All language subtitles for NOVA S52E01 What Are UFOs 1080p WEB h264-BAE_track3_[eng]

♪ ♪

PILOT:
Look at this thing!

PILOT 2:
It's rotating.

PILOT 1:
Whoa, got it!
(laughs)

Woo-hoo!

(men talking, laughing
on radios)

What the (bleep) is that thing?

NARRATOR:
Disturbing videos of U.F.Os.
have been taken

by some of the best-trained
pilots on the planet.

We actually have military pilots
who are saying,

"I saw something
that I don't understand."

PILOT:
Course unknown
and speed unknown.

MICK WEST:
We don't know
what they actually saw.

We only have
their interpretation of it.

So this is the helmet
that I was wearing.

(interview):
It would be really irresponsible
to suggest

that all of these things
are of the same origin,

that they're of the same
technology,

that they're
of the same phenomenon.

We can't say it's aliens, but
we can't say it's not aliens.

People in
New Jersey are concerned.

NARRATOR: And what about
the explosion of news reports

of strange objects
flying over New Jersey?

Upwards of 49-plus drone
sightings.

to get to the bottom of this.

There's an aircraft--
there we go.
Ah, there we go.

NARRATOR:
"What Are U.F.Os.?"

Right now, on "NOVA."

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
In the halls of Congress,

Navy pilots are speaking out.

This object remained
for about 45 seconds or so

before darting off
over the mountains.

We were seeing objects
with our radars,

with our cameras,

and even with our eyes
flying on an almost daily basis.

DIETRICH:
We're very sensitive
to how things turn

and how things accelerate
and how things move,

and this didn't follow
any of those laws of physics.

NARRATOR: As of 2023,

military and commercial pilots

have reported seeing 801 objects
they couldn't identify.

DIETRICH:
When we're talking about
having an unidentified thing

in our airspace,
whether it's directly overhead

or in our coastal waters,
we need to figure out,

is this an issue
of flight safety?

Is this an issue of
national security?

Is this an adversary spying
on us?

NARRATOR:
Or could it be top-secret tech

developed right here at home?

ALEX HOLLINGS:
I can tell you unequivocally

that the government does keep
secrets when it comes

to aerospace technology.

The Pentagon has what
we often call a black budget,

which can sometimes exceed
$65 billion in a year.

ALEJANDRO ROJAS:
Even within the military,

there's never been
a consensus, really,

that it's this or that or
that it's not extraterrestrial.

♪ ♪

We cannot rule out
extraterrestrials,

but you have no evidence for it.

It comes back to the evidence.

♪ ♪

HAKEEM OLUSEYI:
Regular citizens
have been reporting things

for decades,
and yet we hear nothing

from the government
about what this may be.

SHELLEY WRIGHT:
And now that we have
more observations,

more cameras, more cell phones

that are taking pictures
of phenomenon in our atmosphere,

scientists need to come forward

and talk about how
we can identify these objects.

MICHAEL WONG:
In science, we encounter
anomalies all the time.

And it's our job
to try to figure out

what those anomalies are telling
us about the universe.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
This isn't the first time
unidentified flying objects

have captured our imagination
and startled the world.

It was back in the 1940s

that sightings started
piling up.

June 24, 1947.

As he flew near Mt. Rainier
in Washington State,

pilot Kenneth Arnold
spotted something strange.

ROJAS:
As he was flying around,
he said he saw these objects

glinting off of the sun.

Because they moved like they
were skipping off of water,

the term "flying saucer"
came about.

At the time, there were
other people having sightings,

but this is the one
that just really kind of

ignite this interest
in the public about U.F.Os.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
From New York to California,

people started to report
seeing flying saucers

just about everywhere.

Sightings were spreading
like wildfire.

HOLLINGS:
Culture informs
our understanding

of the world around us.

If you expect to see a U.F.O.

that looks like a pie tin,

well, when you see something
unusual in the sky

that you have trouble discerning
what it was,

"That looked like a pie tin."

NARRATOR:
It may seem strange
that in the 1940s and '50s,

so many Americans were suddenly
spotting objects in the sky.

(explosion roars)

But with the Cold War
in full swing,

it was a time
of heightened anxiety and worry

about new threats overhead.

This was a time period in which
there was a lot

of military technology
development.

Coming out of World War II,

we have developed radar.

♪ ♪

SEAN KIRKPATRICK:
This was the first major war

where air power
was a huge player,

and there was a lot
of unknown tech emerging.

All of these things kind of
came together.

And then, of course, you had
the Roswell incident.

NARRATOR:
Roswell, New Mexico.

A rancher came across
another piece

of the flying saucer puzzle.

ROJAS:
Essentially,
this ranch hand comes in,

says, "I found this material."

They send a couple
of Air Force people

from Roswell Army Airfield out
to take a look.

One of them says, "Hey,
I think this stuff was weird."

They take the material
to Fort Worth.

Fort Worth says it was
obviously a weather balloon.

Story's over.

NARRATOR:
But the public wasn't buying it.

And Hollywood saw an opportunity

to run with a captivating story:

aliens-- sometimes friendly
and sometimes not--

were visiting planet Earth.

HAQQ-MISRA:
The lack of answers
by the government

did leave a void,

and Hollywood
and, and entertainment

certainly filled that void.

