Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Terrifying interactions

with strange entities.

I couldn't move. I was paralyzed.

I saw these little creatures that scared the hell out of me.

NARRATOR: Disturbing accounts of mysterious implants.

WHITLEY STRIEBER: My ear started hurting.

I reach up and I feel this bump here, on my ear.

Then I thought, oh, my God, it's an implant.

NARRATOR: And a dangerous encounter

with an unidentified craft.

The UFO took control of his plane.

Lifting the plane higher and higher and higher.

NARRATOR: Today, more and more people are coming forward

to report having close encounters with UFOs

and extraterrestrials.

Could this be an indication

of a growing alien presence on Earth?

TSOUKALOS: This idea that an extraterrestrial visitor

could potentially be influencing

the course of the world

is a possibility.

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.

In the first month of the new year,

it is announced that a new spending bill

will require the U.S. Defense Department

to review UFO sightings dating to 1945.

Another major headline involves controversial claims

by a U.S. congressman of a "huge" UFO coverup--

and yet another claims that a UFO

was shot down by the Russian military.

In today's world, UFO reports

are no longer a fringe curiosity,

but part of the daily news cycle.

LINDA MOULTON HOWE: Finally, in the 21st century,

you've got the whole world curious.

Everybody's looking for real UFOs.

Headlines in every newspaper, everywhere.

Every television, every radio, every cell phone.

Things like NASA announces

unidentified aerial phenomena study,

the big headline in The New York Times,

having to do with UFOs doing remarkable demonstrations

in front of military pilots.

It's suddenly respectable

for these topics to be discussed in the open.

The level of official interest,

the level of scientific interest

and media interest is to the point where now

we can look at evidence that's been sitting around

for decades that hasn't been scrutinized.

And finally, it's getting some scrutiny.

It's getting attention.

That is a sea change.

And because of the media interest,

the topic became acceptable for Congress.

There is political cover for them

to go ahead and ask questions.

In May 2022,

there was an unprecedented congressional hearing

from one of the subcommittees

of the House Intelligence Committee.

A lot of it was in public

and some absolutely fascinating

information was disclosed.

I mean, effectively,

this was an admission that the phenomenon was real.

We know that our service members

have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena,

and because UAPs pose potential flight safety

and general security risk,

we are committed to a focused effort

to determine their origins.

RALPH BLUMENTHAL: Here was Congress paying serious attention to it,

that these objects are undoubtedly real.

They're not, uh, figments of the imagination,

they're not hoaxes.

There are objects up there

that are legitimate mysteries.

NARRATOR: Considering the recent explosion of UFO reports,

is it possible that there is, in fact,

an extraterrestrial presence on Earth?

And if so, have there been encounters

not only with strange objects in the sky,

but also with alien entities?

JEREMY CORBELL: Now we're kind of saying, well, UFOs are real,

these craft are real.

The next logical question

is have people engaged entities,

intelligences that operate these craft,

whether it be biological or artificial intelligence,

or some sort of marriage between the two?

NARRATOR: Dr. Travis Taylor,

who was hired as the chief scientist

for the U.S. government's UAP Task Force in 2019,

says that in his experience,

while UFO sightings are no longer scoffed at,

the same cannot be said

for reports of much closer encounters.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: If an F-18 pilot came to you and said,

"We chased a UAP in the sky with our fighter plane

and couldn't catch it,"

you're going to listen to that guy.

But if the same fighter pilot came and said,

"I was flying along in my F-18

"and a UAP came down and abducted me from my cockpit,

"took me off, did something to me,

"and brought me back, and put me right back in my cockpit

as though I'd never been gone,"

you would think he's crazy.

Why?

Why is that any more fantastic

than there being something we can't explain what it is,

that we can't catch with a modern-day fighter plane?

I think each are equally fantastic

and should at least be considered.

NARRATOR: One of the first people to suggest

that reports of close encounters with extraterrestrials

should be taken seriously

was the man who held Travis Taylor's position

more than 60 years prior,

astrophysicist J. Allen Hynek.

In 1952,

Hynek was the scientific consultant

for Project Blue Book,

the U.S. government's first public investigation

into the UFO phenomenon.

According to J. Allen Hynek's son, Paul,

one of the cases his father found most compelling

involved an encounter with alien entities.

My father didn't talk that much about individual cases,

but there were some cases that really stood out to him.

One was the case of Lonnie Zamora

in 1964 in New Mexico.

Lonnie Zamora was a policeman

and he saw some kind of craft in the sky land.

It was an egg-shaped craft.

He saw some humanoids come out.

A fairly brief encounter and they took off.

Lonnie Zamora had not been active in UFOs

or flying saucers before that.

My father thought he was very credible.

And it was the case

that was maybe the straw that broke the camel's back

on my father being more comfortable

talking publicly about abduction cases and humanoids.

NARRATOR: Of the 12,618 sightings

reported to Project Blue Book,

701 were left "unexplained,"

including the case of policeman Lonnie Zamora.

Yet, despite the hundreds of unsolved close encounters,

the government shut down Project Blue Book in 1969.

But not before J. Allen Hynek

made arguably his most famous contribution

to the UFO phenomenon.

HYNEK: My father, being a scientist,

decided that UFOs needed to have a classification system.

So, he came up with the close encounters

of the first, second and third kind.

A close encounter of the first kind

is a visual sighting within 500 feet or so.

A close encounter of the second kind

is where there is some kind of physical evidence.

A sunburned face,

broken tree branches, radar sighting, etcetera.

And a close encounter of the third kind

is where you actually see some type of creature.

NARRATOR: Following the demise of Project Blue Book,

claims of even more bizarre alien encounters

started being reported across the globe,

and two more categories of close encounters

were identified.

A close encounter of the fourth kind

indicates an alien abduction.

And a close encounter of the fifth kind

involves communication and interaction

with an alien entity.

Close encounters of the fifth kind

are essentially human interactions

with extraterrestrials.

It's not just seeing,

it's being a participant in an event.

There is often, for example,

direct communication

either verbal or telepathic.

And this is particularly interesting

because what we get is not just description and perceptions,

but often information,

messages are sometimes given

in this two-way interactive communication.

And that's fascinating because it gives us

perhaps our best insight

into extraterrestrial motivation.

NARRATOR: Accounts of close encounters of the fifth kind

are often regarded as too sensational to be true,

but according to ancient astronaut theorists,

such face-to-face interactions with extraterrestrials

can be found throughout recorded history.

Throughout the history of humankind,

cultures from all continents of the world

described someone descending from the sky

and imparting knowledge.

