All language subtitles for In Search Of s02e07 UFOs

These pictures show what many believe to
be some kind of strange light hovering

over downtown Phoenix.

The military guessed that it was a flare
test, but others call it the most

dramatic UFO sighting in years.

They say the craft was moving very
slowly and without any sound at all.

On a clear spring night in 1997, a swarm
of unidentified flying objects passed

slowly and silently through the Phoenix
skies, prompting thousands of phone

calls to authorities.

Despite the vast number of witnesses, to
this day, no one has been able to

identify these mysterious aircraft.

Or these.

Or this one.

Or thousands more which have been
reported since the very dawn of mankind.

With every sighting, we once again ask
the age -old question, are we alone in

the universe?

Tonight, We aim to answer that question.

We'll hunt for eyewitnesses to large
-scale otherworldly encounters, reveal

declassified video of a military
engagement with a potential alien

test a brand new theory which may
finally decode an extraterrestrial

we've already received as we go in
search of UFOs.

There have been stories of strange
objects in the sky for centuries,

even millennia.

But the modern age of UFO sightings
began in 1947, when a pilot observed

nine shiny objects flying in tandem past
Washington's Mount Rainier.

The Chicago Sun reported the story and
coined the phrase flying saucers, which

has been part of our vocabulary ever
since.

Also in 1947, in Roswell, New Mexico,
William Brazell found what he thought

evidence of a crashed alien spacecraft.

Again, shaped like a disc or a saucer.

Within a year, the U .S. Air Force
commenced a series of initiatives to

UFO sightings, including Project Sign,
Project Grudge, and Project Blue Book.

In their two decades of operation, these
programs logged over 12 ,000 eyewitness

encounters. Since then, sightings have
only multiplied.

According to the National UFO Reporting
Center, someone spots an unidentified

aircraft nearly four times per day.

But most of these are individual,
isolated sightings.

What happens when a group of people see
the same thing?

And what if these sightings are
confirmed by FAA radar.

On January 8, 2008, in Erith County,
Texas, private pilot and freight company

owner Steve Allen set out for a drive he
had taken dozens of times before.

I called my friend Mike.

He said, come on over.

Along the way, at 6 .15 p .m., Steve
encountered something completely

unexpected.

Right at the moment we pulled up on the
hill, I looked off to the east and saw

some very high, bright intensity
magnesium flare lights. I thought it was

airplane at first. I did a second take
on it and discovered it wasn't anything

that I had ever seen before.

It flew past us at about 1 ,500 to 2
,000 foot above ground level.

It went over to Stephenville, to that
area right there, and it stopped for

a moment.

And then all of a sudden, they burst
into a white flame, and then it just

disappeared.

But the strange craft wouldn't stay gone
for long.

It quickly reappeared, now speeding in
the opposite direction, with what

appeared to be two military jets
trailing behind.

One or two minutes afterwards, the two F
-16s fell in, in hot pursuit, full

afterburner, hanging out the back of
them. They was chasing it with

We had no idea what was going on or why
our military was chasing it.

In addition to its speed, erratic
movement, and seeming ability to

the unknown craft was also remarkable
for its massive size.

It was about a half a mile wide and a
mile long, and I fly this area quite a

bit, so I'm used to the grids of how
things are sectioned off here, and I'm

pretty good description on what size it
was.

As a level -headed businessman with
decades of flying experience, Steve

believer in UFOs.

But at this moment, he had to wonder.

Could he actually be witnessing an alien
spacecraft?

So anything that can come to a stop in
Stephenville, or basically almost a

and then reverse course and go back 180
degrees, is not of this world.

Steve immediately wanted to go public
with his story.

My wife begged me to please not tell
anybody at the time, and I asked her

and she says, people will think you're
crazy.

And I said, everybody knows me that
knows I'm not crazy, so I'm going to say

what I saw and see if we can get to the
bottom of it.

True to his word, Steve contacted the
local newspaper the next day.

So it was late afternoon, and I got a
call from one of my reporters who said

that she had received word from a local
pilot who said that he saw something

kind of suspicious or interesting in the
sky and wanted to talk to her about it.

