Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:04,810
[happy music]
2
00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:07,800
[breaking noise]
3
00:00:07,840 --> 00:00:12,380
[spooky music]
4
00:00:16,080 --> 00:00:21,260
[exciting music]
5
00:00:24,930 --> 00:00:27,400
[ufo sound]
6
00:01:22,850 --> 00:01:25,950
- [Brian] UFOs. They're
not just in the skies.
7
00:01:25,990 --> 00:01:27,450
They're in the newspaper.
8
00:01:27,490 --> 00:01:30,220
They're on TV. They're in old books,
9
00:01:30,260 --> 00:01:32,830
and they're what your
friends are talking about today.
10
00:01:33,330 --> 00:01:35,390
They're in the stories
you heard growing up,
11
00:01:35,430 --> 00:01:38,790
and they keep coming back into our lives.
12
00:01:38,830 --> 00:01:40,430
They're in our lives right now.
13
00:01:40,470 --> 00:01:43,730
Since 2017, the media has been cramming
14
00:01:43,770 --> 00:01:47,570
UFOs and alien visitation down our throats.
15
00:01:47,610 --> 00:01:50,440
It's the latest craze on
TV's pseudo-science
16
00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:52,370
and pseudo-history networks.
17
00:01:52,410 --> 00:01:56,380
The result is that between 2019 and 2021,
18
00:01:56,420 --> 00:01:59,350
Americans' belief that some UFOs are aliens
19
00:01:59,390 --> 00:02:04,020
has risen from 33% to 41%
20
00:02:04,060 --> 00:02:06,490
according to a recent Gallup poll.
21
00:02:06,530 --> 00:02:09,590
We can't help but think
about aliens and UFOs,
22
00:02:09,630 --> 00:02:12,390
but how much of that thinking is informed
23
00:02:12,430 --> 00:02:15,360
by the real sciences involved?
24
00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:18,360
My name is Brian
Dunning, I'm a science writer
25
00:02:18,410 --> 00:02:20,430
and I love coming out here to the desert
26
00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:24,640
in the American west to
look up at our amazing skies.
27
00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:27,140
I've personally been lucky
enough to see something,
28
00:02:27,180 --> 00:02:28,580
three times in fact,
29
00:02:28,620 --> 00:02:31,040
that I couldn't figure
out what it might be.
30
00:02:31,090 --> 00:02:33,550
Now, I did soon learn what they were
31
00:02:33,590 --> 00:02:38,520
but for a few minutes I had
a magical rush like no other.
32
00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:39,950
There's something up there,
33
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:42,190
something we can't explain.
34
00:02:42,230 --> 00:02:46,970
But we all have in the back of
our minds what we hope it is.
35
00:02:47,540 --> 00:02:49,530
This observatory is one of the places
36
00:02:49,570 --> 00:02:51,560
where we look deep into space
37
00:02:51,610 --> 00:02:53,970
to peek into the most interesting stars.
38
00:02:54,010 --> 00:02:56,840
It makes us wonder who's out there.
39
00:02:56,880 --> 00:02:58,770
In any given patch of the sky,
40
00:02:58,810 --> 00:03:00,770
how many life forms are there
41
00:03:00,820 --> 00:03:03,340
in just that little field of view?
42
00:03:03,390 --> 00:03:05,950
Now, that's a question
that should intrigue anyone,
43
00:03:05,990 --> 00:03:08,380
but here's an even better one.
44
00:03:08,420 --> 00:03:10,080
In that same patch of sky,
45
00:03:10,130 --> 00:03:14,420
how many eyes are there looking back at us?
46
00:03:14,460 --> 00:03:15,620
For me, personally,
47
00:03:15,660 --> 00:03:18,630
that's about the most
exciting question there is.
48
00:03:19,230 --> 00:03:21,330
Now, I work for an educational nonprofit.
49
00:03:21,370 --> 00:03:22,730
Sometimes we make movies,
50
00:03:22,770 --> 00:03:25,200
sometimes we make videos or podcasts.
51
00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:26,700
But in that educational role,
52
00:03:26,740 --> 00:03:28,740
we can't just tell you what we think
53
00:03:28,780 --> 00:03:30,770
or what we wish was true.
54
00:03:30,810 --> 00:03:33,210
We're limited to what's verifiable.
55
00:03:33,250 --> 00:03:34,610
So we report on the latest
56
00:03:34,650 --> 00:03:36,340
and the greatest state of our knowledge,
57
00:03:36,380 --> 00:03:38,210
what scientists have learned so far,
58
00:03:38,250 --> 00:03:41,210
how they learned it, what
they're still working on.
59
00:03:41,260 --> 00:03:44,120
It's about our best
knowledge and the latest data.
60
00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:46,700
That's what we're going to talk about here.
61
00:03:47,300 --> 00:03:49,820
You already know that I love to wonder
62
00:03:49,860 --> 00:03:51,860
about our neighbors in the universe.
63
00:03:51,900 --> 00:03:55,130
You already know that
I'm fascinated by UFOs
64
00:03:55,170 --> 00:03:57,130
and I want to learn more about them,
65
00:03:57,170 --> 00:03:59,330
and you can't help but to have been exposed
66
00:03:59,370 --> 00:04:02,200
to all the attention UFOs
have been getting in the media
67
00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:03,900
these past few years.
68
00:04:03,950 --> 00:04:06,910
Navy videos. TV series.
69
00:04:06,950 --> 00:04:09,840
Congressional hearings. Personalities.
70
00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:12,310
It's been everywhere.
71
00:04:12,350 --> 00:04:15,420
So obviously a lot of
us are very interested
72
00:04:15,460 --> 00:04:16,830
in these things.
73
00:04:17,190 --> 00:04:19,450
So tonight I want to combine these,
74
00:04:19,490 --> 00:04:21,920
I'm going to present a science-based report
75
00:04:21,960 --> 00:04:24,690
free of any personal bias on this subject
76
00:04:24,730 --> 00:04:27,360
that we all seem to
have a mutual interest in.
77
00:04:27,400 --> 00:04:30,330
What are these things in our sky?
78
00:04:30,370 --> 00:04:33,170
What do we know, and how do we know it?
79
00:04:33,210 --> 00:04:37,100
Who is out there – or isn't
– and how do we know?
80
00:04:37,150 --> 00:04:39,610
And of course, the million dollar question,
81
00:04:39,650 --> 00:04:42,710
the one that really
overrides all the others:
82
00:04:42,750 --> 00:04:45,040
Are they visiting us?
83
00:04:45,090 --> 00:04:48,050
Now, spoiler alert, we don't
have all the answers yet,
84
00:04:48,090 --> 00:04:51,020
but we do have a lot of them.
85
00:04:51,060 --> 00:04:52,150
Are you ready?
86
00:04:52,190 --> 00:04:53,490
I am.
87
00:04:53,530 --> 00:04:54,830
Let's blast off.
88
00:04:58,370 --> 00:05:01,160
One of the biggest questions
we face as human beings
89
00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:04,860
on the planet Earth is
the possibility of alien life,
90
00:05:04,910 --> 00:05:08,400
other worlds, maybe other civilizations,
91
00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:11,640
other smart people who
are like us in some ways
92
00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:14,240
and unlike us in many others.
93
00:05:14,280 --> 00:05:17,410
So what do the folks who
study these questions think?
94
00:05:17,450 --> 00:05:21,280
This is astrobiologist
Dr. Kaitlin Rasmussen.
95
00:05:21,320 --> 00:05:24,050
I spoke with her at the 107 inch telescope
96
00:05:24,090 --> 00:05:26,990
at the McDonald Observatory in Texas.
97
00:05:27,030 --> 00:05:28,820
- [Kaitlin] So I think the general opinion
98
00:05:28,860 --> 00:05:30,690
in the field of astrobiology
99
00:05:30,730 --> 00:05:34,200
is that there is a lot of
life out there in the galaxy.
100
00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:36,430
I really think that the galaxy
101
00:05:36,470 --> 00:05:38,530
is absolutely teeming with life.
102
00:05:38,570 --> 00:05:40,100
Whether that life is intelligent,
103
00:05:40,140 --> 00:05:44,270
is really up for question,
but I have no doubt
104
00:05:44,310 --> 00:05:46,670
and many of my peers have no doubt
105
00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:48,840
that there is a lot of life out there.
106
00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:50,710
- [Brian] And her colleague, Miles Currie,
107
00:05:50,750 --> 00:05:52,810
also an astrobiologist.
108
00:05:52,850 --> 00:05:54,880
- Right, yeah, so I would
say most astronomers
109
00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:57,620
have come to the consensus that we think
110
00:05:57,660 --> 00:05:59,820
there is some kind of life out there.
111
00:05:59,860 --> 00:06:01,750
Now, whether that is intelligent life
112
00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:05,530
or just microbes out there
is a totally different question.
113
00:06:05,570 --> 00:06:07,430
- [Brian] And this is Dakotah Tyler.
114
00:06:07,470 --> 00:06:08,830
He's an astrophysicist.
115
00:06:08,870 --> 00:06:11,460
- So most astronomers
believe that there is life
116
00:06:11,510 --> 00:06:13,130
in the universe, without a doubt.
117
00:06:13,170 --> 00:06:14,970
- A lot, a little?
118
00:06:15,010 --> 00:06:17,540
- A lot or a little could depend
119
00:06:17,580 --> 00:06:20,040
upon exactly what you're talking about
120
00:06:20,080 --> 00:06:22,640
in terms of intelligence
or advanced civilization,
121
00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:24,710
but I would say a lot of life.
122
00:06:24,750 --> 00:06:26,480
- That shouldn't come as a surprise.
123
00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:29,180
In 1952, Miller and Urey put a sample
124
00:06:29,220 --> 00:06:33,020
of the primordial Earth's
atmosphere into a test tube,
125
00:06:33,060 --> 00:06:35,090
sparked it to simulate lightning,
126
00:06:35,130 --> 00:06:37,890
and created more than 20 amino acids,
127
00:06:37,930 --> 00:06:40,990
the basic building blocks of life.
128
00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:43,200
But there was nothing about their mixture
129
00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:44,630
unique to the Earth.
130
00:06:44,670 --> 00:06:46,730
It was what the atmosphere would consist of
131
00:06:46,780 --> 00:06:51,000
on any newly formed rocky volcanic planet.
132
00:06:51,050 --> 00:06:54,370
The Miller-Urey experiment
gets replicated all the time.
133
00:06:54,420 --> 00:06:57,340
Only now we've refined
it with better estimates
134
00:06:57,390 --> 00:06:59,480
of the atmospheric composition
135
00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:02,950
and we get even more amino acids produced.
136
00:07:02,990 --> 00:07:07,350
Those same conditions have
been happening on rocky planets
137
00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:11,090
throughout the universe
since the beginning of time.
138
00:07:11,130 --> 00:07:13,130
So how many planets is that?
139
00:07:13,170 --> 00:07:14,160
Well check this out.
140
00:07:14,200 --> 00:07:17,130
It's a video from NASA
showing all the exoplanets
141
00:07:17,170 --> 00:07:18,710
we've found so far.
142
00:07:19,340 --> 00:07:22,840
[gentle polyphonic music]
143
00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:17,160
We've found over 5,000,
144
00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:20,490
but that number's going
up so fast that 5,000
145
00:08:20,540 --> 00:08:22,660
probably sounds comically low
146
00:08:22,700 --> 00:08:25,000
by the time you're watching this.
147
00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:28,100
And that super dense
patch of planets right there,
148
00:08:28,140 --> 00:08:29,800
it's not that there are more planets there
149
00:08:29,840 --> 00:08:31,070
than anywhere else,
150
00:08:31,110 --> 00:08:33,470
that's just where we happen
to know about a lot of them
151
00:08:33,520 --> 00:08:36,940
because it's where the Kepler
space telescope was pointed
152
00:08:36,990 --> 00:08:39,410
for the duration of its initial mission,
153
00:08:39,450 --> 00:08:41,480
which was to do a really deep study
154
00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:44,080
of just one tiny patch of sky.
155
00:08:44,130 --> 00:08:45,920
There are actually even more there,
156
00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:48,860
a lot more, that Kepler
wasn't able to resolve;
157
00:08:48,900 --> 00:08:52,390
and that's really what the
entire Milky Way looks like.
158
00:08:52,430 --> 00:08:55,660
In fact, we figure there
are tens of billions of planets
159
00:08:55,700 --> 00:08:59,100
and that's just right
here in our local galaxy.
160
00:08:59,140 --> 00:09:02,800
That's more planets than
there are people on Earth.
161
00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:05,170
Billions more.
162
00:09:05,210 --> 00:09:07,040
On all those planets,
163
00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:10,240
are there any civilizations right now?
164
00:09:10,290 --> 00:09:14,550
Rich civilizations with
culture, arts, science,
165
00:09:14,590 --> 00:09:17,850
history and space programs of their own?
166
00:09:17,890 --> 00:09:20,290
I don't know what your math tells you
167
00:09:20,330 --> 00:09:23,460
but my math says there are probably many
168
00:09:23,500 --> 00:09:26,170
out there right now.
169
00:09:29,700 --> 00:09:32,500
If there are alien
astrobiologists out there
170
00:09:32,540 --> 00:09:35,500
and if they're asking these same questions,
171
00:09:35,540 --> 00:09:38,870
then our Earth is going to be
about the most exciting target
172
00:09:38,910 --> 00:09:40,070
in the sky.
173
00:09:40,110 --> 00:09:42,310
Allow me to explain.
174
00:09:42,350 --> 00:09:44,040
When we look for life on other planets,
175
00:09:44,090 --> 00:09:46,010
we use spectroscopic analysis
176
00:09:46,050 --> 00:09:49,480
to look at the chemical
makeup of their atmosphere.
177
00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:51,520
By looking at the light spectrum,
178
00:09:51,560 --> 00:09:54,050
we can see if that planet has water,
179
00:09:54,100 --> 00:09:56,460
we can see if it has chlorophyll.
180
00:09:56,500 --> 00:10:00,930
Astrobiologists have identified
many spectra we can look for
181
00:10:00,970 --> 00:10:02,800
representing all the different types
182
00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:07,170
of chemical basis for life,
not just carbon-based like us,
183
00:10:07,210 --> 00:10:10,300
but all the other ways
elements might bond together
184
00:10:10,350 --> 00:10:12,510
to form living matter.
185
00:10:12,550 --> 00:10:14,040
Now even with James Webb,
186
00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:17,110
our best space telescopes
almost have the ability,
187
00:10:17,150 --> 00:10:18,480
but not quite.
188
00:10:18,520 --> 00:10:21,480
But we're very close and
our next generation telescopes
189
00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:24,880
will for sure, within a few decades.
190
00:10:24,930 --> 00:10:28,020
This century, we will almost certainly
191
00:10:28,060 --> 00:10:32,070
identify exoplanets that
have life of some kind.
192
00:10:33,030 --> 00:10:35,530
So considering how many civilizations
193
00:10:35,570 --> 00:10:37,160
are probably out there,
194
00:10:37,210 --> 00:10:40,370
some of them must also
know these same things
195
00:10:40,410 --> 00:10:44,500
and some of them have also
been looking at exoplanets.
196
00:10:44,550 --> 00:10:47,570
Think of what Earth must look like to them.
197
00:10:47,620 --> 00:10:52,010
71% water on its surface
and all the chemical signatures
198
00:10:52,050 --> 00:10:53,810
of life in its atmosphere.
199
00:10:53,860 --> 00:10:56,450
Carbon is the most
interactive element there is
200
00:10:56,490 --> 00:11:01,090
and organic compounds are
everywhere in our spectrum.
201
00:11:01,130 --> 00:11:05,490
Earth is an alien
astrobiologist's dream planet.
202
00:11:05,530 --> 00:11:09,960
We are as enticing as any
exoplanet could possibly be.
203
00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:12,430
- We are absolutely a planet that screams,
204
00:11:12,470 --> 00:11:16,540
"There is intelligent life
here," not just life in general,
205
00:11:16,580 --> 00:11:20,110
but life that is contributing
to its environment
206
00:11:20,150 --> 00:11:21,870
in a technological way.
207
00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:24,110
- Considering the laws of large numbers,
208
00:11:24,150 --> 00:11:26,010
it's highly probable that someone,
209
00:11:26,050 --> 00:11:30,650
maybe tens or hundreds
or thousands of them,
210
00:11:30,690 --> 00:11:34,290
have already found
Earth's incredible spectrum.
211
00:11:34,330 --> 00:11:37,220
Someone out there
probably knows we are here.
212
00:11:37,270 --> 00:11:39,560
They know a few things about us.
213
00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:44,730
That is an amazing,
astounding, mind blowing thought,
214
00:11:44,770 --> 00:11:46,830
and it's very exciting for those of us
215
00:11:46,870 --> 00:11:49,400
who hope that the children of Earth
216
00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:52,470
will one day meet our neighbors.
217
00:11:52,510 --> 00:11:54,440
So as we talk about this subject,
218
00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:57,710
let's keep it in context
that there's a good chance
219
00:11:57,750 --> 00:12:00,980
there are alien
civilizations interested in us
220
00:12:01,020 --> 00:12:04,150
and the scientific basis for that is real.
221
00:12:04,190 --> 00:12:05,990
They'd probably love to visit us
222
00:12:06,030 --> 00:12:08,730
just as much as we'd love to visit them.
223
00:12:12,170 --> 00:12:14,530
Now, all that is wonderful and amazing,
224
00:12:14,570 --> 00:12:18,700
but it's also where we
bump into our first problem.
225
00:12:18,740 --> 00:12:20,430
- The reason that, as astronomers,
226
00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:23,240
we believe that life is so
abundant in the universe
227
00:12:23,280 --> 00:12:24,570
is because of the vastness.
228
00:12:24,610 --> 00:12:26,210
It's kind of a numbers game.
229
00:12:26,250 --> 00:12:28,770
But that vastness is the same reason
230
00:12:28,820 --> 00:12:30,240
that we don't believe that that life
231
00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:32,590
will ever get here to us on Earth.
232
00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:35,580
- They can't get here.
233
00:12:35,620 --> 00:12:37,550
Remember, we're trying to stick to reality,
234
00:12:37,590 --> 00:12:39,620
not the Star Trek universe.
235
00:12:39,660 --> 00:12:41,590
That means asking
if it's possible to travel
236
00:12:41,630 --> 00:12:44,120
faster than light; because civilizations
237
00:12:44,170 --> 00:12:47,630
are going to be very, very far away.
238
00:12:47,670 --> 00:12:49,660
- So as scientists, we are bound
239
00:12:49,700 --> 00:12:52,770
by what we can test and observe.
240
00:12:52,810 --> 00:12:55,200
And what we observe
is that nothing can travel
241
00:12:55,240 --> 00:12:57,570
the speed of light except for light itself.
242
00:12:57,610 --> 00:12:59,310
It would take an infinite amount of energy
243
00:12:59,350 --> 00:13:02,010
to accelerate anything with any mass at all
244
00:13:02,050 --> 00:13:03,180
to the speed of light.
245
00:13:03,220 --> 00:13:05,280
- So faster than light
travel is not possible
246
00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:08,980
because of the part of
physics called relativity.
247
00:13:09,020 --> 00:13:11,080
And in relativity, the faster you move,
248
00:13:11,130 --> 00:13:13,720
the heavier you get
and the shorter you get.
249
00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:15,690
And so as you approach the speed of light,
250
00:13:15,730 --> 00:13:19,260
you become infinitely
massive and infinitely flat.
251
00:13:19,300 --> 00:13:20,690
- I hear terms like relativity,
252
00:13:20,740 --> 00:13:22,600
like Einstein and laws of physics.
253
00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:25,300
Are these just ideas that
human scientists made up?
254
00:13:25,340 --> 00:13:29,070
- So you may naively
think that the laws of physics
255
00:13:29,110 --> 00:13:32,270
are something that we
came up with as humans,
256
00:13:32,310 --> 00:13:34,770
but these are not legislative laws.