And instead of attributing

these stories to pure fantasy,

the ancient astronaut theory

proposes that contact between

physical extraterrestrials and our human ancestors

happened face-to-face.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the designation

"close encounters of the fifth kind"

is not merely terminology

for potential alien encounters in the distant future,

but describes interactions

that have been happening on Earth

for thousands of years?

Perhaps clues can be found

by examining claims of such encounters

within the highest levels of the United States government.

NARRATOR: At 5:05 a.m.,

one of a series of nuclear tests

under the umbrella code-named Upshot-Knothole is set off.

Within seconds of the blast,

a disc-shaped object is seen rapidly descending

from the sky headed south toward Las Vegas,

then disappearing into the mountains.

Just two days after this event,

government officials secretly gathered

a team of scientists for a curious assignment:

They were to investigate the crash

of an unidentified flying object

on the outskirts of Kingman, Arizona,

a city 175 miles south

of the nuclear test site.

There were 40 engineers that boarded a bus,

and they took a long three-and-a-half-hour ride

from Phoenix to Kingman.

When they got there, it was nighttime.

There were MPs on all corners of the craft.

It's about a 40-foot diameter disc-shaped craft

that was perfectly intact,

there wasn't a scratch on it.

There were four beings associated with this craft.

And they shipped it to Groom Lake.

RICHARD DOLAN: Groom Lake is the Area 51 region in Nevada.

When Area 51 was just bare bones,

they took the craft and the aliens

out to that location in the middle of the Nevada desert

because it was so remote,

and around that they built Area 51.

NARRATOR: Hidden within a ring of mountains

deep in the Nevada desert,

Area 51 is a top secret military installation

that has long been rumored to hold evidence

of alien technology.

And there are even stories

that a special facility at Area 51

once held a survivor

of the 1953 Kingman UFO crash,

an alien entity known as "J-Rod."

DENNETT: J-Rod is an alien who allegedly worked at Area 51

over a period of years.

And it was J-Rod's mission, or duty,

to help reverse engineer

technology that was apparently

from the 1953 Kingman UFO crash.

J-Rod was one of the crash survivors

and worked directly with our own government.

NARRATOR: Captain Bill Uhouse,

a former Navy pilot

who later worked for the U.S. Air Force

performing experimental testing on aircraft,

was assigned to Area 51 in the mid-1960s.

And he claims that he not only studied the craft

that allegedly crashed in Kingman, Arizona,

but also had direct contact

with J-Rod.

We had a long period of introduction into meeting,

you know, an alien.

And I-I called him J-Rod.

That's the name that the linguists gave him.

And he talked, he would talk, but...

he'd sound just like if you spoke,

he'd sound like you.

You know, he's like one of these, a parrot.

(chuckles)

But he'd try and answer your question, you know.

Basically, it was only engineering advice

or science advice.

DENNETT: There's also another whistleblower

by the name of Dan Burish.

And Dan Burish said that he was hired

as a microbiologist

to basically care for J-Rod,

ensuring that he remained healthy.

And, uh, this went on for years and years and years.

NARRATOR: According to Dan Burish and Bill Uhouse,

J-Rod was housed in a special underground chamber at Area 51.

And there have been numerous other accounts

of extraterrestrials working with

the United States government.

ALEJANDRO ROJAS: There's a lot of stories

that we've worked with the aliens at Area 51.

Or, uh, some say at a base nearby,

kind of in the desert out there.

And we've been working with them in underground labs.

And they had been sharing information

for us to enhance our technologies.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the United States government

has met with, and worked with,

entities like J-Rod and other alien visitors

since at least the 1950s?

According to UFO researchers,

there is evidence that extraterrestrials

have not only been held at secret military bases,

but have even met face-to-face

with the Commander in Chief

inside the walls of the Pentagon.

One of the most detailed accounts

of a presidential close encounter

is the story of an otherworldly visitor

named Valiant Thor.

DENNETT: The story of Valiant Thor

comes from a gentleman by the name of Frank Stranges,

who's a chaplain, and apparently held

a top secret clearance.

As the story goes,

in 1957,

a UFO landed in Virginia

very close to Washington, D.C.

(siren wailing)

Police officers were called to the scene,

and out stepped a human-looking gentleman

who wanted to visit with then-President Eisenhower.

He was taken directly to the Pentagon.

And was able to arrange a meeting

with President Eisenhower.

In this meeting, he basically stated

that he was very much concerned

about our use of nuclear weapons.

POPE: Just as another country

would post an ambassador to the United States,

t-the theory was that Valiant Thor

was the ambassador from the extraterrestrials.

And he was from time to time

advising President Eisenhower

and the U.S. government on policy issues.

This idea that an actual,

physical extraterrestrial visitor

could potentially be influencing

the course of the world

is a possibility.

I am sure there's envoys out there

that do the same thing,

not just on a planet,

but in entire planetary systems.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the United States

has had diplomatic relations with otherworldly beings?

Frank Stranges claimed that Valiant Thor

came to Earth to warn President Eisenhower

about the dangers of nuclear proliferation.

Many researchers also believe

that the reported 1953 UFO crash in Kingman, Arizona

was caused by a nuclear test.

And perhaps not coincidentally,

the number of modern-day UFO sightings

increased exponentially after World War II.

DENNETT: In the late 1940s, 1947 in particular,

was absolutely undeniable

that something was going on.

This is when we started first exploding nuclear bombs,

and in 1947, there was a huge super wave

of UFO sightings

which swept across the United States and the world.

And this was not one or two sightings.

This was hundreds upon hundreds.

DOLAN: You've got claim after claim of people

from the 1950s onward,

some of them say, "I met these human-looking beings,

uh, who said they were from another planet."

And they-they have said to us,

uh, your nuclear technology is dangerous.

Uh, y-you need to be more peaceful.

NARRATOR: There have also been a high number of UFO sightings

at nuclear weapons facilities,

including the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state,

Vandenberg Air Force Base in California,

Kapustin Yar in Russia

and the Malmstrom nuclear missile facility

in Montana.

CHILDRESS: There's tremendous amount of conflict here on planet Earth.

And that would be one reason why the extraterrestrials

would want to contact leaders

from around the world to try to stop

some terrible nuclear war from happening.

NARRATOR: Could it be that extraterrestrials

who have been monitoring Earth for thousands of years

have approached world leaders

to deter them from nuclear proliferation?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and they contend that such encounters don't just happen

to prominent political figures.

They happen to people

from all walks of life.

NARRATOR: Pasadena, California.

June 16, 2018.

Thousands of people from all over the world

gather for Alien Con,

a three-day event to discuss and explore the possibility

that intelligent life exists beyond our planet,

and may have visited Earth in the distant past.

