All language subtitles for Ancient.Aliens.S20E13.480p.x264-RUBiK[EZTVx.to]

NARRATOR:
Crashed UFOs.

DANNY SHEEHAN:
David Grusch said that

they were in possession

of an intact
extraterrestrial spacecraft.

NARRATOR:
Recovered alien entities.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS:
Jesse Marcel knew
not only that there was

a crashed craft
but also bodies.

NARRATOR:
Secret programs to study
otherworldly technology.

JEREMY CORBELL:
Bob Lazar said not only are
we reverse engineering UFOs,

but that he worked on one.

NARRATOR:
For more than six decades,

incredible claims have been made

about an extraterrestrial
presence on Earth,

and the government has
gone to great lengths

to discredit them.

Are we nearing the day
when whistleblowers

will finally be taken seriously

and their accounts proven true?

ANNA LUNA:
There's absolutely fear of being
treated like you're crazy,

but we have evidence
this is not crazy.

It's not made up.
It's-it's real.

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.

The subcommittee hearing

on unidentified
anomalous phenomena,

or UAPs, will come to order.

NARRATOR: On Capitol Hill,
the House Oversight Committee

assembles for a landmark
congressional hearing

to record firsthand accounts
of UAP activity.

As we convene here,
UAP are in our airspace,

but they are
grossly underreported.

These sightings are not rare
or isolated, they are routine.

NARRATOR:
During the proceedings,
lawmakers listen to testimony

from three notable
whistleblowers:

Retired Navy pilots
Ryan Graves

and David Fravor,

and former Air Force
intelligence officer

David Grusch,

who also served
on the UAP Task Force.

The military veterans
have come forward

to testify under oath
about UAPs that they claim

the government
has been covering up.

Parts of our government
are aware

of more about UAP
than they let on,

but excessive
classification practices

keep crucial information hidden.

Millions of people
are watching it,

and they're hearing this
beyond dramatic testimony

that, for the first time,
we're told

what everybody knows to be true.

The U.S. government has been
hiding secrets

about UFOs for over 70 years.

NARRATOR:
Whistleblower David Grusch even
suggests that the government

may be in possession
of alien technology.

I was informed in the course
of my official duties

of a multi-decade, uh,
UAP crash retrieval

and reverse engineering program.

NARRATOR:
For UFO researchers
and lawmakers alike,

the hearing marks
a watershed moment,

as many believe the Pentagon

has been overly secretive about
unidentified aerial phenomena.

NANCY MACE:
To have a UAP hearing
on the House Oversight Committee

was a first
for the history books.

There was a lot of information

that was shared and alleged
in that hearing,

which made it one
of the most, I think,

uh, important hearings in the
Oversight Committee's history.

NARRATOR:
The hearing's
explosive testimony

made headlines across the world.

And like many
government whistleblowers,

the individuals
who sat before the committee

came forward
at great personal risk.

SHEEHAN:
From a layperson's perspective
of what a whistleblower is,

it is a person who has got
inside information

about wrongdoing
who comes forward

and at their own peril

reveals this
to investigative reporters

or to government officials.

I had asked about
12 people to testify,

and we got down to those three
because the others had...

I think they'd been threatened
or warned not to come on.

And some of them told us
that, in effect.

GEORGE KNAPP:
If you're gonna be
a whistleblower,

you got to know that
whatever deep dark secret

exists in your life,
it's gonna come out.

These guys know that,
when they come forward

with something
as sensitive as this,

they're gonna pay a price.

NARRATOR:
Is the government

actively discouraging people
from speaking out about UFOs?

According to military insiders,

the answer is a resounding yes.

But the willingness of
whistleblowers to come forward,

despite the risk,

has led to more open discussion

about the UFO phenomenon
than ever before.

And the man who is most credited
with sparking interest

among lawmakers on Capitol Hill
is whistleblower Luis Elizondo.

Luis Elizondo, uh,
was a full-time, uh,

military, uh, career guy,
United States Army,

and a very high-ranking
counterintelligence officer.