257
00:13:34,820 --> 00:13:38,110
These are really observations
that we have verified
258
00:13:38,150 --> 00:13:40,250
time and time and time again to the point
259
00:13:40,290 --> 00:13:43,750
that we really consider
them unbreakable laws.
260
00:13:43,790 --> 00:13:46,350
- Is it possible that some
aliens might come to us
261
00:13:46,390 --> 00:13:48,090
from a different part of the universe
262
00:13:48,130 --> 00:13:51,220
that might have different laws of physics?
263
00:13:51,270 --> 00:13:52,890
- No, it is not possible.
264
00:13:52,930 --> 00:13:55,140
The laws of physics are
the same everywhere.
265
00:13:56,300 --> 00:13:57,210
- How do you know?
266
00:13:58,070 --> 00:14:00,970
- So we actually can use the
James Webb space telescope
267
00:14:01,010 --> 00:14:03,970
to look back in time because
the farther away something is,
268
00:14:04,010 --> 00:14:07,410
the longer light has been traveling to us.
269
00:14:07,450 --> 00:14:09,040
And so when we look back in time,
270
00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:12,610
we can see something called
the cosmic microwave background.
271
00:14:12,650 --> 00:14:15,650
Now this is the leftover
light from the Big Bang
272
00:14:15,690 --> 00:14:18,150
and this light dims like a dimmer switch
273
00:14:18,190 --> 00:14:20,750
and we've been able to use
the laws of physics to say,
274
00:14:20,800 --> 00:14:22,320
"OK, it should have been this bright
275
00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:24,590
at this point in time,
and now it's this bright
276
00:14:24,630 --> 00:14:25,720
at this point in time."
277
00:14:25,770 --> 00:14:27,330
And those line up perfectly.
278
00:14:27,370 --> 00:14:31,500
So we know that in
different parts of the universe
279
00:14:31,540 --> 00:14:34,570
that we can see billions and
billions of light years away,
280
00:14:34,610 --> 00:14:37,740
those laws of physics are exactly the same
281
00:14:37,780 --> 00:14:39,670
as the laws of physics here on Earth.
282
00:14:39,710 --> 00:14:43,710
- OK, so if the laws are
the same everywhere now,
283
00:14:43,750 --> 00:14:46,210
have they always been the same?
284
00:14:46,250 --> 00:14:48,380
- By looking at
gravitational lensing effects,
285
00:14:48,420 --> 00:14:51,180
we've been able to determine that gravity
286
00:14:51,230 --> 00:14:54,690
behaves the same today
as it did 5 billion years ago
287
00:14:54,730 --> 00:14:57,020
and 5 billion light years away.
288
00:14:57,060 --> 00:15:00,590
- The entire universe
obeys the laws of physics
289
00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:01,560
as we know it.
290
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:03,300
We can look way back in the universe
291
00:15:03,340 --> 00:15:06,600
and compare our observations
to some of the models
292
00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:09,740
that we create based on the
laws of physics we know now
293
00:15:09,780 --> 00:15:11,540
and we can see that these two things match.
294
00:15:11,580 --> 00:15:15,040
So these laws of physics have
been the same laws of physics
295
00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:17,540
ever since the beginning
as far as we can look back.
296
00:15:17,590 --> 00:15:19,180
- [Brian] So that's disappointing.
297
00:15:19,220 --> 00:15:22,780
These barriers to faster than
light travel are the same here
298
00:15:22,820 --> 00:15:24,650
as they are for a civilization
299
00:15:24,690 --> 00:15:26,350
on the other side of the universe.
300
00:15:26,390 --> 00:15:28,950
And those problems we face today
301
00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:31,990
were the same for
civilizations a billion years ago.
302
00:15:32,030 --> 00:15:35,300
But the problems don't even end there.
303
00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:41,670
I call this the Christmas tree problem,
304
00:15:41,710 --> 00:15:44,270
and it has to do with the
time element of communicating
305
00:15:44,310 --> 00:15:45,570
with our neighbors.
306
00:15:45,610 --> 00:15:48,370
Do you think there
might be a radio greeting
307
00:15:48,420 --> 00:15:51,640
from some alien
civilization winging its way
308
00:15:51,690 --> 00:15:53,510
through space toward us right now?
309
00:15:53,550 --> 00:15:56,950
- So there may be greetings
from alien civilizations
310
00:15:56,990 --> 00:15:59,650
flying all over the place in the universe.
311
00:15:59,690 --> 00:16:01,650
The problem is that you have to look
312
00:16:01,700 --> 00:16:04,820
at the exact right place
at the exact right time
313
00:16:04,870 --> 00:16:05,790
to receive it.
314
00:16:05,830 --> 00:16:09,900
- It turns out time is just as
big a problem as distance.
315
00:16:09,940 --> 00:16:13,700
Imagine a Christmas tree
with strings of blinking lights.
316
00:16:13,740 --> 00:16:16,700
Imagine that tree is the
universe and each light
317
00:16:16,740 --> 00:16:19,310
during that brief moment
when it's illuminated
318
00:16:19,350 --> 00:16:22,310
is the duration of a
technological civilization,
319
00:16:22,350 --> 00:16:25,010
from the moment they
first develop the capability
320
00:16:25,050 --> 00:16:27,010
to interact with other civilizations
321
00:16:27,050 --> 00:16:29,450
to the moment they meet their end,
322
00:16:29,490 --> 00:16:31,280
they get hit with a gamma ray burst
323
00:16:31,330 --> 00:16:33,420
or a planet killer asteroid
324
00:16:33,460 --> 00:16:36,020
or a war or a pandemic or whatever.
325
00:16:36,060 --> 00:16:39,530
Maybe they exist as a
technological civilization
326
00:16:39,570 --> 00:16:43,000
for a million years or a hundred years,
327
00:16:43,040 --> 00:16:46,400
and they're sprinkled
everywhere throughout the cosmos,
328
00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:50,340
an unknowable number of such civilizations.
329
00:16:50,380 --> 00:16:53,470
But they don't all exist at the same time.
330
00:16:53,510 --> 00:16:55,570
The chances of two Christmas tree lights
331
00:16:55,620 --> 00:16:57,140
that are really close together
332
00:16:57,180 --> 00:17:00,180
being on at the same time is small.
333
00:17:00,220 --> 00:17:03,280
Even if we developed
space travel at very close
334
00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:04,520
to the speed of light,
335
00:17:04,560 --> 00:17:07,950
for two civilizations to
have physical contact
336
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:10,260
they'd have to be extremely close together
337
00:17:10,300 --> 00:17:13,230
and at the same time.
338
00:17:13,270 --> 00:17:15,860
So it's possible, and it probably happens,
339
00:17:15,900 --> 00:17:19,300
it's probably happening
some-where in the universe right now.
340
00:17:19,340 --> 00:17:23,200
But the Christmas tree
problem makes it much less likely
341
00:17:23,240 --> 00:17:25,400
that any technological civilization
342
00:17:25,450 --> 00:17:28,380
will ever get to visit a neighbor,
343
00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:31,690
and that's a problem that we hate.
344
00:17:35,090 --> 00:17:37,480
So here's the thing that
almost always comes up
345
00:17:37,530 --> 00:17:39,390
at this point in the conversations.
346
00:17:39,430 --> 00:17:41,690
Aliens are more advanced than us.
347
00:17:41,730 --> 00:17:44,060
They've probably figured
out the laws of physics
348
00:17:44,100 --> 00:17:45,290
better than we have.
349
00:17:45,330 --> 00:17:48,530
So they're not limited by time or distance.
350
00:17:48,570 --> 00:17:51,700
They're not bound by special relativity.
351
00:17:51,740 --> 00:17:53,570
By all we poor humans know,
352
00:17:53,610 --> 00:17:56,770
special relativity is among
the most thoroughly tested
353
00:17:56,810 --> 00:17:59,710
and proven of all the laws of physics.
354
00:17:59,750 --> 00:18:02,810
But hey, maybe the
aliens are smarter than us.
355
00:18:02,850 --> 00:18:04,910
Aliens, if they're smarter than us,
356
00:18:04,950 --> 00:18:07,280
can't they get around those laws
357
00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:10,150
and break the laws of physics?
358
00:18:10,190 --> 00:18:12,180
- You cannot break the laws of physics.
359
00:18:12,230 --> 00:18:15,790
- OK, it's nice to just declare
that like a proclamation,
360
00:18:15,830 --> 00:18:19,090
but why can't the aliens know more than us?
361
00:18:19,130 --> 00:18:22,730
- So any sufficiently
intelligent alien civilization
362
00:18:22,770 --> 00:18:24,430
is going to invent math.
363
00:18:24,470 --> 00:18:27,370
And their math is going to
tell them the exact same thing
364
00:18:27,410 --> 00:18:29,100
that our math tells us,
365
00:18:29,140 --> 00:18:31,300
and these are just the laws of physics.
366
00:18:31,350 --> 00:18:34,170
- OK, let's say that we've
got the mathematics wrong
367
00:18:34,220 --> 00:18:37,280
and that faster than
light travel is possible.
368
00:18:37,320 --> 00:18:40,080
Now, obviously, not all
alien civilizations out there
369
00:18:40,120 --> 00:18:42,110
would figure it out, but remember,
370
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:44,680
there might be a huge
number of them out there.
371
00:18:44,730 --> 00:18:46,750
Enough of them would get it.
372
00:18:46,790 --> 00:18:50,660
If distance doesn't matter
anymore, the problems go away.
373
00:18:50,700 --> 00:18:53,890
Advanced aliens without
distance constraints
374
00:18:53,930 --> 00:18:56,560
would be visiting civilizations everywhere.
375
00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:59,030
Maybe some of them
would want to remain hidden
376
00:18:59,070 --> 00:19:02,900
or just examine us, but
surely not all of them,
377
00:19:02,940 --> 00:19:04,940
at least some of them would have jumped
378
00:19:04,980 --> 00:19:08,270
onto the White House lawn
to say, "Hey, here we are."
379
00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:10,080
And by the same logic,
380
00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:14,610
at least some of them might
be hostile and destructive.
381
00:19:14,660 --> 00:19:17,150
But look, we're here.
382
00:19:17,190 --> 00:19:18,950
Nobody has destroyed us
383
00:19:18,990 --> 00:19:22,220
and nobody has appeared
on the White House lawn.
384
00:19:22,260 --> 00:19:24,590
So work it backwards. If there are no
385
00:19:24,630 --> 00:19:28,930
hostile or sociable
long distance travelers,
386
00:19:28,970 --> 00:19:31,330
that means there probably aren't any
387
00:19:31,370 --> 00:19:33,370
long distance travelers.
388
00:19:33,410 --> 00:19:36,500
Our lack of obvious
visitors is really the best
389
00:19:36,540 --> 00:19:40,240
empirical evidence that we
have that nobody anywhere
390
00:19:40,280 --> 00:19:43,040
has solved both the Christmas tree problem
391
00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:45,680
and the problem of
faster than light travel.
392
00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:47,850
Remember we did point out earlier,
393
00:19:47,890 --> 00:19:51,450
special relativity is among
the most thoroughly tested
394
00:19:51,490 --> 00:19:55,220
and proven of all the laws of physics.
395
00:19:55,260 --> 00:19:57,320
Also, when we speculate that aliens
396
00:19:57,360 --> 00:20:00,860
might not be bound by the
same laws of physics we are,
397
00:20:00,900 --> 00:20:02,790
what are we really saying?
398
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:05,930
We're saying they can do anything like gods
399
00:20:05,970 --> 00:20:07,930
or genies or leprechauns.
400
00:20:07,980 --> 00:20:11,000
- So the aliens have to
abide by the same laws
401
00:20:11,050 --> 00:20:13,640
of physics that we do, they aren't magic.
402
00:20:13,680 --> 00:20:14,610
They're not Harry Potter.
403
00:20:14,650 --> 00:20:16,710
They just can't do whatever they want.
404
00:20:16,750 --> 00:20:19,480
- I think it's more likely
that advanced aliens
405
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:22,580
understand and work
with the laws of physics
406
00:20:22,620 --> 00:20:24,150
the same as we do.
407
00:20:24,190 --> 00:20:27,290
But again, I'm now just
speculating outside of science.
408
00:20:27,330 --> 00:20:30,020
If we want to come up with reliable answers
409
00:20:30,060 --> 00:20:32,390
to these big questions we're asking,
410
00:20:32,430 --> 00:20:35,860
we need to stick to
reality and not speculate
411
00:20:35,900 --> 00:20:39,800
about what we think gods and
genies and leprechauns could do.
412
00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:41,730
Or Harry Potter.
413
00:20:41,780 --> 00:20:45,340
In logic, we call that a special pleading.
414
00:20:45,380 --> 00:20:46,170
We can't just say,
415
00:20:46,210 --> 00:20:48,610
"Oh, the aliens don't have any limitations.
416
00:20:48,650 --> 00:20:51,780
Us poor dumb humans are
just not able to comprehend
417
00:20:51,820 --> 00:20:53,450
their superiority."
418
00:20:53,490 --> 00:20:56,780
Well, that's not science,
that's wishful thinking.
419
00:20:56,820 --> 00:20:58,780
It's convincing yourself something is true
420
00:20:58,830 --> 00:21:01,390
because you want it to be true.
421
00:21:01,430 --> 00:21:03,360
I want it to be true too
422
00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:06,600
but I also want to understand what's real.
423
00:21:09,740 --> 00:21:12,760
The way we do that is to
establish a very high bar
424
00:21:12,810 --> 00:21:15,200
for the quality of evidence
that we're going to accept.
425
00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:19,100
If we present bad evidence,
it weakens our case;
426
00:21:19,150 --> 00:21:22,040
so we will only accept good evidence.
427
00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:23,940
You might think this video
428
00:21:23,980 --> 00:21:27,410
looks like excellent
quality evidence, but it's not.
429
00:21:27,450 --> 00:21:28,510
It's terrible.
430
00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:32,080
I know that, because I made it
myself using an app on my phone
431
00:21:32,130 --> 00:21:34,850
to add a flying saucer to my video.
432
00:21:34,900 --> 00:21:37,560
But you should have known
it was terrible evidence too
433
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:39,930
because all videos or pictures
434
00:21:39,970 --> 00:21:44,000
are what we call anecdotal evidence.
435
00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:45,160
That refers to anything
436
00:21:45,210 --> 00:21:47,870
that can't be directly studied or tested.
437
00:21:47,910 --> 00:21:51,000
I can directly study and test this rock
438
00:21:51,050 --> 00:21:52,740
because I'm holding it,
439
00:21:52,780 --> 00:21:55,840
but you can't because you're
just watching it on a video.
440
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:57,710
As far as you are able to prove
441
00:21:57,750 --> 00:22:01,310
it might be nothing
more than a special effect.
442
00:22:01,360 --> 00:22:04,850
Pictures or videos will
never meet that high bar
443
00:22:04,890 --> 00:22:06,820
of evidence that we need.
444
00:22:06,860 --> 00:22:10,590
Millions of people are better
than me at faking videos.
445
00:22:10,630 --> 00:22:12,220
And more than half a century ago,
446
00:22:12,270 --> 00:22:14,430
hoaxers were throwing hubcaps in the air
447
00:22:14,470 --> 00:22:17,200
and absolutely persuading many
448
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:20,830
that they took authentic
photos of a flying saucer.
449
00:22:20,870 --> 00:22:23,100
People accepted bad evidence
450
00:22:23,140 --> 00:22:26,480
and the result was that they were wrong.
451
00:22:27,150 --> 00:22:31,340
Verbal stories or stories
presented on UFO TV programs
452
00:22:31,390 --> 00:22:35,780
are also completely anecdotal
and very untrustworthy.
453
00:22:35,820 --> 00:22:37,650
They get more and more exaggerated
454
00:22:37,690 --> 00:22:39,720
every time they're retold.
455
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:41,590
Even though the people on these shows
456
00:22:41,630 --> 00:22:43,820
often seem trustworthy,
457
00:22:43,860 --> 00:22:47,030
we have to force ourselves
to not simply believe
458
00:22:47,070 --> 00:22:48,630
everything on television.
459
00:22:48,670 --> 00:22:52,130
We have to force ourselves
to be open to information
460
00:22:52,170 --> 00:22:54,530
that's not what we want to hear.
461
00:22:54,580 --> 00:22:58,100
This is how we improve our knowledge.
462
00:22:58,150 --> 00:23:00,540
Another way we scrutinize
evidence to make sure
463
00:23:00,580 --> 00:23:05,380
it meets our high bar is
to try to falsify our theories.
464
00:23:05,420 --> 00:23:08,710
What does the cancer
researcher want most of all?
465
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:11,680
She wants to find a cure
for the particular cancer
466
00:23:11,730 --> 00:23:12,950
she's working on.
467
00:23:12,990 --> 00:23:15,390
So if she gets the
slightest positive result,
468
00:23:15,430 --> 00:23:18,020
the cancer responded slightly better
469
00:23:18,070 --> 00:23:21,260
to this one candidate
drug than to the others,
470
00:23:21,300 --> 00:23:25,260
she knows the most premature
and foolhardy thing she can do
471
00:23:25,310 --> 00:23:26,770
is to immediately declare,
472
00:23:26,810 --> 00:23:28,000
"Yay, I've found it.
473
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:30,170
This cancer has been cured."
474
00:23:30,210 --> 00:23:33,310
Instead, she has to search for any possible
475
00:23:33,350 --> 00:23:36,910
alternate explanation
for that positive result
476
00:23:36,950 --> 00:23:38,810
so she can eliminate it.
477
00:23:38,850 --> 00:23:40,510
Maybe it was caused by
478
00:23:40,550 --> 00:23:43,450
residue from cleaning her test equipment.
479
00:23:43,490 --> 00:23:46,420
The most important step she takes
480
00:23:46,460 --> 00:23:50,760
is to find ways to
falsify any positive result.
481
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:52,890
That's how she makes sure she's left
482
00:23:52,930 --> 00:23:57,100
with only the best evidence
that passes all scrutiny.
483
00:23:58,340 --> 00:24:02,830
So if the UFO researcher
wants to convincingly show
484
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:05,100
that aliens are visiting us,
485
00:24:05,150 --> 00:24:08,910
he has to apply that same extreme scrutiny
486
00:24:08,950 --> 00:24:11,910
to his theory to find every possible way
487
00:24:11,950 --> 00:24:15,550
that something else might
account for his evidence.
488
00:24:15,590 --> 00:24:18,080
The video that looks like
a craft making movements
489
00:24:18,130 --> 00:24:19,850
that airplanes can't,
490
00:24:19,890 --> 00:24:22,090
might just be an optical illusion
491
00:24:22,130 --> 00:24:23,820
from the way the camera's moving.
492
00:24:23,860 --> 00:24:27,230
He has to absolutely
eliminate that possibility
493
00:24:27,270 --> 00:24:29,760
and then he has to work just as hard
494
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,670
to find the next thing that
might explain the video.
495
00:24:33,710 --> 00:24:37,800
So falsify, eliminate
every other possibility
496
00:24:37,850 --> 00:24:39,600
if we want to make a strong case,
497
00:24:39,650 --> 00:24:41,670
we have to make sure it stands up
498
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,690
to the scrutiny of falsification.
499
00:24:48,290 --> 00:24:50,620
So to do that, let's start by looking
500
00:24:50,660 --> 00:24:54,920
at the whole history of UFOs
that were eventually identified
501
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,760
and see what kinds of things
have fooled eyewitnesses
502
00:24:57,800 --> 00:24:59,190
in the past.
503
00:24:59,230 --> 00:25:01,990
Now, luckily we have lots of data for this.
504
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,930
A number of authors have
compiled great big data sets,
505
00:25:05,970 --> 00:25:08,070
and even Wikipedia has an article
506
00:25:08,110 --> 00:25:11,300
on the most common
explanations for UFO sightings
507
00:25:11,350 --> 00:25:14,140
that were ultimately explained.
