Original subtitles

NARRATOR: In the 21st century,

UFOs have gone from fringe science

to mainstream obsession.

JEREMY CORBELL: With the interest from so many agencies including NASA,

everybody's getting into the game of understanding UFOs.

NARRATOR: A new generation of researchers

is employing technology so advanced

it can unlock clues invisible to the human eye.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: We have physical scientific evidence

of these phenomena existing with real scientific equipment.

NARRATOR: And unidentified flying objects have even captured the attention

of experts at the highest levels of government.

The Pentagon is now seriously investigating

the extraterrestrial question.

NARRATOR: Is humankind now closer than ever

to understanding the strange events

that are happening in our skies?

GEORGE KNAPP: We have a lot more information. We have a lot of cases.

We have stories of people who've interacted with them.

It's an exciting time.

NARRATOR: There is a doorway

in the universe.

Beyond it is the promise of truth.

It demands we question everything

we have ever been taught.

The evidence is all around us.

The future is right before our eyes.

We are not alone.

We have never been alone.

NARRATOR: June 5, 2023.

The news website The Debrief

reports that former intelligence official David Grusch

has given Congress classified information

about deeply covert military programs

that possess craft of non-human origin.

The sensational report captures the attention

of people at the highest levels of government.

By law, we're required to take that seriously.

The Inspector General has referred it to the committee

as an urgent concern and one with some credibility

to it, so we'll do our job.

NARRATOR: David Grusch is just the latest in a number

of high-level whistleblowers who have

come forward in recent years with claims that

the U.S. government knows much more about the UFO phenomenon

than they have disclosed to the public.

I think this new report is interesting because it continues

to show that we really have to talk about this.

Now, I suspect that there's an undercurrent of "we'd really

rather not talk about it,"

but there are people within the military

who really wouldn't mind talking about this a little more

because they're curious, too.

Now, on the official end, at least,

you can report these things

without fear of retribution, and that wasn't always the case.

NARRATOR: For the first time in history, members of Congress,

senators, and even former presidents

are openly talking about the possibility

of an extraterrestrial presence on Earth.

NARRATOR: This paradigm shift has emboldened whistleblowers

like David Grusch to come forward

with extraordinary claims

and represents a major turning point in the hunt for UFOs.

What makes the modern hunt for UFOs different

than what we've seen in the past

is the fact that it's becoming legitimized.

We have recent revelations from the U.S. military

talking about sightings that they've recorded

and have finally released under some pressure.

All these people are gonna come together

to learn how to study UFOs,

UAPs as we now call them, which is a brilliant idea.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: The Pentagon has been incredibly

opened-minded suddenly to admit yes,

we've investigated UFOs.

But that is only half of the story

because we know that they've been investigating

UFOs even earlier,

starting in the '40s and '50s.

NARRATOR: In 1947,

Air Force General Nathan Twining,

head of the Air Technical Service Command,

established a program known as Project Sign

to collect and evaluate information

about reported UFO sightings.

Project Sign was a short-lived endeavor, about a year or so,

and it was during that time that there was the reported

"estimate of the situation,"

that said that this is a bonified phenomena

and we need to study it.

Following on the heels of Project Sign was Project Grudge,

aptly named,

which took a very dismissive tone

to the phenomena and concluded there is nothing here.

NARRATOR: At the conclusion of Project Grudge in 1952,

the military created Project Blue Book.

The program continued to collect and evaluate

UFO data, but now in a more public fashion.

Project Blue Book was largely not interested

in whether there was a phenomena,

but more in controlling the public narrative.

PYLE: Project Blue Book really wasn't an open conversation.

It was the Air Force looking through the stuff saying,

"No, no, no, no, no, swamp gas, weather balloons,

atmospheric effects, what have you, hyster-- mass hysteria."

They're putting out a report and saying,

"Nothing to see here, move along."

NARRATOR: Between 1947 and 1969,

investigators working on Projects Sign, Grudge,

and Blue Book collectively reviewed

over 12,000 sightings worldwide.

However, on December 17, 1969,

Air Force officials announced that they had concluded

their inquiries into the UFO phenomena.