He was retained in 2007

to a top-secret program,

which is the advanced weapons
special access program,

to investigate
the UFO phenomenon.

He became involved in setting up

some other special,
kind of less formal program

inside the Pentagon
that was called

the Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program.

NARRATOR:
For almost a decade,

Elizondo studied UFOs

and interviewed eyewitnesses
for the Army.

But according to Elizondo,
the more he uncovered,

the more his investigation
was suppressed.

KNAPP:
They were making some progress

in the military,
in the Pentagon,

but he's trying to get
the attention of his higher-ups.

"Hey, look, these cases
are really important.

"These encounters
are dramatic and unexplained.

We need to put some resources
into studying this."

And he got nowhere.
He kept getting blocked.

So, he took a-a pretty
courageous stance and resigned.

NARRATOR:
In October 2017,

Lue Elizondo resigned from AATIP

after Pentagon officials
refused to present

his findings to
Defense Secretary James Mattis.

ELIZANDO:
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.

HENRY:
He gets frustrated,

and he decides
to do something about it.

He becomes a whistleblower,

not just a whistleblower,

but perhaps the whistleblower
of all time.

NARRATOR:
Just days after resigning,

Elizondo shared his story
with reporters

from The New York Times.

And on December 16,
the paper published

a front-page article
that revealed

the classified UFO program.

In many ways,
that New York Times story

really changed ufology

around the world,

because when The New York Times
got on board

and is saying, "Yeah,
there are UFOs out there,"

that opened
a lot of people's eyes.

NARRATOR:
Along with the article,
The New York Times released

three UFO videos
taken by Navy pilots,

including the now famous
Tic Tac encounter.

HENRY:
These videos captured
the world's attention.

And suddenly, it's like
we're in a new world.

We have these incredible videos
shot by Navy pilots

giving irrefutable evidence
that there is a technology

out there that is beyond
anything our near peers have.

CHAD UNDERWOOD:
Look at it fly!

Lue Elizondo was the core.

I mean, without him
as the whistleblower,

as the main impetus for it, that
story would never have happened.

The videos, though, is what
galvanized public attention.

NARRATOR:
Almost immediately
after Elizondo went public,

elements within the government

actively sought
to discredit him.

RICHARD DOLAN:
Lue Elizondo went through
a tremendous amount

of harassment
from senior Pentagon officials,

former supervisors of his
and the like.

Um, you had a-a statement

in 2019 that came from
the Pentagon spokesperson,

who stated that Luis Elizondo

had no official office
with this office at AATIP,

in the Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program.

KNAPP:
Lue Elizondo knew
he'd pay a price,

but it was almost immediate.

The Pentagon undercut
his credibility.

But he's
a courageous individual,

and he stuck to his guns,
and he changed the world.

NARRATOR:
From Lue Elizondo's
2017 AATIP revelations

to the 2023
Congressional UAP hearing,

whistleblowers today
are making their voices heard

like never before.

But they are just the latest
in a long line of whistleblowers

who've been coming forward to
tell their stories for decades.

And the most controversial
of their claims--

that the U.S. military is in
possession of alien technology--

can be traced
all the way back to 1947

and an Army Air Force Major

who was at the heart
of the Roswell incident.

NARRATOR:
Roswell, New Mexico.

July 1947.

An unidentified object
is witnessed streaking

across the night sky,

then crashes in the desert
north of town

near the Roswell Army Air Field.

Rancher Mac Brazel
hears the impact

and investigates
the next morning.

Mac Brazel is the first
to find the debris field,

and it's an impressive
debris field.

Pieces, objects
and things everywhere.

And Brazel reports it
to the local Roswell sheriff,

a man named George Wilcox.

And Wilcox, uh, sends
some deputies out there,

and, uh, the case just
gets crazier from there.

Roswell Army Air Field sends
people out to investigate it.

The next thing you know,
the press release goes out.

"Army captures flying disc."

