All language subtitles for Ancient.Aliens.S18E01.720p.WEB.h264-DiRT

NARRATOR:
Classified military videos

leaked to the public.

JEREMY CORBELL:
You can actually hear

the shock and the awe

as people saw this
going into the water.

NARRATOR: Top secret
Pentagon projects suddenly exposed.

It was huge.

It was a monumental sea change

in the federal government's
acknowledgment

of these aerial phenomena
that are unexplained.

NARRATOR:
And a shocking admission

about unidentified
flying objects.

STEVEN GREENSTREET: Our
current science, our current tech

can't understand some of these.

The government said that. Wow.

ANDRE CARSON: What is
clear is that these sightings

simply cannot be explained.

So the question becomes
"What are we dealing with?"

NARRATOR: Are we on the
brink of full government disclosure

about the strange objects
witnessed in our skies?

And if so, will we soon discover

that they are, in fact,
of extraterrestrial origin?

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: Something
is going on, and for the first time ever,

the government admitted to this.

NARRATOR: There is a doorway

in the universe.

Beyond it is
the promise of truth.

It demands
we question everything

we have ever been taught.

The evidence is all around us.

The future is
right before our eyes.

We are not alone.

We have never been alone.

NARRATOR: Washington, DC.,
the Oval Office,

December 27, 2020.

All right, thank you all.

NARRATOR: President
Donald Trump signs a massive

$2.3 trillion spending
and relief package

to stimulate economic recovery
from the ravages of COVID-19.

But the bill serves another,
highly unexpected purpose,

detailed in its
"Committee Comments" section,

beneath the heading
"Advanced Aerial Threats."

The stipulation mandates

that the Director
of National Intelligence

work with the Secretary
of Defense on a report

revealing everything
the government knows

about "unidentified
aerial phenomena," or U.A.P.

Because of public pressure,
public scrutiny,

members of Congress,

specifically on the Senate
Intelligence Committee,

inserted language
that the government release

a report to the public on UFOs.

And they had 180 days to do it.

This was jaw-dropping.

NICK POPE:
And a lot of people said, "What,

UFOs and COVID?
What's going on?"

The original requirement
for a UFO report

had come from the Senate
Intelligence Committee,

and they'd articulated it in the
Intelligence Authorization Act

for Fiscal Year 2021.

But for a number of reasons,

that bill wasn't
going to get through.

So, what they did
is they attached

that part of the bill
to something they knew

that would get through,

and that was
the COVID-19 relief bill.

NARRATOR:
To researchers of UFOs...

Or U.A.P.s, as government
agencies now call them...

It is a watershed moment.

It is even applauded by many
in Washington,

who believe the Pentagon
has been overly secretive

about this phenomenon.

CARSON: I'm comforted in knowing

that we have good folks
in the intelligence community

who are protecting
our national security.

At the same time, I think that
not just the American people

but the global community
really want to know

what's going on up in our skies.

JOHN PODESTA:
I was prompted to ask myself,

"Where have you been?"

Why did it take so much
prodding by the public,

by members of Congress,
over decades, really,

uh, before you took
this threat seriously?

RALPH BLUMENTHAL: There
are people in the government

who are very hostile
to UFO information.

The government had
plenty of time and reason

to investigate these things,
but only seriously

started compiling data in 2019,
which is totally insane.

I mean, this information was
available for decades before.

POPE: The UFO community
went into overdrive.

Some of them were actively
predicting disclosure.

The mainstream media, as well,
were fully engaged on this.

And there was
intense speculation.

LINDA MOULTON HOWE: I remember,
after Trump had signed

the COVID relief bill,
and I had to see it.

So I called up somebody
and I got a link,

and I went and went down
through all of that bill.

And, of course,

there was tremendous amounts
of speculation.

"Well, are they now
going to tell us

that we're not alone
in the universe?"

TSOUKALOS: The
government of the United States

is openly investigating UFOs.