The government said, "There's nothing to investigate,

but, by the way, there's 701 unexplained cases."

So, they didn't explain why they didn't explain those cases.

They just said, "Um, there's nothing worth pursuing here."

NARRATOR: When Project Blue Book

concluded with 701 UFO cases

left still unexplained,

UFO researchers were skeptical about the government's claim

that they were no longer interested in the phenomenon.

Decades later, it came to light

that the U.S. government

was secretly investigating UFOs once again.

In 2007, the Department of Defense established

the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program,

or AATIP,

a highly classified project

tasked with investigating unidentified aerial phenomena.

AATIP was officially acknowledged

by the Pentagon in 2017,

but soon after, it was discovered that the government

had a second top secret UFO program underway.

Since 2017, there's been a lot more digging

and revelations that have gone on.

It turns out the program was actually called AAWSAP,

the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program.

KNAPP: AAWSAP was the biggest UFO program

in the history of our government.

They had 50 full-time investigators.

You think about Project Blue Book,

they had a handful of people working on it full-time.

50 full-time investigators

who traveled all over the country, all over the world,

gathering information,

and they created the world's largest UFO database.

200,000 cases.

And none of it has been made public.

None of it has been released.

NARRATOR: In 2020,

the U.S. government established yet another program

within the Department of Defense

called the UAP Task Force.

Its mission was to scientifically investigate

and analyze military encounters

with unidentified aerial phenomena.

The chief scientist assigned to the task force

was Dr. Travis Taylor,

who has worked on various government and military projects

going back decades.

He was offered the position while investigating

anomalous events on Skinwalker Ranch in Utah.

After the first couple of weeks

that I had come out to Skinwalker Ranch,

we made some measurements that startled me.

I thought the measurements looked real similar

to electronic warfare

or non-lethal human weapons systems.

So I reported this, and I was invited to the Pentagon

to give a presentation on what I had seen.

The director of the UAP Task Force came into the meeting

and invited me to join the task force.

NARRATOR: Dr. Taylor and his colleagues at the UAP Task Force

analyzed 144 cases

documented by military personnel around the world,

including photographic and video evidence,

as well as scientific data taken of the encounters.

On June 25, 2021,

their preliminary findings were presented

to the Congressional Intelligence

and Armed Services Committees.

TAYLOR: Of those 144 cases,

only one of them we were able to actually find

was of terrestrial origin.

It was something like a high-altitude balloon

that was being used for scientific, uh, equipment.

But 143 of the 144

was actually unexplainable with the data that we had.

I get asked all the time, "Tell us the things

that hasn't been released to the public yet."

Well, I can't do that, of course.

I-I signed non-disclosure agreements.

And unless the government releases it

as public information, I can't talk about it.

NARRATOR: Could the U.S. government's UAP investigations

have discovered important information

that is being intentionally hidden from the public?

And, if so,

might we soon learn of even more astounding evidence

that has yet to be revealed?

While the government still operates largely in secrecy,

the hunt for UFOs has now been taken up

by mainstream scientists and academics,

and some of them are convinced

that we may already have proof

of an intelligent alien civilization.

NARRATOR: Ithaca, New York.

1960.

At Cornell University,

astronomer Frank Drake

launches the first search for alien life

performed by an academic institution.

Using a massive radio telescope,

Drake and his team scan the cosmos

for evidence of radio signals

that could be coming from an extraterrestrial civilization.

While the Cornell program

ultimately found nothing of interest,

it paved the way for similar scientific efforts.

The most prominent is the SETI Institute,

which stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

SETH SHOSTAK: The kind of experiment that we do at the SETI Institute

is a listening experiment.

The idea is fairly straightforward.

We're gonna aim some antennas in the direction

of that little star over there, which is not too far away,

and might have some planets, and you know, tune as much

of the radio dials as we can to see if we pick up a signal.

You have to look at a lot of stars in order to catch one

that happens to be broadcasting into space now.

So, that's basically the strategy.

You're just trying to find something

that indicates there's somebody up there

at least as clever as we are.

NARRATOR: SETI astronomers have been listening to the cosmos

since 1984,

and in that time, they have come across

some truly bizarre phenomena,

like an anomaly, first detected in 2007,

known as an FRB, or fast radio burst.

