All language subtitles for The UnXplained Special Presentation S01E21 1080p WEB h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
An assassination,

an autopsy,

and the missing brain
of a U.S. president.

Strange sightings of UFOs
and a plot to cover them up.

And a secret military project
with one goal: time travel.

Deep within the recesses
of the U.S. government archives

are national secrets that will
never been seen by the public.

But every so often,

new information about
some of the strangest events

in our nation's past
gets uncovered

and reexamined.

Could shadowy military programs
hold the secrets

to advanced technology beyond
our current understanding?

And might alien contact
have reached

as high up as
the office of the president?

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

♪ ♪

A crowd of excited
well-wishers gathers to greet

President John F. Kennedy and
First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy

as they step off
of Air Force One.

The Kennedys join
Texas Governor John Connally

and his wife, Nellie,

in a waiting
convertible limousine

and ride in a motorcade
through the heart of the city,

surrounded
by cheering onlookers.

LEE MANDEL:
There were roughly
150,000 to 200,000 people

waiting in the crowds,

and Governor Connally's
wife said,

"Mr. President, you can't say
that Texas doesn't love you."

And he said,

"No, you certainly can't."

And those were
the last words he ever spoke.

SHATNER:
As the motorcade drives
through the downtown district,

three gunshots are fired
in quick succession...

(three gunshots)

...and two bullets strike
President Kennedy

in the throat and head,
critically wounding him.

(crowd clamoring)

By the time that first agent
reached the president,

it was already almost too late.

The president had been
shot twice,

and it was the immediate call,
go right to the hospital.

SHATNER:
President Kennedy was
swiftly taken

to Parkland Memorial Hospital,

arriving just six minutes
after being shot.

WILLIAM MATSON LAW:
They put him on a gurney.

They take him and they wheel him
into Trauma Room 1.

After President Kennedy is
brought in,

they did these
lifesaving procedures,

but I think, basically,
they knew he was gone.

And then
he's pronounced dead at 1:00.

SHATNER:
News that President Kennedy
had been assassinated

instantly spread
throughout the country.

But while Americans were

experiencing
both shock and grief,

a series of strange
occurrences was unfolding

back at Parkland Hospital
in Dallas

that would ultimately lead

many people to wonder if there
was a government conspiracy

to cover up the truth
about JFK's assassination.

LAW:
After President Kennedy
was dead,

there was a problem

in the fact
that the Secret Service came in

and they wanted
to take the body.

Now, by law in Texas,

the, uh, coroner
Doctor Earl Rose said,

"You're not taking him."

One of the Secret Service said,

"You're either gonna
get out of our way,

or we're gonna run over you."

The Secret Service was
saying, "Yes, we are taking

the body back
to Washington, D.C."

However, this is
a homicide investigation,

locally, by the Dallas Police
Department, the D.A.'s office.

The medical examiner has a duty

not to release that body.

Eventually, Vice President
Johnson got involved,

and the body was released.

SHATNER:
President Kennedy's body was

flown from Dallas
to Washington, D.C.,

and then taken to Bethesda
Naval Hospital in Maryland.

But why was
the Secret Service so determined

to move JFK's remains
halfway across the country?

Perhaps the answer lies
in examining the bizarre events

that transpired
during the president's autopsy,

which took place
late in the evening

following his assassination.

LAW:
There was a full autopsy done

at Bethesda, Maryland.

And the two doctors were
James Humes

and James Boswell.

However, they were not
board-certified pathologists.

Instead, they were
pure military guys,

who would follow orders.

In essence, this may be
the heart of the mystery

of whether there was
conspiracy or not.

SHATNER:
Even more questionable
than the presence

of military doctors

is the fact that,
during this autopsy,

President Kennedy's brain

was actually
removed from his head

and placed in a collection
of evidence labeled simply

"item number nine."

MANDEL:
Item number nine was

a stainless steel bucket

that was
about seven inches high,

eight and a half inches
in diameter,

that contained
President Kennedy's brain.

Also, in item number nine
were several autopsy slides,

tissue slides,
and also several boxes

of paraffin tissue samples.