And I think that this speaks
volumes

how the paradigm has shifted.

NARRATOR:
But how did the U.S. government

go from decades
of denying any interest in UFOs

to passing a bipartisan bill
demanding an official report

on unidentified
aerial phenomena?

It's a sea change in policy
with roots that trace back

to a series of secret meetings
more than two decades earlier.

Las Vegas, 1995.

Local TV news reporter
George Knapp,

famous in Nevada
for his investigation

of the top secret
Air Force facility Area 51,

has spent years discussing UFOs

with Nevada's powerful senator
Harry Reid.

GEORGE KNAPP: Senator Reid
has a lot of interest

in national security issues,
Nellis, Area 51.

So I told him, "I think
there's a legitimate issue here.

This is real."

And so we had
a secret conversation

that lasted 30 years,
about UFOs.

NARRATOR: In 1995, Knapp
invited Reid to attend a meeting

hosted by another
powerful Nevada resident

with a longtime interest
in the topic,

hotel magnate and aerospace
billionaire Robert Bigelow.

Bigelow had recently founded

the National Institute
for Discovery Science,

a privately financed
research organization

created to investigate fringe
science and UFO phenomenon.

KNAPP: I told Reid,

"I think you should go
check this out."

He goes to the next board
meeting later in the year

and is blown away.

He's hooked.

But the bond that he formed

with Bigelow at that point

became critical to everything
that would unfold later.

NARRATOR:
In 2007, with Reid's help,

Bigelow secured $22 million
from the Department of Defense

to fund the Advanced Aerial
Threat Identification Program,

or AATIP, an initiative
that would investigate reports

of "anomalous aerial vehicles."

They managed to create
this program in the Pentagon.

Which was a classified program,

a sort of black program,
as they say.

And so, they were able
to get the funds,

the Pentagon was able to get
up and running with that,

and I think
that was a game changer.

NARRATOR: Pentagon
officials select former U.S. Army

Counterintelligence
Special Agent Luis Elizondo

to run the secret AATIP program.

Lou Elizondo
was put in charge that.

He was overseeing
this little group of people

in different parts
of the Pentagon.

They would exchange information,

do what they could and try
to keep a very low profile.

Some people in the Pentagon
knew what they were doing,

but others did not.

HOWE: Elizondo ran AATIP

for those approximately
seven years

with funding from Senator
Harry Reid in Nevada.

And none of us knew
anything about it.

NARRATOR: As Elizondo delved
into the government's secret files,

he became convinced
that UFOs could pose

a major national security
threat.

But, to his growing frustration,
he struggled

to get anyone to listen to him.

Lou figured out that forces
within the Pentagon

weren't taking this seriously,

and were perhaps
dismissing and covering up

and suppressing UFO information
for various reasons.

And Lou couldn't stand

the fact that, within the halls
of the Pentagon,

it wasn't being taken seriously.

NARRATOR: In October 2017,

Luis Elizondo resigned
from AATIP

after Pentagon officials
refused to present his findings

to Defense Secretary
James Mattis.

LUIS ELIZONDO: I-I've seen too
much. I've talked to too many people.

I have too many reports.
I-I know it's real.

I-I can't in good conscience

just keep my head
buried in the sand.

I had to leave the very job
that I love

to get my point across.

NARRATOR: Just as Elizondo

was leaving his position
at the Pentagon,

Tom DeLonge, co-founder
of the rock band Blink-182,

was forming a group
called To the Stars Academy

to collect and study information

on unidentified
aerial phenomena.

POPE:
Tom DeLonge gathered around him
an extraordinary team

of insiders with backgrounds
in the government,

intelligence community,
the aerospace community...

Particularly
cutting-edge technologies.

RYAN SPRAGUE: Elizondo almost
immediately went to work for Tom DeLonge,

and his new company
To the Stars,

a company that was dedicated
to working to try

to uncover the answers
about the UFO phenomena,

which just seemed like
a perfect stroke of luck.

