All language subtitles for The UnXplained Mysteries of the Universe S01E01 1080p WEB h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
Unidentified objects,

witnessed by military pilots.

Extraterrestrial probes,

flying through our solar system.

And a potential alien home world
that may be hidden

in the darkness of space.

When we look up into the night
sky, the pinpricks of light

we see are but a mere fraction
of the billions

or even trillions of stars
and planets in outer space.

The sheer vastness of the cosmos
begs the question

are we alone in the universe?

Or is it possible
that somewhere out there

there are intelligent beings,
just like us?

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

The New York Times publishes
a bombshell report

which reveals the existence

of a top secret military
initiative known as AATIP:

the Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program.

The purpose of the project was
to scientifically investigate

unidentified flying objects,

more commonly known as UFOs.

In the weeks that follow,
a number of previously

classified military videos
are leaked to the public.

One clip from 2004
shows an encounter between

U.S. fighter jets
and a mysterious flying craft

that appears to be
from another world.

This object that was videoed
in 2004

was doing some
really strange things.

I mean, just crazy things.

The fastest aircraft
that we know how to build

can't go that fast.

It also appeared to
have no actual source

of propulsion at all,

which is another big mystery

that can't be easily explained.

This video has become known
as the Tic Tac video

because one of the pilots,
Captain Underwood in this case,

nicknamed it that
'cause that's what he thought

it kind of looked like.

I remember it wasn't
that long ago

when if you asked
the U.S. government

for its official line on UFOs,

they would say,
"No one's interested.

No one's studying this.
We don't have any programs."

Some people now
talk about this event

and say, "Well, maybe
this was extraterrestrial."

This is a bombshell.

One can't avoid the conclusion

that we are not alone.

SHATNER:
Are we on the verge
of proving that there is

extraterrestrial life
in the universe?

It may sound hard to believe,
since this age-old mystery has

baffled us for centuries.

But many scientists
are now quite confident

that there simply has to be

intelligent life
on other planets.

The universe is huge,

gigantic beyond
human imagination.

So, how many stars are there
in the visible universe?

100 billion times 100 billion.

And to believe that we are
the only game in town,

I think,
is the height of arrogance.

So we have this fascination

with other intelligent
creatures in the universe.

I think everybody looks
at the stars at night--

on a, you know,
on a deep, dark, starry night--

and all of those
points of light,

and it's a reasonable
question to ask

whether or not we're
the only time life has happened.

Or are we just one page
in a very, very long book?

SHATNER:
For thousands of years,

looking up at the stars
with our naked eyes

was the only way we could search
for extraterrestrial life.

But then, in the 19th century,

telescopes gave us
a close-up view of Mars

for the first time,
which fueled intense speculation

that there may be life
on the Red Planet.

ROD PYLE:
There was a gentleman named
Giovanni Schiaparelli in Italy,

who was making copious maps
of the Martian surface.

Well, what do you see
with an old telescope

when you look
at the Martian surface?

He saw lines on Mars,
and Schiaparelli termed these

as canale in Italian,
which is the word for canals.

IWAN RHYS MORUS:
Schiaparelli speculates
that this might be evidence

of a huge planet-wide network

of channels essentially designed

to carry water around.

And then, of course, fascination

with the possibility
of life on Mars

just simply exploded.

PYLE:
Suddenly, all this buzz
starts coming around about,

wait a minute, there's an entire

extraterrestrial civilization
on Mars.

So, following
in that line of inquiry,

a lot of people started
writing these books

and popular articles
where there are Martians

with vast
communications networks.

They've got ships
sailing Martian seas.

They've got vehicles.

It wasn't terribly scientific,

but it got a lot of people
thinking about it.

SHATNER:
While we now know Mars
is a dusty, barren planet,

Schiaparelli's theory
was just the beginning

of a growing scientific effort

to search for signs
of extraterrestrial life.

NASA launches a Titan rocket

carrying the Voyager 1 probe
into space.

Voyager's primary mission

is to journey to the edge
of our solar system and beyond

and send back
unprecedented data and images.

But the probe also
serves another purpose,

which is rather unusual--

it carries a message
that will hopefully be received

by an alien civilization.