FILM NARRATOR:
"Earth vs. The Flying Saucers."

HAQQ-MISRA:
And we are left
with a wide assortment

of scenarios imagining

contact with aliens,

with saucers,

or aliens on the moon or Mars,

or alien invasions

that are quite dramatic.

FILM NARRATOR: What are they?

Where do they come from?

Certainly, this can
instill a lot of fear in people.

(screaming)

In the absence of scientists

or other authoritative voices

filling the gap

and, and explaining
what's going on,

all we heard
from the authorities was,

"There's nothing to see here."

NARRATOR:
But behind the scenes,
the military was investigating.

HAQQ-MISRA:
Probably the most significant

historical investigation
of U.F.Os.

by the government
was Project Blue Book.

It investigated thousands and
thousands of U.F.O. sightings.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
For more than 20 years,

military investigators and
scientists scrutinized the data,

looking for answers.

What are all these objects?

Do any of them present
a clear and present danger?

Scientists like
astronomer J. Allen Hynek

were brought in to help
the Air Force connect the dots.

ROJAS:
Dr. J. Allen Hynek
was the consultant

for the Air Force from 1947
all the way to 1969,

the entire time they were
investigating this topic.

He was a skeptic himself

because of that early
association with aliens

and little green men.

So when they approached him,
he's, like,

"I'll do this,
but I'm going to easily

"be able to debunk this
in no time,

because this is just silliness."

NARRATOR:
Project Blue Book ended in 1969,

when the Air Force
released the Condon Report.

After investigating more than
12,000 U.F.O. sightings,

701 remained unidentified.

When you've not explained
that much of your data,

as a scientist,
that's not acceptable.

NARRATOR:
And it wasn't acceptable
for Hynek.

He'd had a change of heart

that would last a lifetime.

ROJAS:
He started to see that there was
data there that indicates

that not all of these
are easily solvable,

and that they do deserve
investigation.

But he would stay away
from the alien side of things.

He would try to focus on,
you know, "This is a mystery

we don't understand."

But it's just too difficult
to do,

because the media
and the public just can't

disassociate those things,
the aliens and the U.F.Os.

OLUSEYI:
This created an environment
that scientists

and any serious person
did not want to go near it.

So aliens were right in there

with ghosts, the Loch Ness
Monster, Bigfoot--

it was all part of this,
the unknown, spooky stuff

that probably ain't true.

NARRATOR:
Because of this stigma,

today, the Department of Defense

refers to these Unidentified
Flying Objects, U.F.Os.,

as U.A.Ps.-- Unidentified
Anomalous Phenomena.

DIETRICH:
They changed it from U.F.O.

to U.A.P. to try to reduce that
stigma,

to try to get away from that
history,

WRIGHT:
The word U.F.O., unfortunately,
has become a taboo word

within the scientific community.

It's actually been a disservice

to our community and our society

for not trying to teach and
communicate

about what actually is in the
night sky.

NARRATOR:
There's no shortage of things
in the night sky

that can seem strange.

Some are natural,

like the colors
of the Northern Lights,

the beauty of a meteor shower,

planet Venus in the night sky.

Even clouds that form
strange saucer-like shapes.

♪ ♪

And plenty that are
not-so-natural wonders.

KENNETH HARRIS II:
Right now above my head
are planes.

You can hear a helicopter
flying over.
(helicopter flying past)

There's probably some drones
up there, too.

And if you're in the right place
at the right time,

you can probably even see
some satellites up there,

because there's
a lot of stuff out there

that might not be as strange
as you think it is.

VIDEOGRAPHER 1: So weird,
that's not a plane.

KIRKPATRICK: The number
of things that are

in our sky today
are thousands.

VIDEOGRAPHER 2: Oh, my God.

VIDEOGRAPHER 3:
Now it's not moving at all.

It's hovering right there.

1,800 of them are launched daily
around the world.

You can actually see things in
Earth's orbit

from the ground.

You can see, for instance,
the International Space Station

at night, flying overhead.

NARRATOR:
And if you see
a cluster of lights

traveling across the night sky,

they're probably part
of a satellite system

called Starlink.

KIRKPATRICK:
When Starlink launches
a 60-satellite string,

people look at that and go,
"I don't know what that is."

And it looks really weird
and concerning.

Technology, I think, has created
much more clutter in the sky

and an ability for us
to misinterpret things.

HAQQ-MISRA:
There's a lot in our sky,

and if we're studying U.F.Os.,
of course,

you have to know
what's in the sky that is known

before you can identify
what's unknown.

NARRATOR:
That's especially difficult
when it comes

to some of the strangest
sightings ever made...

(man speaking on radio)

NARRATOR:
...those videos taken
by Navy pilots.

One of the most famous
is nicknamed "the Gimbal."

We recorded the Gimbal object

when we were down off the coast

of Jacksonville, Florida, aboard

the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt

in 2015.

NARRATOR: Former F/A-18 pilot
Ryan Graves will never forget

what some pilots in his squadron
told him

about their bizarre
U.A.P. experience.

The event unfolded
during a night training mission.

PILOT: This is a (bleep)
drone, bro.

They see something strange.

They've been closing on it
for a couple of minutes

as they fly towards it
to better understand it.

It has to be a drone--
that's the logical thing.

No one's out there saying it's
U.F.Os. or aliens or whatever.

