Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Mysterious orbs of light

reported all over the world.

Enormous cylindrical objects hovering high above the Earth.

And massive triangular craft that appear out of thin air.

Throughout history,

people have witnessed objects of all shapes and sizes

up in the sky.

Now, we're going to take a look back

at the top ten examples

of what ancient astronaut theorists suggest

are, in fact, alien craft--

craft that just may hold the proof

that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials.

♪

People love to tell me about

their favorite UFO sightings,

and some of them are pretty astonishing.

But you may be surprised to hear

that many of the flying craft that we're seeing today

may have also been seen thousands of years ago.

This countdown takes a look at the various types of objects

that have been witnessed in the sky again and again.

At number ten on our list of the top ten alien craft--

the Flying V.

NARRATOR: Kent, New York.

New Year's Eve, 1982.

A group of partygoers spots

a gigantic V-shaped craft overhead

with red, white, and green lights.

The colors suddenly vanish,

and then the object illuminates the ground

with a blinding white light.

Over the next few months,

Hudson Valley authorities are bombarded with similar reports.

PHILIP IMBROGNO: Usually, UFOs just appear

to a small number of people, and they disappear.

In this case, people were stopped on the highways.

People were running out of their houses

watching this enormous object pass over,

the size of a football field.

DAVID CHILDRESS: It's estimated that as many as 5,000 people

called in and made reports of this giant V.

And the witnesses said that this flying triangle

was completely silent.

And that it was flying very slowly, if at all,

and was often just hovering

right in place and then would slowly turn,

and then ultimately fly off in another direction.

So that these were not some

hoaxers with their airplanes

flying in formation,

but something completely different.

NARRATOR: The sightings of large V-shaped craft in Upstate New York

made headlines in The New York Times.

Then, in 1997,

an identical craft was spotted in Phoenix, Arizona.

RICHARD DOLAN: It was a triangular-ish shaped object

seen very reliably by

quite a large number of witnesses, including

the governor of the state at the time, Fife Symington,

who was a qualified pilot and in the Air Force Reserve as well.

As a pilot and a former Air Force officer,

I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble

any man-made object that I'd ever seen.

NARRATOR: While the V-shaped craft flying over the Hudson Valley

and Phoenix are the most well-documented

mass UFO sightings in history, they are far from the first.

More than 400 years ago, in 1561,

the citizens of the Bavarian city of Nuremberg

reported a commotion in the sky

that was unlike anything

they had ever experienced before.

People went outside and they saw

what they described as a celestial battle.

The witnesses observed seeing hundreds

of these strange-shaped objects.

What were these strange shapes that they were describing?

NARRATOR: The aerial scene, illustrated in a woodcut,

is described in the accompanying text

as "a very frightful spectacle."

A large, black, V-shaped object appeared in the sky

and seemed to launch projectiles

as onlookers below watched in amazement.

This was actually witnessed by thousands of people.

Had it been a meteor shower or something like this,

then the reports would have been,

"Okay, this happened before because we've seen this before,"

but that was new.

HENRY: The witnesses wouldn't have had a conception of

some kind of a mechanical spacecraft.

But that seems to be exactly what they were describing.

And this has to be one of the greatest mass sightings

of a UFO phenomena in all of recorded history.

To me, there is no doubt

that the people of Nuremberg witnessed an alien craft--

they just didn't have the language

to accurately describe what they saw.

But that should come as no surprise,

because even today, strange objects are seen

in our skies that defy explanation.

Like the number nine entry on our countdown--

Orbs of Light.

♪

U.S. Navy pilots with the 415th Night Fighter Squadron

report seeing "eight to ten

"bright orange lights off the left wing

flying through the air at high speed."

Neither the radar operator in the air

nor ground control

could identify anything in the area

that fit their description.

The strange orbs of light are observed by hundreds of both

Axis and Ally pilots all over Europe and Asia

throughout the war and become known as "foo fighters."

AMY SHIRA TEITEL: Foo fighters were first seen

in the Second World War

by pilots flying not actually that high off the ground,

between 800 or 10,000 feet.

Usually pilots were flying at night

and they reported seeing lights in formation on the horizon.

They would be moving together or flashing,

kind of tracking them for a bit,

and then it would disappear as soon as it came.

BILL BIRNES: They were called "foo fighters"

after French feu, meaning "fire,"

'cause they were flaming balls.

In 1945,

a B-29 bomber, over the South Pacific,

saw a foo fighter off its wing.

