All language subtitles for Cosmosis - UFOs & A New Reality (2024) - S01E02 - Secret Potential

[Woods] Ellsworth Air Force
Base, 1977, South Dakota.

My initial reporting of the
incident that morning in 1977

we can call it November 16th:

Upon the completion
of all the testing

and the medical examination
and everything I went to,

and back in that
commander's office

when Captain Reed gave Colonel
Spraker this information,

or gave him this form, which I
was to review, look at and sign

before I could leave his office.

Said I would never
release the information.

As long as I was working
in this career field,

I wouldn't talk to any type
of media personnel,

I would not relay this
information to any spouse,

to brothers, my family, or
any other service member.

And there were repercussions,

as it was being
so-called classified

at that moment in time.

Which I upheld my end of it
and never released it

and never stated
or talked about it

or didn't mention anything
to anybody about it.

I was made to feel as if
I had done something wrong.

I was made to feel as if,

had I done anything
other than what I was told,

there would be
serious repercussions.

[theme music playing]

[dramatic music playing]

[King] Once a person recognizes there's a
fundamental reality to the UFO phenomenon,

they naturally find themselves faced
with some pretty disturbing questions.

How could something so profound and so
widespread escape our notice until now?

Why don't more people
know about this?

How did we find ourselves
in this position?

And what else are we
being lied to about?

None of these questions
have easy answers,

and they force you to completely reevaluate
your basic meaning-making models

from the ground up.

If you follow this line
of inquiry far enough,

you end up asking even
more profound questions,

like how do I know what I know?

How do I know what is true?

And what forces exist in the
world, or even beyond it,

that might have an interest in
shaping how we perceive our reality?

[Chase] Humans as a species have an
enormous amount of collective knowledge,

cultivated over
thousands of years.

No one person could
possibly know everything,

much less be able to independently
verify all of that knowledge

to confirm that it's accurate.

And we don't need to.

We learn the things that we need
to learn to be effective

in our daily lives
and in our careers,

and we put our trust in other people who
are experts in the things that we aren't.

I don't need to know how to fix my car's
transmission, because my mechanic does.

I don't need to know how to fix a
broken arm, because my doctor does.

And the fact that we're able to specialize
in things and rely on each other in that way

is why humans are able to do
things like go to the moon

and build bridges, and
discover quantum mechanics.

It's a great system.

And for the most part,
it works really well.

We've developed ways of managing
these vast stores of information

while keeping the overall quality
of that data pretty high.

And we do that by
vesting our trust

in certain institutions
that serve as authorities.

In our culture, the main authorities
on this collective knowledge

are the government,
the media and academia.

And one of the things
that is so challenging,

and even disturbing, about recognizing
the reality of the UFO phenomenon

is that, if it's real and we all
were led to believe that it wasn't,

then it means that there has been
a pretty catastrophic failure

of our legacy institutions to do the
jobs that we created them to do.

[Madden] When we start to
realize that maybe, in fact,

there's things that we have been
deceived about very systematically,

and that our common sense,

our basic, you know, sense-making
criteria that we need to operate by,

our basic sense of what's
possible or impossible,

if we start to get a sense that
that's not entirely innocent

and that it's indeed been
the product of secrecy,

it's been the product of
manipulation, etc., etc.,

what that's doing is, it's going
to then make it difficult for us

to participate in anything
without a kind of cynicism,

without a sense
of a loss of agency.

All the things that we associate

with this sort of post-truth
environment that we hear about now,

I don't think we can blame it only on
secrecy, but that's one part of it,

is, as, you know, we've come
through the last several decades

and we've come to see that,

"Oh, it looks like we kind of
were deceived about this.

We were kind of
deceived about that.

It seems that, oh, they played with us
on this, they played with us on that,"

well, we human beings
are social animals,

and we need to be able to trust
other people as truth tellers.

We need to be able to trust
an environment of information.

We can't do every inquiry
on our own.

We have to stand on other
people's shoulders.

But the more secrecy there is

about matters relevant to us
at a fundamental level,

the harder it is for us
to have that trust

that is absolutely inherent
to human information-seeking,

to human knowledge.

[King] When did it start?

To answer that, we need to go
back nearly a hundred years

to the dawn of the
modern UFO era.

[Elizondo] So this secrecy around-- I won't
even say UFOs. --around the anomalous,

I mean, it really goes back
to at least as early as 1933.

It goes back right to
the very beginning.

It was born secret, sort
of like the atomic bomb.

In fact, one of the earliest
memos comes from Canada,

where an intelligence
officer said the matter

is classified higher
than the H-bomb, right?

And so secrecy goes back
to the very beginning.

It's baked in, just like
the Manhattan Project.

[Chase] Ironically, one of the best
pieces of evidence that we have

for the existence of the UFO
phenomenon is the secrecy itself,

for which there exists
an extensive paper trail

dating back to the very dawn of the
modern UFO phenomenon in 1947.

