Club,

that movie from the 1990s

with Brad Pitt
and Edward Norton."

You've got this guy who starts
this cult movement.

Right?

And they don't talk about it.

First rule of Fight Club:

don't talk about Fight Club.

And with UFO events,

I found it again and again

and again and again.

And it was pervasive.

So there's no longer
an Invisible College.

It's a Fight Club.

[Kean] I think it's important
for people to understand

that most sightings
of what people call UFOs

can be explained.

I mean,
if you have people out at night

and they see something weird
in the sky

and they might report it,

well, the authorities
can find out.

Was there a weather balloon
in the sky that day

at that location?

Only a small percentage
of sightings can't be explained.

We need to do
proper investigations.

I think

it's irresponsible,
it's dangerous

to just ignore it.

It's really disrespectful
to the witnesses.

The best example of this is

the Phoenix Lights case.

soft, haunting music

[newsman] It is very rare
for thousands of people to call

and report seeing
the same lights in the same spot

at the same time.

[Kean] Unlike a lot of the cases
that we take very seriously,

this one was about people,

massive numbers of people.

And a lot of people were calling

the National UFO
Reporting Center.

[newswoman] UFO watchers
are calling it a dramatic event.

-[woman] Another one, too!
-[woman 2] Where? Whoa!

-Look at that. Wait.
-[man] I got that one on video.

-Can't see how this works.
-[man] Whoa.

-[man 2] Shit.
-[man 3] Aliens,

first thing that I thought.

It scared the heck out of me.

[man 4]
It was a UFO.

[woman 3]
We saw five lights in a row.

[man 5]
It looked like some kind of, uh,

geometric drawing.

[child]
It was big as a football field,

-at least.
-As I was coming up the hill,

I didn't know what it was.

You heard nothing.

[newsman]
What do you think it is?

[woman 4]
I think it was a spaceship

of some sort.

[Greenewald] There's
a lot of mystery behind us

and a lot
of unanswered questions

that no one wants to talk about.

-[woman 5] What?
-What is it? Can you see it?

[Pasulka] We're still talking
about it because

of the aftereffects that
the people who experienced it

are still having.

loud, ominous music

Interview, Fife Symington.
Camera A, B, C, D. Mark.

[Symington] I remember
I'd been listening to the news,

and people were reporting lights
over Phoenix.

And turned to my wife
and said, "You know,

I'm gonna go take my car and
I'm gonna go drive to Squaw Peak

to see if I can see what
all the hullabaloo is about."

gentle, haunting music

There were a whole bunch
of people in the park,

and everybody's looking
for the lights.

Then somebody said,
"Holy cow. Look at that."

And so I turned around,
and this great big

delta-shaped thing came out
of the northwest

and headed down
into the Southeast Valley.

[man] They're lined up
in-in a pattern, man.

-There's geometry behind this.
-[man 2] Yeah.

[Symington] It was really eerie.
It had embedded lights.

I always refer to it
as otherworldly.

I've never seen anything
like it.

-There's one behind a chimney.
-[man] Major sighting here.

[Kevin Watson] Couldn't hear it.
Not being able to hear it...

[woman]
Yeah, it was eerie.

-...was-was eerie to me.
-Mm-hmm.

That-- Something in the air

-moving at that size...
-Yeah.

...completely still,
freaked me out.

[man] And then did it just
disappear, like it was gone?

-[Watson] Lights flicker and--
-And people saw it in Tucson

-minutes later.
-Yeah.

-So that's how fast it was.
-Minutes later.

-[woman] Yeah.
-[newsman] Some believe

the lights were flares.

Some believe they were

a secret military aircraft.

And others believe
they were spaceships.

[newswoman] City Councilwoman
Francis Emma Barwood

is the only city official
to look for answers.

[Barwood]
I had assumed that this event

was already being investigated,

and I was told
that nobody would touch it.

Come on.

Good, good, good.