It's one thing for people to say

that not only have they seen a UFO

but they've had an experience, a contact.

NARRATOR: During one panel

led by former Ministry of Defence investigator Nick Pope,

a group of experts talk about a significant

and controversial subject:

alien abductions.

Looking out at all of you,

one of the things that we would like to know is

how many of you have had

an experience that you think

might involve having been abducted?

Can you all put your hands up

who think that you have been?

POPE: Wow, that's a lot of people.

If anyone feels comfortable

about coming up to the microphone,

we would love to hear your stories.

So, uh, please, yeah.

My name's Alice Green and, um, 40 years ago,

uh, when I was 15, I, um, had an abduction experience.

There was a huge spaceship over my house,

and, uh, one minute I'm in my bed

and the next minute, I'm up in the spaceship.

I wanted to call it a dream

because I didn't want to call it an abduction experience

for a long time.

I started having one of those experiences,

out of body, but not just in the vicinity.

I kind of started entering the space realm,

and I just kept going,

and it just got scarier and scarier for me.

I didn't know what was going on.

The alien that I spoke to was about to my shoulder,

maybe four and a half feet tall,

and he had three fingers.

He was like your typical gray alien

and I had several encounters

over the course of the next couple years.

I never wanted to tell anybody because I thought

my friends and family would think I was crazy.

NARRATOR: Millions of people?

Taken by extraterrestrial beings?

If alien abductions are happening,

as experiencers at this panel

and many other alleged abductees claim,

what evidence is there to support their stories?

As the number of recorded abduction cases

has increased over the last several decades,

experts in a variety of fields

have worked to find this evidence.

In 1991, my colleague Budd Hopkins and I

got funding for a national poll

about the abduction phenomenon

through the Roper Organization.

We found that at least two percent of the American public

and at most perhaps even five percent of the American public,

were abductees.

Even with two percent,

we're dealing with an enormous number of people

who have been abducted throughout the world.

Of course, when people from the outside

look at the abduction phenomenon,

they think that this is just neurological.

I wish that was the case.

That would be wonderful if that were the case.

I can say from having interviewed now

about 1,600 people in the abduction syndrome

there are common denominators.

I would say the vast majority

don't know details.

They just remember pieces.

They might remember, "I saw these eyes,

and they were big and black and slanted."

They will hear either a buzzing sound,

or there might be a clicking.

Or in the room there might be like

a little orb of light, or several orbs of light.

They won't be able to move.

And the paralysis is always described the same way.

They can move their eyes, they can see.

They can't move their head.

They will say they see their bedroom wall just disappear.

Or they are taken right through the wall.

Or they're taken through a window.

Or they are taken through the ceiling.

And then a hundred percent of people,

their next consciousness is waking up,

often the sun is up,

and they know something's happened,

but they don't know what.

JOE MONTALDO: When you start adding it up across 40,000, 50,000 cases,

the number one piece of compelling evidence

is the credibility of the individual.

We have doctors, lawyers, politicians.

So, these are people who have a lot a stake

if they were to say, "Hey, I've been abducted

by an alien," or something like this.

So, you have to take those people seriously.

There are really only two possibilities here.

Either we're dealing with a mass delusion

on an unprecedented scale,

or what these people are saying

is actually literally happening

in a physical sense

and these alien abductions are real.

NARRATOR: But if millions of people

have been abducted by extraterrestrials--

or even a fraction of that number--

what could be the reason behind it?

And why now?

While what we call "alien abductions"

may only have been reported in modern times,

ancient astronaut theorists claim

there is evidence that this phenomenon

has been happening for thousands of years.

In ancient biblical texts

and also in other textual references,

we have accounts of people

ascending and descending from and to the sky

with fiery chariots and flying type of craft.

And that to me indicates

that what these accounts refer to

are similar to modern-day abductions.

Those accounts are eyewitness accounts.

They're not told in the third person

but it's actually "I, Ezekiel, witnessed."

"I, Enoch, witnessed."

"I, Abraham, did this."

"I walk through there."

Also, in ancient China

and also in ancient Egypt

are there stories of people

having been visited or having gone up to the sky

to visit with the so-called "gods."

What better way to describe an extraterrestrial encounter?

So today we call it an alien abduction.

In previous centuries,

it was called by different names.

But we recognize from the experience

that they are identical.

And therefore it adds validity

to this not being a modern myth,

but a very ancient problem.

Why today, then, is it such an important issue?

It very well may be that we did not recognize in the past

how widespread these experiences were.

Or it could be

that there is a stepping up of the agenda

and that the experience is spreading greater,

farther and wider than it was in the past.

NARRATOR: Could these extraordinary accounts,

both past and present,

be describing an ongoing program

of human abduction

in spite of the skepticism

with which they are viewed by the public?

And is there a "smoking gun"

that will finally establish

that this phenomenon is real,

and still underway?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining unsettling UFO encounters

reported in our skies.

NARRATOR: Zihuantanejo, Mexico.

May 3rd, 1975.

After dropping off passengers at this seaport town

on the Pacific coast,

pilot Carlos de Los Santos

embarks on a return trip to Mexico City

in his Piper PA-24 Comanche.

The weather conditions are clear

and visibility is good

as De Los Santos cruises at 10,000 feet.

One hour into the flight,

he witnesses something unusual...

...a gray, wingless object

off the left side of his plane.

DOLAN: As he approaches Mexico City,

he notices basically a small flying saucer

just above his left wing.

It's not as large as his aircraft,

but he's flying a fairly small aircraft.

And he's like, what is this?

And then he looks over to his right

and he sees another one.

And then he looks ahead of them,

and there's one coming at him.

It goes below his aircraft.

And he feels a bump under his aircraft.

And he's scared out of his mind.

Anyone would be.

He then realizes that he's not

really in control of his aircraft.

His aircraft is moving in a way

that seems to respond to these objects, not to him.

He goes to move the yoke,

and the yoke is moving on itself.

The plane starts climbing to 3,000 meters.

That's the ceiling of the Piper.

If it climbs any further,

it will stall out.

He will lose control.

The plane will fall out of the sky.

DOLAN: He's actually becoming afraid

because his cabin's not pressurized.

You get to a certain altitude,

he's gonna have a hard time breathing.

BIRNES: The theory is that the UFO

that came under the plane

took control of his plane

and the UFO's own magnetic envelope

is lifting the plane higher and higher and higher.

De Los Santos is in a panic.

He's giving mayday calls.

DOLAN: He's telling them,

there are these unidentified objects at my wingtips,

and below me and I don't know what to do.

NARRATOR: As the private plane races towards a mountainous area,

the three UAPs disengage from Carlos's plane

and veer off toward the Mount Popocat�petl volcano

at lightning speed.