NARRATOR: With the addition of
Elizondo, To The Stars Academy

now had unprecedented access
to government intel

on unidentified
aerial phenomena.

And unbeknownst to Elizondo's
former bosses in the military,

he hadn't left government
service empty-handed.

He brought with him

extraordinary video evidence
of UFOs.

NARRATOR: After Luis Elizondo
resigns from his position with AATIP

and leaves the Pentagon,
he shares

three declassified videos
recorded by Navy pilots

with his new colleagues
at To The Stars Academy.

The first object,
known as Tic Tac,

was caught on radar in 2004
off the USS Nimitz

at an altitude of 80,000 feet.

As Navy F-18s
approached the object,

it descended to within one foot
of the water in seconds.

We don't have this capability
of dropping 80,000 feet

within a matter of seconds,
hitting a velocity of Mach 20.

So, we now know that there's
some kind of propulsion system

that exceeds the capability
of our own rockets.

NARRATOR: Naval aviator
Lieutenant Chad Underwood

was ordered to pursue the object

in an F-18 equipped
with a sophisticated

FLIR video system.

UNDERWOOD:
The object looked featureless,

and that's why I called it
the Tic Tac.

It looked like a Tic Tac.

It had no wings,
no method of propulsion

and on your forward-looking
infrared pod,

all it is is tracking heat.

So you would typically see
engine exhaust

coming out of one of the ends
of the aircraft.

Not seeing any of it.

The object was changing
altitude, air speed,

things that my FLIR and my radar
were having difficulty tracking.

And then at the end
of the encounter

is when you see it dart off
to my left on the FLIR pod,

and that's when I was like,
"Whoa. What just happened?"

NARRATOR: The other two videos
Elizondo brought to his colleagues

at To the Stars Academy
were equally groundbreaking.

Known as "Gimbal" and "GoFast,"

both videos were taken
by Navy jets

from the USS Theodore Roosevelt
near the Florida coast in 2015.

All three videos
show objects moving in ways

that defy the known
laws of physics.

KAKU: These objects
can zigzag effortlessly,

defying the known laws
of aerodynamics.

These objects can
effortlessly accelerate

up to 20 times
the speed of sound.

They have no visible
means of propulsion.

So what could it be?

Well, the short answer is,
we don't know.

PODESTA: The phenomena had

unusual flight characteristics,

unusual vectors, speed,
being able to hover and move.

PODESTA: The fact that
the Chinese or the Russians

or anyone else would have
that kind of capability

and we wouldn't know about it
is pretty slim.

NARRATOR: As head of AATIP,

Elizondo was able to have
the videos declassified,

but they had never
been made public.

His involvement
in To the Stars Academy

offered a new opportunity to
share the remarkable information

collected at the Pentagon.

To The Stars... their goal was

that they were
gonna crack it all open,

and they were going
to open up the truth

that the government knows about

these unidentified
aerial phenomena

that have a technology
that does not exist

in terms of human production.

WILLIAM HENRY: To The
Stars Academy, to their credit,

brought Lou Elizondo
together with Chris Mellon,

Department of Defense official,
Senate Intelligence insider.

And then they go
to The New York Times

with this blockbuster story

about the U.S. government's
interest in investigating UFOs.

NARRATOR: Chris Mellon
arranged a meeting with Leslie Kean,

a best-selling author
who had spent years

trying to draw mainstream media
attention to UFOs.

Mellon and Elizondo
revealed to Kean the existence

of the secret AATIP program

and promised her access
to the videos

if she could place the story
with The New York Times.

Leslie Kean is very
well-connected, politically.

Her uncle Thomas Kean
was the former governor

of New Jersey and headed up
the 9/11 Commission.

This gives you an idea
of, uh, just how plugged in

to the political network
Leslie is.

