Original subtitles

‐ [Goodrich] The objects were bright white,

and there was absolutely no sound whatsoever.

‐ [Narrator] Tonight on Unidentified,

‐ It was around sphere, the exterior of it was gaseous.

‐ [Narrator] Lue Elizondo tackles

the most controversial question of all,

are we being visited?

‐ [Woods] The atmosphere in the truck

got really, really thick.

Like, couldn't breathe.

‐ The following morning I found blood on my pillow.

‐ We were both startled awake by a bright light,

and I could hear what sounded

like someone moving around upstairs.

(dramatic eerie whine)

‐ [Narrator] US military veterans report

terrifying close encounters.

‐ [Woods] I was burned on my face and on my hand.

‐ [Narrator] Even injuries,

‐ [Chris Mellon] We ought to be able to follow

the data wherever it goes.

‐ [Narrator] Does the evidence hold up?

‐ Sounds exactly like a textbook case of sleep paralysis.

‐ [Narrator] Is proof we're not alone?

‐ If it turns out that you have something

that is coming down and taking people

against their own free will,

that's potentially an act of war.

(dramatic deep drone)

‐ [Narrator] Everything we know about UFOs is changing.

Thanks to a team led by

former Pentagon UFO investigator, Lue Elizondo.

‐ That is real whatever that is.

‐ [Narrator] And former top

intelligence official Chris Mellon.

‐ This is a current continuing phenomenon,

it's happening, it continues to happen.

‐ [Narrator] They discovered five unique characteristics,

that UFOs have in common, called the five observables.

They also released groundbreaking videos

that force the Navy to admit its pilots,

were coming face to face with unidentified objects.

‐ [Reporter] The US Navy made a shocking admission today.

‐ [Reporter] Strange flying objects

caught on tape by their own fighter pilots are in fact UFOs.

‐ [Narrator] Now a new wave of military witnesses

is coming out of the shadows.

‐ I'd never seen anything moves like that.

Shape, size, speed's clearly identified.

‐ [Narrator] The team is united on a new mission.

Connect the dots to reveal the truth about UFOs.

‐ [Pilot] This thing had

no capability like anything on earth.

‐ [Narrator] And warn the world

about the dangers they might represent.

‐ [Chris Mellon] Carl Sagan once famously said

"extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".

He was absolutely right, but now we have the proof.

(static crackling) (dramatic orchestral music)

‐ [Narrator] One of the most disturbing things

Lue Elizondo studied at the Pentagon,

were reports of close encounters with UFOs.

The cases are controversial.

But Armed Forces personnel swear they not only happened,

but cause lasting physical and psychological effects.

If real Elizondo considers these effects,

a kind of sixth observable.

This first account happened over 40 years ago.

‐ My name's Mario woods.

I served in the Air Force from 1975 to 1983.

And I was in Security Police.

In 1977, I was a team member on a security response team

at Ellsworth Air Force Base at South Dakota.

‐ [Narrator] During the Cold War, Ellsworth Air Force Base

formed a key part of the so called

northern tier defense system.

Operating hundreds of nuclear tipped

Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles.

‐ I guess it was about 10:30 quarter to 11,

on this particular night, and then that's when we got a call

from the Launch Control officers,

that November five had alarmed

and it was a SIT four which was a serious alarm,

it means that exterior alarm's penetrated.

I told my team leader Michael Johnson.

‐ [Narrator] Mario Woods and his team leader,

were ordered to investigate the disturbance

at a missile silo, codenamed November Five.

‐ So, immediately we are dispatched.

As we go to highway 79 the entire atmosphere

was just lit up, it was just super bright

like the sun was rising.

And as we rounded the bend,

this object was sitting over November Five,

about 5, 10 feet off the ground max.

And it was just huge.

It's as big as any Walmart building I've ever seen.

The atmosphere in the truck got really, really thick.

Like, couldn't breathe.

It was a round sphere and on that sphere,

it looked like the exterior of it was gaseous.

And the colors were floating around it.

wasn't a craft like with hard edges or anything like that,

it was completely round.

‐ [Narrator] The object hovering

over the nuclear missile silo,

appear to be exhibiting one of the five observables.

Anti‐gravity, the ability to fly

without visible means of propulsion.