As the Empire Tribune's managing editor,
Sarah was skeptical about running the

story, but her publisher had other
ideas.

So the next morning, when I looked at
the newspaper and I saw the headline

read UFO, I cried. I was worried that
our journalistic integrity might be

tarnished, and I just didn't know what
the community would make of it.

But as it turns out,

Sarah had nothing to worry about.

Because once the story was out,
countless other people came forward with

own accounts of the same event.

The next day, our phones just rang off
the hook. I didn't think they were

forward and not telling the truth. I
completely believed them.

They ran an article with my phone number
in it, of all things. I didn't think

anything would become of it, and I was
inundated with phone calls the next day.

Lots of business owners.

Quite a few people had called me. I had
a complete list. I was the UFO hotline,

I guess.

As more witnesses emerged, reporters at
the Empire Tribune tried to verify the

shocking accounts of the strange UFO and
the fighter jets in hot pursuit.

I'm a pilot. I've been flying since 1976
CF -16s. I've seen them all my life. I

know exactly what they are.

I can recognize one immediately.

At first, all the local air bases
claimed there was no activity on the

January 8th.

But then, ten days later, the military
changed its story, admitting that

ten F -16s were indeed scrambled that
night over U .S. capital.

This new revelation pushed the
Stephenville sightings.

into the national spotlight.

The national media picked up on it very
quickly, and I was just astounded that

it traveled so quickly.

On the heels of the national news story,
a nonprofit group called the Mutual UFO

Network, or MUFON, sent investigators to
arrange a town hall meeting for any

residents who witnessed a UFO that
night.

The investigators figured a handful of
witnesses might come forward, just in

case they brought along 50 copies of
their questionnaire.

They had no idea just how unprepared
they were.

They were about to walk into one of the
largest eyewitness gatherings of a

single UFO event in history.

Hundreds of people that came as
witnesses and other people just

lots of people had the same exact story
that we had.

Over the course of three hours, the
townspeople all shared similar stories

what they saw on the night of January
8th.

Retired Air Force navigation specialist
James Hughes was among those who spoke.

He too had seen the lights in the sky,
but never went public.

after facing ridicule from his co
-workers.

I saw all these people who had seen the
UFOs that were helping to back me up.

And this was important because after
being accused of lying about these UFOs

making all this story up, to see all
these other people who had seen these

at night was really reassuring.

In addition to the hundreds of witnesses
who gave their stories at the meeting,

many more stayed home, fearing damage to
their reputations.

Today, some of them have finally decided
to come forward.

I didn't go to that meeting that they
had in 2008 because I was scared.

I was a kindergarten teacher at the
time, and I didn't want the parents to

I was crazy.

It was like this.

A round thing that looked like it was
sitting on the ground.

And then it just disappeared, and my
mother seemed to think that it was

trees or clouds, and there weren't any.

I see these lights that come in, and
they just... And

I thought, wow, you know, that's

not common.

I definitely believe it was something
from out of this world. I've seen jets

break the sound barrier, and that'll
cause some ruckus.

I've seen airplanes pretty high up,
little bitty airplanes pretty high up,

you can hear them very loudly.

The way that first craft took off, I've
never seen anything go that fast and not

make any noise.

It's clear that something large and
unknown flew above Stevensville that

The question is, what was it?

And could it possibly be alien in
nature?

The Air Force does a lot of training out
in the area, in its countryside, so

we're used to seeing a lot of jets and
helicopters and everything like that,

to this day I have no idea what I saw,
and I have no idea what made the light

that I saw that night.

I was accused of fabricating this story,
but I did not.

It just made me more determined to prove
that this story was real.

After his time in the Air Force, James
had a career as an electronics

technician, and he was confident he
could find proof of the Stephenville

encounter. When something is spotted on
radar, everything in the sky has

a transponder number.

that is above a particular altitude.

In other words, the raw radar data from
the night of the incident should hold

all the proof of what happened that
night.

So I demanded that they get the radar
records, look at them, and see that I

telling the truth.

Unfortunately, the military refused to
release the uncensored flight logs from

its planes.

It also claimed to have lost the radar
records from January 8th.

Unfortunately, the Air Force declined to
give us the information that we needed

to prove that the UFOs were here. It
does seem that the UFOs here

were being covered up.

