Original subtitles

NARRATOR: UFOs engaging with commercial aircraft.

There's a spotlight that just kind of came over us.

And I thought, "Oh, my God."

NARRATOR: Airborne vehicles descending into the ocean.

How could a vehicle fly into the water at 100 miles hour?

NARRATOR: And unexplainable events witnessed by U.S. Navy pilots.

JEREMY CORBELL: If we don't know whose technology this is...

(men exclaim)

Houston, we have a problem.

NARRATOR: Reports of unidentified aerial phenomena

have now gained national attention,

but are these really encounters with alien entities?

NARRATOR: And if so, might there be evidence

that extraterrestrials

have been among us for thousands of years?

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: We have similar depictions in ancient times.

The same visitors that we've had back then

are showing themselves again.

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: July, 2019.

San Clemente Island, California.

68 nautical miles west of San Diego.

Nine U.S. war ships belonging

to an elite Navy unit called Carrier Strike Group Nine

are performing nighttime training exercises

in restricted waters.

The Navy was undertaking an exercise

with Strike Force Nine.

This is an integrated group

centered on an aircraft carrier

but with multiple other U.S. Navy vessels

and jets really testing

how the U.S. military would respond

in a war fighting situation.

So, everything has to be seamless.

And then, into the middle of all of this,

suddenly and unexpectedly,

the exercise is interrupted

by an unknown presence.

NARRATOR: The ships are swarmed by what the Navy refers to

as UAVs, or unidentified aerial vehicles.

The UAVs fly for prolonged periods of time

in low-visibility conditions,

performing brazen maneuvers over the warships

near a sensitive military training range.

Make no mistake about it,

something is penetrating

the sophisticated air defense network.

CORBELL: That swarm series of UFOs around Navy ships

is one of the most important bodies of evidence

ever documented and put out to the public

because it involved so many ships.

There were a strategic coordination

of these unidentifieds.

NARRATOR: The Photographic Interpretation and Examination team

aboard the USS Russell

captured a compelling 18-second night vision video

of multiple UAVs hovering just 700 feet above the ship.

CORBELL: The USS Russell was swarmed by UFOs like other ships,

but this was different.

These were flying pyramids without any control surfaces,

wings, rudders, tails, plumes or exhaust.

Nothing. How did these things move?

How were they able to get past

one of our nation's greatest defense systems?

This was something that we couldn't

even defend against.

NARRATOR: In December 2017,

just 18 months prior to this incident,

The New York Times exposed the U.S. government's

secret program to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena.

Since that bombshell revelation, numerous photographs and videos

have surfaced of Navy encounters with different types of UAPs.

And as far as ancient astronaut theorists

are concerned, the video captured

from the USS Russell may be the most extraordinary of all.

Not because there were so many objects seen in the sky,

but because of the UAPs' very unique shape.

TSOUKALOS: The fact that there are pyramid-shaped objects

that have been filmed by the Navy

is beyond interesting to me

because we have similar depictions in ancient times

of flying craft that seem to be in the form of pyramids.

Clearly, what we see in this footage of today

is pyramid-shaped, three-dimensionally.

It's not flat.

It's a three-dimensional pyramid floating in the sky.

Providing that the footage is real,

providing it is extraterrestrial,

then one could argue that the same visitors

that we've had back then are showing themselves again.

NARRATOR: On display in the Egyptian Museum and Royal Mummies' Hall

is an artifact from the pyramid of Amenemhat III

called a Benben stone.

In ancient Egypt, similar pyramid-shaped capstones

were placed on the top of giant standing stones called obelisks.

The first of these Benben stones predate the earliest pyramids.

The obelisk pointed up toward the heavens,

so it is an object of worship and that capstone,

that Benben stone, was the meeting place.

That was the portal to other worlds where human energy

lifted up and made contact with the gods.

HUGH NEWMAN: So, the shape of the Benben stone

is like a classic pyramid shape.

And, uh, you know, apparently, the design

of pyramids was based on the Benben stone itself,

and these are like giant versions of it.

DAVID CHILDRESS: The Benben stone was not just, uh, symbolizing

a connection to the heavens,

it was actually memorializing an extraterrestrial visitation.

TSOUKALOS: In ancient Egypt, it's chock-full of references

of celestial beings descending from the sky

and imparting knowledge to our ancestors.

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.

NARRATOR: Could the pyramidal capstones

found atop Egypt's obelisks,

and even the pyramids themselves,

have been inspired by an extraterrestrial visitation?

And if so, is it possible

that similar alien craft were captured on video

above the USS Russell?

What we're seeing from the USS Russell--

these kind of objects flying around in the sky--

were an identical shape,

and there was multiple ones witnessed and filmed.

And so, is there a connection?

Is this what was witnessed from the USS Russell?

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.

And, in fact, many of the UAPs

that have been reported in modern times

and that we see in the recent Navy videos

are very reminiscent of ancient accounts

of strange objects in the sky,

accounts that you can find in many ancient cultures

around the world.

NARRATOR: Did people living thousands of years ago

encounter the very same objects in the sky

that appear in recent videos and photographs

taken by the U.S. Navy?

And if so, could this indicate that humans

have been sharing planet Earth with another race

of intelligent beings since our earliest history?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest further evidence can be found in India,

within the pages of one of the world's oldest texts.

NARRATOR: The coast of Florida.

January, 2015.

The crew of a Navy F-18 fighter jet

fly into restricted airspace

and encounter an airborne object directly in their flight path.

They aim their forward-looking infrared camera

at the object and capture it in flight.

F-18s were chasing this thing and they couldn't catch it.

The UAP is doing things

that modern aerodynamic vehicles can't do.

NARRATOR: The pilots in pursuit of the unidentified craft

observed that it performed unusual maneuvers

unlike any military aircraft they had ever witnessed.

And all while flying at high velocities.

One of the impressive aspects of it

is that it's moving against the wind.

And you can hear the pilot say this.

CORBELL: It doesn't lose speed, and it rotates

mechanically against the wind.

This Gimbal footage is one of the rare pieces

of physical evidence that is corroborated

directly by individuals who are out there on the east coast

documenting these things.

It is highly impressive.

Now, modern-day aircraft can yaw and pitch and they can roll,

but they can't simply pitch straight up and continue

to move forward into the line of flight.

This thing does that.

It's moving extremely fast and it's accelerating

much faster than the F-18s can.

So, that in itself is a feat that mankind

has yet to accomplish.

CORBELL: We tried to vet this for a long time.

What's uncomfortable is that we haven't figured it out.

That we don't know whose technology this is.