It's just an unknown thing.

And what is it?

NARRATOR:
While their camera only captures
the image of one object,

their radar tells
a more complex story.

PILOT 2: There's a whole fleet
of them-- look on the S.A.

PILOT 1:
My gosh.

GRAVES:
As they gather more information,

and they see a, a whole fleet
of them on their radar,

it's harder to understand
what they're seeing.

And you can hear that
in their voices.

PILOT 2: They're all going
against the wind.

The wind's 120 knots
from the west.

PILOT 1:
Look at that thing, dude.

NARRATOR:
Then the object does something
downright bizarre.

PILOT 1:
Look at this thing!

PILOT 2:
It's rotating.

GRAVES:
You see the object appears
to rotate,

and then the video cuts out
at that point.

(sighs):
You know, so, I don't know
what the Gimbal is.

We still don't know what it is.

NARRATOR:
There's no doubt many
of the recordings of U.F.Os.

made by Navy pilots
look very strange.

To try to decode them,

it's crucial to understand
the kinds of sensors

and cameras being used.

So the vast majority
of the evidence

that's excited
the public imagination

about these videos
comes in the form

of infrared imagery.

NARRATOR:
Imagery taken with an onboard
infrared camera system

called ATFLIR.

Sean Kirkpatrick,
former director

of the government's department
in charge

of investigating U.A.Ps...
What is it reflecting...

NARRATOR:
...and engineer Josh Semeter

explore how the world looks
in infrared light

with the help of Teledyne
engineer Donnell Lago.

So what you have here is,
you got

the visible on this side here,
it's a 4K visible image,

and then the thermal
on this side.

NARRATOR:
On the right side of the screen,

the camera
is capturing visible light:

light the human eye can see.

But on the left side,

the Boston skyline
looks radically different,

because this is a thermal image,

taken with an infrared camera

that detects variations
in temperature.

The cars on the bridge

are emitting more heat
than the background.

The more heat an object emits,
the whiter it appears.

The less, the darker it gets.

And can you switch that?
Yes, we can invert it.

We can make everything that's
black hot

and everything that's white
cold.

And that's exactly
what we see our pilots doing.

Pilots, when they see
things,

they will toggle
back and forth

so that they can try
to get the best contrast...
Mm.

...to try to figure out what
they're looking at, you know.

So why don't we try and
see if we can see any aircraft?

NARRATOR:
Even on a hazy day like this...

There's an aircraft,
there we go.
Ah, there we go.

NARRATOR:
...it doesn't take long
to spot one.

KIRKPATRICK:
There is an aircraft

that you can't tell,
in the infrared, is an aircraft.

Mm-mm.
But in the visible,
I sure can.

Yep. Exactly.

All right?

And now, why don't we switch it
to black is hot?

Play the same game,
yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

Play the same game
and see what it looks like.

LAGO: There's a plane there.
SEMETER: Mm-hmm,
oh, there we go.

There's a plane, there's
a plane, there's a plane.
Okay, yep.

There we go.

KIRKPATRICK:
There you go.

SEMETER:
I saw this just little dot
tripping through the field.

And I was only looking
at the infrared camera.

And Sean, who was watching
the visual camera

next door, said, "There's an
airplane."

And I looked over

and this enormous aircraft
was moving through the scene.

KIRKPATRICK:
It's just a blob.

LAGO:
Just a little blob, yeah.

So that was an image
of the engine.
KIRKPATRICK: Yeah.

LAGO: Yeah.
KIRKPATRICK: That's basically
all you saw-- you didn't see

the rest of the fuselage.

The world looks
very different

in the infrared
versus the visible.

NARRATOR:
Exploring the deceptive nature
of infrared light

provides scientists
with valuable clues

to why a plane could take on
an otherworldly shape.

But it doesn't explain
why the Gimbal

seems to move in ways
that defy physics.

The Gimbal video is one of

the most famous U.F.O. videos,

and with good reason, I think,

because it looks like a
flying saucer.

NARRATOR:
U.F.O. investigator and
conspiracy debunker Mick West

spent years analyzing
the Gimbal video

frame by frame,

clue by clue.

The interesting thing
about the Gimbal video,

besides it being
a flying saucer,

is this rotation it does.

And this was very puzzling.

It took a long time
to figure out

what might be going on there.

NARRATOR:
Mick brings a unique set
of skills to this challenge.

(characters exclaiming
and grunting)

WEST:
I used to program video games
many years ago.

I really enjoy the process
of solving puzzles,

and I use my 3D geometry
and trigonometry

to analyze the U.F.Os.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Mick starts his investigation

of the Gimbal by combing through
publicly available information.

The plane that captured
the Gimbal video is an F/A-18,

equipped with an infrared camera
mounted beneath the wing

in a targeting pod.

Next,

he builds a simulation
of the plane and the camera,

which is on a device
called a gimbal.

The gimbal enables the camera
to rotate as it tracks a target.

But the camera isn't
the only thing in motion.

♪ ♪

The pilot's display reveals
that the object is also moving,

from the left side of the plane
to the right.

WEST:
To track something

going from left to right,

which is what we're seeing here,
the camera actually

has to rotate, and it has
to rotate a specific amount

as it traverses over
from one side to the other.

