Original subtitles

(Wind chimes)

(Beeping)

(Spooky music)

- I'm Shannon legro.

I host a podcast called into the fray.

And for most of my life,

I've been capturing history in a bottle.

No, not the history that we all grew up learning about

in school or reading about in the newspaper,

but the weird stuff, the bizarre, the strange.

I collect eye-witness stories

of people who've encountered the unreal,

and today begins my own search for one of

the biggest questions I've ever asked.

Are we alone?

(Exciting music)

So here's the deal,

unless you've been blissfully living under a rock

for the last decade,

you're probably aware that the world has gone crazy.

Politics, societal unrest, poverty, global relationships,

it's all in flux.

Social media has made it easier than ever

to express our disdain for each other,

while television news is a non-stop war

on any sense of well-being we may have otherwise managed

to convince ourselves of.

Wars are being raged across the middle east

while inner cities remain an ignored battleground

on our home soil.

In the last year, the us Navy admitted they were aware

of aerial phenomena that remains unidentifiable.

Former members of secret government-sanctioned organizations

who studied the ufo subject have come forward,

positioning the phenomenon as one of the go-to topics

of discussion for news anchors, radio hosts,

and late-night talk shows alike.

Pop culture is full of aliens.

While television execs have embraced the newfound popularity

by blanketing networks and shows

about men and women hunting flying saucers.

Where ufo debates used to rage in cavernous forums

hiding in the darkened recesses of the Internet,

today, the verbal battles erupt on Facebook and Twitter.

Somewhere in the middle of all this newfound attention,

something has been lost.

I no longer see the excitement over the unknown

that once inspired so many to look up to the skies.

When the us government is actively telling you

that ufos are real,

what's the sense in being curious about anything?

(Static)

(Exciting music)

I don't consider myself a ufologist or a researcher

or even an investigator, I collect stories.

When I was just a kid, I had something happen to me

that I found hard to explain or rationalize.

I had no one to really talk to about it.

I started wondering if maybe there were

other people out there like me,

other people who had witnessed something beyond the norm

who had no one they could share their experience with.

That's what set me on the path I'm on today.

I've been fascinated by strange objects in the sky

for ages now, since I was little,

and yet I've never encountered one for myself.

Over the next year, I'll be traveling the country

along with the documentary team from small town monsters

in search of stories and maybe a few answers

to some of my questions.

While there are a number of spooky, creepy stories

about encounters with little green men littering ufology,

it's not what drives me.

I'm driven by curiosity and by a desire

to learn more about the people who see these things.

People like Dan weiss.

- Nice to meet you. - Good, nice to meet you too.

- So, I guess walk us through the story

sort of from the beginning. - Okay.

It's a warm summer night, my sister Stacy,

she's a few years older than I am,

she says, "let's go for a walk."

So we take a walk and we go around the block here,

here's the house, we just go around the block

and we go over here, one street over,

and we start headin' down this hill

and we can see Belgrade gardens

out here, to the, you know, to my right.

And there's this big tree lyin' behind there.

And suddenly we saw it, and it's just like they describe

in books and videos, you know?

It's like a saucer.

And it's, it seems so crazy, but this thing's huge

and it's comin' from the south,

it's kinda higher up on the tree level, the tree line.

It's comin' from the south, it's kinda moving to the north

and it's coming down slowly as it goes.

Talking on the phone with my sister Lindy last night,

you know, like I said, she was so ecstatic about it,

like more into the story than I was.

I said that it was covered in lights, right?

I go, you know what it actually looks like was

that ride at the fair that's called the rotor,

you ever hear of that?

You get in, it spins super fast and you stick to the walls?

I said that ride looked like a spaceship,

because that's how they designed it to look like,

so, you know, and it's covered in lights, and she goes,

"that's exactly what it looked like."

Put that on a winch and threw it in the sky

for a few minutes, I don't know.

- Was there lights on, you know, around the whole thing

on the top and down and as well as underneath?

- No, I think it was, I don't think there was lights,

at least from my point of view,

I don't think there were lights on top or bottom,

I think it was just, you know, you've got, just in the.

I think it was in my field of vision

for six to eight seconds, so it was relatively slow-moving.

And it had kind of a humming noise,

like a light humming noise, you know?

Just covered in lights.

It seemed so silly to be covered in lights, you know?

Just everything is exactly how people describe it,

seeing a ufo.

But I think what gets me the most is,

whenever I've looked up videos or images of ufos,

I really don't ever see anything like I saw.

Usually it's like, you know, the video will be like

a series of lights way far out,

like you can't see any detail or anything.