If you can't identify someone that's far more advanced

than you, technologically-- Houston, we have a problem.

NARRATOR: Navy video of the incredible encounter was made public

in December 2017,

and the object was dubbed "Gimbal"

due to its ability to rotate on an axis.

But for ancient astronaut theorists,

just as intriguing as the way it moves is the object's shape.

The craft itself is an acorn-shaped craft.

Immediately, that's reminiscent of what the ancient Indian text

described as the Vimana, which were acorn-shaped craft.

TSOUKALOS: In the Mahabharata and 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 and sometimes to other planets.

The acorn-shaped craft were even incorporated

at the very top of many Hindu temples,

and some researchers believe they also inspired

similar Buddhist structures called stupa.

TSOUKALOS: If we go to Indonesia and look at Borobudur,

where we have 194 stupas sitting in concentric circles,

each stupa, in my opinion,

represents a type of flying craft.

Because stupa actually means "celestial chariot,"

or a way with which to reach the celestial realm.

And they are in the shape of the so-called Vimanas.

NARRATOR: Often, the Vimana were described as war machines,

armed with incredible weapons.

There are tales of flying craft that could defy gravity

and fly at extraordinary speeds that defy the laws of physics.

These were military in usage,

had powerful engines and powerful weapons.

In these battles, missiles would fire that could wipe out cities.

These were the earliest stories we have

of flying military craft.

HENRY: In the Indian text,

the Vimanas are the chariots or craft of the gods.

They were clearly a method of transportation

that could take the gods from place to place,

country to country, or even to other planets.

They're sometimes described as bright clouds.

Some of them are seven stories tall.

NARRATOR: According to the Hindu text,

the crafts were mind-controlled,

able to change direction and pitch and travel at high speeds,

defying our current knowledge of aeronautical physics.

What's really cool is that these modern-day UFO videos

show that these vehicles

are capable of ridiculous maneuvers.

That they can accelerate at the drop of a dime,

or they can just stop or change direction immediately

at g-forces that we could not survive.

In the Vaimanika Shastra, which describes

what these Vimanas were capable of doing,

the exact same descriptions exist.

The fact that we have similar stories in ancient times

illustrates to me something similar has happened.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the ancient Sanskrit texts are describing

extraterrestrial vehicles even more advanced

than the U.S. military's most sophisticated fighter jets?

And if so, are we seeing

the same alien technology on display in the recent videos

released by the United States Navy?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest

that this technology may also be depicted on the wall

of an Egyptian temple that dates back thousands of years.

NARRATOR: Dendera, Egypt.

Roughly one and a half miles southeast

of this ancient city lies the Temple of Hathor,

one of the most impressive and well-preserved

archaeological sites in all of Egypt.

Among the vast hieroglyphs that cover

the columns of the temple are numerous depictions

of pharaohs standing on mysterious ships

and purportedly traveling through the stars.

HENRY: At the Temple of Hathor,

we see a remarkable depiction of a resurrected pharaoh

standing on what the ancient Egyptians called

the Ship of Eternity.

This is a-a craft that was created by Ptah,

the ancient Egyptian god of technology

who the Egyptians connected with the star Sirius.

In ancient Egypt, we learn of pharaohs,

gods, who traveled the stars riding these craft.

NARRATOR: According to William Henry,

who has spent decades studying

the ancient Egyptian iconography,

an important detail found in some of the depictions

at Dendera and elsewhere

is that the pharaoh is shown within a circle or bubble.

HENRY: In another remarkable example,

we see a pharaoh sitting on a throne

with Isis and Nephthys on either side of him,

and he's sitting in a blue bubble or magic bubble.

NARRATOR: The so-called magic bubble imagery

is found in artwork throughout the ancient world.

And some researchers speculate that the repeated

connection between the bubble shape and ascension

may indicate that it represents

a common experience describing space travel.

Throughout the ancient world, we find other very compelling

examples of beings surrounded by a bubble.

For example, in Tibet, we find Padmasambhava,

who sits on a lotus throne

surrounded by rainbow-colored light

with a thin line symbolizing some form of a bubble.

When you see the earliest examples of Jesus

ascending into the heavens,

he's sitting on a throne surrounded by concentric rings

that form a bubble around his body.

These are supposed to represent what the book of Acts says

he ascended in and will return riding upon.

TSOUKALOS: There are countless paintings of saints

and other celestial beings

that happen to be shown

in some type of an energetic bubble.

What if people saw something that surpassed

their technological intellect?

And thus drew it in that way?

NARRATOR: Mainstream historians interpret the bubble shape

found in religious art as simply symbols of divinity.

But could the repetition of this iconic imagery across traditions

suggest it was something our ancestors witnessed?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and believe further evidence may be found

by taking a closer look at the recently released Gimbal video

captured by Navy jets in 2015.

NARRATOR: When aerospace engineer Dr. Travis Taylor examined

the Gimbal video, he noticed a very curious anomaly,

a halo of light surrounding the craft.

TAYLOR: After further analysis of the video,

what we can see is there is a bubble region

that sort of surrounds this craft.

This is something that you don't see

when you look through the same instrument

at, say, an F-18 or an F-22 or an F-35.

Black is hot on their forward-looking infrared camera.

And if black is hot, then white is cooler.

So, this is a colder region around the vehicle.

So, maybe

this is a warp bubble

or some sort of propellant-less propulsion field

that someone has discovered.

NARRATOR: The concept of the warp bubble was introduced in 1994

by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre,

as part of a hypothetical model

for traveling faster than the speed of light.

MICHIO KAKU: I once asked Miguel Alcubierre

how he came up with the idea of the Alcubierre drive.

He told me that he was watching Star Trek.

And, in Star Trek, they, well, compressed the space

in front of them and expanded the space behind them

and would rocket faster than the speed of light.

And then he said, "Well, wait a minute.

I think I can duplicate that."

NARRATOR: In Alcubierre's theoretical model,

the warp drive vehicle

is surrounded by an energy bubble

within space-time.

KAKU: You need energy to create a bubble,

what's called a warp bubble surrounding your starship.

Then you need what is called negative energy

to drive it faster than the speed of light

while, inside, you feel almost nothing.

When we look at the idea of a warp bubble

that could surround a spacecraft, in the video,

engineers are seeing exactly that principle in action.

NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists

are concerned, warp bubble technology

could be on display, not only in the Gimbal video,

but also in artwork created centuries ago,

like the Pharaoh's blue bubble,

the Tibetan lotus throne,

the ascension of Christ,

and countless other sacred images

that seemingly show identical phenomena.

TSOUKALOS: So, you have to wonder,

what is it that the artist tried to depict here?

