All language subtitles for In Search Of s01e01 Aliens.eng

[Zachary Quinto]
It's an age-old question.

[Zachary Quinto]
It's an age-old question.

Are we alone in the universe?

Some people believe aliens
were here long ago,

and others say
there could be countless advanced civilizations

just beyond
our own solar system.

Then there are people,
like mechanic Kyle Bond,

who believe aliens
are making contact with humans today.

I was six when I saw
my first UFO.

One night I was laying down
on my bed,

and light started
coming in the window.

I heard a buzzing noise. Bzzz.

I was too afraid
to open my eyes, and I knew it was them.

It was like every other week,
I was being taken out.

It's always when I'm
least expecting it.

Now I can't get them
out of my mind.

I think about them constantly.

They come to me at night,

and they take me.

[Quinto]
If stories like Kyle's are true,

might it be possible
to finally find evidence of alien life?

My search begins now.

My Name is Zachary Quinto.

As an actor,
I've played many supernatural characters

that blurred the line
between science and fiction.

I'm drawn to the unknown,
the otherworldly,

and those experiences
so beyond belief,

they call everything
into question.

I'm exploring some of
the most enduring mysteries

that continue to haunt mankind
in search of the truth...

wherever it leads me.

Throughout history,
mankind has always been fascinated

by the possibility
of discovering alien life.

More recently,
the 20th century gave us technology

that allowed for real-life
space exploration.

I believe that this nation
should commit itself to landing a man on the moon.

At the same time,
our imaginations ran wild in movies,

television-- [man]
Hurry back to base.

[Quinto]
...and on Earth.My mother and I have both had

close encounters
of the fourth kind, also known as "abduction experiences."

BeyondClose Encounters
andE.T.,

stories of Roswell
and UFO sightings mixed in our minds

with scientific breakthroughs
like the Space Shuttle--

[man]
...two, one. We have a liftoff!

[Quinto] ...the Moon landing-- [Neil Armstrong]
...one giant leap for mankind.

[Quinto]
...and exploration of Mars.

And while the US Government
has denied investigating aliens in the past,

a 2017 bombshell report
revealed

it was running
a secret UFO program

investigating alien threats
for years.

[man on radio]

[Quinto]
In addition to the government's admission

that it's investigating aliens and spending millions to do so,

there have been thousands
of individual reports

of abductions and sightings
in the last 70 years.

With all of this
evidence mounting,

it's possible we may be
at a tipping point

for finding out if aliens
are really out there.

[man]
All right. Follow me. Watch your step.

[Quinto]
To start my search, I wanna find out exactly

what it's like for someone
claiming to have an encounter,

so I'm meeting with one of
the thousands of Americans

who have come forward with
a vivid alien abduction story.

So walk me through
a little bit-- your first encounter.

I was six years old.Six.

Mm-hmm.
And that's weird,

because I don't
really remember anything when I was six years old.

But I do remember the UFO.

[Quinto]
Thirty-eight-year-old mechanic Kyle Bond

has seen signs pointing
to alien life

that he says are beyond
any earthly explanation.

I was with my brother
and my mother.

There was lights that started
coming in the window.

So my mom went up
and opened up the window,

and there was a UFO in our yard,
and it was tilted, and it was hovering,

and it had lights
all the way around it.

And then it just took off.
Didn't make no noise or anything.

Just took off.

So, then, what happened
three years ago?

Well, I went out
on my balcony.

Off in the distance,
I seen a strobing light.

Just kept getting closer
and closer,

and when it was about
half a block away,

I noticed that it wasn't
making no noise.

I went in my place,
and I heard this loud buzzing noise, like, zzzzz.

And I could feel
a vibration.

And, for some reason,
I knew it was them.

So I stood up,
and I was gonna run towards the door,

and my legs folded in,
and I fell to the ground.

I blacked out,
woke up the next morning,

and I had puncture marks
all over me.

Were they actually cuts?
Yeah. Yeah.

I have three marks right here.Uh-huh. Oh, yeah.
I see that.