So when Leslie was contacted

by Lou Elizondo
and Chris Mellon,

she then teamed up
with Ralph Blumenthal,

veteran New York Times reporter,

and Helene Cooper,
again from the Times.

NARRATOR: Ralph Blumenthal
came to know Leslie Kean

while working on his book
The Believer, a biography

about alien abductions
researcher Dr. John Mack.

When he heard about
the government's AATIP program,

he was eager to help
break the story.

Well, it was clearly a great
story for The New York Times.

A-A secret Pentagon unit
investigating UFOs

after, uh, the government
was supposed to be out

of the UFO business,
but of course, never really was.

NARRATOR: Blumenthal
pitched the story directly

to the New York Times
managing editor Dean Baquet.

And on December 16th, 2017,

Leslie Kean, Ralph Blumenthal,

and Helene Cooper's
groundbreaking report

about the Pentagon's
mysterious UFO program

made the front page of The
New York Times online edition.

BLUMENTHAL: We had it
nailed down chapter and verse,

the people involved it in
on the...

everything on the record,
the documents,

so this hit all the benchmarks.

We had the Navy videos,

which we were able to put
on the Times website

and they garnered more views

than almost anything
in Times history.

DAVID CHILDRESS:
This was a real turning point

in the United States,

because The New York Times
has always said that

they are the guardians
of the truth.

Suddenly, The New York Times
is actually reporting on UFOs.

This really shows that UFOs
and the study of UFOs

and the investigation
has entered the mainstream.

TSOUKALOS:
All of a sudden, since 2017,

these stories
have become front-page news

on worldwide newspapers.

And it clearly shows that there
was a type of a paradigm shift

that's happened
over the past 25 years.

And for someone like me,
it's-it's incredible.

NARRATOR: Astonished by the
AATIP revelations and leaked videos,

Congress demanded briefings,

forcing the intelligence
communities to respond.

KNAPP: Suddenly,

UFO briefings become the hottest
ticket on Capitol Hill.

Briefings for the Armed Services
Committee,

the Intelligence Committee,
everybody wants in.

Congress takes it serious.

The media give them
political coverage

by saying this
is a legitimate story.

So you have people like
Marco Rubio and Senator Warner

who can tell, uh, reporters,
"Yeah, we're looking into this.

This is a-a legitimate mystery."

We have things flying
over military installations,

over military exercises,
and other places,

and we don't know what it is.

If there are objects flying
over military installations,

that could pose
a security threat.

CARSON: I think we're
gonna have more hearings.

And I think
that we're seeing we can

have these conversations
publicly, in a way

that doesn't warrant mockery
or scorn or ridicule.

I think
it's critically important.

NARRATOR:
After 70 years of taboo

going back to the 1947 incident
at Roswell, New Mexico,

the study of UFOs had finally
gained mainstream acceptance.

But is the U.S. military
ready to share all it knows?

Or are there still forces
within the Pentagon

that will go to any length
to protect its secrets?

NARRATOR: In the wake of
the New York Times revelations

about AATIP and the explosive
Navy videos,

the House and Senate
Armed Services Committees

begin interviewing Navy pilots

who claim to have
witnessed U.A.P.s

while on training missions.

KNAPP: It started with
closed-door briefings

of senior staff members.

These pilots, David Fravor
and Alex Dietrich,

and, uh, people like that...

Chad Underwood, uh, Ryan Graves,

start being led up
to Capitol Hill.

They tell their stories.

This thing would go
instantaneous

from one way to another.

And just rapidly accelerates

beyond anything
that I've ever seen.

KNAPP:
They are incredibly believable.

They have gravitas.
They're not UFO nuts.

We were able to then visually
pick up, uh, what we describe

as a Tic Tac
that was moving very fast.

They're telling stories about
encounters with strange craft

that are way beyond
any technology we have.

We do workups along
the, uh, Eastern Seaboard

and these objects
kind of came with us.

The fact that he would
just get himself on his wing tip

with no turn
isn't how aircraft work.

