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Everything that we know
and have learned about mankind

and its place
in the universe suggests

that we are a part of the norm.
We are not the exception.

Within the last month,
a planet was identified
that has water

a mere 110 light years
away from Earth.

We need to begin to prepare
to accept and understand

that we are not alone
in the universe,

have not been at all
throughout this time.

NARRATOR: The same year
that life-giving water

was discovered
on a distant planet,

the US Navy made a startling announcement.

[PILOT SPEAKING]

NARRATOR: Images captured
by its pilots

of objects exhibiting
a vastly superior technology
were authentic.

MELLON: We can start to
finally, at long last,
after all these decades,

begin to answer these questions

about the origin
of these vehicles,
where they're from,

how they're made,
how they function
and why they're here.

WOMAN: People need to know
there is something else
out there.

NARRATOR: To fully understand,

we must examine
a body of evidence
long suppressed.

A parallel history
to the one we think we know,

stretching back
at least 70 years.

On a clear, sunny day in 1955,

William Coleman, a decorated World War II pilot,

took off from Miami
on a routine flight
to deliver a B-25 bomber

to an airbase in Mississippi.

My co-pilot said, "Look at that
bright spot up there."

I think it's just a reflection
of the sun,

a craze probably,
in the windshield.

NARRATOR:
He and his passengers,
two aviation engineers,

realized it was
a strange object

making a rapid descent right across their flight path.

My God, look at that thing.

And I opened it up
to max continuous power,

we're clipping right along
at over 300 miles an hour,

right on the treetops...

I'm right on the tail
of this thing.

But as we got close,I said, "It doesn't have a tail.

Doesn't have any wings."

Look at the shadow
on the ground.
The shadow was perfectly round.

That's not an airplane.

And I said, "I'm overtaking it."So I said, "Hang on."

So I make a hard turn.

There it was, a disc
going across the field
with two big swirls.

What I didn't see
was any exhaust, propulsion.

No rivet lines, a rounded edge
about that size
where it all came together.

A true flying saucer.

NARRATOR: Then it seemed
to vanish,

until they spotted it
thousands of feet above them.

Bright yellow,
sun-ish looking object.

It went like a bat out of hell.

NARRATOR: After they landed,
the stunned witnesses
were separately debriefed

by Project Blue Book,
the Air Force investigation
of the UFO phenomena.

Ironically,
a little over a decade later,

Col. William T. Coleman
became public spokesman
for Project Blue Book.

Probably what we saw
may have been
from somewhere else.

Look, the Air Forces
are very deadly,

being when it comes
to intercepting an unknown.

If it proves hostile,

we're gonna shoot it down.

Other than that, no problem.

NARRATOR: In the late 1940s,

America seemed impregnable
to military threat.

It had just emerged
from World War II
masters of the air,

the only nuclear-armed
superpower in the world.

But in 1947, something appeared in the sky,

and everything changed.

MAN: Every newscaster
and every newspaper
across the nation

has made headlines out of it.

And this afternoon
we are honored indeed

to have here in our studio
this man Kenneth Arnold,

who we believe may be able to give us a firsthand account,

and give you the same,
on what happened.

KENNETH: I kept looking
for their tails.
They didn't have any tail.

I thought, "Well, maybe something's wrong in my eyes."

They seemed to flip and flash in the sun, just like a mirror.

I'd be glad to confirm it
with my hands on a Bible
because I did see it,

and whether it has anything
to do with our army
or our intelligence,

or whether it has to do
with some foreign country,
I don't know.

Arnold had sent this sketch
to the Air Force
following his citing.

He was later invited
to California's
Hamilton Field Army Air Base,

where he was handed
what he was told

were authentic photos
of a similar craft.

WOMAN: "At the request
of Lt. Col. Donald Springer,

commanding officer
of the Fourth
Air Force Intelligence,

I was given the above prints
a4s a courtesy

for the assistance he had given
military intelligence."

NARRATOR: The photo
was taken in Arizona

just two weeks
after his own encounter.

They said that my father,
his sighting of flying saucers,

got more attentionthan the ending of World War II.

He was besieged
by newspaper reporters
from all over the world.

Mm-hm.

NARRATOR: Reporters
interviewed United Airlines
pilot E.J. Smith

who also flew
the northwest route.

He joked Arnold
had likely been fooled
by a cockpit reflection,

until he, too, became a witness a few weeks later.

He and his stunned crew
had watched

as nine discs
maneuvered in formation
for a full 45minutes.

PITTMAN: And from there
it just exploded.

The first few days
in July of 1947

had a very large level
of exciting activity.

NARRATOR: These unknown objects barnstormed across the country,

sometimes in
fleet-like formations

that looked like
a deliberate show of force.

BOB HOPE: Hundreds of people
told Air Force investigators

they'd seen the saucers
with their own eyes.

Bright, shiny things
that whooshed through the air
at incredible speeds.

Even airline pilots, who seldom indulge in fantasy, reported sighting them.

And Air Force fliers
told of chasing them,

or something, all over the sky.

The Air Force call them "unidentified flying objects,"

but people went right on
calling them saucers
and seeing them.

There was something in the air.

[NEWS BROADCASTER SPEAKING]

NARRATOR: But a then-secret memorandum by the same general

suggested that
the highest military echelons

thought there was plenty
to worry about.

The memo states,
"The phenomenon reported
is something real

and not visionary
or fictitious."

It described metallic discs
circular in shape,
with domes on top,

often traveling in formations
of three to nine craft.

It also listed
aerodynamic capabilities

with disturbing implications
for national defense.

Extreme rates of climb,
dazzling maneuverability,

and a superior capacity
for evasive action.

A lot of people expected that
the United States government

was about to confirm,
"Okay, they're ours.

This is an exciting
new technological advance
that we were testing,

and now it's time
to tell people about it."

Occasionally,
eyewitness testimony included

compelling
photographic evidence.

Evelyn Trent
was feeding her rabbits
when she spotted

a metallic disc-shaped object
floating over their farm.

She alerted her husband, Paul, to grab his camera,

and he managed
to get two shots.

They described the object
slowly hovering
before it abruptly sped away.

Life magazine
picked up the story,

and the McMinnville UFO
became a global sensation.

PITTMAN: There's no chance
of this being weather.

There's no chance of this being
a star or an aircraft.

This is either
some kind of structured object
that we don't know what it is,

or it's a hoax.

Paul Trent and his wife,
they were honest, simple,
hardworking people

who never made a dime
off the photographs
that they took.

They never tried
to make a dime off of it.

It just come up like that
and tipped and just...

I mean, it really went.
It went fast.

I've never seen anything
go so fast in my life
as that thing went. Yeah.

NARRATOR: In 1951, future astronaut Gordon Cooper, while training in Germany,

chased a large formation
with his squadron
of fighter jets.

[GORDON COOPER SPEAKING]

And they would come over
and do the same maneuvers
that we make

except every once in a while
one of them goes, zip!

And you just can't do that
in a fighter.

DELBERT NEWHOUSE:
There are two saucers,
one inverted over the other.

They seemed to be made of
some kind of polished metal.

When I first saw the objects,
they were almost overhead.

By the time we had the camera ready to go,

they had moved
to a considerably
greater distance.

NARRATOR: But the unknowns
showed no signs of hostility.

An otherworldly power on its own mysterious mission.

Commercial pilots William Nash and William Fortenberry,

former Navy aviators
with thousands of hours
of flight experience,

saw eight huge discs
fly in a stack formation

over Chesapeake Bay, Virginia,

just a stone's throw
from Washington, DC.

When they came out
over the blackness of the bay,

they were distinct
six red coins.

When they got closer,
we could see that you're...

It looked like
you were looking down
into it, like a hot coal.

NARRATOR: They reported
the glowing red objects
had approached them head-on

at a speed they estimated
at 6,000
to 12,000 miles per hour.