It's just like Arthur C. Clarke said,

"Any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

HENRY: These are powerful examples that are

suggesting ascended beings

who traveled the stars in magic bubbles.

That precisely matches

the Alcubierre warp bubble concept.

TAYLOR: Could these ancient drawings be showing us

the same thing that we're seeing today in these

modern-day infrared cameras?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that depictions of figures

encompassed by bubbles found throughout history

and all around the world

represent an alien technology?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining another extraordinary Navy video

and its direct connection

to the ancient world.

NARRATOR: Veteran journalist George Knapp

and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell

publish astonishing video

they acquired from the USS Omaha

that shows a mysterious spherical object

flying at speeds approaching 160 miles per hour

before disappearing into the ocean.

The USS Omaha is one of the central pieces of evidence

that I've put forward to the American and global public.

There were objects that were swarming this Navy warship,

and one in particular appears to transcend

between the space of air and into sea.

They call that a trans-medium vehicle.

A vehicle that can operate equally as well

from in the air and under the water.

Now, this was suspected,

but when they went to go look for this craft under the water,

or for wreckage,

none was found.

NARRATOR: Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett,

an outspoken proponent for disclosure of UFO sightings,

was one of the first members of Congress

to review the footage.

TIM BURCHETT: To me, it's pretty astounding when

they showed that craft actually going, and it popping up.

It looked like it didn't even slow down.

It wasn't any friction at all when it hit the water.

So, to me, that's something that we can't even begin

to understand, I don't think.

I've read the mathematical equations

of friction and things like that,

and it just defies all of that.

TAYLOR: How could a vehicle fly into the water

at 100 miles per hour?

Well, that suggests either the surface of this vehicle

is frictionless,

and it wouldn't have any interaction with any material

it was flying through,

or it's not frictionless, it's actually a warp bubble

where the spacecraft or craft is inside it.

The stresses and strains by flying through the atmosphere

in outer space and then plunging into the oceans

would be enough to rupture any of our known aircraft.

POPE: These reports of USOs,

unidentified submerged or submersible objects,

are much more common than people might suppose.

In 1991, Jing Yu Xian, a fisherman,

was at Fuxian Lake when he encountered

this strange craft in the waters of the lake.

He described it as a shining disc.

This UFO was so close and so powerful

that it actually tossed the boat around.

And then, rapidly, this craft

just disappeared up into the sky.

Over the years, there have been many, many cases of UFOs

seen over the water, disappearing under the water,

and, in some cases, emerging from under the water.

CHILDRESS: On December 29th, 2020,

a very curious thing happened off of the coast of Hawaii.

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.

POPE: One theory about this trans-medium travel

and these USOs is that what we're seeing

is evidence of underwater bases.

Now, this makes a good deal of sense.

The distance involved for interstellar travel

means that it's much easier to have a base

on the location that you're interested in

than to constantly travel there and back.

But what if that presence goes back millennia?

They're operating here, but under the oceans,

right under our noses.

HENRY: When we see the spherical object in the video taken by

the USS Omaha hovering for a time and then descending

into the water, this opens up some really

interesting concepts in relation to the ancient world.

For example, in Sumeria and in Babylon,

they talked about a god being named Oannes

who lived in the sea,

who emerged from the sea wearing a fish cloak.

He was an initiator of humanity,

who taught writing and science and-and other concepts.

What's amazing about this is that Oannes

also founded a priesthood

of beings called Apkallu priests who also wore fish cloaks.

And in Sumerian cylinder seals,

we see these Apkallu priests on either side of a luminous

or radiant tree of life with a winged disc hovering above.

The inference is that this craft came from the sea

because these are priests of a sea being.

And so, here's an example of an ancient being

emerging from the sea and connected with a craft.

NARRATOR: Oannes belonged to a group of powerful beings

known in ancient Mesopotamia as the Anunnaki.

The term Anunnaki means

"Those who from the heavens came,"

and refers to beings descending from the sky,

imparting knowledge.

That is the most important thing that we can read and learn

about the Anunnaki, that they were our teachers.

So, I think it's very possible

that what the ancient people tried to record

was an extraterrestrial visitation.

NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists,

perhaps the most compelling evidence of an alien presence

that traverses Earth's oceans

can be found in an account from 1492

recorded by Christopher Columbus.

CHILDRESS: It's a famous story about Christopher Columbus,

and he wrote this in his journals

that, as he was moving west

across the Atlantic towards the Caribbean

in his first voyage,

he saw a light out in the ocean

to the west hovering over the water.

And this light then descended into the water,

but Columbus felt that this light was guiding him

towards his destination.

So, if this glowing object that Columbus saw

did, you know, go into the water,

he's perhaps one of the first witnesses to describe

a trans-medium craft like this,

which could hover, uh, above the water

and then disappear into it like a submarine.

NARRATOR: Could the account of Christopher Columbus

and the ancient Babylonian stories of Oannes

have a profound connection to the object

recorded from the USS Omaha?

Do they provide further evidence that the same crafts witnessed

in the distant past are still visiting Earth in the present?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and they suggest that the military accounts

of UAPs are not the only resource

for descriptions of unidentified aerial phenomena in our skies.

Similar references can be found in the reports

of everyday citizens,

as well as the incredible encounters

that have been documented by hundreds of civilian pilots.

NARRATOR: In 2017,

The New York Times broke the story

of the U.S. government's secret investigations

into unexplained aerial phenomena.

And in the years that followed, a number of sensational

UFO videos have been released, or leaked, to the public.

NARRATOR: Nearly all of the footage

was recorded by cameras mounted on U.S. Navy fighter jets.

The videos captured the public's imagination

like no other UFO images that had come before them.

NARRATOR: But Navy pilots are not alone

in witnessing unidentified flying objects.

For decades, shocking encounters

have been reported by non-military, civilian pilots.

UAP sightings by commercial airline pilots

are a lot more commonplace than what we generally think of.

We've seen a lot of the footage from the military,

but we're actually getting a lot more reports

from our civilian pilots.

There are more civilian pilots than military pilots.

And you have an exponentially larger amount of flights

with commercial airlines than you do with military airplanes.

NARRATOR: Japan Airlines Flight 1628

is carrying cargo from Paris, France

to Narita International Airport near Tokyo.

The three-person crew is led by Captain Kenju Terauchi,

an ex-fighter pilot with over 10,000 hours of flight time.

As the 747 approaches Anchorage,

Captain Terauchi notices two strange lights

out of his cockpit window.

It's dark. It's, uh, very early morning before sunrise.

These lights are clearly maneuvering.

They are in relationship to each other.