As the objects disappear from sight,

Carlos regains control of the plane.

But he quickly realizes his ordeal isn't over.

DOLAN: He can't initiate his landing gear

because of the impact that one of these objects

made on his aircraft.

He has to circle around the airport,

uh, about ten times.

And he uses a screwdriver to push the lever

to get his landing gear to come down.

And he successfully lands his aircraft.

It's kind of an amazing thing there.

So, he lands his aircraft,

and the story doesn't end here.

Now, he would've had his whole career,

reputation ruined probably with this,

except for the fact that Mexican air traffic control

tracked these objects also.

And this came out to support him.

This story became a huge news story in Mexico.

Didn't really make much impact in the United States,

but it was a very big story in Mexico.

NARRATOR: Years later, De Los Santos

revealed that in the aftermath of the event,

he was twice approached by mysterious figures

warning him not to speak about his experience.

The first occasion was just before

he was scheduled to be interviewed

by a Mexican television station.

The second happened when De Los Santos

was set to meet with the famous UFO investigator

J. Allen Hynek.

Hynek was into the case.

A lot of people were following this case.

And just before he was going to meet

with Hynek at some hotel,

he gets another encounter from, um,

one of these men in black,

these tall, pasty, white-skinned guys

who warned him, "Don't talk about this."

He was threatened.

And he did actually stop talking about this

for a little while after that.

But as time went by, he-he's talked about it.

It's just one of the most incredible aviation UAP stories

that you're ever gonna hear and he got out of it alive.

NARRATOR: Pilot Carlos de Los Santos

ultimately emerged

from his harrowing midair encounter unscathed

but similar confrontations

between civilian planes and UFOs

have led to tragic consequences,

including injuries, crashes

and even loss of life.

The National UFO Reporting Center, or NUFORC,

has counted at least 100 cases in the U.S.

where flight safety was impaired

because of close calls with unidentified aerial phenomena.

And in at least one incident,

it appears a collision with a UFO

caused fatal results.

Former NYPD pilot and flight instructor Thomas Preziose

departs from Mobile Downtown Airport,

piloting a single-engine Cessna

with the callsign Night Ship 282.

The story of Night Ship 282 is quite alarming.

A Hollywood scriptwriter couldn't come up with this one.

We have a NYPD pilot, a freight hauler,

very experienced flight instructor,

hauling documents from Mobile, Alabama

up north to Montgomery.

Routine flight.

NARRATOR: Due to poor visibility,

Preziose was flying by his instruments.

Just one minute into the flight,

he spotted something in the distance

and immediately radioed air traffic control.

MIKE RICKSECKER: He saw what looked like another plane in the sky.

He was just confirming

that that was another plane up there.

And then all of a sudden, he's alarmed.

He's panicked. Something is coming at him.

BIRNES: This pilot sees an object in front of him

on a collision course with his plane.

What does he do?

He radios a request for permission to deviate.

I must deviate, I must deviate, he says over the radio.

He deviates.

Silence.

The transmission goes dead.

NARRATOR: Five minutes after takeoff,

Night Ship 282 crashes into Big Bateau Bay.

Tragically, Thomas Preziose is killed on impact.

When investigators

from the National Transportation Safety Board,

or NTSB, arrive at the scene,

they discover parts of the Cessna

scattered over an area of nearly 200 yards.

The plane is not just demolished,

it's almost vaporized.

Something obviously hit the plane.

The props are damaged, the wings are damaged,

the fuselage is damaged.

Wholesale damage inside the mechanics of the airplane.

HENRY: It becomes apparent he has collided

with something in midair.

NARRATOR: A midair collision of such extreme force

would naturally send two wrecks

spiraling to the ground.

But an extensive search of the area

produced only one aircraft.

DOLAN: No other wreckage was ever found.

No other craft which would've presumably done this.

The most bizarre thing about this

is that there are these strange red markings

all over parts of the aircraft.

These red markings have not been identified,

as far as I can tell.

And they're in a variety of places of the aircraft.

The NTSB suggested that whatever it hit

was this color red or had this red coating on it.

And when it hit, it rubbed off on this guy's craft.

They also found pieces of metal

in the wings that didn't belong to the plane.

Various pieces of metal

were imbedded in the crashed plane

that weren't part of that plane.

So, something metal, something red.

But at the end of the day, a mystery.

GARY HESELTINE: Clearly, this is one of the rare occasions

where there was a collision that obliterated a plane,

killed the pilot.

And the FAA, the aviation authorities

and investigations that followed

could not explain it

and to this day cannot explain it.

CHILDRESS: You have to wonder if this incident,

which caused the death of the pilot,

wasn't also some extraterrestrial incident

where perhaps a flying saucer or other craft

hit this plane or the plane itself hit the craft.

NARRATOR: For UFO researchers,

the tragic case of Thomas Preziose

underscores the potential threat

unidentified flying craft could pose to humans.

And they suggest that there are even darker--

and far more disconcerting-- aspects to some

extraterrestrial close encounters.

NARRATOR: Desert Center, California.

November 20, 1952.

Photographer and amateur astronomer George Adamski

is hiking with friends

along the rocky sands of the Colorado Desert

when he sees a large saucer-shaped craft in the sky.

According to Adamski, a voice from the spaceship

speaks to him,

telling him to walk off the main road.

Allegedly, uh, the four of them saw a craft,

uh, land farther out in the desert.

George Adamski, by himself,

then walked over this hill and to the craft

where he claimed he met with an extraterrestrial.

That extraterrestrial invited, uh,

Adamski ultimately to go on one of the craft at some point.

HENRY: He claimed they took him in a spaceship

out into space and toured other planets.

And along the way, he is educated or schooled

by a thousand-year-old being he refers to as the master.

POPE: He believed that they were

enlightened, advanced beings

who were keeping an eye on our development

and were concerned

about some of the turns

that the human journey had taken.

Um, pollution of the environment,

development of nuclear weapons,

and so Adamski then went on

to spread his message around the world

because he felt that this was a mission for him.

CHILDRESS: Adamski wrote a number of books about this.

And his photos are still famous photos

that he took of cylindrical cigar-shaped ships

and of flying saucers.

He actually traveled around the world

as a special ambassador.

He even met with the queen of Holland

and other world leaders.

He was greeted often as some kind of ambassador

from the extraterrestrials.

Most of these contactees will say

they're lectured to in some fashion

about technology and their place in the universe.

It's a message that they're given

to take to other people.

NARRATOR: Do extraterrestrials select certain people

to deliver information to humanity?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest there may even be physical evidence to prove it.

Ulster County, New York.

December 26, 1985.