Shortly after
the U.S. Air Force said,

"We've recovered a flying disc,"
they reversed their position

and said
it was just a weather balloon.

NARRATOR:
The Roswell incident has become

the most notorious
alleged cover-up

of a UFO crash and retrieval
in U.S. history.

And at the center of it all...

is whistleblower Jesse Marcel.

My grandfather,
Major Jesse Marcel,

back in July of 1947,

was the head of intelligence
for the 509th bombing group.

That was heavily involved
in our atomic program

to end the second World War

and pretty well versed

in the latest technologies,
aircraft,

what have you at the time.

Major Jesse Marcel was really
the lead investigator

into what has become known
as the "Roswell incident."

NARRATOR:
On July 7,
Major Marcel was dispatched

from Roswell Army Air Field to
examine the mysterious debris.

According to his grandson,

Marcel was so astounded
by what he saw

that he took the debris
home with him.

JESSE MARCEL III:
He...

went and woke up his son,
my father,

who was about 12 years old
at the time,

and his wife Viaud, and said,

"You guys got
to come take a look at this."

He couldn't make heads or tails
or any sense

out of what he was looking at.

NARRATOR:
Even stranger,

while examining the wreckage,

Marcel's family discovered
several mysterious markings.

JESSE MARCEL III:
One thing they noticed was

it almost had no weight to it.

And my father picked up
what was a beam

about 11, 12 inches long.

And all of a sudden,
these symbols appeared.

And he really came to the idea

that, whatever this was,
it was not made by human hands.

NARRATOR:
The next morning,
Major Marcel was summoned

to the Fort Worth Army Air Field
in Texas.

There, he was
given strict orders

not to reveal the truth
about the Roswell crash,

and for three decades,
he didn't.

But in February of 1978,

Marcel finally
broke his silence.

JESSE MARCEL III:
My grandfather was
a ham radio operator,

loved to talk.

He was talking on ham radio,

and somebody recognized his name
as being part of the air base.

And he talked a little bit
about Roswell.

And soon enough,

a gentleman by the name
of Stanton Friedman heard of it,

and interviewed my grandfather
about it.

And that was really
when it broke out.

NARRATOR:
Stanton Friedman was

an American-Canadian
nuclear physicist

who began scientifically
investigating UFOs

in the 1960s,
due to his curiosity

about what happened at Roswell.

When he learned
that Jesse Marcel was ready

to reveal the truth,
he went to visit him

at his home
in Southern Louisiana.

Major Marcel told me--
I was the first to talk to him--

that what they were trying

to keep under wraps
was actual wreckage

of a flying saucer.

General Roger Ramey,
head of the Eighth Air Force,

covered it up
very straightforwardly.

BILL BIRNES:
Roger Ramey came
to Roswell and said,

"Bring all the UFO material
to Fort Worth,

Eighth Air Force headquarters,
and we'll disclose the truth."

But Major Jesse Marcel goes
to Fort Worth,

and they bring out
a weather balloon.

And they make Jesse Marcel,

a radar-trained
intelligence officer,

stand in front
of a weather balloon

and admit that he was confused.

FRIEDMAN:
Everybody was familiar
with weather balloons.

The notion that Jesse Marcel,

the intelligence officer
for the 509th,

couldn't recognize
a weather balloon is ridiculous.

NARRATOR:
According to Friedman,

in order to ensure
that the truth

about Roswell remained hidden
from the public,

the military not only had

to stage the famous
weather balloon photo,

but also make sure
that Marcel and others

who knew the real story
toed the line.

You agree that you will
not reveal anything

you've learned
that was classified

to anybody
without a need-to-know

and an appropriate
security clearance.

There are darn few people who,

after the war, incidentally,
broke their security oaths.

JESSE MARCEL III:
My grandfather broke his bond
of secrecy.

I think that,
in some small part,

he was looking for
a little bit of, you know, like,

"Hey, you guys, you know,
there is something to this."

NARRATOR:
Despite his excitement

over what he had found
in the debris field,

Marcel maintained his silence

until he was 70 years old.