Voyager 1 has a really
interesting artifact

that's mounted to it.

And it's a golden record.

Think of a vinyl record
that plays music.

And the idea being, if someday,

Voyager 1 travels far enough
that it's recovered

by extraterrestrial
intelligence,

they might be able to figure out

how to operate the record
and learn about us.

PYLE:
Carl Sagan was one
of the intellectual giants

of the 20th century,
and he and a handful of others

put together this project to
create the famous Golden Record.

So this golden disc was
an old-style phonograph record

filled with both
visual and audio messages.

So the audio messages include
the sounds of animals,

sounds of nature,
waterfalls, wind, rain,

dozens of people saying hello
in different languages.

On the video side,
we have images of Planet Earth,

there's an astronaut in space,

images of civilization,

and a lot of people, of course,

to show a representation
of humanity.

And so, if some aliens happened
to intercept this thing

they can hopefully
retrieve these messages.

The question is, will they?

SHATNER:
Will an alien
civilization discover--

and decipher--
the Voyager Golden Record?

Perhaps.

But NASA recently invested
billions of dollars

in a new telescope
that may give us a glimpse

of alien home worlds.

Today is a historic day.

Six and a half months ago,
a rocket launched from Earth

carrying the world's newest,

most powerful
deep-space telescope.

Deploying a sunshield
the size of a tennis court.

SHATNER:
At an event in the White House,

President Joe Biden
unveils the first image

taken by NASA's brand-new
James Webb Space Telescope.

BIDEN:
We can see light
from the oldest galaxies.

The oldest documented light
in the history of the universe.

From over 13 billion years ago.

The groundbreaking instrument is

the most powerful
telescope ever built,

and it's specifically designed

to look for planets
where aliens might live.

SETH SHOSTAK:
The James Webb telescope,

it's an infrared telescope,

so it's sensitive to heat.

But that's really
not the big deal.

The big deal is
that it can look,

for example, at a planet
around another star

and actually see it.

It might only look
like a dot on a photo,

but you take
the light from that dot,

put it through a prism,

and you could tell
what's in the atmosphere

of that planet.

FRANK:
The most exciting thing
in the development

of the James Webb
Space Telescope is

we can tell the chemicals

that are in an alien atmosphere.

We could look
for industrial chemicals

which could only get there

if there is
a technological civilization

on the planet.

This was not possible
even ten years ago.

SHATNER:
In 2023, NASA announced

that the James Webb Telescope
had detected chemical evidence

that a planet named K2-18 b

may potentially have an ocean...

...which could also be home
to a form of plankton.

This exciting discovery has
led scientists to predict

that the telescope may one day

provide definitive proof
of alien life.

But looking in outer space

is not the only way to find out

whether we're alone.

Some astronomers are listening

for radio messages
that were sent

by extraterrestrials.

(music playing on radio)

SHATNER:
Across the United States,
millions of household radios...

MAN (over radio):
I'll take a look
to see what I can find.

SHATNER:
...playing the familiar
hum of music and entertainment

suddenly go silent.

But this isn't some
widespread technical failure

because, in fact,

the government declared
that all radio stations

must stop broadcasting.

This strange event was known

as the national day of radio
silence,

and its purpose was
to clear the airwaves

so that scientists could listen

for alien transmissions.

The government actually
instigated a program

whereby they requested
that, uh, everyone else

stay off the network
and you have radio silence,

and they actively listened.

So it shows this desire
to connect.

If there are
other civilizations out there,

we want to reach out,
we want to listen,

we want to talk to them.

McGEE:
During the day of radio silence,

the military
was raising antennas,

all the universities
were raising antennas.

Everyone was listening.

This reflects how deeply,
uh, the idea was held

that we might be able
to receive a signal

from someone else
out in the stars.

REBECCA BOYLE:
This is sort of in
the golden age of radio.

This is the primary way
people received news

and entertainment at the time,

and they were still
willing to turn off radios

to see if any faint signals
were emanating from Mars.

And I think it says a lot
about the curiosity

people had at the time
and always have had

about whether we're alone.