There's no question that the Stephen
Till eyewitnesses saw something strange

the sky. But what should we make of the
Air Force's response?

Is it possible that some branch of
government or law enforcement actually

to suppress the encounter?

Historically speaking, it has happened
before.

When William Brazell found the
unidentified wreckage in Roswell, New

U .S. Army issued a statement.

claiming it was an ordinary weather
balloon.

But documents declassified in the 1990s
revealed that story to be a lie.

In fact, the debris came from a top
-secret surveillance mission called

Mogul.

Just like in Roswell, the people of
Stephenville eventually found a way

all the government secrecy with a
revelation that many believe is absolute

proof. of an alien visit to Texas.

On July 4th, 2008, MUFON investigators
issued their official 76 -page report

on the Stephenville incident.

They made 10 different Freedom of
Information Act requests to various

agencies and were finally able to
acquire raw radar data from the FAA.

According to the report,

FAA radar had tracked a gigantic object,
at least 524 feet long, traveling

through the sky 50 miles southeast of
Stephenville.

The townspeople immediately felt
vindicated.

When you report a UFO, there's a lot of
people out there who are going to call

you crazy, okay? And to take the time
that they did to come in and give their

reports, I'm just overjoyed.

And lo and behold, out of six radar
units, it showed exactly what we saw

in at 2 ,100 miles an hour, doing 180
degrees back to where it came from to

east, running 1 ,800 or 1 ,900 miles an
hour, and it had two F -16s behind it.

So that confirmed it.

Recently, the United States government
has taken a more open approach to UFO

sightings. In December 2017, the
Pentagon confirmed the existence of the

Advanced Aviation Threat Identification
Program.

Its job is to investigate reports of
unidentified flying objects, many of

come from members of the U .S. military.

Along with confirming the program, the
Department of Defense even released a

video of one such mysterious encounter.

This video and the amazing story behind
it.

just might be the single most credible
UFO experience ever recorded.

Science fiction would have you believe
that extraterrestrial UFOs are a near

constant threat to our existence.

But how real is the threat?

Is it possible that aliens have already
visited our planet?

So far, we've seen residents of a Texas
town convinced they had a UFO encounter.

Could it be a hoax or a case of mass
hysteria?

Perhaps.

But if you don't believe the people of
Stephenville, Texas, might you believe a

much more credible source?

Because our next story comes directly
from none other than the United States

Navy.

And not only that, but it comes with a
smoking gun.

Actual video evidence of the encounter.

This is Naval Base San Diego, the home
port of the United States Pacific Fleet.

In November of 2004, it was the site of
an incredible encounter that despite

widespread coverage, remains a mystery
to this day.

Kevin Day is a retired chief petty
officer.

In 2004, he was a radar operator
assigned to the USS Nimitz carrier

group.

My job was to man the radars and ID
everything in the sky that flew.

My watch position on the ship was anti
-air warfare coordinator.

Basically, we worked for the captain and
be in charge of the air defense team.

If we ever had to launch a missile in
hostility, I was the guy who was going

punch the button.

When those Super Hornets take off the
carrier, my job was to get them to the

fight. Get them in the dogfight, get
them out of the dogfight, and then get

back home safe.

The Nimitz strike group was preparing
for deployment to the Persian Gulf and

on an accelerated training schedule.

But on November 10, a normal training
exercise became far from routine.

In the middle of the mission,

Kevin spotted unusual activity on his
radar screens.

I started to see these really strange
contacts off San Clemente Island.

The first group I noticed had, I believe
it had seven contacts in it. And the

weird thing is they were all tracking
from north to south off San Clemente at

,000 feet, going 100 knots, which was
extremely unusual.

It was the strangest formation of
aircraft I'd ever seen in my whole

Over the next several days, the objects
kept appearing, but no jets were

available to have a closer look.

Kevin's consternation was beginning to
grow.

I recommended that we take down the
system because I was kind of suspecting

may have been a glitch of some kind.

Radar technicians tried recalibrating
the system to find out if the sensors

giving false positive readings, which
the Navy calls ghost tracks.