NARRATOR:
Using the simulation
he's created,

Mick makes
a surprising discovery.

WEST:
The amount the gimbal rotates
and the time it rotates

is exactly what would be needed

for the camera
to track this object.

NARRATOR:
He's come up with a theory
about why the object

appears to rotate,

and sets up an experiment
to demonstrate how it works,

using his cell phone
and his desk lamp.

WEST:
Take your cell phone

and point the camera at a, a
bright light, a single light.

And then rotate your cell phone.

So you've got a rotating camera,
but nothing is rotating,

except the artifacts
of the camera.

So if you have a glare,
like an artifact of the camera,

when the camera rotates,

the scene itself doesn't
rotate, but the glare rotates.

And I think that's what we're
seeing in the Gimbal video.

It's possibly
something like a distant plane,

something that's hot
off in the distance.

The heat of the engine was kind
of pointing towards the camera,

and that kind of bloomed
in the camera

and created this glare

that was so big,
it obscured the entire plane.

NARRATOR:
But not everyone agrees
with this theory.

I want to be clear that that's
entirely possible,

but I personally

don't find that particularly
likely.

The reason for that is strictly,
this FLIR system

to identify
adversary and friendly aircraft.

NARRATOR:
Pilots are well aware
of how the gimbal system works,

as well as the nature of common
camera artifacts, like glare.

GRAVES:
I don't think
this was a distant plane.

I do believe it was an object
that was about

four to six miles away from the
fighter aircraft,

not a distant jet at 30 nautical
miles away.

If it was a distant jet,
where would it come from?

Why were we not receiving
any indications

that it was or was not part
of our strike group?

NARRATOR:
In 2021,

the Department of Defense
formed AARO,

the All-domain Anomaly
Resolution Office,

to investigate U.A.Ps.
like the Gimbal.

To date, AARO considers
this case "unresolved."

So for us, anything
that remains unidentified

is a severe threat that we
should be paying attention to

as tactical aviators,

because that's exactly what
we're training to identify.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
The Gimbal isn't the only U.A.P.

that appears to defy
the laws of physics.

2013, just after dark
at the airport

in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.

U.S. Customs and Border Control

captured this video
of an oddly behaving object.

KIRKPATRICK:
It looks like the object
is traveling quickly.

It looks like it's disappearing
into the water

and coming out of the water,

and disappearing again,
coming out,

and it's splitting into two,

and kind of
disappearing completely.

Enthusiasts will point to that
and say

that is evidence of warp drives
or interdimensional drives

and that it's transmedium

because it's going in and out of
the water.

Let me see.

NARRATOR: But could there be
another reason

that's more down to Earth?

So let's do this as
a controlled experiment.

NARRATOR:
Engineer Josh Semeter

enlists the help
of Sean Kirkpatrick,

former director of AARO,
to cook up an idea:

can they recreate this
disappearing act in the lab

with a knife, spoon, and fork

and two surrogate U.F.Os.?

What I thought
we'd try to use

to do this is
a infrared sensor.

It just clips on like so.

NARRATOR:
They set it up on a tripod,

take a look, and see

absolutely nothing.

SEMETER:
We're not seeing anything
at all

in these objects.

NARRATOR: Sean takes the spoon
and fork, along with

one of the U.A.P. surrogates,

and puts them in a cooler.

For just about--
what do you think, Josh?

A second? Ten seconds?
Yeah.

It doesn't take long--
I'd say ten seconds.

It's more than enough.

NARRATOR:
About ten seconds later,
give or take...

KIRKPATRICK:
All right, let's take them out
and see what they look like.

Put that

right back where they were.

And what do we got?

SEMETER:
Well, there's
three objects there.

Wow, that's pretty
stark.

NARRATOR:
We can see the fork and spoon,

along with one
of the U.F.O. surrogates.

SEMETER:
And...

KIRKPATRICK:
I don't see the other two.

Cannot find
the other two.

But they are clearly
there.

NARRATOR:
But over the next few minutes,

they gradually disappear again.

The question is, why?

SEMETER:
There is a tendency

for objects that are
at different temperatures,

when they're in contact,
to eventually reach

the same temperature
as one another.

NARRATOR:
It's not a magic trick.

For an object to show up
in infrared light,

it must be
a different temperature

than objects
it is in contact with.

So, when the fork and spoon
exchanged thermal energy

with the table,
thermal equilibrium is reached,

making them invisible
in infrared light.

And that brings us back

to the disappearing objects
in the Puerto Rico video,

which were also captured
with an infrared sensor.

As the object becomes the same

either temperature or irradiance
as the background,

you won't be able to see it.

It'll become nearly invisible,

and it looks like it disappears.

NARRATOR:
After months of carefully
analyzing the video,

scientists think
they have an answer.

KIRKPATRICK:
We think they're two birds,

and when they get close
to the water,

the effect on the sensor
kicks in,

where it's having a hard time
distinguishing the contrast

between the background
and the birds,

and they look like
they disappear,

and then they reappear

because the reflectance changes,
and then they separate,

and then it looks like
they land in the water.

NARRATOR:
This demo doesn't capture

all the conditions
of this sighting,

but Sean and Josh believe

that shifts in temperature
and reflection

might explain
the apparent disappearing act.

SEMETER:
I'm satisfied
with that explanation,

because that's how a scientist
speaks

with respect to some phenomenon
that's not known.