SHATNER:
The excitement of the
national day of radio silence

hit a high point
when the U.S. Naval Observatory

sent a dirigible balloon
nearly two miles into the sky

so it would have a better chance

of detecting
an alien transmission.

But why did people
think it was possible

to receive radio signals
that would prove

we're not alone in the universe?

The answer dates back
25 years earlier

to 1899,
when a curious discovery

was made by famed scientist

and inventor Nikola Tesla.

This period around
the end of the 19th century,

beginning of the 20th century,

was the zenith, really,
of Tesla's career.

Everything that Tesla did

was directed towards
this overriding goal

of spectacular new inventions

for electrical transmission.

And whilst he was doing this,

he said he encountered
some strange

and otherwise anomalous
and inexplicable signals

that appear to be regular,

and he became
more and more convinced

that what he had detected

was evidence
of extraterrestrial life.

McGEE:
When Tesla
started receiving signals,

he believed that they were
coming from outer space

and could be
of intelligent origin.

The idea that we
could receive messages

from beings from other worlds

worked its way up to government
with this day of radio silence,

where operators
across the government

might try and tune an ear
toward the stars

to see if, uh, E.T. was calling.

SHATNER:
The national day of radio
silence

was the brainchild
of astronomer David Peck Todd.

Todd persuaded
the U.S. government

that it was an ideal time

to listen
for alien radio signals

because Mars' orbit
brought it closer to Earth

than it would be
for another hundred years.

McGEE:
This was an idea
that really, like an ember,

lit people's imaginations

to the idea that we could talk

to intelligent beings
from other worlds.

Unfortunately,
none of the signals received

were credibly of Martian origin.

But the national
day of radio silence,

because it was official,

actually opened the public mind
in a real way,

and we did start learning
a lot about

what kinds of radio signals
we do get from the stars.

SHATNER:
Could there really be
transmissions

sent by
intelligent extraterrestrials

flying through space,

which would definitively prove

that we're not alone?

Many scientists believe
the answer is yes,

and more advanced work
to detect alien radio signals

has been done
since the early 1960s.

The modern serious
scientific search

for extraterrestrial
intelligence

started with work
by Frank Drake.

Frank Drake
was a radio astronomer,

and with
the giant radio telescope

that he was working with
at Green Bank Observatory,

he realized
that he would be able

to detect a radio transmission

not just from Mars or the moon,

but from a distant star.

And that was
a shocking realization.

And this just electrified

not just scientists
into looking for this

but the whole public into
this isn't just science fiction,

but this is a legitimate search

and that we might actually
find something out there.

SHATNER:
At Ohio State University's

"Big Ear" telescope,
which uses a specialized antenna

to detect radio waves
from outer space,

astronomer Jerry Ehman
is poring over

a printout of incoming data

when he notices
something remarkable.

Buried amidst the random static

is a signal of such
extraordinary intensity,

that he wrote a single word
in the margin beside it:

"Wow!"

FRANK:
This was called
the "Wow!" signal

because the signal
was what we call narrowband,

meaning it was only on
a few radio frequencies

and persisted for long enough

that it was the exact
kind of signal

we would have expected to find

when we think about looking
for artificial signals

from technological sources.

It was the kind of thing

that a natural source
would not produce.

WRIGHT:
They actually found
what they were looking for--

a powerful radio signal
from space

that bore all the hallmarks
of not coming from Earth.

But unfortunately the telescope

couldn't tell very precisely

where the signal
seemed to be coming from.

And so ever since then,

we still don't know
what the "Wow!" signal was.

We've never seen it repeat.

But it remains
this tantalizing hint

of what we might be able
to find in our searches.

SHATNER:
Today, the work
that astronomers do

to detect radio signals
from outer space

is referred to as

the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence,

or SETI.

This research is overseen
by the SETI Institute,

which is located
in Mountain View, California.

It's fascinating to think
that there might be

alien transmissions
zooming across the stars,

just waiting to be detected.

But what's even more intriguing
is the possibility

that extraterrestrial spacecraft

have traveled
through our solar system.

And perhaps even crashed
onto our planet.