SHOSTAK: Fast radio bursts were found

by an astronomer at West Virginia University,

and he found a signal

that only lasted for a fraction of a second.

Just like... (imitates burst) like that,

about the time it takes your eye to blink, okay?

And it went from high frequency, to lower frequency.

(imitates burst)

So, the question is:

All right, where are they coming from, and what are they?

And if it's very far away-- as they turned out to be--

it's in somebody else's galaxy,

and we can pick it up here on Earth,

it's got to be something that's really powerful.

But we still don't know what fast radio bursts are.

NARRATOR: While researchers continue to search

for the source of the fast radio bursts,

another, perhaps even more intriguing,

celestial phenomenon has been observed in recent years,

interstellar objects, meaning objects

from other star systems, entering our solar system.

The first interstellar visitor ever detected

was a strange, oblong object called "'Oumuamua."

'Oumuamua was discovered by a telescope in Hawaii

called Pan-STARRS

on October 19, 2017.

And the size of 'Oumuamua was roughly

the size of a football field,

somewhere between 100 and 200 meters.

NARRATOR: Astronomer Dr. Avi Loeb of Harvard University

sent shockwaves through the world of academia

when, shortly after 'Oumuamua was detected,

he made the extraordinary claim

that the interstellar object

may be some type of extraterrestrial craft.

RICHARD DOLAN: Avi Loeb did a very detailed analysis

of 'Oumuamua and noted that

its acceleration after it passed the sun was-was

beyond what you would get from a gravitational boost.

So that was interesting

and difficult immediately to explain.

Professor Loeb said that 'Oumuamua behaved

artificially, unnaturally.

He pointed to multiple areas

like speed, acceleration, trajectory,

where he said this was artificial.

So, in every respect,

this thing raised some big questions.

A lot of people who would've disregarded

somebody else saying that

as being kind of wacky,

said, "You know, this is the chairman

"of the department at Harvard. This is somebody we respect.

Maybe we got to have this conversation."

So, I think Loeb was very courageous to do that.

LOEB: Only over the past five years, the first interstellar objects

were discovered by astronomers,

and that's what brought me to the subject,

and, hopefully, within the coming decades,

we'll have some evidence that tells us

whether 'Oumuamua was from another civilization.

And the way to find out is not to argue about it

philosophically, but rather to look at the sky.

So, I established the Galileo Project

in July 2021 to search

for objects that may be artificial in origin,

from another civilization.

NARRATOR: In 2021,

Professor Loeb and his colleagues

raised nearly $2 million

and founded The Galileo Project,

the largest effort to research UAPs

in the history of the academic world.

Using a network of new and existing telescopes,

as well as a variety of sky-scanning technologies,

the Galileo Project aims to systematically search

for possible extraterrestrial objects

both in space and within Earth's own atmosphere.

LOEB: Within the Galileo Project, we are planning

to design a space mission when the next

unusual interstellar object,

like 'Oumuamua, shows up,

and we might send a probe

that will take a close-up photograph of it.

An object like 'Oumuamua

could potentially be of artificial origin

and indicate spacecraft that were sent

by other civilizations.

That would have huge implications

for the future of humanity.

NARRATOR: Professor Loeb is hopeful that the Galileo Project

will help pave the way for other scientists to search

for evidence of extraterrestrial life

without fear of ridicule or repercussions.

It is for this reason that he named his project

after the Italian astronomer Galileo,

who was persecuted in the 17th century

for daring to challenge

the established scientific notions of the time.

So, the philosophers during the days of Galileo

refused to look through his telescope

when he was arguing that the evidence he finds

implies that the Earth moves around the sun.

They wanted to believe that the Earth

is the center of the universe,

and so, they simply avoided the data,

and they put him in house arrest,

so that nobody would listen to him.

So, of course, if there is ridicule and stigma

and we don't want to fund the searches,

then we will be exactly in the same position as those

philosophers who refused to look through Galileo's telescope.

If we are open-minded and willing to consider

that possibility that we are not alone,

and that we are not the smartest kid on the cosmic block,

then we might find something.