It didn't stop there.
I just kept getting taken, like, every other week.

It's real hard to go through,
so I just started making pictures.

It's kind of like
a therapy for me

to, you know,
get my mind off of them,

'cause I'm always thinking
of ET, constantly.

[Quinto]
Kyle's story seems incredible, but it does match with details

from countless other
alien abduction reports.

Like the feeling of levitation seeing a powerful bright light,

and being left
with physical marks and wounds.

Do you feel like
they are studying you? Is that what you--

It's almost
like being an animal,

and someone tags you
or checks you out.

I think the hardest part's
not being taken by ET.

I think the hardest part's
being alone, knowing that they exist.

What do you think
would help people believe you?

Maybe I could take
a polygraph test.

That's something that
you're interested in. Okay.Yes.

I want people to know
that I'm not lying,

and other people
that's being taken by ET know that they're not alone.

[Quinto]
I do believe that Kyle

is incredibly genuine
about what he's going through,

but it doesn't leave me
with an overwhelming sense of proof.

I'm skeptical.

But I don't want
to dismiss anything that Kyle's saying

or anything
that anybody's saying yet.

I think astronomers--
everybody--

I think even NASA
are gonna find something. They're gonna capture something.

They don't have to go looking.
They're already here.

[Quinto]
Kyle is hardly alone in his belief

that aliens
have visited us before.

The government program
Project Blue Book

recorded 12,618 UFO sightings

from 1948 until 1969,

at which time it mysteriously
shut down.

In the past decade,
several US military personnel came forward

with their own stories
of encounters with alien spacecraft.

[chatter on radio]

[man on radio]

[Quinto]
Even today, UFO sightings

continue to be reported
around the world.

Is there something
to these claims?

And if so, is the government
covering up the truth?

Former Navy contractor
Marc D'antonio says

the government comes across
unexplainable objects all the time--

in the air and in the sea.

And once incident haunts him
to this day.

One day, I was sitting
in the sonar suite,

and this kid next to me,
he yelled that he had something on the sonar.

Something-- He called it
a "fast mover."

Now, to me, a fast mover
means a torpedo.

But it turned out
to be something very different.

Executive officers said to him,
"How fast is it moving?"

"Several hundred knots, sir."

And I'm like, "What?"
You know? I was just stunned.

There's no biological objects
that move several hundred knots underwater.

No country on this planet makes
anything like this.

And the XO said,
"Log it and dog it."

Basically, log it
and then bury it.

There are very
fast-moving objects that we don't know about.

We don't know whose technology
it is. We don't know where they come from.

Several years later,
I had to do a job for

a very, very high-ranking
naval official down in Washington.

And I took him aside,
and I said to him,

"What can you tell me about
this Fast Mover Program?"

He looked at me,
and he could've said,

"What program?
But he didn't. He said,

"I'm not at liberty
to talk about that program. I'm sorry."

You know, by saying nothing,
he said everything.

[Quinto]
Since Project Blue Book,

the government's
official position has been

that they are not actively
researching aliens.

But in 2017, leaked
classified documents and video

revealed the existence
of a 22 million-dollar government program

investigating UFO threats

that has been running in secret for over a decade.

From my background,
and what happened on the boat,

I'm thinking that
it's probably a case

where the US Government
knows more than it's telling.

It makes me wonder
and really think,

"Is it possible
aliens are here?"

[Quinto]
The fact that the government is no longer denying

its research
into the existence of aliens,

it makes me wonder
about Kyle's abduction story,

and if it can be proven.

Kyle asked to take
a polygraph test to prove

that he is telling the truth
about his alien encounters.

And while the results
of polygraph tests are often debated,

and can even produce
false positives if the subject is anxious,

I arranged for him
to have the chance.

Polygraph expert Rachel Levy
has administered

over 2,500 tests
in her career.

Kyle, the four measurements
that this instrument will be taking

is your upper
and your lower respiratory,

your blood pressure,

and then the most important,
which is your electrodermal activity,

which is the sweat
at your fingertips.

Relax your arm, please.Okay.

I can feel my heart beating.