It came in like this
and went out like this.

There would be no way
of making a complete reversal
or a 90-degree turn

12,000 miles an hour or greater

without making the occupants
juice on the wall.

That really shook us up.
Looking at the thing
shook us up.

Nothing could have gotten
to that degree

of scientific progress

without some
of the intermediate stuff
having become public knowledge.

You just knew
that they were not
from this planet.

NARRATOR: The next weekend,
the unthinkable happened.

The nation's capital
was invaded from the skies.

Seven unknown blips
suddenly appeared on radar at Washington National Airport.

Air-traffic controllers
at both Andrews
and Bolling Air Force bases

confirmed the objects
as they danced
through restricted airspace.

PITTMAN: The Capitol Building.

The White House
where the president lived,

these were some of
the most important places
in the country

when it comes
to national defense.

And there were UFOs
violating this airspace,

and there was nothing thatthe Air Force could do about it.

NARRATOR: F-94 interceptors
were scrambled.

Pentagon press liaison Al Chop was in the radar room
that night.

We could see the planes
coming in on this radar scope

and the minute we saw
the beginning of these guys,

the UFOs disappeared.
They just left.

Obviously, whatever
these things were
had intelligence,

enough to get out of the area
when we had an intercept
going in.

NARRATOR: But the next weekend,
it began again.

Pilot William Patterson
pushed his Starfire jet
to maximum speed

to try to intercept
one of the glowing objects.

Flew right into the middle
of three or four of them.

NARRATOR: Al Chop recalls
the pilot's panicky
air-to-ground transmission

as he streaked
at 600 miles per hour
into a group of unknowns.

He actually said,
"They're closing in on me.
What do I do?"

It was frightening.

NARRATOR: The Air Force
had just issued orders
to shoot down the unknowns,

if "they can't talk them down."

I'm not gonna tell
an Air Force pilot to fire
at the damn thing or anything.

But I didn't say anything.
Nobody said anything.

And then all of a sudden,
the things began
to move away from him

and he said, "They're gone."

I'm convinced
they're solid objects.

I'm convinced that they're
probably from another planet,

or from outer space somewhere.

I've always felt that way
since that night.

NARRATOR: The very next day,
the Air Force's top brass

hastily prepared the largest
Pentagon press conference
since World War II.

Seen here
in a last-minute huddle,
Gen. Roger Ramey,

Air Force director
of operations
at the Pentagon.

Capt. Edward Ruppelt
of Project Blue Book,

the Air Force's official
UFO investigations arm,

and director
of Air Force intelligence,
Gen. John Samford.

Since 1947, we have
received and analyzed
between one and 2,000 reports

that have come to us
from all kinds of sources.

Of this great mass of reports,
we have been able,

adequately, to explain
the great bulk of them.

However, there have been
a certain percentage
of this volume of reports

that have been made
by credible observersof relatively incredible things.

We can say
that the recent sightings
are in no way connected

with any secret development
by any department
of the United States.

NARRATOR: In the Q&A
with reporters, Samford
suggested a 50-50 chance

it could have been radar waves bouncing off
temperature inversions.

The point that Samford
put across all too effectively

was that they were not real.
They were just
tricks of the atmosphere.

And atmospheric phenomena
can't be a threat
to national security.

You don't shoot at clouds.

NARRATOR: The public was pondering the implications

of possible
extraterrestrial contact.

MAN: Robert L. Farnsworth, President of the United States Rocket Society,

told defense officials
not to permit our planes to fire at any flying saucers.

He says this might alienate humankind from beings of far superior forces.

Farnsworth feels
that friendly contact
should be sought

as long as possible.

NARRATOR: Behind the scenes,
the CIA had other concerns.

A secret internal memo
urged immediate attention

to unexplained objects
in the vicinity

of major
US Defense installations.

I would dare say,
if anything happened

we thought was a threat
to our national security,

somebody out there,
one of the services,
would respond to it.

Remember, this is
the height of the Cold War.

Okay, there are bombers
on both sides
loaded with nuclear bombs.

NARRATOR: Dr. Jacque Vallee
was the inspiration
for the French UFO researcher

in Steven Spielberg's
Close Encounters
of the Third Kind.

[SPEAKS FRENCH]

Have you recently
had a close encounter?

NARRATOR: In real life,
Dr. Vallee conducted

sober scientific research
on the phenomenon.

We know now that
there is no simple answer.

NARRATOR: For decades,
he met with witnesses

and traveled the globe
gathering evidence...

ultimately creating
the first database
on the UFO subject.

Mr. Chairman,

all the great nations
of the world are represented
on this committee.

Let us keep in mind thatthe UFO phenomenon may represent

an even greater reality.

NARRATOR: Vallee also consulted
with scientific, military
and government officials,

including Project Blue Book's
top science adviser,
Dr. J. Allen Hynek.

I began my work
as scientific consultant
to the United States Air Force

as an open skeptic.

NARRATOR: Hynek was
a university astronomer with a high-security clearance

when the Air Force
recruited him
to investigate UFOs.

And it so happened
when the Air Force got the job
of trying to figure out

what some of these strange
flying saucer stories
were about,

well, they needed an astronomer
to see how many of the reports

could possibly be explained
as meteors and twinkling stars
and planets.

NARRATOR: The two scientists
became close colleagues,

with Hynek entrusting Vallee
to index the reams
of Blue Book files

scattered throughout
Hynek's home.

It was there that Vallee
made a chance discovery
of a letter so secret,

he had to appeal
to the chief counsel

of the Senate Defense
Appropriations Committee

to get it declassified.

That document changed my life.
It taught me that

the subject had been taken
much more seriously
than anybody thought.

NARRATOR: The document revealed
an ultra-secret,

highly funded
scientific investigation

working parallel to Blue Book

unknown to all
but a select few.

The letter was signed
by H.C. Cross,

director of exotic metallurgy
at Battelle
National Laboratories.

VALLEE: These were the people
who had analyzed the facts

with a large budget,with highly competent physicistsand computer scientists.

Who are these people?
What information did they have?

Good evening.
Tonight, we go after
a fantastic story.

The story that flying saucers
from other worlds
are visiting our planet,

just as we are exploring
outer space
with our own rocket satellites.

Our guest is
former Marine Air Corps
Maj. Donald Keyhoe,

in his campaign to prove
that flying saucers exist.

My name is Mike Wallace.
The cigarette is Parliament.

Why would the United States
government withhold information

from United States citizens?
For what reason?

The Air Force is simply
treating the American people
like children.

They don't trust them
with the facts.

NARRATOR:
During the '50s and '60s,
it wasn't just the Americans

who were seeing flying saucers.

At the Westall School
in Australia,

several hundred students
saw an object hovering over
this power line tower

on their athletic field.

An event they vividly recall
50 years later.

A student came
into the classroom, you know.

"There's flying saucers
in the oval,
there's flying saucers,"

and everybody ran out.

And I remember the fear
and the hysteria
of all the students.

I couldn't believe it
because what I was seeing
wasn't possible.

It was vertical, horizontal.
It'd move away from us,
back towards us.

Appear somewhere else,
somewhere else.

My God, you know?
But it was exciting.

It was like that
and then all of a sudden,
it just turned on its side

and I could see
that it was a round disc.

NARRATOR: The children
saw the disc begin to descend
into this wooded reserve

at the end of the school's
running path.

I ran towards the corner
of the school,
jumped the fence

and ran towards where it looked
as though it went down
into the trees,

and then stopped dead
because it was right in front
of me on the ground.

Like a disc with a slight rise
in the middle.

I also heard a low,
sort of a humming noise,

and I felt a bit of a heat
coming off it as well.

And it started to take off
pretty well straight away.

It had all bluey-purple lights
around the bottom.