And they're here and they're gone.

But this thing was clear and present and it was just (hums)

You know?

And it just slowly moved below the tree line

and it was gone.

- Dan has been keeping this story to himself

for almost 30 years.

In that span of time, the cultural landscape has changed

in so many ways.

Pop culture has elevated ufos into a position

where they're never far from our minds,

and yet the reality of what an actual encounter is like

has been ignored.

In the last two years,

the subject has been thrust into greater prominence

thanks to major news stories,

an expanding lineup of television shows covering the topic,

and a number of celebrities and political figures

who have involved themselves in the debate.

These days, few people are looking to the skies, though,

to satisfy their curiosity, and instead have turned

to personalities and figures for answers.

A far cry from the earliest days of ufo research.

But what brought us to where we are today?

(Eerie music)

- You know, thanks for doing this.

- Yeah, no problem.

Well, thanks for asking.

- And I'm gonna have my phone out, but I'm not texting...

- Alejandro rojas is a journalist who covers pop culture,

science fiction, and outer space-based topics,

with a focus on ufos and the search

for extraterrestrial life.

His focus at openminds. Tv is to cover the full breadth

of the subject and to objectively report on the latest news.

- How do you see, what's the biggest sort of difference

between where the ufo world or where the ufo subject sits

today compared to where it was say like,

20, 30, 40 years ago?

- 20, 30, 40 years ago, well 20 or 20 years ago or so,

when I first got into this,

it was kind of a low point for ufos.

It wasn't taken as seriously or covered as much,

not like today where we're in a very, very unique situation

where the government's talking about ufos,

the president has been talking about ufos

in a serious manner.

The credibility level of the subject is at a high point,

higher than it's been in a long time.

(Beeping)

- David weatherly is located in my hometown of Las Vegas.

He's a paranormal historian who has written a number

of books on a massive array of strange subjects.

He's extremely knowledgeable about

the ufo topic and its history.

- Modern ufology, and when I say modern,

I mean probably the last 10 years,

has taken some very curious twists and turns.

When we look at the modern state of things now,

the paranormal in general has become part of pop culture.

This is because of the rash of ghost hunting shows,

ufo shows, you know, that are on television.

So all of a sudden we've reached a point

where all of these topics become much more acceptable

and a bit less taboo.

What has happened in the midst of this evolution

in recent years is that not only has

the study of ufos, the topic of ufos become something

that's culturally acceptable, but a lot of other people

have come out into the open in the midst of that.

We have an amazing array of scientists,

of military officers, law enforcement,

a whole range of people who are coming forward

and either saying yes, I've had an encounter or, you know,

there's something much more to this topic

than meets the eye and it bears further study.

(Beeping)

- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

- Thank you.

- Ronald breiger isn't just a ufo investigator,

he's a bona fide rocket scientist

who has worked for Douglas aircraft,

which became mcdonnell Douglas prior to becoming boeing.

He was part of the team that launched

the saturn Apollo moon rocket and later,

his position as an engineer made him aware

of radar pings for unusual aerial phenomena

such as the Iran ufo in 1974 and the Phoenix lights.

Ronald was also employed at a secure area in Nevada

which is tied to the infamous area 51, known as s4.

Later, he would become the state director for one of

the largest organizations for looking into ufos,

the mutual ufo network, or mufon.

- How do you feel about the sort of change in ufology

from maybe where it was like 30, 40 years ago

to where it is today, how do you see the subject changing,

maybe in the public view?

- There's more acceptance of the phenomena now.

We're getting back to where it's a serious subject

and that may be because of Reagan's mentioning it

seven times in speeches

and I think Bill Clinton mentioned it a couple times.

- Do you think that makes it easier

for witnesses to come forward or, you know,

'cause of the ridicule factor maybe being lessened?

- Yeah, as long as it's not a ridicule.

I've had a lot of witnesses

who did not want to talk about it.

They wanted to talk to somebody

that it would be kept strictly confidential.

And that's why it was so important for us

to maintain confidentiality.

- If there's one characteristic that marked

the last 80 years of the subject,

it was probably the way experiencers have been greeted

with ridicule, consternation, or been simply ignored.

In the earliest days of ufology, many witnesses were met

with a genuine interest and even excitement by family,

friends, and even members of the press.

That changed very quickly, however,

when a scientific committee was formed at the behest

of the central intelligence agency, who, more than anything,

wanted the subject of flying saucers to simply go away.

This kicked off what would become a pattern

for the government's handling of the topic

for decades to follow, and indirectly or directly,

may have helped form the basis

for the treatment of witnesses.