On September 23rd, 1947,
just three months

after the Kenneth Arnold sighting in
Washington and the infamous Roswell crash,

General Nathan F. Twining, who was
the head of the Air Material Command

at Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base,

wrote a memo to the commanding
general of the Army Air Forces

in which he states that
flying saucers are, quote,

"something real and not
visionary or fictitious,"

and that they posed a potential
threat to national security.

And interestingly, this memo was written
just five days after the passing

of the National Security Act
of 1947, which created the CIA

and split off the Air Force into
its own branch of the military.

So we have every indication

that the sudden
appearance of UFOs in the

American airspace was being
taken very seriously

at the highest levels
of government

from the very first moment that they
appeared in the public awareness.

And yet, at the same time that the U.S.
military intelligence apparatus

was rallying resources
to meet this threat,

the government was telling
people that UFOs aren't real,

that what crashed at Roswell
was just a weather balloon,

and basically that there's
nothing to see here.

So just by looking at the government's
own declassified documents,

without stretching
into conspiracy theories,

it's clear that the government
has been lying

to the American public
about UFOs

since the very beginning.

[King] Also dating back to 1947,

we have a string of
government-funded programs

that were ostensibly charged with investigating
the UFO phenomenon scientifically

and reporting their findings,

starting with Project Sign,
which became Project Blue Book,

and extending through
to the present day

with programs like AATIP
and the UAP Task Force.

A consistent theme
among these programs

is that in basically
every instance,

leaders of these programs were
highly trained, respected scientists

and military intelligence
officials who came forward

to say that they weren't given
the access or the resources

that they needed
to actually do their jobs.

And in many cases, they were expected
to come up with prosaic explanations

for UFO reports, even
when there were none.

This is where the infamous "swamp
gas" explanation comes from.

So right from the very beginning,
we have this indication

that not only is the government
lying about the existence of UFOs,

but that major efforts have been made to
influence what the public thinks about them,

something that is known as
"perception management."

[Chase] And unfortunately,

as has been the case with all of
the other public-facing programs

that have been tasked with
investigating the UFO phenomenon,

the most recent, AARO,
seems to be more invested

in managing how the public
perceives the topic

than it is in doing the work to
figure out what's actually going on.

For example, AARO spent $100,000
on a joint UAP study with NASA

but invested 1.9 million
contracting an agency

that is commonly used by
the Department of Defense

to help with things like PR,
perception management,

and counterintelligence.

That says a lot about
where their priorities are.

[Elizondo] I think when we're talking about
secrecy, there is sort of this question of,

"How could they possibly
have done it." Right?

"How is it possible that
they've kept it secret?"

And the short answer is,
they haven't kept it secret.

People have been talking about
this since the 1950s, right?

Even high-level people.

The first head of the
Central Intelligence Agency

was a member of a UFO group
after he retired.

Like, from the very beginning,

people have been
talking about this.

It hasn't been kept secret.

What's happened is, we don't have
permission to talk about it.

[King] The role that stigma plays in the
UFO cover-up really can't be overstated.

Because without the stigma, a cover-up of
this scale simply wouldn't be possible.

It's just too big of a
secret to be contained.

The only way to keep something
like this under wraps

is to hide it in plain sight,

which is exactly what
the stigma makes possible.

We have decades of
declassified documents,

not just from our government but
from governments around the world,

indicating that this
phenomenon is real.

There have been millions
of sightings around the world.

If you haven't
seen one personally,

you definitely know at least
one credible person who has.

And as a result,
the UFO phenomenon

has become deeply enmeshed
in our art, our media,

and our modern-day lore.

In a very real way,
none of this is secret.

We've just been conditioned
to ignore it,

to not take it seriously,

and to doubt the sanity
of anyone who does.

The secrecy and stigma around the UFO
phenomenon has a very real and human cost

for experiencers of all kinds.

But these impacts have
been particularly felt

by groups of people who
are most likely to run

into these things in the
course of their work,

namely pilots, astronauts
and members of our military.

What's considered to be the very
first UFO sighting of the modern era

was reported by a pilot,
Kenneth Arnold,

while he was flying his plane
near Mount Rainier.

The first responders to the
Roswell crash a few weeks later

were military pilots from the
509th Bombardment Group.

So from the very beginning,
these are the people

who have been both on the front lines
of contact with the phenomenon

while simultaneously being swept
up in the secrecy around it.

[King] Part of the reason
that the testimonies

of military pilots like Ryan
Graves and David Fravor

have been so central to the UFO
conversation over the last few years

is because, frankly, these
are exceptional people.

A new F-18 Super Hornet
costs about $65 million,

so they aren't just gonna let
anyone get into that cockpit.

These pilots are highly
trained observers

who've been selected
for their acute senses

and their ability to function at a high
level in the most extreme environments.