I have a hard time
letting things drop

that aren't finished.

I always want answers.

slow, gentle music

I was going
to a city council meeting

May 6th of 1997.

I was stopped by a reporter,

and she asked me
if I knew about this object

that flew over Phoenix
on March 13th.

And she said, "Could you ask
at the council meeting?"

When it came my turn
for a council request,

I told them about the reporter
and...

could we find out
whatever this object was.

Kind of curious. Especially
since people are starting

to ask more questions.

Everybody turned around,
looked at me.

And it was like,

"Did I say something wrong?"

[chuckles]

-[woman] Thank you.
-Thanks.

Councilman Siebert.

[Barwood] How can this be swept
under the rug?

What are they all afraid of?

soft, pulsing music

[Symington]
It was a fairly

tumultuous time
for me politically,

and I certainly didn't want

to pour any kerosene
on the fire.

So, the next day,

I'd kept my mouth shut.

[chuckles]

I just decided to lock it away
and not-not talk about it.

It just seemed to be
the prudent thing to do.

I didn't, I didn't need
to stand up and say,

"Hey, I-I've seen it."

Uh, you have thousands
of other people who stood up

and said they've seen it.

The story was out there.

[Tom Brokaw]
Are we alone?

No, I don't mean
just you and me.

I mean this Earth.

Have we had
some visitors recently?

The buzz is very big
in the desert southwest,

where it's really never
gone away after some...

weird happenings in the skies

over Phoenix recently.

[newsman] Phoenix Councilwoman
Frances Emma Barwood

says she now gets
stacks of mail

from across the country
detailing similar sightings.

There's no doubt in my mind

that they saw something
really phenomenal.

Why isn't anybody else curious?

I mean, why am I the only
elected official that...

wanted to find out about it?

[newswoman] Strange dots
of light that were the talk

-of the town.
-[newsman] A mass,

statewide UFO sighting.

[Kean]
As a result of the kind

of uproar that occurred,

it was sort of like all
the citizens suddenly woke up.

And so there was
all this pressure

on Governor Fife Symington
to do something.

[newsman] Today,
in a very surprising move,

Governor Symington said
he was going to do something

to find out what was going on.

[Symington]
You're governor--

your highest duty
is to the citizens

who elected you to office

and to protect them
if there's some danger

and demand answers.

Many of our citizens have been

very disturbed by this.

In response,
I suggested that it was time

to end months of speculation
on the question

and investigate the matter once
and for all to clear it up.

[man] If the authorities
don't know what it is,

they should say. And if they do
know, they are accountable

to the public and they'd better
cough up an answer.

pulsing, tense music

[Symington]
We made serious inquiries,

asking the Air Force,
"Well, what did you find?"

And we never got
a satisfactory explanation.

The most interesting one was

the Warthogs, the A-10s,

that they said
had dropped flares.

[newswoman]
The National Guard says it was

conducting flare exercises
outside Phoenix that night.

[man] Our A-10 Thunderbolts
that are right behind me

were on a night illumination
exercise.

[Symington]
I mean, I'm a pilot.

I knew they weren't flares.

Flares don't do
what those lights were doing.

Plus, the problem with that
was the timing.

The Air Force said
that the A-10s

were out there
at about ten o'clock,

but the lights were
at around 8:30 or something.

[newswoman] What took place here
was far different than what

the Air National Guard
says took place.

This happened
over a period of hours

all over the state.

So, the official response

was completely bogus.

But a governor has no power

over the Air Force
or Luke Air Force Base

to do anything more
than ask a lot of questions.

That's all you...

all you could do, you know?

Sometimes very difficult dealing
with the federal government.

[Kean] Senator John McCain
was asked about this.

People would write him letters
and call his office.

[man] Why don't they
come clean and say,

"We don't know" or "We do know"?

That's all we want to know.