B-29s were very heavily armed.

It trained its machine guns on the device,

fired on it,

and the foo fighter blew up into a million pieces.

That story was covered in TIME magazine.

Whatever they were...

they disappeared and have now gone into legend.

NARRATOR: While reports of encounters with foo fighters ended

after World War II,

mysterious orbs of light have been reported

hovering around military testing sites,

nuclear plants,

and even crop circles.

But what they are remains a mystery.

Foo fighters exhibited

performance characteristics

beyond any other aircraft

in the skies at the time.

There were pilots that, uh, reported foo fighters

traveling at unimaginable speeds.

That were capable of maneuvering

in the air in ways that no other aircraft could do.

MICHIO KAKU: These are hypersonic devices.

They can also zigzag,

and the amount of zigzagging is so great

that the gravitational forces inside these objects

as they jerk through space and time

would crush any living individual.

In my opinion, whatever these objects are,

they're guided either by remote control

or by an autonomous cybernetic system.

NARRATOR: Are the mysterious orbs of light encountered around the world

a type of extraterrestrial spacecraft?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest further evidence

that alien craft are visiting our planet

can be found hidden

in the jungles of Mexico.

On January 5, 2000,

dozens of people in Illinois

witnessed a mysterious craft

that didn't show up on radar

and appeared to be cloaked in some type of camouflage.

Sneaking in at number eight on our list of alien craft--

Stealth UFOs.

NARRATOR: St. Clair County, Illinois.

January 5, 2000.

Just after 4:00 a.m.,

three large, triangular objects flying silently in the night sky

are seen by multiple witnesses,

including police officers.

I looked up in the sky and observed

this huge, arrow-shaped,

triangular-shaped object.

NARRATOR: The flying triangles are observed

for at least two hours

as they travel over multiple towns.

MICHAEL SCHRATT: This is known as the famous

Southern Illinois flying triangle.

We have about four different police officers.

What they describe seeing are three distinct,

arrowhead-shaped craft.

Officer Craig Stevens was

directly below one of these triangles.

And he said that

it was trying to cloak or camouflage itself

against the night sky,

and was projecting the star field above it

on the bottom surface,

allowing it to effectively blend in with its background.

NARRATOR: The ability of triangular-shaped objects to hide in plain sight

reminds many observers of modern stealth technology.

Developed by the U.S. military in the 1970s and '80s,

stealth technology can make aircraft

nearly invisible to radar,

sonar, and other detection methods.

MICHAEL DENNIN: To make something invisible to radar,

all you have to do is make sure

that the radar doesn't reflect back to the receiver.

This all comes down to mostly the shape of the planes.

You want it shaped in a way

so that the radar either scatters in random directions

or literally just bounces off in a completely opposite way.

NARRATOR: Could the cloaking effect that witnesses observed

in the Illinois flying triangle

be a type of stealth technology more advanced than our own?

Curiously, the U.S. stealth technology

was developed at Area 51--

the same secret military base

believed to contain the remains of a UFO that crashed

in Roswell, New Mexico.

The official Area 51, now admitted by the government,

is this facility where aircraft were developed and test flown--

The U-2 spy plane,

the SR-71 Blackbird,

and, of course, more recently stealth technology.

A lot of people say this is actually something

we've back-engineered from extraterrestrial technology.

NOORY: I think there's no question

that we have reverse-engineered or have looked at

the shapes of these craft

and have tried to create it for ourselves.

Look at some of the new stealth jets

that are coming out right now.

They're amazingly close to what we saw

20 years ago from UFO reports.

One of my favorite places to explore is Egypt.

On Ancient Aliens, we've investigated pyramids,

tombs and even evidence of advanced technology.

But the most important symbol in Ancient Egypt

is a pyramid-shaped object that was said to represent

a craft that descended from the sky.

At number seven on our list-- the Benben Stone.

♪

NARRATOR: Luxor, Egypt.

The Karnak Temple Complex is home to the tallest

standing obelisk in Egypt.

The 97-foot-tall monolith

is carved from a single piece of granite.

And crowning this remarkable obelisk

is a pyramid-shaped object called a Benben stone.

The Benben stone

or the pyramid-shaped structure

that is on the top of an obelisk or a pyramid...

...it is there to receive the messages

from the Sun god

and deliver it to its people.

NARRATOR: According to Egyptian mythology,

the Benben was a vehicle

which Atum, the god of all creation,

used to travel back and forth between the heavens and Earth.