So when someone
like that tells you

that they saw something in the
sky that they can't explain,

that testimony
carries extra weight,

or at least it should.

But unfortunately, because there's been so
much stigma and secrecy around the issue,

many pilots have been afraid to
come forward with UFO sightings

for fear of how it might
impact their careers.

[Whiteley] There is a precedent
for people reporting the UAP

and then losing their job
or losing the rights to fly.

So they have to process
that aspect of,

"Would somebody think
I'm imagining things?

And if I'm imagining, then
I'm not healthy, in a way, to--

You know, my visual perception
or interpretation of what it is,

imagining things might affect
my flight license next year

or something like that."

So this is the realm
of a problem

of where they're afraid
to report it

because they've seen the precedent of
other people being punished, in a way.

Some would lose jobs,

some would lose
professional standing

because other people just, you
know, say, "You've imagined it."

[Chase] And it's not just pilots
that have to worry

about an encounter with something
anomalous costing them their career.

Members of the military,

and particularly anyone who
holds a security clearance,

are at risk of losing
their jobs as well,

simply for telling the truth
about what they saw.

[Woods] When I left
the Air Force there,

I went to work for the United
States Department of Energy.

My clearance took an extraordinarily
long time, approximately eight months.

And it had me quite nervous, you know,
when I would receive this Q clearance.

And during that time
in waiting for it,

I got called in to the Pinellas
area office three times.

And every time I was called in, the
questioning was pretty much the same.

"Was there something
that happened to you

in the United States Air Force
that we don't know about?"

And I knew exactly where
they were going with it.

They were always after
what I saw out that window.

'Cause had I again have
said what I saw out

that window of the right
side of that vehicle,

I would no longer
have had a clearance.

And if you lose your clearance,
you lose your job.

Because if you're uncleared,

you cannot carry a weapon
in a DOE facility, period.

You're done.

[King] But the problem goes beyond
just the potential to lose your job

if you report a UFO sighting.

Because as any experiencer can tell
you, encountering the phenomenon

isn't something that just happens
in one moment and then it's over.

These experiences often have
a profound impact on people.

They can cause sweeping changes to
your beliefs and your worldview.

They can trigger other
anomalous events,

strange dreams and
even psi abilities.

These are things that can be extremely
distressing and destabilizing for a person,

especially when they
can't talk about it.

[Whiteley] People don't just
experience it in flight.

There are other experiences
that they're not even reporting

that happens outside
that time frame,

the professional time frame.

Is then that phenomenon
starts to appear in their life,

where synchronicities happen
or coincidences happen.

And we don't see that part
of the report.

[Woods] So I had to go
make a phone call,

and my wife had to come get me.

And, you know, there were no cell
phones back then or anything like that.

So she came to pick me up,

and she was really,
really concerned

because I should have been out
there another two and a half days.

See, and all of a sudden I'm back,
and she just came to pick me up.

So that was really strange, and I
couldn't explain, you know, what, why.

Yeah, I couldn't
explain it, so...

But I did in a way, you know,

and she just looked at me
like I was nuts or something.

[chuckles]

And so we went back to Hainesway
Apartments, where we lived,

and then the dreams started

and the desire, or the need,
to find out about pyramids.

I don't know where
that came from.

I'd never really been that
interested in them before,

but I had to find out every single thing I
could find out about these things, you know,

and where they're located
and everything about them.

And dreams of annihilation,
atomic blasts,

tsunamis, you name it.

I mean, none of it
would go away.

[Whiteley] What is interesting, I feel,
about the UAP or the phenomena itself

is that it impacts us on internal
understanding how the world works.

The people I spoke with

and the reports that you see
of people talking about this,

you know, online, and
pilots discussing it,

including the pilots on Ryan
Graves' podcast, Merged,

they're saying that it
impacted them so much

that they couldn't sleep,
they couldn't rest,

they couldn't understand
what is happening.

How could it be possible?

Because some of them are
aeronautical engineers,

and they understand the
complexity, you know,

to actually perform
that function.

So then they start to wonder,
you know, what that is.

And it kind of leads them
in a direction of investigation.

And sometimes it becomes
preoccupying line of inquiry.

[Woods] In PTSD evaluations,
there is no box to check

for a UFO/UAP incident
of any type.

So whatever they grant
from that point forward

is just something that somebody either
feels for you or doesn't feel for you.

And either they check a box
that helps you

or they check a box
that says "no deal."

Just that simple.

There's really nothing for the
individual that's had an incident.

Granted, those that have been injured
from wartime accidents or whatever,

or anything like that,
I totally give that to them.

But for this type of
incident, an object,

you know, on a nuclear
missile site,

whether you received burns,
whether you received anything

from the presence
of these things,

to not be able to
evaluate a person fairly,

other than standard testing of,
like, hearing or joint movement

or vision or anything like that,

they have no idea...

of how the individual
relates to that,

to an incident such as that.