One is on top of the other.

And they move directly in front of his aircraft.

Now, he's flying at about 500 miles per hour.

These things are pacing him.

NARRATOR: Captain Terauchi

realizes the lights are strange oval-shaped flying objects,

and they are getting dangerously close to his aircraft.

As bright lights fill the cockpit,

Captain Terauchi radios

the Anchorage Air Traffic Control Center,

and asks if they can identify the objects near his plane.

NARRATOR: As Terauchi attempts a series of evasive maneuvers

to avoid a potential collision,

the two UFOs suddenly disappear.

In their place, is another object.

One so large it dwarfs the 747.

DOLAN: His words for describing it were "gigantic spaceship

the size of maybe two aircraft carriers."

Just immense. Tarauchi sees this massive

thing in the sky, and he's scared.

NARRATOR: Concerned by Captain Terauchi's report,

the air traffic controller calls NORAD,

the North American Aerospace Defense Command,

based at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage.

Communication specialists at the airbase

confirm that there is a very large, unidentified object

on their radar screens.

Traffic control told them that they could actually take

whatever evasive actions they needed to,

to avoid collision, and they even dropped down

to 4,000 feet above sea level.

And the thing continued to follow them.

RYAN SPRAGUE: Air traffic control diverted another

commercial flight to come look at this UFO.

And by the time they got there, UFO was completely gone.

One of the reasons why the JAL report is such a big deal

is because the corroborating evidence is overwhelming.

Not only are there eyewitness reports, but there's the records

of the communication systems that Terauchi was in touch with,

actual dialogue that happened.

"Hey, we are up here.

We see this. Are you guys seeing this on your radar?"

All this stuff is recorded.

NARRATOR: Once safely grounded,

Captain Terauchi, his co-pilot, and flight engineer

were immediately interviewed

by Alaska Federal Aviation Administration officials

and other special agents.

There's an FAA investigation into this.

There's lots of documentation.

Uh, there's no real, hard and fast conclusion about this.

And so, the pilot, perhaps out of frustration,

talks to the media.

NARRATOR: In December 1986,

one month after the encounter,

Captain Terauchi contacted Kyoto News

and said he believed the mysterious crafts

were of extraterrestrial origin.

The unauthorized statements

prompted Japan Airlines officials

to remove Captain Terauchi from pilot duty

and assign him to a desk job.

Around the same time,

John Callahan, the FAA's Division Chief

of the Accidents and Investigations branch,

learned of the incident and deemed it worthy

of investigation.

DOLAN: John Callahan went to D.C. about this,

and there was a meeting that was chaired

by one of the top people of the FAA.

This meeting was also attended by representatives of the FBI,

representatives of the CIA,

and representatives of President Reagan's White House.

They had audiotapes that were played

between the pilot and air traffic control,

describing everything that was happening,

and written reports.

And, at the end of the meeting,

one of the CIA, uh, agents

stood up and said, "This meeting never happened,

"and we're confiscating all of the data

that has been, uh, shared here."

Now, Callahan, he was a little sly,

but he was within his rights.

"They never asked me," he said, "if I had a copy

of any of this myself," he said, "which I did."

He had a copy of the audio recordings, if nothing else.

And, little over a decade later, shared that with the public.

MICAH HANKS: John Callahan came away with the feeling

that there was essentially a kind of coverup.

The FAA didn't want the fact that this incident

had occurred to get out.

POPE: I've spoken to pilots who have seen

amazing things out there,

but never report it because of the fear of being disbelieved,

being ridiculed, and perhaps being grounded.

You won't be flying anymore.

So, what did they say? Most times, nothing.

TSOUKALOS: You have countless commercial and private airline pilots

who spend an exorbitant amount of time up in the sky,

and, in my opinion, I think they're the best people

to discern what is natural and what is not.

NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists

are concerned, UFO encounters reported by civilian pilots

provide some of the most compelling evidence that there

is an extraterrestrial presence in the skies above Earth.

And, according to some pilots,

what they've witnessed presents a serious danger.

NARRATOR: The House Oversight Committee

holds a landmark congressional hearing

to record firsthand accounts of UFO activity.

The subcommittee hearing

on unidentified anomalous phenomena,

or UAPs, will come to order.

NARRATOR: During the proceedings,

lawmakers hear testimony

from three notable witnesses:

former Navy pilot Ryan Graves,

former Air Force Intelligence Officer David Grusch,

who also served on the UAP Task Force,

and David Fravor,

a former commanding officer in the U.S. Navy.

The retired military veterans address the implications of UAPs

on national security and public safety,

including within the commercial airspace,

an area Lieutenant Graves feels is largely overlooked.

With commercial aviators, they're reaching out because

they're having somewhat similar experiences as our military

brothers and sisters, but they do not have

any reporting system that they can send this to.

What steps do you think have to be taken to improve, uh,

pilots' UAP reporting, be it military or commercial?

Right now, we need a system where pilots

can report without fear of losing their jobs.

Uh, there is a fear that the stigma

associated with this topic

is going to lead to professional repercussions,

either through management or perhaps through their

yearly physical check.

So, having a secure system, reducing the stigma,

uh, and making this available--

this information available through the public

is going to reduce, uh, the concerns that air crew have.

NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists,

UFO sightings reported by pilots

are particularly intriguing

because, while accounts of strange phenomena in the sky

date back millennia,

it is only in the past century

that humans have had an aerial vantage point.

For thousands of years, we could only observe things

in the sky from the ground,

but in the last hundred or so years,

we've had the ability to fly.

And so, now, we're up in the sky ourselves.

We can discern natural phenomenon from powered craft.

NARRATOR: Thousands of pilots have reported observing phenomena

in the sky that do not resemble any weather anomaly

or man-made aircraft they've ever encountered.

Such was the case with Captain Erik Delgado,

who served as an Air Force pilot for ten years

before being hired to fly for FedEx in 2001.

On the evening of March 20, 2020,

Captain Delgado departed from Mexico City

in a Boeing 767 bound for Memphis, Tennessee.

One hour into the flight,

Delgado noticed something strange in the distance.

DELGADO: Usually, when we get to altitude, we'll relax.

I was conversing with my first officer, and as I'm looking

at him, his eyes got really big,

and, uh, his mouth kind of dropped.

And I'm like, "What the hell is this guy looking at?"

And he goes, "Look at the shooting star."

And he stops, didn't ever-- never finished the word "star."

And so, I kind of looked over my left shoulder,

and if you can, uh, imagine a lighthouse in thin fog,

kind of just a-a spotlight sort of

that just kind of came over us.