508
00:25:14,180 --> 00:25:18,380
The #1 most common
cause of solved UFO cases
509
00:25:18,420 --> 00:25:22,180
is misidentification of celestial objects,
510
00:25:22,220 --> 00:25:25,850
basically planets and
stars, and mostly Venus,
511
00:25:25,890 --> 00:25:30,420
but also satellites,
meteors, and orbital debris.
512
00:25:30,460 --> 00:25:34,260
Every time SpaceX launches
a train of Starlink satellites,
513
00:25:34,300 --> 00:25:37,900
which appear in the sky
as a giant long line of lights,
514
00:25:37,940 --> 00:25:40,000
I get a ton of messages
from people asking me,
515
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,570
"Whoa, what the heck
was this?" Celestial objects
516
00:25:43,610 --> 00:25:46,970
fool experienced sky watchers every day;
517
00:25:47,010 --> 00:25:49,980
so they're the most important
phenomenon we have to try
518
00:25:50,020 --> 00:25:53,580
and find a match for
in order to rule it out.
519
00:25:53,620 --> 00:25:55,810
- With all of the artificial satellites
520
00:25:55,860 --> 00:25:58,250
that are in orbit around the Earth,
521
00:25:58,290 --> 00:26:01,520
it wouldn't be hard to imagine
a pilot seeing something
522
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,760
and not knowing exactly
what it was, and tagging it
523
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,060
as an unidentified flying object,
524
00:26:07,100 --> 00:26:08,960
which for them it would be.
525
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:10,760
- And here's an air traffic controller.
526
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:12,000
You'll meet him soon.
527
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:14,530
- We've had pilots
report a line of aircrafts
528
00:26:14,580 --> 00:26:18,840
a hundred miles across,
30 aircraft, what is it?
529
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:20,770
- And they're seeing a Starlink train?
530
00:26:20,810 --> 00:26:21,970
- They're seeing, yes.
531
00:26:22,020 --> 00:26:25,140
- The second most common
cause of solved UFO cases
532
00:26:25,190 --> 00:26:28,780
is airborne clutter,
mostly weather balloons,
533
00:26:28,820 --> 00:26:32,820
but also birds, party balloons,
and conventional aircraft
534
00:26:32,860 --> 00:26:37,520
including planes, blimps,
especially advertising blimps,
535
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:39,860
drones, and helicopters.
536
00:26:39,900 --> 00:26:44,530
All of these fool serious
UFO spotters every day.
537
00:26:44,570 --> 00:26:47,630
And so we also have to try
and match these to our sighting
538
00:26:47,670 --> 00:26:50,840
to eliminate them as the explanation.
539
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:53,410
Airborne clutter also includes hoaxes,
540
00:26:53,450 --> 00:26:55,940
like knuckleheads launching
something on purpose
541
00:26:55,980 --> 00:26:57,240
to trick people.
542
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:00,950
But hoaxing is such a minuscule
part of the UFO phenomenon
543
00:27:00,990 --> 00:27:04,050
that we're really not even
going to spend any time on it.
544
00:27:04,090 --> 00:27:07,220
Another common cause of solved UFO cases
545
00:27:07,260 --> 00:27:11,890
is misidentification of lights
or objects on the ground.
546
00:27:11,930 --> 00:27:15,560
Horizons can disappear
in a number of atmospheric
547
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:17,030
and lighting conditions,
548
00:27:17,070 --> 00:27:20,100
and lights and other objects on the ground
549
00:27:20,140 --> 00:27:22,800
can often appear to be in the air.
550
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,840
Sometimes it takes some
real outside the box thinking
551
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,740
to discover that your UFO
was actually something
552
00:27:28,780 --> 00:27:29,810
on the ground.
553
00:27:29,850 --> 00:27:34,590
But again, this fools
smart people every day.
554
00:27:35,290 --> 00:27:38,020
The last potential ID for solved UFOs
555
00:27:38,060 --> 00:27:40,490
is perhaps the most
important for our purposes
556
00:27:40,530 --> 00:27:43,890
and that's an extraordinary craft.
557
00:27:43,930 --> 00:27:45,360
By an extraordinary craft,
558
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,690
I mean an actual physical
vehicle of some kind
559
00:27:48,740 --> 00:27:52,360
that is not an airplane or
any other previously known
560
00:27:52,410 --> 00:27:54,070
and familiar type.
561
00:27:54,110 --> 00:27:57,740
An extraordinary craft is
one that has capabilities
562
00:27:57,780 --> 00:28:00,970
or characteristics never before seen.
563
00:28:01,010 --> 00:28:04,410
If we had an actual alien spaceship,
564
00:28:04,450 --> 00:28:07,210
that would be an extraordinary craft.
565
00:28:07,250 --> 00:28:09,350
If we had some new kind of vehicle with
566
00:28:09,390 --> 00:28:12,820
flight characteristics that
are apparently impossible,
567
00:28:12,860 --> 00:28:16,250
maybe Chinese, maybe
Russian, maybe American,
568
00:28:16,300 --> 00:28:19,420
but truly paradigm upending,
569
00:28:19,470 --> 00:28:22,000
that would be an extraordinary craft.
570
00:28:22,940 --> 00:28:25,200
The reason I say this is the most important
571
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:30,240
for our purposes is that in
the entire history of UFOlogy,
572
00:28:30,310 --> 00:28:33,270
in not one single case ever
573
00:28:33,310 --> 00:28:36,410
has an extraordinary craft been found
574
00:28:36,450 --> 00:28:38,880
to be the explanation for a UFO.
575
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,580
Not once. Ever.
576
00:28:41,620 --> 00:28:45,150
Not a single extraordinary
craft has ever been found,
577
00:28:45,190 --> 00:28:48,290
at least not that meets our
high standard of evidence,
578
00:28:48,330 --> 00:28:50,960
which means rejecting
the many anecdotal stories
579
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,290
of captured alien debris.
580
00:28:53,330 --> 00:28:54,890
So if we go through and eliminate
581
00:28:54,940 --> 00:28:57,260
all the more likely possibilities:
582
00:28:57,300 --> 00:28:59,460
celestial objects, airborne clutter,
583
00:28:59,510 --> 00:29:00,800
objects on the ground,
584
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,440
conventional aircraft,
and optical illusions,
585
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:07,270
and if we believe an extraordinary craft
586
00:29:07,310 --> 00:29:09,510
must be responsible for the sighting,
587
00:29:09,550 --> 00:29:11,910
this is where we become the ones
588
00:29:11,950 --> 00:29:14,210
making the extraordinary claim,
589
00:29:14,250 --> 00:29:18,220
and where we must present
extraordinary evidence.
590
00:29:18,260 --> 00:29:22,390
To prove something
that's truly unprecedented,
591
00:29:22,430 --> 00:29:26,460
our standard of evidence must be crazy high
592
00:29:26,500 --> 00:29:28,190
and that's why it's so important
593
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:30,570
to go through the falsification process.
594
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,040
So now let's look at the evidence we have
595
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,470
through this filter of setting the bar high
596
00:29:39,510 --> 00:29:42,770
and let's falsify everything we can.
597
00:29:42,820 --> 00:29:45,440
I want to start with a couple
of really bad examples,
598
00:29:45,490 --> 00:29:47,910
just to illustrate how easy it is
599
00:29:47,950 --> 00:29:50,620
for a really amazing story to spread
600
00:29:50,660 --> 00:29:53,920
when nobody subjects it to any scrutiny.
601
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:55,790
Where do we find these?
602
00:29:55,830 --> 00:29:57,460
On television, of course.
603
00:29:57,500 --> 00:30:00,930
People forget that TV
shows are entertainment.
604
00:30:00,970 --> 00:30:04,830
Nobody at the network
cares how accurate it is.
605
00:30:04,870 --> 00:30:06,460
They only care that you watch.
606
00:30:06,510 --> 00:30:09,030
And so they let the stories get exaggerated
607
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:10,680
and completely distorted.
608
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:18,040
One of these is the Rendlesham
Forest case from 1980.
609
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:20,550
At a US Air Force base inside England,
610
00:30:20,590 --> 00:30:22,980
airmen on duty saw some bright lights
611
00:30:23,020 --> 00:30:26,080
flashing through the
trees of Rendlesham Forest
612
00:30:26,130 --> 00:30:28,120
just outside the base perimeter.
613
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,520
They went to investigate
and found what they described
614
00:30:31,570 --> 00:30:36,570
as a craft of unknown
origin landed inside the forest.
615
00:30:37,100 --> 00:30:39,460
They approached it and
one of the men studied
616
00:30:39,510 --> 00:30:42,270
and touched it for 45 minutes,
617
00:30:42,310 --> 00:30:44,900
logging the details in a notebook.
618
00:30:44,950 --> 00:30:48,070
But they were ordered never
to discuss what happened.
619
00:30:48,110 --> 00:30:50,940
And so it's been called one
of the great UFO coverups
620
00:30:50,980 --> 00:30:52,810
in history.
621
00:30:52,850 --> 00:30:56,350
Something that nearly always
happens with stories like this
622
00:30:56,390 --> 00:30:58,920
that get told and retold on TV shows
623
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:02,120
is that each network
has to outdo the last one.
624
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:06,520
And so the eyewitnesses' stories
get magnified and expanded
625
00:31:06,570 --> 00:31:09,130
every time another network tells it.
626
00:31:09,170 --> 00:31:12,100
When we go back to the
original documentation,
627
00:31:12,140 --> 00:31:14,770
the actual records from that night,
628
00:31:14,810 --> 00:31:17,940
they tell a very different story.
629
00:31:17,980 --> 00:31:20,810
Now, the men did indeed
follow a flashing light
630
00:31:20,850 --> 00:31:23,910
through the trees, and
suspecting that there might
631
00:31:23,950 --> 00:31:26,310
have been a crash of
some kind in the forest,
632
00:31:26,350 --> 00:31:28,810
they called the local constables, who,
633
00:31:28,860 --> 00:31:31,050
being familiar with the area,
634
00:31:31,090 --> 00:31:33,120
found the men were seeing nothing more
635
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,690
than the flashing light
of Orfordness Lighthouse
636
00:31:36,730 --> 00:31:38,520
about six miles away
637
00:31:38,570 --> 00:31:41,430
and they did not investigate further.
638
00:31:41,470 --> 00:31:43,700
A colonel from the base accompanied the men
639
00:31:43,740 --> 00:31:47,240
with an audio recorder
and recorded the following:
640
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:11,660
- [Brian] Now every lighthouse
has its own unique interval
641
00:32:11,700 --> 00:32:13,690
for how often it flashes.
642
00:32:13,730 --> 00:32:17,100
That way mariners can identify
which lighthouse they're seeing.
643
00:32:17,140 --> 00:32:19,060
The Orfordness Lighthouse,
644
00:32:19,110 --> 00:32:21,030
which is sadly gone now,
645
00:32:21,070 --> 00:32:25,370
flashed at an interval
of exactly five seconds.
646
00:32:25,410 --> 00:32:27,310
So let's hear that audio again,
647
00:32:27,350 --> 00:32:31,150
but with a beep added every five seconds.
648
00:32:33,390 --> 00:32:34,390
[beep]
649
00:32:38,430 --> 00:32:39,430
[beep]
650
00:32:43,430 --> 00:32:44,430
[beep]
651
00:32:46,570 --> 00:32:48,590
- [Brian] What about the guy
who said he examined the craft
652
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,460
in the forest writing down
the details in his notebook?
653
00:32:51,500 --> 00:32:55,770
That didn't become a
part of the story until 1996,
654
00:32:55,810 --> 00:32:58,770
16 years after it happened.
655
00:32:58,810 --> 00:33:02,970
He'd given other interviews on
TV shows as recently as 1994
656
00:33:03,020 --> 00:33:06,240
and had never said
anything about seeing a craft.
657
00:33:06,290 --> 00:33:09,380
And it wasn't until another TV show in 2003
658
00:33:09,420 --> 00:33:11,950
that he first mentioned having a notebook.
659
00:33:11,990 --> 00:33:14,950
Back in 1980 when this happened,
660
00:33:14,990 --> 00:33:17,260
he had told the Air Force interviewer
661
00:33:17,300 --> 00:33:19,090
that they followed the flashing light
662
00:33:19,130 --> 00:33:21,260
but couldn't get very close to it.
663
00:33:21,300 --> 00:33:22,940
And that's all.
664
00:33:23,340 --> 00:33:27,030
Then every time a new TV
show came out about this story,
665
00:33:27,070 --> 00:33:29,000
it got bigger and bigger,
666
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:32,600
and more story elements were invented.
667
00:33:32,650 --> 00:33:35,340
Go back to the original accounts
668
00:33:35,380 --> 00:33:38,410
and it's documented
that nothing interesting
669
00:33:38,450 --> 00:33:40,240
happened at all.
670
00:33:40,290 --> 00:33:42,510
There's no evidence that any of the events
671
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,880
added by the TV shows ever happened.
672
00:33:45,930 --> 00:33:49,090
So Rendlesham Forest does not satisfy
673
00:33:49,130 --> 00:33:51,630
our standard of evidence.
674
00:33:55,140 --> 00:33:57,700
There's another story that
highlights the importance
675
00:33:57,740 --> 00:34:00,230
of going back to original accounts.
676
00:34:00,270 --> 00:34:04,200
This one comes from Zimbabwe in 1994.
677
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,300
At a rural school in Africa,
678
00:34:06,350 --> 00:34:10,010
62 children reported that
a flying saucer came down
679
00:34:10,050 --> 00:34:13,210
and landed in a field just
outside their playground,
680
00:34:13,250 --> 00:34:16,050
and some small men in black came out
681
00:34:16,090 --> 00:34:18,550
and gave them all a telepathic message
682
00:34:18,590 --> 00:34:21,090
that they should take
better care of the Earth.
683
00:34:21,130 --> 00:34:23,820
The 62 children drew pictures of the craft
684
00:34:23,860 --> 00:34:25,890
and told the story of what happened.
685
00:34:25,930 --> 00:34:28,860
Their stories and pictures
were all consistent.
686
00:34:28,900 --> 00:34:32,100
Even a prominent Harvard
professor interviewed them
687
00:34:32,140 --> 00:34:36,270
and reported their story
was absolutely authentic.
688
00:34:36,310 --> 00:34:40,040
Moreover, these were said to
have been poor African children
689
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:43,570
who would've had no prior
exposure to science fiction
690
00:34:43,620 --> 00:34:47,210
or pop culture, and wouldn't
even have known about UFOs
691
00:34:47,250 --> 00:34:48,980
or flying saucers.
692
00:34:49,020 --> 00:34:52,250
It's said to be one of the
most compelling cases
693
00:34:52,290 --> 00:34:55,090
of proof of alien visitation.
694
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,890
The problem here is that we
don't have any original accounts
695
00:34:59,930 --> 00:35:02,790
of what might have
happened there, if anything.
696
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,660
First of all, these were
not poor African children
697
00:35:05,710 --> 00:35:07,130
from some village.
698
00:35:07,170 --> 00:35:10,900
This school was among the
most expensive private schools
699
00:35:10,940 --> 00:35:15,740
serving Harare, the capital of
Zimbabwe, 15 minutes away.
700
00:35:15,780 --> 00:35:17,240
These were wealthy kids,
701
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:21,250
mostly South African and
British who had HBO at home
702
00:35:21,290 --> 00:35:23,980
and went to the movies and watched TV.
703
00:35:24,020 --> 00:35:26,480
And what they'd been
watching for the past few days
704
00:35:26,530 --> 00:35:29,750
had been nothing but UFO hype.
705
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,690
A great fireball had broken
up in the night sky over Africa,
706
00:35:33,730 --> 00:35:36,430
which we later learned
had been the re-entry
707
00:35:36,470 --> 00:35:38,300
of the Zenit-2 rocket
708
00:35:38,340 --> 00:35:42,330
from the Russian Cosmos
2290 satellite launch.
709
00:35:42,380 --> 00:35:45,840
The TV and radio stations
were buzzing with calls
710
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,110
for photos and the best UFO stories.
711
00:35:49,150 --> 00:35:53,640
The editor of UFO Afrinews
heard about the children's story
712
00:35:53,690 --> 00:35:55,110
and went to the school.
713
00:35:55,150 --> 00:35:56,650
She placed them into groups
714
00:35:56,690 --> 00:35:59,750
and held group story sharing sessions.
715
00:35:59,790 --> 00:36:02,050
They made and shared
their drawings together.
716
00:36:02,100 --> 00:36:04,060
This is the exact opposite
717
00:36:04,100 --> 00:36:06,590
of how witnesses are
supposed to be interviewed,
718
00:36:06,630 --> 00:36:09,390
the most crucial step of
which is to separate them
719
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,960
completely as early as possible.
720
00:36:12,010 --> 00:36:14,770
Because now, having influenced one another,
721
00:36:14,810 --> 00:36:19,100
the children's stories were
hopelessly cross-contaminated
722
00:36:19,150 --> 00:36:21,840
and so of course the stories were similar.
723
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:23,840
But the most destructive influencing
724
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:27,080
came from the Harvard
professor two months later.
725
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:31,080
This was John Mack, an
author who firmly believed
726
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:34,990
in alien abduction. He was
actually under investigation
727
00:36:35,030 --> 00:36:36,590
by Harvard at the time
728
00:36:36,630 --> 00:36:39,290
for telling people who
wondered if they'd been abducted
729
00:36:39,330 --> 00:36:43,860
by aliens that that's exactly
what had happened to them.
730
00:36:43,900 --> 00:36:47,470
His whole thing was persuading people
731
00:36:47,510 --> 00:36:49,870
that they'd been visited by aliens,
732
00:36:49,910 --> 00:36:53,140
to the point of breaking
Harvard's ethical standards.
733
00:36:53,180 --> 00:36:56,320
That is not an impartial observer.
734
00:36:57,250 --> 00:37:00,550
Whatever actually happened
at the school on that day
735
00:37:00,590 --> 00:37:03,510
is impossible to know,
because of the sloppy way
736
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:05,820
the eyewitness accounts were handled.
737
00:37:05,860 --> 00:37:10,150
We do know that 62 children
say they saw something,
738
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,790
but whatever they originally
reported was quickly lost
739
00:37:13,830 --> 00:37:16,230
and the great majority of children present,
740
00:37:16,270 --> 00:37:21,270
some 200 others, reported
seeing nothing at all.
741
00:37:22,980 --> 00:37:26,670
We are looking for
extraordinary hard evidence,
742
00:37:26,710 --> 00:37:28,940
but these two stories offer nothing
743
00:37:28,980 --> 00:37:32,640
but horrible contaminated anecdotes.
744
00:37:32,690 --> 00:37:34,410
Maybe we can find something better
745
00:37:34,450 --> 00:37:38,020
if we look at some of the
official government reports.
746
00:37:41,660 --> 00:37:43,220
Perhaps the most concerning
747
00:37:43,260 --> 00:37:45,320
of all the government UFO accounts
748
00:37:45,370 --> 00:37:47,460
is the story that you may have heard
749
00:37:47,500 --> 00:37:50,530
about UFOs being found to have the ability
750
00:37:50,570 --> 00:37:53,800
to disable United States nuclear missiles.
751
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,970
If anything would warrant
official investigation,
752
00:37:57,010 --> 00:37:58,800
it would be that, right?
753
00:37:58,850 --> 00:38:01,140
So here's Congressman Mike Gallagher
754
00:38:01,180 --> 00:38:05,410
grilling representatives of
the US Navy's UAP task force
755
00:38:05,450 --> 00:38:09,710
at a congressional hearing in May, 2022.
756
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:11,520
- [Gallagher] It's also been
reported that there have been
757
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,750
UAP observed and
interacting with and flying over
758
00:38:14,790 --> 00:38:16,420
sensitive military facilities, particularly
759
00:38:16,460 --> 00:38:19,290
and not just ranges, but
some facilities housing
760
00:38:19,330 --> 00:38:20,860
our strategic nuclear forces.