They wouldn't know
how to relate to it.

But yet they're the people
judging you, which is wrong.

[Chase] It's clear that there is
a human cost

to the stigma and the secrecy that's
associated with the UFO phenomenon.

But there's an even darker
and more insidious harm

that can come to people
as a result of this secrecy.

Because so little is
known about UFOs,

and because there's so much lore
built up around them,

intelligence officials have been known
to exploit people's belief in UFOs

to cover up other things that
they're also trying to keep secret,

while simultaneously
sowing disinformation

among researchers
in the community.

One of the most notorious
examples of this

comes from the tragic case
of a man named Paul Bennewitz.

And most of what we know
about the Bennewitz

case comes from the
researcher Greg Bishop,

who wrote a book about this
incident called Project Beta.

[Bishop] In Project Beta,

I wanted to find out
what happened

to electrical physicist
Paul Bennewitz

in the late 1970s, early '80s, when
he saw some experiments going on

at Kirtland Air Force Base
in Albuquerque

and came to believe that it was
some kind of alien invasion.

[King] Kirtland Air Force Base
is well known to be a place

where some of our most
cutting-edge technology is tested.

During the time period
discussed in Project Beta,

that probably included things like early
drones, EMPs and laser technology.

Paul Bennewitz lived
next door to the base,

and at night, he'd
go out on his porch.

He'd see strange lights
rising up off the ground,

flying over behind a mountain,
then dropping down behind it.

He became fascinated with this
and started filming it.

Bennewitz had a longtime
interest in UFOs.

He was a member of the Aerial
Phenomena Research Organization

and began to suspect that what he
was seeing were alien spacecraft.

Being a good citizen, he called up the Air
Force base to tell them what he was seeing.

[Bishop] But instead of saying

kind of cease and desist,
they said,

"Why don't you keep in touch with
us and tell us what you're seeing?

Why don't you report back
to us what's going on?

We're very interested."

And they weren't interested
because it was aliens.

They were interested because
they wanted to know what he saw

and what he was thinking
about what it was, and what--

Who else could see it, and who
was communicating with him.

Like somebody could write
from somewhere and say,

"I'm a UFO researcher.
What are you seeing?"

And if he's seeing
something secret

or something
they don't want out,

he could communicate that inadvertently
to Russians or Chinese or whoever.

And that's what they were worried
about, so they kept in touch with him.

[Chase] What's so shocking
about the Bennewitz case

is that these military
intelligence officials

didn't just keep in
touch with Bennewitz to

monitor what he was seeing
or what he was up to.

They went to some pretty bizarre
lengths to encourage him in believing

that what he was witnessing was part
of some kind of an alien invasion.

[Bishop] One of the intelligence
agencies, I think it was the NSA,

set up a facility
across the street

from Bennewitz's house or
very near in the neighborhood

and beamed information into a
receiving antenna that he had built

and into a computer that
the Air Force had given him.

But it started decoding
messages about,

"We need," you know, "resources from the
planet." "We need to find a new home."

Just various scenarios.

And he believed these things

because it fit in with
his preconceptions.

So his ideas about it got
more and more paranoid,

more and more delusional.

The Air Force security people
and other people on the base

did not care that was going on.

As long as he didn't reveal
anything that was going on

on the base, they
really didn't care.

They didn't care about
his mental state.

They didn't care about what
was going on in his life.

And it got to the point
where he--

His family got so worried
for his mental health,

they actually had him put in a mental-health
facility for a couple of months.

[Elizondo] I think it's really
important to look at these cases,

and there are many beyond
just the Bennewitz case,

to highlight the fact that there are
people who work for the government,

who, seemingly, their entire job
is to ruin people for a living.

And that's a problem.

[Bishop] I wrote the book Project
Beta not to debunk things

or to shore up the
government's point of view

or anything like that, all these
things I've been accused of.

It was basically: "This
is what happened.

This is what can happen.

This is what happens when
you don't verify information

or believe things that you want to believe
rather than something that's verifiable,

and it can turn into a vicious
circle and make you crazy.

And it has done this
to various people

at various times since Bennewitz

and I think probably a
little before him too."

That case eventually
became famous

because it illustrated how the military
was involved with the UFO subject

in a way that most people
hadn't thought of before.

They just thought it was
this weird cover-up.

"We don't want people
to know about UFOs."

It's, you know: "We know
about it and you don't,

and we don't want you
to know about it."

This was something
completely different.

It had to do with
national security

and intelligence and
related subjects,

weapons development,
things like that.

And I think people
have to realize

that when the government is
involved with the UFO subject,

it's not often to let people in on
or cover up any kind of UFO reality.

It's because they're using it
as a tool.

They're using it as a tool
to do other things

that have nothing to do with
the UFO subject whatsoever.