Best-selling author Whitley Strieber

is celebrating Christmas with his wife and young son

at their cabin.

In the middle of the night,

he is awoken by a disturbing feeling.

I felt that there was something around me.

In other words, there was movement

that shouldn't have been there.

And I opened my eyes

and I saw these big, black eyes staring at me.

And I had no idea where I was.

It was a little round room.

- And I began to scream. - (echoing scream)

This automatic voice turned on saying,

"What can we do to help you stop screaming?"

There were these other figures,

dark blue little figures darting around,

and they assaulted me, basically.

It was not easy. It was a very terrifying experience.

NARRATOR: To process the traumatic event,

Whitley wrote about his close encounter,

which became the basis of his best-selling memoir, Communion.

He hoped the experience was behind him,

but in May of 1989,

Whitley had another strange nocturnal encounter.

STRIEBER: I'm on my side, on my right side.

And there's a hand pressing down on my left temple,

pressing it into the pillow in like waves, like this.

And I can't struggle, I can't move a muscle,

I can't see anything.

I am completely immobilized.

After a few seconds, that ends.

And I think, was it a dream?

Then, the next day or the day after,

my ear started hurting.

I reach up and I feel this bump here on my ear.

And I thought, oh, my God, it's an implant.

WOMAN: Ooh, look at that white thing.

STRIEBER: There was an attempt to remove it.

It failed because the implant went from here,

right down into here, on its own.

STRIEBER: And the doctor pulled out.

Two days later, it went from my ear lobe

back up to where it is to this day.

NARRATOR: Could extraterrestrials have really implanted

some kind of device inside Whitley Strieber's ear?

And if so, why?

According to Whitley, whatever the implant is,

it has had a profound effect on him.

In 2015, I noticed a slit opened up in my right eye.

And you could see words racing through it.

But they were like someone was typing very quickly and racing.

And it had something to do with my writing.

Because at the same time,

my ability to do research

changed dramatically and weirdly.

I found that if I just thought about something I needed,

no matter how obscure,

one way or another, it would come to me.

NARRATOR: Since receiving the alleged implant,

Strieber claims to have had regular interaction

with otherworldly beings.

The visitors are a part of my life now, very much so.

Uh, I don't think I would be comfortable working

without knowing that there was using the implant,

that there was a connection.

Now, what do they want from us?

That is a very big unanswered question.

KNAPP: Humans have been interacting with these beings,

wherever they're from, for eons, throughout human history.

I think that, uh, this intelligence,

instead of revealing itself on a global scale,

they've been engaging with people one on one.

Maybe they put us on the path where we are now.

Don't know.

They seem to have an ongoing interest in us.

They take direct involvement with certain bloodlines

and certain people.

And the dramatic transformations that have taken place

after people have had these claimed contacts

is very real.

NARRATOR: If close encounters of the fifth kind

are, in fact, taking place,

are alien entities making contact for our benefit...

or for theirs?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining evidence that aliens

have been altering human biology

and not just for generations,

but for thousands of years.

NARRATOR: Lancaster, New Hampshire.

September 19, 1961.

Betty and Barney Hill are driving late at night

when a large flying saucer intercepts them

and hovers over their car.

Above them, the Hills observe

otherworldly figures in the windows of the craft.

Days later, the couple reports missing time,

and after participating in hypnotic regression,

they claim to realize that they were abducted

by extraterrestrials.

In the decades that follow, the Betty and Barney Hill case

becomes the most well-known and investigated

abduction encounter in modern history.

But, according to Betty and Barney's descendants,

the incident in Lancaster is only one part

of a much larger story,

a story that actually began three years prior

with an incident involving Betty's sister.

Betty Hill was my aunt, my mother's sister.

Something that we have never revealed before

is that my mother had a close encounter in 1958.

She saw this huge cigar-shaped craft

hovering over a field.

She had no explanation for what had happened,

as far as she knew.

She had gone shopping, and she had driven home.

My mother eventually underwent hypnosis, and,

through hypnosis, she recalled

having been abducted as well.

And I also had this uncanny sort of dreamlike experience

of being taken to a craft.

It bothered me for many, many years.

Eventually, I did talk to my family about it,

and that's when I found out that my mother had the same memory.

NARRATOR: Could it be that extraterrestrial beings

are abducting, not only individuals,

but also families?

And if so, why?

The abduction phenomenon is intergenerational.

When a man and a woman marry, and either the man or the woman

is an abductee, their children will be abductees.

POPE: It seems that specific bloodlines are involved here,

and if that's the case,

it raises the intriguing possibility

that the extraterrestrials are interested in human biology,

that they are monitoring specific genetic lines

for some purpose.

NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists

and UFO researchers, the notion

that extraterrestrials are conducting experiments

involving human biology is not a new one.

Many believe the practice has been going on

for thousands of years.

TZADOK: Maybe there's some truth to these entities,

which we call shedim.

These are old legends

of people who are abducted,

sexually seduced,

and some taken away.

And when we hear today about the numerous stories

of alien abductions throughout history, they are identical.

NARRATOR: For proof that their theories

about the biological nature of alien abductions are valid,

researchers point to the fact that a relatively high number

of abductees-- more than 60%--

have an extraordinarily rare blood type,

Rh negative.

The subject kept coming up from the abductees,

"I'm Rh negative.

Could it have anything to do with why I'm being abducted?"

I got to collaborate with a doctor,

Dr. John Altshuler,

and he did pathology, he did blood work.

And he gave the conclusion that Rh negative blood

might actually be a genetic data point

about why humans could be hybrids.

That every Rh negative

would be coming from a history of abductions.

MONTALDO: Rh negative is a very peculiar thing.

First off, it didn't exist until 35,000 years ago.

It may have been that, 35,000 years ago,

E.T. introduced this into our society

through whatever breeding programs they've been running.

The ancient astronaut theory suggests

that, for thousands of years,

extraterrestrials meddled with our DNA.

There was a time when we were Homo sapiens,

and then we became Homo sapien sapiens.

And that happened within only 50,000 years,

which, by Darwinian evolutionary standards,

is too short of a timespan for that to happen.

Our brain volume increased by up to 30%

in 50,000 years, which is absolutely crazy.

Now, the reason why I think that modern-day abductions occur

is because maybe we are still being manipulated

with our DNA from extraterrestrials

in order to turn us from Homo sapien sapiens

into Homo sapiens sapiens sapiens.

NARRATOR: Pasadena, California,

June 16, 2018.

Throughout a discussion about alien abductions

during a panel at AlienCon,

both the panelists and members of the audience remark

on how difficult but also important it is

to speak out about abductions.

I hesitated coming up here for a couple reasons.