SHATNER: Perched atop
a 10,000-foot summit

at the Haleakala Observatory,

astronomers using
the Pan-STARRS telescope

detect a mysterious object

traveling at high speed
through our solar system.

The velocity and trajectory
of this object

is unlike any
that has ever been seen before.

I was in charge
of coordinating the observing

to characterize the object.

The object was discovered
on October 19th.

There were images taken
that showed an object

moving rapidly
with respect to the stars.

The stars are individual
streaks of light,

and this object was a dot.

So, they knew
it was moving fast.

So, at that point,
they started to compute an orbit

to try and understand
what this object was.

This orbit was
a really dramatic difference

from what had been
seen previously.

Everything in the solar system
is either on a circular

or an elliptical orbit,

but it wasn't
an elliptical orbit.

It was very clear
that it was hyperbolic,

meaning something coming
from outside the solar system.

MIKE BROWN:
This fascinating object
that was discovered in 2017--

it was the first object
ever found

that we could tell for sure

came from outside
of our solar system.

People have talked about
looking for things like this

for a long time,
and this was the first time

we actually found one of these.

SHATNER:
Because it originated
outside our solar system,

the object was the first
to be officially recognized

as interstellar.

It was given
the Hawaiian name 'Oumuamua,

which means
"messenger from afar."

But perhaps what's most curious
about 'Oumuamua

is its odd shape,

which led some people
to speculate

that this interstellar object
could be proof

that we're not alone
in the universe.

FRANK:
When 'Oumuamua
was first discovered,

lots of telescopes
were trained on it

and we tried to get every bit
of observation that we could.

And it turned out it was weird.

It was a different kind
of object than we expected.

It was long and slender,
cigar shaped,

unlike anything we've seen
from natural objects

like comets or asteroids.

POPE: People speculated that
this might be a piece

of an
extraterrestrial spacecraft.

An interesting postscript
to the story

is that 'Oumuamua
behaved artificially

when it left the solar system.

It picked up speed,

and that's not what you
would normally expect.

FRANK:
'Oumuamua was
incredibly exciting

because it might be an artifact
of an alien ship

that is just passing through.

But the cool thing is
now that we know

that these things exist,

we're going to be watching,
and we're gonna be able

to detect more and more
of these objects.

SHATNER:
Is 'Oumuamua really a piece
of an alien spaceship

that zoomed through
our solar system?

Ultimately, it's hard to say.

Because this interstellar object
is long gone

Because this interstellar object
is long gone

as it continues its journey
across the universe.

But as it turns out,
some scientists believe

that physical proof

of an extraterrestrial
spacecraft can actually be found

on our planet.

Nearly four years before
the discovery of 'Oumuamua,

the stillness of
the predawn hours is shattered

when a meteor traveling
at high speed

slams into the ocean.

PYLE:
In 2014,

this fairly large meteorite,
about three feet across,

exploded over the ocean and
then the parts were scattered

in about a mile in deep water.

Some people got very excited
about this because,

given the trajectory
it came in at

and the speed at 134,000 miles
an hour, roughly,

maybe it wasn't
from our solar system.

SHATNER:
In 2022, the U.S. Space Force

released data which confirmed

that the meteor
is the first known

interstellar object
to hit Earth.

And just like 'Oumuamua,

this object fueled
intense speculation

that it is not merely a rock,
but rather

a piece of a spacecraft built
by extraterrestrial beings.

This theory has been
thoroughly investigated

by astronomer Avi Loeb
of Harvard University.

The reason that the meteor
is interesting is because

it has material strength
that is very unusual.

The meteor released a fireball
when it exploded.

And from that, we inferred

that the object must have been
tougher than iron,

tougher than all other meteors,

and that raises the possibility

that it may have been
a spacecraft

propelled artificially
and made of some alloy.

And of course,
if we do end up concluding

that it was artificial
in origin, perhaps a spacecraft,

that would be the first time
that we found evidence

for an object that originated
from another civilization.

SHATNER:
In 2021, Professor Loeb
launched an initiative

called The Galileo Project

to try and recover pieces
of the object.

Loeb and his team
scoured the waters

where the object crashed

in hopes of finding
physical evidence

that could prove
we're not alone in the universe.