As a friend of mine said,

when UFO researchers get excited
about something from the government,

they don't realize that every time that
happens, they think it's about them.

It's not about them.

It's about things that have nothing
to do with their interest in UFOs.

But it's a really nice tool
because it's so ambiguous

and it's so full of belief

and so full of people that are very
easily led into other directions.

So it's a very sticky subject.

And I think the warning was,

"Beware of people from the
government bearing gifts,"

because it often means that they
want to direct your attention.

They don't want to tell you
what's going on with UFOs

or reveal anything to you.

By design, it's all
smoke and mirrors

when you're looking
to these projects.

If you're confused
and you're lost,

it's because the people who
do this are great at their jobs.

These are not
unintelligent people.

They have unlimited
amounts of money,

sometimes six to seven times
the budget for the project

is how much they can
spend on security.

They've been perfecting this
for decades.

They're not craftsmen of
disinformation, they're artists.

[King] There's another, even more
perplexing, side to the secrecy

that goes beyond the nuts and bolts
of things like nonhuman craft

and secret weapons technology.

Strangely, that secret seems to be very
closely tied to human consciousness,

to who we are and what
we are capable of doing.

[Elizondo] So there's this incredible
secrecy that's been around UAP technologies

and potentially even, you know,
these flesh-and-blood entities

that are associated with them
right from the very beginning.

And at the same time,

there's something else that's been
associated with the phenomenon

right from the get-go, right?

And that's human potential,

and specifically ESP,
telekinesis,

and all sorts of other "psycho-energetic
phenomena," we'll call them.

These things that are supposed
to be comic-book things, right?

[Chase] There are many people
who are completely resistant

to the idea that UFOs could have
anything to do with consciousness

or the paranormal, what
people often call "woo."

But the reality is that it's impossible
to separate UFOs from the woo.

If you eliminate the woo from the
conversation, in a very real way,

you aren't really talking about
the UFO phenomenon anymore.

We know this not just because of the way
that these encounters with these things

impact and interact with
human consciousness

on both the individual
and cultural levels,

but because the very history
of ufology itself

is inextricably linked to the
mysteries of consciousness.

If you do a little digging,
you quickly realize

that many, if not most,
of the people

who have been at the very heart
of ufology for decades,

and who are still prominent
names in the field today,

aren't just interested in UFOs.

In fact, that seems to be
just one piece of the puzzle.

They're also deeply involved in the
study of things like psi phenomena,

near-death experiences,
out-of-body experiences,

and what one might call
"the soul."

And yet these are things that
are very rarely spoken about

and are often ridiculed within the
current disclosure discourse.

You have to ask yourself, "Why?"

[Pasulka] So early in my experience
of, you know, shifting my research

from Catholic ascent narratives

to modern reports
of UFO encounters,

there were a lot of people
that reached out to me.

And one of the people that
reached out to me was Tyler,

in my book American Cosmic.

And he's a mission controller,

and he works for
the Space Force.

And he had some really
interesting hobbies,

which was, how he told me, looking
at UFO parts and things like that.

Honestly, I didn't believe him.

I thought it was kind of crazy, right?
I was like, "Okay."

But I'm trained to
understand, right,

people have differing beliefs.
And this was his belief.

[King] Two of the central figures
of Diana's book American Cosmic

are Tyler and James.

These aren't their real names.

They're aliases she assigned to
them to protect their identities,

because both Tyler and James
are essentially members

of what Jacques Vallee has referred
to as the Invisible College,

which is a loosely associated group
of scientists and researchers

who study the UFO phenomenon
but often do so in secrecy,

mostly to protect their
reputations and careers.

Since the book was released,

Dr. Garry Nolan, who's the chair of the
Pathology Department at Stanford University

and one of the world's preeminent
scientists in his field,

has come forward to
acknowledge that he is James.

Tyler still has not publicly
identified himself,

but he's a longtime high-level
member of the space program,

as well as a wildly successful
biotech entrepreneur.

Diana gave him the name Tyler after
Tyler Durden from Fight Club

because she sees the
world that he lives in

as existing by the same
primary rule of Fight Club,

which is that you
don't talk about it.

[Pasulka] He said he was
interested in talking to me

because the next frontier

or the next breakthrough
in his field

would come from my field.

And I was very confused
when he first told me that.

Now I understand
why he said that,

now that I see what's
going on, right?

But that was early on,
and I thought,

"How can something that has to do
with nuts-and-bolts rocket technology

come from my field,
religious studies?"

[Chase] Through Tyler, we get a
glimpse into a very strange world

where bleeding-edge science,
human potential,

and communication with nonhuman
intelligences seems to collide.

After the trauma of witnessing his friend
and mentor, astronaut Judy Resnick,

die in the Challenger
explosion in 1986,

Tyler went through a profound
personal transformation.