Kind of stressful for me,
and I'm not even getting tested.

All right, Kyle.
We're now gonna begin the test.

Is your name Kyle?

Yes.

Is today Monday?

No.

Did you see a UFO
outside of your home as a child?

[Zachary Quinto] To prove
he is telling the truth about his alien encounters,

Kyle has asked
to take a polygraph test.

Will it finally confirm
the accuracy of his story?

Is your name Kyle?Yes.

Is today Monday?

No.

Is this the month of July?No.

Did you see a UFO outside
of your home as a child?

Yes.

Over the course
of the last three years,

have you been visited
by extraterrestrials?

Yes.

Have you ever been abducted
by extraterrestrials?

Yes.

Are you being truthful
regarding the origin

of the marks on your body?Yes.

Okay, Kyle.
This test is over.

So, Rachel,
what did you come up with?

It is my expert opinion
that, um...

he is not being truthful--

[Quinto]
Really?...in regards to his--

I'm just shocked...
[mumbles]

Because I'm
totally being truthful.

Can you tell
which questions I failed?

I'm specifically talking about
the things that you've discussed regarding extraterrestrials.

I'm not questioning
your experiences.

I wasn't there,
so I don't know what you've experienced.

I can't believe it.
I'm sorry, guys.

I feel like I wasted your time.No, no, no.
It's all right, Kyle.

Go have a moment
to decompress.

I honestly feel like--

I didn't--
I didn't expect it to go that way.

I didn't expect it to--Oh, I didn't either.

Yeah.'Cause I was being
a hundred percent truthful.

I don't want you to feel
like anybody was here to try to--

Oh, I don't. I don't.
You guys are just out looking for the truth.

I'm not gonna stop here,
because I am telling the truth.

[Quinto]
I feel conflicted now,

and I don't have enough
to go on to say whether or not

Kyle just got caught
in an elaborate

and seemingly
uncharacteristic lie,

or he was really nervous,
and that was picked up.

And I guess it is
a difficult thing to believe,

but he makes me
wanna believe it somehow.

Kyle is not alone
in thinking there are other life-forms out there.

In addition
to government programs, there are also ongoing efforts

by the world's leading
independent scientists

to find intelligent life
in space.

In 1984,
a group of these scientists formed SETI--

the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

SETI is a multimillion-dollar operation

scouring the skies in hopes of finding alien life.

To learn more,
I'm heading to a remote part of West Virginia

where SETI is utilizing
the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world.

The telescope records

all radio signals
from outer space,

looking for technology
that could come

from another
intelligent civilization

and offer definitive proof
that aliens exist.

[man]
This is command central of the Green Bank telescope.

The telescope is taller than
a lot of things you wouldn't expect it to be taller than.

Yeah, taller than
the Statue of Liberty, taller than the Washington Monument.

All right.
So tell me a little bit about this particular effort.

Ultimately,
we're trying to answer a very human question--

"Is there anybody else
out there?"

And, really,
for the first time in history,

not only do we know
that it's possible for there to be life out there,

we have the capacity
to search for it.Wow.

So, shall we go take a look
at how we use this thing?All right. Let's do it.

Mike, Zach.
How are you?

Zach, good to meet you.
Appreciate it.Nice to meet you too.

Thank you for having us.Glad you're here.

[Quinto]
So, what's "GBT" stand for?

[Mike]
Well, it's the Green Bank Telescope.

It's fondly referred to
as the "Great Big Thing."

Wow.Incredible.

I mean,
to just be standing beneath it is unbelievable.

[Mike]
It's a pretty massive structure.

The reflector--
the mirror for the radio waves--

That reflector is 2.3 acres
in size.

A football stadium
would fit inside of that.

So how do you get
to the top, Mike?Well, see that little white box?

Yeah.That's actually a manlift.

Not a big elevator.Right.

[thud]

Whoo!

It's a little disorienting.

It's crazy.

It's pretty massive
when you're able to get some scale to it.

[Quinto]
This is the receiver, essentially, right?

Yeah, this is the mirror
of the radio telescope.