POPE:
People who are involved
in keeping secrets,

it poisons you,
and you feel this great release

when you finally get it out

and say, "Yeah, you know,
it's all true."

I've spoken
to military witnesses

who sat on stories for 50 years

out of loyalty,
out of a belief that...

that the law constrained them.

But Marcel, 30 years on,
he was like,

"Okay, that's enough
of the cover story.

Here's what really happened."

NARRATOR:
After Marcel broke his silence
in 1978,

it caused a sensation,

and Friedman began referring
to the Roswell coverup

as a "cosmic Watergate."

Before 1978, the Roswell crash

was pretty much unheard of.

Only in the hardcore groups

of UFO people would you know
about Roswell.

Jesse Marcel blew open the door

to the most famous
UFO crash story

that you can think of today.

NARRATOR:
Could it be
that Jesse Marcel is just one

of dozens,
or perhaps even hundreds

of military personnel who have
witnessed unexplainable events

that they are forbidden
to reveal?

UFO researchers suggest

the Roswell incident
was the beginning

of a decades-long
government coverup.

One that involved an elaborate
disinformation campaign

disguised
as an official UFO investigation

called "Project Blue Book."

NARRATOR:
The famous Roswell incident

was just one of many
high-profile encounters

with unidentified flying objects

that occurred
during the late 1940s.

In June 1947,

pilot Kenneth Arnold

reported seeing nine
silver disc-shaped objects

flying near Mount Rainier.

Less than one month later,

sailor Harold Dahl reported

that a flying disc
dropped molten slag

onto his boat
near Maury Island, Washington.

And in January 1948,

Army Captain Thomas Mantell
tragically died in a plane crash

while chasing a UFO
over Western Ohio.

These and other similar events
prompted the government

to launch Project Blue Book
in 1952.

POPE:
Project Blue Book was

the U.S. Air Force

research and investigation
program into UFOs.

This was a project
that took some years,

but by the mid-60s,
there's 20,000 cases there.

So, this was one of the most
significant investigations

of UFOs of its time.

NARRATOR:
Project Blue Book
would last 18 years,

and involve dozens
of investigators.

Chief among them were Air Force
Captain Edward J. Ruppelt,

astronomer Jacques Vallée,

and Project Blue Book's
scientific advisor,

Dr. J. Allen Hynek.

According
to Dr. Hynek's son Paul,

the Air Force made its agenda
clear right from the start.

The Air Force came calling
to my father

in the late '40s, asking him

to tamp down reports

of flying saucers.

My father was very useful
to Project Blue Book

because he had
the academic credibility

to get people
to believe what he's saying.

POPE:
J. Allen Hynek was
an astronomy professor,

brought on
by the U.S. Air Force.

And to start off with,

he-he absolutely took
the party line.

NARRATOR:
But while the purpose
of Project Blue Book

was to discredit UFOs,

over the course of his tenure,

Hynek grew to question
the project's mission.

PAUL:
My father was muzzled
by the Air Force

in terms
of what they would investigate,

how serious
they would investigate it,

and what he was allowed
to disclose.

He had a front row center seat

to the most confidential aspects

of the early days
of the UFO phenomena.

And my father went
from a diehard skeptic

to an acceptor

of the accumulated weight
of the data.

NARRATOR:
Hynek's findings were dismissed
by his superiors,

who demanded that he continue
to debunk UFO reports.

And when Project Blue Book
ended in 1969,

Hynek went public.

PAUL:
He was really the main person

to draw attention to the fact

that Project Blue Book was not
set out to find the truth

but to control the narrative.

NARRATOR:
J. Allen Hynek was one
of the most outspoken voices

about the government efforts
to suppress evidence of UFOs.

And some researchers believe
he would have spoken out sooner,

if it wasn't for a tragic event

that happened to
one of his colleagues--

Air Force Captain
Edward Ruppelt.

HANKS:
Edward Ruppelt was the first
director of Project Blue Book.