‐ You know, when I was at AATIP,

we were under the presumption

that there was definitely nuclear connection.

Are we once again seeing some sort of connection

between UAP activity and our nuclear capabilities

along the northern tier?

‐ My partner Michael Johnson,

he was just frozen to the wheel,

looking straight ahead out that windshield.

And I kept hollering at him Michael, Michael,

and he didn't answer me.

I took my Maglite and I pulled myself out

on the window sill of that truck

and a flashbomb Maglited this thing.

But as soon as I did that, the pressure stopped.

It was like, okay, you can breathe now.

And we're slumping back down into the seat.

Then I remember just blacking out.

And that's the last thing that I remember,

until that radio came back to life.

And all I heard was a wing security controlled,

November one that was us, our call sign.

And I heard it three, four times.

And I turned to Michael Johnson,

I said, you're gonna get that?

And he still just frozen in his position.

And I couldn't figure it out

'cause there was a wall right here

and it went up as far as I could see,

and it was the back side of a Lake Newell reservoir.

We went from November five to Newell Lake.

And that's between five and seven and a 1/2 miles.

There were no tire prints or anything.

It was just our vehicle in the middle of the mud

and it started to get light.

‐ [Narrator] Wood says they have lost several hours.

An unexplained gap in time where they had no memory

of where they were or what was happening to them.

‐ So when I got back on the radio,

I told WSC that there's, spot of white wall.

So they said, continue to talk,

we're triangulating your location.

Maybe 20 minutes past.

So this backup alert team came

and I said, I don't know where I am,

I don't know where we are, and don't know how we got here.

I said, what's happened?

He goes, I can't talk to you about it,

just stay right there.

So I kept trying to communicate with Michael Johnson,

he wouldn't answer me in any way.

He was just frozen in this position,

looking straight ahead.

I had to have another guy help me

slide him over to the passenger seat and seat‐belted him in.

‐ [Narrator] Woods and his partner

were relieved of their weapons

and told to follow the backup alert team to the main base.

‐ We were taken directly to the wing commander's office.

And then the wing commander said,

Sergeant Woods he said,

I need to ask you what happened out there?

I told him what had happened

and he asked me to describe the size of it.

He goes, do you have any idea how you got to where you were?

I said no sir.

He said, we're gonna send you over to the base hospital.

We have a doctor wants to take a look at you

and we just make sure that you all right.

Doctor examine my eyes, my ears, nose, all that stuff.

He says I need to take a skin sample.

And I said why skin sample?

He says because you have some burns on you.

(soft arpeggio music)

‐ I think most everybody is aware of the five observables.

But we looked at other things

and that six observable was biological effects.

And they can be anything from subtle to severe.

(dramatic sound effects)

I was burned on my face and on my hand.

And the items that they used to take the skin samples,

they went right into a vile about that big,

and they put a cork on top of it.

And then they were laying on a silver tray.

‐ [Narrator] Two weeks later,

Michael Johnson showed up at Wood's door.

‐ He said, man, what did you see?

What do you remember?

I tried, I went through everything that I knew.

And then he described it too

and he said he was scared to death.

We thought we'd talk about it further,

but that was the last time I ever saw him.

I've been trying to find him ever since.

(dramatic sound effects)

‐ [Narrator] Elizondo says he's cataloged

reports of burns in other close encounters.

‐ There are key data points

that we can measure to determine

if there are indeed biological effects.

It's no different than if I were to stand behind

the jet engine of a 747 at takeoff,

chances are I'm gonna get burned.

‐ These are level‐headed patriotic people

who serve their country.

I've seen some data that suggests,

in some cases there are real physical effects

that warrant some attention.

‐ [Narrator] The results of the tests

on Wood's skin samples,

were never shared with him.

And what Woods reveals next,

deepens the mystery of these close encounters.

Coming up on Unidentified,

‐ [Narrator] Lue Elizondo has just learned

that Staff Sergeant Mario Woods,

claims he blacked out after encountering

a giant luminous sphere at a nuclear missile base.

‐ That's scary a scene man.

All those years ago, it's as if it's never left.

I can smell the air, I can see the wall,

I can see that object.

‐ [Narrator] Years later...

‐ [Doctor] You'll hear me talking to you,

you'll be able to talk back to me.