What does a radio telescope
allow you to gather that an optical telescope doesn't?

[Dr. Siemion]
Radio waves can get through

the space between the stars
very, very readily.

That signal could be emitted
and would cut right through

all the stuff between the stars and arrive here at the telescope.

So at a hundred meters
in diamete

this telescope
could detect technology

if it existed around another star, on another planet,

all the way across the galaxy.

[Quinto]
And so you're looking for

a tiny blip of communication
over the range of a trillion stars.

Yeah, that's right.Basically, we're in
the movie Contact.

Yeah, that's exactly right.Pretty much, right?

This is like Contact
times a thousand, or like--

It's a needle in a haystack.
Absolutely.Right. Right.

I don't think anybody's
necessarily expecting long-fingered, big-eyed,

translucent-skinned creatures
to come walking down the street,

but what are your thoughts
about what's out there?

I wouldn't do this
if I weren't an optimist.Right.

So I think that
they are out there.

The universe is so vast,
so unbelievably big.

For us to be the only
intelligent civilization

in that entire
vastness would--

to me,
is a statistic improbability.

I absolutely believe
that there's intelligent life out there.

[Quinto] The magnitude of what this telescope can do is staggering,

and it holds the potential
to find real evidence

of the existence of aliens.

[Quinto] So, are we firing the telescope up?

[Dr. Siemion]
We are. We're going to see if we can make a discovery.

Amazing.

[Zachary Quinto]
I'm on a mission to find evidence of aliens.

So far,
I've met with Kyle Bond who,

despite failing
a polygraph test,

maintains he's been abducted
by aliens for years.

And Kyle is not alone
in his belief that there is life out there.

The scientists running
the Green Bank Telescope here in West Virginia

are using the largest
radio telescope in the world

to search the skies for signs
of intelligent life in space.

[Dr. Siemion]
If we were to make a detection, it would be the most important

scientific discovery
in the history of science.

Mm-hmm.
And how close do you think you've come?

So, about three years ago,
a very mysterious radio source was detected

called FRB 121102.

FRB stands for
"fast radio burst."

A very, very bright burst
of radiation

that lasts only
a few milliseconds, and it only happens once.

Well, that was the story
until FRB 121102

was observed to repeat.

It was the first,
and still the only,

repeating fast radio burst.

It's actually from
a little, tiny galaxy

about three billion
light years away from us.

Three billion
light years away.

[Dr. Siemion]
If you calculate how much energy

must be released
by the source--

if it's emitting
in all directions,

and we're just eavesdropping
on it--

it's as much energy
as the sun emits

in an entire year
in less than a millisecond.

And you can listen to it
if you want to.

Uh, yeah.

[repetitive bursts
of indistinct sound]

[sound continues]

No one knows
what causes any of that.

It's a complete mystery.

What could it be?
Like, what--

It could be... natural?Yeah.

Well, maybe it's
a neutron star.

And these sources are known
to produce radio bursts.

But nothing like this.

Another explanation is that
maybe this is not natural,

but is instead some kind
of an artificial transmitter.

Perhaps there is a very
advanced civilization

that is producing
these radio pulses

for the purposes
of propelling spacecraft into intergalactic space

at very,
very high velocities.

I can't wrap
my mind around it fully, if I'm being honest.

My mind
is literally melting today.

There are many questions
about this source,

but one of the key
outstanding questions is,

is does it produce pulses
at higher radio frequencies?

How high do they go?Uh-huh.

If we can learn how high
in radio frequency they go,

that might help us to understand
what, ultimately, is causing the pulses in the first place.

So, tonight,
what we're going to do, is we're gonna try

to look at this source
at even higher radio frequencies.

This is a brand-new part
of the radio spectrum.

We've never observed it
here before.

Once everything is set up
and this source rises,

we're gonna see if we
can make a discovery.Amazing.

We are looking
in the far reaches of our galaxy and beyond

to see if we're able to
make some kind of contact

with life-forms outside
of our own planet, solar system, galaxy.

Who knows?

We may actually be able

to find new evidence.