And incredibly, in July of 2023,

Loeb announced that his team
successfully retrieved

some fascinating
metallic spheres

that are much stronger
than any known natural meteor.

PYLE:
What's impressive is

that the fragments
of this are very strong.

So this might not be a rock.
It could be a machine

or it could be
some kind of transponder

or any kind of artificial object
created by another culture.

LOEB:
Science is guided by evidence,

not by prejudice
and not by convictions.

And we hope,
just like detectives,

to collect enough evidence

that will tell us the origins
of this object.

Did scientists recover pieces of
an extraterrestrial spacecraft

from the bottom of the ocean?

Until the objects
can be analyzed further,

their true nature
will remain a mystery.

However, some people claim

that the government already
has proof that aliens exist

and wants to keep it secret
from the public.

But some whistleblowers
are willing to speak out

on the floor of Congress.

SHATNER:
The House Oversight Committee

convenes a public hearing
to investigate the possibility

that we're not alone
in the universe.

The subcommittee hearing

on unidentified
anomalous phenomena,

or UAPs, will come to order.

TRIMBLE:
The House Oversight
and Accountability Committee

hold hearings all the time,
and usually,

it's about holding
some federal bureaucrat's

feet to the fire over some issue
that they're concerned about.

Uh, but this
was a lot different.

They had solicited testimony

from former members
of the military

and the intelligence community

to talk about
their direct experience

with these UAPs.

SHATNER:
The three witnesses were

former U.S. Air Force
intelligence officer

David Grusch

and former Navy fighter pilots

David Fravor and Ryan Graves.

Graves claimed
that on numerous occasions,

he saw strange flying craft
that defied explanation.

I have experienced
advanced UAP firsthand,

and I'm here
to voice the concerns of more

than 30 commercial aircrew
and military veterans

who have confided their
similar encounters with me.

Are there common characteristics
to the UAPs

that have been sighted
by different pilots?

And can you describe

what the convergence
of descriptions is?

Certainly. We were primarily
seeing dark gray or black cubes

-inside of a clear sphere.
-I'm sorry. Dark gray

-or black cubes?
-Yes,

inside of a clear sphere
where the apex or tips

of the cube were touching
the inside of that sphere.

And with no self-evident
propulsion system?

No wings, no IR energy
coming off of the vehicle.

Um, nothing tethering it
to the ground.

And that was...
that was primarily

what we were experiencing
out there.

POPE:
We heard from Ryan Graves

that their technology,
whoever the "they" is,

is so much more advanced
than ours.

It's one thing
to see this sort of stuff

anonymously on the Internet.

It's quite another to have it in
a formal congressional hearing,

with the witnesses under oath.

SHATNER:
The sight
of a U.S. military pilot

reporting UAP encounters
to members of Congress

was shocking, to say the least.

But even more remarkable
was the testimony given

by David Grusch, who claimed
that the U.S. government

is in possession
of extraterrestrial technology

and... alien bodies.

NANCY MACE: If you believe
we have crashed craft,

as stated earlier,
do we have the bodies

of the pilots
who piloted this craft?

Biologics came with some
of these recoveries, yeah.

Were they, I guess,
human or non-human biologics?

Non-human,
and that was the assessment

of the people with the direct
knowledge on the program

I talked to, that are currently
still on the program.

POPE:
So, this was probably

the most bizarre and surreal

congressional hearing
that's ever taken place.

People were watching,
almost with disbelief,

at hearing phrases like
"nonhuman intelligence"

and "biologics," unpacked
on the floor in Congress.

SHATNER:
Is the U.S. government
hiding the truth

about extraterrestrials?

While skeptics were quick to
doubt the explosive testimony,

these aren't the only
whistleblowers to come forward.

A 2022 declassified
government report revealed

that members of
the U.S. military have reported

more than 500 UAP sightings.

BILL BIRNES:
This vast collection

of UFO sightings and phenomena

and the public hearings
on UFOs in Congress--

when you bring
those two things together,

the country is going UFO crazy.

What people then demanded was,
tell us the truth.