KNAPP: The senior staff
members are impressed.

They tell the elected members
of Congress.

It changed everything.

I never thought
I would see it in my lifetime,

and here it is,
unfolding right before our eyes.

Still unfolding.

RICHARD DOLAN:
The Pentagon has had to respond.

It might just be difficult

for the Pentagon to completely
do a blanket denial

the way they used to.

NARRATOR: In August 2020,

in a rare instance
of transparency,

the U.S. Department of Defense
announces that the work

Luis Elizondo oversaw
with AATIP...

Analyzing and cataloging
U.A.P.s...

Is still being carried on
under a new program

called the Unidentified
Aerial Phenomena Task Force.

That same summer,

Senator Marco Rubio's
Intelligence Committee

drafts legislation giving
the Pentagon 180 days

to publicly report

what government agencies know
about U.A.P.s.

The Senate Intelligence
Committee

puts in a bill for 2021,
"We want a report on U.A.P."

And so, the whole,
the whole momentum of this

is this, is this theme of
"We need to do something,

we need to get serious
about it."

NARRATOR: The legislation is
passed and signed by the president,

and the 180-day countdown
begins.

But curiously,
even as this was happening,

top Pentagon officials
were attacking

Luis Elizondo's credibility,

and claiming that he had
nothing to do with AATIP.

HENRY: The Pentagon had
launched a smear campaign

against Elizondo,
calling him crazy.

On May 3rd, 2021, Lou Elizondo
filed a 64-page complaint

with the inspector general.

These are, like, the top cops
in the Department of Justice.

ELIZONDO: There is still pockets
of resistance in the Pentagon

that is trying to muzzle

or, if you will, stifle
this conversation.

That must be corrected,
and, yes, I'd love it

if they also corrected
the record about me,

but that is less important
than not fixing the record

about this overall conversation.

DOLAN:
So now you have a movement

after all these years to begin

to crack that secrecy
even by a little bit.

You're clearly going to have
a very powerful faction

of individuals who are going
to do everything possible

to thwart that effort.

And if that means
smearing good people

with good reputations,
well, so be it, this is war.

NARRATOR: Researchers suggest
efforts to deny whistleblower testimony

about the existence of UFOs have
persisted since World War II,

citing government reactions to
numerous bombshell revelations.

HOWE:
Whistleblowers, in many ways,

are the most courageous heroes
of the 20th to the 21st century

because they were
decent human beings

who get hired to do science,

and then what they find
themselves in are straitjackets.

Straitjackets of political
policies,

of Defense Department policies.

Each of the different intel
agencies and military groups,

they want to control
whatever is being let out.

It's been going on
since World War II to today.

NARRATOR: In 1958, after
conducting research on UFOs

with the help of his contacts
at the Pentagon,

retired Marine Corps pilot
Major Donald Keyhoe

went on a live
television program

called
The Armstrong Circle Theatre

to report his conclusion

that extraterrestrials were,
in fact, visiting Earth.

But mysteriously, just as he
was about to make this point,

the sound cut out.

If the hearings are held,
open hearings, I feel

it will prove beyond a doubt
that the flying saucers are...

(speaking inaudibly)

NARRATOR: In 1989, when
physicist Bob Lazar claimed

that he was hired
to reverse engineer

an alien spacecraft

at a top secret military base
called Area 51,

government officials denied that
the base even existed at all,

a falsehood that would be
exposed 14 years later.

CORBELL:
You can hear Bob Lazar's story,

and it sounds so outlandish.

Until you have people
within the Pentagon saying,

"We do have recovered
materials and craft,"

and then you have to look
back at Bob Lazar's story

and you see he's telling you
the truth.

NARRATOR: In 1997, retired
U.S. Army Colonel Philip J. Corso

published The Day After Roswell,
in which he confirms

that an extraterrestrial craft

did indeed crash
in the New Mexico desert.

It was met with similar denials
from the Pentagon.