Don't remember seeing
any windows,

and it took off to about
probably four or five meters
in the air,

and then turned on its side,
and just went... [VOCALIZES]
Straight up so fast,

that there's just nothing,
even nowadays,
that could go that fast.

NARRATOR: Shortly after
the object departed,

the authorities converged
on the school.

We had Army, Air Force, policedown here cordoning off the area

to prevent any of us enteringthe area or disturbing anything.

We got called to assembly.
The headmaster said,

"You have not seen this.
You do not talk about it.

You'll be in trouble if you do."

NARRATOR:
For the first time ever,

the school science teacher
agreed to describe
what he saw that day,

providing we concealed
his identity.

It was not a mirage.
There was something physical
in the sky.

It was silver. It could hover.

It could move slowly.
It could move very rapidly.

Eventually it moved away
to the other side of the oval,

and down behind some pine trees.

I was not then,
nor ever have been,

able to use my knowledge
of the world,

nor my scientific training,
to provide
a rational explanation.

NARRATOR:
What he said next sheds light
on why the school staff

have remained silent
all these years.

There was a knock on the door
one night.

Two older men, one in uniform,

asked for my description
of what I had seen.

I was then told
that I hadn't seen anything,

that I'd made it all up,
possibly because I was drunk

and that they would
have to report that fact
to the Education Department

and I would lose my job.
After that, I was told

that I would be prosecuted underthe Official Secrets Act,

and I was told that there wasn'tanything there,
when I knew there was,

and that I had to keep quiet
about it.

Why did I have to keep quiet?

NARRATOR: The Westall landing
may not have been
an isolated incident.

Four days prior,
a then-young engineer
in nearby Balwyn

was taking photos
in his mother's garden when something caught his eye.

This tremendous flash of light,
and I looked up,
and I saw this object...

I had a Polaroid camera.
I pulled this up
and hit myself on the face.

And I took the picture.
I've got the photograph here.

This is the original Polaroid?

That's it.

Looked like it was made
out of some form of metal,

and it was engineered.

And being an engineer,
I was sure it was.

And this is
when I took the photograph,

and it had tipped around
and I could see the bottom,

and it looked like
it was rotating to me.

That was it,
and then after that,
it sort of gave a bounce

and it rocketed away
to the north, very high speed.

INTERVIEWER: Can you describe
the acceleration?

It was almost instantaneous.
It's like
it had been shot out of a gun.

Wham, you know?

NARRATOR: Air Force officers
showed up at his doorstep

asking for every detail
of his experience.

And they also had some
photographs of similar things,

and they also had a book
which had pictures
of things in which...

They didn't leave it with me,
but I had a look through.

But they said it was
an unidentified flying object.

That was it.

INTERVIEWER:
What was the implication?

ENGINEER: That it didn't come
from anywhere on Earth.

NARRATOR: Project Blue Book,
with a skeletal staff,
continued publicly collecting

thousands of cases.

Despite efforts
to explain them away,

hundreds were still filed
as unknown.

MAN: Several reports of a strange egg-shaped object about 200 feet long

landing on farms and highways
last night
in the vicinity of Levelland.

Sheriff Clem says
he even himself
got a glimpse of the thing,

which somehow turned off
lights and auto engines
when it came near.

Within 24 to 36 hours
after these sightings
in Levelland, Texas

at the White Sands
Proving Ground, very close
to the Trinity test site

where they first detonated
the first atomic bomb,

military personnel witnessed
a glowing egg-shaped object

that apparently landed.

This is Bill Haggert,

Public Information Officer of White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico.

What they saw looked like
a landing and takeoff

of some controlled object
from outer space.

[MAN SPEAKING]

NARRATOR: They appeared
to be dressed
in white coveralls.

And were childlike.
That is, small.

[MAN SPEAKING]

NARRATOR: Zamora added
that one of the two persons
turned his head

and looked straight at him.

MAN: When I got out of the car,
about 50 feet from it...

I guess they saw me
because they started their motor or whatever it is.

I could see a big blast of fire
coming from right under it.

So, I was behind
some bushes there,
behind my car.

I could see it
and I could feel that heat.

That really got me scared,
you know?

A lot of people say,
"Why didn't you take your gun out and shoot at it?"

They weren't doing
nothing to me.

It just took a little while
to get airborne,

came up a little bit,
about 20-30 feet,
and it stayed there a while.

And it was just as quiet
as it could be.

And then just flew away,
that's it.

Lonnie was very, very scared.
He was as white as a sheet.

From here, went directly
to the church
to talk to the priest, okay?

NARRATOR: Pablo Lopez was
among the first to arrive at
the landing and takeoff site.

The ground was still smoldering
in some of the weeds
that were around it.

NARRATOR: This rare footage gives us a glimpse of the scene

shortly after the incident.

Patrolman Zamora stoops
to point out one of
the landing gear imprints

where officers had
just placed rocks to protect
the fresh ground traces.

And then there was
two sets of footprints,
two sets of footprints.

Like so.

That was about
the approximate size of 'em.

In comparison to a quarter,
that's pretty small.

Okay. That's about
the size of 'em.

NARRATOR: Within an hour and over the next several days,

officials from the FBI, military, and Project Blue Book

documented the evidence
at the scene.

MAN 1: Were there any
prong marks on the ground
or anything like that

-where you could see
where it had landed?
-MAN 2: There were four.

MAN 1: Very unusual footprints.
And how many were there?

MAN 2: Two footprints on one side and two footprints on the other side.

-MAN 1: Of course,
the burn area there...
-MAN 2: I was in my car.

I could see it
and I could feel that heat.

They told me that
all over the state
they had been seen.

Some of those flying saucers,
whatever you call 'em.

They gave me a book on it,
you know?

They told me
to go ahead and read it.

Well, it says
not to say nothing.

Keep away from it.
Don't say too much, you know.

NARRATOR: It was
the middle of the night
by the time Lonnie came home.

MARY ZAMORA: I mean,
he was really pale.

And I thought he was sick.
I said, "Are you sick
or something?"

He said, "No.
I was just working."
He was like...

Like he was angry.

What I knew about it
was when I started
reading the papers, you know.

Started coming out,
and everything.
I said, "What's this?"

"I don't know," he said.
"It's just a headache "

He said "Everybody's after me
and some believe me
and some don't."

-MAN 1: Dear Mr. Zamora.
-MAN 2: Dear Mr. Zamora.

-WOMAN 1: Dear Mr. Zamora.
-KID 1: Dear Mr. Zamora.

[KID 2 READING]

WOMAN 2: Sure, I believe
you saw an
egg-shaped spacecraft

that had passengers
from off this earth.

[MAN READING]

WOMAN 3: I could go on
for a week
telling you what I've seen.

KID 1: A boy in our school science fair had three pictures

that looked just like
the flying saucer
you described.

[MAN READING]

WOMAN: As I have pictures
of a couple of egg-shaped shape ships taken...

-I read about you
seeing a flying saucer.
-WOMAN: I'm a retired teacher.

Well, you have a friend
who believes you.

This saucer phenomenon has changed my life and ideas.

[KID 3 READING]

WOMAN: August 17, 1960,
our Red Bluff officers

and dozens of people
saw a saucer.

KID 4: Can you tell me
how long it stayed on Earth,
and other things like that?

MARY: Then people started
making fun of him

that he had seen little men
from outer space

or this and that.
A whole bunch of dirty stuff.

MAN: Lot of people asked me,
"Is that the reason
you quit the police force?"

No, the reason
I quit the police force

was because I was going
and doing a lot
of publicity and stuff.

I didn't wanna hurt the town.

NARRATOR: The level of inquiry
went all the way to the office of the President.

To this day,
the Socorro close encounter
remains unexplained.

VALLEE:
Socorro was very similar

to the French cases
that I had brought
to Hynek's attention.

Checked by the police,checked by the French Air Force,

where there were also occupants
who were seen,

short beings,
in connection with the objects.