As a result of this, he
found that he suddenly

had ideas for complex
scientific experiments

that needed to be conducted in the
zero-gravity environment in space.

But these didn't feel
like regular ideas.

They came to him fully formed,

in a way that felt more
like a memory.

And when these experiments
were done in space,

they went the way that he
knew that they would go,

and they led to major
breakthroughs.

So Tyler started to work on
this new ability that he had

to access information
that he calls "downloads,"

information that he believes comes
to him from off-world intelligences.

He started a biotech company,

and the types of technology and innovation
that he claims to have downloaded

have made him a very rich man.

[Pasulka] So one of the
things that I learned

early on was that a lot
of the people in the--

Related to the space program, but also a lot
of the people that I was interacting with

who were experiencers and
were super high-functioning,

like Dr. Garry Nolan
and people like that,

they would be utilizing
things like the--

I call them the "protocols" because
that's what they appeared to be to me.

So-- And I'm very familiar with them
because, in religious traditions,

some of the high-functioning
people in a church

would also have these
kinds of protocols.

They were monks or they were nuns,
and they lived a certain way,

and they ate a certain way,
you know, and it was--

It was a way of living

that allowed them to be very
creative and high-functioning.

And I noticed that Tyler
had his own set of

these protocols that he
lived by and utilized.

And so I focused on that,

and I actually
asked him about it.

And he didn't know, really--

He didn't see any connection
between how he was living

and the really amazing
technologies that he was creating

until I pointed it out to him.

I said, "Well, you're not
the only one who does this.

Actually, there's
a long tradition,

especially in the space program,
by the way."

[Chase] The protocols have become
a major part of Diana's research,

and she occasionally
offers classes on them.

And I was lucky enough
to take one.

And what's really striking
to me about these protocols

is that, first of all,
they work.

If you follow these protocols, it does
seem to unlock a deep well of creativity

and a profound sense
of purpose for people.

And many people
report experiencing

a kind of synchronistic
orchestration in their work,

where people and ideas
and resources come to them

at exactly the right moment
to propel them forward.

And second is that,
at least on their surface,

these protocols
are really simple.

Things like getting
a lot of sleep,

drinking a lot of water,
getting a lot of sun,

meditating, doing
intense exercise,

and abstaining from alcohol,
drugs and caffeine.

But as easy
as those things sound,

when you try to follow them all,

you quickly realize that every
aspect of our modern lives

seems to be set up to incentivize
us to not do those things.

It's actually really hard.

And it makes you wonder:

What might humans
be capable of doing

if our lives weren't seemingly
set up to cut us off

from this source of
creativity and innovation?

[King] It's not just scientists
and members of the space program

who are interested in these types
of abilities and these protocols.

Intelligence agencies
have been aware of

and have been investing considerable
resources into these areas for decades.

And what's fascinating is
that many of the people

who were involved in the creation
of these secret programs

focused on psi phenomena

were founded by people whose names are very
familiar to those in the UFO community.

People like Hal Puthoff, Russell
Targ, Ingo Swann and many more

were involved in these programs
from the very beginning.

Hi, I'm Paul H. Smith.
I'm a retired Army major.

Was in the remote viewing
program for seven years

and associated with remote
viewing ever since then.

[Chase] Most people are very surprised
to learn that, for decades,

the U.S. government invested in the
development and use of psychic abilities

to aid in their
intelligence efforts.

But it's true.

That program went by a lot of
different names over the years,

but the most commonly used
is the Stargate Project.

The Stargate Project
was a secret Army unit

that was established at
Fort Meade in the 1970s

by the DIA and SRI
International.

And one of their main functions
was the use of remote viewing

to obtain intelligence information
that they were having trouble getting

through more traditional means.

[Smith] People often wonder
what remote viewing is.

It's a skill based off of
extrasensory perception.

So commonly, being psychic.

But remote viewing is
actually a specific skill

as to how to access
that underlying

consciousness-based
psychic ability

that, in fact, every human has.

They just don't realize it
all the time.

And it allows a remote viewer to
perceive, describe, experience

distant locations to which they have
no-- Otherwise no sensory access.

It allows them to perceive objects
or things that are shielded.

I mean, for example,
inside a bank vault,

inside an opaque envelope
or whatever.

And interestingly enough, it also gives
remote viewers, us, access to time as well.

A remote viewer can describe
events that were in the past

and, to a limited degree, events that
are going to happen in the future.

People are often surprised that the U.S.
government would spend any time or money

on something as farfetched
as remote viewing.

But people don't understand how
the military looks at things.

One thing about national defense

is you have to be very pragmatic
about how you approach it.

If something looks
like it might help,

generally speaking, you wanna give
it a try and see if it does or not.

And since the Soviets were very heavily
engaged in paranormal research

and, presumably, at the time
had a paranormal program,

what we would call
a "remote viewing program,"

the U.S. intelligence community

felt like it had to
investigate that.