And so there's
something very unusual

about the way
the whole thing was handled.

SHATNER:
Three days after the autopsy,

on November 25, 1963,

President John F. Kennedy was
laid to rest

at Arlington National Cemetery.

However, not all
of his remains were buried,

because,
for some strange reason...

JFK's brain was still locked
inside a steel bucket.

And, as it turns out,
over the next few years,

the president's brain
would be moved

to multiple locations
in and around Washington, D.C.

MANDEL:
Dr. George Burkley, who was
the White House physician,

requested the brain
be delivered to him

immediately
after the first autopsy.

Then the brain was sent
from Bethesda

to the White House,
where it was stored

at the old
executive office building.

And it stayed there
until April of 1965,

when Senator
Robert Kennedy requested

that his brother's brain
and all the autopsy materials

that were at the White House

be brought
to the National Archives

and given to Evelyn Lincoln.

Evelyn Lincoln was

President Kennedy's
personal secretary.

And she wasn't an employee
of the National Archives,

but she was working there,

getting his papers ready,
things like that.

And she put it
the next day in a footlocker

in the National Archives,

and locked it up.

SHATNER:
The idea of JFK's brain sitting
in an ordinary footlocker

in the National Archives
is surreal, to say the least.

But what's even more bizarre is

that on Halloween Day,
October 31, 1966,

President Kennedy's brain
simply...

...disappeared.

They opened the footlocker,

and lo and behold,
none of the items

from item number nine
were there.

The brain was gone.

No one knows
what happened to it.

It was never seen again.

The popular story is,
is that Robert Kennedy

took the brain
and all that stuff because

he didn't want it
to be a sideshow.

If Robert Kennedy did
steal the brain

and took the slides and tissues
and that sort of thing,

he muddied the waters,

and that's why we have
all these mysteries.

SHATNER:
Did Robert Kennedy steal
his late brother's brain

in order to keep it
out of the public eye?

Perhaps.

But others are convinced
that the disappearance

of JFK's brain is connected

to the much larger mystery
surrounding his murder,

which remains the most
infamous assassination

in American history.

MARTIN K. A. MORGAN:
Six decades out
from the great tragedy

that unfolded in Dallas
in November 1963,

we are no closer
to having a sharp picture

of what happened
to our president.

If we had the brain,
there would be small particles

from whatever bullet
struck him in the head.

Those particles
could be analyzed.

But we don't have that brain.

So we're left
with question marks.

And when you combine the fact
that the Secret Service

illegally takes possession
of the presidential body--

violating the laws
of the State of Texas--

with the fact
that the president's brain

later disappears,

it's very difficult not to be
suspicious, now, isn't it?

♪ ♪

SHATNER:
Twenty-seven million people

from around the globe

flock to the city
for the world's fair.

The exposition showcases

a number
of remarkable innovations

and the fairgrounds
are illuminated

with 100,000 light bulbs.

The sea of glowing lights
transforms night into day,

and astonishes the public,

most of whom have
never witnessed

anything like it before.

This dazzling spectacle was
made possible

by a new form of electricity

called alternating current...

...which was one of many
important inventions developed

by famed Serbian scientist
Nikola Tesla.

This period, around
the end of the 19th century,

beginning of the 20th century,

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

He became famous.

Tesla was the man
who could see the future,

he was Mr. Electricity.

Everything that Tesla did

was directed towards
this kind of overriding goal

of spectacular new inventions
for electrical transmission.

SHATNER:
Nikola Tesla
is widely considered to be

a scientific genius who changed
the course of history.

But there are those who believe

that Tesla
should also be credited

with an even more
extraordinary invention:

A time machine.

In 1943, Nikola Tesla died

and left all his notes
at the New Yorker Hotel.

When he died,
the FBI raided Tesla's rooms,

took the notes,

and in the notes

was a whole series
of speculative diagrams.

Allegedly, the United States had
access to time travel technology

from a number of papers

taken away
from Tesla's apartment,

which gave details

on how to create
a teleportation device.

And with teleportation,
you could also have time travel.

SHATNER:
Did the U.S. government
really seize plans

for a teleportation device
designed by Nikola Tesla?