I think that's what
convinced him

that there were UFO landings
in the United States.

Looked like a toy top
somewhat upside down.

So this is the diagram
which we've come up with.

It's more flat here
other than round.

But it does have the hump
up in here.

It seemed to move off the groundif it was down.

And then we saw three lights
that went from yellow to red.

When you got right up to it,
it lit up.

I mean, it really did
become bright,
and we could see it,

the outline of it, real good.

NARRATOR: Blue Book's
Dr. Allen Hynek investigated

one of the alleged
landing sites

with the local sheriff.

At an overflow press conference later that day,

the world held its breath
for an historic revelation

about the landings in Michigan.

Hynek, by now
privately convinced
of the UFO reality,

struggled to follow
the Air Force policy

of tamping down
public excitement.

[MAN SPEAKING]

I'm saying that the two cases
that I investigated
most deeply were most likely.

I said in a statement
that I couldn't prove it
in a court of law.

[MAN SPEAKING]

No, that's not quite right.

I think that a person can be
pretty sure about something

without being ableto convict somebody of a murder.

-Can you? Please.
-Yes, I do. Honestly,
in this case.

[MAN SPEAKING]

NARRATOR:
Hynek's strained explanation,

which he later called
his greatest regret,

ignited a public furor.

MAN: Mr. Ford,
what about flying saucers?

You've had some in Michigan
in the past week.

GERALD: Dave, we've had
several incidents that many felt were sufficient

to justify some action
by our government,

and not the kind of
flippant answer that was given by the Air Force

where they passed it off
as "swamp gas."

It seems to me that this mystery does require

that the Congress
take a good look at it.

Let them put their record
on the line.

NARRATOR: On April 5th, 1966,
congressional hearings
were held with Dr. Hynek

and Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown
both giving testimony.

MAN 1: Mr. Ford has come out.
He has a pretty good-size
stature in the Congress.

And so, Mr. Secretary,

see if you can shed some light on these
highly illuminated objects.

MAN 2: Mr. Secretary,
there have been charges

that the Air Force
is hiding something
in the UFO field.

We have not been
hiding anything.

The investigations
have been made public.

The hearing this morningwas public for just that reason.

There has never been
any evidence

presented to
the United States Air Force,

or discovered by
the United States Air Force,

which would indicate
that the UFO phenomena

represents any interplanetary
space vehicle of any kind.

NARRATOR:
Amid growing pressure,
the Air Force commissioned

an outside panel of scientists

to analyze select cases
and settle the matter
once and for all.

It was headed
by physicist Edward Condon.

Dr. Condon, do you hope
to find people from
outer space here on Earth?

Well, I don't know for sure,
but we'll try to
just study the reports

and get as much
additional information
as we can to see.

REPORTER: Would you like
to have us being visited
by these little or big things?

Well, that'd be fine with me.
I hope they're friendly.

How do you propose
to go about...

NARRATOR: After the project
was launched, Condon remarked to an audience

that he thought
the UFO subject was nonsense.

But "I'm not supposed to reach that conclusion
for another year."

After a two-year investigation,

the panel submitted
a massive 1,400 page report

showing that many cases
were radar
and weather anomalies,

but confirming a number
as truly unexplainable.

Among them were
the famous McMinnville photos

taken on the Trent family farm,

as well as film footage of UFOs in Great Falls, Montana.

NICK: As I looked up,
I saw two silvery objects

moving swiftly
out of the northwest.

No sound, except I thought
I heard a whooshing sound
when I first saw them.

The discs appeared
to be spinning like a top,

and were about 50 feet across,

which was much slower
than the jets

which shot by shortly
after I filmed the discs.

I could not see any exhaust, wings or any kind of fuselage.

They appeared to be
of a bright, shiny metal,
like polished silver.

There are cases
that are not explainable
in conventional terms.

There is the assumption
of intelligence
or intelligent control,

but not necessarily
the assumption
of direct communication.

Why are they here?
What are they doing?

What do they want from us?
What are their motivations?

NARRATOR: But it was Dr. Condon
who wrote the final word.

[READING]

I was kind of woolly
on that one.
You'd have to conclude

that what we were looking at
was beyond our current state
of the knowledge.

But it began to hit me
that Dr. Condon
has apparently not read

his own material very carefully.

You do an actual tabulation,
which he doesn't seem
to have done,

and you find his percentage ofunexplained is five to six times

larger than the Air Force.

And yet, what is his
principal recommendation?

The principal recommendation
that Dr. Condon
has come through with

is there's nothing
of scientific interest
that warrants further attention

on the part
of the federal government
here in any major way.

He recommends
dropping the whole problem.

Nobody could get funded.
Nobody would look
at the data seriously

because of the prestige
of the academy

saying that the problem
had been solved.

The Air Force closed
their reporting system,

so that if the public
wanted to report something,

they would report it
to the local police.

But it would never get
to the attention

of scientists really examining
the phenomena.

NARRATOR: In 1969, the Air Force officially ended its public investigations.

Which would suggest what?

That they knew what it was?

Or didn't know what it was.

Also the other way.
And they did know what it was.

NARRATOR: One aspect
of the phenomenon
that was swept under the rug

was the pervasive reporting
of UFO intrusions

at the world's most sensitive military facilities.

Details did not come to light
until decades later

at the National Press Club
in Washington, DC.

Declassified US government
documents and witness testimony

from former or retired
US military personnel

confirmed, beyond any doubt,
the reality
of ongoing UFO incursions

at nuclear weapon sites.

What you have heard here today
is evidence of a phenomenon.

It sounds fantastic,
and it is fantastic.

In 1967,
I was a missile launch officer

stationed at Malmstrom
Air Force Base, Montana.

NARRATOR: Malmstrom was
America's first line
of nuclear defense,

its silos packed
with Minutemen missiles.

Each one nearly 100 times
more powerful than the bomb
that devastated Hiroshima.

Launch officers could, within minutes of confirmation,

send their birds arcing
6,000 miles to incinerate
key Soviet cities,

triggering a war
that would end
our civilization.

I was the chief of party,
I was the observer.

Basically what I was doing
was the star observation
to provide precise

latitude and longitude
on our small three-man team.

Came from the north
and stopped right over us,

and it had a white light
from the center,
looking down into this island.

I just said to myself,
"What if this thing beams us up

and takes us off
to some distant place

and never returned
to Earth again?"

I mean, this is going through
my head here
while this thing's above me.

And then from this dead stop,
it shoots off to the east.

It's just like now you see it,
now you don't. It just...

MAN: The strike team
that went out,
they saw something.

NARRATOR: Lt. Salas
was stationed

in his underground
launch control capsule

when he received a frantic call from one of his topside guards.

MAN: Screaming into the phone,

saying they're looking
at a red glowing object

hovering just above
our front gate.

Our missiles began going intowhat's called a no-go condition,or unlaunchable.

Essentially, they were disabled.

NARRATOR: In fact, ten missiles
began going offline
in a matter of seconds,

one after the other.

Personally, I'm never aware
of two missiles going down
at the same time,

let alone ten.

I was a top-secret
control officer

and I passed down
nuclear launch authenticators.

I can clearly recall a message
coming through my
communications center

which basically said
that a UFO did, in fact,

shut down several missile silos
in Montana.

MAN: I was on duty at Echo,
which is our
squadron command post.

We had strike teams respond
to alarms from the missiles.

They were
three to five miles away.

And they said,
"Sir, for lack
of a better description,

there's a flying saucer
hovering over that missile,

and there's a beam
of reddish light
going down to it."

It had to be
a data collection thing.

I'm sure they scanned
the warhead or something.

In 1980, I was reassigned from
the Pentagon to RAF Bentwater

as a deputy base commander.

At that time, Bentwaters
was one of the largest

tactical fighter ranges
in the world.

NARRATOR: It was also
the largest American
nuclear bomb storage depot

in Europe.