And it turned out it worked.

And so that sparked,
essentially, a 23-year program

during the height
of the Cold War.

And it didn't work all the time.
I'll be totally honest,

there were times when it failed.

But there were times when it absolutely
worked, and it made a difference,

despite what a lot of more
skeptical people wanna say.

[King] The fact that
the U.S. government

was utilizing what are essentially
psychic spies during the Cold War

can be hard to swallow,
but it happened.

We first heard about these
programs in an exposé

on the original Stanford Research
Institute program back in the '70s.

And in the mid-'90s,
we got confirmation

of the existence
of these programs

when the CIA declassified
some of the records.

The original founder of the
remote viewing program,

Hal Puthoff, published a paper in 1995,
shortly after the release of these records,

in which he stated that
was the first time

that he'd been able
to use the terms "CIA,"

"Stanford Research Institute," and
"remote viewing" in the same sentence

since the program first began
back in 1972.

What's perhaps
even more shocking

than the fact that the U.S.
government invested in remote viewing

is the fact that these
techniques actually work.

It sounds like science fiction,

but the thing about
remote viewing

is that you don't have to take
anyone's word for it.

You can try it yourself.

And the vast majority of people find that,
with a little bit of patience and effort,

they can have some
real success with it.

Remote viewing seems to be an ability that
most people have to some degree or another.

It's like basketball.

There's only a handful
of people on the planet

who can hang in a game of
one-on-one with LeBron James,

but just about anyone can at least get a
ball through a hoop with a little practice.

And once you realize that this
is something that you can do,

it completely changes the way
that you look at the world.

[muted]

[Smith] One of the really
valuable things to me

is when I'm there working
with a student,

a remote viewing student,
and they know what they know

and they know what they don't know
when they start about the target.

And if, towards the end
or even partway through,

they start describing and perceiving the
target, and then they get their feedback

and they realize that
they actually succeeded,

it's like an epiphany for
some of these folks.

Their eyes get big.
They go, "Oh, wow."

And they're so excited.
I mean, you can even--

You can almost feel their
heart racing, you know,

'cause they're so thrilled
by actually accomplishing that

because they've now proved
something to themselves, right?

They've proved that
they really can do it,

that something society says
is impossible isn't impossible.

And they get really excited.

And I'm down at the other end
of the table going,

"Oh man, this is awesome.
This is awesome."

You know, 'cause I just--
I love seeing that,

that transformation
that people go through

when they actually successfully
accomplished something

that they only had thought was,
hm, hypothetically possible.

All of a sudden,
it becomes reality.

[Chase] The reality of remote
viewing is so startling

because it upends everything
that we think we know

about the nature of our reality and
what a human being is capable of doing.

When you begin to really consider the larger
implications of what all of that means,

suddenly it becomes obvious why this is
something that's not just been hidden from us,

but has been actively made into a
laughingstock and stigmatized.

Of course the powers that be
wouldn't want us to know about this.

[Elizondo] You know, the reason
for secrecy around psi phenomena

is the fact that it is a threat
to overall secrecy.

You can have no secrets
when the average person,

with the right training
and the right background,

can pull information that you
want kept secret from anywhere.

It explodes any notion
of privacy and secrecy,

which is obviously a big deal
in the national security state.

You also have this issue
of human potential

and the idea that knowledge of that might
change the way people relate to authority.

The very notion that people might
have these abilities inherent

is threatening to
the status quo.

[Chase] Journalist and UFO
researcher Linda Moulton Howe

once described the environment
of secrecy and disinformation

that exists around
the UFO phenomenon

as "a fractured hall of mirrors
with a quicksand floor."

Over the decades, many who have
sought to understand the phenomenon

have found themselves
in that place,

often at the cost
of their careers, their families
and their mental health.

So how do we forge a way forward

in a field where the waters have
been so intentionally muddied,

where the intelligence community
continues to sow disinformation,

and where so much
of the relevant data

is classified
at the highest levels?

[King] There's no question
that the disclosure movement

is of historical importance and
ethical importance as well,

not just to those of us
living in the U.S.,

but to the entire human race.

If there are such things
as inalienable rights,

certainly one of the most important
would be our right to science itself.

Understanding the nature
of our reality,

the truth about the world
that we live in.

We absolutely should be
demanding greater transparency

around this issue
from our government,

and we owe a debt of
gratitude to the people

who have risked their careers
and even their lives to do so.

But at the same time as we're supporting
disclosure, we also need to be mindful

not to let the narratives around
disclosure define the entire conversation.

It'd be naive to think that the decades
of secrets, lies and obfuscation

are something that we're going to
be able to dismantle overnight.

And the very real national
security concerns that arise

when we're talking about potentially
paradigm-shattering technology

mean that, realistically,

we're probably never going to get
the full truth from the government.

As this movement gains momentum,
we should actually expect

that the environment of
disinformation may get much worse

before it gets better.