And if so, is it possible
they used this information

to build a working time machine?

Young Andrew Basiago is
taken by his father

to visit a nearby
manufacturing plant.

Little does Andrew know
that this factory

conceals something
truly extraordinary.

I was six years old
in winter of 1968

when my father
took me to building 68

at Curtiss-Wright
in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey,

and there on the floor
of building 68

was a Tesla teleporter.

It was basically a large device.

It went all the way up
to the ceiling,

and it had two booms

that were roughly
about eight feet high

and ten feet across
on the floor.

They looked, essentially,
like elephant tusks.

Between them was
a form of energy

that was sort of cascading
between the booms,

or armatures, of the device.

Jumping through
that radiant energy

caused a holographic
white tunnel of light...

...to open in time-space.

They were testing the effect
of Tesla teleportation.

SHATNER:
After witnessing
the Tesla teleporter in action,

Andrew Basiago claims
that he was recruited

by members of a shadowy military
organization known as DARPA

to participate
in a secret time travel program

called Project Pegasus.

BASIAGO:
Project Pegasus

was a classified,
defense-related

research and development program
of DARPA.

They were essentially
training and testing

American schoolchildren in eight
modalities of time travel.

There were 140 American
schoolchildren of my age

who were in the program.

We were also trainees,
because we were expected

to become
America's first generation

of chrononauts,
or time travelers.

SHATNER:
According to Andrew Basiago,

the Tesla teleporter was used
to send chrononauts back in time

to observe and even influence
historical events.

A chrononaut essentially
was a time travel agent

in the sense
that I wasn't just involved

in testing and training,

I had missions
when I went there.

I was sent to Ford's Theatre
to see, for example,

who shot Lincoln.

And I was also sent to meet
General George Washington

with the mission to urge him

to immediately retreat
his troops from New York Harbor.

There was always sort of
a very expert

educational session where
they would sort of acclimate us,

so we'd understand
what was gonna happen next.

SHATNER:
While some may find
Andrew Basiago's story

hard to believe,

during the Cold War,
the United States government

conducted numerous
bizarre experiments.

These programs involved
everything from mind control

to remote viewing.

What this story
really plugs into

is the widespread
suspicion about

the military-industrial complex.

The idea that the military

are conducting experiments
behind our back,

and it's a widely-held view

that governments
around the world,

particularly the United States,

have been researching
time travel for a long time.

BASIAGO:
Time travel technology,
the best I know,

because of my experiences,
is presently controlled

by the United States government.

It's not a tall story
or some kind of urban legend.

It's part of American history
that's been forgotten.

SHATNER:
Could Nikola Tesla have actually
invented a time machine?

While it sounds
like science fiction,

the fact remains that there are
many government programs

that we know
next to nothing about.

Like the recruitment
of the world's top scientists

and the construction
of advanced rocket technology

that may be the true origin

of the flying saucer.

SHATNER:
The Soviet Red Army has
surrounded the city

and the total defeat
of the Third Reich is at hand.

On May 7, 1945,

the remaining leadership
of the German Army

officially surrenders
to Allied forces.

But as people rejoice
around the world,

the United States government
initiates a top-secret program,

code name: Operation Paperclip.

SPENCE:
Operation Paperclip

was a secret Allied plan
at the end of World War II

to acquire former
Nazi German talent

in the areas of aeronautics,
especially,

but also physics,

chemistry and medicine.

In other words,
they were rounding up

former Nazi scientists

and bringing many of them
to the United States.

LANCE GEIGER:
The name "Operation Paperclip"

came because if you were
a high-value target,

a scientist
that we really wanted,

then there was a paperclip
on your folder.

This would have been things
like aircraft production,

rocketry, atomic weapons.

Eventually, about 1,600
scientists and their families

were brought
to the United States

where, officially,
they did not exist.

POPE:
Paperclip was essentially
an acknowledgment

by the Allied powers that
the Germans, in so many areas,

were technologically ahead.

They had science
and engineering skills

that we simply didn't have.

So, they wanted
to identify these people,

bring them back to the U.S.
and set them to work.