761
00:38:20,900 --> 00:38:23,360
One such incident allegedly occurred
762
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:27,160
at Malmstrom Air Force Base
in which 10 of our nuclear ICBMs
763
00:38:27,210 --> 00:38:28,630
were rendered inoperable.
764
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,440
At the same time, a glowing
red orb was observed overhead.
765
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:32,970
I'm not commenting on the accuracy of this.
766
00:38:33,010 --> 00:38:35,710
I'm simply asking you
whether you're aware of it
767
00:38:35,750 --> 00:38:37,410
and whether you have any
comment on the accuracy
768
00:38:37,450 --> 00:38:38,640
of that report.
769
00:38:38,690 --> 00:38:39,480
- [Colleague] Let me pass that to Mr. Bray,
770
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:41,250
you've been looking at
UAPs over the last three years.
771
00:38:41,290 --> 00:38:43,850
- [Bray] That data is
not within the holdings
772
00:38:43,890 --> 00:38:45,090
of the UAP task force.
773
00:38:46,030 --> 00:38:49,590
- OK, but are you aware of the the report
774
00:38:49,630 --> 00:38:53,090
or that the data exists somewhere?
775
00:38:53,130 --> 00:38:55,690
- I have heard stories.
776
00:38:55,740 --> 00:38:57,530
I have not seen the official data on that.
777
00:38:57,570 --> 00:39:00,830
- Well, I have, because
it's been publicly available
778
00:39:00,870 --> 00:39:02,600
for a long time.
779
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:07,670
The event Gallagher is
referring to happened in 1967,
780
00:39:07,710 --> 00:39:09,910
well over half a century ago,
781
00:39:09,950 --> 00:39:12,780
at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana,
782
00:39:12,820 --> 00:39:19,220
home to the 341st strategic
missile wing of Minuteman ICBMs.
783
00:39:19,260 --> 00:39:22,020
The only reason anyone
knows about this incident
784
00:39:22,060 --> 00:39:26,760
is this book, "Faded
Giant", co-written in 2005
785
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,090
by UFO author Robert Salas.
786
00:39:30,140 --> 00:39:33,660
He's written at least
three books about UFOs,
787
00:39:33,710 --> 00:39:36,200
and he was actually
one of the missile officers
788
00:39:36,240 --> 00:39:39,800
on duty that day in 1967.
789
00:39:39,850 --> 00:39:43,310
So to learn more about this,
I called up a friend of mine.
790
00:39:43,350 --> 00:39:44,340
- My name is Hal Bidlack,
791
00:39:44,380 --> 00:39:45,810
I'm a retired Lieutenant Colonel
792
00:39:45,850 --> 00:39:47,410
in the United States Air Force.
793
00:39:47,450 --> 00:39:49,510
In my career, I spent my first assignment
794
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,180
as a finger on the button
guy, an ICBM launch officer.
795
00:39:52,230 --> 00:39:53,980
I ultimately earned a PhD and taught
796
00:39:54,030 --> 00:39:56,120
at the Air Force Academy
for much of my career.
797
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:58,160
- Are there a lot of missileers out there?
798
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:00,020
- It's a relatively small
and tight community
799
00:40:00,070 --> 00:40:01,590
within the military.
800
00:40:01,630 --> 00:40:03,430
- So had you heard this story before?
801
00:40:03,470 --> 00:40:07,160
- No, and frankly, that
makes me suspicious.
802
00:40:07,210 --> 00:40:09,430
As I said, it's a small, tight community,
803
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:11,240
and odd things do happen
804
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:13,200
where missiles break from time to time,
805
00:40:13,250 --> 00:40:14,310
and we know about those.
806
00:40:14,350 --> 00:40:16,510
But the fact that I've
never heard of this story
807
00:40:16,550 --> 00:40:20,850
is yet another reason to
suspect it's of doubtful origin.
808
00:40:20,890 --> 00:40:22,880
- A lot of people have tried to find out
809
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:24,420
what really happened there,
810
00:40:24,460 --> 00:40:28,350
including by filing Freedom
of Information Act requests.
811
00:40:28,390 --> 00:40:32,560
In 2001, the Air Force
responded with 84 pages.
812
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:35,560
A lot of it consisted of
the reports of technicians
813
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:38,130
from Boeing, which built the Minuteman,
814
00:40:38,170 --> 00:40:39,700
and these technicians were called in
815
00:40:39,740 --> 00:40:43,200
to investigate and figure
out what went wrong.
816
00:40:43,240 --> 00:40:46,900
Apparently an entire flight of 10 missiles
817
00:40:46,950 --> 00:40:50,610
all did reboot themselves on that day.
818
00:40:50,650 --> 00:40:55,180
The report focused on the
power to these launch facilities.
819
00:40:55,220 --> 00:40:57,050
How do these launch
facilities get their power?
820
00:40:57,090 --> 00:40:59,480
- Well just like any homeowner,
they plug into the grid,
821
00:40:59,530 --> 00:41:01,250
that is the primary source of power.
822
00:41:01,290 --> 00:41:03,390
There's also backups in terms of batteries
823
00:41:03,430 --> 00:41:06,020
and diesel generators,
should that power fail
824
00:41:06,070 --> 00:41:07,530
or be out of tolerance.
825
00:41:07,570 --> 00:41:11,100
- So according to this now
declassified 1967 report
826
00:41:11,140 --> 00:41:13,030
from Malmstrom Air Force Base,
827
00:41:13,070 --> 00:41:15,430
Fergus Electric is the
company that supplied
828
00:41:15,470 --> 00:41:16,700
the commercial power.
829
00:41:16,740 --> 00:41:20,270
So it says here, a 7.2 kilovolt transformer
830
00:41:20,310 --> 00:41:23,810
shorted in the line to
cite Echo three at 14:50,
831
00:41:23,850 --> 00:41:26,140
March 16th, 1967.
832
00:41:26,190 --> 00:41:28,810
This transformer is located
on a farm two miles south
833
00:41:28,860 --> 00:41:30,710
of the Winifred substation.
834
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,780
Automatic reclosure
switches at Winifred substation
835
00:41:33,830 --> 00:41:36,020
opened and were re-closed manually
836
00:41:36,060 --> 00:41:38,760
after transformer
replacement later in the day.
837
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,960
This caused the brine
chiller problem at Echo 1.
838
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:47,530
Sites Echo 3, 5, 6, 9 and 10
transferred to standby power.
839
00:41:47,570 --> 00:41:51,600
Site Echo 1 transferred
to direct current operation.
840
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:53,600
Then it goes on to talk about
the same thing happening
841
00:41:53,650 --> 00:41:55,240
at sites 7 and 8.
842
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:56,670
But does that seem to make sense to you?
843
00:41:56,720 --> 00:41:57,940
- Absolutely.
844
00:41:57,980 --> 00:42:00,640
The ICBM sites are,
by design, in very rural
845
00:42:00,690 --> 00:42:01,710
and distant locations,
846
00:42:01,750 --> 00:42:03,780
and they rely on the local power grid.
847
00:42:03,820 --> 00:42:05,680
They're also designed
to protect themselves.
848
00:42:05,730 --> 00:42:08,090
So yes, if a current problem occurred,
849
00:42:08,130 --> 00:42:09,720
they would cut themselves off from that,
850
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:11,420
they'd restart their electrical power,
851
00:42:11,460 --> 00:42:13,860
and wait for the outside
current to stabilize.
852
00:42:13,900 --> 00:42:16,230
- Could a power event
like this cause the missiles
853
00:42:16,270 --> 00:42:18,030
to reboot themselves?
854
00:42:18,070 --> 00:42:19,500
- Well, it certainly wouldn't
be a common event
855
00:42:19,540 --> 00:42:21,400
but it's also not unheard of.
856
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:23,000
- So if the only thing that happened
857
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:26,000
was this power surge
from the blown transformer,
858
00:42:26,050 --> 00:42:29,440
and that caused the
missiles to reboot normally,
859
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:32,540
how long were they actually down for?
860
00:42:32,590 --> 00:42:35,210
The report goes on to say
that the exact time estimates
861
00:42:35,250 --> 00:42:36,680
couldn't be established,
862
00:42:36,720 --> 00:42:39,150
but it was approximately 10 to 40 seconds
863
00:42:39,190 --> 00:42:40,380
that the missiles were offline.
864
00:42:40,430 --> 00:42:41,690
- Seems reasonable.
865
00:42:41,730 --> 00:42:43,250
- So in your experience,
866
00:42:43,300 --> 00:42:45,260
an event like what we're talking about
867
00:42:45,300 --> 00:42:46,790
would've been unremarkable enough
868
00:42:46,830 --> 00:42:48,190
that you say you hadn't heard of it?
869
00:42:48,230 --> 00:42:49,830
- Well in that time and place
870
00:42:49,870 --> 00:42:52,000
it would be remarkable just
because it's very uncommon
871
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,160
to have anything out
of the ordinary happen.
872
00:42:54,210 --> 00:42:58,900
Missiles have about a 99.9%
reliability in On Alert record.
873
00:42:58,950 --> 00:43:01,210
So it would certainly be known at the time,
874
00:43:01,250 --> 00:43:03,910
but it would not be passed
down through the years
875
00:43:03,950 --> 00:43:06,140
as some kind of shocking event.
876
00:43:06,190 --> 00:43:08,910
- In his books, Salas actually attributed
877
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:13,880
the missile restarts not to
the power outage, but to UFOs,
878
00:43:13,930 --> 00:43:15,820
the glowing red orbs
879
00:43:15,860 --> 00:43:18,620
that Congressman Gallagher asked about.
880
00:43:18,660 --> 00:43:21,590
Well, the Air Force did check that out.
881
00:43:21,630 --> 00:43:25,860
They found, quote, "Rumors
of unidentified flying objects"
882
00:43:25,910 --> 00:43:29,570
around the area of Echo
flight during the time of fault
883
00:43:29,610 --> 00:43:31,370
were disproven.
884
00:43:31,410 --> 00:43:32,700
A mobile strike team,
885
00:43:32,750 --> 00:43:35,610
which had checked all
November flight's launch facilities,
886
00:43:35,650 --> 00:43:39,280
on the morning of March 16th, 1967,
887
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:43,180
were questioned and
stated that no unusual activity
888
00:43:43,220 --> 00:43:45,460
"or sightings were observed."
889
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,650
Here is what actually happened.
890
00:43:48,690 --> 00:43:51,890
That power outage caused all 10 missiles
891
00:43:51,930 --> 00:43:53,690
to reboot themselves.
892
00:43:53,730 --> 00:43:57,930
They were down for no more
than 10 to 40 seconds total.
893
00:43:57,970 --> 00:44:02,200
Then, eight days later in
the town of Belt, Montana,
894
00:44:02,240 --> 00:44:05,870
someone reported seeing
a UFO to the local paper.
895
00:44:05,910 --> 00:44:09,070
There's no logical reason
to conclude one thing
896
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:11,180
had anything to do with the other.
897
00:44:11,220 --> 00:44:15,350
38 years later, Salas writes a book
898
00:44:15,390 --> 00:44:17,350
about what he thinks he remembers
899
00:44:17,390 --> 00:44:20,020
and he's sure the UFO
and the missile reboots
900
00:44:20,060 --> 00:44:23,020
were on the same day at the same place.
901
00:44:23,060 --> 00:44:25,820
The records show he's wrong.
902
00:44:25,870 --> 00:44:29,160
I think he's probably honestly mistaken;
903
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:34,970
38 years is a long time;
but regardless, he's wrong.
904
00:44:35,010 --> 00:44:36,530
And now today we've got something
905
00:44:36,580 --> 00:44:39,470
of a conspiracy theory
community who believe
906
00:44:39,510 --> 00:44:41,710
it's impossible that he was mistaken,
907
00:44:41,750 --> 00:44:46,310
and therefore the Air Force
must be covering up the truth,
908
00:44:46,350 --> 00:44:49,050
a truth revealed in the book.
909
00:44:49,090 --> 00:44:52,820
So Colonel Bidlack, you and
Salas both worked in a field
910
00:44:52,860 --> 00:44:54,650
dealing with a lot of classified events.
911
00:44:54,690 --> 00:44:55,490
- You bet.
912
00:44:55,530 --> 00:44:58,620
- If the Air Force classified
something or covered it up,
913
00:44:58,660 --> 00:45:02,030
would you be allowed to
freely write about it and reveal it?
914
00:45:02,070 --> 00:45:04,160
- No, I could not.
915
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:05,100
If I chose to do that,
916
00:45:05,140 --> 00:45:07,630
I'd be setting myself up
for significant problems
917
00:45:07,670 --> 00:45:10,100
under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
918
00:45:10,140 --> 00:45:13,570
- Publishing about
classified events is no joke.
919
00:45:13,610 --> 00:45:16,870
Mark Owen was the pen
name of one of the Navy SEALs
920
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:20,140
who got Bin Laden, and he
wrote a 2012 book about it
921
00:45:20,190 --> 00:45:22,280
called "No Easy Day".
922
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:23,750
To get the book out fast,
923
00:45:23,790 --> 00:45:26,980
he and his publisher decided
to skip submitting the book
924
00:45:27,030 --> 00:45:29,790
to the Department of Defense for review.
925
00:45:29,830 --> 00:45:31,920
Owen never got charged with a crime,
926
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:36,760
but he had to turn over all
6.8 million dollars in royalties
927
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:40,000
that he'd made and
give it to the government.
928
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:43,200
Tom Clancy, author of the Jack Ryan novels,
929
00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:46,200
famously got questioned
by the FBI after his book
930
00:45:46,250 --> 00:45:48,470
"The Hunt for Red October" came out.
931
00:45:48,510 --> 00:45:51,580
Apparently it did reveal
classified information,
932
00:45:51,620 --> 00:45:53,610
but he showed them all the legal sources
933
00:45:53,650 --> 00:45:54,850
where he got everything,
934
00:45:54,890 --> 00:45:57,150
so there wasn't anything they could do.
935
00:45:57,190 --> 00:45:59,320
So he went on to write freely about this.
936
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:01,220
He wrote about it in two more books.
937
00:46:01,260 --> 00:46:03,120
He's spoken about it on podcasts,
938
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,320
and he's spoken about
it at UFO conferences;
939
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:06,760
What does that tell you?
940
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:09,230
- Well, it tells you the Air
Force just doesn't care,
941
00:46:09,270 --> 00:46:11,330
which strongly suggests that it's fiction.
942
00:46:11,370 --> 00:46:14,400
And as we know, fiction is not classified.
943
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,270
- So the only evidence
that UFOs can deactivate
944
00:46:17,310 --> 00:46:21,740
our nuclear missiles is one
man's 38 year old memories
945
00:46:21,780 --> 00:46:24,480
that contradict everything
that's in the record.
946
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,410
That's about as anecdotal as it gets.
947
00:46:27,450 --> 00:46:29,980
The claim of UFOs having the ability
948
00:46:30,020 --> 00:46:32,980
to disable nuclear arsenals does not meet
949
00:46:33,030 --> 00:46:35,690
any reasonable standard of evidence.
950
00:46:39,130 --> 00:46:42,790
Let's talk more about official
government UFO reports.
951
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,430
We have one from a
president of the United States,
952
00:46:46,470 --> 00:46:48,670
and that's about as
official as you can get.
953
00:46:48,710 --> 00:46:51,340
You may have heard that
President Jimmy Carter
954
00:46:51,380 --> 00:46:54,640
once saw a UFO back in the 1960s
955
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:56,640
before he was the president.
956
00:46:56,680 --> 00:46:59,880
It's a story he's told in
public any number of times,
957
00:46:59,920 --> 00:47:03,210
but it wasn't until the
wide reach of podcasts
958
00:47:03,260 --> 00:47:05,980
that we were actually able to solve it.
959
00:47:06,030 --> 00:47:08,320
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast
960
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:09,920
is one that played a role.
961
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,020
To tell the story of what
happened, we're going to
962
00:47:12,060 --> 00:47:15,430
begin by traveling down to Plains, Georgia,
963
00:47:15,470 --> 00:47:19,160
to the private residence
of President Jimmy Carter.
964
00:47:19,210 --> 00:47:21,370
- Hi, I'm Josh Carter, welcome to Plains.
965
00:47:21,410 --> 00:47:22,430
I'm President Carter's grandson
966
00:47:22,470 --> 00:47:23,900
and we're sitting in his office right now.
967
00:47:23,940 --> 00:47:26,000
- So how did we come
to have President Carter
968
00:47:26,050 --> 00:47:28,210
on the Skeptics Guide podcast?
969
00:47:28,250 --> 00:47:31,940
- So Jay would have a question
at the end of every episode
970
00:47:31,980 --> 00:47:34,140
that would, for audience engagement,
971
00:47:34,190 --> 00:47:37,820
he would ask a question
about any given topic.
972
00:47:37,860 --> 00:47:40,520
And one of the questions that he asked was.
973
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:42,220
- [Podcaster] Name the former world leader
974
00:47:42,260 --> 00:47:44,090
that used to laugh at UFO believers
975
00:47:44,130 --> 00:47:46,190
but later became a believer himself
976
00:47:46,230 --> 00:47:48,290
when he himself witnessed one?
977
00:47:48,330 --> 00:47:51,300
Think about that and be the
first one to answer correctly.
978
00:47:51,340 --> 00:47:52,400
Good luck everyone.
979
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:53,800
- And I was like, "Man, I know exactly"
980
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:58,170
"who he's talking about." So I
emailed the Skeptics Guide.
981
00:47:58,210 --> 00:48:00,200
- We got an email from a guy
982
00:48:00,250 --> 00:48:03,710
who claimed to be President
Jimmy Carter's grandson.
983
00:48:03,750 --> 00:48:06,680
And I have to say that I
was a little bit skeptical.
984
00:48:06,720 --> 00:48:08,580
- So Steve emailed me back and he goes.
985
00:48:08,620 --> 00:48:12,380
"OK, we believe your story
and we believe what you said,
986
00:48:12,420 --> 00:48:14,020
but do you have any proof?
987
00:48:14,060 --> 00:48:15,190
What proof can you give us
988
00:48:15,230 --> 00:48:17,490
that you're Jimmy Carter's grandson?"
989
00:48:17,530 --> 00:48:20,060
And so I sent him my wedding photo with me,
990
00:48:20,100 --> 00:48:22,290
my wife and my grandparents
standing next to me.
991
00:48:22,330 --> 00:48:26,260
Pretty definitive proof
that I am who I say I am.
992
00:48:26,310 --> 00:48:28,330
- So I invited Josh to come on the show
993
00:48:28,370 --> 00:48:31,440
and tell us the story of
President Carter's UFO sighting.
994
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:32,500
- And I said, "Well, I could,
995
00:48:32,540 --> 00:48:34,340
but would you like to talk
to my grandfather instead?"
996
00:48:34,380 --> 00:48:35,040
And he was like,
997
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:39,980
"Yes, sorry, I'd rather talk
to your grandfather than you.
998
00:48:40,020 --> 00:48:41,010
No offense."
999
00:48:41,050 --> 00:48:43,180
So I called my grandfather
1000
00:48:43,220 --> 00:48:45,320
and I asked if he would
be on the Skeptics Guide,
1001
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:46,450
and he said, "Sure."
1002
00:48:46,490 --> 00:48:50,250
- So in 2007, episode 105 of our podcast,
1003
00:48:50,300 --> 00:48:54,030
we had on President Jimmy
Carter and he told us his story.
1004
00:50:25,090 --> 00:50:28,050
- [Steve] So he told that story,
and for several years anyway,
1005
00:50:28,090 --> 00:50:29,420
that was the end of it.
1006
00:50:29,460 --> 00:50:32,260
- Meanwhile, there's this
professor from Georgia Tech,
1007
00:50:32,300 --> 00:50:34,090
Jere Justus.
1008
00:50:34,130 --> 00:50:36,260
- Well, as a native Georgian,
1009
00:50:36,300 --> 00:50:38,660
I've always been
interested in Georgia history
1010
00:50:38,700 --> 00:50:42,030
and was one day reading
the book by Don Rhodes,
1011
00:50:42,070 --> 00:50:44,230
"Georgia Myth and Legends".