In December 1980,
early in the morning,

several of our
security policemen

discovered strange lights
in the forest.

NARRATOR: Expecting to find
a crashed aircraft,

they came upon
an unrecognizable object
resting on the forest floor.

They observed it for a period
of time, and it very quickly
and silently vanished.

NARRATOR: Two nights later,
Col. Halt received

an urgent visit from
the base security commander.

He was white as a sheet.
He said, "It's back."

I said, "What's back?"
He said, "The UFO."

I took several
security policemen with me.

I also had my small
cassette recorder I carried
everywhere when I was on duty.

-MAN: What is it?
-COL. HALT: We don't know, sir.

Yeah, it's a strange,
small red light.

HALT: And all the barnyard animals have gotten quiet now.

Deathly calm.

This is weird.

One object approached us
at very high speed.

MAN: Here he comes
from the side.
He's coming toward us now.

I'm observing what a beam
coming down to the ground.

This is unreal.

We stood there in awe.

Was this a warning?

Was this an attempt
to communicate?

Was this a weapon,
or just a probe?

Just as suddenly as it appeared,click, disappeared.

We stood there... Oh.

About that time,
we noticed the other object

to the south was
sending down beams.

About a mile, mile and half awayover at Woodbridge Base,

MAN 1: when we had great
difficulties communicating.

But we were able to discern
that some of those beams
were either

falling into or near
the weapons storage area,

and there was a great
deal of concern.

MAN 1: I also found out later
that both the tower operators
at Bentwaters

saw an object and picked it up on their bright radar
and watched it.

I was just sitting there
and I happened to see

a dot come on the scope,

and it just went like,
one dot at the beginning,

then another dot,
then another dot,
and it was gone.

A nd then it made an immediate
right-hand turn and came
right towards the base.

Just absolutely phenomenal.

It's not like any radar target
I've ever seen,

traveling at an extremely
high rate of speed.

It passed over
the control tower,

and then it stopped.
It was an orangish color.

Sort of popped into my mind
at the time

that somebody's flying
a basketball out here.

There were, like,
lights around the center of it.

It was more like portholes.

And then you were seeing
the light from the inside.

But it hovered momentarily,
reversed its course,

and went back out
at a high rate of speed.

NARRATOR: Even more alarming
incidents took place

on both sides of the Cold War.

NARRATOR: According to once
secret Soviet documents,

a UFO hovered over
a Ukrainian nuclear base
for nearly an hour.

Inexplicably, several missiles

suddenly switched to
full combat readiness

and began
a launch sequence without
any authentication codes.

After 15
heart-stopping seconds,

the countdown to
a potential Armageddon

ceased as abruptly
as it had started.

DAVID SCHUUR:
As this object passed
over the missile site,

we would start getting erratic indications on that missile.

The bad thing was we also had a launch indicator.

MAN: Does that mean that
the launch sequence
has been triggered?

SCHURR: That means
that the missile has received
a launch signal.

NARRATOR: The countdown
had to be manually aborted.

We had UFOs in the air...

NARRATOR: These witnesses
are some of the most highly-vetted military officers

in charge of the world's
most devastating armaments.

If what they're reporting
is accurate,

then the pattern
is hard to avoid.

UFOs have been
making incursions into top-security nuclear facilities

decade after decade.

To me, it's pretty clear.

"We're shining a light on this,
we're pointing it out.

What are you people doing
with nuclear weapons?"

[PEOPLE SHOUTING]

NARRATOR: As the '90s dawned
and the walls fell down,

it was as if humanity itself
was demanding to be seen

as one people and one world.

The Soviet Union had dissolved

and history's spotlight
began to shine

on long-darkened corners.

Different officials
were looking

for ways to open dialogue
with the West,

and embrace all the changes
that were underway

in their country at the time.

This is George Knapp in Moscow,the city many are...

NARRATOR: Knapp's team was
invited to Moscow,

by government
and military officials

who were willing to share
decades' worth of UFO files.

[SPEAKS RUSSIAN]

MAN: Gen. Igor Maltsev,

for seven years,
commander of the entire
Soviet air defense system

recalls a UFO flap over
Moscow in 1990.

Hundreds of visual
and radar observations
by military personnel.

Maltsev confirms
his standing order was,
"Don't fire on the UFOs".

March 1991, radar at
the Leningrad airport

detects first one, then two, then three unidentified objects

hovering over a nuclear plant.

From a dead stop,
the UFO zipped away
at 2,000 miles per hour.

Jacques Vallee
was one of few Westerners

to personally
investigate the case

by meeting with
Russian sources firsthand.

An object hovered near
a nuclear power plant
in Voronezh

and a beam from that object
melted the asphalt there.

The intention was,
maybe we would be

able to find out
from the Russians

more about what the American
government knows about UFOs

than we will ever learn from
the American government itself.

-Governor, you ready
to take the oath?
-I am.

NARRATOR: When a young,
open-minded president,

was sworn in,

one of America's most highly
placed civilians saw a chance

for a new government transparency on the phenomenon.

As a means of access to people
to the wonders of nature...

NARRATOR: Heir to the power
and influence

of one of the world's
wealthiest families,

Laurance Rockefeller,

philanthropist
and conservationist,

also had a passionate
interest in UFOs.

His idea was to approach
the President

with a plea for making
available the data

that the government had
on the subject.

JOHN PODSTA:
The first inclination by,

particularly people
in government

is, "You got to be kidding me".

[LAUGHS] You want me
to risk my career

by getting deeply into

the rabbit hole of talking
about UFOs?"

And so there's
a tremendous resistance.

NARRATOR: Rockefeller
met with President Clinton's
science advisor,

Jack Gibbons,
at the White House,.

and persuaded him
to take action.

Rockefeller was then asked
to pick a case

that the White House
should attempt to declassify.

He chose
the 1947 Roswell incident,

noting, "Many are convinced
that Roswell
marks the beginning

of government secrecy
about UFO's".

Jack had actually gone
to the Air Force,

asked then-Secretary Widnall,

who was
the Secretary of the Air Force,

to take a look, particularly,

at the records around Roswell,
New Mexico.

SHEILA WIDNALL:
"Dear Colonel Cavitt.

The General Accounting Office, seeks to fully
explain the claim

that the US government
recovered an alien spacecraft

near Roswell, New Mexico,
in July 1947,

and since that time
has covered up that fact.

NEWSCASTER: The Army Air Forces
has announced

that a flying disc
has been found

and is now in the possession
of the Army.

[NEWSCASTER SPEAKING]

NARRATOR: Roswell was then home

to the world's only
nuclear air wing,

including the B-29
that had dropped

the first atomic bomb
on Hiroshima.

The base's chief intelligence
officer, Maj. Jesse Marcel,

was dispatched to the ranch
to investigate.

[JESSE MARCEL SPEAKING]

NARRATOR: Marcel
and another officer

were the first military
to arrive at the crash site.

They came upon an expanse
of unrecognizable debris

strewn across an area

the size of
a dozen football fields.

We found a piece
of metal... Uh...

About a foot and half
to two feet wide.

The thing that got me is that

you couldn't even bend it.
You couldn't dent it.

Even a sledgehammer
would bounce off it.

NARRATOR: Marcel was ordered
to immediately

transport the strange wreckage

to Fort Worth Army Airfield.

There, Marcel was met by
the commanding general,

who told him to keep silent

in the face of what was
becoming a media frenzy.

They had a whole flock
of microphones there.

They wanted
some comments from me,

but I wasn't at liberty
to do that.

NARRATOR: Marcel was instead
ordered to pose

with wood, foil
and rubber debris,

from a conventional
weather balloon.

All I could do is keep
my mouth shut.

And Gen. Ramey is the one
who told the newspapers

what it was
and to forget about it.

It was nothing more than
a weather observation balloon.

Of course,
we both knew differently.