‐ [Narrator] Woods decided to undergo hypnosis

to see if he could recover any memories

from the four hours he lost during the experience.

I was submersed in something

that I was either breathing or I was laying in,

that felt like a gel and it was cold.

And then I felt a feeling of dread, of total fear.

That was one of the worst feelings

I think I've ever had in my life.

I remember bright lights and then dim lights

and then in flickering lights.

It just all seemed to be like a dream,

until the next thing I know, I came to.

And of course four hours had gone by.

(soft arpeggio music)

‐ [Narrator] The incident has left woods with mental scars

that have yet to heal.

‐ That changed everything and it still does to this day.

My children kind of look at me and, you know,

"okay dad, okay", that kind of thing.

Of course my wife she feels like

she didn't really know what to make of it.

‐ I think it's tormented you for a lot of your life.

One of the things that I think you're left with is anger.

‐ It's something that just has never going away.

I don't walk out of my house in the morning on a day shift

without looking in the sky to see if I feel something,

‐ I love you and I want you

to be okay with it, do you understand?

I want you to have peace with it all

'cause I don't think you do.

And I'm not sure it's even attainable.

(dramatic string music)

‐ [Lue] In the case of individuals

who've claimed to have encounters

up close and personal with UAPs,

that is an experience that

very few people on the planet have had.

And when the spouse in that relationship

or the partner doesn't have that same experience,

it can leave one feeling isolated and alone.

‐ [Narrator] Woods is not the only US military veteran

to contact Elizondo and his team

about a harrowing close encounter.

(melancholic piano music)

Elizondo has sent a camera crew

to record the testimony of a veteran in Montana,

who says his nightmare also started at a nuclear base.

‐ [Lue] I have personal friends of mine

that has some pretty amazing stories to tell.

And do I believe them?

I believe that they believe what they're telling me.

But you can be absolutely sure of something

and still be absolutely wrong.

‐ I'm Jeff Goodrich, I live in Great Falls Montana,

retired missile maintenance technician.

I was transferred to Malmstrom Air Force Base

in Great Falls in 1994.

‐ [Narrator] Malmstrom Air Force Base,

forms another key part of the

Northern Tier missile defense system

and has a long history of documented UFO sightings.

Sergeant Jeff Goodrich was the team chief

in the missile handling section.

‐ On the second In February of 1996,

I had walked out of the missile roll transfer building.

And I noticed the lieutenant just outside the door,

looking up into the sky.

I asked him what he was looking at.

And he pointed out five very large white triangles,

the objects were bright white,

and there were no other details, no wings, no tail,

no visible means of propulsion.

There was absolutely no sound whatsoever.

They move very slowly and then

they all proceeded at the same speed

until they disappeared over the horizon.

‐ [Narrator] But Goodrich says this was just the first

and less frightening of his encounters.

The next one would change his life.

Coming up on Unidentified.

Lue Elizondo's investigation into UFO close encounters

has led the team to sergeant Jeff Goodrich,

who was at Malmstrom Air Force Base in 1996.

When he says he saw five strange triangular craft

‐ [Jeff] The Lieutenant was as mystified as I was,

how he came to notice they were there

I don't know it was just pure chance,

he just happened to look up in the right direction.

‐ [Narrator] The objects seen by Goodrich

were never identified.

But he believes they could have been a precursor

to another encounter he had soon after,

that left physical effects.

‐ About two months after the sighting

of the white triangles,

a friend needed a place to stay for the night.

So I told him to stay with me

and we visited for a little bit

and I think we both went to bed about 11 o'clock.

He slept on the sofa downstairs,

which is right outside my bedroom in the basement.

And I don't recall what time it was,

but we were both startled awake by a bright light.

It was extremely bright.

It was just totally blinding.

I could hear what sounded like,

someone moving around upstairs,

and then footsteps coming down the stairs.

And at that point, I can make out the silhouettes

of four or five small beings, backlit in a foggy light.

And I raised up out of bed and I tried to say something,

but I couldn't, I couldn't speak.

You're totally helpless.

‐ [Narrator] Goodrich says he isn't sure what happened next,

because he immediately passed out.

In the morning, I felt like I hadn't slept at all.

Like I'd been up all night.

And he got up but shortly after I did,

and we had the same story to tell,

a foggy light and tried to say something to me and couldn't

and immediately lost consciousness

and he couldn't remember anything else.