And I thought, "Oh, my God, it's another airplane,

and he's got a vector toward us. What's this clown doing?"

I grabbed the throttles, gripping it with a death grip.

I was getting ready to disconnect the autopilot,

and I'm looking at the screen,

realizing there's nothing on the screen.

NARRATOR: Delgado immediately used his digital camera

to record the astonishing sight.

NARRATOR: Within minutes of the sighting,

the orb moved towards the plane at a high rate of speed,

then suddenly stopped short.

My heart was racing still. Speed doesn't kill, you know?

Deceleration, stopping, that's what kills you.

And the fact that this thing stopped like that,

if there were somebody inside there, you know, uh,

our conventional laws of physics and stopping,

they wouldn't have survived the g-forces

to-to come to a stop like that.

NARRATOR: The UAP flew alongside Delgado's aircraft

at an astonishing 500 miles per hour,

and yet, there was no sign of a propulsion system.

DELGADO: This thing was parked on our wingtip,

about 1,000, 2,000 feet, and it didn't move.

With your naked eye, it was just bright, dim, bright, dim.

And it was very cyclic, it didn't waver, it was the same.

And you look through the camera,

and now you could see features in-in a shape.

NARRATOR: The object continued to track Delgado's aircraft

for nearly 30 miles.

DELGADO: This thing started rotating and started changing colors

and it started taking off,

and so, I'm zooming in as fast as I could.

DELGADO: This thing took off at a pretty good velocity.

NARRATOR: After making a safe landing,

Delgado shared his videos

with air operations center personnel,

even though his co-pilot was reluctant

to file an official report.

DELGADO: There was still a stigma behind the whole thing.

You know, are-are they gonna ground us?

Are they gonna ask for our medical, you know?

Are we gonna have to go see somebody?

So, I could understand where he was coming from.

HANKS: In recent years,

we've seen military pilots being encouraged

to come forward and talk about things they've seen.

The same has not necessarily always extended

to commercial pilots, because there isn't an interest

in collecting information from those pilots

the same as there would be with military pilots,

where, in the interest of national security,

if you see something, say something.

But traditionally, when commercial pilots

contacted the FAA, they have been told, "Hey,

you need to talk to civilian UFO researchers,"

or they don't actually have a clear idea

of where else they can even log those reports,

so it's a very different situation.

NARRATOR: Captain Delgado

decided not to give the video to the FAA,

and instead turned it over to

the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena--

or NARCAP--

a civilian organization made up of volunteers

who investigate unidentified aerial sightings.

They concluded that the glowing object

was consistent with that of an exotic craft

with a plasma exterior that could disrupt radar signals.

I think I saw...

some intelligent anomaly.

It's amazing, I-I'd like to know

more of the science and the physics

behind what I was looking at, maybe.

But you know, see the footage and-and form your own opinions.

TSOUKALOS: Things need to change,

because pilots should be at the forefront

of being free enough

to come forward to report what they saw.

NARRATOR: The FAA has never conducted

an official investigation into pilot Delgado's incident.

But would they take notice if a UFO sighting

affected an entire airport?

A ramp employee for United Airlines Flight 446

spots a metallic saucer-shaped object

hovering over Gate C-17,

between 1,000 and 1,900 feet in the air.

Within minutes, federal authorities receive

nearly a dozen panicked phone calls from airport personnel.

SPRAGUE: Here you have pilots,

here you have people working at the airport,

and civilians going to get on their flights,

all witness a UFO hovering directly over

one of the gates at the airport.

This UFO was cylindrical in shape, it was metallic.

NARRATOR: Witnesses estimated the object

to be between 16 and 24 feet in diameter.

POPE: Suddenly, this thing just accelerates vertically,

and punches a hole through the cloud.

Everyone's staggered by this.

Now, there is a meteorological phenomenon

called a hole-punch cloud.

But that doesn't really fit with the idea

that there was this metallic craft hovering

before this happened.

STEVEN GREENSTREET: A hole-punch cloud is a real phenomena.

But the weather conditions needed

to produce a hole-punch cloud

weren't there that day. (chuckles)

They weren't there that day, and so,

that explanation doesn't make any sense at all.

HENRY: The Chicago Tribune, they end up, uh,

filing a Freedom of Information Act request

with the FAA, and lo and behold, they get a recording.

So, we have a United Airlines supervisor on the phone

with the FAA controller using the word "UFO."

So, once again, we have a scenario where the FAA--

and we have United Airlines personnel, in this case,

saying there's nothing to see here, but in fact, there was.

NARRATOR: Is it possible the U.S. government

has been concealing evidence

about UAP sightings near our airports?

According to UFO researchers, it would fit

a disturbing pattern of ignoring what many believe

are serious threats to the millions of people

who travel the skies every day.

Threats that are surprisingly well-documented,

and sometimes even caught on tape.

NARRATOR: For decades, civilian pilots have been frustrated

by the Federal Aviation Administration's refusal

to investigate encounters between commercial airlines

and unidentified flying objects.

Skeptics argue that these encounters

lack hard data like telemetry,

radar and audio recordings

that would warrant an investigation.

But there have, in fact, been numerous incidents

where viable evidence has been collected,

including an event involving two aircraft

traveling over the state of Arizona.

In 2018, flying over Arizona,

you've got a Learjet, you've got an American Airlines jet,

and something zips over the Learjet.

Right over top.

And they immediately call ATC.

GREENSTREET: And radar tower says, "We don't see anything,

we don't know what the heck it is."

And so, the radar tower calls the American Airlines jet

behind that plane, and says "Hey,

"look out for a second, object should be coming your way."

NARRATOR: The pilot of the American Airlines jet

initially responds requesting clarification.

NARRATOR: Then, just moments later,

the American Airlines pilot radios back

to air traffic control.

This incident is significant because there are

audio recordings of the whole incident

and the pilots actually use the word "UFO"

when they're talking to the control tower.

NARRATOR: According to researchers, the Arizona encounter

was never openly investigated by the government,

despite the evidence presented in the recordings

between the two pilots and air traffic control.

Neither was another incident,

this one so serious it required a call

to the U.S. Air Force.

The Oregon Coast, October 25th, 2017.

A radar operator spots a fast-moving

unidentified object in a busy commercial flight path.

DELGADO: There were no pilots involved in that initial reporting.

It was just a tower controller and a-- and, like,

a radar center operator, and they're going back and forth.

NARRATOR: The radar operator contacts air traffic control

in Seattle, Washington.

GREENSTREET: And the object has no call sign.

It has no transponder.

It's not communicating. What is this object?

Pilots in the air start picking it up visually.

Multiple pilots from multiple airlines flying

both north and south up the coast.