So we actually brought our entire system
all the way down, brought it all the

way back up, and strangely enough, the
quality of the contacts actually

increased after we came back.

This was definitely not a glitch.

These were real contacts tracked by a
real radar.

In fact, I had the highest track quality
possible in the system.

Kevin was desperate to identify these
objects.

and find out if they were a threat.

My concern was safety of flight.

These objects were at 28 ,000 feet,
going 100 knots, and that's where I like

send my aircraft, right in that same
altitude layer.

I knew that I had to recommend intercept
to the captain.

Finally, on November 14th, the Navy got
their chance to intercept whatever was

appearing. On Kevin's radar screen,
while conducting air defense exercises

F -A -18 jets, the objects appeared on
the radar once again.

This was the moment that I was waiting
for.

Captain Smith comes down to combat, and
I said, Hey, sir, I strongly recommend

we take one of the aircraft that just
launched and go look at one of these

things.

Captain Smith was like, You know, Senior
Chief, you're right.

Let's do that.

Command sent two of their top fighter
pilots to investigate the object

The pilots had no idea of the potential
danger they were about to face.

And the tactical action officer jumps on
the radio, and she asks, I just want to

know if you guys have any missiles on
board.

There was stunned silence on the radio
for a second, because I think it really

shocked the air crews.

This was only supposed to be a training
exercise.

Were they actually about to engage with
a potential enemy target of unknown

origin?

If so, they were going in completely
unarmed.

I picked the closest contact that was on
radar, but I believe it was

approximately 60 miles.

The jets arrived to intercept within
minutes, but the mysterious craft

disappeared.

maneuvering in seemingly impossible ways
on Kevin's radar screen.

The radar recorded this object going
from 28 ,000 feet down to 50 feet in .78

seconds.

And so whatever can do that defies the
laws of physics. I should have heard

multiple sonic booms.

Didn't hear a single sonic boom.

A biological entity inside that thing
would have been crushed by the G

The unidentified craft had dropped at
over 20 ,000 miles per hour, ten times

faster than any military jet has ever
flown.

It was clear the Navy pilots would have
their work cut out for them to make the

intercept. And at that point, from an
air crew's perspective, they no longer

care about radar because they're in what
they call the visual arena. They're

using their eyeballs now.

The next thing we hear on the radio, oh,
my God, oh, my God, I'm engaged, I'm

engaged.

And it stunned everyone in combat at
that point, and we were like, oh, wow,

what's going on here?

The flight commander witnessed a smooth,
white, cylindrical craft, approximately

45 feet long, about the same length as
his FAA Team Super Hornet.

It had no wings, no windows.

No obvious flight surfaces, no obvious
means of propulsion.

The craft began mimicking the movements
of the Navy pilots as they circled it,

matching them turn for turn.

When the commander finally caught up to
it, the UFO rapidly accelerated past the

nose of his aircraft and disappeared.

We didn't know what to think.

It was so far beyond any of our
experience that we...

were dumbfounded was probably the best
way to say it. We were absolutely

dumbfounded. None of us had any idea
what we had just seen, other than just

concluding that it was a UFO.

The Navy quickly launched six more jets
from the Nimitz aircraft carrier to

engage the object.

This time, they were equipped with
onboard cameras.

If they could reach the craft in time,
they might capture what could be the

first ever confirmed video of a UFO
encounter.

The object's out in space in front of
them, 10, 20, 30 miles, so of course

you're able to see it for quite a time
with their camera system.

And sure enough, just before the object
disappeared, one Navy camera actually

got it.

This is the first video the U .S.
government has ever released of a

aircraft engaging with a UFO.

The camera's infrared spectrum was able
to spot a uniform heat signature, a

clear indication of the UFO's propulsion
system.

The fact that we have video and the fact
we have eyewitnesses, air crews and

ship personnel, I think it paints a
pretty obvious picture that we indeed

definitely... intercepted ufos but it
would take 13 years before

any of this footage would be made public
in december 2017 the nimitz encounter

video was finally released following a
freedom of information act request by

new york times this kicked off a flood
of news stories about the u .s

involvement with ufos

The government was finally about to
break its decades -long silence.