‐ [Narrator] Goodrich, his friend and Mario woods,

all claim to have lost consciousness,

during their encounters.

Could these blackouts be evidence

of the sixth observable?

‐ [Lue] If you have technology that has the ability

to do certain things with space time

and maneuver the way it is and if you get too close

to that thing, could you be injured by that?

Well, potentially yes, you can be.

In AATIP we said biological effects

which we were able to see that there were certain,

potentially physiological effects on biological systems,

if they got too close to these things.

‐ [Narrator] Goodrich's encounters

have had long lasting consequences.

‐ I do feel isolated at times,

because there are so few people

that I can even discuss the subject with.

I think most people that have had an experience like this,

it changes your perspective and sort of becomes

like a lifelong obsession.

Or a quest to find answers to what's happened to you.

(soft orchestral music)

(upbeat orchestral music)

‐ [Narrator] Before for Elizondo,

the most important question is whether these effects

can be scientifically verified.

‐ These individuals are absolute trained observers.

I mean, you have two credible witnesses.

Now, that's not saying it's real or it's not real,

I am sure some of these people are very traumatized

and they absolutely believe what they believe.

But there's no empirical way I can prove or disprove it.

‐ [Narrator] So he is on his way to the remote home

of a renowned UFO expert,

a man with a reputation for rigorous data oriented research.

‐ So here we are in the middle of nowhere Colorado,

beautiful state, we're about 7000 feet up in altitude.

And we're going to a real remote location.

(wind gushing)

He's trained observer and he is probably

the only person on this planet right now,

that has the amount of historical data

as it relates to the phenomenon.

I'm here because Robert Hasting

said he wanted to have a conversation with me.

It was urgent and this has to do

with a little bit more up‐close and personal contact.

Hello there Robert, ‐ [Robert] Greetings.

‐ [Lue] This is one hell of a place you got here, wow.

So Robert, thank you very much for having me here

at your incredibly lovely house.

I gotta admit, you really live off the grid man.

‐ [Narrator] Robert Hastings

has been studying the connection

between what he believes maybe beings from another world

and US nuclear facilities, going back decades.

He's interviewed 167 veterans

about their UFO experiences near nuclear bases.

But recently, he's turned his attention

to the physical and psychological effects

caused by these close encounters.

‐ In the course of my many interviews

with military veterans from time to time,

I would encounter an individual

who seemed to be interested in telling me something,

but was hesitant to really openly address this object.

‐ [Narrator] Hasting says of the scores of veterans

he spoke to, a handful reported

some kind of biological effect

following their alleged incident.

‐ They described finding blood

on their bedding or bed clothes.

They also have described finding strange scars

that cannot be accounted for, that seemed to appear

immediately after these experiences.

‐ [Narrator] But Hastings hasn't just conducted research

about the physical effects of UFO encounters,

he claims to have experienced them himself.

(dramatic string score)

‐ I wanted to come here and talk to you

because you have spent your life

and your career listening to other people

tell their stories about their experiences.

And all of a sudden, late last year that changed.

You begin to tell your story.

Would you mind sharing with me

a little bit of that perspective?

‐ I was 38 years old.

I had already been on the college lecture circuit

for seven years talking about

the US government cover up on UFOs.

‐ [Narrator] In 1988, Hastings is on a camping trip

with friends in the mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico.

It was the first night of the trip.

I awoke at 3 am sharp, because I checked my watch.

And one of this woman's daughter's

a woke us all screaming at the top of her lungs

what are those lights, what are those lights

‐ [Narrator] Coming up on Unidentified.

(slowbeat music)

‐ [Narrator] Legendary UFO researcher, Robert Hastings

is telling Lue Elizondo about a camping trip,

he took with friends in New Mexico.

He was asleep in a tent

when his friend's daughter started screaming

about something in the sky.

(child yells)

‐ We kind of, groggily got up.

Some of us stumbled outside.

I saw an object moving away in the sky

with two strobe lights.

The woman, my friend was standing next to me.

It was below the mountain range and gaining altitude.

When it finally disappeared from view,

it was above the silhouette of the mountain range.

The next morning,

the woman said something weird happened last night.

My radio turned on all by itself.

I assumed that I just kicked it in my sleep

and so I turned it off.