NARRATOR: While government UFO research remains top secret,

data gathered by the Galileo Project

will be open to the public,

with findings published in peer-reviewed journals.

The academic community's growing interest

in unidentified aerial phenomena marks a new age of UFO hunting.

An age that now includes scientific studies

by the world's premier space organization,

NASA.

NARRATOR: French Guiana. December 25, 2021.

MAN: We have liftoff. Décollage.

Liftoff from a tropical rainforest

to the edge of time itself.

NARRATOR: At the Guiana Space Centre,

NASA launches the most powerful telescope ever constructed.

The James Webb Space Telescope

represents an ambitious $10 billion effort by NASA

to see further than ever before

into the deepest parts of the universe.

Nearly six months into its mission, on July 11th,

James Webb delivers its first incredible images

of previously unknown galaxies, stars forming, and black holes.

To many, the early success of this powerful tool

demonstrates new promise that scientists may soon answer

an age-old question: Are we alone in the universe?

We can now look into space with more clarity

than in all of our previous human history.

And with the new James Webb Telescope,

some of those amazing images

that we've gotten from Hubble 20, 30 years ago,

now are even more rich, more detailed, more amazing.

And with James Webb, too, you know,

we will discover more and more exoplanets.

And some of those exoplanets

may contain similar intelligent life like on Earth.

PYLE: Part of what the Webb Space Telescope

is designed to do is to look

for planets that exist in what's called

the-the habitable or the Goldilocks zone.

So, they're the right distance from that kind of star

to possibly be able to support life.

Looking in the future, ten, 20 years,

I think, and a lot of people

that are a lot smarter than me think,

that we're probably gonna have found something

we can classify as extraterrestrial life.

NARRATOR: Considering the amazing images

that the James Webb Space Telescope has produced,

UFO hunters are asking, what would we find

if NASA applied their incredible technology

to search for evidence of extraterrestrials

already visiting Earth?

The question may soon be answered

because, on June 9, 2022,

one month before the release

of the first Webb telescope images,

NASA officials announced their plans to commission

an independent study on UAPs.

BLUMENTHAL: When you think of it,

NASA is the perfect organization to conduct research.

They run the Space Station.

They have satellites that probe deep into space.

They have interstellar missions out there

in the far reaches of the cosmos.

If they're coming into our atmosphere

from-from deep outer space,

NASA would be the first one, uh, to be able to detect that.

NARRATOR: On May 31, 2023,

NASA held its first public hearing

to discuss the agency's mission in studying UAPs.

And it's now our collective responsibility

to investigate these occurrences

with the rigorous scientific scrutiny that they deserve.

It provides an opportunity for us

to expand our understanding of the world around us.

As an organization dedicated to exploring

the unknown, this work is in our DNA.

NARRATOR: Could the unprecedented efforts of NASA

to join the hunt for UFOs

ultimately provide the tipping point

in finding evidence of extraterrestrial life?

And is it possible,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that NASA

already possesses strong evidence

that intelligent beings exist beyond Earth?

NASA's experience with UFOs...

...dates right through

from the very first Gemini missions,

all the way through the Apollo missions,

all the way through to the Moon landings,

we have encountered UFOs.

Former Apollo, uh, astronaut Edgar Mitchel,

who I-I knew personally,

spoke openly about his knowledge

of not even just having seen UFOs but alien bodies

and technology in the possession of the United States government.

You had other NASA astronauts, Gordon Cooper,

famously talked about UFOs that he saw as a pilot.

You had James McDivitt, a NASA astronaut,

and-and quite a few others having seen UFOs.

There's the astonishing photo of a triangular craft

taken in 1986 from the space shuttle.

And it, too, is a-a bright daylight photograph,

and you can clearly see this triangular craft

there outside the window of the space shuttle.

Now, the image is labeled "space debris."

So, that's-that's the official view

on what this is, but this is an interesting image.

Uh, it shows something obviously quite structured,

and it is unmistakably triangular.

There have been multiple accounts

of strange things picked up on NASA videos and photos.

They've got huge databases.

And one of the things when NASA announced

that they were going to do this study is, they said

"We are going to be looking at data."

And people were asking themselves,

"Well, what data are they talking about?"