GEIGER:
We kept Paperclip very secret

because we did not want to tell
the American public

that we were out
finding Nazi scientists

to come work
in the United States.

And so, a lot of the paper trail
is still just missing.

That's why Operation Paperclip

still leaves you
wondering today, you know,

what-what came from it,
and what are we hiding?

SHATNER:
What were Nazi scientists

working on in the United States

that, even today, remains
a closely guarded secret?

Some say a clue lies
in the remarkable events

which transpired
throughout 1947,

which has been referred to as
"The Year of the Flying Saucer."

BIRNES:
During 1947,

flying saucers were sighted
all over the country

from the northwest
all the way to the southeast.

There was so much panic about,
"What are these things?"

"Who's piloting them?"
"Where are they from?"

and the sightings of UFOs
were on front pages

of newspapers
across the country.

SHATNER:
On July 8, 1947,

the Roswell Daily Record
famously reported

that a flying saucer had crashed
in the New Mexico desert

and was seized by the U.S. Army.

While many people believe
that the unidentified craft

was extraterrestrial in origin,

others claim
that it may have actually been

the result
of Operation Paperclip.

GEIGER:
The Germans were known to use
nontraditional techniques

and unconventional
aircraft design.

Some people say
what happened at Roswell

was a saucer-shaped disc

that we got
from Nazi technology.

Because there's
some anecdotal evidence

that they were working on some
sort of saucer-shaped aircraft.

And that's the sort of thing
we would have been

taking to the United States,
that we would have hidden

from the American public.

SHATNER:
Is it possible

that the mysterious
flying object

recovered in Roswell, New Mexico

was an experimental craft
developed by Nazi scientists?

Perhaps the answer can be found
by examining

an iconic UFO sighting

that took place only a month
before the Roswell crash.

On June 24,
pilot Kenneth Arnold reported

seeing UFOs near Mount Rainier
in Washington State

flying at supersonic speeds
which, interestingly,

matches the velocity
of the German V-2 rocket.

And when Arnold described

the mysterious crafts
that he had seen,

some pointed out
their striking similarity

to an aircraft developed
by German scientists

in World War II.

GEIGER:
The Germans did a lot
of crazy aircraft design,

and one of them
was this massive bomber

that was called the Horten 229,
it was a flying wing.

The two look so similar,
how could they not be related?

And those are
the sort of scientists

that Operation Paperclip
was grabbing,

is the people
that built that aircraft.

And so, when you keep
a lot of secrets, then

you leave room
for a lot of speculation.

SHATNER:
It's intriguing to think
that aircraft

built by former Nazi scientists

may have been misidentified
as extraterrestrial spacecraft.

But on the other hand,
many still believe

that these UFOs
came from another world.

So, is it possible that one
purpose of Operation Paperclip

was to analyze
recovered alien technology?

Let's say that you got ahold
of some sort of alien craft.

Who are you gonna bring in
to look at it?

You would bring in
the most savvy people

in terms of aeronautics,
rocketry, propulsion systems.

And if you're talking about
the late 1940s or 1950s,

Paperclip-connected scientists
would be

some of the key individuals
you would want to have there.

POPE:
There is a direct
potential connection here

between Nazi scientists
and the Roswell crash.

But there's still
vast parts of it

that we don't know,
and maybe we never will.

Could Project Paperclip and
the work of German scientists

on behalf of the U.S. government

have played a role
in the events of July 8, 1947?

Was the Roswell crash

an advanced military test
gone awry?

Or was it evidence...

that we had been visited by
something from another world?

Whatever the case may be,

as more UFO sightings
were reported

throughout the 1940s and 1950s,

a new top-secret group
was deployed to investigate.

They were called...
the Majestic 12.

SHATNER: An unidentified object
slams into a hill

eight miles northeast
of the Kingman Airport.

Within moments,
the United States military

springs into action.

This time, they won't repeat the
mistake they made at Roswell:

of letting the public
find out about it.

(engine revving)

BIRNES:
The Army descends
on that hill.

Locks it down.
Onlookers are trying

to climb the hill to see it.

Nope, can't see it.