During his tenure,

which lasted close to two years,

Ruppelt was in charge
of all of the best information

that the United States Air Force
was acquiring

at that time about--
as he began calling them-- UFOs.

And Ruppelt
actually gave us that term,

"unidentified flying object."

CHILDRESS:
Project Blue Book was ostensibly
a military project

to debunk UFOs,

but Ruppelt wasn't
going along with that.

Ruppelt was saying, "Oh, no,
there's something going on here.

We need to look at this."

NARRATOR:
Captain Ruppelt
frequently found himself at odds

with his superiors.

Like when he tried to
investigate a major UFO incident

that occurred
right over the nation's capital.

On Saturday, July 19, 1952,

at 11:40 p.m.,

air traffic controllers
at Washington National Airport

and Andrews Air Force Base

detected seven
unidentified flying objects

on their radar screens.

The UFO sightings
caused a sensation,

and, incredibly,

more unidentified objects
were detected again

the following weekend.

HENRY:
For two weeks, Washington, D.C.,

is buzzed by a fleet
of seven UFOs.

They literally fly
over the White House,

over the Capitol,
Washington National Airport.

Ruppelt was in Washington
while this is happening,

and he wanted to investigate.

And his frustration begins,

because he's told
he can't have a staff car

because he's not a general.

If he wants to investigate it,

go get himself a taxi.

NARRATOR:
Frustrated by what he saw

as a government effort
to debunk all UFOs,

in 1953, Ruppelt resigned
from Project Blue Book.

And a few years later,
he made his findings public.

HANKS:
In 1956,
Ruppelt publishes a book

about his experience as the
director of Project Blue Book,

The Report
on Unidentified Flying Objects.

This book is
incredibly important,

because this is the first time
that the public gets a glimpse

of the inner workings of
the government's investigations

into UFOs from an insider.

DOLAN:
One of the things

Ruppelt pointed out in his book
that was really interesting

and important was to show
that, within the military,

particularly the Air Force,

many of them took UFOs
quite seriously and believed

that this was interplanetary.

That was the word
they were using back then.

NARRATOR:
Ruppelt's book captivated
readers across the country.

Its popularity led to an updated
version being published

four years later.

But, curiously,
in the new printing,

Ruppelt completely reversed his
position on the UFO phenomenon.

CHILDRESS:
In 1960,

Ruppelt had a second edition
of his book,

and he said
that UFOs were a hoax,

that they did not exist.

HENRY:
The strange thing is,
is that he dies

within months
of the release of the book.

He's a 37-year-old man
who dies of a heart attack.

And now, on top of this,

the UFO community is wondering
what happened to him.

Is there a conspiracy here?

It is still one
of the most enduring mysteries

of when a UFO investigator
essentially left us

before their time.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible
that Captain Edward Ruppelt

paid the ultimate price for
exposing a government cover-up

regarding UFOs?

Perhaps further clues
can be found

in the statements
of another whistleblower

who claimed to have
reverse engineered

an alien spacecraft.

NARRATOR:
Throughout the 1950s,
'60s and '70s,

dozens of whistleblowers came
forward with incredible claims

about the government's knowledge
of extraterrestrial visitation.

But for many UFO researchers,

the most important revelations
of all

came in the late 1980s,

from a physicist
named Bob Lazar.

The first person Lazar told his
story to was his close friend,

retired CIA pilot John Lear.

Bob Lazar
used to work at Los Alamos.

Had the highest clearance
that you can get there.

And he worked for

three or four months
up there at Area 51.

NARRATOR: While working at the
top-secret Air Force facility

known as Area 51,

Lazar revealed to his friend

that a remarkable object
was hidden deep

within the secret
military compound.

LEAR:
Was December 6 of '88.

He comes in, he sits down there
at, uh, my desk

and he said,
"I saw a disc today."

And I said, "What?"

He said, "I saw a disc."

And I said,
"You saw a flying saucer?"

He said, "Yeah. Sure did.

"I saw 'em. I touched 'em.