And they see this huge white object

moving extremely fast at 37,000 feet.

CHILDRESS: The pilots could see a white light

that was coming at them and moving around

and they reported it to the control tower

and the pilot said that it was moving erratically.

GREENSTREET: This object was a little bit too close for comfort.

And so, they tried to communicate with it.

It-- All the things that this object should have given off

if it was an authorized aircraft-- a U.S. aircraft,

a commercial aircraft-- weren't there.

It was just silent.

And so, the military scrambled two F-15 fighters

to go intercept this thing.

POPE: Now, you don't do that lightly.

This is a big call.

This is the sort of thing that you do

on a 9/11-type event.

So, what happened?

Why did they take this one so seriously

that a fighter interceptor

was sent up to try and take a look?

NARRATOR: The F-15s race to intercept the UFO,

but this proves more difficult than expected.

CHILDRESS: Once the jets were on their way,

this UFO suddenly shot off in a different direction,

and was very fast and was able to make

these quick turns and at very high speeds.

GREENSTREET: At one point, this object changes direction.

It's flying southbound,

and then turns and goes northbound.

So, the F-15 fighters, they go there

and at the last minute, as best anyone can guess,

it turns and zips out over the Pacific Ocean.

NARRATOR: Observers are shocked

that F-15s, among the nation's fastest

and most sophisticated fighter jets,

are unable to catch up with the mysterious object.

GREENSTREET: What's great about this is the audiotapes,

which were released via the Freedom of Information Act.

When you hear the process happen from initial sighting

to the scrambling of military jets,

it's fascinating to hear that happen.

"What should we do?" It goes to the Air Force,

it goes to NORAD.

I-It's there and seen by so many, and then it's gone.

NARRATOR: These two incidents

are considered to be among a multitude of reports

where analyzable data-- including radar,

radio transmissions, telemetry and eyewitness accounts--

offer compelling evidence of unidentified aerial phenomena.

Yet, to the public's knowledge, these dangerous encounters

have never been investigated by the government.

Or have they?

During the congressional UAP hearing

conducted by the House Oversight Committee,

former Naval intelligence officer David Grusch

a made a shocking claim.

He disclosed that certain factions

within the U.S. government have been operating in secrecy

regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

I was informed, in the course of my official duties,

of a multi-decade, uh, UAP crash retrieval

and reverse engineering program,

uh, to which I was denied access

to those additional read-ons when I, uh, requested it.

NARRATOR: Due to national security concerns,

Grusch could not provide

more specific information during the public hearing.

However, he expressed his willingness to furnish

additional information to the congressional members

during their private deliberation.

Has the U.S. government become aware

of actual evidence of extraterrestrial

or otherwise unexplained forms of intelligence?

I can't discuss that publicly, but I did provide

that information both the intel committees

- and the inspector general. - And we could get that

in the SCIF if we were allowed to get in a SCIF with you?

Would that be probably what you would think?

Sure, if you had the appropriate accesses, yeah.

NARRATOR: Could David Grusch's sensational claims

that the United States government is in possession

of extraterrestrial aircraft be true?

And if so, has the military been reverse engineering

this technology for decades,

as ancient astronaut theorists have long proposed?

Perhaps further clues can be found by examining

a Pentagon-funded project to build a flying saucer.

NARRATOR: At dawn on April 14th, 1561,

the citizens of this Bavarian city

at the center of Europe awake to a commotion in the sky

unlike anything they have 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?

The aerial scene, illustrated in this contemporary woodcut,

is described in the accompanying text

as "a very frightful spectacle."

Strange objects seemed to launch projectiles

as onlookers below watch 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, they 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.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, a very similar incident

was reported in Basel, Switzerland five years later,

and was illustrated in a woodcut that still exists to this day.

Is it possible that these two events

witnessed by thousands,

represent the first mass UFO sightings on record?

TSOUKALOS: The UFO phenomenon is not modern.

It goes back as far as we can remember,

because we have accounts of lights and craft

not only in modern times but also in ancient times.

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists find it remarkable

that the depictions of these 16th-century sightings

include every shape of craft that has been reported

by UFO witnesses in modern times.

But it also poses an important question:

if these are, in fact,

representations of alien vehicles,

what could explain all the different shapes?

BILL BIRNES: So it well might be that different types

of UFOs are tasked for different purposes.

There are scout ships,

there are ships that only orbit,

there are mother ships.

They're all tasked for different purposes.

NOORY: If you look at our planet today,

almost every country has some kind of flying machine

that is different from what we have.

I think the same thing is the case with extraterrestrials.

Let's assume there's ten different E.T. races

within our Milky Way galaxy.

Each one could have a different shape to its craft

because that's just the way they created it.

And I think that's very conceivable

when we see cigar-shaped UFOs, triangular-shaped UFOs,

round UFOs.

They're coming from different planetary systems

throughout the universe.

NARRATOR: Could the various shapes

that have been witnessed in the sky for hundreds of years

all represent extraterrestrial crafts,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

And if so, with a more advanced

technological frame of reference,

might modern humans be able

to gain insight about who or what

is visiting Earth by examining these shapes?

Are there conclusions that you can make about

the different shapes of UFOs that are reported?

Might there be links, even,

between the shapes of UFOs and the different types

of entities that are sometimes reported?

NARRATOR: In modern times, the most commonly reported

UFO shape is the iconic flying saucer.

The term was coined in 1947 after pilot Kenneth Arnold

spotted a number of flying objects

near Mount Rainier in Washington traveling at incredible speeds.

He described them as skipping through the air

like a "saucer," he said.

And this is really where the term "a flying saucer,"

uh, arrives in English language,

is from Kenneth Arnold's description.

NARRATOR: With more saucer-shaped objects

reported around the globe, the United States government

began to investigate reports of UFO activity.

It wasn't just the United States

that was interested in potential UFOs in the mid-century.

Canada, France, the Soviet Union,

the United Kingdom and Brazil

all had various programs

to determine whether or not it was a threat for humans.

NARRATOR: Could it be that reports of flying saucers

caught the attention of world governments

because they have a shape unlike any man-made aircraft?

Ufologists suggest that these sightings

triggered a competition by world powers

to manufacture their own craft based on this exotic design.

A design that many presumed

must have some unknown but inherent advantage for flight.

There's no question that, uh, historically,

governments have attempted to recreate the shape

of UFO craft that have been seen, spotted or crashed.

NARRATOR: In the 1950s,

the Pentagon funded a prototype for a disc-shaped craft.

This once-classified project yielded

a nearly three-ton flying saucer, the VZ-9 Avrocar.