[chatter on speaker device]

So, Dave, do you wanna go ahead
and run auto peak focus?

Uh, sure.Where are those guys?

That's our lab in Berkeley.Hi, guys.

Are we ready to launch? Good to go.

[Dr. Siemion] The telescope is ready to begin the data collection.

Would you like to launch
these observations?Let me launch them.

All right.So I just click?

Just drag and click
the "submit" button.

[clicks]

Done.

[trilling]

After they scan
all possible signals coming from that source,

it will take some time
before we know for sure

what the higher frequency
search discovers.

While SETI
is still on a quest

for proof of intelligent life
beyond our solar system,

some people believe
the proof is already here.

Kyle Bond was left with cuts
from his encounter.

But others were left with
even more tangible evidence.

I'm Zach.Hi. I'm Steve.

How are you doing?Nice to meet you.

Fifty-seven-year-old
Steven Colbern

has vivid memories
of being abducted.

You can tell sometimes
if you've had an experience.

Sometimes
you have fondest memories, sometimes you don't.

[Quinto] But it's not
just the details of his story that I'm interested in.

It's what was left behind.

It was the night
of February 28, 2008.

Went to bed,
and when I woke up,

there was a little bit of blood
on the sheets,

and I had a stinging pain
in my left second toe.

And I checked it
and found two puncture wounds,

as if a needle
had been passed through the underside of the toe.

I found two bright green
fluorescent spots

at the same sites
as the puncture wounds.

Ordered an X-ray of the toe.

I knew I was gonna see
something on the X-ray,

but when I did,
that changed my life forever.

Found an implant.

The implant itself was
about a millimeter in diameter

and about
four millimeters long.

[Quinto]
As shocking as his story may seem,

Steven is part of
a growing number of Americans

who have discovered mysterious
implants in their bodies.

And today, Steven has brought
the evidence with him.

Here's a chunk of the sample
in a vial.

I actually had it removed
and analyzed.

Huh. Wow.I did most of
the analysis myself.

You have a background
in science?Yeah. I'm a chemist.

Wow. So what else
did you discover about the implant itself?

I did a pretty
thorough protocol of analysis on it

with light microscopy,

scanning electron microscopy,
and trace element analysis.

The trace elements indicated
that it was a meteoric iron.

There's a lot of cobalt
and copper, and gallium, germanium.

That's characteristic
of meteorites.

So it's not iron
that you would find

naturally occurring
on our planet. No, no.

It might not even be
from this solar system.

So what do you feel
like they're after?

I think it was a device
that was put in to do physiological monitoring.

The shiny coating--
presumably, that contains chemicals

that allow the nerve cells
to grow into the device.

So, ultimately, the goal
is to have this device fused

in some way with your body.Yeah, and it's fused
with the nervous system,

so it can
gather information somehow.

There were a lot
of strange structures-- bone or wire-looking things.

Might have something to do
with transmitting radio waves.

And is there more proof
like this out there?Yeah, I think there is.

It's easy to be in denial
up until something like this happens,

with physical evidence.

Would you be willing
to let our team

analyze this forensically

and get a better sense
of where it came from?

Yeah. I think that
it would potentially confirm that this is extraterrestrial.

Steve is a scientist,
so the idea that I'm talking to an experiencer

who's also a scientist
is a really interesting combination.

And he has this material

that, from his
scientific perspective,

contain elements that
don't occur readily on Earth.

It's weird,
'cause I never really thought that I'd be like,

"Maybe there's aliens here,"
you know?

[chuckling]
But I'm like, "Maybe there's aliens here."

To hold something in your hand
that is a physical piece of evidence

that's tied to all of this
is remarkable.

Let's get this tested
and see what it is.

[Zachary Quinto] As I continue on my search,

all of these unrelated
alien encounters become even more intriguing.

But I'm still looking
for tangible proof that aliens exist.

Like the implant
from Steven Colbern.

Is there a way to know for sure it didn't come from Earth?

Hi, Dr. Kumar.
How are you?