NARRATOR: Col. Thomas DuBose,
who was also

ordered to pose
with the fake debris,

describes how an iron curtain
of secrecy slammed down.

REPORTER: Congressman Schiff,
what got you interested

in this subject per se?

I started receiving letters

a little over two years ago
from constituents,

stating that they believe
the government was covering up

what happened at Roswell.

Many of them clearly believed,

that it was, in fact,
an extraterrestrial crash.

The weather balloon story
never made sense

because it was clearly,
and undisputed in my mind,

extra military attention
to this matter,

from extra security
around the crash scene

to special handling of
whatever the debris was.

That could fit
a classified project.

It doesn't fit
a weather balloon.

NARRATOR: In September 1994,

the Air Force issued
its response.

[READING]

The Air Force claimed
it was a secret project
of weather balloons

hung with box kites
and microphones,

to spy on Soviet nuclear tests.

Please roll the video.

MAN: There's a famous box kite

that became
the famous flying disc.

Weather balloons that were on the balloon train.

NARRATOR: Same rubber balloon,
same foil box kite

as the original cover story,

only many of them
strung together

with microphones
dangling beneath.

MAN: That's the tin foil paper, rubber and sticks
that they recovered

in the desert near
New Mexico in 1947.

NARRATOR: The Air Force,
nearly 50 years later,

was basically telling
the same tale.

That the top security personnel

of the world's only
atomic-bombing wing

really had mistaken
this rubber, wood

and tin foil for
a crashed flying saucer.

Being an intelligence officer,

I was familiar with just about
all the materials used

in aircraft and/or air travel.

This is nothing like that.

It was not anything from this
Earth. That I'm quite sure of.

BILL RICHARDSON:
My suspicion is that

the Roswell incident
did happen,

and something maybe not
from our universe,

went down there.

And we should...

allow the American people
to make a judgment

on what that might have been
by disclosing.

I mean, this is probably

the most
blatant case of overreaction

to what is national security.

The public has a right to know.

NARRATOR: Rockefeller
put together
a briefing document

intended for world leaders

with a sobering observation.

It is conceivable that even the President himself

is not fully briefed on matters

classified as
"above top secret."

I did attempt to find out
if there were

any secret
government documents

that reveal things,
and if there were,

they were
concealed from me, too.

I wouldn't be
the first president

that underlings have lied to

or the career bureaucrats
have waited out.

But there may be
some career person
sitting around somewhere

hiding these dark secrets,
even from elected presidents.

But if so,
they successfully eluded me.

And I'm almost embarrassed totell you, I did try to find out.

[ALL LAUGHING]

EDGAR MITCHELL: Three feet
for second contact.

That was a beautiful one.

NARRATOR: Apollo astronaut
Edgar Mitchell,

who had grown up
around Roswell,

was an aerospace insider with deep Pentagon connections.

He became convinced
there were UFO secrets

concealed from
normal government channels.

Well, if the accounts
are to be believed...

Yes, there have been
ET visitation.

There have been crashed craft.

There have beenmaterial and bodies recovered...

and there is some group
of people somewhere

that may or may not be

associated with
the government at this point,

but certainly were at one time,

that have this knowledge.

No one has proven
there's nothing to it.

No one's had
the opportunity to prove

there's something to it,
and that's what I did.

And every passing day...

NARRATOR: In 2007, the most
powerful man in the Senate,

majority leader Harry Reid,

persuaded two colleagues,

Senators Ted Stevens
and Daniel Inouye,

to secretly allocate millions

in Defense Department funds
to investigate UFOs.

The covert program
operated from the tail end
of the Bush presidency,

through
the Obama administration,

and into Donald Trump's
first year in office.

In December of 2017,
the lid blew off.

At long last,
the government was admitting

a modern-day program
to investigate UFOs

and released
startling official evidence,

including videotapes
from the cockpits
of military aircraft.

One of the key authors
ofThe Times story

was investigative journalist

and best-selling author
Leslie Kean.

She went to Washington to meet with Luis Elizondo,

who had just resigned
from his position

as head of the secret
Pentagon UFO program.

I was invited to this meeting.

They wanted me to meet
Mr. Elizondo,
to see what could happen.

ELIZANDO:
Objects that are moving so fast

and yet we don't see
an ionization trail in the air

and you don't hear
a sonic boom.

How is that possible?
Another one is...

NARRATOR: Elizondo's colleagues
took her aside

to reveal some
extraordinary documentation

related to the program.

KEAN: I wasn't allowed
to take anything with me.

I mean, the most importantevidence that was shared with me

at the meeting regarding

the phenomenon itself,
were the videos.

[MAN 1 SPEAKING]

I knew this was breaking news
for the front page of
The New York Times.

[MAN 2 SPEAKING]

[MAN 1 SPEAKING]

[MAN 2 SPEAKING]

KEAN: My co-author,
Ralph Blumenthal,

and I set up a meeting
with Mark Mazzetti

and said,
"We have this explosive story."

Sat down with him
in the New York office
of The New York Times

and we brought in
all the documents.

"These are the videos.

Here's other documents
that show
the existence of the program.

And here's what they've studiedand here's what they've learned.

And there's a letter from
Harry Reid about the program."

NARRATOR: Elizondo's colleague,

the former deputy
assistant secretary

of defense for intelligence,

Christopher Mellon, managed to

obtain the tapes
from the Pentagon,

and choseThe New York Times
to break the story.

I received the videos,

the now-famous videos,
in the Pentagon parking lot

from a Defense
Department official.

I still have the originals
in the packaging.

This is a case where somebody
bent the rules a little bit,

and they did so
for the larger good.

And we're absolutely all
better off because of it.

In the end, I have to say,

I was still extraordinarily

disappointed with
The New York Times,

because they focused on this
small AATIP program.

And the real story, in my mind
at least, should have been,

"These things are real,
they're here.

This is happening now. "

NARRATOR: One of
the Pentagon cases

reported byThe New York Times,

was an encounter by
Naval aircraft,

about 200 miles off the coast
of San Diego, California.

Fifty-five hundred people
that were on

the Nimitzin 2004,
when this happened,

and I guarantee
every single one of them

knows that this event happened.

That's a whole air wing.That's Mount Fuji. That's Japan.

NARRATOR:
Commander David Fravor was leading a training exercise

from theUSS Nimitz
carrier strike group

when he was abruptly
ordered to investigate
an unknown target

that had appeared on one of the ship's radar scopes.

We're gonna suspend the training
we have real-world tasking.

So we're like, "Okay, cool. "

NARRATOR: He and another
F-18 Super Hornet,

each carrying two airmen, zoomed toward the coordinates.

It was myself and my WSO

and the other pilot and the WSO
in the back seat

of that airplane.
So, there's four of us.

NARRATOR: When they arrived,
they first saw

what appeared to be
a large object

slightly below the surface
of the ocean,

with a strange
oval-shaped craft

darting around
in the air just above it.

If you picture a Tic Tac
that's about 40 feet long,

round on both ends, no rivets,

no metal, smooth, white.
It was white.

It was just smooth. No wings,
no propulsion, no windows.

It didn't matter which way it
was pointing because as it
was moving over the water,

it never turned. It never
changed its longitudinal axis.

It went fore, aft, left, right.
It was just doing this.

And I said, "Hey, I'm gonna go
check that out."

All of a sudden, you just see itturn its body and go... [WHOOP]

And start coming up at you.
You go,

"That was rather interesting."

We're just looking at it.
We're doing this.
We're looking at it.

We're looking at it.
We go around.

All the way around the outside
of a circle, 180 degrees.

Well, I know where he's going,
so I'll just go over there.

This thing goes "poof"
and it's gone.

I mean, literally that fast.
Gone.

You can think about what
we're saying. Like,

"Holy shit. What the...is that?"

And then there's a lot of,
"Dude, what the...