The same thing happened again apparently.

"It went turned on by itself", she said,

it got louder and louder and louder.

(radio noises)

And by the time she got to it, it was at maximum volume.

So we had that data point.

‐ [Narrator] The morning after he got home

from the camping trip,

Hastings noticed what he thinks may have been a biological

effect from the encounter.

‐ The following morning, I found blood on my pillow.

Okay‐‐ ‐ Running nose?

Maybe you had a bloody nose at night, maybe a...

‐ It's conceivable, but there was no blood on my face.

There was no blood anywhere else.

‐ So unusual?

‐ Right.

Somewhere around Thursday or Friday, my friend,

the woman called me and said,

the woman who is sleeping in her van

had called her very upset

saying I'm having a repetitive nightmare

every night this week

and in the nightmare, Robert, you,

my friend and your eight year old daughter are walking

single file toward this landed object.

The van starts filling with this bright white strobe light

going on and off.

I procrastinated for four years

but in 1992,

I had a very skeptical clinical psychologist

regress me, hypnotic regression.

‐ [Narrator] During the sixth hypnosis session,

Hastings says he retrieved a frightening new memory

from the night of the camping trip.

‐ I suddenly found myself walking into

a incredibly bright room,

the walls were curved into the ceiling.

They were seamless.

It scared me to death.

I was just terrified by whatever this was

and I actually pulled myself out of the hypnosis session.

‐ If it turns out that you have something

that is coming down and taking people

against their own free will

that's potentially an act of war.

It's hard to make that leap, that's why I'm here.

I need to collect more information

to make a determination.

I absolutely believe you believe what you've experienced.

‐ Right.

‐ [Lue] I don't think there's any question of that.

I guess my playing devil's advocate here

from a scientific perspective,

is it possible that

some false memory was introduced subconsciously

and now all of a sudden that false memory

becomes now interpreted as a real memory?

‐ If I had my choice

being a solid nuts and bolts researcher on this subject,

who has credibility in the eyes of veterans

and academia and many, many

law enforcement people I've talked to,

I certainly wouldn't introduce into my life

the fact that I've had these experiences.

‐ [Chris] I struggle with the whole phenomenon a bit.

I'm a very data oriented empirical science guy,

yet I have to confess there are people that I know,

credible people, military and government people

who had these experiences.

My stance on all of these issues is

we should always keep an open mind

and continue to just follow the data.

‐ I am absolutely convinced that

Mr. Robert Hastings truly believes

he experienced something extraordinary.

He took a big risk to come out and have this conversation.

Now, do I believe the event happened?

Well, that's a different story.

I think it's important that I ascertain some

professional perspectives, especially in the world

of human psychology.

‐ [Narrator] Elizondo wants to know

if there's a way to scientifically evaluate

stories like Hastings' and the other eye witnesses

so he sets up a video meeting with Dr. Susan Clancy,

a psychologist who earned her PhD from Harvard in 2001,

in 2005, she wrote the book "Abducted,

How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens."

‐ When I started this research, I thought,

oh my God, these people really could be psychotic.

That ended very quickly.

We would have them remember their experiences

and then we would study

how their bodies reacted physiologically

and their bodies reacted the same way

as posttraumatic stress victims react

to getting shot at, to personal trauma

so this is not making stuff up.

This is a memory that is inside them

that feels as real as any other memory.

‐ [Narrator] Coming up on Unidentified.

‐ [Narrator] Lue Elizondo has examined three incidents

where credible individuals

say they saw and interacted with UFOs,

but could there be another explanation

for their disturbing memories?

(air whooshing)

‐ The information we received from the three individuals,

all of them are absolutely certain

they've experienced what they've experienced,

but there is a common thread with some of the individuals

and they involve hypnosis.

Can you explain to me in lay terms, what is it?

‐ What hypnosis is,

is it is simply lulling you into a very relaxed state, okay.

And you've got this therapist that you trust,

and he's saying things to you,

like do you remember if there was a figure in the bedroom?

Do you remember if you felt afraid or vulnerable?

And when this stuff is happening

and people are calm and suggestible,

the answer tends to be yes

and you are now constructing

a memory of something that didn't happen.

Does that make sense?

‐ Yeah, it does.

I think that's fascinating.