Um...

(sighs) Every topic that you guys have mentioned

has connected dots, actively, right now today.

As far as lineage, as far as bloodline,

as far as family, so generational,

my mom, um, myself, my daughter.

I had night terrors as a child,

missing time as a child, throughout my life.

I literally have short-term memory deficits

and specific things,

real spontaneous phenomenon that ultimately touches

on everything that you guys are talking about.

Thank you very much. These hardly ever seem

to be one-off experiences.

Thank you for sharing your story.

I'd like to say, uh, I applaud you guys

for your courage to come forward

in front of all these people and share your story.

I'm blown away by the amount of people

that, uh, show up at this panel.

And when I see this kind of, uh, support,

it's very encouraging, and I think that's very important

to bringing this phenomenon out into the light

where it needs to be because a lot of answers

lie with the experiencers.

So I just thank you for that.

Coming forward to admit

that you've had some type of a close encounter,

whether it is seeing something,

or maybe you've been abducted,

that is a very difficult thing to admit.

And that is why I think

we really should look at all the other pieces of evidence,

abduction cases, or close encounters,

and say, "Okay, what if?"

I'm happy today that I'm finally able to say

it's not only real, it's happening.

Hearing those stories is of help

to any of you out there who have had these strange experiences.

And you are not alone with this, as you can see.

So, thank you to you,

and thank you to my fellow panelists.

When you look at the vast body of data that we have

on this phenomenon, it's difficult to avoid

the conclusion that something's going on here.

Why should we, therefore, cast away the stories

of the abductees just because we may feel a little uncomfortable

with the place that takes us?

NARRATOR: While many contactees are reluctant

to share the details of their encounters,

there are thousands of these cases

that have been investigated and meticulously chronicled

by an organization that has been collecting

eyewitness accounts of UFO and alien contact

for decades.

NARRATOR: Thousands descend on the Mile-High City

to attend the 53rd International Symposium on UFOs.

We had a similar case out of South Carolina last year.

NARRATOR: At this annual conference,

researchers from around the world

gather to share and examine the latest developments

in the study of UFOs.

One resident claimed to have compiled a list

of 110 persons

who had witnessed flying objects

out of this small town of only 2,000.

NARRATOR: And it is hosted by an organization

with the most highly trained UFO investigators in the world,

MUFON.

MUFON is the acronym for the Mutual UFO Network.

It's the largest UFO investigation organization

in the world, and its mission statement

is the scientific study of UFOs

for the benefit of mankind.

RON JAMES: MUFON is a all-volunteer organization

that's grown to well over 4,000 members worldwide

of field investigators and

people that want to participate in the quest for the truth.

At the core of MUFON is an investigative body

that exists to go out and investigate sightings

that are worthy of investigation and compile our database.

But over the years, MUFON has grown into so much more.

We offer kind of a community for people

that care about the topic.

POPE: MUFON is the coming together

of people who are not just interested in UFOs

but want to do something about it.

They want to investigate the cases.

So it's like this huge network

of like-minded people all around the United States

and indeed the world

brought together by their shared passion

for the subject and their shared interest in it.

HURD: I became involved after having been present

for the Phoenix Lights incident

here in Phoenix, Arizona in 1997.

My interest was captured.

I first joined up with MUFON after a trip to Roswell

with the family in 2019,

and it got me interested in it.

I had heard of MUFON before, but I didn't think,

being a nurse, if I would be useful,

but I called the headquarters

to see about just attending meetings, and

I became an investigator, and I've loved it ever since.

RODERICK MARTIN: I was 12 years old when I saw my first UFO.

I was outside, and then I lived in Dallas, Texas.

I saw this little white disk,

uh, kind of just zig-zagging.

So imagine that seared into you as a young kid.

As the years rolled by, I noticed that there was

an organization called MUFON, Mutual UFO Network.

Then I found their website.

Wait a minute, you can get behind the scenes.

You can become an investigator.

And so I said, "You know what? This is what I'm going to do."

NARRATOR: Having now existed as an organization

for more than five decades,

MUFON's mission is to objectively investigate

the hundreds of eyewitness accounts

of UFOs and other aerial phenomena

that are reported every year across the globe.

BLUMENTHAL: MUFON started in the '60s

as an association of private citizens

who trained themselves to ask questions, to go to

scenes where people had reported UFOs.

To question people, they developed a whole protocol.

They had a very sophisticated methodology that they used

to document these things,

and they kept records.

NARRATOR: Started in Quincy, Illinois,

MUFON originally stood for the Midwest UFO Network,

but by 1973,

the organization had so many members across the country,

its name was changed to the Mutual UFO Network.

The group remained relatively obscure, however,

until 1980, when it played a key role

in a sensational UFO case called the Cash-Landrum incident.

JAMES: Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum are driving through Texas

when they encounter this giant diamond-shaped object...

...hovering and spewing out blue flame from the bottom.

They stopped the car to investigate.

The local environment is actually being heated

by this object to the point where

they try to touch their car

and it's hot to the touch.

And then what happens is, they notice that there's

an army of helicopters, Chinook helicopters,

seeming to escort this object.

LANDRUM: This is Vickie Landrum from Dayton, Texas.

Now, what makes this unique is that, when they get home,

after a couple of days, they start to show symptoms

of being exposed to ionized radiation.

CHILDRESS: The women all had their hair fall out,

they developed cancer,

and they blamed the U.S. government for this.

And this then became a very well-known court case,

where they were suing

the U.S. government, essentially.

This was reported in major newspapers

all over the United States. They couldn't ignore this story.

POPE: MUFON investigators got the witness statements,

gathered the evidence,

including things like medical records,

which were central to the legal case.

And although the witnesses didn't win their case,

what's important was that that gets it on the record.

Without MUFON,

it's unlikely that it would have gone to court.

JAMES: It helped MUFON come to the forefront.

It gave us credibility as a group.

And it was a really establishing moment for MUFON.

You can click on this, and you can click on your state

and see if your case is coming up due soon.

NARRATOR: 40 UFO researchers

have arrived in this small desert community

for the annual MUFON Investigator Boot Camp.

This intense, three-day conference

offers hands-on training in techniques used to investigate

cases of reported extraterrestrial visitations.

Stay with your group.

We have five sites.

You guys are gonna go to the sites,

and you're going to find stuff,

tag it, bag it,

and you're gonna submit it.

MUFON strives to train up their field investigators

to know photo and video analysis.

We're expected to know how to read astronomical charts.

We're expected to know how to look at flight radar returns,

and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

POPE: One of the strengths of MUFON

is that it brings together people

with different skill sets.

So, for example, some of them will be, uh, retired cops,

also people who specialize in imagery analysis.