Well, the data they already have

and have been collecting for decades.

NARRATOR: Now that NASA is officially

investigating UFOs,

might we soon have definitive evidence

that there is an alien presence on Earth?

While the world's premier space agency

may be better equipped than anyone to uncover

the truth about unidentified aerial phenomena,

some researchers believe our greatest weapon

in the hunt for UFOs is the smartphone,

carried by ordinary citizens all over the world,

who are now capturing high-definition footage

of events that defy all conventional explanations.

NARRATOR: In primitive rock art throughout the world,

there are depictions of what look like flying craft

and strange beings.

According to ancient astronaut theorists,

these images represent the earliest documentation

of extraterrestrial encounters,

and they believe the best UFO hunters

have always been ordinary citizens

recording what they see with their own eyes.

In the ancient astronaut opinion,

those stories of UFOs today

are the same stories

that our ancestors in the remote past also explored,

and their cell phone cameras

were the walls of caves,

and reliefs and carvings

in which they commemorated

those incredibly significant events

that they were eyewitnesses to.

KNAPP: These things have been here interacting with us forever.

On every continent, in every culture,

throughout human history.

We call them by different names.

They appear in different guises.

We used to say they were flying shields,

flying chariots.

Then they became flying saucers, uh, ghost rockets.

UAP, UFO,

whatever term you want to use,

it's all the same phenomena.

NARRATOR: In 1870, photographer Howard Kimball

took the very first UFO photo,

which captured a cylindrical object

above Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

Since that time, thousands of photos of UFOs

have been taken all over the world

many of which are grainy or blurry.

But now, thanks to incredible advancements

in camera technology,

anyone with a smartphone

can capture high-definition photos

and videos of anomalous events in the sky.

KNAPP: Technology has changed so much

over the past 30, 40 years

that now it's possible for regular Joe citizens

to be part of this investigation.

We all have computer power greater than the computers

that sent humans to the Moon 50 years ago.

POPE: Couple this with the fact that people know

UFOs are now being taken seriously by the government,

and what we have

is an army that has been mobilized.

An army of UFO hunters

armed with cutting-edge technology.

The hunt is on.

NARRATOR: A key player in the modern-day hunt for UFOs

is documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell.

Corbell has been successful

with acquiring U.S. military videos of UAPs

and gaining permission to share them with the public.

He is also helping to disseminate

compelling footage shot by civilians

using the power of social media.

I've been trying to modernize my approach

in that I use social media

as a way to instantaneously get information out

and obfuscate all the channels of suppression

for this type of information.

So from Instagram to Twitter to TikTok,

you name it, all of these are social weapons

for us to get information into each other's hands.

The modern hunt for UFOs is now becoming proactive

rather than just reactive.

DANIEL ZETTERSTROM: Social media

has been of great importance

to the modern-day hunt for-for UAP.

Not only does it allow us to connect directly with witnesses

and with journalists who write articles,

and get them a bit more educated on the issue,

engaging with various figures on social media

means that we're asked to adhere

to a standard of evidence that we weren't before.

NARRATOR: Images captured by smartphone technology

and the dissemination of them on the Internet

have led to literally millions of people

all around the world becoming involved in the hunt for UFOs.

While smartphones have made it possible

for anyone to record high-definition footage

of strange events in the sky,

serious UFO hunters are employing

multiple technologies to separate

the extraordinary from the mundane.

You have to really sort through

a lot of things and make sure

that what you're seeing is truly a UFO.

There could be some anomalies due to lighting.

There could be birds.

There could be other experiments

or different types of technologies

going on in that area.

Sometimes, you have to have

advanced technology to figure that out.

I took a trip to Mount Adams

about four years ago on a retreat,

and the first night, I was able to see 13 UFOs

that were moving around, changing course and direction,

getting brighter and also getting dimmer.

And some of them actually even descended down

onto the mountain and then went back up with lights on.

Now we had our satellite tracking on,

our apps, we had our ISS tracker on

to make sure we weren't seeing anything

that was already up there.

Clearly, they were something that is unidentified

and we can't really figure out exactly what it is,

but it definitely was an amazing phenomenon.