[Kean]
John McCain asked the Air Force

if they would conduct
an investigation

and was told that
they don't investigate UFOs,

which was about as far
as he could go

as a public official.

[Symington]
Yes. McCain

was very open to it being a...
an unidentified flying object.

So, I asked the Air Force,
"Well, what did you find?"

And they said
they didn't find anything, so...

There have been reports
that several aircraft

took off from
Luke Air Force base

in hot pursuit with afterburner

and tried to intercept
whatever the lights were.

[man]
Almost blew over me.

And as soon as the jets got

to the object, this thing,
like, shot straight up

and vanished
right in front of my eyes.

And that's... that was really

what put me over the edge there

when I... when I saw that.

[thunder rumbling]

slow, dramatic music

[Siavelis] It's hard
to believe that something

can be in our airspace
that the government

is not aware of.

No matter what level it is
in the Air Force.

The government
is supposed to be in charge.

[host] Let me, uh, start the
tape, and I'll start a timer.

For the record, it's Friday,
the 14th of March, '97.

I'm talking with a gentleman
which is calling from Phoenix.

Okay, sir, go ahead.

[Siavelis]
The jets that were taking off

from Luke Air Force Base...

You don't scramble jets
just from somebody calling in

to the police station.

And they weren't flares.

Those two pilots
get out of their aircraft,

and they're shaken,

because their gun-ready camera

was filming

something
they've never saw before.

[Greenewald] With UFOs,
nothing is ever black-and-white.

There's always mud in the water

of trying to figure out
some of these stories.

There's half a century
of secrecy relating to this,

and so I started

researching the United States
government connection

to what UFOs were.

pulsing, dramatic music

[man]
On flying saucers,

do you yourself believe
that they exist?

Well, I'm positive they exist.

The weight of the evidence
makes it impossible

to arrive
at any other conclusion.

[Greenewald]
It started way back in 1947.

There were UFO fleets that were

being seen
above the skies of Washington.

People were scared.

[Mike Wallace] Tonight,
we go after a fantastic story.

The story that flying saucers

from other worlds
are visiting our planet.

[Kean]
There were so many sightings,

and the Air Force just didn't
know what to do about it.

[John Samford] 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.

[Greenewald]
There was this aim

to truly investigate UFOs.

[Samford]
There have been reports

that have been made

by credible observers

of relatively incredible things.

[Greenewald] The Air Force
Office of Special Investigations

created a Project Grudge,

Project Sign,

and then later Project Blue Book
in 1952

to investigate

and ultimately explain them.

[Kean]
Project Blue Book was set up

with a public office

where citizens could contribute
reports of sightings.

So, you had all these witnesses.

[Thomas Hanchett]
I looked up,

and to my right,
I saw a large ball of fire.

The object, uh,
very rapidly disappeared...

pulsing, intense music

[Pasulka]
You have

people experiencing something

that they don't
quite understand.

These experiences
impact these people.

Impacts the way that they

live their lives.

[John Foster]
Two small lights appeared to me

at the outer edges of the object

glowing in a bluish green light
and...

[Pasulka] Lots and lots
and lots of people,

lot of very,
you know, intelligent

and successful people

believe and see UFOs.

Researchers in contact

with some of the people
still today decide to look

at the effects.

What if thousands
of people saw it?

You know, what kind of effects
would they have?

What would that do
to our culture?

UFO, for want of a better word,

this phenomenon becomes,
somehow, a new form

of religiosity.

It created true believers.

[newswoman]
It was 1:40 a.m.

Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson
was on patrol

in rural Marshall County
when, suddenly,

he saw a bright light

a few feet above ground level
two miles down the road.

I traveled about a mile,

and the light seemed to, uh,
intercept me,

so to speak,
and, uh, came right up on me.

It was painful. The light was
extremely brilliant and painful.

I closed my eyes, and I heard
the sound of breaking glass,

and that's the last I remember.