We don't speak in certainty.

So, for instance,

if one were to say,

"That is either

"two birds flying over the ocean

"or it is a alien
anti-gravity technology

exhibiting transmedium
characteristics,"

I choose the bird explanation.

NARRATOR:
The sighting in Puerto Rico

might simply be two birds,

and the Gimbal video might be
a distant plane,

but one of the
most famous U.F.O. sightings

has been even more challenging
for investigators.

DIETRICH:
I was an eyewitness

to what is considered

one of the most important

U.F.O. or U.A.P. encounters,

and that's the U.S.S. Nimitz-
Tic Tac encounter.

NARRATOR:
November 14, 2004.

About a hundred miles southwest
of San Diego,

Alex Dietrich, then
a young aviator-in-training,

along with her
commanding officer,

David Fravor, a seasoned pilot

with more than a decade
of flying under his belt,

set out on a routine
training exercise.

DIETRICH: It was clear blue
skies, calm waters,

when we get a call
by this controller,

for our military exercise,

and they say,
"Hey, we need you to go

and check out this contact
over here."

NARRATOR: The radar on one of
the ships in the strike group

had detected an unknown object.

The hair on the back of our neck
stands up,

and we go, "Hm, okay."

And we divert
and we head towards it.

And we don't see anything
initially.

But somebody sees a disturbance
in the water,

and this strange thing is flying

very fast but erratically

over the, this area of,
of water.

It was off-white.

You know, sort of a, a white,
creamish color.

We didn't see a cockpit,
we didn't see windows,

and it moved in ways
that we didn't understand.

NARRATOR: Dietrich and Fravor
returned to the Nimitz

without taking video
of the object,

so another aircraft
went in pursuit

and captured this.

DIETRICH:
We call it affectionately
a Tic Tac,

because it looks like
the little breath mint.

NARRATOR:
Mick West decides
to take on the challenge,

to see if he can make sense
of the movement of the Tic Tac.

WEST:
It's a very blurry video.

I think it's actually
out of focus,

and it's not actually doing
anything.

It's just basically flying away

and a bit to the left

in more or less
a straightish line.

But the thing is,

David Fravor's description
is very dramatic.

NARRATOR: In fact,

when Commander David Fravor

testified before Congress
in 2023,

he described an object that,

in his 18 years of flying,

traveled at speeds

he'd never seen before.

FRAVOR:
As we looked around,

we saw a white Tic Tac object

with a longitudinal axis
pointing north-south

and moving very abruptly
over the water,

like a Ping-Pong ball.

WEST:
He talks about the object

kind of Ping-Ponging around
close to the ocean,

and then doing
this very difficult

synchronized movement
up towards the top.

♪ ♪

I'm going to tie it off
over here.

NARRATOR:
Mick conducts an experiment

based solely on the pilots'
eyewitness reports,

using his backyard swimming pool

and his version of the Tic Tac.

WEST:
Yeah, I made the Tic Tac
out of a piece of wood

and some bits of white wire
and painted it white.

NARRATOR:
He suspends his Tic Tac
over the swimming pool...

WEST:
About there.

NARRATOR:
...climbs up a ladder
with his phone,

and starts recording.

WEST:
So, what I set up

with the pool demo
is just a good illustration

of what might have happened
to try to figure out,

what's actually moving here?

Is this object moving
or is the camera moving?

Because we don't have
any frame of reference,

we've just got the pool
behind it,

and so you kind of zoom in
a little bit,

so all you see is the pool,

it really looks like the object
is moving.

NARRATOR:
Even though it's not.

It's only the camera
that's moving.

WEST:
It's a good illustration
of parallax,

which, as we know,

is one of the big causes
of optical illusions.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
You may have experienced
this illusion

looking out the window
of a train.

The trees
just outside the window

appear to be moving in relation

to the landscape
in the background,

but the only thing
that's actually moving is you.

OLUSEYI:
We're not reliable--
our eyes are not reliable.

If you're going to court,

and you're the accused,

and it's a eyewitness testimony

that's going to, you know,
the big evidence

against you, good luck.

♪ ♪

HOLLINGS:
So, when a military aviator,

especially someone like
Commander Fravor,

with combat experience,

says that they saw something
in the sky

that they can't quite explain,
that operated in a way

that seemed to contradict
what they understand

the laws of physics
would dictate,

I tend to give
those witness testimonies

a great deal of credence,
because these aviators

are not just
highly trained pilots,

they're highly trained
combatants.

The pilot observation is,

"I see something."

The data we need

is what the sensor is gathering.

And that's the numbers
we actually need.

KIRKPATRICK:
In the case of the Tic Tac,

the pilot did see something,

but some of the
key technical questions

hadn't been investigated
at the time,

and trying
to investigate those now

is not going to give us
a whole lot,

because there's nothing
to really examine.

The farther back in time you go,

the less data there is
for every one of these cases.

And back in 2004,

there was no
data retention policy

for these kinds of events.

Side... Yeah.
SEMETER: This one?
Yeah, so, we're looking...

NARRATOR:
According to Sean Kirkpatrick,

the radar data from the incident
no longer exists,

so we'll never know

if it would support or rule out
Mick's parallax theory.