SHATNER:
In response

to the government's
lack of transparency,

some scientists want to take
matters into their own hands.

For instance, astronomer
Avi Loeb's Galileo Project

will conduct an independent
investigation of the skies

to search
for extraterrestrial spacecraft.

LOEB:
Since the sky's not classified,

the Galileo Project decided
to build a suite of instruments

that will monitor the sky,

and we will analyze the data

with artificial intelligence
systems

that would see if there is
anything else out there

that is of a different origin,

not human-made and not natural,

so, perhaps, extraterrestrial.

SHATNER:
Dr. Loeb claims that,
unlike the U.S. government,

if the Galileo Project
finds indisputable evidence

of extraterrestrial spacecraft,

the American public
will be the first to know.

LOEB:
We have been publishing
our results

in peer review journals

and making them available
for anyone to see,

because most of the data

that the government collected
is classified,

and it's not available
for people to see.

We hope to bring clarity
to the subject

because otherwise,
the public is left

without a good understanding
of what these objects might be.

POPE:
There's been a ramping up

of the intensity of all this.

There will be the release
of more videos

and photographs
of these objects.

There'll be more
congressional hearings.

It does look as if the truth

about this will be
a profound shock.

Will scientists be able

to identify extraterrestrial
spacecraft flying in our skies?

Well, such a discovery
would prove

that we are definitely
not alone.

But experts are also looking
for life

in much more unexpected places,
such as a distant planet

hidden in our solar system

that we can't even see.

SHATNER: On the campus of

the California Institute
of Technology

a group of experts
led by astronomer Mike Brown

is puzzling over
some strange data

from outer space

that they can't explain.

BROWN:
A few years ago,

a colleague of mine and I,

Konstantin Batygin,
he and I were looking at

the orbits of the most distant
objects in our solar system.

This vast collection of objects

is very much like
the asteroid belt,

but just an icier version
further away.

They're out in the same
region where Pluto is,

well past Neptune.

And we realized
that the ones that go

the furthest away from the sun

all have their orbits pointing
off in one direction.

These guys all go off far away,

and it shouldn't be that way.

Unless there's something
pulling them with gravity,

it shouldn't happen.

So, Konstantin and I tried
to figure out what's going on,

and we made jokes to each other

that, like, "Well, it could be
a planet, but that's dumb.

"We know it's not a planet,

"because we know there are

no other planets
in our solar system."

SHATNER:
The idea that there's
an undiscovered planet

in our solar system
that could potentially be

a place where life has formed,

sounds too incredible
to believe.

But on the other hand,

Mike Brown still
couldn't figure out why

objects in space were being
pulled in a strange direction.

BROWN:
We spent about two years
trying to figure out

what else could be
causing these things

to be pulled off
in this direction,

and we couldn't
figure out what it could be.

We realized,
"Actually, this planet just

is the only thing
that actually makes sense."

We started doing
calculations, simulations.

We realized, actually,

if you put a planet out here
that's pulling these things way,

it not only
explains these objects,

but it explains half a dozen
other things that have been

happening in the solar system.

So, I am really quite convinced

that there is a giant planet

still to be found out there
at the edge of the solar system.

SHATNER:
In February of 2019,

Mike and his colleagues
published a groundbreaking paper

in which they proposed
that there could be

an unseen planet hiding
in our solar system,

which they have dubbed
Planet Nine.

Their intriguing
theory made headlines,

because for hundreds of years,

humanity has believed that

there were only eight planets
in the solar system,

not including Pluto,

which is considered
a smaller "dwarf planet."

So, how could there be
an undiscovered planet

in our corner of the universe

that we're only
now finding out about?

Right now, we think, based on
our computer simulations,

that Planet Nine is

about seven times

more massive than the Earth.

And it's 600 times further

than the Earth is from the Sun.

And so it's way out there.

FRANK:
Planet Nine, if it exists,

it's so far away,

out there in
the deep, deep dark,

that it's just very
difficult to detect.

You are so far out
in the solar system

when you get
to these kinds of distances,

that the sun
is barely distinguishable.

There's just not
a lot of light out there.

But really,
it's exciting, because,

even though
we can't see the planet,

it's just almost impossible
to not to wonder

what is happening out there.