So doctor, there was an individual who

explained to the experience of being completely paralyzed

while encountering this interesting experience.

Is there a medical explanation

or a psychological explanation

that might help explain the phenomena of this?

‐ Yes.

It sounds exactly like a textbook case

of sleep paralysis.

It's like an incongruity in our sleep cycles

where we're awake for a second,

but we're still experiencing

the hallucination aspect of sleep,

and when sleep paralysis happens, we can't move.

During those experiences, people report terror

and seeing frightening imagery

and hearing frightening sounds.

And then they're going out there

and they're looking for an explanation

that fits their pattern of symptoms

and a very available cultural script for sleep paralysis,

psychological problems is alien abductions.

You had movies, you had TV show.

‐ [Narrator] If Dr. Clancy's theory is correct,

the eyewitnesses may have created false memories

influenced by pop culture.

Beginning in the 1950s,

close encounters with alien visitors

have become a familiar story

in popular movies and television shows.

And in 1987,

the bestselling book "Communion" helped introduce the idea

that everyday people were experiencing

extra terrestrial contact.

‐ What for decades had been a very obscure

and bizarre facet of the UFO phenomenon

had by the mid 1990s become the

subject of daytime television shows, documentaries.

‐ [Narrator] Researcher, Mark Pilkington

thinks a culturally available narrative

explains why stories of close encounters are so consistent.

‐ It was quite hard to find anybody who had felt

that they'd had anomalous UFO related experiences

who wasn't aware of what happened

during an alien abduction encounter.

I think it's no surprise that we see a sudden surge

of stories from witnesses of themselves

being taken on board UFOs,

but some experts

took the growing number of abduction accounts seriously.

A turning point came in 1994 when Dr. John Mack,

a Harvard professor and founding chairman

of the psychiatry department at Cambridge hospital

published "Abduction, Human Encounters With Aliens".

The international bestseller

helped legitimize these encounters.

‐ What does it mean if this

and presumably many other potential life forms do exist

in ways that gets through to our reality?

What does this mean for our consciousness?

Our sense of ourselves.

‐ [Narrator] Mack's research caused an uproar.

Harvard investigated his work

and a committee faulted his use of hypnosis,

but its final report,

re‐affirmed Mack's academic freedom.

And he remained on the Harvard faculty of medicine.

‐ For him, there was a very spiritual component to this

and I don't think he gave a crap what anybody else thought.

In the end, that's what helped me understand

a lot of what was going on.

Is that for most of these people,

these experiences were terrible,

but these people felt changed afterwards.

They felt that there was a sense of purpose

that was powerful enough

for them to not want to have these memories go away,

but all they could do in the end

was say, based on the data,

it is more likely that this is a false memory.

‐ Doctor, this has been an absolute honor

and pleasure of mine.

Thank you so very much.

‐ Thank you so much.

‐ It's tremendously courageous for people to come forward

and share their experiences with me.

I think that having an explanation of sleep paralysis,

I think it's fair that it may explain

some of the experiences,

but I think it's unfair to put

all of those experiences into the same bucket

that they're all having sleep paralysis.

I think that's too broad of a generalization.

‐ Maybe some of these people

are having hypnagogic experiences,

but there are some cases

that are very, very difficult to explain

where in the aftermath

there is measurable medical changes

to individuals anatomy.

‐ [Narrator] For Lue Elizondo and Chris Mellon,

the physical effects caused by certain UFO encounters

are beyond dispute.

In 2019, Elizondo interviewed John Burroughs,

a military policeman and witness

to the famous Rendlesham Forest UFO event in 1980.

‐ [John] Whatever it was came right over on top of us.

I got knocked to the ground.

‐ [Narrator] Burroughs says after his encounter,

he began experiencing serious health problems

and went to a hospital.

‐ When the doctor put the stethoscope on my chest,

he looked at me strange and says,

"what's the Air Force have to say about your heart murmur"?

And I'm like, "heart murner, I don't have a heart murmmer".

Oh yes you do.

‐ [Narrator] Doctors had discovered

life‐threatening scarring on his heart.

Burroughs was eventually able to get

full veterans administration disability benefits

for his injury,

but only with the help of an aid to Senator John McCain.

‐ Getting information for John Burroughs

was like pulling teeth.

‐ Was this a purposeful effort

to squelch John's record from being made public?