DIETRICH:
I don't know what we saw,

and I refuse to speculate,

because I think it would be
irresponsible of me to say,

you know,
"Well, it was definitely

an adversary spying on us,"

or, "It was definitely an alien

visiting from outer space,"
because I don't know.

NARRATOR:
For Alex, that was the end
of the Tic Tac story.

DIETRICH:
And then I went on
with my life,

my career, and I didn't
really think about it.

NARRATOR:
That is, until 13 years later,

when "The New York Times"
published this article

with links to the Tic Tac
and Gimbal videos.

When "The New York Times"
released this story,

it really gave the whole topic
a bit of credibility,

where a lot of people saw it
as taboo and sort of silly,

but if the U.S. government
has been investing

tens of millions of dollars

into investigating
these reports,

there seems like
there could be something to it.

HAQQ-MISRA:
People are interested

in this topic of U.F.Os.,

and Congress has begun to get
involved.

There's been a couple

of congressional hearings

calling expert witnesses

to try and figure out
what's going on here.

NICK LANGWORTHY:
In your belief,

is this,

this flying Tic Tac,
I mean, is this,

is it capable of being

the product of any other nation
on the Earth?

No, I, actually, I think it
defies current material science

and the ability to develop
that much propulsion.

And I know there's
been some physicists

who have done calculations,
which is beyond

anything that we have.

NARRATOR:
Should we be concerned
that some U.F.Os.

are advanced technologies
from out of this world?

Or secret technologies
developed by our adversaries?

Or could there be another reason

U.F.Os. have remained so elusive
for decades?

Remember, back in 1947,
in Roswell, New Mexico,

when a rancher found
strange debris in his pasture?

The Air Force said it was
from a weather balloon.

But, as it turns out,

it was part of a classified
U.S. military program

called Project Mogul.

ROJAS:
The Air Force launched
these balloons,

and they had these sensors
on them

where they can measure
vibrations in the air

to be able to monitor
Russian nuclear testing.

The general in Fort Worth,
Texas, decided,

"I'm going to cover up
this classified project,

"and I'm going
to show the public

that what we recovered
was a weather balloon."

NARRATOR:
It would take half a century

for the Air Force to admit

exactly what had crashed
in Roswell.

So there was a cover-up,

but it was a cover-up
of a classified project,

not, you know,
an alien spacecraft.

The secrecy
led to the conspiracy,

and certainly the Air Force
did not help themselves

by being secret and dismissive
of the topic.

NARRATOR:
When it comes
to government cover-ups,

perhaps the most infamous
is Area 51.

Tales of alien spacecraft

hidden inside
this remote Air Force base

about 83 miles
northwest of Las Vegas

have persisted for decades.

It turns out, the military
has been secretly

developing cutting-edge
technology here

since the 1950s,

but did not even acknowledge
the existence of the base

until 2013.

HOLLINGS:
There are lots of aircraft

we know have been tested
at Area 51

entirely in secret at the time,

including the F-117,

the SR-71,

the B-2 Spirit, and many more.

Right around the same time

the B-2 Spirit
was in development,

common sightings of U.F.Os.
around the United States

tended to transition away
from the pie saucer shape

we were familiar with
in earlier decades

and toward
a more triangular shape.

This is a model of
what people claim was the TR-3B,

which is a legendary aircraft
that people allege was built

using reverse-engineered
alien technology.

NARRATOR:
By the 1990s,

rumors of triangular-shaped
spacecraft

became so widespread,

they became part
of popular culture.

Blockbusters like "The X-Files"

featured a triangular-shaped
alien spacecraft

hovering over
Agent Fox Mulder's head.

♪ ♪

HOLLINGS:
I think the government
should and does

expect that the public is going

to fill in the blanks
as they see fit.

As long as people are talking

about aliens operating
out of Area 51,

well, then, they're
not revealing anything

about the legitimate
military platforms

that are being tested there.

It creates a bit
of a smokescreen.

OLUSEYI:
There's always

advanced technological programs
going on

that are on a need-to-know
basis.

If you don't need to know,
even if you are

a member of the government
or the military,

you're not going to know.

And that's the way it should be.

♪ ♪

KIRKPATRICK:
This is all about
spy versus spy

or military versus military

to maintain technical
superiority.

We don't want other people
to learn what we're building,

where we might employ it,

because then they can defeat it.

There are reasons to do that.

None of it is alien.

None of it.

♪ ♪

MOUNTAIN:
I think we are in an era where

conspiracy theories are popular.

Is this another one?

NARRATOR:
When it comes to sightings

by military pilots
and the public,

how can science help separate

unfounded conspiracy theories
from reality,

fact from fiction?

MOUNTAIN:
From the very days that Galileo

first lifted his telescope
to the sky

and made measurements of the
moons going around Jupiter,

everybody else could then
reproduce those measurements

and go, "Oh, yeah, he's right."

And that confirmation

is what has made the
scientific method so powerful

over the last 400 years.

The thing we need is data,

and we need real data, and we
don't have it.

We at NASA are...

NARRATOR:
In 2022,

NASA brought together
a group of experts

to explore ways
to collect that data.

NASA should lead
the scientific discourse.

We need to elevate
this conversation.

SEMETER:
The NASA U.A.P. panel

was formed to bring

that science perspective into
this.

That analysis has not been done.