Did you guys see that?

Do you guys see it?"
And they're like,

"It's gone. We don't see shit."

Nothing accelerates that fast.
You're talking...

Something that
not only accelerated

beyond anything
that we had seen,

but it just was...

The controller
comes up and says,

"Hey, you're not gonna
believe this,

but that thing is back
at your CAD point."

NARRATOR: Meaning
the object had instantly
reappeared at the precise

secret coordinates
of the fleet's

critical aerial defense zone.

FRAVOR: It obviously had
some awareness.

It knew where we were going.

It'll make the hair on
the back of your neck stand up.

I actually told my back seater,
I said,

"I don't know about you.
I'm pretty weirded out."

NARRATOR: More jets equipped
with the Navy's most advanced

radar visual tracking systems
were scrambled.

This time, capturing
the object on video.

FRAVOR: First thing he gets is
a little blip on the radar.

He puts his cursors over it,
and he tries to grab
a lock on it.

Basically, when you take a lock,

you tell the radar,
"Look at that location,

and stare at it, and put all
your energy on that point."

Well, as soon as it does it,
the radar gets indications

that it's being jammed by
the object it's trying to lock.

The infrared sees
differing temperatures,

so the Tic Tac is hotter
than the air around it.

It doesn't have to be by much,
but it's gonna appear white.

They're driving straight at it.

It's just kind of
hovering there.

And then it goes "poof"
and it takes off, off the side.

I just don't know.
I doubt that we...

have developed that technology.

I interviewed
three of the four aviators

who were with Dave,
during that encounter,

and it was readily apparent
to everyone involved that

that vehicle had what they call

"dominant
battlespace awareness."

It was in control of that
engagement from the outset.

There was no question
that it completely outmatched

our frontline fighters.

I served on the Special Access
Program Oversight Committee,

so I had access to all
of the black programs
in those days.

We know perfectly well
there's nothing like that

behind the scenes
or even on the drawing boards.

NARRATOR: Senator Harry Reid,
who instigated

the secret
Pentagon UFO program,

confirmed what nuclear
launch officers

have been
reporting for decades.

NARRATOR: UFOs have interfered
with our country's

most powerful weapons.

Did you have anybody

in the Defense Department,
the Pentagon,

pull you aside,
bend your ear and say,
"Why are you doing this?"

They did everything they could

to stop the program
from going forward.

They gave the person that came
in initially such a bad time.

He's fortunate to have
hung on to his job

because people tried
to get rid of him,

because they wanted nothing
to do with this.

The Defense Intelligence Agency
was one of the worst.

They drug their feet,

even though there was
one of their senior scientists

thought they should look
at this.

And remember,
all we're saying...

Nobody has to agree
why it's there.

But shouldn't we at least
be spending some money

to study all these phenomenon?

Shouldn't we study this stuff?
The answer is yes.

And that's all this was about,

and why the federal government,all these years, has covered up,

put brake pads on everything.
Stopped it.

I think it's very, very bad
for our country.

I interviewed Gordon Cooper,

Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper,back in the '90s.

REPORTER: Cooper said on camera

that there was
a landed UFO circa 1957

at Edwards Air Force Base.
His camera crew captured

the filming of this object,

and he presented this
to the higher-ups

and eventually, a courier jet
came in from Washington.

He handed the footage over,
which was good, he viewed it--

-That's the last he saw of it.
-Exactly.

REPORTER: Did you know
where that footage went

of the flying saucer
that landed on the...

Went to Washington.
That's all that I know.

REPORTER: Did you ever keep
in touch with anybody about it
or discuss it?

How would I keep in touch
with anybody about it?

There's no way
within the military
or within the government

of keeping track of something
that is classified.

REPORTER: Did you try to go
after stuff like this?

We did. We have. It's there.

Are you saying that
there's some evidence that's...

REPORTER: Still hasn't seen
the light of day?

I'm saying most of it
hasn't seen the light of day.

MELLON:
Astronaut Cooper had spoken

with the President
at a Cabinet meeting.

He raised this
with Secretary Cohen.

And then Cohen's office
called me and asked me

to pursue this
and chase it down.

The Air Force colonel that I
spoke with got very frustrated,

and when I asked him
what happened to all
of these records, he said,

"Well, that was all cleaned up
or thrown out to save space,"

something like that.

It sounded ludicrous,
but that's what he told me.

If there is some
recovered debris, say...

It is so deeply buried
and squirreled away

that it's outside of those
normal oversight processes,

and that's where
there's a problem in this area.

NARRATOR:
Dr. Jacques Vallee
has collected

purported metal debris
from UFO cases

dating as far back as 1947

that experts are analyzing in a state-of-the-art laboratory.

The breakthrough has come
with the invention of a machine

that enables usto look at the atomic structure,

and at that point,

the atomic structure
is impossible to fake.

This device is a multi-parameterion beam imager.

NARRATOR: Dr. Garry Nolan,
a Stanford microbiologist,

is using a revolutionary
three-dimensional
imaging device

to analyze the samples right down to their individual atoms.

When Dr. Nolan placed
some of the fragments

in the vacuum chamber
of his instrument,

he was astonished
to find their composition

was unlike any known metal.

Just one spot and the isotopic
composition all the way across.

NARRATOR: No matter
where he looked

in the sample's
jumble of elements,

whether magnesium, iron,
nickel or titanium,

the ratio of isotopes
didn't make any sense.

If you're talking about
an advanced material
from an advanced civilization,

you're talking about
something that...

I'll just call it
an ultra-material, right?

It's something
which has properties

where somebody
is putting it together,

again, at the atomic scale.

So we're building our world
with 80 elements.

Somebody else is building
the world

with 253 different isotopes.

I intend to use the information
to try to build something.

Try to understand
a physical principle

that we don't know today.

This material was manufactured.
It's not natural.

It's not natural
to the materials
that we have around us

in the lab, or on the Earth.

It does not mean
that it was necessarily

made some place in outer space.

It just means that
it was manufactured

specially for
a particular purpose

that we don't understand,
and we want to understand it.

MELLON: There is an immense
array of unanswered questions.

When we observe
some of these craft doing,

think about the possibilities,

what we may
discover technologically,

how we might solve
the energy crisis,

how we might raise
our standards of living.

There is an urgent need,
in my view,

to get to the bottom of it.

We don't know
the origin of these vehicles

nor do we understand
the intent

of whoever
is controlling them.

NARRATOR: There are cases that
seem to go beyond encounters

with an advanced technology,

to contact with
an engaged intelligence.

Papua New Guinea. June, 1959

An Australian missionary
spots a large disc

hovering just 200 feet
off the ground

while standing
with 38 other people.

This solid-looking
object and...
Can you imagine?

What it's like
to look up in the sky

and see some figures
up there?

NARRATOR:
All were amazed to see
four small occupants

dressed in what looked
like black diving suits.

Figures walking about on top,

and not the slightest noise
whatsoever.

And so we waved.

Wouldn't it be wonderful

if we could get this object
down onto the playing field?

And as we waved,

wondering whether
we'd get some recognition

and whether, perhaps,

they would understand
what we wanted,

they waved back.

NARRATOR: The encounter
lasted several hours

before the object
abruptly departed.

There was this amazingly
incredible speed

that the hovercraft
disappeared to nothing

across the bay in a matter
of a second or so.

NARRATOR: In 1994,

three days of sightings
across Zimbabwe

culminated in what
some believe

is the most significant
close encounter

in modern history.

Hundreds of people today
phoned the ZBC

and BBC correspondent
in Harare

saying they sighted
an unidentified flying object
last night.

We have some
eyewitness reports.

MAN: It almost seemed to be
under the cloud.

As it came past,
I noticed there's no noise,

and that's when I thought,
"Well, there's something
very odd here."

It was quite amazing.
It was beautiful.

They are saying that Jesus
is passing through Africa.