While the robertson panel and subsequent projects

such as blue book did their utmost to debunk reports

of unidentified objects, they also helped to further

the false impression that witnesses are few and far between

and more often than not are just misidentifying

mundane craft or naturally-occurring atmospheric conditions.

Despite their best efforts, though,

people have learned that strange aerial phenomena

are being seen around the world

by ordinary people on a daily basis.

Dan weiss doesn't seem afraid of ridicule,

but it's taken him decades to understand that

what happened to him is part of something much bigger.

- Is it important to you that it's documented in some way,

or is it more like, whatever, you know,

like I'm gonna have it with me forever

'cause it's my story and...

- I think it's important in so much as that,

it'd be nice to know if there's anyone else

who saw something similar, or if they do in the future,

you can point back to this and say,

"okay, we've seen it before."

But...

I mean, that tree right there,

that big one that's takin' up most of the view?

We could've been right here, but...

- yeah.

- Maybe that tree, you know, 25 years removed,

is just a lot, it'd have to be, right?

Same with the big pine.

So... - So it's straight ahead?

- Yeah.

- Can we pull into that parking lot over there?

- Right on the corner there was like a path where you go in.

- How did you all feel about seein' it?

I mean, were you scared... - I ran in the house,

like I said, we had come around the, from over there,

we came back around the road, ran into our older sister,

second sister that saw this.

She said, "yeah, I've seen it."

And we talked to the neighbor of ours,

older yet, and he had been jogging,

and he said certainly he had seen it too.

I ran in the house, and I remember my dad was on the couch

right in the main room there.

And I woke him up out of his sleep and I said,

"you'll never believe what we saw."

You know, of course you're telling your 40 year old dad

that you just saw a ufo and (laughs) He said,

"why did you wake me up?"

- Is that pretty much really what he said?

- Pretty much, yeah.

(Mysterious music)

- Ryan sprague is an investigator

and author who lives in New York City.

Ryan and I started out together as hosts on my show,

into the fray.

Eventually he struck out on his own

and now hosts his own podcast called somewhere in the skies,

which was also the title of his first book on the subject.

Ryan was also featured on a recent cw television series

about the paranormal, but has since returned

to independently investigating and researching ufos.

- For decades, ufo researchers have been trying to

make what we do validated, make it legitimate.

And we always went to the government for that,

which is good and bad.

I always found it fascinating that ufo people

never believe the government,

but the minute they come forward and say,

"hey, ufos are real, we acknowledge they're real."

We're so quick to just accept that.

But the fact that the new York times broke this story

and we found out that there was a secret program,

we all thought it ended with project blue book.

- It was this guy, Lou elizando, who was investigating ufos

or researching them at the Pentagon,

he was a career intelligence officer.

He got hooked up with people in the government

who have been working in the paranormal arena for decades.

They were working together to essentially

investigate ufos for the government.

- Even us in the ufo community had no idea

that this program existed.

And that they actually brought evidence to the table

to show us these pretty captivating videos, I thought.

The tic tac ufo, in specific.

- In 2004, outside of, off the coast of San Diego,

there was an encounter by the nimitz carrier strike group.

They were catching on radar these objects.

At one point, they zero in some jets on the objects,

one of the jets approaches the object,

they saw some, you know, water churning,

above that water was an object

he said was about 40 feet long,

it was white, smooth, lozenge sort of shape,

he even calls it a tic tac,

it looked like a giant, flying tic tac.

He maneuvered toward this thing

and this thing began to match his maneuvers.

It was starting to get behind him,

which is a position you don't want

if you're a fighter pilot,

so he moved to get in front of this object

and the object took off at incredible speeds.

- The fact is, the government has been actively involved

in the ufo game going all the way back to the 1940's.

In 1952, project blue book was the name given

to the air force-operated study into the ufo phenomenon,

which was advised by j. Allen hynek,

an American astronomer and professor.

Blue book continued into the late 1960's

before it was shuttered,

but it's theorized that the air force,

along with other branches of the military

and the United States government,

continued investigating the subject.

In 2017, Luis elizondo confirmed these suspicions

by breaking his silence on the existence

of the advance aerospace threat identification program,

or aatip.

Elizondo left the secretive government-sanctioned group,

went public about its existence,

and then joined an enterprise called

to the stars academy of arts and sciences,

which counted many former

and some current government officials and scientific minds.

But the fact that to the stars counted so many

political figures amongst its ranks acted as a red flag

for many enthusiasts and historians alike.