1012
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:48,810
And it gives an account
of Carter seeing the UFO
1013
00:50:48,850 --> 00:50:53,420
and includes a replica
of his actual UFO report.
1014
00:50:54,050 --> 00:50:57,710
And when I read the details
of that description, I said,
1015
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:01,720
"That sounds exactly
like someone describing
1016
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:05,020
seeing a barium release cloud."
1017
00:51:05,060 --> 00:51:07,960
When I started graduate
school, I needed some support
1018
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,430
so I got a job as a research assistant
1019
00:51:10,470 --> 00:51:14,630
on an Air Force project and
one of the things involved
1020
00:51:14,670 --> 00:51:17,430
was rocket launches
from Eglin Air Force Base.
1021
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:20,240
- So what were these rockets doing?
1022
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:22,840
- Well, the rockets
that released the barium
1023
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:26,240
would take up a canister, if you will,
1024
00:51:26,290 --> 00:51:29,880
of barium chemical and release it out
1025
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:31,980
at a point in the atmosphere.
1026
00:51:32,020 --> 00:51:36,220
And this would be in sunlight at altitude
1027
00:51:36,260 --> 00:51:38,790
but dark on the surface
1028
00:51:38,830 --> 00:51:42,160
so you could get good
pictures of this glowing release
1029
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:43,660
of barium material.
1030
00:51:43,700 --> 00:51:45,960
- So the barium itself was in sunlight
1031
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,070
and you're viewing it against a black sky?
1032
00:51:48,110 --> 00:51:48,970
- That's correct.
1033
00:51:49,010 --> 00:51:51,270
- So one day out of the blue,
1034
00:51:51,310 --> 00:51:54,140
I get an email from this guy Jere Justus.
1035
00:51:54,180 --> 00:51:56,910
He is a Georgia Tech
professor and he just sends me
1036
00:51:56,950 --> 00:51:57,740
an email saying,
1037
00:51:57,780 --> 00:52:01,410
"Hey, I think I figured out
your grandfather's UFO story."
1038
00:52:01,450 --> 00:52:04,110
- The sunlight would be
strong enough to actually ionize
1039
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:05,780
part of the barium
1040
00:52:05,820 --> 00:52:10,220
and the neutral barium would
look greenish bluish color.
1041
00:52:10,260 --> 00:52:14,760
The ionized barium would
look sort of reddish color
1042
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,790
and would stretch out along the field lines
1043
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:19,660
of the Earth's magnetic field.
1044
00:52:19,710 --> 00:52:21,530
And so this was part of the studies
1045
00:52:21,570 --> 00:52:24,100
as to determine characteristics
1046
00:52:24,140 --> 00:52:27,640
of the Earth's magnetic
field at those altitudes.
1047
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:29,970
- The Air Force was absolutely
launching sounding rockets
1048
00:52:30,020 --> 00:52:32,240
during that time and
continues to to this day
1049
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:33,910
for a variety of purposes.
1050
00:52:33,950 --> 00:52:35,350
They would have had
different things in them
1051
00:52:35,390 --> 00:52:37,310
that they would have dumped
in the atmosphere, for example,
1052
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:40,120
to test radio reflectability
and other aspects
1053
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:41,350
of military operations.
1054
00:52:41,390 --> 00:52:43,550
So it's not unusual or
odd at all that a person
1055
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:45,620
could have seen a
cloud like that in the sky.
1056
00:52:45,660 --> 00:52:47,720
- As it starts out as a
small little point of light
1057
00:52:47,770 --> 00:52:50,430
that glows and it expands
1058
00:52:50,470 --> 00:52:53,930
into a big giant orb
that turns red or blue,
1059
00:52:53,970 --> 00:52:56,400
depending on how the sun hits it
1060
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,370
and how the barium gets
ionized and then it dissipates.
1061
00:52:59,410 --> 00:53:01,540
And I was like, "Wow, that
sounds exactly like the story
1062
00:53:01,580 --> 00:53:02,540
that I've heard my entire life
1063
00:53:02,580 --> 00:53:04,410
of my grandfather's UFO."
1064
00:53:04,450 --> 00:53:05,780
- So did you pass that on?
1065
00:53:05,820 --> 00:53:08,210
And what did the president think of that?
1066
00:53:08,250 --> 00:53:09,410
- He was excited about it.
1067
00:53:09,450 --> 00:53:11,620
He was excited to have an answer
1068
00:53:11,660 --> 00:53:15,690
and moving from unidentified to identified,
1069
00:53:15,730 --> 00:53:17,490
was very satisfactory for him.
1070
00:53:17,530 --> 00:53:19,160
To know what it was.
1071
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:21,190
Because when my
grandfather told that story,
1072
00:53:21,230 --> 00:53:25,460
a lot of people assumed that he saw Venus.
1073
00:53:25,500 --> 00:53:27,460
He grew up looking at the sky,
1074
00:53:27,510 --> 00:53:29,370
he grew up interested in astronomy,
1075
00:53:29,410 --> 00:53:30,870
he grew up as a naval officer.
1076
00:53:30,910 --> 00:53:33,570
He knew what Venus looked
like and he was offended
1077
00:53:33,610 --> 00:53:36,850
that people thought that he
didn't know what Venus was.
1078
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:40,310
- Professor Justus tracked down
1079
00:53:40,350 --> 00:53:44,080
the exact launch on the right day and time
1080
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:46,880
that President Carter had
been outside the Lions Club,
1081
00:53:46,930 --> 00:53:49,550
and found that Carter's
estimates of direction
1082
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:54,570
and elevation had been almost
exactly right on the money.
1083
00:53:54,830 --> 00:53:56,060
- Well, my initial findings,
1084
00:53:56,100 --> 00:53:59,030
I sent to the Carter Center
and heard back from them
1085
00:53:59,070 --> 00:54:01,670
that they had passed it
along to President Carter
1086
00:54:01,710 --> 00:54:05,240
for his analysis and he basically concurred
1087
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:10,970
that it was plausible that that
was indeed what he had seen.
1088
00:54:11,020 --> 00:54:13,910
And so to the president's own satisfaction,
1089
00:54:13,950 --> 00:54:17,710
it turns out that his UFO
was a fairly exotic piece
1090
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:21,660
of airborne clutter: an
artificial barium cloud.
1091
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:27,590
OK, so the UFO stories that have gotten
1092
00:54:27,630 --> 00:54:30,330
by far the most attention
over the past few years
1093
00:54:30,370 --> 00:54:33,560
have been the videos that
came from the US Navy.
1094
00:54:33,610 --> 00:54:37,000
Originally there were three of
them called Gimbal, Go Fast,
1095
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:40,400
and Nimitz, also called the Tic Tac video.
1096
00:54:40,450 --> 00:54:42,310
These videos are from the camera screens
1097
00:54:42,350 --> 00:54:45,510
in the F-18 fighters that
were there on the scene.
1098
00:54:45,550 --> 00:54:48,210
Now a lot of people feel that
what's shown in these videos
1099
00:54:48,250 --> 00:54:51,380
are extraordinary craft making movements
1100
00:54:51,420 --> 00:54:54,050
beyond the capability
of anything we know of.
1101
00:54:54,090 --> 00:54:55,850
And if you don't understand the meaning
1102
00:54:55,890 --> 00:54:59,020
of all the numbers and other
data shown on the screens,
1103
00:54:59,060 --> 00:55:01,470
it would be pretty easy to
get that same impression.
1104
00:55:02,300 --> 00:55:05,360
So I wanted to talk with
someone who does understand
1105
00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:07,060
all the stuff on the screens,
1106
00:55:07,110 --> 00:55:08,930
and who has an even deeper knowledge
1107
00:55:08,970 --> 00:55:12,570
of the entire scene being
presented in these videos.
1108
00:55:12,610 --> 00:55:14,540
Now it just so happens
that a friend of mine
1109
00:55:14,580 --> 00:55:17,970
by the name of Mick West
happens to be that guy.
1110
00:55:18,020 --> 00:55:19,940
Ever since these videos were released,
1111
00:55:19,990 --> 00:55:23,410
Mick has been making
appearances on TV and online
1112
00:55:23,460 --> 00:55:26,750
all around the world
explaining what we're seeing.
1113
00:55:26,790 --> 00:55:30,020
Before he fell into being
basically the world's foremost
1114
00:55:30,060 --> 00:55:34,060
UFO video analyst, Mick
did 3D physics simulations
1115
00:55:34,100 --> 00:55:35,930
in video game development.
1116
00:55:35,970 --> 00:55:38,360
He's also created a piece
of proprietary software
1117
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,160
called Sitrec, which can combine data
1118
00:55:41,210 --> 00:55:43,470
from many different sources to recreate
1119
00:55:43,510 --> 00:55:45,670
what's in videos like these,
1120
00:55:45,710 --> 00:55:48,880
a recreation that's geospatially accurate.
1121
00:55:49,750 --> 00:55:51,140
- Sitrec is a tool I developed,
1122
00:55:51,180 --> 00:55:53,510
it's called the Situation Recreation Tool.
1123
00:55:53,550 --> 00:55:56,880
And the idea is that we
take a video of a UFO,
1124
00:55:56,920 --> 00:55:59,450
like this one here and then
make my own version of it
1125
00:55:59,490 --> 00:56:02,150
by creating a full 3D simulation
1126
00:56:02,190 --> 00:56:03,990
that's mathematically accurate.
1127
00:56:04,030 --> 00:56:06,360
- So what we've got here
is that's the original video
1128
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:08,390
and that's your 3D recreation?
1129
00:56:08,430 --> 00:56:09,230
- That's right.
1130
00:56:09,270 --> 00:56:10,130
And as you can see, it's pretty much
1131
00:56:10,170 --> 00:56:11,930
the same in terms of
the way the cloud moves
1132
00:56:11,970 --> 00:56:14,630
and this little object here
moves the same way.
1133
00:56:14,670 --> 00:56:16,270
And I can zip through the video
1134
00:56:16,310 --> 00:56:17,470
and we can see it moving along.
1135
00:56:17,510 --> 00:56:20,370
Here's the plane moving
along that's taking the video
1136
00:56:20,410 --> 00:56:22,910
and here's the track of the object,
1137
00:56:22,950 --> 00:56:24,270
the potential track of the object.
1138
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:26,940
- So how do you know where the plane was?
1139
00:56:26,990 --> 00:56:28,580
How do you know where the object was?
1140
00:56:28,620 --> 00:56:30,180
Where do you get all this data?
1141
00:56:30,220 --> 00:56:32,450
- Well, for the plane itself
down here we get all the data
1142
00:56:32,490 --> 00:56:33,650
from this screen here.
1143
00:56:33,690 --> 00:56:37,420
We know what the bank
angle is by extracting, by using
1144
00:56:37,460 --> 00:56:40,460
motion capture techniques
to extract the angle here.
1145
00:56:40,500 --> 00:56:42,590
We know the heading of the camera here,
1146
00:56:42,630 --> 00:56:46,530
53 degrees left, 2 degrees down.
1147
00:56:46,570 --> 00:56:49,370
And we can use that to
create these lines of sight here.
1148
00:56:50,580 --> 00:56:54,240
And so we've got the
little plane flying along here
1149
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:56,070
and we have its targeting part
1150
00:56:56,110 --> 00:56:58,340
and we know what
direction it's pointing in.
1151
00:56:58,380 --> 00:57:00,310
So we know that the other object
1152
00:57:00,350 --> 00:57:03,080
is somewhere along
all of these lines of sight.
1153
00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:05,880
We don't know how far away it is though.
1154
00:57:05,920 --> 00:57:08,990
So I allow the user to
experiment with things like that
1155
00:57:09,030 --> 00:57:11,290
and we take this little slider here
1156
00:57:11,330 --> 00:57:12,560
and we can adjust how far away
1157
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:15,660
the actual theoretical object is.
1158
00:57:15,700 --> 00:57:18,360
- So let's start with the
Navy video called Gimbal,
1159
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:19,660
- Right. - What's up with that?
1160
00:57:19,700 --> 00:57:20,930
- So this is the Gimbal video.
1161
00:57:20,970 --> 00:57:23,830
It looks like a kind of saucer shaped craft
1162
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:25,840
flying over a cloud base.
1163
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:27,800
It's viewed in infrared.
1164
00:57:27,850 --> 00:57:30,210
And the claim is that
it's an actual flying saucer
1165
00:57:30,250 --> 00:57:33,040
and it's moving with no
visible means of propulsion.
1166
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:34,480
And it's particularly interesting
1167
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:35,980
because towards the end of the video
1168
00:57:36,020 --> 00:57:38,080
it does this little rotation here,
1169
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:40,850
which isn't something that
a normal plane could do.
1170
00:57:40,890 --> 00:57:43,620
- So what do you think
is actually going on?
1171
00:57:43,660 --> 00:57:44,990
- We've got two possibilities here.
1172
00:57:45,030 --> 00:57:48,430
It could be something
that's close to the plane
1173
00:57:48,470 --> 00:57:51,690
in some kinda weird curvy path back here.
1174
00:57:51,740 --> 00:57:53,830
We could be doing this weird curve.
1175
00:57:53,870 --> 00:57:55,930
Or it's something that
could be further away
1176
00:57:55,970 --> 00:57:57,270
doing a straight line.
1177
00:57:57,310 --> 00:58:00,500
And I think the most likely
thing for this particular video
1178
00:58:00,550 --> 00:58:01,340
is that what we're looking at
1179
00:58:01,380 --> 00:58:04,170
is something that's actually quite far away
1180
00:58:04,220 --> 00:58:07,080
and it's perhaps another
plane moving in a straight line
1181
00:58:07,120 --> 00:58:09,550
and what we're seeing
is the back of the plane.
1182
00:58:09,590 --> 00:58:11,820
- It doesn't look like a distant jet.
1183
00:58:11,860 --> 00:58:13,450
- No, I think what we're actually seeing
1184
00:58:13,490 --> 00:58:15,350
isn't the shape of the object itself,
1185
00:58:15,390 --> 00:58:18,960
but the shape of the
infrared glare from this object,
1186
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:21,060
like if you were to take a
flashlight like this one here
1187
00:58:21,100 --> 00:58:22,590
and you point it at the camera,
1188
00:58:22,630 --> 00:58:25,560
you get a glare around it
which is a certain shape
1189
00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:30,100
and because of the way the
camera on this jet is mounted,
1190
00:58:30,140 --> 00:58:31,940
when it traverse a certain angle,
1191
00:58:31,980 --> 00:58:35,040
it actually has to do this rotation
1192
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:37,570
and it has to do it because
of the gimbal system,
1193
00:58:37,620 --> 00:58:40,140
which coincidentally is
the name of the video,
1194
00:58:40,190 --> 00:58:43,010
the official Navy name of
the video, the Gimbal video.
1195
00:58:43,050 --> 00:58:46,120
- Is there anything on the screen
1196
00:58:46,160 --> 00:58:50,390
that tells you the angle of the gimbal?
1197
00:58:50,430 --> 00:58:51,720
- There's nothing that tells
you the angle of the gimbal,
1198
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:54,890
but what you do get is this azimuth angle
1199
00:58:54,930 --> 00:58:58,660
and this other angle here,
which is the elevation angle.
1200
00:58:58,700 --> 00:59:01,330
And you can use those to calculate
1201
00:59:01,370 --> 00:59:03,830
what the gimbal angle actually has to be.
1202
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:05,240
- I see.
1203
00:59:05,280 --> 00:59:06,740
- So if you move this along,
1204
00:59:06,780 --> 00:59:09,170
you can see as you move
around a certain region,
1205
00:59:09,210 --> 00:59:11,910
it has to do a rotation
in order to keep pointing
1206
00:59:11,950 --> 00:59:13,320
in a certain direction.
1207
00:59:15,190 --> 00:59:17,210
- That one's a really interesting problem
1208
00:59:17,260 --> 00:59:20,420
because we only have video, just the image
1209
00:59:20,460 --> 00:59:22,790
of what the plane's cameras were seeing.
1210
00:59:22,830 --> 00:59:24,320
If it was a radar screen,
1211
00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:26,490
we would know how far away the object was
1212
00:59:26,530 --> 00:59:28,060
and how it was moving.
1213
00:59:28,100 --> 00:59:32,160
But that data doesn't exist so
that makes analysts like Mick
1214
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:35,700
have to go the long way
around and reverse engineer
1215
00:59:35,740 --> 00:59:37,600
the entire situation.
1216
00:59:37,640 --> 00:59:39,300
- I think the most likely explanation
1217
00:59:39,340 --> 00:59:41,440
is that it's another military jet
1218
00:59:41,480 --> 00:59:45,110
that is just about 20 to 30 miles away,
1219
00:59:45,150 --> 00:59:47,640
just flying away and we're just looking
1220
00:59:47,690 --> 00:59:48,910
basically up its tailpipe,
1221
00:59:48,950 --> 00:59:51,810
at its jet engines and
that's creating the glare.
1222
00:59:51,860 --> 00:59:52,880
- There you have it.
1223
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:55,530
Probably nothing out
of the ordinary at all.
1224
00:59:56,360 --> 00:59:58,790
- All right, let's look at
the video they call Go Fast.
1225
00:59:58,830 --> 00:59:59,820
- This is the Go Fast video.
1226
00:59:59,860 --> 01:00:02,090
It looks like something
is moving very fast,
1227
01:00:02,130 --> 01:00:03,090
hence the name Go Fast.
1228
01:00:03,130 --> 01:00:06,060
We see this little white
dot and it looks like
1229
01:00:06,100 --> 01:00:08,160
it's zipping over the surface of the ocean.
1230
01:00:08,210 --> 01:00:10,070
At the start of the video
you see them trying
1231
01:00:10,110 --> 01:00:12,500
to lock onto it and then
they finally do lock onto it
1232
01:00:12,540 --> 01:00:15,170
and now the the pod itself is tracking it.
1233
01:00:15,210 --> 01:00:17,070
So the claim here is that this is something
1234
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:19,510
with no visible means
of propulsion, it's cold,
1235
01:00:19,550 --> 01:00:22,380
we see it's white, which
means cold in this mode
1236
01:00:22,420 --> 01:00:23,910
and it's moving very, very fast.
1237
01:00:23,960 --> 01:00:26,520
So people think, people get
very excited about this one.
1238
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:29,750
- Yeah, I mean it looks
pretty exciting to me.
1239
01:00:29,790 --> 01:00:33,190
How could this be
something not moving fast?
1240
01:00:33,230 --> 01:00:34,790
- Well, the interesting
thing about this video
1241
01:00:34,830 --> 01:00:36,890
is that we get a lot of
information on screen.
1242
01:00:36,940 --> 01:00:39,500
We have here this 4.3 nautical miles range,
1243
01:00:39,540 --> 01:00:41,630
which is the distance from
the camera to the object.
1244
01:00:41,670 --> 01:00:44,630
And we have this angle we're
looking down, 27 degrees,
1245
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:47,900
and we have the altitude of
the plane here, 25,000 feet.
1246
01:00:47,950 --> 01:00:50,440
So we can take this angle
here and this distance
1247
01:00:50,480 --> 01:00:53,680
and we can do 4.3 times the sin of 27
1248
01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:57,150
tells you how far below the plane it is.
1249
01:00:57,190 --> 01:00:59,480
Very simple high school trigonometry.
1250
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:02,820
Turns out it's about 11,000 feet down.
1251
01:01:02,860 --> 01:01:06,490
Subtract that from 25,000
feet, you get 14,000 feet.
1252
01:01:06,530 --> 01:01:08,990
So it's actually 14,000
feet above the ocean.
1253
01:01:09,030 --> 01:01:10,830
It's not down by the ocean.
1254
01:01:10,870 --> 01:01:14,330
It's halfway between this
plane that's taking the video
1255
01:01:14,370 --> 01:01:16,170
and the ocean service itself,
1256
01:01:16,210 --> 01:01:19,200
which means that it's
actually moving very slowly.