[newswoman] Johnson
was unconscious for 40 minutes

before he radioed for help
and was taken to the hospital.

A doctor
and later an eye specialist

confirmed that Johnson
had suffered mild welder

or flash burns to his eyes.

Even stranger,
both Johnson's wristwatch

and the electric clock
in his patrol car

had mysteriously stopped
for 14 minutes.

It's truly unexplainable to me
or, uh, un-unknown to me.

[Greenewald]
UFO sightings

blew up in a way
that no one truly expected.

Going back to the Space Race
of the '60s,

the astronauts that were
going up for the first time,

they were seeing stuff
that they just couldn't explain.

[Greenewald] It didn't stop
in the 1960s either.

Today there are
many NASA videos

that have these mysterious
and unknown objects.

There are a growing number
of cases

that don't have
a logical explanation.

And from the beginning,
the government

had to squash it.

tense, dramatic music

In the early 1950s,
the CIA was starting to see

that there was a much bigger
national security implication

behind what UFOs were.

Whether or not they were alien

at this point
really was irrelevant.

They knew that the excitement

that the general public had,

that in itself
could create a risk.

A group of scientists
put together by the CIA

analyzed all of the UFO data

that the United States Air Force
collected, and they said,

"Are we looking
at a phenomena that's real?

Is this something
that we should worry about,

and what should we do about it?"

The committee concluded
that in the 19 years

since the first UFO was sighted,
there has been no evidence

that unidentified flying objects

are a threat
to our national security.

[Greenewald]
Project Blue Book,

which lasted
all the way through 1969,

was not to investigate anything.

It was rather to explain it.

To say, "Look, you guys think
you don't understand this,

but we do. We're
the all-powerful government.

We're the all-powerful CIA.
We can explain this."

[Kean] Some of the explanations
they gave were so ludicrous

that it was essentially
like ridicule.

I cannot prove in a court of law

that marsh gas
is the full explanation

of these sightings,

but it does appear, to me,
extremely likely.

[newsman] Are you saying,
Doctor, that Michigan

is now producing
nonexistent saucers?

[chuckles] Well, it's one way
of putting it, I suppose.

[Kean] It just became part
of the cultural way

of dealing with this,
unfortunately.

[newswoman] The National Guard
says it was conducting

flare exercises
outside Phoenix that night.

[Kean]
You were considered to be crazy

just for reporting something
that was actually happening.

It was completely irrational.

[Harris]
Tales of aliens

have been
our first conspiracy tales.

They were our first way
of questioning

whether the government

was, in fact,
lying to us on a mass scale.

Not just the Roswell story,

which is obviously
the most famous one,

but you have a number
of other incidents like that

in the 1950s.

Just as the Cold War
is starting,

we start to see more
an increasing prevalence

not just of UFO narratives

but of spy narratives,
of the sense

that the government is acting
with duplicity.

This is absolutely untrue.

We are not hiding anything.

We have nothing to hide.

intense, dramatic music

[Harris]
The rise

of lack of faith
in the government to tell us

the truth coincides
with the expansion of mass media

in a way
where we're suddenly receiving

our information about the world

through the television,
through the radio.

[man]
One thing is clear.

You could not keep
a spaceship a secret.

Too many journalists
could not be restrained

from trumpeting
one of the greatest news stories

of all time.

[Harris]
And, so, whatever authority

the mainstream that has
long denied the existence

of these beings had

slowly began

to slip away.

Eventually, that authority

breaks down completely
with the Internet.

-[man] I got it.
-[woman] Oh, my gosh.

-[man] Whoa.
-[woman] What the hell?

[Harris]
I think that we are,

as a people, willing to believe

almost anything.

Conspiracy theories or myth
can take hold

using the possibility
of UFOs existing

as a way of doubting

almost everything
in our culture.

The fact that our government

is now slowly doling out
information

concerning potential evidence
of alien existence,

I think, only feeds
into those narratives.