The Army puts up a tent,

but it invites
different scientists

to come out
and kind of examine it.

DOLAN:
It was estimated
to be about 14 feet high,

classic flying saucer shape.

It had, uh, like rows of lights
along the perimeter.

And they were all told
to examine this site

and provide their assessment.

And then they were told, like,
you are to take an oath

and you are never
to talk about this again.

The Kingman crash was
really not even discussed

until the 1970s,
when one researcher

was able to interview
a primary witness of it,

an atomic scientist who gave
a very detailed description

about the Kingman event.

SHATNER:
Unlike the crash at Roswell
six years earlier,

the U.S. military's response
to the Kingman incident

was so swift
that it wasn't until years later

that the world knew
anything had occurred there.

But how was an event
of this apparent magnitude

kept secret for so long?

In my experience of government,

there would need to be
what we would call

a standard operating procedure

and it's claimed
that one was drawn up

for UFO crashes after Roswell.

And it seems
that this was used in 1953

in relation
to the Kingman UFO crash.

SHATNER:
An operations manual
on how to deal with UFO crashes?

As far-fetched as it sounds,

UFO researchers believe that
such a handbook not only exists,

but was put in place
to avoid the mistakes

the U.S. military made
trying to contain

the earlier crash at Roswell
in 1947.

And they claim that
the authors of this handbook

were members
of a shadowy organization

known as the Majestic 12.

DOLAN:
Majestic 12 or MJ 12,
is believed by many researchers

to be a group of individuals

who are-- essentially are
controlling the UFO cover up.

MIKE BARA:
There are many, many documents
that exist that say that MJ 12

actually was
a real government organization.

Majestic 12 was
signed into existence

by President Harry Truman
in September of 1947.

Shortly after
the Roswell incident,

when the U.S. government
decided it needed

to have a main
central oversight committee

that would handle
the so-called alien problem.

And it contained many,
many prominent members,

including the head of the CIA
at the time,

or what became the CIA.

Of all of the documents
that I have ever received,

most important to me

is the Majestic 12
extraterrestrial entities

and technology recovery
and disposal.

The document is about

how you would take
military units out into a field,

gather extraterrestrial
biological entities,

alive or dead,
how you would get the craft,

and it has top-secret
classification throughout.

SHATNER:
Are we really to believe
a secret government agency

was established in order
to cover up evidence of UFOs?

According to many experts,

even if that organization
did exist,

it would be nearly impossible
to keep such information

under wraps for long.

They argue that it's much easier
to convince eyewitnesses

that what they saw wasn't
really there in the first place.

High school basketball coach
Reggie Bone and his players

are driving through
the Ozark woods

on their way home from a game

when they spot a bright shaft
of light coming from the sky.

In 1973, I was general manager
of KPLB radio station

in Piedmont, Missouri.

And I did the news
for the station.

I interviewed Reggie and
five of his basketball players.

After the team had seen
a light flashing in the sky,

several miles later,

one of the boys explained, said,
"Hey, there's that light again."

The coach and the ballplayers
got out and they saw

these lights, circular,
in red, amber, green and white.

And then it started
raising up, and no sound,

and went over a hill.

And that's
the last they saw of it.

SHATNER:
At first, Reggie
and his team thought

what they had seen
wasn't actually a UFO,

but merely a trick of light
fooling their tired eyes.

But as it turns out,

they weren't
the only ones who saw it.

HOVIS:
Pretty soon, the local
police department had received

500-plus phone calls
from people saying,

"Hey, we're looking at this,"
"We're seeing this."

As a reporter,
I felt like I needed

to do some more investigating
besides just the local people

explaining to me
what they were seeing.

So, I contacted personnel
at Scott Air Force Base

to find out if they had
any lights in the area.

And t-the gentleman at the time,

uh, explained to me that they--

nothing like that was going on.

SHATNER:
According to one theory,

the reason why the Air Force
was so unhelpful

was due to yet another
government program

created to cover up UFOs.

One that wasn't designed
to conceal UFO wreckage,

but to explain it away.

DOLAN:
Project Blue Book was the
official UFO investigative body

of the United States Air Force
from the 1950s

through the end of the '60s.