1257
01:01:19,240 --> 01:01:20,800
- [Brian] I've heard people who should know
1258
01:01:20,850 --> 01:01:23,840
what they're talking
about, pilots, military pilots,
1259
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:26,640
people in these government
hearings saying that
1260
01:01:26,680 --> 01:01:29,810
"No; what this video shows
is something going very fast."
1261
01:01:29,850 --> 01:01:31,750
- It looks like it's moving very fast
1262
01:01:31,790 --> 01:01:33,380
and it's a very compelling illusion.
1263
01:01:33,430 --> 01:01:35,420
Something that's far away moving fast
1264
01:01:35,460 --> 01:01:38,390
looks the same as something
that's close and moving slow.
1265
01:01:38,430 --> 01:01:40,020
But you've got to do the trigonometry,
1266
01:01:40,070 --> 01:01:41,960
you've got to take these
numbers into account
1267
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:43,330
and they're simply not doing that.
1268
01:01:43,370 --> 01:01:46,300
If they do the math, they'll
get the same answer that I do.
1269
01:01:46,340 --> 01:01:47,900
- But even the pilots thought
1270
01:01:47,940 --> 01:01:50,580
that this was something extraordinary.
1271
01:01:56,950 --> 01:01:59,980
- Can pilots be wrong
about something like that?
1272
01:02:00,020 --> 01:02:01,480
Well, I asked another friend of mine,
1273
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:03,010
remember we saw him earlier?
1274
01:02:03,050 --> 01:02:07,030
Jason Bush, who happens
to be an air traffic controller.
1275
01:02:07,930 --> 01:02:10,920
So do pilots ever make
mistakes like the rest of us?
1276
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:11,750
- Absolutely.
1277
01:02:11,800 --> 01:02:14,920
They make big mistakes,
small mistakes every day.
1278
01:02:14,970 --> 01:02:17,190
- What are some common
mistakes you see pilots make?
1279
01:02:17,240 --> 01:02:19,600
- A pilot might read
back the wrong altitude,
1280
01:02:19,640 --> 01:02:21,530
obviously see it in the news sometimes
1281
01:02:21,570 --> 01:02:23,900
where a pilot might try to
land at the wrong airport.
1282
01:02:23,940 --> 01:02:26,770
Both civilian and military have done that.
1283
01:02:26,810 --> 01:02:28,570
- So you're saying pilots are human?
1284
01:02:28,610 --> 01:02:30,240
- Pilots are absolutely human.
1285
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:33,640
- The error so many people
make with this particular video
1286
01:02:33,690 --> 01:02:36,550
is caused by one of the
most common optical illusions.
1287
01:02:36,590 --> 01:02:40,020
It's called the motion parallax illusion.
1288
01:02:40,060 --> 01:02:43,490
Mick shot this little video
in his yard to demonstrate it.
1289
01:02:43,530 --> 01:02:46,020
He hung this ping pong ball from a tree,
1290
01:02:46,060 --> 01:02:48,420
then walked past it with his camera.
1291
01:02:48,470 --> 01:02:50,490
When you zoom in, it looks like the ball
1292
01:02:50,540 --> 01:02:52,600
is moving at great speed,
1293
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:56,130
but the ball's not moving
at all, only you are.
1294
01:02:56,170 --> 01:02:58,700
That's the motion parallax illusion.
1295
01:02:58,740 --> 01:03:01,670
It's why the object seems to
be moving relative to the ocean
1296
01:03:01,710 --> 01:03:03,310
in the Go Fast video.
1297
01:03:03,350 --> 01:03:05,980
And it's why the distant
plane seems to be moving
1298
01:03:06,020 --> 01:03:09,780
relative to the clouds in the Gimbal video.
1299
01:03:09,820 --> 01:03:12,350
So I wondered if pilots are trained
1300
01:03:12,390 --> 01:03:14,620
in this common optical illusion.
1301
01:03:14,660 --> 01:03:17,290
To find out, I took a
flight with another friend,
1302
01:03:17,330 --> 01:03:21,070
Chris Freeze, who's a highly
experienced flight instructor.
1303
01:03:22,300 --> 01:03:23,260
- I'm on the short list.
1304
01:03:23,300 --> 01:03:28,260
I've got over 3000 hours
of dual instruction given,
1305
01:03:28,310 --> 01:03:30,500
I've been a flight instructor
for about 15 years.
1306
01:03:30,540 --> 01:03:34,000
- Chris knows what gets
taught to pilots and what doesn't.
1307
01:03:34,050 --> 01:03:37,980
- Do pilots know what the
motion parallax illusion is?
1308
01:03:40,820 --> 01:03:43,310
- Probably not in said term.
1309
01:03:43,350 --> 01:03:45,450
I mean flight instructors
are trained in the idea
1310
01:03:45,490 --> 01:03:48,020
of parallax when it comes to the cockpit.
1311
01:03:48,060 --> 01:03:50,090
But in terms of motion,
1312
01:03:50,130 --> 01:03:52,860
I've never heard it in any of my training.
1313
01:03:52,900 --> 01:03:56,190
- It's just a common
thing that can fool anyone.
1314
01:03:56,230 --> 01:03:59,100
Do pilots make the same kind
of mistakes as other people?
1315
01:03:59,140 --> 01:04:00,300
- Absolutely.
1316
01:04:00,340 --> 01:04:02,970
Pilots are not perfect,
controllers are not perfect.
1317
01:04:03,010 --> 01:04:05,770
- Pilots are not sky gods,
they're regular people.
1318
01:04:05,810 --> 01:04:08,570
They put their pants on one leg at a time.
1319
01:04:08,610 --> 01:04:11,940
- What is it that makes
pilots, especially military pilots,
1320
01:04:11,980 --> 01:04:14,080
better observers than the rest of us?
1321
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:15,850
- I mean, they have got
some unique equipment
1322
01:04:15,890 --> 01:04:17,780
that the civilian market doesn't have.
1323
01:04:17,820 --> 01:04:21,580
They've got faster equipment than the 182
1324
01:04:21,630 --> 01:04:23,220
that we're flying right here.
1325
01:04:23,260 --> 01:04:24,830
But at the end of the day,
1326
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:28,290
they're just people flying airplanes.
1327
01:04:28,330 --> 01:04:30,390
- One of the leading
guesses for what that thing is
1328
01:04:30,440 --> 01:04:33,360
in the Go Fast video is, believe it or not,
1329
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:35,830
a simple weather balloon floating along.
1330
01:04:35,870 --> 01:04:38,400
It could even be a Mylar party balloon.
1331
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:41,540
How it looks in the video
is exactly how balloons look
1332
01:04:41,580 --> 01:04:42,850
on that same camera.
1333
01:04:43,720 --> 01:04:47,010
- I had a student the other
day, we were flying along,
1334
01:04:47,050 --> 01:04:51,380
he swore he saw a drone at 4,000 feet.
1335
01:04:51,420 --> 01:04:52,650
It could have been a Mylar balloon.
1336
01:04:52,690 --> 01:04:54,480
I think it probably was a Mylar balloon
1337
01:04:54,530 --> 01:04:56,890
given the altitude and the like
1338
01:04:56,930 --> 01:04:58,090
and especially where it was,
1339
01:04:58,130 --> 01:05:01,660
I mean over Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
1340
01:05:01,700 --> 01:05:04,160
- I understand that if you
are in the heat of flying,
1341
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:07,530
you're not necessarily going
to do Mick's same calculations
1342
01:05:07,570 --> 01:05:09,930
to see how high that little dot is.
1343
01:05:09,970 --> 01:05:12,400
But these are military pilots.
1344
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:14,040
Aren't professionals trained
1345
01:05:14,080 --> 01:05:17,340
to be able to tell how far away a dot is?
1346
01:05:17,380 --> 01:05:20,140
- Controllers are not
better at judging the size
1347
01:05:20,180 --> 01:05:21,980
or speed of a single dot.
1348
01:05:22,020 --> 01:05:24,380
Something could be up close moving slow
1349
01:05:24,420 --> 01:05:26,950
and it could match exactly
what something far away
1350
01:05:26,990 --> 01:05:28,320
moving fast is going.
1351
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:29,990
You have no idea what the speed is
1352
01:05:30,030 --> 01:05:32,560
unless you know how far away something is.
1353
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:34,790
- Is a trained pilot better
able than a layperson
1354
01:05:34,830 --> 01:05:39,800
to judge the size, speed
and distance of a single dot?
1355
01:05:40,170 --> 01:05:41,070
- No.
1356
01:05:41,310 --> 01:05:44,870
- So in short, all indications
are that this was nothing
1357
01:05:44,910 --> 01:05:46,950
more exotic than a balloon.
1358
01:05:47,850 --> 01:05:50,270
Alright, so now let's
look at the Nimitz video.
1359
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:53,640
- Right, so the Nimitz
video, shot back in 2004.
1360
01:05:53,690 --> 01:05:57,280
Again, it shows a little
blob way off in the distance.
1361
01:05:57,320 --> 01:05:59,580
And the interesting thing about this video
1362
01:05:59,620 --> 01:06:01,720
is that this little blob appears
1363
01:06:01,760 --> 01:06:04,850
to make sudden movements now and again
1364
01:06:04,900 --> 01:06:09,290
and people have claimed
that the movements it's making
1365
01:06:09,330 --> 01:06:10,930
are inconsistent with a human craft,
1366
01:06:10,970 --> 01:06:12,860
like it's accelerating far too fast,
1367
01:06:12,900 --> 01:06:17,180
the G-forces will be far too
intense for a human pilot.
1368
01:06:18,140 --> 01:06:20,200
So they claim that it makes
these sudden movements
1369
01:06:20,240 --> 01:06:21,570
which are impossible.
1370
01:06:21,610 --> 01:06:22,940
- Wow.
1371
01:06:22,980 --> 01:06:24,310
It just went flying off the screen
1372
01:06:24,350 --> 01:06:25,570
at a billion miles an hour.
1373
01:06:25,620 --> 01:06:26,580
- Yeah.
1374
01:06:26,620 --> 01:06:28,480
It looks like it's actually moving.
1375
01:06:28,520 --> 01:06:31,110
It looks like there's
actual motion of the craft.
1376
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:34,120
There's a couple of
movements in particular, right?
1377
01:06:34,160 --> 01:06:35,990
Right here you'll see it zip down
1378
01:06:36,030 --> 01:06:38,420
from the center to the outside.
1379
01:06:38,460 --> 01:06:40,560
It's just like hanging
out in the middle there.
1380
01:06:40,600 --> 01:06:42,830
Then all of a sudden it seems to disappear.
1381
01:06:42,870 --> 01:06:43,660
- Yeah.
1382
01:06:43,700 --> 01:06:44,960
Well it's on video. I mean, how do you?
1383
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:47,560
- If you go back and you
analyze these in depth,
1384
01:06:47,610 --> 01:06:49,900
you'll see that every
time it does a movement,
1385
01:06:49,940 --> 01:06:54,700
it actually coincides with
some kind of camera motion.
1386
01:06:54,750 --> 01:06:56,870
We can see that the person taking the video
1387
01:06:56,910 --> 01:06:59,480
is actually switching between
modes, between zoom levels,
1388
01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:02,710
between types of camera
throughout the entire video.
1389
01:07:02,750 --> 01:07:05,680
And every time it does
that, the camera loses lock.
1390
01:07:05,720 --> 01:07:06,920
- Is there something on the screen
1391
01:07:06,960 --> 01:07:10,550
that tells us what the zoom
level is or the type of camera?
1392
01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:12,050
- Right here, it says here,
1393
01:07:12,100 --> 01:07:14,720
It says "NAR", in the
corner, it says, "1X zoom."
1394
01:07:14,770 --> 01:07:17,830
These combine to tell
you what the zoom level is.
1395
01:07:17,870 --> 01:07:20,130
This is the optical path that it's using,
1396
01:07:20,170 --> 01:07:22,900
narrow at the moment,
and this is digital zoom.
1397
01:07:22,940 --> 01:07:26,970
Right up here it says "IR"
and in some points in the video
1398
01:07:27,010 --> 01:07:29,970
that says "TV", right
here it's saying "TV".
1399
01:07:30,010 --> 01:07:32,840
And when it switches between TV and IR,
1400
01:07:32,880 --> 01:07:34,150
if you watch that here,
1401
01:07:34,890 --> 01:07:36,510
you saw that little movement
right there at the start?
1402
01:07:36,550 --> 01:07:38,310
- Yeah.
1403
01:07:38,360 --> 01:07:40,580
- When it switches from
one camera mode to another,
1404
01:07:40,630 --> 01:07:43,990
it loses lock on the
object and it very briefly
1405
01:07:44,030 --> 01:07:46,990
just keeps moving in the
way it was moving before.
1406
01:07:47,030 --> 01:07:49,560
So here we're changing modes.
1407
01:07:49,600 --> 01:07:52,160
It does a little movement to the side.
1408
01:07:52,200 --> 01:07:53,400
Same thing happened right there.
1409
01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:54,730
It just switched modes again,
1410
01:07:54,770 --> 01:07:56,830
it did a little movement to the side.
1411
01:07:56,870 --> 01:07:58,470
Where it gets interesting
is when it changes
1412
01:07:58,510 --> 01:08:02,640
between a narrow field of
view and a wide field of view.
1413
01:08:02,680 --> 01:08:04,110
Here we're in narrow field of view,
1414
01:08:04,150 --> 01:08:07,340
meaning we're really zoomed
in and we're going to change
1415
01:08:07,390 --> 01:08:09,950
to a medium or a wide field of view.
1416
01:08:09,990 --> 01:08:14,120
And we do that here,
and we see it's had to,
1417
01:08:14,160 --> 01:08:16,050
the object zips off.
1418
01:08:16,090 --> 01:08:17,790
Now the reason it's zipping off
1419
01:08:17,830 --> 01:08:19,760
is kind of similar to what
happens with a microscope.
1420
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:20,860
When you're looking through a microscope
1421
01:08:20,900 --> 01:08:22,990
and you change from one
magnification to another,
1422
01:08:23,030 --> 01:08:25,130
you'll see it looks like the
whole image is moving.
1423
01:08:25,170 --> 01:08:27,530
- Yeah, because the lens
actually moves out of the way.
1424
01:08:27,570 --> 01:08:28,860
- Yeah, the lens,
1425
01:08:28,910 --> 01:08:30,230
you change from one lens to another
1426
01:08:30,270 --> 01:08:31,700
and that's what's happening here.
1427
01:08:31,740 --> 01:08:33,670
This object isn't moving off to the side.
1428
01:08:33,710 --> 01:08:36,740
All that's happening is one optical pathway
1429
01:08:36,780 --> 01:08:38,540
is rotating into position.
1430
01:08:38,580 --> 01:08:40,940
It's basically an internal
thing in the camera,
1431
01:08:40,990 --> 01:08:44,180
a little prism rotates
or a little mirror rotates.
1432
01:08:44,220 --> 01:08:45,450
Now, right at the end of the video,
1433
01:08:45,490 --> 01:08:48,250
the one that people talk
about the most is this one here.
1434
01:08:48,290 --> 01:08:50,320
We're in medium field of view,
1435
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:53,090
but it's going to change
to narrow field of view,
1436
01:08:53,130 --> 01:08:54,660
means he's going to zoom in on it.
1437
01:08:54,700 --> 01:08:57,260
And that happens right about here.
1438
01:08:57,300 --> 01:09:01,730
So we change modes, as
this indicator lags a little bit,
1439
01:09:01,770 --> 01:09:04,700
and when the camera comes back up,
1440
01:09:04,740 --> 01:09:07,670
the object is just outside the bars
1441
01:09:07,710 --> 01:09:11,640
and it widens the bars,
tries to get it back in again,
1442
01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:14,080
it's just outside still, widens it,
1443
01:09:14,120 --> 01:09:16,310
for some reason it narrows it there
1444
01:09:16,350 --> 01:09:17,780
and now it's lost it, it's gone.
1445
01:09:17,820 --> 01:09:18,850
It's outside.
1446
01:09:18,890 --> 01:09:20,320
It tries to get it again.
1447
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:22,990
It switches to 2X zoom at that point.
1448
01:09:23,030 --> 01:09:25,320
So this jump here isn't an actual motion.
1449
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:25,790
- Oh...
1450
01:09:25,830 --> 01:09:27,520
- This is actually just
switching from one zoom level
1451
01:09:27,570 --> 01:09:29,700
to another zoom level, especially that one.
1452
01:09:32,270 --> 01:09:36,600
And then the object
basically just drifts off screen.
1453
01:09:36,640 --> 01:09:39,370
- So can we take a look at this in Sitrec
1454
01:09:39,410 --> 01:09:41,440
and see what that object is actually doing?
1455
01:09:41,480 --> 01:09:42,300
- Sure.
1456
01:09:42,350 --> 01:09:43,810
So here we have the plane flying along.
1457
01:09:43,850 --> 01:09:46,040
It's basically flying in a straight line
1458
01:09:46,080 --> 01:09:48,180
and it's looking up at
something off in the distance,
1459
01:09:48,220 --> 01:09:51,010
that's this yellow track
way off in the distance.
1460
01:09:51,060 --> 01:09:55,250
And we know that it's somewhere
along these lines of sight
1461
01:09:55,290 --> 01:09:58,090
because we have these angular lines.
1462
01:09:58,130 --> 01:10:01,590
So we — a good guess
as to where it might be
1463
01:10:01,630 --> 01:10:03,940
if we then look at this from above
1464
01:10:05,940 --> 01:10:07,660
is that it's just way off in the distance
1465
01:10:07,710 --> 01:10:10,810
and it's just flying
away and a bit to the left.
1466
01:10:11,410 --> 01:10:14,240
- I mean it looks like something moving,
1467
01:10:14,280 --> 01:10:17,070
it seems to move the
same, a similar distance
1468
01:10:17,110 --> 01:10:20,110
in a similar amount of time
as the plane taking the movie.
1469
01:10:20,150 --> 01:10:21,210
- Yes, you can tell by the fact
1470
01:10:21,250 --> 01:10:23,410
that these lines here
are about the same length
1471
01:10:23,450 --> 01:10:25,780
that it's moving at about the same speed
1472
01:10:25,820 --> 01:10:26,920
as the plane itself,
1473
01:10:26,960 --> 01:10:29,450
which suggests it's probably another plane.
1474
01:10:29,490 --> 01:10:33,190
- But if you notice, it's just
a weird Tic Tac blob shape.
1475
01:10:33,230 --> 01:10:34,960
It's not shaped like a plane.
1476
01:10:35,000 --> 01:10:36,460
Here's why.
1477
01:10:36,500 --> 01:10:38,760
- So here's some thermal
camera footage of some jets
1478
01:10:38,800 --> 01:10:41,330
and you can see more or
less the shape of the jet there.
1479
01:10:41,370 --> 01:10:43,300
But when the camera's
in a certain configuration
1480
01:10:43,340 --> 01:10:46,240
a little bit earlier, all
you see is this blob.
1481
01:10:46,280 --> 01:10:48,540
You can't see the actual
shape of the plane itself
1482
01:10:48,580 --> 01:10:51,740
because the heat of the
engine is creating this glare
1483
01:10:51,780 --> 01:10:53,480
which obscures the shape of the engine.
1484
01:10:53,520 --> 01:10:56,280
And I think that's what we're
seeing in the Gimbal video.
1485
01:10:56,320 --> 01:10:57,850
- So the other one I
wanted to ask you about
1486
01:10:57,890 --> 01:11:00,780
is this green pyramid video
where we seem to have
1487
01:11:00,830 --> 01:11:03,920
giant green pyramid shaped spaceships
1488
01:11:03,960 --> 01:11:06,260
flying around in the sky over Navy ships.
1489
01:11:06,300 --> 01:11:07,790
What's going on with that?
1490
01:11:07,830 --> 01:11:09,230
- Well, this was a
really interesting video.