SHATNER:
If scientists are able
to prove that there is, in fact,

a planet hiding in the darkness
of our solar system,

it would raise
an even more pressing question.

Could there actually be life

on this mystery planet?

BROWN:
Planet Nine is
a really important place

to look for life.

Right now, scientists are
very strongly focused on

figuring out whether
there's just single celled

microbial life on Planet Nine.

Here is the interesting
thing about Planet Nine

when it comes to life.

It's possible that
if Planet Nine exists,

that it was much closer
in the solar system earlier on.

And if it had a rocky surface,

and if it was in the places
where liquid water could exist,

then maybe it did form
microbial life.

And then maybe, somehow, it got

kicked out
farther out from there.

BROWN:
One of the things that

we don't know
about Planet Nine is

why do we have
this planet so far away?

I think the most
likely hypothesis

is that, as it was
going around the sun,

it got too close.

And as you get too close,
you get a, basically,

a gravitational slingshot,
and you go whizzing out

to the outer part
of the solar system.

And it's been out there
basically lurking around,

waiting for us to
find it ever since then.

SHATNER:
Will we one day lay eyes
on this mysterious Planet Nine,

and perhaps learn
that it harbors life?

It's an exciting prospect.

But some scientists
are looking for

signs of extraterrestrial life
in even more distant realms

by tracking the farthest object

mankind has ever
sent into space.

SHATNER:
NASA announces
that the Voyager 1 probe,

which has been traveling
through space since 1977,

has finally crossed
an important threshold.

It is the first
man-made object

to officially
leave our solar system

and enter deep space.

JEFF COUGHLIN:
It's significant that Voyager

crossed the plane
of the solar system

because it meant that we,
as a species,

for the first time,
sent an object out

into the cosmos that will
travel for the rest of time.

The Voyager spacecraft,
in their current trajectories,

will pass close enough
to a solar system

where, if somebody was
really looking for it,

they might
have a shot at finding it.

SHATNER:
Today, Voyager 1 continues

on its journey through space,

and many people
eagerly await the day

that extraterrestrial beings
find the probe,

and the golden record
it's carrying into the cosmos.

At the current time,
Voyager 1's about

15 billion miles away.

And so,
the Voyager Golden Record,

a long-playing record album,

has been out there for decades,

and we hope alien beings
get a look at that record,

which is humanity's
postcard to the stars.

SHATNER:
At its current speed,
Voyager 1 will reach

the nearest star system
in approximately 40,000 years.

But, fortunately,

many experts believe that
we won't have to wait

nearly that long to find out

whether we're
alone in the universe.

Because scientists are
now focused on the search

for extraterrestrial life

more than ever before.

FRANK:
For a long time,
if you wanted to do SETI,

all your colleagues would
kind of raise their eyebrows

and be like, "Oh, okay."

I mean, it was kind of
considered a marginal field.

But people really need
to understand that

we have the tools, the capacity,

the people, and the funding

to really take this on.

Given all the amount of time
that's being spent

looking and looking
and listening and waiting,

a lot of very intelligent
scientists and theoreticians

feel that it's likely

that we'll have some indication

of extraterrestrial life

within the next ten years,

and I can't imagine
any other event

that would be as much of a
turning point for the human race

as finding out that
we're not alone.

COUGHLIN:
If we find
evidence that there was

another intelligent
civilization out there,

I think it puts into
perspective our own humanity.

We're no longer
the center of the universe,

and that is kind of humbling.

FRANK:
With everything that we've
learned about the universe,

there are at least
ten billion trillion

planets out there in the right
place for life to form.

That's a lot of places
where the universe

has had the opportunity

to try and form life.

All we need is just one

other example out there

to know that
we are not an accident,

and then, suddenly,
the space of cosmic possibility

just explodes open.

In the end, there are
only two possible answers

to the question, "Are we alone?"

Either we are or we're not.

Are we just a fantastic
and fragile cosmic anomaly

or could we be a small part

of something much greater?

All we can do
is simply continue our quest

to find the answer
and accept that,

for the moment,
our place in the universe

remains unexplained.

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