TEITEL: The Avrocar was one attempt to develop a flying saucer,

and it was a VTOL design, a vertical takeoff and landing.

It was designed by a Canadian company, Avro,

for the U.S. military.

The U.S. Air Force wanted it to be a supersonic

interceptor and fighter, and the U.S. Army wanted it

to be something stealthy that could hover

above the ground in silence and detect radar.

Avro engineers thought that this big circular wing

might be the design that could meet both requirements.

NARRATOR: In 1959, after years of top-secret development,

this flying saucer prototype was finally put to the test.

DOCUMENTARY NARRATOR: In preparation for the final contractual demonstration,

a representative course was selected

where the vehicle could demonstrate its capability

while remaining in view of the observers.

TEITEL: It turned out that the cushion of air under that wing

became extremely unstable just a few feet off the ground.

There was one model built and some wind tunnel tests done,

but ultimately, it was deemed

completely aerodynamically unstable.

NARRATOR: While the Avrocar failed,

in 2019,

Romanian engineer Razvan Sabie and aerodynamicist Iosif Taposu

unveiled their answer to the flying saucer problem.

The All-Directional Flying Saucer, or ADIFO,

demonstrates precision maneuverability and outperforms

all previously known flying saucers constructed by humans.

TEITEL: The ADIFO design looks really interesting.

It looks like a highly maneuverable

flying saucer design, but it's small and it's a drone.

It would be interesting to see how the engineering works

with a full-size design,

because engineering is very difficult,

and usually doesn't scale up very cleanly.

NARRATOR: This saucer utilizes four ducted fans

like a quadcopter drone,

and it is also equipped with jets for added thrust

and lateral nozzles that provide

side-to-side mobility and rotation.

The saucer only currently exists as a miniature prototype,

but its creators plan to pursue a full-sized

manned version capable of hypersonic speed.

If successful,

will we have finally achieved the same technology

as extraterrestrial space travelers?

Or could recent events reveal that they are still

light-years ahead of us?

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists have speculated

that one reason extraterrestrials

might have designed disc-shaped craft

is so that they can instantly change direction,

and at tremendous speeds.

CHILDRESS: We can learn a lot from modern UFO reports.

These disc-shaped craft are able

to make sudden turns,

turning at-at high speeds in any direction.

DOLAN: When you're thinking in terms of aerodynamics,

shape should matter a great deal.

But what if aerodynamics is not really relevant?

What if these objects

are able to employ a different kind of a science

that makes aerodynamics irrelevant?

CHILDRESS: One of the concepts here is that these circular

or disc-shaped craft are using

antigravity for propulsion.

They're not rockets,

they're antigravity, they're generating

their own gravitational field,

which would likely be a spherical field

around the craft.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that reports of disc-shaped objects

changing direction at incredible speeds--

some of which have even been captured on video--

are alien craft with antigravity technology?

While there is no hard evidence

that antigravity aircraft do exist,

there has been much speculation

as to how such craft might function.

One theory is that they could be, in part,

driven by centrifugal force,

the force that is felt by a rotating or spinning object.

The shape of these craft is consistent

with these different models of rotation

around a central axis

involving something with high mass and high energy.

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists

point out that such spinning, wheel-like machines

bear an eerie resemblance to one of the most famous

and enigmatic stories from the Hebrew Bible:

the story of Ezekiel's Wheel.

TSOUKALOS: When you have these ideas that are currently proposed,

of these gigantic wheels in the sky

that spin on their own axis

in order to create artificial gravity,

I might as well be reading Ezekiel.

It's very similar.

NARRATOR: In the Bible's Book of Ezekiel,

the prophet describes a fiery chariot

drawn by four living creatures.

Each creature is flanked by a metallic object--

a wheel within a wheel-- that Ezekiel observes

as it descends, making a tremendous amount of noise.

In his 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods?,

ancient astronaut theory pioneer Erich von Daniken

proposed that what was actually being described in Ezekiel

was a spaceship.

NASA engineer Josef Blumrich was determined

to debunk this controversial theory.

But after painstaking research,

the author was shocked to find himself agreeing

with Erich von Daniken.

In 1974, he published his own book

supporting Erich's theory,

entitled The Spaceships of Ezekiel.

TSOUKALOS: Blumrich reads Ezekiel, and he has an epiphany,

because what is he describing?

He is describing a wheel up in space.

Blumrich says, "By gosh, Erich is right."

And so, he conceived what Ezekiel may have described

in that ancient biblical text.

TAYLOR: Ezekiel describes

that the outside of the wheel doesn't spin,

the inside of the wheel spins.

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

None of this necessarily has to be magic.

This could all be technology.

HENRY: Perhaps what the wheel actually signifies

is the secret of the gods,

the secret of their extraterrestrial spacecraft,

and how humans might be able to reverse engineer that wheel

and ultimately, make their own craft.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that a story from the Bible's Old Testament

describes the propulsion system

of an extraterrestrial spacecraft?

While Ezekiel's description of wheels within wheels

may represent a primitive interpretation

of highly advanced technology,

one man claims to have firsthand knowledge

that antigravity craft do exist,

Area 51 whistleblower Bob Lazar.

Investigative journalist George Knapp

was the first to interview him, in 1989,

about the notorious military base

that has long been rumored to be hiding alien technology.

He told this incredible story, that he'd been working

at this facility called S4, south of Groom Lake.

That they had a hangar hidden in the desert to make it

look like it was actually a part of the desert terrain,

and inside those hangars were, uh, nine flying saucers.

So, Bob Lazar was tasked, at area S4--

a subsite of Area 51--

to reverse engineer the power and propulsion of what we know

as a flying saucer.

All of the nine craft that Lazar was able to see with his eyes

were said to have worked on the same gravity system.

Bob Lazar said the craft would turn belly-first

and the gravity wave amplifiers would all point

to the place in time-space where you wanted to go.

We're talking about a gravity-propelled craft.

We're talking about something that y-you don't have any effect

of the inertia or-or momentum,

it's just instantaneously-- voom, voom, voom--

one place, then the next.

BOB LAZAR: Element 115 was

what we would call the fuel that provided the power

for the reactor to work.

Element 115 affects gravity.

Element 115 produces its own gravitational energy.

The resulting gravity wave creates a distortion

in front of it allowing the craft to slide forward.

And that's how it proceeds.

NARRATOR: Could Bob Lazar's extraordinary claims

about the flying saucers he allegedly worked on at S4,

along with video evidence of UFOs,

reveal that there are alien aircraft in our skies

equipped with antigravity technology?

KAKU: Antigravity is not possible with the known laws of physics.