TSOUKALOS: One of the origin stories says

that a Benben stone descended from the sky,

out of which the first creator gods emerged

and started Egyptian civilization.

It was a flying craft.

CHILDRESS: The Benben stone was not

just symbolizing a connection to the heavens--

it was actually memorializing

an extraterrestrial visitation.

NARRATOR: Could the first Egyptians have witnessed an alien craft

in the shape of a pyramid?

As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,

the argument for this notion became stronger

in July 2019,

when, just off the coast of San Diego,

Navy personnel aboard the USS Russell

recorded an incredible event.

The ship's photographic interpretation

and Examination Team

captured an 18-second night vision video

of several pyramid-shaped objects hovering in the sky.

RYAN SPRAGUE: The video showed

a pyramid-shaped object,

a literal, 3D, 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,

about 700 feet above this Navy destroyer,

completely silent, making no noise

and darting off at immeasurable speeds.

CHILDRESS: It's a fascinating idea that perhaps

extraterrestrials first arrived in Egypt

in these small, pyramid-shaped craft,

like we're seeing in this video.

TSOUKALOS: Clearly, what we see in this footage of today

is three-dimensional pyramid floating in the sky.

Providing the footage is real,

providing it is extraterrestrial,

providing it is extraterrestrial,

then one could argue

that the same visitors that we've had back then

are showing themselves again.

What's fascinating to me

is that in many parts of the world,

we can find ancient illustrations of objects

that people allegedly saw in the sky

that look identical to modern spacecraft.

Coming in at number six on our countdown of

the top ten alien craft--

Rocket Ships.

♪

NARRATOR: Palenque, Mexico.

1952.

Archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier discovers

the pyramid tomb of King Pakal,

who ruled the ancient Mayan city from 615 to 683 AD.

Inside, he discovers one of the most remarkable

Mayan artifacts ever found:

a highly decorated sarcophagus.

HENRY: Pakal's sarcophagus lid is very rich in detail.

It shows what appears to be a world tree,

and a vision serpent, as the Mayans refer to it,

that snakes its way up this tree.

The glyphs that are attached to it say that

this tree is shimmering or shining.

It's reflective.

NARRATOR: Mainstream scholars believe

the sarcophagus lid portrays King Pakal

on a journey to Xibalba, the land of the dead.

But ancient astronaut theorists suggest

the carving depicts something very different.

ERICH VON DANIKEN: In the center of the frame,

King Pakal is sitting bending forward

almost like a, a racing motorcyclist.

He has something like a mask, an oxygen mask on his nose.

You clearly see his two hands.

He manipulates some control.

He's sitting on a chair,

and outside of the frame, you see something like a flame.

It looks like an exhaust.

It looks like some sort of space shuttle.

NARRATOR: The idea of King Pakal sitting at the controls

of a rocket ship might sound like science fiction.

But ancient astronaut theorists suggest that

nearly identical carvings can be found in India.

In Ajanta caves, there are many carvings

of Buddha inside stupas.

From the front, it appears as though Buddha is

standing inside an elaborately carved arch,

but the fact is

what we are seeing from the front

is a cross section of a stupa

inside of which Buddha is standing.

And what is a stupa?

It is nothing but some kind of a vehicle.

TSOUKALOS: A stupa, by definition,

is a vehicle with which to reach the realm of the gods.

That is the definition of a stupa.

Well, just change the wording: "a vehicle

with which to reach space."

These stupas can be seen--

for example, in the Ajanta Cave--

with smoke and fire at the bottom.

If we had one or ten or even 20 examples like that,

you could be like "All right, interesting."

But what if I told you there are millions of the same motif

in India about celestial beings

depicted in something that could be interpreted

as some type of a rocket vehicle.

There are countless examples of ancient artwork depicting

what many think could be aerial vehicles,

and in some cases, you can even find figures

wearing what looks like flying gear

right on their bodies.

At number five on our countdown--

Jet Packs.

♪

NARRATOR: La Venta, Mexico.

1939.

American archaeologists Matthew Stirling

and Philip Drucker

begin an excavation of an ancient pyramid mound.

Over the next two decades,

they unearth extraordinary statues,

carvings and mosaics from a previously unknown culture:

the Olmecs,

a civilization that emerged around 1400 BC.

The discovery is a major archeological find

and produced a sensational piece of evidence

for the ancient astronaut theory.

TSOUKALOS: At the Museum of Natural History in New York City,

there is an Olmec figurine,

and in my opinion, it is the smoking gun

of our ancestors having access to aviation technology...