That's what they are saying.

TIM LEACH: We interviewed
about 64 children

in front of the camera.

UFO story that happens...

Just say exactly
what you want to say, okay?

Well, I was running
and playing,

and then I saw this maroon colorin the sky.

Why don't we follow it?

We saw this, like,
a silver thing down there.

It was a silver oval thing

that flew past really slowly.

I saw the bigger one
and the spaceship,
like, four or five of them.

It was red,
green and yellow.

There was this big ship.

It had these lights,
these patterns, and it flew.

I thought,
"No, it's not a UFO."

And then I looked
carefully at it,

and I thought, "Maybe."

NARRATOR:
Dozens of children said that

one or more
of the disc-shaped objects

landed just beyond
the far edge
of their playground.

The next thing they knew,

something was standing
next to it.

You saw him standing
by the silver thing.

And he had big eyes.

He had a big head
and big black eyes,

and was dressed
in a black bodysuit.

They were wearing
pure black.

And I came down
and I saw the funny man
with his eyes here,

and I saw a spaceship,

and there were a few
little ones around it.

REPORTER:
How far away were you
when you saw him?

Not very far. Not very far.
About a meter away.

-A meter away? That close?
-Yes.

REPORTER:
And how big was the figure?

It was about
as big as a grade six.

Yeah, it's there!

I believe that the children
did see something.

I believe them
because normally
children don't lie.

I've always taught my children,
"Seeing is believing."

Unfortunately,
I didn't see. So...

[CHANTING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE]

NARRATOR:
This alleged encounter

caught the attention
of Pulitzer Prize-winning

Harvard psychiatrist,
Dr. John Mack.

It seemed that he was
looking at all of us.

What did it feel like
when he was looking at you?

It felt scared.

It felt scary?
What was scary about it?

Well, felt scared

because I've never seen
such a... person
like that before.

And I saw this... person.

And it had big eyes.

That's all I saw about it.
Big eyes.

-They had short legs
and quite a long top.
-Mmm-hmm.

With a big head

and eyes
that are bigger than ours.

How much bigger than ours?

Four or five times the size.

Four or five times
the size of ours?

And then I was looking
at him, right?

-Yes.
-Then he was looking
at me back.

How can I just keep on
looking at him?

So I had to stop
and I looked sideways.

But I was looking
straight into his eyes.

Well, he never said anything.

It's just the face
and the eyes.

Maybe they're trying
to communicate with us.

Show us something
which we don't know about.

I think they want... Um...

people to know that

we're actually making harm
on this world,

and we mustn't get
too technological.

We don't look
after the planet.

All the trees
will be cut down...

and there will be no air
and people will be dying.

Is this an idea
you have had before?

Or did this idea come to you
when you had this experience?

-When I had this experience.
-Mmm-hmm.

NARRATOR: For the first time
in nearly 20 years,
the Ariel schoolchildren

gathered from the four corners of the world

to talk to each other

about the experience
they shared

that September morning.

I remember something there...

One they all still
struggle to understand.

You know that it's moving,
but you...

SALMA SIDDICK:
I stand by what I saw.

There was no reason
for any of us.

to make that up.

EMMA JELIC KRISTIANSEN:
I've not spoken
to anybody about it.

Not because
I'm not proud of it,

but because I don't
want the... The stigma.

LISIL FIELD:
So it's something that

I've had to deal with
for 19-and-a-half years.

I don't wanna say
I felt like I knew it,

-but I knew that I didn't
have to be afraid of it.
-Yeah.

NARRATOR: They took us back
to the moment of contact.

Exactly how I felt.
Exactly...

The details
still seared into memory.

I was with one of the other
girls and saying to her,

"This is amazing."

We all were just
stopped in our tracks.

A little man appeared.

On top of the actual craft.

And that moment, for me,
was very distinct,

because I was like,
"That's not human."

Well, I was just completely
engulfed in these eyes.

The eyes, and in that moment,
however long it was,

'cause I have no idea
of the time frame,

it was just mesmerizing.

There was no talking.
Um... It's all just images
in the head.

Telepathic communication.

SIDDICK: They were trying
to communicate.

Trying to tell us something,

or something to do
with the environment.

I kept getting
these thoughts

and ideas in my mind
of technology.

Technology is not helping,
technology is bad...

And we're going down
a wrong path,

and we have to start
recognizing that

what we're doing is detrimental
and we need to make changes.

And I don't know
what to do with that, or...

They were reaching out to us.

It was as if they wanted us
to go with them.

At that moment,
that was kind of

when I snapped
right out of the trance.

As soon as I broke contact,
all of those feelings,
technology, the bad,

the horribleness
that was happening

and going around my body
at the time went.

It's making me a bit anxious
being back here.

I can feel it right now.
I was scared.

They came running up here
in such a panic,

screaming, screaming... Ah!
Then we were here.

And a child
can't make that up.

SUSAN KRISTIANSEN:
So I was there when they
were interviewing them

and saw the way they were.

It was just a huge, big mess
and muddle-up

and just people everywhere.

Just ask them questions
straight off

without explaining
to the children

what they were doing
and why they were doing it.

It was chaos

in terms of the media frenzy
that was going on,

and us being so young,
and not even...

being allowed time
to comprehend
what we had seen.

Our teachers certainly
didn't believe us.

So, that was a big deal,

'cause we had to continue
going to school there.

NARRATOR:
We went back one last time
to the Ariel School

to meet with Judy Bates,

a teacher at the time
of the incident

and now the headmistress.

Something was weighing on her

that she wanted
to tell the children.

Yeah, I said
I wanted to apologize.

I should have taken more notice.

But I didn't.
I was more concerned
about me and not them.

And what was going on
in my own sort of experience.

Well, that's what... Yeah.

INTERVIEWER:
And if you could summarize
in just one sentence

what took place September 1994

here at Ariel School,
Ruwa, Zimbabwe,

what would you say?

Aliens visited us. [CHUCKLES]

And that's about it, yeah.

That's why if you believe it,
you believe it.

If you don't, well...

NARRATOR:We find ourselves
confronted with something

that challenges our very
understanding of reality.

We may be sharing this
fragile blue-green oasis

with an unknown other.

One with a mysterious
relationship to humanity,

and its own interest
in our world.

And if you saw him again,
what would you do?

I'll ask him
what is he doing on Earth,

and what does he want with us.

There were well-observed
UFO cases,

just like modern cases,
in the 18th century.

In the 17th century.

There was science.

There were astronomers,
they had telescopes,

and they were
very good observers

because their life depended
on being good observers.

And these observations come
from all over the world.

They just have been forgotten.

I like to think of anomalies,
mysteries, as opportunities,

and we'll go
after those mysteries,

take the torch
away from the campfire,

and out of the cave,
into the darkness

and make some
amazing discoveries.

The UFO phenomenon as studied
by my colleagues and myself,

bespeaks the action of
some form of intelligence.

[SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE]

These objects
gave the impression

that they wanted to be seen...

with these enormous spotlights.

There was no way that
they were trying to hide.

So why?
That is the main question.

Why do these objects
want to be seen?

Later on, I was so sorry

that why I did not call
on the radio.

Ask them, "Who are you?

"Please,
make communication with us."

I figure if they're smart
enough and capable enough

[CHUCKLES]
to come into our airspace

with the technology
that they have,

if they wanted to do us in,
they could have done us in
a long time ago.

So, I'm not fearful
of this at all.

[SPEAKING MANDARIN]

Every once in a while
one of them goes, zip!

It went like a bat out of hell.

Jumped about ten degrees
to the right. Just like this.

I've never seen anything
go so fast in my life
as that thing went.

Incredible speed.
Disappeared to nothing.

And just went, zoom,
straight up so fast.

It's like it had been
shot out of a gun. Wham!

Now you see it,
now you don't. It just...

But it just was, poof!