There are other people who know all about computers.

So all the different things

that an organization investigating UFOs might need,

someone's gonna have that skill set.

TSOUKALOS: MUFON has many members from the military,

from the police force,

lawyers, PhDs, doctors.

Those are highly, highly educated people.

So it's serious work that these investigators are doing.

POPE: MUFON is not an organization

of wide-eyed believers.

These are not people who think everything's an alien spaceship.

MUFON gets thousands of cases,

and they investigate, they analyze, and they conclude.

And MUFON pride themselves on trying to adhere

to the scientific method.

TSUOKALOS: The UFO phenomenon

goes back, in my opinion, thousands of years.

The day when it becomes accepted knowledge globally

that we are not alone and never have been alone on Earth,

I think that MUFON will be part of this paradigm shift.

NARRATOR: For MUFON investigators,

determining the source of an encounter

is key to identifying what is truly unexplained.

And while the organization has amassed a large inventory

of reports, there are a few that stand out as astonishing.

One of the most compelling

involves multiple witnesses who saw not only a craft

but also alien visitors.

NARRATOR: A man named Randy Young

has come forward to report a UFO encounter

that happened almost 50 years earlier in 1975.

The story begins when he was ten years old

at the Miracle Mountains Boarding School

in Hartshorne, Oklahoma.

YOUNG: Miracle Mountain was kind of out in the boonies of Oklahoma.

That day, my brother and I were out in the sandbox, and

we saw this circular, uh, shining light

that was probably 2,000 or so feet up in the air.

And it didn't have the movements

of an airplane, it was just hovering.

And as it got darker, this craft got closer.

It had lights that went through the midsection

all the way around, and it had this classic,

um, saucer-type shape.

NARRATOR: For decades, Randy and his brother

kept their extraordinary encounter to themselves

for fear of how it would be received.

You didn't want people thinking that you're crazy,

you didn't want to ruin your reputation,

but in the back of my mind, that story was always there,

and with all that has been going on with, um, the government,

the military jets that are, you know, tracking these things,

and there's been a lot more talk about it recently,

I'm like, "Okay, if they're talking this big at this level,

they got to hear this story."

They need to know about what had happened in Hartshorne

in 1975, and so I contacted MUFON.

NARRATOR: The report reached the desk of Mindy Tautfest,

the Oklahoma state MUFON director.

TAUTFEST: Randy filed an official report through mufon.com,

and I immediately knew, after reading it, that this case

could be a very, very important case to all of UFO history.

I first reached out to Randy and interviewed him.

The next person I spoke to was Philip Buchanan.

Philip was one of the older children

at the school at the time.

And so he has one of the more complete memories

of what transpired there and the operations of the school itself.

And then I spoke with the teacher via email.

And the teacher described that some of the kids

were hiding under the beds

because they were very terrified,

and some of the kids were looking out the window.

They reported to see shapeshifting entities

out there.

They just said, "It keeps changing."

What Mindy found out, after doing all that work,

is that these kids were recalling the exact same thing.

As these witnesses were telling their stories years later,

one of the things Mindy asked them to do

was to actually draw the UFO that they'd seen.

And the consistency is amazing.

And not only are they telling the same story,

but they're describing the same craft.

It shows us that these old historic cases

still have something to offer.

YOUNG: I think that, um, we need an organization like MUFON.

I think we need to have a database for all these

different incidents, and I think that we need to have, um,

as many eyes and as many investigators

on this as possible.

We need to figure out what's going on.

TAUTFEST: There's been a lot of excitement around this story

because there were a lot of things

that corroborated each other.

We find value in all UFO reports.

And some of the older ones

serve to validate some other sightings

that may be in our database.

And so the older historic cases really have a lot of value

whenever it comes to ufology.

TSOUKALOS: This cold case is one of the most fascinating cases

that MUFON's ever investigated

because students--

they had not spoken to each other since 1975

and they all replied with the same answers.

Which indicates that something happened

and everybody saw the same thing.

NARRATOR: Each year, the Mutual UFO Network

receives approximately 10,000 reports of UFO phenomena.

While most involve sightings of strange objects in the sky,

in some cases the witness claims

to have come face-to-face with an alien entity.

A lot of people that approach MUFON

have these stories of having these personal encounters

with entities that they can't explain.

But what we found over the years

is that there is serious validity

to this phenomenon.

MARDEN: We receive up to 150 reports per month

from the people who believe that they have had

a missing time event,

they've had a close encounter with a craft,

sometimes observed nonhuman entities.

And we've worked with members of the military,

we've worked with medical doctors,

we've worked with business owners--

credible people who have a lot to lose.

NARRATOR: One such encounter reported to MUFON

was made by trauma nurse Earl Grey Anderson in 2016,

just weeks after he had joined MUFON as a field investigator.

Earl was at his home in Los Angeles

when his room was suddenly illuminated

by a mysterious light.

Our room started filling with light.

And it was a light with no source.

It wasn't coming from an object or a lamp or outside.

And the wall opened up.

I couldn't move.

I was paralyzed.

And that was when I first started feeling afraid.

I saw these little diminutive creatures.

You would call them the-the small Greys.

It was almost like watching a surgical team work.

There were these tubes that they attached

to the top of my chest,

and I felt like they were draining blood or-or energy,

- life force from me. - (distorted screaming)

I was yelling in my mind,

and I was crying out for them to stop.

But they were not listening to me.

They pulled backwards, out the same way they came in.

The wall, like, seemed to swirl,

almost like a little galaxy in the room.

And it was back to normal,

except there was still light in our room.

The light didn't fade for a good five minutes with no source.

After the experience,

I didn't tell friends and-and family.

I mean, you're gonna feel skepticism

if somebody says that, you know...

that you just became a field investigator,

and I'm suddenly saying that I was visited by E.T.s.

But it scared the hell out of me.

NARRATOR: Earl eventually reached out

to MUFON's Experiencer Resource Team.

And after sharing his encounter,

he decided to become a member of the ERT himself.

ANDERSON: It was very, very helpful to have someone to listen.

And-and that's what I find

in my own dealings with experiencers now.

The ERT is MUFON's--

it's-it's like the compassionate wing of MUFON.

Like social workers for experiencers.

NARRATOR: By working closely with individuals

who claim to have been abducted,

MUFON has compiled a wide range of data

on the experiencer phenomenon.

TAUTFEST: The data that we collect is pretty interesting.

And we try to find patterns.

It's really kind of astounding,

whenever you break it down

and look at the different commonalities

between these different sightings or abductions.

MARDEN: We used to think that abduction occurred only once.

But after years of research,

we've realized that individuals are taken multiple times

over a lifetime.