But there might be more to this story

than simply a secret government-sanctioned look

into whether or not little green men are visiting earth,

and Greg bishop is just one of the people who has reason

to question the existing stories about aatip.

- Ttsa was formed in, I believe, October of 2017?

They had a press conference.

Tom delonge, former guitarist/songwriter from blink-182,

he apparently got in touch with a bunch of people,

former and maybe present government people,

military intelligence, and for some reason

they saw something in him and decided that maybe

they could form some kind of organization

that would be a private ufo study information-gathering,

basically a media empire.

To support itself so they could do this ufo research,

that was their story.

- Right now, elizondo,

who worked for the Pentagon investigating ufos,

he left and joined this group to the stars,

ran by rock star Tom delonge.

- So now we have a situation where, in,

gosh, in recent weeks even,

there have been all of these revelations

from government officials, we've heard about aatip,

we've heard about the fact that the Navy is looking at ufos.

- They gather together people from different parts

of the government, all, I think all retired.

All in intelligence and military intelligence

and some military.

The important part of their mission that they stated,

I mean, it's totally public, is they're trying to find out

what is going on with the ufo subject

to see if any part of the technology

or the apparent technology can be exploited

for profit, defense, both.

And as far as anybody knows, that's what they're doing.

I think they're doing far more than that

and they're not gonna talk about it,

but that's what everybody does.

You do anything, you don't tell everybody anything,

all that you're doing, because then you can't do your,

whatever you're gonna do.

- You know, their look at some of these significant cases

involving military accounts and so forth,

is really changing, I think,

how the public in general looks at ufos.

And it's interesting to me because, you know,

for years there's been a disclosure movement, but come on.

If the government came out tomorrow and said,

"we're going to disclose everything about ufos

"in a press conference, it's gonna take one hour."

Would you really believe that they were doing that?

It's going to be pretty fascinating

to see where things go from here

because I think there's been so much attention

put on the topic of ufos now

that we've finally reached a zenith point

where we can't really go back, you know?

We can't suddenly close the curtain and say,

"no, never mind, nothing was going on."

They did that with blue book, but it worked back then,

it won't work now.

(Mysterious music)

- So we have a celebrity rock star heading up

what could very well become the impetus for disclosure.

It's strange for sure, but far from the weirdest thing

to ever happen to the field of ufo study.

In my short time involved in all of this,

I've come to see a dramatic shift

in the way people react to one another online.

Whether it's the number

of former government officials involved

or the murkiness of what their true agenda might be,

to the stars academy is creating a debate.

But why debate the true merits and motives of a group

of scientists, politicians, and celebrities at all?

Isn't this simply shifting the focus away

from where it should be to begin with?

The further one wades into the current state

of the ufo field, the more it seems to me

that there is a disconnect between the people

who have actually encountered a ufo

and the personalities, agendas, and gossip

that has built up around the subject.

- The peer review used to be people talking

to each other in journals,

now it's fighting on social media,

that's basically (laughs) That's basically ufology now.

At least most of it.

Just people yelling at each other on social media

and arguing about stuff that's probably not that important.

- The ridicule factor has played a very large role

in keeping people quiet.

A large reason why they don't at least publicly engage

in this sort of topic is because they're afraid of

the ridicule factor and this hurting their credibility.

And so often scientists will remain anonymous,

and the issue with that is,

even though individual scientists may be interested,

scientists are not the ones with the big bank roll.

They're not the people with all the instrumentation,

these are organizations and institutions.

And those are the people who have to wanna

be able to get involved in order to, you know,

put all these resources towards figuring something out.

- It's exciting.

I think for a lot of us it's a new shift

in how the public, overall, looks at ufos.

- What is that, that shift?

- I think the public's perception of the ufo phenomenon

is now acknowledgement.

That ufos exist.

That had been a question for so long.

Just getting the government to say that,

they would never do that.

And then, boom, out of nowhere it happens.

They said ufos exist, now the question is, I think,

what are they?

Who's in control of them?

And most importantly, I think, what do they want?

- You get an understanding of what the phenomenon is doing

and what it's about by dealing with people

that it's affected.

That gives you an insight into what's going on.

Just being, just trying to heal them and help them

and listen and be sympathetic,

that's a huge part of the ufology thing

that nobody's really talked about,

it's not argued about on forums or anything,

but the element of, you know, what happens to people?

How does it affect them?

And how do they, if they need to, recover from it?

You know?

I wanna talk to them about what happened later,

I wanna talk to them about how it made them feel,

I wanna talk to them about how it changed their lives,

and I wanna talk to them about how they feel about it now

and if they've been able to go on with life.