[newsman] United Airlines
employees who swear

it was something otherworldly
in the skies

above Chicago's
O'Hare Airport on November 7th,

but neither the FAA
nor indeed their own employer

appear to be taking them
seriously.

[indistinct chatter]

[Kean]
The O'Hare incident

is a really important case.

[Olbermann] Our number one story
in the countdown,

unidentified flying objects

from outer space.

[Kean]
The story broke

in the Chicago Tribune
in January,

so it was
about two months later.

[Olbermann]
Chicago Tribune, interviewing

several people anonymously,
including maintenance workers,

baggage handlers and pilots

who each and all describe
a dark gray saucer-like object

that hovered low over Concourse

before shooting off
into the sky.

[Kean]
Most UFO sightings

are fairly quick.
Something flies by, right?

This was at least five minutes

in the middle of the afternoon
rush hour in the daylight.

Pilots on the ground
in their planes

who were just taxiing in or out

were looking, leaning out
and looking at it.

There was a lot
of radio chatter about it.

One of the managers
from United Airlines

called the tower and said,

"Do you see that there's this
disc-shaped object up there?"

And it's
a very interesting conversation.

At one point, he says,

"No, I don't see it,
and if I did,

I wouldn't report it anyway."

The woman who called up
called a second time,

and she had to explain,
"I'm not high.

I haven't been drinking.

There's this disc-shaped object.
It's actually there."

But that conversation
is very interesting

because it shows the attitude
of this.

I mean,
this was a safety hazard.

The explanation
that was provided by the FAA...

First, they said
it was a-a weather phenomenon.

By "a weather phenomenon,"
they were probably referring

to what's called
a hole punch cloud.

And this is a picture
of a hole punch cloud.

Ice crystals that fall
from one cloud

to a cloud below,
like a cloud bank below.

And then they melt a hole
in the ice.

I mean,
it's an absurd notion to think

that these aviation people

would look up at something
like that and think that was

a metallic disc hovering

over the airport, you know?

The pilots from United Airlines,

the employees, they were...

clear that they were not
supposed to talk about this.

Literally not one witness

to this event would put
their name on the record.

Not one.

[newsman]
The FAA is still

pinning this to some kind
of weather phenomenon,

that some lights from
the airport in the overcast sky

somehow got together
and created this image,

but, uh, weather experts,

uh, astronomy experts,
others that I've talked to

said that that's, uh,
that's bunk.

[Kean]
Somebody has an obligation

within the government.
If it's not the FAA,

it's got to be someone else
to deal with that,

to protect the-the aircraft
that are around it,

to find out what it is.

[Olbermann] It seems to me
that the likeliest conclusion

here is that

the aliens have landed many
years ago in this cou...

in this country, in this world
with one goal in mind--

to create conspiracy theories

and then just sit back
and enjoy them.

whimsical music

[Kean]
The acronym "UFO"

has come to be
a real loaded term.

Unidentified flying object.

That's all it means.

The question
"Do you believe in UFOs?"

really doesn't make any sense.

There's no issue
of belief there.

The question is maybe, "What
do you believe they are?"

But whether they exist

is not even a matter of belief.
It's a fact.

[newsman]
On the record,

the Arizona National Guard,
who would know

about military exercises
and stuff,

says it has no explanation
at all for those lights.

Doesn't look like anything
that I've seen.

Yeah. I haven't
seen anything either.

-Strange.
-Not picking anything up

-in the weather center either.
-Yeah.

They say the craft was moving

very slowly
and without any sound at all.

The people that saw that believe

what they saw was
an alien spacecraft.

Now Governor Symington himself
has launched

an official investigation.

The video that I saw a quick
glimpse of was intriguing.

Um, so I'm going
to order a, uh, full,

you know, investigation
of this through DPS.

We're going to make all
the necessary inquiries,

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

We're going
to find out if was a UFO.