HOWE:
Colonel Corso's entire book

is about the physical evidence,
where it went,

the fact that there
were, uh, policies of denial.

All of it was off-limits.

NARRATOR: When the Pentagon
tries to discredit Elizondo in 2020,

many fear it indicates
business as usual,

and that the government
U.A.P. report will once again

prove to be an effort to debunk
rather than disclose.

But to the surprise of many,

the inspector general
immediately agrees

to investigate
Elizondo's complaint.

Ancient astronaut theorists
are hopeful

this could lead
to an official reexamination

of the high-profile
UFO incidents

that have been dismissed before.

It's possible the inspector
general could get in

and find evidence about
what happened with Roswell,

what happened with Major Keyhoe,
what happened with Bob Lazar.

All of these questions
under oath

would be asked
of Pentagon officials,

and the public would
get to know about it as well.

NARRATOR: While the
inspector general's investigation

was just getting started,

the release of the government's
U.A.P. report

was only a month away.

And as the anticipation
was growing,

more explosive new evidence
came to light.

NARRATOR: With the government's
much-anticipated report on UFOs

only weeks away,
veteran journalist George Knapp

and documentary filmmaker
Jeremy Corbell

drop yet another bombshell:

new footage of U.S.
encounters with U.A.P.s

from Navy combat ships.

SPRAGUE: These were
leaked videos and photos

from the actual Pentagon
UFO task force.

One of which showed
a pyramid-shaped object

floating above the USS Russell
off the West Coast.

And it wasn't just one pyramid.

There were apparently swarms
of these things.

They were triangular,
by angle of observation.

But they were pyramid in shape,
in reality.

NARRATOR: Other leaked videos
were recorded aboard the USS Omaha,

part of the same strike group
as the USS Russell.

These included not only
a smartphone recording

but also thermal imaging footage

and video of the objects
caught on radar.

You've got what's known as FLIR,

that is, forward-looking
infrared, or thermal signatures.

You have radar data as well.

And there was actually video
that was shot by Navy personnel

on the deck looking up
at these objects.

So you have three
different types of things.

NARRATOR: One video appeared
to show a single round object

flying above the water,
then hovering,

before making a controlled
descent into the ocean.

CORBELL: You can actually hear

in the CIC... which is
the Combat Information Center...

The shock and the awe...

as people saw this vehicle
going into the water.

These objects can apparently fly
through the atmosphere

at velocities that exceed

the known velocities
of our projectiles.

And they can go underwater,

exceeding the pressure
that would normally rupture

the hull of a projectile.

In other words,
these objects have a capability

exceeding that of ours because
they can go to outer space,

through the atmosphere
and even the oceans.

NARRATOR: Skeptics rushed to
claim the videos were refracted light,

or errant weather balloons
or perhaps even fakes.

But the debunkers
were dealt a blow

when the Pentagon
quickly confirmed

that the videos were authentic.

KNAPP: In UFO world,
everything's a conspiracy.

So when we released
these images,

we're being fed disinformation
by the government.

That's the assumption.

"These are phonies."

The same kind of accusations
that were leveled

at the images released
by Lou Elizondo,

New York Times, back in 2017.

Same kind of attacks

from people who just
don't want it to be true.

They don't want there
to be genuine unknowns.

So we released them,
got them verified.

And damned if the Pentagon
didn't come out and say "Yep,

they're real, they're legit."

POPE: One of the most
fascinating aspects of all this

was how quick
the Department of Defense was

to confirm the authenticity
of this material.

In the normal course
of business,

the policy is to either debunk
or refuse to comment at all.

Which makes one wonder,
is this material coming out

with the tacit approval
of someone in government,

or at least a faction
within government,

the military,
the intelligence community?

SPRAGUE: The reaction was
huge when it came to these.

Mainstream media picked up
on it almost immediately.

And it became a sensation,

all leading up to the countdown
to this report.