They are real."

And I said,
"Well, there's no reason

"you should be here right now,

"because they're going
to have followed you.

They know
exactly what you're doing."

NARRATOR:
Four months later,

Lear learned
that his concerns about Lazar

being watched by the military
were well-founded.

Lazar revealed
that Air Force officers

at Area 51 had approached him

to let him know
that they had been keeping track

-of not only him
but also his wife.
-(shutter clicking)

LEAR:
They had
some private information

that his wife
was having an affair.

Said, "We can't have
anybody working with us

"who has, uh,
family problems like that.

"So we need to suspend
your work up there

until, uh,
you get things sorted out."

And that was April 7 of '89.

And, uh, that's when he decided
to go public.

NARRATOR:
With Bob's permission,

Lear shared his story
with a reporter he knew

at the local KLAS-TV station,

George Knapp.

On May 15,
Knapp sat down with Lazar

for a live interview.

KNAPP:
We had a five-minute live
interview segment every night.

And I don't remember
who it was that day,

but they canceled
late in the day.

And I didn't know
what we were gonna do.

And I thought,
"I wonder if Lear's UFO buddy

might be available."

I had no idea who Bob Lazar was.

And so we sent a live unit up
to Lear's home.

This skinny, bespectacled guy
comes out.

We had to hide his identity.
Silhouette.

We used a pseudonym
and we started interviewing

and out spills this story

of a secret facility built up
in the Area 51 complex.

Exactly what's going on
up there?

LAZAR:
Well, there's several, uh...

actually, nine, uh,
flying saucers, flying discs,

uh, that are out there
of extraterrestrial origin.

And they're being test-flown

and, uh,
basically just analyzed.

It is the highest-rated
locally produced series

ever airing in Las Vegas.

And it changed
the course of my life.

NARRATOR:
After Lazar's sensational claim,

Area 51 became the center
of public interest.

And UFO enthusiasts

began to comb the Nevada desert

in search of the secret
military installation.

Bob Lazar ultimately revealed
his identity.

And once he did, his life
would never be the same.

TSOUKALOS:
Bob Lazar,

he was ripped apart
for this information.

In fact, it got so bad

where his house was broken in,

he was harassed,

his family was threatened.

KNAPP:
Lazar thought
he was gonna be killed.

We were being followed.

We were being tracked.

Our phones were tapped.

We were being watched.

I mean, I made an open appeal
to our audience.

I said, "Look,
I know there are people

"who are watching
this program now

"who know
about the reverse engineering.

And I want you
to reach out to me."

And six times in a row,

people who contacted me,

offered to meet with me
and go on camera,

were visited the very next day

by people purporting
to be government agents

who told them
to shut the hell up or else.

And in a couple of those cases,
they were threatened with death.

NARRATOR:
Faced with constant harassment,

Lazar retreated
from public view.

Then, in 2013,

24 years after Bob Lazar's
explosive interview,

a Freedom of Information Act
request

forced the government to finally
reveal the existence of Area 51.

While Air Force officials
still denied

that the facility
had anything to do

with extraterrestrial craft
or beings,

Lazar felt
a sense of vindication.

In 2018, he decided

to share his story in filmmaker
Jeremy Corbell's documentary

titled Bob Lazar:
Area 51 & Flying Saucers.

LAZAR:
In the late 1980s,

the U.S. government had
recovered alien spacecraft,

several of them,

and the technology
in the Nevada desert

that they were keeping quiet
and analyzing.

That's a fact.

I think after he saw
some time passing

and saw how people were saying
things that he never said,

it just finally got to him.

And he's a fighter.
So I think he just got

to a point where he was saying,
"Okay, enough is enough.

Here we go.
What do you want to know?"

I don't like being
in the public eye.

I don't have money
for doing this.

And, quite frankly,
I could make up a better lie.

And, quite frankly,
I could make up a better lie.

But I have no motivation to lie.

KNAPP:
Jeremy's film was an atomic bomb
all over again.