1491
01:11:09,270 --> 01:11:11,830
It looks like this video
is shot with night vision.
1492
01:11:11,870 --> 01:11:12,960
So everything appears green.
1493
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:14,360
It's not actually green.
1494
01:11:14,410 --> 01:11:16,800
And it looks like we are seeing some kind
1495
01:11:16,840 --> 01:11:21,470
of flying green triangle,
which is a very interesting thing.
1496
01:11:21,510 --> 01:11:22,610
- I should say so.
1497
01:11:22,650 --> 01:11:27,580
- And it is shot by a Navy
sailor on a Navy ship.
1498
01:11:27,620 --> 01:11:29,140
So we know it's the official thing
1499
01:11:29,190 --> 01:11:32,010
and we know that it was
looked at by the UAP task force
1500
01:11:32,060 --> 01:11:34,120
and they tried to figure out what it was.
1501
01:11:34,160 --> 01:11:35,150
Now we see a couple more.
1502
01:11:35,190 --> 01:11:36,720
We see a couple more triangles
and then there's some more
1503
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:39,690
down here and they're not moving.
1504
01:11:39,730 --> 01:11:41,760
They're in a very particular configuration.
1505
01:11:41,800 --> 01:11:45,830
And the claim was that this
actually shows a whole bunch
1506
01:11:45,870 --> 01:11:47,930
of drones in the sky.
1507
01:11:47,970 --> 01:11:48,900
They said these were drones.
1508
01:11:48,940 --> 01:11:50,530
That's a drone, that was a drone,
1509
01:11:50,570 --> 01:11:53,340
all these were triangular shaped drones.
1510
01:11:53,380 --> 01:11:56,140
- So what else might they be?
1511
01:11:56,180 --> 01:11:58,240
- The odds of all these drones
1512
01:11:58,280 --> 01:12:01,280
being all exactly the same
size, shape, and orientation
1513
01:12:01,320 --> 01:12:02,880
are just ridiculous.
1514
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:03,780
So I thought, you know,
1515
01:12:03,820 --> 01:12:06,150
perhaps it's just lights
and what we're seeing
1516
01:12:06,190 --> 01:12:08,880
is the aperture of the
camera is causing this effect.
1517
01:12:08,930 --> 01:12:10,690
- Do any of these night vision cameras
1518
01:12:10,730 --> 01:12:12,760
have that kind of aperture?
1519
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:14,120
- And the interesting thing is that some
1520
01:12:14,170 --> 01:12:17,160
of the night vision cameras
do have this type of aperture.
1521
01:12:17,200 --> 01:12:19,230
Someone on Metabunk happened to look
1522
01:12:19,270 --> 01:12:20,530
at his night vision camera
1523
01:12:20,570 --> 01:12:23,500
and it had this triangular aperture.
1524
01:12:23,540 --> 01:12:26,000
So this is Jesse's camera,
it's a night vision camera.
1525
01:12:26,040 --> 01:12:28,800
And as you can see, the
aperture of the camera
1526
01:12:28,850 --> 01:12:29,680
is triangular.
1527
01:12:30,510 --> 01:12:34,980
And you can see it is actually
a proper night vision camera.
1528
01:12:35,020 --> 01:12:36,410
Third generation.
1529
01:12:36,450 --> 01:12:37,280
- Huh.
1530
01:12:37,320 --> 01:12:38,580
- So this is the video that he took
1531
01:12:38,620 --> 01:12:40,180
with that night vision camera.
1532
01:12:40,220 --> 01:12:41,280
- [Brian] It looks exactly the same.
1533
01:12:41,330 --> 01:12:42,620
- [Mick] It looks exactly the same.
1534
01:12:42,660 --> 01:12:44,720
We are seeing flickering lights,
1535
01:12:44,760 --> 01:12:46,620
which are just stars.
1536
01:12:46,660 --> 01:12:49,360
And if a plane was to
fly by, it was flashing,
1537
01:12:49,400 --> 01:12:51,860
we would see the exact same thing.
1538
01:12:51,900 --> 01:12:55,530
And what Jesse does is
he adjusts the focus slightly.
1539
01:12:55,570 --> 01:12:58,470
And when it's just very
slightly out of focus,
1540
01:12:58,510 --> 01:13:00,840
everything in the scene
that's a single bright light
1541
01:13:00,880 --> 01:13:02,270
turns into these green triangles.
1542
01:13:02,310 --> 01:13:03,110
- [Brian] So the same thing,
1543
01:13:03,150 --> 01:13:04,370
you've got some sort of scattered noise
1544
01:13:04,420 --> 01:13:06,410
and then the stars are all green triangles.
1545
01:13:06,450 --> 01:13:08,820
- It looks identical to the Navy video.
1546
01:13:10,150 --> 01:13:12,180
So right at the start of this video,
1547
01:13:12,220 --> 01:13:14,550
we see a number of lights
and somebody noticed
1548
01:13:14,590 --> 01:13:16,890
that there's a particular
configuration here.
1549
01:13:16,930 --> 01:13:18,820
We see a very bright one here,
1550
01:13:18,860 --> 01:13:20,860
one here and then two others here.
1551
01:13:20,900 --> 01:13:22,830
And someone figured out that this one here
1552
01:13:22,870 --> 01:13:24,660
is actually Jupiter.
1553
01:13:24,700 --> 01:13:26,400
And then from there you can figure out
1554
01:13:26,440 --> 01:13:29,500
exactly what these other stars are.
1555
01:13:29,540 --> 01:13:33,070
And it turns out that
pretty much every light
1556
01:13:33,110 --> 01:13:34,970
in this entire video, other than the one
1557
01:13:35,010 --> 01:13:38,910
that's moving along and
flashing, is a star or a planet.
1558
01:13:38,950 --> 01:13:41,510
So we take the fact that we
know where Jupiter is over here
1559
01:13:41,550 --> 01:13:43,480
and these other stars down here,
1560
01:13:43,520 --> 01:13:47,050
and we can just basically
trace the path across the sky.
1561
01:13:47,090 --> 01:13:48,550
We can see all these other stars.
1562
01:13:48,590 --> 01:13:50,950
This one right here just
popped in very briefly
1563
01:13:51,000 --> 01:13:53,560
is Rasalhague.
1564
01:13:53,600 --> 01:13:55,160
And we keep going.
1565
01:13:55,200 --> 01:13:59,240
Now we see it pass these...
1566
01:14:00,170 --> 01:14:01,830
two stars here,
1567
01:14:01,870 --> 01:14:03,570
which are the two dim things that we see
1568
01:14:03,610 --> 01:14:06,540
when it zooms all the
way in, that's the star Okab.
1569
01:14:06,580 --> 01:14:09,000
And we see it just pass by.
1570
01:14:09,050 --> 01:14:10,450
- Look at that.
1571
01:14:10,820 --> 01:14:12,740
Just an ordinary aircraft
1572
01:14:12,780 --> 01:14:15,010
with ordinary flashing navigation lights
1573
01:14:15,050 --> 01:14:17,350
flying along in front
of the stars that we see
1574
01:14:17,390 --> 01:14:19,380
in the sky every night,
1575
01:14:19,420 --> 01:14:22,650
but one well-meaning
guy on a Navy ship films it
1576
01:14:22,690 --> 01:14:23,750
with a night vision camera
1577
01:14:23,790 --> 01:14:25,920
that's just slightly out of focus
1578
01:14:25,960 --> 01:14:29,020
and suddenly we have
fleets of Chinese drones
1579
01:14:29,070 --> 01:14:30,930
and a national security threat
1580
01:14:30,970 --> 01:14:34,730
or aliens flying giant green pyramids.
1581
01:14:34,770 --> 01:14:38,470
This is what happens when we
have this whole cultural mania.
1582
01:14:38,510 --> 01:14:41,470
Everything is aliens
or everything is Chinese
1583
01:14:41,510 --> 01:14:44,010
or Russian national security threats.
1584
01:14:44,050 --> 01:14:46,610
We tend to forget all
about having that standard
1585
01:14:46,650 --> 01:14:48,110
for quality of evidence.
1586
01:14:48,150 --> 01:14:50,780
And we start to allow in garbage
1587
01:14:50,820 --> 01:14:54,920
coming from what Mick
calls the low information zone.
1588
01:14:54,960 --> 01:14:58,220
- The low information
zone is where UFOs exist.
1589
01:14:58,260 --> 01:15:00,690
It's the region or the distance
1590
01:15:00,730 --> 01:15:03,330
at which you can't quite
make something out.
1591
01:15:03,370 --> 01:15:06,630
And if you could zoom
in a little bit bit more,
1592
01:15:06,670 --> 01:15:08,700
if you could actually
get closer to the UFO,
1593
01:15:08,740 --> 01:15:10,570
you'd be able to tell what it was.
1594
01:15:10,610 --> 01:15:14,640
UFOs only exist because
they're in the low information zone.
1595
01:15:14,680 --> 01:15:16,870
- If there was enough information,
1596
01:15:16,910 --> 01:15:18,770
they'd be identified.
1597
01:15:18,820 --> 01:15:21,010
So Bigfoot is in the low information zone.
1598
01:15:21,050 --> 01:15:24,110
- Very much so, Bigfoot is
in the low information zone.
1599
01:15:24,150 --> 01:15:28,620
Anything that is naturally
blurry, I think you could say,
1600
01:15:28,660 --> 01:15:30,050
is something that's an example of something
1601
01:15:30,090 --> 01:15:31,750
in the low information zone.
1602
01:15:31,800 --> 01:15:34,190
- We need to keep our bar high
1603
01:15:34,230 --> 01:15:36,630
and we need to stop giving credibility
1604
01:15:36,670 --> 01:15:39,360
to anything from the low information zone,
1605
01:15:39,400 --> 01:15:43,340
which by definition does not
meet any standard of evidence.
1606
01:15:47,210 --> 01:15:48,800
And we also need something smarter
1607
01:15:48,850 --> 01:15:52,570
than one of the most popular
go-to generic explanations
1608
01:15:52,620 --> 01:15:57,510
for UFO sightings, a quote,
"secret military aircraft".
1609
01:15:57,550 --> 01:16:00,380
This is a special pet peeve of mine.
1610
01:16:00,420 --> 01:16:02,650
Saying a UFO that seems to display
1611
01:16:02,690 --> 01:16:04,750
incredible flight characteristics
1612
01:16:04,800 --> 01:16:07,120
might be a secret military aircraft
1613
01:16:07,160 --> 01:16:09,320
is something that my skeptic friends do
1614
01:16:09,370 --> 01:16:12,060
and it's something that
my UFOlogist friends do,
1615
01:16:12,100 --> 01:16:14,800
and they are both equally off base.
1616
01:16:14,840 --> 01:16:19,100
This is a terrible, terrible,
terrible explanation,
1617
01:16:19,140 --> 01:16:21,600
but give me a chance to explain why.
1618
01:16:21,650 --> 01:16:24,170
If I say, "Hey, that looks like a car."
1619
01:16:24,210 --> 01:16:27,140
It's because we know what
a car's characteristics are.
1620
01:16:27,180 --> 01:16:29,980
It's got wheels and windows
and it's about a certain size
1621
01:16:30,020 --> 01:16:31,980
and it's rolling along the road.
1622
01:16:32,020 --> 01:16:34,850
I was able to match
those up with what I saw
1623
01:16:34,890 --> 01:16:38,050
and car matches those characteristics.
1624
01:16:38,100 --> 01:16:41,160
So now imagine any UFO sighting,
1625
01:16:41,200 --> 01:16:43,890
something that's clearly
not behaving like an airplane
1626
01:16:43,930 --> 01:16:46,600
or a balloon or anything familiar.
1627
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:49,870
It's maneuvering
impossibly fast, it's too big,
1628
01:16:49,910 --> 01:16:52,030
it has flames, whatever it might be
1629
01:16:52,080 --> 01:16:54,370
that clearly tells us it's not an airplane
1630
01:16:54,410 --> 01:16:58,170
and we believe it must
be an extraordinary craft.
1631
01:16:58,220 --> 01:17:00,580
Well then, how were we able to match it
1632
01:17:00,620 --> 01:17:03,410
to a secret military aircraft?
1633
01:17:03,450 --> 01:17:05,680
Let's go over the characteristics
1634
01:17:05,720 --> 01:17:07,680
of secret military aircraft,
1635
01:17:07,730 --> 01:17:09,790
because they all have at least two.
1636
01:17:09,830 --> 01:17:12,050
First is where they are.
1637
01:17:12,100 --> 01:17:13,790
While they're still classified,
1638
01:17:13,830 --> 01:17:17,090
they are never out where the
general public can see them.
1639
01:17:17,130 --> 01:17:19,190
They're at someplace
like the Nevada test range,
1640
01:17:19,240 --> 01:17:21,060
where nobody will see them.
1641
01:17:21,110 --> 01:17:24,270
They're not over a major population center.
1642
01:17:24,310 --> 01:17:26,900
Second is what they move and look like.
1643
01:17:26,940 --> 01:17:29,370
Now we don't know what classified aircraft
1644
01:17:29,410 --> 01:17:31,410
the military might be testing now,
1645
01:17:31,450 --> 01:17:33,480
but we have a century of history
1646
01:17:33,520 --> 01:17:36,680
of everything every
government has ever flown.
1647
01:17:36,720 --> 01:17:39,750
Every single aircraft that was ever secret,
1648
01:17:39,790 --> 01:17:42,820
without exception, has flight capabilities
1649
01:17:42,860 --> 01:17:45,490
in the same ballpark as other aircraft.
1650
01:17:45,530 --> 01:17:47,820
And this includes the very newest manned
1651
01:17:47,870 --> 01:17:50,590
and unmanned systems to go into service.
1652
01:17:50,630 --> 01:17:53,200
Some have been incrementally faster,
1653
01:17:53,240 --> 01:17:56,130
some have had low observability features,
1654
01:17:56,170 --> 01:17:58,430
some have had advanced electronics.
1655
01:17:58,480 --> 01:18:03,640
Not one has ever been
truly unlike any other aircraft.
1656
01:18:03,680 --> 01:18:05,110
They wouldn't need to be.
1657
01:18:05,150 --> 01:18:08,840
We've had flying figured
out pretty well for some time.
1658
01:18:08,890 --> 01:18:10,010
Has any government that you know of
1659
01:18:10,050 --> 01:18:13,780
ever tested an aircraft that
has truly radical capabilities?
1660
01:18:13,820 --> 01:18:16,180
- No, I know of no nation
1661
01:18:16,230 --> 01:18:17,420
that has ever tested an aircraft
1662
01:18:17,460 --> 01:18:20,890
that is radically beyond
any aviation capability
1663
01:18:20,930 --> 01:18:22,120
we've ever heard of.
1664
01:18:22,170 --> 01:18:25,490
- And that's really all we
know about classified aircraft.
1665
01:18:25,540 --> 01:18:28,800
The two things we know,
that they are not ever out
1666
01:18:28,840 --> 01:18:30,170
in plain view where someone
1667
01:18:30,210 --> 01:18:32,600
might have gotten iPhone video of them,
1668
01:18:32,640 --> 01:18:34,970
and that they look and
perform in the same ballpark
1669
01:18:35,010 --> 01:18:39,440
as other aircraft, tell us
that they absolutely do not
1670
01:18:39,480 --> 01:18:43,480
share any characteristics with
some UFO that we see and go,
1671
01:18:43,520 --> 01:18:45,390
"Whoa, that can't be a plane."
1672
01:18:46,320 --> 01:18:49,280
If we're going to be
consistent in our logic,
1673
01:18:49,330 --> 01:18:51,350
when we're not inside the Nevada test range
1674
01:18:51,400 --> 01:18:52,550
and we see something in the sky
1675
01:18:52,600 --> 01:18:54,660
that's obviously not an airplane,
1676
01:18:54,700 --> 01:18:56,860
one thing we can be sure of
1677
01:18:56,900 --> 01:18:59,430
is that it is almost certainly not
1678
01:18:59,470 --> 01:19:01,960
a secret military aircraft.
1679
01:19:02,010 --> 01:19:05,400
Look instead to the far
more likely explanations,
1680
01:19:05,440 --> 01:19:09,570
the ones that UFOs do
turn out to be all the time,
1681
01:19:09,610 --> 01:19:13,310
like celestial objects
and airborne clutter.
1682
01:19:13,350 --> 01:19:15,740
And this is a really timely point
1683
01:19:15,790 --> 01:19:17,580
because among the people suspecting
1684
01:19:17,620 --> 01:19:21,860
advanced enemy drones for
everything are congresspeople.
1685
01:19:25,600 --> 01:19:29,930
So in May of 2022, a US House subcommittee
1686
01:19:29,970 --> 01:19:33,160
held an open hearing on the UFO phenomenon.
1687
01:19:33,200 --> 01:19:35,360
Scott Bray, who we saw earlier,
1688
01:19:35,410 --> 01:19:38,270
was the Deputy Director of
the Office of Naval Intelligence
1689
01:19:38,310 --> 01:19:41,740
and he described the type
of expertise they brought in
1690
01:19:41,780 --> 01:19:44,920
to staff the UAP task force.
1691
01:19:45,420 --> 01:19:47,210
- Additionally, subject matter experts
1692
01:19:47,250 --> 01:19:50,080
from a wide variety of
fields including physics,
1693
01:19:50,120 --> 01:19:52,810
optics, metallurgy, meteorology,
1694
01:19:52,860 --> 01:19:55,650
just to name a few have been brought in
1695
01:19:55,690 --> 01:19:58,220
to expand our understanding in areas
1696
01:19:58,260 --> 01:20:01,490
where we may not have organic expertise.
1697
01:20:01,530 --> 01:20:02,990
In short, we've endeavored to bring
1698
01:20:03,030 --> 01:20:04,860
an all hands on deck approach
1699
01:20:04,900 --> 01:20:07,260
to better understand this phenomenon.
1700
01:20:07,300 --> 01:20:09,000
- Now I know he said there were others too,
1701
01:20:09,040 --> 01:20:10,530
but from what he listed,
1702
01:20:10,570 --> 01:20:12,100
it sounds like they've already got
1703
01:20:12,140 --> 01:20:14,000
an identification in mind.
1704
01:20:14,040 --> 01:20:16,510
It sounds like he's already decided
1705
01:20:16,550 --> 01:20:19,210
these are extraordinary craft.
1706
01:20:19,250 --> 01:20:21,840
People like physicists and metallurgists
1707
01:20:21,890 --> 01:20:25,680
are qualified to analyze
an actual physical object.
1708
01:20:25,720 --> 01:20:28,220
And that's a completely different skill set
1709
01:20:28,260 --> 01:20:32,190
than trying to identify a blob
in the low information zone.
1710
01:20:32,230 --> 01:20:34,260
- I think having a
metallurgist on the task force
1711
01:20:34,300 --> 01:20:38,060
would be a good idea if you
have some metal to study.
1712
01:20:38,100 --> 01:20:40,460
A lot of these samples that
we see being talked about
1713
01:20:40,500 --> 01:20:42,930
have a very dubious provenance.
1714
01:20:42,970 --> 01:20:44,730
Some of them were just sent in anonymously
1715
01:20:44,780 --> 01:20:48,770
with strange letters to
radio shows 20 years ago.
1716
01:20:48,810 --> 01:20:51,470
- Remember that in
every UFO case in history
1717
01:20:51,520 --> 01:20:54,540
that has been solved, in not one instance,
1718
01:20:54,590 --> 01:20:58,250
not a single one, has the
explanation turned out to be
1719
01:20:58,290 --> 01:21:00,380
an extraordinary craft.
1720
01:21:00,420 --> 01:21:03,080
So the UAP task force seems to be stacked
1721
01:21:03,130 --> 01:21:05,090
with people whose expertise
1722
01:21:05,130 --> 01:21:08,090
is the least likely to be needed.
1723
01:21:08,130 --> 01:21:10,860
So let's go back to the
explanations for UFOs
1724
01:21:10,900 --> 01:21:12,960
that were ultimately identified.