And one of the tricks
that they used

was they eliminated
the category of possible.

And so, if something
was a possible balloon,

even if it was
the most remote possibility,

then it became "balloon"
and that was the explanation.

SHATNER:
Is there really
a step-by-step government guide

to keep the public
at arm's reach

following strange encounters?

It certainly makes you wonder
how many chemical spills,

military tests
or strange weather events

were something much more.

Like when a cluster
of UFOs was spotted

not in a small town
or remote desert,

but directly over
the U.S. Capitol.

SHATNER:
High above this
remote oil-drilling outpost,

the United States Air Force
detects

a mysterious, unidentified
flying object on radar.

A pair of F-22 Raptor fighter
jets are immediately scrambled

to intercept the UFO

and the pilots report
seeing a strange,

cylindrical silver object

floating in the sky.

It's described
as about the size of a car,

just kind of hovering
around 40,000 feet.

It's deemed a threat
to civilian aircraft,

and so President Joe Biden
orders it to be shot down.

(whooshing)

And then
the official statement was,

"We deemed it a threat
to our airspace,

"we take those threats
seriously.

We shot it down.
It's not a concern anymore."

That's the end of the story.

BIRNES:
There's this strange object
hovering over Alaska,

but the government
never revealed what it was.

Was it from China?

Was it from Russia?

Or was it a flying saucer?

SHATNER:
What was the mysterious UFO

that President Biden felt needed

to be shot out of the sky?

Officially, the White House
claims that the object crashed

into the ocean,
and has not been recovered.

But this is
not the first time a UFO

has come to the attention
of America's commander-in-chief.

And many people are convinced

that U.S. presidents
have been hiding the truth

about
extraterrestrial spacecraft

for more than 70 years.

Air traffic controllers
detect multiple

unidentified objects

flying in the sky
over the nation's capital.

BIRNES:
July 19, 1952,

squadrons of UFOs
flew over the capital.

They flew over
the Washington Monument.

They flew over the White House.

Go to The New York Times,

and you know what you'll see?

UFOs flying over the capital.

That's what you'll see.

Therefore, Harry Truman was
the first president

to actually set American policy
having to do with UFOs.

And here's what he did.

Immediately, the explanation

for all those UFOs
over Washington, D.C., in 1952

was radar anomalies,

temperature inversion.

The pilots weren't sure
what they were seeing.

So will the president say
UFOs are among us?

Absolutely not.

SHATNER:
Did the Truman administration
cover up

the truth about alien spacecraft
visiting our planet?

In the 1950s,
many Americans believed

that the government
was withholding

important information
about UFOs and, in fact,

there are those
who claim that America's

next president actually met

with extraterrestrials.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
is on a winter holiday,

when in the middle of the night,

he simply disappears.

When you're president
of the United States,

we should know
where you are at all times.

But this one evening,

in February of 1954,

Eisenhower just goes missing...

...to the point
where the Associated Press

put out a wire saying he died.

He died in
the middle of the night.

And then two minutes later,
they retracted it,

and said, "No, our mistake."

And the next morning,
he shows up at church.

So something happened
in the middle of that night

that is obviously off the books,

unexplained and really strange.

SHATNER:
Where was President Eisenhower

during the time
that he disappeared?

Well, according
to numerous accounts

that surfaced
after the incident,

Eisenhower allegedly attended

a most unusual meeting.

There's a story
that on February 20, 1954,

President Eisenhower

had a meeting
with extraterrestrials.

This took place at an air base.

Eisenhower was
presumably asked

to renounce
and give up nuclear weapons.

And, in exchange,

the extraterrestrials would give
the U.S. technology

which would change the world.

The story is
that Eisenhower turned down

this deal
because he couldn't be sure that

the Soviets would do
the same thing.

SHATNER:
Did President Eisenhower

really meet
with extraterrestrials?

Well, if he did,
the government successfully

covered up
any definitive evidence.

But in recent years,

it's become harder
to keep secrets about UFOs,

because multiple
government organizations

have been actively investigating

this mysterious phenomenon.