A whole new generation of people
got to learn about Bob Lazar.

And I think it inspired
some of the people

who are now coming forward
as-as whistleblowers

to go ahead and have
the courage to speak up.

NARRATOR:
Could it be that Bob Lazar

was targeted by a campaign
to suppress the truth

about alien technology
at Area 51?

Many believe Lazar's
willingness to come forward

opened the door
for another whistleblower,

one who exposed a conspiracy
so vast it would take him

into the halls
of the United States Congress.

NARRATOR:
The Debrief,
a science news website,

publishes
a sensational interview

with military intelligence
officer David Grusch.

POPE:
David Grusch,

he's a former intelligence
community officer,

he served on the UAP Task Force

under the directorship
of Jay Stratton,

and he was a representative

of the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

While I was on
the UAP Task Force,

Dave Grusch was given the job

to go and start
interviewing people

who worked on
a previous UFO program,

see what they were willing
to tell us.

And he found a lot of things.

NARRATOR:
In the Debrief article,
Grusch revealed

that as part of his
official duties at the Pentagon,

he was informed
of a decades-long,

top secret military program
to recover and reverse engineer

crashed craft
of nonhuman origin.

POPE:
It was his job
to go and interview

some of the people in the system

who are actively responsible
for keeping it secret.

And he says it's all real.

Everything you've heard,
everything you've been told,

all the rumors
about crashed UFOs,

dead bodies, it's all true.

DOLAN:
Grusch interviewed, he said,

about 40 witnesses

within the national security
establishment.

He stated that there are

multiple alien craft,

uh, that the United States
government

or its licensed private
contractors have possession of.

And he stated that there were
what he called "biologics"

that were recovered.

That's his word
for alien bodies.

TAYLOR:
I've been in a secure
environment with Dave

and have had been briefed on
everything that he's uncovered,

and, uh, everything
that he's saying in public

has been approved by, uh,
the-the Defense Department

and, also,
by the Inspector General.

There's a-a "there" there,
as-as the saying goes,

and, uh, we would all be wise
to listen to the stories.

NARRATOR:
Astonished by the scope
of the project,

Grusch came forward
as a whistleblower.

DOLAN:
He decided that the Pentagon was
withholding critical information

on this subject from Congress,
which he argued was illegal.

And he, uh, ended up
issuing a complaint about this

to the Inspector General's
office

of the intelligence community.

NARRATOR:
On July 26, 2023,

just seven weeks
after going public,

David Grusch
and two other whistleblowers

testified before
a Congressional hearing.

I have taken every step I can
to corroborate this evidence

over a period of four years

while I was with
the UAP Task Force,

and do my due diligence
on the individuals sharing it.

Uh, this is--
Because of these steps,

I believe strongly,
uh, in the importance

of bringing this information
before you.

NARRATOR:
During his testimony,

Grusch revealed specific details
of military UAP encounters.

He also stated that despite
having nothing to gain

by disclosing this information,

his testimony made him a target
for significant repercussions.

BURCHETT:
Mr. Grusch,

have you faced
any retaliation or reprisals

for any of your testimony
or anything?

Yeah, uh, I have to be careful
what I say in detail

because there is an open, uh,

whistleblower reprisal
investigation on my behalf,

and I don't want to compromise
that investigation.

But it was very brutal
and, uh, very unfortunate,

some of the tactics
they used to,

um, hurt me both professionally

and-and personally,
to be quite frank.

LUNA:
We were told that individuals
had been killed

protecting this information.

He's in fear of his life as well
as the, uh, safety of his wife.

There is something
more nefarious at play here.

NARRATOR:
Almost immediately following
his dramatic testimony,

articles in the press
attempted to discredit Grusch,

making a string of accusations
aimed at questioning

his mental state.

LUNA:
They tried to say
that because he had deployed

and some of his friends
have died,

he might have PTSD.

They tried to discredit him,
which is just

the most egregious smear
that they could ever run

on a military service member.