We are gaining a better understanding

of what is occurring.

NARRATOR: With the volume of empirical data

that has been collected over the years

related to mysterious sightings and reported encounters,

is it possible that extraterrestrial contact is,

in fact, taking place?

And if so,

are alien entities here for our benefit

or for their own?

According to ancient astronaut theorists,

both could be true.

Because they say there is evidence

that Earth is being visited

by multiple alien species.

(siren wailing)

NARRATOR: Shortly after 8:00 a.m.,

the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit

arrives at the home

of 36-year-old Scottish computer engineer Gary McKinnon.

They are there to arrest him on behalf

of the United States Justice Department

for hacking into top secret computers

at NASA and the Pentagon.

McKinnon not only admits to the crime

but claims he uncovered evidence

that the U.S. government was working

with extraterrestrial beings.

I was obsessed with UFOs.

I was dying to find out the information.

The Internet was a real enabler

for finding out information, um,

by going to places you shouldn't be in.

Because they were so open.

There were a lot of text files

and lists of places, installations,

military bases, Air Force bases, Navy sites, NASA sites.

So there was a lot to go through.

But I did find a gold mine of information.

NARRATOR: According to McKinnon,

he unearthed a secret U.S. military program

that existed entirely in space.

MCKINNON: I found the spreadsheet.

It was actually titled in the column

"Non-Terrestrial Officers."

As well as officers' names, it had ship names.

None of these were ocean-going ships.

It was astounding. They're not Navy.

They're not in the Army. And not even Air Force.

So, to me, I was thinking

it must be an off-planet space force,

or space fleet, at least.

NARRATOR: After McKinnon's arrest,

he was told the U.S. government

intended to sentence him to 70 years in prison.

At the time, I thought six months community service

was all you do for Computer Misuse Act in Britain.

We fought extradition for ten years

and we actually won the case.

But unfortunately today

the arrest warrant is still live.

And I'm still on the Interpol Red List.

So I can't travel.

NARRATOR: Could it be

that Gary McKinnon's account

of what he saw when he hacked into computers

at the Pentagon and NASA is genuine?

Is the U.S. government engaged

in secret operations beyond Earth?

I think Gary McKinnon is truthful

and that he did see files on secret space programs

and UFO-related material.

Whether that information was legit

or was just sitting there somewhere,

we can't say.

But there's no question that he did

what he claimed to have done.

NARRATOR: While there are many who question the authenticity

of Gary McKinnon's account, other more notable figures

have since come forward with similar claims.

In 2013,

former Canadian Minister of National Defence

Paul Hellyer declared that

the United States government

and other governments around the world

are working with organized groups

of extraterrestrials.

Why do you say that UFOs are

as real as the airplanes

flying over our heads?

Well, because I know that they are.

And they've been visiting this planet

for thousands of years.

And there is what is called a federation

of these people, and they have rules.

DOLAN: Paul Hellyer was a former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada

and a former Minister of Defence of Canada.

He was able to talk to a lot of important people

within the U.S. and Canadian system.

And it was his opinion,

based on the sources that he had

that there are many groups that are here visiting us.

NARRATOR: Paul Hellyer is not the only government official

to come forward with alleged knowledge

of a federation of extraterrestrial races.

HYNEK: Recently the former Israeli chief of space security

Haim Eshed came out and said

that there is a galactic federation

and that indeed many world leaders

know of and are in talks with delegates

of the galactic federation.

I don't know what to make of that claim.

But when you have enough of them,

a pattern emerges,

and it starts to take on a bit more gravitas

in functioning as bona fide evidence.

CHILDRESS: Dr. Haim Eshed claimed that the extraterrestrials

in this galactic federation

were in contact with governments around the world.

It's a fascinating idea and one that may well be true.

NARRATOR: Should the sensational claims made by Paul Hellyer

and Haim Eshed be believed?

That close encounters of the fifth kind are occurring

at the highest levels of government around the world

and with entire factions of extraterrestrial beings?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and argue

that recent revelations from world leaders

may be preparing mankind

for a groundbreaking event.

Full disclosure.

NARRATOR: In today's world,

where cell phones are equipped with high-definition cameras

and the Internet makes it possible

to share videos in an instant,

average citizens have become frontline reporters

on the UFO phenomenon.

New images and accounts of unidentified phenomena

are posted online nearly every day.

And UFO researchers say the proof that extraterrestrials

are visiting Earth is right before our eyes.

But they also suggest

the evidence that's been accumulated

by the public pales in comparison

to what the United States government

has had in its possession for decades.

Technology has changed so much

over the past 30, 40 years

that now it's possible

for regular Joe citizens

to be part of this investigation.

The flip side of that is, our military

has incredible censors that watch everything that happens

on and around the Earth.

There's a gigantic storehouse of information somewhere

that the public has never been allowed to see.

TSOUKALOS: World leaders and the governments think

that we, the people, cannot handle the truth.

But in 2017, when The New York Times

talked about the idea that the U.S. government

actually is investigating UAPs and UFOs,

you know, that story came

and people went about their daily lives.

Why?

Just because you understand

that you're not alone in the universe

does not change the fact that you have to go to work,

you have to put food on the table.

And the idea to be afraid of extraterrestrials,

there's nothing we can do anyway.

So why be afraid?

We should not be afraid because they would have eliminated us

hundreds of years ago,

before we invented nuclear weapons.

While there has been much speculation

as to whether there are people within the U.S. government

covering up the truth about Earth's interactions

with alien visitors,

some researchers have proposed that there may be

another authority controlling the narrative.

It isn't humans that are holding it back.

It's the extraterrestrial biological entities

who said humans are not ready for the introduction yet.

And that's what Haim Eshed said even in television interviews.

They have said,

"Keep the information down until we decide

"that you are technologically advanced enough

to be introduced to us."

NARRATOR: But many UFO researchers believe

that the truth is becoming harder to hide,

and the day may be rapidly approaching

when the public will be introduced

to a profound new reality.

These public hearings

mark a U-turn in U.S. government policy.

We've had decades of debunking and denying

and playing the whole thing down,

and now it's as if they're putting it out there

in front of us all.

And one wonders, "Are they preparing us for something?

"Are they laying the groundwork for some big reveal

or some huge global event?"

It is a one day at a time

to walk towards what ultimately will be complete disclosure.

NARRATOR: Are we on the verge of discovering

that close encounters with extraterrestrials

are not hypothetical but have already taken place?

And is it possible

that alien contact is not just a modern phenomenon

but has been happening for thousands of years?

As more witnesses, experiencers

and government leaders step forward,

perhaps we will soon learn, once and for all,

that we are not alone.

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