...because if you look at this figurine,

you can tell that this guy is wearing some sort of a suit,

he has some type of controls with tubes on his chest,

and on the side you have six wings coming out of him.

So you have to wonder what is depicted here.

Now, if you look at a modern jet pack,

humans are ascending and descending

in a vertical position.

Now imagine if that was shown to our ancestors.

How would they react?

The technological frame of reference of our ancestors

was not the same as

our technological frame of reference today.

So of course they would have carved something like this

when they had never seen a vehicle

with which to go to space.

NARRATOR: Could it be that a figurine

made more than 2400 years ago is a depiction of someone

wearing the equivalent of a modern-day jet pack?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest other figures have been found

that appear to be wearing some type of flying apparatus...

...like the 13-foot-tall statues at the Temple of Quetzalcoatl

in Tula de Allende, Mexico.

TSOUKALOS: There are figures on the main pyramid.

And they're some of the most magnificent statues

that we can find on planet Earth.

Because it's as if these guys are standing

inside some pressurized suits,

they have helmets on,

and they have these jet packs on their chest.

NARRATOR: On the opposite side of the globe,

at the Ellora Caves in India,

is a 1200-year-old carving of a demon king named

Ravana depicted in a scene from the ancient Hindu text

called the Ramayana.

In the scene, Ravana is being attacked by a bird

while ascending into the sky,

and according to the story, the curious object on his back

is a flying contraption called a pushpaka vimana.

DEEPAK SHIMKHADA: Ravana does appear in many Hindu texts

like epics, uh, Mahabharata, Ramayana,

and many other puranas, which is Hindu... Hindu texts.

We are told that, you know, he constructed

a pushpaka vimana, this flying machine.

MOHAN: This pushpaka vimana is made of gold.

It is like a jet pack

that you could put it on and you could start flying.

We have jet packs now,

but, interestingly,

almost all these machines were mentioned

5,000 years ago in Mahabharata.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that

the mysterious figures depicted wearing

what appear to be jet packs

are evidence our ancestors saw extraterrestrial spacecraft

in the distant past?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest further evidence

can be found in ancient descriptions

of flying chariots.

Some of the best descriptions

of ancient UFOs can be found

in the Sanskrit texts of India.

The sensational stories are filled with accounts

of celestial beings and flying chariots.

But the craft described in these texts

look remarkably similar to some modern UFO reports.

At number four on our list-- Acorn-Shaped Craft.

NARRATOR: Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.

December 9, 1965.

Thousands of people watch

as a massive fireball streaks across the night sky

and crashes into a nearby forest.

♪

A large object was seen

to come down in a wooded area.

And witnesses actually claimed

that this strange object,

which was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle,

looked like what appeared to be a giant acorn.

The phones went off,

and all of the volunteer

fire departments all around,

"We have a plane crash in the woods of Kecksburg."

Well, there was a man named Jim Romanski,

and I had a real privilege to talk with him directly,

in March of 1998...

...because he was one of only about ten people

who stood around this object,

in that forest-- officially, as a volunteer fireman--

walking around and trying to understand,

"What are we looking at?"

And he said, "It was like an acorn.

"And at the top, it was copper-colored.

"And then in the bottom, it was a darker color.

"And there was a band, about four inches wide,

"and raised up-- not carved in--

were symbols that went around a portion of this craft."

COLLINS: Suddenly, the military entered the area,

cordoned it off,

and the whole thing was essentially hushed up.

NARRATOR: The official report from NASA

stated that the object was debris

from a Russian satellite,

even though witnesses claimed

it changed direction several times.

Today, a monument to the acorn-shaped craft

stands in the town of Kecksburg.

For ancient astronaut theorists,

this UFO event is particularly intriguing

because the object's unusual shape

bears a striking resemblance

to flying objects described in ancient Indian texts.

HENRY: The craft itself is

an acorn-shaped craft.

Immediately, that's reminiscent of

what the ancient Indian texts

described as the vimana,

which were acorn-shaped craft.

TSOUKALOS: In the Mahabharata and at many of the ancient Vedic texts,

they speak about the so-called "vimanas."

The vimanas were flying vehicles

with which to reach the celestial realm.

NARRATOR: In the ancient Sanskrit epics of India,

there are highly-detailed descriptions of the vimana,

which carried the gods

and other important figures through the sky.

The acorn-shaped craft were even incorporated

at the very top of many Hindu temples.