So the question we need
to be asking ourselves is

how can we as a community make progress
in our understanding of the phenomenon,

knowing that all
these things are true?

[Elizondo] There have been very
good researchers over the years

who have become too tied to

and too dependent on the
intelligence community, right?

They keep on going to these people,
and they stop doing research,

and it just becomes
a question-and-answer session

with someone whose
job it is to lie,

and not just to lie
but to ruin people.

And so that's the danger here.

That's the danger that
the UFO community,

especially now, in this very
important inflection point, right?

We've gotta be careful.

[Madden] There's also other
problems, that if you do think

you've been
systematically deceived

and then someone says, "Oh,
but now I'm telling the truth,"

there is the question of,
"Why would I believe that?"

Right?

So even if people got what
they wanted in this disclosure,

I'm not sure that it really
solves the epistemic question

because we're in this sort of very, very
sullied information environment already.

And so I'm not sure--

I think people are overestimating what
disclosure would even bring them, okay?

Unless you're prepared
to trust the very people

that many people have claimed
we shouldn't trust.

[Cutchin] I think that ufology
needs to ask better questions.

I think it also could spare placing
less of an emphasis on answers.

I think that, while it is important
to the future of humanity

that we have authority structures tell us
all that they know about the phenomenon,

it's also important to realize that the
truest form of disclosure that you can obtain

will come from you.

You need to convince yourself.

You need to convince yourself that these
phenomena are real and they exist.

And once you've
accomplished that,

you don't need anyone to tell you
what it is and what's not real.

[Iandoli] We don't need
their permission

to investigate
the UFO phenomenon.

We don't need the U.S. government's
permission to investigate reality.

We don't need anybody's
permission to tell us

that we're allowed to know
the truth about something

when there's plenty of people who
have had firsthand experience

with the UFO phenomenon.

It's not up to them.
It's not their decision.

And also, you don't
need them to.

We as people can
do it ourselves.

[King] UFOs and other related anomalous
phenomena aren't just a part of our reality.

They're an integral and important
part of human experience,

which means that they're
accessible to everyone.

If we seek these things out,
they can't be hidden from us.

[Whiteley] So far, we don't see this big
craft, you know, landing in Central Park,

or, you know, they don't
come to our leaders.

They come-- This phenomenon
appears to us individually.

And that's interesting

that we are being affected
one by one.

But once we've got a medium
to discuss, you know,

such as the work
that you are doing,

then people feel accepted

and they feel that they could
share and explore

the transitions they're
going through.

[Madden] For me,

it's about finding out where
the human place in things is.

Okay? It's about recovering a kind of
human humility that I think is necessary

for us to live in an
enchanted world again.

And I really can't imagine something more
important for us right now than that.

Okay?

And I don't think I need the
government to tell me that,

hey, it turns out that man is not the
measure of things after all, right?

And that we are--
We are in a relationship

to something operating at scales
that maybe we can't fathom.

And maybe it's time
for us to listen again.

[Chase] Since it's clear that real
disclosure likely isn't going to come

from the top down,

then it's on us to build it from the
ground up through grassroots initiatives

fueled by the collective curiosity
and ingenuity of humanity.

The reality of the
UFO phenomenon

challenges nearly every facet
of human understanding,

from science and technology
to philosophy and religion,

to the history and origins
of humanity itself.

To unravel this mystery, we'll need
experts from a wide variety of fields

working together in an unprecedented
spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration.

But this endeavor will require more
than just the expertise of specialists.

It calls for the participation of
people from all walks of life,

each bringing their unique
perspectives and skills to the table.

Artists, writers,
citizen scientists,

hobbyists, organizers,
enthusiasts and more

all have a vital role to play in
facilitating the conversations

and innovation necessary
to drive this movement forward.

This is a team sport,
a truly human project

the likes of which the
world has never seen.

And in that lies
incredible potential

to discover and occupy
a new paradigm

that integrates
the full spectrum

of human knowledge
and experience.

[King] The path of human
progress has always been driven

by those who have been willing to gaze
into the heart of our deepest mysteries

and to take on the challenges
that seem impossible.

From the discovery of the principles
of mathematics in antiquity

to landing on the moon,

our greatest achievements
have always required us

to push ourselves beyond
the world of the everyday

and into the shadowy realms
of the unknown.

This moment in history
presents us

with just such an opportunity
for discovery and transcendence.

If we rise to meet
this challenge together,

we have the potential to reveal what
amounts to nothing less than a new reality

and to, perhaps
for the first time,

begin to truly understand
our place in the cosmos.

[man] We're living in a
little corner of the world,

just a little corner of it,
that we call reality.

But hey, there's
a lot more out there.

We need to turn off the lights,
open the door,

and walk out of this
little house we live in.

And then we're gonna start
to see something real.

[dramatic music playing]