1725
01:21:13,000 --> 01:21:16,930
And since those will
explain most future UFOs too,
1726
01:21:16,970 --> 01:21:21,940
let's suggest some experts
more likely to be successful.
1727
01:21:21,980 --> 01:21:25,010
The #1 explanation of solved UFO cases
1728
01:21:25,050 --> 01:21:28,110
is misidentification of celestial objects.
1729
01:21:28,150 --> 01:21:30,110
Now the task force is in the ballpark
1730
01:21:30,150 --> 01:21:31,480
with their meteorologist,
1731
01:21:31,520 --> 01:21:34,850
but what they really need is an astronomer.
1732
01:21:34,890 --> 01:21:36,320
- The people who spend the most time
1733
01:21:36,360 --> 01:21:40,220
looking at the night sky,
astronomers, never report UFOs.
1734
01:21:40,260 --> 01:21:42,090
And that's because for the most part
1735
01:21:42,130 --> 01:21:43,630
we know what we're looking at.
1736
01:21:43,670 --> 01:21:46,360
- We understand that
a strange light in the sky
1737
01:21:46,400 --> 01:21:49,000
might be a comet, it
might be a satellite trail.
1738
01:21:49,040 --> 01:21:51,530
- And phenomena that
can go on in our cameras,
1739
01:21:51,580 --> 01:21:54,500
different camera aberrations
and lens reflections.
1740
01:21:54,540 --> 01:21:57,270
- It could be a sprite in the atmosphere.
1741
01:21:57,310 --> 01:21:59,910
There are a number of
things that astronomers
1742
01:21:59,950 --> 01:22:02,580
will be able to rule
out for the government.
1743
01:22:02,620 --> 01:22:05,550
- The #2 explanation of solved UFO cases
1744
01:22:05,590 --> 01:22:07,380
is airborne clutter.
1745
01:22:07,420 --> 01:22:09,150
Now, whenever one of these has been proven
1746
01:22:09,190 --> 01:22:12,050
to be the cause of a UFO,
the people who found it
1747
01:22:12,100 --> 01:22:14,920
have been UFO skeptics,
1748
01:22:14,970 --> 01:22:17,160
the people who've spent
their lives writing books
1749
01:22:17,200 --> 01:22:19,830
and debunking UFO cases.
1750
01:22:19,870 --> 01:22:22,130
Now, I know that sounds bad to some of you,
1751
01:22:22,170 --> 01:22:24,630
like they wouldn't be very impartial,
1752
01:22:24,680 --> 01:22:26,900
but they would be the
only task force members
1753
01:22:26,940 --> 01:22:29,740
with actual experience doing the job,
1754
01:22:29,780 --> 01:22:33,240
and they've done it for
decades, in many cases.
1755
01:22:33,280 --> 01:22:37,010
Scott Bray said he wanted
an all hands on deck approach?
1756
01:22:37,050 --> 01:22:39,750
Well, even if you don't like UFO skeptics,
1757
01:22:39,790 --> 01:22:41,350
their perspective is one
1758
01:22:41,390 --> 01:22:45,550
any truly objective
task force must include.
1759
01:22:45,600 --> 01:22:48,920
The #3 explanation of solved UFO cases
1760
01:22:48,970 --> 01:22:53,090
is misidentification of lights
or objects on the ground.
1761
01:22:53,140 --> 01:22:55,500
This suggests to me what I think
1762
01:22:55,540 --> 01:22:57,770
is the single most important expert
1763
01:22:57,810 --> 01:22:59,570
the task force should have
1764
01:22:59,610 --> 01:23:02,940
and that's an experienced
air crash investigator,
1765
01:23:02,980 --> 01:23:04,970
someone from the NTSB.
1766
01:23:05,020 --> 01:23:08,240
These are the best experts
in what kinds of things
1767
01:23:08,290 --> 01:23:11,610
confuse pilots or cause them to be fooled.
1768
01:23:11,660 --> 01:23:14,480
They have seen things like motion parallax
1769
01:23:14,520 --> 01:23:17,920
and other such illusions
fool experienced pilots
1770
01:23:17,960 --> 01:23:20,090
time and time again.
1771
01:23:20,130 --> 01:23:22,790
They know that stuff
better than the pilots do.
1772
01:23:22,830 --> 01:23:25,460
My bet is the air crash investigator
1773
01:23:25,500 --> 01:23:29,970
would solve more UFO cases
than anyone else on the team.
1774
01:23:30,410 --> 01:23:33,740
Or even better: crowdsource it.
1775
01:23:33,780 --> 01:23:35,940
- I actually have
basically a team of people
1776
01:23:35,980 --> 01:23:37,110
to help me with these things.
1777
01:23:37,150 --> 01:23:39,640
I think of myself as the curator
1778
01:23:39,680 --> 01:23:41,510
of a large number of talented people
1779
01:23:41,550 --> 01:23:43,040
who help me figure these things out.
1780
01:23:43,090 --> 01:23:45,780
And I put it all together
and I show it to the public
1781
01:23:45,820 --> 01:23:47,580
but it's very much a team effort.
1782
01:23:47,620 --> 01:23:49,820
It's very much a crowdsourcing effort.
1783
01:23:49,860 --> 01:23:52,050
- What sort of skill sets do
some of these people have?
1784
01:23:52,100 --> 01:23:54,360
- Some people are good at video analysis.
1785
01:23:54,400 --> 01:23:56,930
Some people are good
at mathematical analysis.
1786
01:23:56,970 --> 01:23:59,260
Some people are just really
good at recognizing things.
1787
01:23:59,300 --> 01:24:03,060
If you have people who, for
example, are experts in kites,
1788
01:24:03,110 --> 01:24:04,530
then when they see something that's a kite
1789
01:24:04,570 --> 01:24:06,030
that I wouldn't recognize, they can say,
1790
01:24:06,080 --> 01:24:08,140
"Oh, that's that particular type of kite."
1791
01:24:08,180 --> 01:24:09,970
Or a particular type of plane,
1792
01:24:10,010 --> 01:24:11,770
people are experts in aviation.
1793
01:24:11,820 --> 01:24:14,280
Some people excel in geolocating things,
1794
01:24:14,320 --> 01:24:15,940
tracking things down, where they are
1795
01:24:15,990 --> 01:24:19,050
and what time of day
it is and things like that.
1796
01:24:19,090 --> 01:24:22,980
And some people are just
good to bounce ideas off.
1797
01:24:23,030 --> 01:24:25,120
- Having physicists and metallurgists
1798
01:24:25,160 --> 01:24:28,860
on the task force might
sound impressive, but honestly,
1799
01:24:28,900 --> 01:24:31,490
it's the wrong skill set for the job.
1800
01:24:31,540 --> 01:24:34,230
We want experts with
skill sets that give them
1801
01:24:34,270 --> 01:24:38,540
a high chance of success,
not a near zero chance.
1802
01:24:39,610 --> 01:24:41,300
But now it's time to shift gears
1803
01:24:41,340 --> 01:24:45,040
and bring this conversation
back around to where we started.
1804
01:24:45,080 --> 01:24:48,180
We've now talked about the
problems with space travel.
1805
01:24:48,220 --> 01:24:50,150
We've talked about the
deep problems we have
1806
01:24:50,190 --> 01:24:51,750
in the kind of UFO evidence
1807
01:24:51,790 --> 01:24:55,080
that too many people are
putting too much faith in.
1808
01:24:55,130 --> 01:24:58,790
So let's talk now about where
the extraordinary evidence
1809
01:24:58,830 --> 01:25:02,360
is almost certainly going to come from,
1810
01:25:02,400 --> 01:25:05,400
because this is where we
get back to the good news.
1811
01:25:09,010 --> 01:25:11,030
So what is the most likely way
1812
01:25:11,070 --> 01:25:15,100
that we'll ultimately meet
some given alien civilization?
1813
01:25:15,150 --> 01:25:17,610
How will they reach out to us?
1814
01:25:17,650 --> 01:25:19,040
Of course, we don't know this,
1815
01:25:19,080 --> 01:25:21,840
but we can make some
very well educated guesses
1816
01:25:21,890 --> 01:25:24,810
going by the one data point that we have:
1817
01:25:24,860 --> 01:25:26,180
Ourselves.
1818
01:25:26,220 --> 01:25:29,080
We've reached out, how have we tried it?
1819
01:25:29,130 --> 01:25:31,950
Because probably someone
else with our same objectives
1820
01:25:32,000 --> 01:25:34,390
would try the same things.
1821
01:25:34,430 --> 01:25:37,190
So actual interstellar travel is a problem
1822
01:25:37,230 --> 01:25:40,360
that there really isn't
a practical solution to.
1823
01:25:40,400 --> 01:25:43,360
It's where we hit that
really big stumbling block.
1824
01:25:43,410 --> 01:25:45,700
You can't go faster than light.
1825
01:25:45,740 --> 01:25:47,900
So we've done the next best thing,
1826
01:25:47,940 --> 01:25:52,410
we've sent uncrewed
probes out into deep space,
1827
01:25:52,450 --> 01:25:56,810
Pioneer 10 and 11, and Voyager 1 and 2.
1828
01:25:56,850 --> 01:25:59,110
The energy requirements are much lower
1829
01:25:59,160 --> 01:26:00,950
with an uncrewed probe,
1830
01:26:00,990 --> 01:26:04,250
thus the chances of
success are much higher.
1831
01:26:04,290 --> 01:26:06,990
Now, a downside is these are only one way.
1832
01:26:07,030 --> 01:26:08,790
We can't store enough energy aboard them
1833
01:26:08,830 --> 01:26:11,190
to come back from far away.
1834
01:26:11,230 --> 01:26:14,300
So we sent simple
messages about who we are,
1835
01:26:14,340 --> 01:26:17,000
where we are, how to find us.
1836
01:26:17,040 --> 01:26:19,100
Since this is so much easier to do,
1837
01:26:19,140 --> 01:26:20,440
it's reasonable to assume
1838
01:26:20,480 --> 01:26:22,870
that other civilizations will also try
1839
01:26:22,910 --> 01:26:25,270
the easiest ways first.
1840
01:26:25,320 --> 01:26:28,480
Even if not all the
civilizations out there try it,
1841
01:26:28,520 --> 01:26:30,480
some of them probably would;
1842
01:26:30,520 --> 01:26:32,480
so we should probably look for simple,
1843
01:26:32,520 --> 01:26:36,050
dumb, low energy probes first.
1844
01:26:36,090 --> 01:26:39,020
But there's an even easier way that reaches
1845
01:26:39,060 --> 01:26:43,090
farther and faster: radio communication.
1846
01:26:43,130 --> 01:26:45,930
We've been deliberately
beaming high-powered signals
1847
01:26:45,970 --> 01:26:50,970
about ourselves toward
interesting targets since 1974.
1848
01:26:51,140 --> 01:26:52,870
Now we haven't made a very big effort.
1849
01:26:52,910 --> 01:26:55,600
We've really only done this
kind of thing a couple of times,
1850
01:26:55,650 --> 01:26:59,840
but what we've done reached
much farther than our probes,
1851
01:26:59,880 --> 01:27:03,110
and it did so at the speed of light.
1852
01:27:03,150 --> 01:27:04,910
Compared to sending probes,
1853
01:27:04,960 --> 01:27:08,350
sending targeted
electromagnetic communications
1854
01:27:08,390 --> 01:27:10,850
is immensely cheaper, with a fraction
1855
01:27:10,890 --> 01:27:12,290
of the energy requirements.
1856
01:27:12,330 --> 01:27:14,020
It has a farther reach
1857
01:27:14,060 --> 01:27:17,390
and has that much better chance of success.
1858
01:27:17,430 --> 01:27:20,460
Whatever civilizations out
there who might want to reach us,
1859
01:27:20,500 --> 01:27:23,930
this is probably what
most of them would try
1860
01:27:23,970 --> 01:27:26,700
and it's the first thing
that would get to us.
1861
01:27:26,740 --> 01:27:28,940
And we are listening.
1862
01:27:28,980 --> 01:27:32,840
So far, we've only ever
picked up one decent candidate.
1863
01:27:32,880 --> 01:27:36,780
The famous "Wow!" signal detected in 1977
1864
01:27:36,820 --> 01:27:41,050
on the Big Ear radio telescope
at Ohio State University.
1865
01:27:41,090 --> 01:27:45,090
Still to this day, the
best explanation for it
1866
01:27:45,130 --> 01:27:48,020
is a radio transmission
from a point in space
1867
01:27:48,060 --> 01:27:50,630
in the direction of Sagittarius.
1868
01:27:50,670 --> 01:27:52,530
How far out? Well, we don't know.
1869
01:27:52,570 --> 01:27:54,460
It could have been closer than the moon.
1870
01:27:54,500 --> 01:27:57,270
It could have been from
the other side of the galaxy.
1871
01:27:57,310 --> 01:28:00,710
But we never heard anything
again from that direction.
1872
01:28:01,650 --> 01:28:05,510
But here's the most exciting
thing about the "Wow!" signal,
1873
01:28:05,550 --> 01:28:08,740
and that's the frequency
it was received on.
1874
01:28:08,790 --> 01:28:12,110
If you want to reach intelligent
aliens with a radio signal,
1875
01:28:12,160 --> 01:28:13,820
there are going to be three things
1876
01:28:13,860 --> 01:28:16,220
to guide your choice of frequency.
1877
01:28:16,260 --> 01:28:17,920
First, you want a frequency
1878
01:28:17,960 --> 01:28:19,590
that will cut through atmospheres
1879
01:28:19,630 --> 01:28:22,520
and have the best chance of being received.
1880
01:28:22,570 --> 01:28:24,490
Second, you want a frequency
1881
01:28:24,530 --> 01:28:28,530
that's in a quiet band with no
competing background noise.
1882
01:28:28,570 --> 01:28:30,830
And third, you want a frequency
1883
01:28:30,870 --> 01:28:32,630
that's universally recognized,
1884
01:28:32,680 --> 01:28:37,010
like the frequency at which
interstellar hydrogen precesses,
1885
01:28:37,050 --> 01:28:40,210
to show the receiver that
you understand science
1886
01:28:40,250 --> 01:28:42,640
and are not just some random noise.
1887
01:28:42,690 --> 01:28:44,450
Well, guess what?
1888
01:28:44,490 --> 01:28:48,550
The "Wow!" signal's
frequency met all three of these.
1889
01:28:48,590 --> 01:28:51,090
1.42 gigahertz, which is a band
1890
01:28:51,130 --> 01:28:54,320
that astronomers call the waterhole.
1891
01:28:54,360 --> 01:28:55,460
They call it the waterhole
1892
01:28:55,500 --> 01:28:57,590
because it's like nature's gathering point
1893
01:28:57,630 --> 01:28:59,660
on the electromagnetic spectrum.
1894
01:28:59,700 --> 01:29:01,100
It's the obvious place
1895
01:29:01,140 --> 01:29:03,530
that intelligent interstellar communities
1896
01:29:03,570 --> 01:29:06,030
would come to meet and greet.
1897
01:29:06,080 --> 01:29:07,540
- Yeah, so I think we would choose
1898
01:29:07,580 --> 01:29:09,440
the waterhole frequency to reach out
1899
01:29:09,480 --> 01:29:11,570
to another intelligent species.
1900
01:29:11,610 --> 01:29:14,880
And that's because it
acts as sort of a window
1901
01:29:14,920 --> 01:29:16,010
like in a house.
1902
01:29:16,050 --> 01:29:17,510
You can't look through the walls of a house
1903
01:29:17,550 --> 01:29:20,050
but you can look through
the window of a house
1904
01:29:20,090 --> 01:29:22,220
and that's kind of how
this frequency works.
1905
01:29:22,260 --> 01:29:23,520
It's a window.
1906
01:29:23,560 --> 01:29:26,420
- An alien civilization might also choose
1907
01:29:26,460 --> 01:29:29,120
the waterhole frequency
to send a signal to us
1908
01:29:29,170 --> 01:29:32,140
because that is the frequency
that we would be listening to.
1909
01:29:32,570 --> 01:29:34,760
- So we actually know a lot
1910
01:29:34,800 --> 01:29:37,600
about how we are most likely to be visited.
1911
01:29:37,640 --> 01:29:40,600
For every one crewed alien spacecraft
1912
01:29:40,640 --> 01:29:42,440
that might ever come to Earth,
1913
01:29:42,480 --> 01:29:47,080
we'd expect visits from low
energy uncrewed probes first.
1914
01:29:47,120 --> 01:29:50,450
And for every un-crewed
alien probe that makes it here,
1915
01:29:50,490 --> 01:29:54,680
we'd expect many, many
radio telephone calls first.
1916
01:29:54,720 --> 01:29:58,890
So far we have exactly
one plausible candidate,
1917
01:29:58,930 --> 01:30:01,690
but it was very plausible.
1918
01:30:01,730 --> 01:30:04,760
And remember what an
incredibly inviting neighbor
1919
01:30:04,800 --> 01:30:06,040
Earth looks like.
1920
01:30:07,140 --> 01:30:09,660
On Earth only a few centuries ago,
1921
01:30:09,710 --> 01:30:11,700
everything was so far apart.
1922
01:30:11,740 --> 01:30:14,000
People hadn't even
heard of most other places,
1923
01:30:14,040 --> 01:30:15,840
let alone been able to visit them.
1924
01:30:15,880 --> 01:30:19,040
And when they did, just
as often it was with a sword
1925
01:30:19,080 --> 01:30:20,880
as it was with bread.
1926
01:30:20,920 --> 01:30:23,810
But today, we not only have jet planes,
1927
01:30:23,850 --> 01:30:25,580
we have the internet linking us all
1928
01:30:25,620 --> 01:30:28,620
into a single community in real time.
1929
01:30:28,660 --> 01:30:30,550
Anyone can go online and see
1930
01:30:30,590 --> 01:30:34,790
and speak to a human on
the other side of the planet.
1931
01:30:34,830 --> 01:30:37,660
Will we repeat this
model with other peoples
1932
01:30:37,700 --> 01:30:38,960
in the universe?
1933
01:30:39,000 --> 01:30:42,530
It's a possibility, but most
people in the history of Earth
1934
01:30:42,570 --> 01:30:44,800
have lived their lives and died
1935
01:30:44,840 --> 01:30:46,500
within just a few miles of the village
1936
01:30:46,540 --> 01:30:48,200
where they were born.
1937
01:30:48,240 --> 01:30:51,470
Physics tells us that
this is probably the fate
1938
01:30:51,510 --> 01:30:54,480
of most intelligent civilizations.
1939
01:30:54,520 --> 01:30:57,210
We don't have the power
to break the laws of physics,
1940
01:30:57,250 --> 01:31:00,680
but we do have the power
to keep our porch light on
1941
01:31:00,720 --> 01:31:02,630
and our welcome mat spread out.
1942
01:31:03,160 --> 01:31:04,720
[hopeful music]
1943
01:31:04,760 --> 01:31:07,490
So keep listening, keep sending,
1944
01:31:07,530 --> 01:31:09,920
keep hoping, and keep watching.
1945
01:31:09,970 --> 01:31:12,960
If we can do that, our
chances of eventually becoming
1946
01:31:13,000 --> 01:31:17,330
part of an interstellar
community of some kind are fair.
1947
01:31:17,370 --> 01:31:20,900
Friends we haven't met
yet are probably out there.
1948
01:31:20,940 --> 01:31:23,570
Some might well have their eye on us.
1949
01:31:23,610 --> 01:31:27,810
It might be 10,000 years from
now, or it might be tomorrow.
1950
01:31:27,850 --> 01:31:32,090
But that signal full of
data could come anytime.
1951
01:31:33,490 --> 01:31:34,850
I'm Brian Dunning.
1952
01:31:34,890 --> 01:31:36,330
Thank you for watching.
1953
01:31:37,830 --> 01:31:41,830
[hopeful music]
1954
01:31:51,210 --> 01:31:55,210
[energizing music]
157981
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.