SHIMKHADA: In Hindu texts,

such as the Ramayana or the Mahabharata,

the vimana is primarily a flying ship

that God used to travel

back and forth between spaces

in heaven from one planet to another planet,

from one universe to another universe,

and also come to Earth.

HENRY: When we match up eyewitness accounts

of the acorn-shaped craft with the ancient vimanas,

we have to be open to seriously question if these are, in fact,

ancient craft that are now appearing in our modern world.

Some vimanas are portrayed as small objects

that could travel at incredible speeds.

But these weren't the only flying machines

in Hindu mythology.

The ancient Sanskrit texts also described ships in the sky

that were simply massive.

Number three on our list-- Floating Cities.

NARRATOR:s To the more than one billion Hindu faithful,

India's oldest Sanskrit texts, known as the Vedas,

are accounts given directly to humans by the gods.

These sensational stories describe divine beings

arriving from palaces up in the sky.

All these Vedic texts speak of a time

when three cities were orbiting Earth...

...and from these cities, smaller vehicles were used

in order to reach the realm of the Earth.

Even extraterrestrials, with their advanced technology,

would have to arrive with a larger mother ship.

And this is why we have these stories

of palaces up in the sky.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the people of ancient India

witnessed enormous mother ships

that they interpreted as floating cities or palaces?

Curiously, in modern times,

there have been reports-- and even recordings--

of what look like actual cities appearing high up in the sky.

One such event occurred in Foshan, China,

on October 7, 2015,

when the apparition of a cityscape

remained in the sky for several minutes--

long enough to be captured on video.

The video footage was broadcast on Chinese television

and subsequently disseminated on social media across the globe.

Numerous people reported seeing

what looked like skyscraper-type buildings

in the clouds high in the sky.

It was an amazing spectacle.

There's just no other way to describe it.

JASON MARTELL: Now, just a few days later, over 800 miles away,

we had another sighting of this exact same phenomenon.

So it stands to reason

there could in fact have been

some type of a large mother ship

or some craft in the sky.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the floating city reported

in two locations in China was a massive alien mother ship?

And if so, could it be the same craft

described in ancient Hindu texts?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest

further evidence that our planet is being visited by alien craft

further evidence that our planet is being visited by alien craft

can be found by examining striking images

captured not on Earth

but in outer space.

One of the most important factors

to consider when evaluating

a UFO sighting

is the credibility of the witness.

And perhaps there are no better experts

on objects in the sky

than the men and women of the space program.

Which is why our next example is so exciting,

because they have been seen not only on Earth

but deep in our solar system.

At number two on our list of the top ten alien craft--

Cigar-Shaped Objects.

NARRATOR: Mount Washington, New Hampshire, 1870.

During a meteorological expedition in the area,

photographers capture a strange black object on film

that appears to be floating among the clouds.

The very first photo

that we have of a UFO is of a,

a huge cylindrical craft

over Mount Washington in New Hampshire...

...taken in 1870, right at the very beginning of photography.

DOLAN: You see this cloud formation

up at Mount Washington

and you see this very obvious cigar-shaped object.

Is the photograph authentic? And turns out it is.

NARRATOR: Since the Mount Washington photograph,

cigar-shaped craft have been reportedly seen

all over the world.

Like in December of 1978,

when two Chilean pilots on a training mission

at an elevation of 35,000 feet detected

a massive cigar-shaped object on their radar.

They encountered, visually and on their airborne radar...

...an absolutely enormous object in the sky.

In fact, two separate

ground-based radars tracked this object.

As the pilots approached this object,

one of them described it as an elongated object

swathed in smoke.

As it got to a certain distance,

this thing, according to their report,

instantly accelerated to the west,

in the direction of the ocean,

and was just gone.

NARRATOR: Over 40 years later, another cigar-shaped craft

was reported almost 7,000 miles away in Hawaii.

On December 29, 2020,

people could see a huge, cigar-shaped craft

hovering off the coast and took photos of it,

and, eventually,

this craft then plunged into the ocean.

And the Navy went out there to also look for

possible wreckage of some craft

crashing into the ocean and found nothing.

NARRATOR: Could these strange, cigar-shaped objects

belong to visitors from another world?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe the answer can be found

by examining a curious radar image

taken more than 130 million miles from Earth.

On March 25, 1989,

a Soviet probe was approaching the Martian moon Phobos

when it beamed back an astonishing image to Earth.