NARRATOR: In addition to devices that can detect airplanes,

satellites, and other known objects in the sky,

there is another powerful technology

now available to anyone with a computer

or smartphone called MADAR,

which stands for

Multiple Anomaly Detection and Automatic Recording.

DOLAN: In terms of having tools, there's something

in the United States called MADAR,

and this is about

70 to 100 different nodes around the country.

You can put this and attach it to your computer

where there's detection instrumentation

that will detect changes

in electromagnetic qualities in your area,

and other factors,

to detect various types of anomalies

that could be, uh, UAP.

NARRATOR: Could this new technological era

of the hunt for UFO evidence

finally lead to the answers that humankind has been seeking

for thousands of years?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest that perhaps

the most effective of all UFO hunters

is a non-human intelligence.

NARRATOR: In the 21st century,

UFO hunters are armed with technology

that allows them to record anomalies in the sky

with incredible clarity.

And today's technology can also glean new information

from photographs taken decades ago.

The northern highlands of Costa Rica.

September 4, 1971.

Photographer Sergio Loaiza is conducting an aerial survey

of Lake Cote for the National Geographic Institute

using a special map-making camera

that snaps photos at 13-second intervals.

WILLIAM HENRY: He's up in an airplane about 10,000 feet.

He's taking photos of a hydroelectric project,

and they're trying to calculate

the environmental impact of this.

So, he's just taking these ordinary photos,

gets back to the lab,

takes a look at the contact sheets

and says, "What's that up in the righthand corner there?"

It's this mysterious, circular,

shiny metallic craft.

NARRATOR: Curiously, the object does not appear

in either the previous frame of film

or the one after.

HENRY: Instantly, the National Geographic Institute says,

"You can't talk about this,

and we're gonna put a lid on this."

And they do for some time.

NARRATOR: According to Loaiza, he and his colleagues

were forbidden from divulging any information

about the object captured in the photograph,

which was estimated to be 160 feet in diameter.

But in 1979, the photograph was leaked

to the Argentine newspaper La Nación

and analyzed by UFO researchers.

HENRY: The photo

is studied later by Jacques Vallée

and other UFO investigators,

and they realize this is a tremendous photograph.

ZETTERSTROM: This photo has been official declared

by Costa Rica as an official UFO photo.

They don't know what it is after years and years of study.

NARRATOR: Many skeptics suggested that the object

was likely some kind of debris or smudge

that got on the film during the development process.

But in 2021, Esteban Carranza,

a friend of the Loaiza family,

was able obtain the original contact sheets

and have them scanned using the latest

and most sophisticated technology.

He gains access to the original contact sheets

and sends them off to a photographic lab,

and they do a reproduction of the image

using the most advanced technology

to bring it forward, and they come up

with this 1.8 gigabyte image of this craft.

NARRATOR: The debris and smudges

that were visible in the original photograph

are no longer present in the new higher resolution image,

but the saucer-shaped object remains

and is clearer than ever.

This higher definition scan showed some new details.

These new details help take a number

of prosaic explanations off the table.

For example, it was said

that it could have been a chip in the glass.

However, you can see that that's not the case.

This photo, in and of itself,

in its original state, was tremendous.

But now, with this incredible leap in technology,

we're able to bring it to life in an even greater way,

and it's just another example

of this great leap that we're making now

in our understanding of these UAPs.

NARRATOR: Another way in which UFO hunters

are utilizing evidence from the past is through

the advancements of artificial intelligence, or AI.

In 2023,

New York-based Enigma Labs

launched a project to crowdsource and quantify data

about UAPs with the help of artificial intelligence,

and also compare it with data going back

all the way to the 1940s.

Alejandro Rojas acts as the company's head

of research and content.

I help with providing background information

on UAPs and the history of UAP research.

And then also to make sure

that when we are

sharing information that it's very comprehensive.

So the articles, for instance, we write

on historical cases are going to have more information

than I think you'll find anywhere else.

NARRATOR: Enigma Labs hopes

that by creating a database of both

old and new evidence,

patterns will emerge that could

finally provide real answers to explain

the strange events that have been witnessed

in our skies for thousands of years.