A lot of people argue
that we have data,

but the vast majority
of that data is anecdotal,

and that's just not going
to cut it.

NARRATOR:
The panel recommended
several ways

to collect more data,

including repurposing
existing technology,

like the National Weather
Service's radar system,

called NEXRAD--

radar stations that are found
throughout the U.S.

SEMETER: So those same sensors
should be able to see

if an object comes
whizzing through

at an extraordinary velocity.

It should be able to pick up
that type of thing.

That's just one example
of the type of networks

that we could repurpose
for U.A.P. research.

NARRATOR:
Astronomer Avi Loeb

is taking a different approach,
collecting more data

in a novel way.

We just constructed

an observatory at Harvard
University.

and trying
to make sense of them.

NARRATOR:
This collection of instruments

is part of Harvard's
Galileo Project.

The Galileo Project

is developing several sites

that are spread across

a geographical region,

where each site has an array
of sensors--

optical cameras,

infrared images.

There's audio from
infrasound to ultrasound.

There's radar.

It's a wide array of instruments

to basically look at the sky
all the time

to, to see if you find
any anomalies.

NARRATOR: Some instruments have
otherworldly names,

like this one called Dalek,

after the cyborg aliens

featured in the
"Doctor Who" series.

Inside Dalek,

there are eight
infrared cameras.

LOEB: Behind the window,
there is a camera.

They overlap.

And so, they get
the full picture

of the entire sky at all times,
in the infrared.

When something of interest

is identified
by the main set of cameras,

we zoom on it in the sky,

and this is the camera
that can move around

and look at
the object of interest,

automatically, based on the
computer system that we develop.

You can imagine, if you have
a camera pointing overhead,

you're going to see a lot of
things that are identifiable.

So they use machine learning,

what people call
artificial intelligence,

that can recognize the knowns,

recognize the birds,
the airplanes,

the balloons, leaves,

all the known things,

and sort of reject those,
filter them out,

and then what you're left with
is the anomalies.

You're left with the things
that you cannot understand,

the things you can't identify.

And as we speak right now,

we are being recorded.
(chuckles)

So far, we have been
operating this observatory

for several months, and we saw

hundreds of thousands of objects
in the sky.

None of them appears
to be anomalous.

♪ ♪

But even if one in a million

came from outside of this Earth,

that would be big news
to humanity

and will change our future.

And that's what drives
my science.

♪ ♪

GRAVES:
One way or another,

the more data we're, we're able
to bring

into this conversation, the more
we're

going to be able to get to the
truth.

(keyboard clacking)

NARRATOR:
Ryan Graves is trying
to collect data

from a different source:
his fellow pilots,

military and commercial.

But there's a problem.

They're hesitant
to share their experiences

because of the taboo
surrounding U.F.Os.

GRAVES:
They don't feel
comfortable reporting

because of that fear
that there could be

professional repercussions
at their employer,

social repercussions with
their peers at the airline,

because the conversation
immediately jumps to,

"Well, there's no proof
there's extraterrestrials.

You couldn't travel across
the universe to get here."

And it's, like,
"Whoa, whoa, whoa."
(chuckles)

Pilots are seeing things
that are in the sky

that they don't understand
what they are

and are posing safety risks.

That's where the conversation
needs to stop.

And hey, is this not
only an aviation safety risk,

but is this a potential
national security risk?

♪ ♪

IYA WHITELEY:
So, I was asking pilots

whether they have
encountered the U.A.P.,

and they were very cagey
about it.

NARRATOR:
Aviation and space psychologist
Iya Whiteley

is working with Ryan,
conducting research

to find out if this reluctance
to talk

about U.A.P. sightings
also impacts a pilot's ability

to focus on the job,

creating a safety issue.

WHITELEY:
When the pilot's seeing
something,

I want to make sure that they're
comfortable speaking about it,

because it then occupies

their capacity and focus
and attention,

and takes them away
from actually flying.

If you're trying to ignore
something unidentified

in the distance,
your mind is still thinking,

"I'm not thinking about it,
I'm not thinking about it.

(chuckling):
I'm not thinking about it,
I'm not thinking about it."

And now they don't see
what they need to be seeing.

You were just asking
about

visual cues...
Yes.

...and what attracts
your attention.

Movement is what attracts your
attention.

GRAVES:
Commercial pilots have been
seeing objects that have been

causing them
some serious consternation.

I don't think anyone would like

their pilot flying
their aircraft

to have an existential crisis

as they're flying their aircraft
and coming in for a landing.

♪ ♪

WEST:
The more cases we can explain,

the less distraction there's
going to be.

And if there is actually
any real threat

or any real issue out there,

then we can focus in on that

without all this extra noise.

NARRATOR:
And there's another way

we can collect more data--

with a little help
from the public.

So, it would seem like
they're going sideways.

NARRATOR:
In the Lower East Side
of Manhattan,

at Enigma Labs,

a staff of software designers
and U.F.O. enthusiasts are

developing a first-of-its-kind
crowdsourcing app.

LAUREN BUTLER:
The goal is really

to bring people together

to share their U.A.P.
experiences

and their sightings.

You know, if people don't have

a place to talk about this

or report what they're seeing,

I think they can feel
really lonely,

and, and feel very isolated,

when, in reality, this is
a huge community of people

who should be able

to come somewhere and talk
about what they're seeing.