So, when I talk to my physicist friends about flying saucers

and stuff like that, I get the giggle factor.

They start to giggle, their eyes roll up into the heavens,

because, you see, I think they make a mistake.

They assume that the aliens are maybe a hundred years

more advanced than us, in which case, yeah,

it is impossible for a civilization a hundred years

from us to reach us from the stars.

But what if, what if they are a million years ahead of us?

New laws of physics are gonna open up

once you have a civilization

that is a million years more advanced than us.

And a million years is nothing but a blink of an eye

compared to the age of the universe.

NARRATOR: Many UFO researchers believe

the flying saucer is designed to take advantage

of an antigravity propulsion system,

and is the optimal shape

for maneuvering quickly in any direction.

But what could explain the numerous other types

of unidentified craft that have been reported?

Perhaps further clues can be found by examining

a UFO shape that more closely resembles man-made aircraft:

the flying triangle.

NARRATOR: March 13th, 1997.

At 6:55 p.m., local police receive a report

of a massive V-shaped object traveling southeast

across the night sky.

Over the next three hours,

the craft is witnessed by thousands of people

as it journeys down through Arizona

and into Sonora, Mexico.

With most of the reports coming from Phoenix,

as well as photographs and video footage,

the incident becomes known as the Phoenix Lights.

DOLAN: The entire city of Phoenix was able to see

this half-a-mile long display of lights over the city

in a very, very distinctive pattern.

It was a triangular-ish-shaped object,

uh, seen very reliably by quite a large number of witnesses.

Who's our best witness to that?

The best one?

Governor Fife Symington of Arizona.

FIFE SYMINGTON: As a pilot and a former Air Force officer,

uh, I can definitively say that this craft

did not resemble any man-made object that I'd ever seen.

BIRNES: And says, "Yeah I really did see the UFO," and he describes it.

He actually was maybe a hundred feet away

from that flying triangle and could see through it

and the stars above.

DOLAN: Governor Symington was a qualified pilot,

and in the Air Force Reserve as well.

I think he knew what he was seeing.

NARRATOR: The governor of Arizona described

a strange triangular UFO that appeared translucent,

camouflaging itself amidst the star field above.

This incredible mass UFO sighting

made the front page of USA Today.

And then, three years later, it happened again.

January 5th, 2000.

At 4:00 a.m., three large triangular objects

are seen by multiple witnesses--

including police officers--

flying silently in the night sky.

I looked up in the sky and observed this huge,

arrow-shaped, triangular-shaped object.

NARRATOR: They are observed for at least two hours,

and over more than one town.

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 e-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 allows triangular-shaped aircraft

to appear invisible to radar,

sonar and other detection methods.

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.

So, you send out a radio signal, you bounce it off the plane,

you get the signal back and now you detect it by radar.

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

though it's a little bit the material, too,

but it's predominantly the shape.

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 masking technology

attributed to the Illinois flying triangle

and to the craft observed during the Phoenix Lights incident

be a highly advanced version of this same principle?

Some kind of alien stealth?

MICHAEL SALLA: Stealth technology has been developed

to hide some of these spacecraft

to simulate a environment behind the craft.

So this can be done in a way to make a craft disappear.

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that the triangular shape employed by the Phoenix

and Illinois craft and now by the US military

has populated the skies since ancient times.

As proof, they point to evidence

of triangular E.T. surveillance craft in the ancient world

in the form of a symbol often called the "all-seeing eye."

BRUCE FENTON: The triangle with an eye in the center

is commonly used as a depiction of God,

particularly in ancient Egypt, but we also see this

in the Catholic faith, Masonic circles,

we see it on the U.S. dollar bill,

and indeed, you know, in some of the ancient artwork.

Now, could it be because the craft,

which we have reported in the skies,

look like a triangle with a light in the center,

rather like an eye looking down on us?

NARRATOR: Some believe that the eerie similarity

between triangle-shaped UFOs and the U.S. military's

stealth aircraft is no mere coincidence.

Stealth technology traces its roots back

to a single series of papers written by a Soviet physicist.

And this Soviet physicist realized

radar doesn't see the way that the human eye sees.

And so, if you change the shape or composition of an object,

that'll affect how it shows up on radar.

American engineers, when they learned about this,

went back and started experimenting

with how to apply that to an aircraft.

And a lot of their test work was done

at Area 51 and Groom Lake,

which, of course, has just made it a Mecca,

uh, for conspiracy theorists.

And then later, people started to wonder

if there were actually alien technologies there.

NARRATOR: Area 51?

The U.S. Air Force installation in Nevada

long suspected to be hiding alien technology?

Is it possible that the conspiracy theorists are right,

and that the Stealth Bomber is the result

of reverse engineering extraterrestrial craft?

A lot of people say this is actually something

we've developed,

back-engineered from extraterrestrial technology.

This is absolutely quantum-leap 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.

NARRATOR: If the U.S. military

really is in possession of an extraterrestrial craft

that it has successfully deconstructed,

reverse engineered and incorporated

into the latest fighter jets and Stealth Bombers,

could even more astounding technology be in development?

Might we soon have aircraft that can perform

the same type of incredible maneuvers

that have been recorded during encounters with UAPs?

When you're looking at all of the different UFO reports

over the many years with all of the shapes

and types of performance that are noted,

all of these have shown incredible ability to accelerate

from zero to fill in the blank.

DOLAN: We really do struggle to understand

just what it is we're dealing with.

I've looked at UFOs for many years now,

and one thing that I have definitely come to understand

is this phenomenon

represents an order of intelligence

that I don't think we have achieved yet.

Some of these craft

actually appear to change shape,

and that the metals in the craft can somehow rearrange themselves

- into something else? - MAN: Oh!

CHILDRESS: And these craft, in my mind, are also able

to instantly jump to hyperspace...

and go into another dimension,

which would make them just basically disappear.

So, all of these unusual characteristics

have been associated with UFOs,

not just in the last 50 years, but for many centuries.

NARRATOR: From Ezekiel's Wheel,

the Vimana of ancient India

and a 16th-century woodcut depicting a battle in the sky,

to pilot encounters with unexplained lights,

V-shaped craft hovering overhead

and military video of flying objects

performing impossible maneuvers,

could it be that what we now call

"unidentified aerial phenomena" represents an alien presence

that has been with us for thousands of years?

And as humanity continues to make technological

and scientific advances,

are we inching closer to understanding

the true nature of these unexplainable objects?

Perhaps our encounters with UAPs have not happened by chance,

but are intended to propel us forward,

leading humankind towards the day

when we will once again come face-to-face

with our alien ancestors.

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