ROJAS: We're gathering a lot of data to hopefully

have a bigger database than anyone's had

out there about cases throughout the world.

And then applying AI to go through those cases

to scrub them to find those good cases.

NARRATOR: With this unprecedented effort

across all disciplines--

from academics, government, and technology--

is humanity on the cusp

of discovering compelling evidence that there is,

in fact, an extraterrestrial presence on Earth?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes.

Whoa, we got something! We got something!

NARRATOR: And point to the discoveries being made

at the site of the most intense UFO hunt

ever conducted, Skinwalker Ranch.

-Do you see this? -Yeah.

NARRATOR: Here, on the 500-acre property

known as Skinwalker Ranch...

Everybody keep your eyes peeled to the skies.

...a team of investigators is conducting

the most sophisticated

and comprehensive UFO hunt

currently underway anywhere on the planet.

Erik, we got something moving right overhead of us right now.

-That's not a plane. -I'm not seeing it.

TAYLOR: It just sped up. It just vanished.

Skinwalker Ranch is one

of the most anomalous areas on this planet.

Here's what people have seen in that ranch:

strange creatures suddenly appearing out of nowhere...

UFOs, instruments don't work.

When it comes to Skinwalker,

you've actually had some scientific research

and a lot of scientists

having their own encounters.

NARRATOR: Since 2016,

investigators have been using

state-of-the-art camera equipment,

ground-penetrating radar,

radiation detectors, and a host of other

highly sophisticated equipment in an effort

to meticulously study

and document anomalous activity at the site.

BRANDON FUGAL: We've made incredible progress

in documenting the reality of the phenomena.

We are just getting started

in scratching the surface

of what we are really dealing with.

That's significant.

NARRATOR: In 2019,

Dr. Travis Taylor was asked

to join the team at Skinwalker Ranch,

just before he was brought on

to the government's UAP Task Force.

I was really excited when Brandon Fugal

and his principal investigator,

Erik Bard invited me

to come out to Skinwalker Ranch

and join the investigation team.

-Hey, look! UAP right there! -Yep.

TAYLOR: Since I've been out there

at Skinwalker Ranch, I've seen so many different things...

-Y'all see that? -...that before

I would've not really believed they existed.

NARRATOR: For UFO researchers,

the investigations at Skinwalker Ranch

represent a promising new era...

-What are you seeing? -TAYLOR: A signal.

NARRATOR: ...one in which a former investigator

for the federal government and civilian researchers

can work together in the search for answers.

What is that?

TAYLOR: For me to be doing the task force work

and the Skinwalker Ranch work,

I think we're in a new era

of understanding the UAP-UFO phenomena.

It did come out of the mesa.

MAN (over radio): It came out of the mesa?

It came right out of the mesa.

Finally, there's Congressional oversight

on UFO investigation programs.

And maybe one day we'll find,

if they are extraterrestrial intelligence,

the public will get to know that.

NARRATOR: For the first time in human history,

the search for evidence of extraterrestrials visiting Earth

is the subject of a collaborative worldwide effort

across the scientific and intelligence communities.

20, 30 years ago it would've been a dream

if I would've opened the paper and I read

NASA is now studying UAPs,

and Harvard created the Galileo Project,

and other universities are following suit

by seriously investigating the extraterrestrial question.

And so today here we are, it is happening,

and so I am over the moon that this is happening.

PILOT: Look at that thing!

KNAPP: It's exciting as hell.

I never thought I would live to see

this kind of a change.

Where it is acceptable

for mainstream media to dig into it.

Where it's acceptable for Congress to authorize a program,

to hold hearings

to dig into it and demand information.

You know, in the end we have a lot more information.

We have a lot of cases.

We really don't have any solid answers.

I hope that in my lifetime we'll have some.

NARRATOR: Could humankind finally be on the brink

of making an incredible discovery?

Will irrefutable evidence of extraterrestrial visitation

come from a new breed of UFO hunters?

Like Harvard astronomers,

NASA scientists,

government researchers,

or even ordinary citizens?

Right there!

NARRATOR: Perhaps now that people from all walks of life

are investigating what's happening in our skies,

we will uncover an alien presence

that has been with us all along.

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