Because I think, one, that helps the person,

which is the most important thing, and two, like I said,

it gives you an insight into the phenomenon

that you wouldn't have had before,

and that oblique insight is a lot more important than,

you know, to me than what color was it?

How fast did it go?

What, you know, what direction did it go?

Who cares about that stuff?

That could be interesting, but we have tons of data.

Nobody's really done anything with it,

at least that gives us any answers,

so maybe the answers lie in the interaction between people

and the phenomenon itself.

- Do you, even at your own house, though,

do you still sometimes look up and,

I mean, did it ignite any kind of an interest in this

more so than maybe... - Yeah, I'm always...

- You think you would've had? - Yeah.

I'm always interested in,

I don't know if I have to say space travel or something,

but I'm always interested in space.

And I do look up in the sky and I, she's crawling now.

I do look up at the sky and say, wow, how cool would it be

if I could see something like that again?

Hey, thanks for calling me back.

- Sure.

- So... - Telling him how...

I'm a little unsure of what I've seen.

How cool was it that you had seen it too,

being older that, that kinda reassured me

when I was thinking i'd saw, like, you know?

- Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

- Would you have a second to kind of tell me what you saw?

'Cause they're actually recording too,

and I thought it'd be cool.

It makes the story so much more credible

when you have someone else telling it, you know?

- I had just gone for a walk around the block

and I was by myself.

I was headed up the road and I saw something

that looked very much like a typical ufo with lights

and it was just a quick

something out of the corner of my eye,

and I thought that's crazy, that, you know.

But I couldn't explain what else it was, though,

and I kinda shrugged it off.

And then you and Stacy were walking towards me,

maybe three or four minutes later,

and she was all worked up and said that you guys

had just seen a ufo and I said well, I saw something also,

but I, I, you know, I don't know what it was,

but I laughed at the thought

that's kinda what my thought was too.

And I was trying to talk all of us

out of thinking that's what it was

when a complete stranger jogging by overheard us and said,

"no, she's right, and you're right, I saw it also."

Well I immediately started to, in my own head, you know,

my first reaction was,

what the heck was that that looked like a ufo?

And then I thought to myself, "you're an idiot,

"those things aren't real." - Right.

- And I kinda laughed to myself,

but then when Stacy was all worked up,

I started thinking we really did see something,

but it is hard to remember details.

You know, it's been 25 years ago.

But it's something that I've never forgotten

and occasionally I have brought it up

and shared with my friends that, you know,

there was this one time where a few of us saw something.

- Right, so have I.

Do you ever, I mean, when you look at the sky, are you,

'cause like, every now and then I look.

Especially when I go past this area I kinda think real quick

like, oh, it'd be cool if I just saw something.

Or do you ever wonder if there is something back there?

Like maybe there's like some underground thing

where they keep these things or do you,

do you think it was government or do you, what do you think?

- No, I mean, late at night, if there's a plane,

if you catch a flashing light, it does,

sometimes it triggers that memory.

Because planes at night have different color lights

and that sort of thing.

- Well, thanks for letting me talk to you about it,

I appreciate you 'cause, like I said,

without someone else's testimony I'm kind of out here,

pointing at the sky and i'm like, yep, saw it. (Laughs)

But when you have someone else,

especially someone who was older,

especially considering I was only nine years old,

it helps bring a lot of credibility

to the story and everything.

- No, we all saw something, so.

I really couldn't be certain what it was,

but we all saw something that day.

- I think so too, all right, thanks Lindy.

- Okay, no problem. - Talk to you later.

- Okay, bye-bye. - Bye.

(Tense music)

- I guess if there's one thing I've learned so far,

it's to start putting the focus back on the people.

Not just the people who are investigating or researching,

but the people who have had experiences

with something they don't understand.

Lost in all the hype over Navy tic tacs and media empires

are the witness experiences

and the motivations behind the people

who look into these subjects.

This time, I'm not just attempting to prove

to myself that ufos exist, and for once,

I'm not simply collecting stories.

I'm gathering data from as many sources as possible

in as many ways as I can.

When it's all over, I hope I can look back

at a year-long trek across the us

and have some answers to the questions

that so many people have become too distracted to ask.

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

- The oldest sightings I'm aware of

are probably in the 1700's.

- There's lights in a delta formation, like this.

And as just a pitch-black craft,

perfect equilateral triangle.

- The last report I received was from a boeing crewman.

And so one of these moai craft hovering over their tarmac.

(Exciting music)

(Suspenseful music)