SHEEHAN:
The article sensationalized
his mental difficulties.

And it turns out that, uh,

the author of it
actually acknowledged,

publicly, that he had been
contacted by, uh, sources

inside the Defense Department
and directed to do this.

MACE:
We have
a generations-long history

of the federal government
trying to discredit witnesses,

and I believe we saw
that with David Grusch.

NARRATOR:
The U.S. military denies

David Grusch's
sensational allegations.

But if what he says isn't true,

then why did members
of the Defense Department

actively try
to discredit his testimony?

The claims made by David Grusch,

and other whistleblowers
like him,

have brought more attention
to the UFO phenomenon

than ever before.

And ancient astronaut theorists
believe that the truth

about an extraterrestrial
presence on Earth

may finally be revealed.

NARRATOR:
After more than 70 years

of whistleblower testimony

claiming that
the U.S. government

is covering up
the truth about UFOs,

members of Congress
finally decide to take action.

I'm pleased the NDAA
will include my amendment

on increasing transparency
on UAPs,

or unidentified
anomalous phenomena.

NARRATOR: Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer sponsors

the Unidentified Anomalous
Phenomena Disclosure Act.

The bill would require
the release

of all government knowledge
of UAPs.

But UFO researchers
are left frustrated

when it is finally signed
into law five months later.

Some really robust
and new whistleblower provisions

were drafted,

but not a lot of that

actually made it
into the final bill.

In fact,
a lot of the really interesting

UAP-related provisions
were negotiated out.

No independent review board,
no eminent domain provision.

No extra
whistleblower protections.

NARRATOR:
Were these changes
to the legislation

simply part
of a routine political process?

Or might it be the latest
attempt by the government

to suppress information
about UFOs?

Either way, many UFO researchers
remain optimistic

that we have entered an age
in which more whistleblowers

will come forward
than ever before.

The fact that Congress
gutted this legislation,

uh, a lot of people in UFO world
see that as the end.

It's just the beginning.

And I think
that what's gonna happen

over the next months and years

is that additional
whistleblowers

are gonna go public,

and they're gonna
release documents

and they're gonna release videos

that are gonna be
very compelling.

CHILDRESS:
Much of the information
that we've gotten about UFOs

has been from whistleblowers.

People who, uh, are insiders,

they're in the military,

and they think that people
should know these things.

And so, they risk themselves

by becoming whistleblowers.

HENRY:
For the past eight decades,

the heroes of this movement have
always been the whistleblowers,

the insiders who decide
that the powers that be

can't withhold this information
from the American people--

and, indeed, the human race--
any longer.

They're dedicated, ultimately,

to what all of us are seeking:
the truth.

TSOUKALOS:
It is the whistleblowers

who will move us one step closer

to answering
the extraterrestrial question.

It's about time
that we're being told the truth

because we can handle the truth.

We're told we can't, but we can.

And so, I think we now live

in one of the most
exciting times

in the entire history
of our planet.

NARRATOR:
In the wake of the whistleblower
hearing before Congress,

could even more incredible
secrets soon be revealed?

Secrets involving
knowledge of a real

extraterrestrial presence
on Earth?

For now, the fact that UFOs

are being discussed
in the mainstream press,

and Congress,
represents monumental progress.

POPE:
If we ever learn
the full truth about UFOs,

whistleblowers will
undoubtedly have played

a key role
in getting that truth out.

We'll look back at the history
of some of these people,

and we'll name the names
and say,

"These are the people
who enabled this to be done."

I see it as the Mount Rushmore
of ufology,

that one day,
we'll have those faces

carved in stone somewhere.

Hynek, Ruppelt,

Elizondo, Grusch
and many others.

They're all heroes.

NARRATOR:
What if the incredible claims
of UFO whistleblowers

are all true?

Could it be that first contact
with extraterrestrials

does not lie in the near future
but has already happened?

Perhaps, as more whistleblowers
continue to come forward,,

the full truth will
finally be revealed...

and we will discover
that we are not alone,

even on our own planet.

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