Uh, you can sit down. Gonna put
a little bit of the deshine

-on you if that's okay.
-Okey doke.

[James Heiler]
You know, one of the things

that you notice about media is
they have some favorite foods.

One of those is sex scandal,
and another one is UFOs.

We had phone calls

coming in
from all over the world.

[man]
It was huge across,

and there were bright lights.

[man 2]
It was just so bright.

I, uh, saw five
bright luminous objects,

a straight line heading south.

[Heiler] We realized we weren't
really gonna be able

to satisfy people's longings
for answers.

We didn't really hold adequate
means of investigating it

as a state government apparat.

[Barwood]
Yeah. We had so many people

that we sat with and talked to,
and they all described

exactly the same thing.

That I talked to? And, well...

I talked... It was around 700,
you know, total.

She had interviewed 700 people?

That, that sounds like
an overwhelming task.

Did you remember
her investigating it?

No, I'm not sure how she would
have the wherewithal...

How would she have
the wherewithal?

...to interview
700 people, or

what, if any,
real value you would...

you would glean from that.

That's probably
what he would have to say.

What else is he going to say?

Is he going to say, "Oh, yeah,
I should have looked into it"?

-When he didn't.
-He really couldn't step up.

Probably, he feels bad that she
did and was taking the grief.

[newsman] The ridicule started
almost immediately.

This cartoon was published
by The Arizona Republic.

[Barwood]
They saw how much

ridicule I got.

[laughing] Maybe that's why
they didn't want to do that.

[Siavelis]
And so, therefore,

the best thing to do is
to put it to bed.

[horns honking]

And how do you put things
to bed?

You ridicule anybody
that's involved

so you try to kill the story.

That's what happened
to so-called "Phoenix Lights."

[newsman]
That's right.

Now the governor is holding
a press conference

at this very moment.

In fact, at the state capitol.

Reportedly, he says
that the DPS has already

turned up startling
new information about this case.

[Barwood]
The governor had called

an emergency news conference.

The only time you do
an emergency news conference is

when it's a threat to life,
health and all that stuff.

Yes, definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

You know,
you'd have to remind me. I'm...

It's been so long ago.

You have the advantage of having

the record in front of you.
I don't...

I just remember kind of
the highlights

and the impetus for the, um...

the what I call
"the alien caper," and, uh--

Sure.

I issued a call
for an investigation

by the Arizona
Department of Public Safety,

and I'm happy to report
we already are getting results.

Let me just say that I believe
it's a serious offense

for anyone-- human,
space alien, or otherwise--

to engage in mysterious activity
in our nighttime skies.

[Barwood]
I thought,

"Oh, good,
he's going to investigate."

We may all look
upon the guilty party.

[laughter]

Hey, don't get him too close
to me, please. It's...

-[laughter]
-You know. [clears throat]

[laughter]

This just goes to show that you
guys are entirely too serious.

[laughter]

[applause]

[laughter]

-[applause]
-Thank you. Thank you.

[Barwood]
Everybody was so angry.

And-and I said,
"I don't know what to tell you.

You know, it's...

it's over."

-Mocked everybody.
-Mocked us, yeah.

You got to understand...
you got to understand that

when it's your own
state's governor

that's coming out and with
a fake alien on the podium.

-Yeah.
-That totally discredits any...

See, even he didn't want
to admit it right away.

That totally discredits anything

-that anybody saw.
-Yeah.

We weren't trying
to ridicule people's concerns,

but there was that element
of building hysteria,

which really needed
to be dealt with.

I was 12, so imagine
that age, too, is, "You...

-Mm-hmm.
-I saw... I saw a UFO, guys."

I mean,
that's a different conversation

when you're that age.

All right, our own governor,

who many people supported
at the time...

-Mm-hmm.
-...is going out

and mocking what I saw.

I kept to myself.
I-I didn't... [stammers]

Absolutely a stigma
and I don't know why.