I'm setting up
an independent laboratory test

to verify the origins
of the mysterious object

Steven dislodged from his toe.

Would you be able to identify
alien materials

if they're not known
to this Earth?

Uh-huh.

Have you ever tested something
that you couldn't identify or trace to the periodic table?

Yeah. Okay.
That's good to know.

Well, the man's name
is Steven Colbern,

and I'm gonna send him to you
for an analysis.

If Dr. Kumar finds that
the materials in the implant are not from Earth,

then it will be a lot harder
to explain how that object ended up in Steven's body.

[Steven]
It's a very complex nanodevice that came out of my toe in 2008,

and I hope that we
can find some more unexpected things today.

Hi, Steve. Arun Kumar.How are you?

Thanks for coming in.Yeah.

So you have brought
a sample for analysis?

Yeah. It should be
an interesting sample.

[Dr. Kumar] Initially,
we look at the samples in the optical microscope,

under magnification,
to look at the color, shape, size.

We should examine
that structure pretty closely.

Zoom in.

And then we go
to the electron microscope.

Sample goes on a stage,
and then we turn the electron beam on.

She can magnify it up to
30, 40, 50 thousand times.

[Steve] What does that
look like to you? You ever seen anything like that before?

At the moment, I can't tell,
because we need to do the chemistry on that.

As a scientist,
I'm always curious to know material composition

and the source
where it may have come from,

no matter what
the source might be.

From the analysis
we have done today,

it shows that
the base material is iron,

containing some nickel in it.Right.

Which is the alloy steel.

[Steve]
The trace element pattern indicated that it was

a nickel-iron meteorite.

Meteorite do contain
iron and nickel.

Yeah.That is correct.

There's a big variety
of materials there.

On the surface,
it has small trace amounts of

calcium, magnesium,
aluminum, silicon, and sulfur.

But most of the material
that we see here is found in soils.

A lot of soil contains
these kind of oxides,

which most probably
is from surface contamination of that material.

[Steven]
This was never exposed to soil though.

It came directly out of my body
and was put in blood plasma,

and then was put directly
into these containers.

What I'm showing is elements
which are typical in soil.

Yeah, it's typical in soil.
That's true.

Other than that,
I don't see any unusual element

that we haven't identified
on the surface.

[Steven]
The results of the analysis were completely unexpected.

I disagree that the material
was contamination.

I took the pieces
directly out of my body,

put them on a piece of gauze,
then put them directly from there into a vial.

And it was giving off
fairly powerful radio signals before removal.

There's just no way it could be
giving off radio signals

unless it was
a lot more sophisticated than just a piece of metal.

Well, no. I mean,
it's highly unlikely I stepped on a meteorite.

That's pretty difficult
to explain. We need more data.

I'd like to get, like,
a hundred of these objects

and prove to the world
that they are devices,

and that this phenomenon
is real.

[Quinto]
Despite inconclusive results,

why do Steven
and other experiencers like Kyle

remain convinced that their
alien encounters are real?

There has to be something
so visceral about these experiences

that they cannot be denied.

[Zachary Quinto] Meeting with alien experiencers and scientists alike,

I'm on a search for evidence
that aliens really exist.

If they are out there,
how do we find them?

Doug. How are you?Hey, Zach.

While many are waiting
to receive a signal from life beyond Earth,

Doug Vakoch,
and his organization, METI,

have a very different strategy.

What if the aliens
are not assuming

that they're the ones
who have to take contact?Right.

What if their motivation
is to say, "We wanna hear"?Right.

[Vakoch] So we're shifting the direction

and sending powerful
intentional radio signals to other stars.

The hope is
we get a reply back.

So, Messaging Extraterrestrial
Intelligence.

How do you go about identifying
where to put the signal?

So the first transmission
we sent was to a star 12.4 light years from Earth.

It's called Luyten's Star.

It was the closest star
that we could target

that has potentially
habitable exoplanets.

When did that signal go out?

It went out in October, 2017.

It's 12.4 light years
from here.

That means it'll take over
12 years for our message to get there.

And if they want to reply,
we won't hear from them till 2043.