The Nimitz video was released along with
a 13 -page report about the incident,

stating the aircraft featured advanced
acceleration, aerodynamic and propulsion

capability.

It was able to hide at times from
military radar.

possibly demonstrating the ability to
cloak or become invisible to the human

eye.

The report also speculates the craft had
a highly advanced capability to operate

under sea, completely undetectable by
our most advanced sensors.

While some of this technology sounds
similar to the Stephenville UFO, there

a few major differences.

Most obvious is the craft's size.

The Nimitz object was less than 50 feet
long, while the people of Stephenville

witnessed something dozens of times
larger.

The Stephenville UFO featured lights
around the outside, but the Nimitz pilot

saw a smooth white object with no
exterior features at all.

What could it all mean?

Are multiple alien species visiting our
planet?

If so, how many?

And from where?

So far, we've explored multiple alleged
UFO encounters, some with hundreds of

eyewitnesses.

We can't verify whether any of these
objects were carrying extraterrestrials.

But what if I told you that we actually
have had a confirmed alien visitor, one

that's even been vetted by the
scientific community?

On October 19, 2017, for the first time
in history, Scientists discovered

something approaching from outside our
solar system.

The Pan -STARRS telescope in Hawaii
spotted an aerodynamic object ten times

long as it was wide, traveling at 196
,000 miles per hour.

It went by so fast, they were lucky to
have seen it at all.

They named it Oamuamua, a Hawaiian term
meaning first distant messenger.

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb suggested
the object could be something called a

light sail, a propulsion method that
harnesses stellar radiation, and that

perhaps it might have fallen off an
alien spacecraft.

While many scientists were quick to
shoot down his theory, as Loeb points

we're already developing similar light
sails here on Earth.

Japan successfully launched a light sail
-powered craft called the Icarus in

2010.

In the U .S., the Starshot Initiative
hopes to send an interstellar ship to a

planet called Proxima Centauri b.

It will be powered by a light sail.

The light sail is a proven technology
that can allow for travel between solar

systems.

Is it possible that an alien race has
been using the same technology to

other planets, perhaps even passing by
our own?

If that's the case, it raises one more
important question.

Why haven't they tried to contact us?

According to one expert, perhaps they
already have.

You may have seen images like these
before.

They're called crop circles.

Over the past several hundred years,
more than 10 ,000 of them have been

cataloged in 29 countries worldwide.

Crop circle expert Dr. Simeon Hine
believes that at least some of them have

extraterrestrial origin.

This area is known to have a lot of
unidentified aerial phenomena,

UFOs. We found out here it's been going
on for many decades.

Today, Dr. Hine is responding to a
report of a crop circle on a remote farm

Texas, not far from where the
Stephenville lights were seen in 2008.

At any newly discovered crop circle, Dr.
Hein first takes several measurements

to try and determine its origin.

Crop circles are really, in many ways,
very mysterious.

And the way we can start approaching
that scientifically is to see if there's

any anomalous energy in different bands,
in different frequencies. So we have a

variety of meters that might.

detect some anomalies.

So what I'm doing right now is looking
at the baseline static charges in the

field near where the crop circle is. I
want to see what the static gradient

looks like in the absence of any crop
circle.

We can see when we look out here, we're
kind of getting a zero reading in the

grasses outside the formation. When we
go in, it kind of goes up by about 5,

15, 20 volts.

It shows us that it's having an
electromagnetic effect right here in

There's no clear reason for the folded
grass to show a different electrostatic

reading than the surrounding field.

So you have to begin to wonder whether
there's some connection between the

technology involved with UFOs and the
energy and strange things that are

around crop circles.

Dr. Hines' next test uses an
electromagnetic field meter.

which checks for changes in electrical
currents in and around the circle.

Hey, look at this. I think we may be
getting some anomalous electromagnetic

readings right here at the edge of the
crop circle.

Dr. Hein believes these test results
wouldn't normally be found on Earth

some extraterrestrial involvement.

But why would aliens leave behind these
formations?

It's a question that has frustrated
researchers for centuries.

We don't know exactly why this is
happening. Is it intentional from the

disc? Is it a result of their propulsion
system, their exotic technology, which

we don't totally understand yet? But
there is a connection between flying

saucers and crop circles.