ROJAS:
So, we're collecting
sighting reports.

We get a lot of Starlink
and Space X rocket videos.

But at the same time,
people are submitting things

that cannot be explained.

This time, I've got one
that I can't figure out.

Maybe you can help me out.

This is really cool.

Just this light
comes floating in,

and then it hovers,
but wait.

But what is, what is
this blob of light here?

It came down slowly,
right?
Yeah.

BUTLER:
Those are fireworks,
I'd say, right?

ROJAS:
Those are probably fireworks.

ADAM: Probably smoke
rising up from...
Mm-hmm.

ROJAS:
And smoke rising up.
ADAM: Mm-hmm.

(fireworks popping in video)
ROJAS: But in just a second,
it will get weirder.

ADAM: What?
ROJAS:
Isn't that weird?

Oh, it's getting brighter.
MAN: It gets brighter
and brighter, yeah.

ROJAS:
Yeah, it keeps
getting brighter.

And it's a broad beam
of light.

ADAM:
So it's not a star.

ROJAS:
So what do you think about,
maybe, drone?

But, I mean,
look how still it is.

It doesn't have blinking lights.

I mean, it doesn't

look like a drone.

So let's fast-forward
a little.

MAN: Oh, it went up
a little bit, okay.

ADAM: It's rising up,
it's rising up.

ROJAS:
Yeah.

So it kind of gets dimmer.

And I'm watching the cam--
the camera's not moving.

And it rises up--
the camera's...

And it's rising
back up.
Yeah, it...

This is a good one.

I don't know,
I don't know what that is.

NARRATOR:
Apps like this provide
the public

with a place
to share their sightings,

but could one day
be a source of data

for scientists to study.

MOUNTAIN:
We're not relying just on,
"Did you see something?"

We're asking your cell phone
to make a measurement.

It's going to record

the position of the phone
on the planet,

because we all have GPSes in it,

it will also tell us
what direction we're looking at.

So we can actually
do scientific experiments

with actual data,

because our modern cell phones
are so good now

at recording numbers.

ADAM:
The more data, the better.

The more sightings,

the more eyes we get on,

on something that's truly
anomalous,

the closer we get

to maybe answering
that question:

"What is it?"

NARRATOR:
Alex Dietrich has learned from
firsthand experience

that for many people,
data alone is not enough.

DIETRICH:
The topic is so charged,

because there are
so many conspiracies,

and it's such a...

You know, it does something to
people's brains

when you say "U.F.O."

NARRATOR: At the University
of Colorado Boulder,

Alex is trying to change that.

So, this is the helmet
that I was wearing.

You're welcome to try
to put it...

NARRATOR:
...using her experience

as a way to teach students

how to separate
fact from fiction.

What is it about U.F.Os.?

What do we know?

And how do we know it?

What I find is
that some of my students

have been going down those
Reddit thread rabbit holes,

working themselves up
into a lather

with salacious headlines
for content and clickbait.

If you're reading
an article about U.F.Os.,

what do we look for when
we are looking at our sources?

I hope they will be

more discerning
when they consume media

going forward,
that they will question

where the information
that they're getting comes from.

Because I want to advocate

for us to all take a deep breath

and to come to this subject

with a lens
of critical thinking.

Critical thinking,
people.

(chuckles):
Let's all...

Let's all apply
critical thinking.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
And that brings us back

to the million-dollar
questions--

could this be
extraterrestrial technology?

What would it take
for a spacecraft

to come from a distant world?

HOLLINGS:
A very important question

that we need to be asking today

when investigating U.A.P.
is whether or not,

even if there are advanced
alien civilizations out there,

if they have the means
to actually reach us.

MAN:
Three, two, one...

NARRATOR:
Consider this.

One of the fastest spacecrafts
ever launched,

NASA's New Horizons,

took nine years and five months
to reach Pluto,

three billion miles away.

Getting to
the closest star system

with a planet
that might harbor life

would take that tiny spacecraft

a whopping 80,000 years.

WRIGHT:
The universe is so
unfathomably large.

There's a hundred billion stars
in our Milky Way,

and there's a hundred billion
galaxies

in the observable universe.

That's ten to the 22--
one with 22 zeros on it--

with the number of stars,

and the distances between stars

is incredibly vast.

HAQQ-MISRA:
I have not seen any evidence

that we have been visited.

I think it's still worth
looking for evidence,

because we can't
conclusively demonstrate

that we have not been visited.

Half of the timescale
the galaxy has, has existed,

there was no planet Earth.

So that's plenty of time
for life to have evolved

and technological life to have
developed on another planet.

OLUSEYI:
The answer is,

get more data.

We need much, much more data.

And the way you're going
to get more data

is that you're going to have
more eyes on the sky.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
U.F.Os. have been

a part of our culture
for decades.

They've been
the subject of curiosity,

but rarely the subject

of serious scientific
investigation.

But that is changing.

GRAVES:
I think it's critical

to be open-minded,
don't be dismissive,

and search for the data,
like any good scientist.

What I think is important

is that we are collecting
more than just

the eyewitness accounts,
but that we also have

the right hardware in place

for things that will be seen
today, tomorrow,

so that we don't sit here and...

(laughing):
...bicker about,

about what happened
20 years ago.

♪ ♪

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