As they got closer with Phobos

we see one last frame

that seems to have showed up...

...a very large, cigar-elongated shape,

as if it's possibly a large craft of some kind

hovering above the surface.

DOLAN: We really have to consider the possibility here

that the Soviets did encounter

genuine, non-human UFO

during that mission.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the strange cigar-shaped object

photographed by the Soviet probe was

an extraterrestrial spacecraft?

Incredibly, another massive cigar-shaped object was spotted

traveling through our solar system in 2017.

Astronomers discovered that it came from a distant star,

and gave it the Hawaiian name "Oumuamua,"

which means "messenger from the distant past."

Oumuamua doesn't look like

a typical asteroid.

It's more the big cigar-shape that's seen often.

And there were a lot of astronomers and scientists

who studied Oumuamua and it looks like

it could possibly have been a probe

from some other civilization outside our solar system.

We're just moments away

from the final alien craft on our list.

And we've saved the best for last.

Can you guess what it is?

As we've seen, throughout history

there have been reports

of unidentified aerial vehicles

of all shapes and sizes.

But for most people, when they hear the word "UFO,"

the first thing they think of is the number one entry

on our top ten list of alien craft--

the Flying Saucer.

NARRATOR: Private pilot Kenneth Arnold

is on a solo flight near Mount Rainier.

As he approaches the mountain, he suddenly spots

a group of nine silver, disc-shaped objects.

As he was flying around the mountain,

he suddenly caught sight of

a squadron of strange-looking objects.

He could not figure out what they were.

They were flying at incredible speeds

and performing maneuvers that essentially would kill

any regular pilot in a normal aircraft.

CHILDRESS: He described them as skipping through the air

like a saucer, he said.

And this is really where

the term "a flying saucer"

arrives in English language,

is from Kenneth Arnold's description.

NARRATOR: Arnold's account became an international sensation

and his experience emboldened others to come forward

with their own unexplainable encounters.

In a few short months,

hundreds of flying saucers were reported across the country.

When you look at the year 1947,

the statistics are that there were at least 800 reports

to police, and airports,

of people saying that they were seeing something in the sky,

they didn't know what it was.

BIRNES: Ufologists may say

that the modern UFO era began in 1947.

But flying saucers

have been around

ever since the dawn of time.

For example,

in the ninth century, there were UFOs flying over England.

The Romans saw UFOs.

What's our actual first major UFO description?

The first one?

It's in the Bible.

NARRATOR: According to the Hebrew Bible,

a priest named Ezekiel received a mysterious visitor

from the heavens.

Ezekiel was by the River Khabur,

and he said a great whirlwind came toward him.

♪

He described it as a fire enfolding itself

and out of the fire

was the color of amber, which is the Hebrew word

which means "polished specter of metal,"

which implies that it's metallic.

And that it's spinning, and it lands in front of him.

And suddenly,

out of this whirlwind come four creatures.

TAYLOR: Ezekiel describes that

the outside of the wheel doesn't spin.

The inside of the wheel spins.

So he's telling us that's the engines.

None of this necessarily has to be magic.

This could all be technology.

NARRATOR: By far, the most famous report of a flying saucer

occurred on July 8, 1947,

when the U.S. Army itself announced that one crashed

outside Roswell, New Mexico.

BIRNES: July 8 and 9, the newspaper headlines,

"Army Captures Flying Disc Outside of Roswell."

How did the newspaper get that story?

Walter Haut.

He was the official public information officer

at the Roswell 509th,

who gave the story to the newspaper.

NARRATOR: Within days, the military walked back the story

and suggested the flying saucer had an earthly origin.

DOLAN: The initial story was that

the Army recovered

one of these flying disks.

Now, by the next day, a lot of other major newspapers

came out with the story that,

"Nope, all a mistake. Just a weather balloon, people."

NARRATOR: Did a flying saucer really crash

outside of Roswell, New Mexico?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and as evidence, they point to a sensational file

released by the FBI in 2011.

The document contains a 1950 briefing

given to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover

about three flying saucers

that were recovered in New Mexico.

CHILDRESS: So, what's really happening at Roswell?

Was it an extraterrestrial craft?

It's a fantastic thought, but it's possible.

Well, that's the end of our top ten alien craft countdown.

And while it literally flew by,

we're left with a burning question:

Why has mankind witnessed

so many mysterious craft in the sky

for thousands of years?

Perhaps, as we continue to study these encounters,

the truth will finally be revealed.

We are not alone.

We have never been alone.

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