I don't know why it's there.

But we're gonna not
talk about this right now,

because clearly
it's just a joke to everybody.

I'm sorry
if it offended some people,

but it was a lot of fun.

There you go.
This is your trophy,

-and you give it to Joe, okay?
-Okay.

I'll see you all later.
Thank you very much.

[laughter]

[Kean] When you're in
a position of authority,

and you can't
explain something

to your constituents,
it could panic people,

it could frighten people.

So one of the tools
in the toolbox, when

they're forced to talk about it,
is to ridicule it.

It's a way of minimizing
its significance, you know?

"These are little green men.
Ha, ha, ha."

That's the problem
with the term "UFO."

It's sort of

been contaminated.

[newsman]
If the Air Force

had nothing to hide,

Frank Mannor,
the Michigan farmer,

who had brought in
the first report,

was caught in the middle.

He was mad.

Are you sorry now that you did
tell people what you saw?

Yes, I am. I am...
I'm sorry because it...

Not that it's not the truth,
but it's just the idea,

the-the reaction
of the people.

They think you're a... a nut.

Tell you the truth. That's just
what they figure you are.

[Kean]
Once Project Blue Book

shut down in 1970, the
whole thing kind of went quiet.

[military official]
The conclusions

of Project Blue Book were:
no UFO reported

has ever given any indication

of threat
to our national security.

There is no evidence submitted

that sightings represent
technological developments

beyond the range of present-day
scientific knowledge, and

there is no evidence indicating

that these unidentified objects
are extraterrestrial.

[Greenewald] That report
that they produced was known

infamously
as the Condon Report.

Now why is this important?

Because they literally shot down
the topic of UFOs,

said it was a waste
of time and money,

and said,
"Shut the investigations down.

It's useless."

[Kean] Think about the
opportunities that were lost

for taking it seriously
and for investigating it.

[newswoman]
The Air Force says

it doesn't investigate
unknown objects anymore.

NORAD told UPN News 13
that it only tracks objects

that originate
in our atmosphere.

The CIA, some other
intelligence agency,

well, if they're investigating,

we don't know about it,
and chances are, we never will.

[Greenewald] The U.S. government
always maintained to me

that they had no interest
in UFOs.

But back in 2008,

I had discovered a United States
Air Force manual.

And there was a whole section

about unidentified
flying objects.

On not only how to report 'em,
but where to report 'em to,

and the two places
that are not subject

to the Freedom
of Information Act--

one being the White House,

the second being
the NORAD installation--

is on the receiving end of
whatever these UFO reports are.

And I tried
to access the documents,

but of course they said,
"Nope, sorry.

We're not subject to the
Freedom of Information Act."

How convenient
that they send the UFO records

to that one place.

[newsman]
Believers have always maintained

the government knows more
than it claims about UFOs

and doesn't always
tell the truth.

The latest government admissions
concede both points

and do little, if anything,
to settle the UFO debate.

[Barwood]
About the Phoenix Lights,

I'm extremely disappointed
that nobody's taken this on.

I think that the governor
was interested in all of it.

When you look at the press
conference that he did,

you can see he was truly
uncomfortable, and

I think it was because he was
not comfortable with that.

I think he really did want
to look into it.

There is no way

that he orchestrated that.

And I said, "There's something
else going on here."

My speculation is,
a deal had to be made.

dramatic music

[newsman] We are now less
than 12 hours away

from Governor Symington's
criminal trial.

The governor is on trial
for 22 fraud counts.

20 of those counts involve
falsifying financial statements

to federally insured banks.

[Heiler]
The trial was the culmination

of seven and a half years
of investigation

of Fife Symington's private life
before becoming governor.

Then it morphed
into a criminal investigation.

[Barwood]
He had been in court.

People that were in court,
watching this whole thing, said,

he was called out
to go into a private meeting.

And then, the next thing is

this emergency press conference.