Right. Okay.
So, how did you tell them that?

So, we wanted to make
an all-purpose message,

so no matter how the alien
encounters the world,

they'll be able
to make sense of it.

[Quinto]
Using radio signals,

METI has sent
a message into space

to convey information
about counting and telling time.

What we're telling the aliens,
by sending signals,

is that not only are we
interested in number,

but we're interested
in creating something beautiful.

So we are turning
the radio transmitter

to communicate melodies.Huh.

So this is one of
the scales that we're sending to Luyten's Star.

♪♪ [plays five notes]

♪♪ [repeats five notes]

You imagine
what communication

with an alien race
might sound like,

and that's a melody
that seems to fit with it.

There's an alien quality
to it, you know?And, interestingly,

it reflects the melody
of our earliest music here on Earth.

So maybe without
all of the trappings and all of the elaborations,

but music at its essence.

Doug has the context of how
we will be able to communicate with extraterrestrials.

That's what we need,
because that's a foundation that can be built upon

until we have some concrete
tangible and sharable proof.

So you're sending
this signal out.

Is there any controversy
around this work?

I mean, I heard rumblings
of people who feel like,

you know,
you're kind of poking the beast.

We don't know what
the extraterrestrials are like.

And some people are afraid
that this could lead to an alien invasion.

Other people think
it's going to be a salvation.

We're finally
going to get solutions to all of our problems.

I don't expect
either of those.Mm-hmm.

My hope is that
if we can really encounter an alien intelligence,

there's probably going to be
something unthinkable that we discover.

[Quinto]
Who knows what Doug might find

in his quest
to contact alien life,

or what message
may come back.

Still, I can't help but wonder
about the worst-case scenario.

And many of the brightest minds of our time,

including Stephen Hawking,
have expressed serious concern

about the risks
of making first contact.

METI is Messaging to
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

And many of us involved in SETI
are quite angry about this,

because there might be dangers.

If you look at the history
of first contacts

between human civilizations,

this is a dangerous phase

when life meets life

and civilization
meets civilization.

We may be
the less technologically advanced civilization,

and we should
exercise some caution.

There are many explanations

for why we seem,

until now, to be alone.

Now, the question is
whether or not

we should be
deliberately screaming

into a universe
that's surprisingly quiet.

Maybe too quiet.

[Quinto]
While experts debate the risks involved

in attempting to contact
alien life-forms,

there are so many people
around the world who believe

that contact
has already occurred.

People like Kyle Bond
and Steven Coburn.

Despite inconclusive
test results,

their experiences
are so detailed and physical

that they still believe.

But unless I actually feel
what they felt,

I'll never really know
why their beliefs are so strong.

So I'm meeting with someone
who has a way to show me

what it might feel like
to be abducted by aliens.

Thirty-eight-year-old
April Malloy

has had over 20 encounters.

Hi. Hi, I'm April.I'm Zach.

It's great to meet you.Nice to meet you.

And she's convinced
that if others

can feel what she's felt,

they would have to believe
that aliens are out there.

Why don't we start with
the first experience you had that you can remember?

How long ago was it?I was a young child, actually,

seeing something outside.

And how long between then
and your next experience?

A couple years back,

the physical evidence
started to show up.

Puncture marks in the abdomen.

Finding weird,
abnormal things in my body.

Wow. So you discovered
that there were actually foreign objects in your body.

Yes, through X-rays.

At that point,
it became very real. Wow.

I'm really interested
in what you go through, physically,

as you have
one of these encounters.

It always begins--
you're sleepy in bed,

you're exhausted,
you're tired.

And then you feel
something really cold.

And then you feel yourself--

You're starting to drift up.

It's like you're levitating.
All the atoms, or particles in your body,

somehow disperse,
and you're physically going

through some type of vortex,
through the roof somehow.

It's unexplainable.
And then you see a bright light.

Wow. Do you have
a sense of fear?

In the beginning, I did.Uh-huh.

I was very fearful.
But now,

I'm gonna look
at the positive aspects

of levitating
and feeling calm.