My personal intent

was to stoke the fire, was to
provide new data and evidence...

Corroborative data
and evidence...

That shows that we are
being engaged

by a technology
of unknown origin,

and behind that technology
is an intelligence.

Look, a little bit of pressure
is not the worst thing

if, uh, you want the U.S.
government to come clean

on a subject that it has
lied about, you know,

for more than 70,
almost 80 years.

NARRATOR: With the
deadline now weeks away,

the speculation
reached a fever pitch.

Would the final report
be yet another cover-up,

as many in the UFO community
predicted?

Or might it contain
shocking revelations?

NARRATOR: The Pentagon's
U.A.P. Task Force, along with the Office

of the Director
of National Intelligence,

submits to Congress
its long-awaited report.

Entitled
"Preliminary Assessment:

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,"

the simple nine-page report
represents the most direct

and substantive U.S. government
account of U.A.P.s

ever made public.

The headline is that
out of 144 reported encounters,

only one UAP was identified
as a large, deflating balloon.

The other UAPs
remain unexplained.

I thought that report
was tremendous.

A tremendously important
step forward.

'Cause to me, it says
two things: UFOs are real,

and two, they're not ours.

I thought it was
an astonishing report.

And it spoke volumes.

We got 144 cases,
we can't figure out 143 of them.

It's monumental.

I mean,
it is a watershed moment.

We're giving cover
and relief for folks

who are in the intelligence
community now

and work for our government
and folks who have served

and pilots who can now talk
about this thing.

It's only a preliminary
assessment.

Some people in the UFO community
were a bit disappointed

because it wasn't disclosure.

But what it did say was,
I think,

very encouraging and important.

It essentially said
that whatever UFOs are,

some of these sightings
demonstrate advanced technology,

and this, in one sense,
is a form of disclosure.

It's certainly
taking this further

than it's ever been taken
before within government.

It's quite an admission.

NARRATOR: Of the 144 reports

that the U.A.P. Task Force
reviewed,

the bulk of the sightings had
occurred between 2019 and 2021,

after the Navy reporting
protocol was put into effect.

But perhaps what is most
compelling is the revelation

that out of the 144
reported UAP sightings,

only one sighting
has been explained.

Only one out of them
has been shown to be spurious.

That indicates to me that
we're sitting on a gold mine,

a gold mine of incidences
that cannot be explained

using the normal metrics.

KAKU:
We're talking about incidences

that are beyond the stretch
of our imagination,

that indicate new laws
of physics opening up.

And we physicists are just
dying to get access to it.

NARRATOR: The report established

five potential
explanatory categories...

Airborne clutter,

natural atmospheric phenomena,

U.S. government or American
industry developmental programs,

foreign adversary systems,

and a category
for U.A.P. reports

that require additional
analysis, simply called "Other."

"Other" simply means beyond
the known technologies of today,

which could be extraterrestrial,
or who knows?

But I think the military
is now admitting

"other" could mean
extraterrestrial.

NARRATOR: Although the word
"extraterrestrial"

never appears in the report,
many observers believe

it contains one
very profound statement.

There's a bombshell quote
in the report

that a lot of people
have missed,

and it says, essentially,

that we may have
to fundamentally change

our understanding
of the laws of physics

to figure out
what's going on here.

"We may require additional
scientific knowledge

"to successfully collect on,
analyze

"and characterize some of them.

"Pending scientific advances

that allowed us to better
understand them."

This is not a sci-fi novel,
this is a government report.

That was the thing that most
stuck out to me as jaw-dropping.

"Our current science,
our current tech

can't understand some of these."

The government said that. Wow.

Additional scientific knowledge
could mean knowledge

beyond the known laws
of physics.

In other words, a technology

thousands of years
more advanced than ours.

NARRATOR: The U.A.P. Report
received mixed reactions from the public.

Some were stunned
by the government's admission

that it couldn't explain so many
of the unidentified objects

seen in the sky,

while others felt it contained
nothing of substance.