So somebody else said,

in my opinion, okay,

not-not fact but my opinion,

"If you make this a joke,
we'll dismiss the charges."

Yeah, I don't...
I wonder where that came from.

Well, if I understand
your question correctly,

you're, you're suggesting
some people believe

that we somehow did this

in league
with government authorities...

-Oh.
-to mock the idea

of those lights
being extraterrestrial.

No, there was no conspiracy
behind it at all. No.

We-we weren't trying
to cover up anything.

We were... we were just trying
to make light of it.

ominous music

[Barwood]
He was serious

that he was going
to do an investigation,

and then it turned into a joke.

Somebody somewhere has got to be
afraid of the truth coming out.

That's it.

And why?

[Heiler] Neither then
or now do I have any

plausible explanation more than

anyone might speculate about
as to what those lights were.

I felt then
as I do now that what

really caused a lot
of the "hullabaloo,"

to use the governor's word,
and the speculation is that

the only information provided

by the authorities
was implausible

to anybody
who saw the-the lights.

So I think government
makes things worse

when it operates that way.

And why they do that,
I don't know.

I don't know if it's just
bureaucratic obtuseness

or if it's some part
of a-a larger attempt

to deflect attention from things
that are meant to remain secret.

My best guess at it was
it was some sort

of high-altitude
stealth technology

that we didn't want known.

You and I will always
disagree on this,

but there's no way
that that was a B-2...

a B-2 bomber
or a stealth bomber.

This object was big and close.

And you think
it was a single object for sure?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Watson]
There's no way

that something like that's
man-made that we know of.

[woman]
Right. That's right.

Now I don't know
if it could have been

extraterrestrial, whatever.

Regardless, it is what it is.

We saw what we saw.
It was giant, quiet.

Moved extremely fast,
and was amazing.

dramatic music

[Pasulka]
There's a creation of discourse

around these events.

Pop culture today
is gonna represent

these "UFO events,"
for want of a better word,

as something quite different

than how
the people experience them.

[man] Wow. Look at this here.
These three things.

-[man 2] Really?
-[woman] What is it?

[Pasulka] Remember,
I'm a historian of Catholicism.

So, in the 1980s,

Pope John Paul II wrote
a very interesting teaching

on the angels

to his bishops. It's called

"The Catechesis on the Angels."

And he basically says,
these were invisible beings,

and people don't believe
in them anymore,

and they even denied them during
Jesus's time, Jesus's era.

He said, "But they exist."
And he said,

"And they intervene
in human history."

He was kind of reinscribing
this idea

that what we see today is not
what we think we're seeing.

Our perceptions see objects,
but what are really there?

We're coming upon a new way

of understanding
the transcendent,

and it's no longer an angel.

[Harris] What would it mean
for our humanity

for us to discover
that, in fact,

there are other sentient beings

that are capable
of traveling here?

The things
that we think are important

in the midst
of the ongoing pandemic

or the uprising
for racial justice...

-[explosive pops]
-[crowd yelling]

[Harris] In the specter
of being visited

by those from another planet,
our own divisions would

suddenly feel so much smaller.

Would feel less insurmountable,
one would hope.

I don't know
what that would look like,

but I do know that it would

be the biggest change that we
ever witnessed, any of us,

in the way that human beings
saw themselves

and saw each other.

[Kevin Day]
I was a top ten graduate,

a senior air controller,

had 18 years sea time.

We were gonna do a big,
huge air defense exercise.

A mock air battle
for-for training purposes.

This encounter
profoundly affected me.

[Day]
Oh, yeah. The entire crew

was talking about it. You bet.

-[man] Oh, my gosh, dude.
-[man 2] Wow.

[Day]
They certainly didn't behave

like anything from this Earth.

I'm pretty convinced
they had to be quantum-based.

If that's true,
then what are the possibilities?

It's a pretty short list,
isn't it?

Uh, aliens.

dramatic music