There have been several

recent hearings on UFOs,

both in Congress and with NASA.

And so what we've seen
is this subject

increasingly moving
out of the fringe

and into the mainstream.

Which makes me wonder

what is it
they're not telling us?

The president,

particularly in his capacity
as commander-in-chief,

can make that call.

And maybe we will see it
one day soon.

My fellow Americans,
people of the world,

we are not alone.

SHATNER:
Just two months after
the attack on Pearl Harbor,

a Japanese submarine
surfaces off the coast

and fires armor-piercing shells

at the Ellwood Oil Field.

While the bombardment causes
little damage,

America is on high alert.

Civilians are reading
in their newspapers

on the morning of February 24
about a submarine attack.

And then, on the evening
of February 24,

the headquarters of
the 37th Anti-Aircraft Brigade

and the 4th Anti-Aircraft
Command received a message

from the Office
of Naval Intelligence stating:

"Predict
Los Angeles attack tonight."

MORGAN:
Everyone was on the lookout
for the submarine

that had shelled
the oil refining complex

right near Santa Barbara
the night before.

All of Southern California
went under a blackout.

No radio stations
could broadcast.

There was a full military alert.

POPE:
What happened was,

over a series of some hours,

strange objects were seen
over Los Angeles,

in and around the city itself.

And the witnesses included

members of the public, but also

some of the people
manning the coastal batteries.

And these people opened fire

on whatever this object
or objects were.

SHATNER:
Anti-aircraft guns erupted,

firing blindly at
unidentified objects in the sky.

But were these objects
Japanese planes?

Or could they have
been something else?

This strange incident
has come to be known

as the Battle of Los Angeles.

POPE: You've got to imagine
all these coastal batteries

firing up into the air.

So the Battle of Los Angeles,

in many respects, took the war

to the mainland,
continental United States.

And it was apocalyptic.

The city of Los Angeles
is stunned.

Nobody's quite sure
what's happening.

Are-are we under attack?

They looked as if they were,
but by who or what?

SHATNER: In total,
1,400 rounds were fired

into the sky
at unidentified objects.

Remarkably,
after the smoke cleared,

there was no evidence
of any downed planes

and no coherent explanation
for what happened.

Within hours,
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox

held a press conference,
dismissing the incident

as "war nerves."

Frank Knox makes a very
interesting statement that

it was a false alarm.

A lot of people say
that there was a cover-up

and the military was
obfuscating the truth,

and everyone's dodging this.

There more than likely
is some truth to that.

The civilians didn't know
anything except that shrapnel

was raining down
on the citizens of Los Angeles,

because many rounds didn't
impact and didn't detonate

until they hit the ground.

And this is pretty alarming.

SHATNER:
What really happened

on February 24, 1942,

over the skies of Los Angeles?

Some say the answer
can be found by examining

the iconic photo of the attack

that appeared
in the Los Angeles Times.

NELSON:
It's an amazing photograph.

And it shows
these beams of light

going up into the sky

and terminating
at one large object

that is, in fact, some kind of,
uh, oblong shape.

MORGAN:
The photo enters the general
American cultural zeitgeist

in a powerful way,
because in that photograph,

what they think they see is that

U.S. Army coast artillery

anti-aircraft searchlight
batteries have illuminated

a flying saucer.

SHATNER: Did the U.S. military
engage in a firefight

with a flying saucer during
World War II, as some believe?

It's a tantalizing question

that is still up for debate,
especially considering

that the photo
in the Los Angeles Times

was altered for publication.

The original photograph
is so faint,

that it shows some blurry
blobs of light.

And then a few searchlights
that sort of fade out.

So they helped the viewer
see the search lights

by doctoring it and making it
more acceptable for print.

So what is up there?

1,400 anti-aircraft rounds
lighting up the night sky

over Los Angeles must have
been quite a sight to see.

But what mysterious objects

were U.S. defenses
really shooting at?

Perhaps we'll never know.

Because whether it's
a top-secret technology,

a hidden government program,

or a carefully orchestrated
cover-up of the highest order,

it's clear
that some national secrets

continue to be,
and may always remain...

unexplained.

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