‐ Oh, I would adamantly say yes, 100%.

It was deliberate.

‐ What do you think they're afraid of.

‐ The incident that took place.

They literally had proof and evidence

and they didn't want the world to know.

‐ [Narrator] For Elizondo the complete truth

about the phenomenon won't be clear

until the government finally reveals

what it knows about close encounters

and all unexplained UFO incidents.

In the UFO community, it's called disclosure.

‐ I don't think disclosure is an event.

I think it's a process.

‐ [Narrator] Coming up on Unidentified.

‐ I think the one thing that I find

almost universally applicable

when regarding this phenomenon

is that most individuals report to have

some sort of profound change

that they've experienced during and after an event.

‐ [Narrator] Elizondo has investigated

the harrowing accounts of military service members,

who claim to have had close encounters with UFOs.

While he's unsure what to make of their incredible stories,

they are part of a growing movement.

(slate clicks)

‐ What inspired you to come here today and why now?

‐ For the past 70 years,

the government was unwilling to treat this subject matter

with anything except ridicule.

‐ The sighting was 20 years ago

but we've never talked to anybody else about it.

‐ I think the biggest piece of this movement

is Mr. Elizondo's willingness

to step out of the darkness

and the courage of his fellow team members

has inspired me to come forward.

‐ These are individuals we trust with our lives.

They should be able to report this information

without fear of retribution or stigma.

‐ When you see something for yourself

that does not obey physical norms, physical laws,

it changes your perspective on reality.

‐ Whatever's behind that technology,

if you're warping gravity,

that is the capability that exceeds anything

that is out there right now

and that's both exciting and frightening.

‐ [Narrator] During this year's investigation,

commercial airline pilots, NORAD and FAA personnel,

all risk their careers to come forward.

‐ If our brave men and women in uniform

can report this information so should our civilian pilots.

‐ [Peter] It was very scary.

When you have an object within 50 feet

of an aircraft moving at 35,000 feet at 550 knots,

that's not good.

‐ If one of these did hit one of our airplanes,

it most likely would kill everybody on board.

(engine sounds)

‐ [Narrator] Once considered fringe,

these accounts have earned the topic a new legitimacy

and for Elizondo and Chris Mellon, a new urgency.

‐ [Chris] It's more than a national defense issue,

even though it certainly is that,

it's a scientific issue.

It's an issue that offers us the opportunity

potentially to find the answers to questions

that are of the deepest and most profound nature.

‐ You have to reject every preconceived notion

that you're born with

and you learn in school and you're taught in church

and you're taught through universities

and academic institutions.

‐ [Narrator] The team's work led to

powerful members of Congress

and even the president himself being briefed

on ongoing military encounters with UFOs.

‐ And I did have one very brief meeting on it,

but people are saying, they are seeing UFOs,

do I believe it?

Not particularly.

‐ [Narrator] And in June 2020,

Senator Marco Rubio called for the formation

of a new multi‐agency task force to study the phenomenon.

‐ [Radio Presenter] Senator Rubio said the UFO Task Force

will release its findings to the public.

‐ [Narrator] Also in June, 2020,

astrophysicists revealed there may be

as many as 6 billion earth‐like planets

in our galaxy.

Many with the conditions to support life.

For Elizondo and his team,

it's further confirmation of what they've been hesitant

to claim in the past

but now are emboldened to come out and say.

‐ [Chris] The phenomenon is real.

These are not US, Russian or Chinese vehicles.

If there is another intelligence

from another system that's vastly more advanced

and sophisticated than we are

and we were able to establish contact and communication,

it would be the equivalent possibly

of gaining hundreds of thousands

or millions of years worth of knowledge,

in days, months or weeks.

‐ What does it mean for us

if we are presented one day

with the fact that there are others out there.

Does it mean that we're not as special anymore?

Or does it mean that we have brothers and sisters

that now we should start a new journey with?

I think there's magic in that.

I think it's wondrous to think that

in the greater cosmos

billions and billions of light years

with billions and trillions of stars and planets,

that we're all part of this interesting cosmic neighborhood.

Wouldn't it be amazing maybe we'll be more human.

Maybe we will learn to be more than human

if we have a chance to learn from something else

and therefore our definition of being

a human being is expanded.

(suspenseful music)