After decades of work, Dr. Hine believes
he may have finally figured out that

connection.

He's recently developed a new theory,
which requires one final test.

I am detecting something strange in this
particular circle that I've never seen

before with this radio frequency meter.
I've been using it for about a year.

When I walked into the circle, I noticed
that the indicator lights were not

continuously flashing.

They were going on and off in about one
second increments, which was really

strange. As soon as I walked out of the
crop circle, it stopped.

In other words, this area may be
generating a small amount of radio

radiation, but it's not being generated
at random.

It follows a specific pattern, and Dr.
Hine thinks he knows precisely what that

pattern is.

It's possible that the crop circle is
creating sounds that we can't physically

hear because it's out of the frequency
range of our hearing.

So one of the really curious aspects of
crop circles that we could see from the

beginning is they look very similar to
cymatic patterns. Cymatic patterns are

images and shapes that are created from
sound.

In Dr. Hines' lab, he has created an
experiment to try and determine what

shapes mean.

It's a simple process.

Sand is applied to a metal plate.

Then a sound frequency is created.

As the plate vibrates, the sand settles
into a different shape for each

frequency, ranging from quite simple to
much more complex.

It's symmetrical, it's circular, it's
the sort of thing that lends itself to

a crop circle type shape.

Dr. Hine wants to determine if his newly
found crop circle might also correspond

to a sound frequency.

We've often wondered what's the
relationship between crop circles and

Because if you can use sounds to create
crop circle shapes on a plate with sand,

would you be able to do it in the field?
Would you be able to go out with some

sort of sound generating equipment and
generate the exact same shapes in a

crop?

Wow, we're getting circular shapes here.

Before long, he finds precisely the
frequency he's been looking for.

Wow, look at that.

If we put a little more sand on here,
we'll see that this is almost exactly

our crop circle looks like that we saw
earlier today.

The shape of the Texas crop circle
appears to be a close match for a sound

frequency of 1 .21 kilohertz.

Dr. Hein believes that can't be a
coincidence.

You have to wonder, looking at the
connection between the sound and the

right here on the plate and the circle
we were in this morning, if there's

really some underlying fundamental
science principles that perhaps explain

of them.

It's an incredible correlation, but it
brings up more questions than answers.

Why would an alien race want to lay down
a sound frequency for humans to find?

And how would they do it?

I think, in theory, it would take a lot
of power to have such an effect where

you'd go out and generate a tone and
have the plants just laid down in a

pattern.

Despite his many years of research, Dr.
Hine hasn't yet discovered the full

meaning of these frequencies.

But he believes that if aliens are
creating crop circles through sound,

must have a purpose.

If I had to speculate why
extraterrestrials or aliens would be

circles, it would probably be that
they're teaching humans a language of

shape.

sound, energy, frequency, vibration, and
about how nature works, how technology

interacts with nature without directly
telling them.

But Dr. Hine doesn't just believe this
could be a message from aliens.

He believes they're trying to teach us
an entirely new form of communication.

Dr. Hine hopes that humans could one day
use these sound frequencies in crop

circles to send out a response to the
aliens.

After that, it could only be a matter of
time before we can start a dialogue

with these alleged extraterrestrial
visitors.

You add a little geometry to those
living things, they exhibit new types of

properties that we've never seen before.

And I'm confident that what we're
learning from crop circle research is

have applications in other areas of
science and technology that we're going

discover in the future.

When it comes to UFO research, it's hard
to say who might make the next

breakthrough. Perhaps Dr.

Simeon Hine will someday manage to
communicate with an extraterrestrial

spacecraft.

Perhaps the U .S. military will find
indisputable evidence of an alien UFO.

One thing is for sure.

Progress will continue.

Just 300 years ago, we had not
discovered a single planet outside our

system.

Now, we know of more than 3 ,000 of
them.

And scientists believe that one in six.

is potentially habitable.

One day soon, humans will make their
first visit to another planet.

It may start with Mars, but it will
eventually lead much, much farther.

In other words, before long, we
ourselves will be aliens.

For all the other civilizations out
there on other planets who are scouring

their own skies for UFOs, we...

may soon be the one flying by.

The search continued.