[Quinto]
It's one thing to describe these experiences,

but it's another
to actually live through them.

April, and so many others,
have reported the same physical sensations--

levitating, bright lights,
a sense of weightlessness--

that make them
absolutely certain that what they felt is real.

I know it's happening
around the world.

And if it happens to me
and it happens to a thousand other people,

then maybe sometimes
be brave enough to talk about it.

When it happens,
it's like transcending into another realm.

That's what I hope for you
to be able to experience.

[Quinto] And now, April has asked me to participate in an experiment

mirroring the conditions
of her abduction

so that I can personally feel
the physical sensations

she and so many like her
have experienced.

I'll be strapping into
a harness, blindfolded, and lifted

to recreate what it's like
to be taken.

[Zachary Quinto]
I'm trying to understand

why thousands of people
around the world believe so strongly

that they've been contacted
by aliens.

What is the physical experience people go through

that makes them so certain
aliens are here?

When it happens,
sometimes it's like transcending into another realm.

And that's what I hope for you
to be able to experience.

[Quinto]
April Malloy has set up an experiment

to help me understand
the profound physical nature of her abductions.

I'll be floating weightlessly,
and strapping into a harness

that will slowly lift me
into the air

to help me feel some of
the physical sensations

April says she experiences

when she levitates
out of her bed, into some other dimension.

All right.Thank you.

All right.

As you're laying there,
you're floating off into deep sleep.

You're slowly beginning,
inch by inch,

hovering very calmly,
very quietly.

Inch by inch,
you're going up.

And now you're floating
up to the ceiling.

And your body
just disappears in the air, through the roof.

And there's a bright light
that greets you.

[Quinto]
I've been lifted on wires before,

but never like this.

It gave me
a better understanding

of what these people
claim to go through.

The instinct, at first,
is to be afraid,

and then to realize
that you have no control.

It's an exercise of really surrendering to the experience.

The science of this
is one exploration,

and the experience of this
is another exploration.

And there are
an infinite number of reasons

for someone feeling
like they've had

an experience that
could be classified as an extraterrestrial encounter.

I do really want to believe
what April is saying.

Are aliens out there?
I don't know.

But I'm certainly closer
to believing than I was when I started.

Back when I was working
with SETI,

we launched a test
with the largest

fully steerable
radio telescope in the world,

trying to capture a recording
of a mysterious burst

that scientists believe
could be alien technology in space,

and the proof
we've all been hoping for.

Now, at SETI headquarters
in California,

I'm reconnecting with
the director of the program, Dr. Andrew Siemion,

to see what the telescope
has found.

[Quinto]
Andrew. [Dr. Siemion] Zach.

Now, the question is,
did you find anything?

So, we've run the first stage
of our analysis.

We detected
about 380 pulses.

But, unfortunately,
all of these look to be from our own technology

rather than from any distant
astronomical source.

Mm.

And this is the main problem
that we face

when we're trying to look
for signals from extraterrestrial intelligence.

Our own technology produces signals that look exactly like this.

So, we found some things,
but, unfortunately--

Not what we were--...not the things
that we were looking for.

There's no conclusive proof
on either side,

but the interesting thing is
what you all are in pursuit of,

which is knowledge--

tangible,
discernible knowledge.[slapping hand]

I think I've had the same
transformative experience

that all of us have
when we look up at the night sky,

and we imagine
what's out there.

Here, in this lab,
we conceptualize that question

through the lens of science.

Other people conceptualize
that question differently.

Like everybody else
that works in this field,

I hope for the detection of
extraterrestrial intelligence.

I think that would be
an amazing discovery.

I think
the more that we do it, the better the chances

of making that dream--
dream discovered.

[Quinto] Science is far from conclusive.

The search
for life on other planets is propelled by optimism,

but met mostly
with silence and darkness.

In all the time humans
have lived on this planet,

we've yet to identify
empirical proof of life elsewhere.

Whether you believe aliens
have been here before and left their mark

or are still light years away,

thanks to technology,

the probability
of us being alone

gets smaller every day.

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