But for UFO investigators,
the report represented

validation
that was long overdue.

TSOUKALOS: The U.A.P. report
that came out in June 2021

was revolutionary
for the world of UFOs,

because for the first time

in the history
of the United States,

the government of the United
States has released a statement

in which the whole UFO question
is addressed.

And the bottom line is
that the U.S. government knows

what our adversaries
are capable of.

And in this report
it says it's not them.

HOWE: I have more hope.

It doesn't change
the dangerous relationship

that I have
with several whistleblowers

who have, I am telling you,
substantial information.

Not about just one type
of nonhuman.

There are a lot.

That's the part that keeps
astonishing me.

NARRATOR:
Now that the United States
government has confirmed

that there are, in fact,
unidentified flying objects

in our skies that top scientists

and military personnel
cannot explain,

many are hopeful that these
objects will soon be revealed

to be of
extraterrestrial origin.

But if that happens,
what comes next?

NARRATOR: The publication of
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena report,

along with the declassified
Navy videos,

marks the largest public
disclosure of the possible

existence of extraterrestrials
in U.S. history.

In the wake of the report,
politicians like Marco Rubio,

Mark Warner, Adam Schiff

and André Carson

have called for further funding
and study.

There's voluminous data
available,

but the report really
just skimmed the surface.

It just said, "We're gonna need
more time to look into this."

There's a history
of this going back

to the early years
of the 20th century, at least.

Not even talking
about the sightings

going back to the Bible.

And literature of other cultures
going back thousands of years,

talking about unexplained things
in the sky.

But just in our era,

there have been
many documented accounts

which they chose
not to deal with,

so they just took
a very narrow slice of this.

We don't want to trivialize
this matter.

We want to make sure
we remove the stigma

while engaging with some
of our civilian organizations

who are seeing these things.

And working with the government
in ensuring

that if it is otherworldly,
we will have

internal controls in place
to protect us, and to engage,

in the event that that happens,
in a healthy and safe way.

NARRATOR: The majority of
unidentified aerial phenomena data

came from the U.S. Navy.

But efforts are underway

to standardize
incident reporting

across all government services
and agencies.

The U.A.P. Task Force
plans to expand

to include the Air Force
and the FAA,

and use artificial intelligence
to analyze new data.

KAKU: We're talking about
a standardization

by which pilots are now gonna be
opening up floodgates.

Floodgates of these sightings
are now gonna be analyzed

by physicists and by scientists.

And I think that is a sea change

in the way we deal
with these things.

HOWE: Let's have a real
congressional hearing.

Let's hear from real
physicists and real scientists.

That's my personal dream.

And I would like to be there
in the congressional hearing,

standing by
with my evidentiary material

as an investigative reporter,
to contribute,

and hoping that there
would be so many others,

and that we would
finally, finally,

in a government of,
by and for the people,

just finally have everybody
tell the truth.

TSOUKALOS:
What's really fascinating

is that in the 1960s,
Erich von Daniken proposed

in Chariots of the Gods?

That aliens would show up
when Earth civilization

would reach a certain level
of technology.

And with everything
that's going on right now,

this may be the time
when we will make contact.

ERICH VON DANIKEN:
Some thousands of years ago,

the extraterrestrials promised
to return in a faraway future.

And we have good reasons to
believe that now they are back.

More and more of these proven
UFO cases appear to the public.

Before, it was never
shown to the public.

We know we are not alone,
we are under observation,

and it must be
extraterrestrials,

because they show a technology
which we do not have.

NARRATOR: Could the recent
attention and reporting

on unidentified flying objects

signal that we are
rapidly approaching

a far more profound disclosure?

Will we soon discover,
once and for all,

that we are not alone?

NARRATOR: And that we have
never been alone?

Perhaps the next disclosure
will not be orchestrated

by any government
or military official,

but by otherworldly visitors
themselves.

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