All language subtitles for Ancient Aliens S12E01 The Alien Hunters

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:
Many governments all of a sudden

are now involved in the search
for extraterrestrial life.

You have to wonder why.

NICK REDFERN:
Between 1948 and 1969,

the U. S. Air Force
collected 12,618

UFO reports.

MIKE BARA:
It was actually required

that all officers fill out
a form if they saw anything

that might be regarded
as a flying saucer.

And they were told not
to discuss their sighting

with anyone.

WILLIAM HENRY:
We have to be open

to the possibility that the U. S.
government is absolutely aware

of extraterrestrial involvement
in human affairs.

NARRATOR:
Since the dawn of civilization,

mankind has credited
its origins to gods

and other visitors
from the stars.

What if it were true?

Did extraterrestrial beings

really help
to shape our history?

And if so, could the truth be
exposed by the alien hunters?

NARRATOR:
London, England.

July 20, 2015.

A consortium of the world's
leading scientists,

including theoretical physicist
Stephen Hawking

and SETI founder Frank Drake,

gather at London's Royal Society

as Russian billionaire and
technology tycoon Yuri Milner

announces his ambitious
initiative: Breakthrough Listen.

The scope of our search
will be unprecedented.

NARRATOR: The project is
a ten‐year, $100 million search

for intelligent
extraterrestrial life

that is widely regarded
as the most comprehensive search

for alien communications
in recorded history.

The endowment will fund
thousands of hours yearly

on radio telescopes
in North America and Australia,

as well as data processing
to look for

radio signals
in distant solar systems.

This Breakthrough Listen Project

is revolutionary
because not only

are they going to survey
a very long list of stars,

they're going to survey
ten times more area

overall compared
to previous surveys.

I think there's definitely been
a turning point

regarding the overall consensus

about the possibility
of extraterrestrial life.

Now that we're able to document

and scientifically see
out in the universe

the possibility of planets
that could sustain life,

it also allows us the
opportunity to know the odds

that there is life out there
is undoubtable.

NARRATOR: Breakthrough Listen
marks the first time

that mainstream scientists
have launched a major project

with the explicit purpose

of finding intelligent
extraterrestrial life.

During the announcement,
Stephen Hawking stated...

While this new initiative
is monumental,

the hunt for the existence
of life beyond Earth

has persisted for many decades.

Starting around 1947,

a series of events forced
certain high‐level members

within the United States
government

to officially become
alien hunters.

When you look at the year 1947,

the statistics are that
there were at least 800 reports

to police and airports
of people saying

that they were seeing something
in the sky,

they didn't know what it was.

And probably the most important,

and the one
that made worldwide headlines

was near Mt. Rainier,
Washington.

On June 24, 1947,
a businessman and pilot

named Kenneth Arnold
was flying near Mt. Rainier

in Washington state.

As he was flying
around the mountain,

he suddenly caught sight

of a squadron
of strange‐looking objects.

He could not figure out
what they were.

JAN C. HARZAN:
He was able to time them

as they went
between two mountain peaks,

which he knew
the exact distance of,

and calculated their speed
at between 1,200

and 1,700 miles an hour.

Well, in that day,
we didn't have aircraft

that could go faster than about
500 or 600 miles an hour,

so this was definitely something
not of terrestrial origin.

REDFERN:
He later described the objects

as being somewhat delta shaped

and flying
as if you were to skip a saucer

across a body of water.

And this gave rise to the term

"flying saucer."

HARZAN: Within days of Arnold's
report being published,

there were literally
20 other reports

of‐of similar objects seen

in the sky around the northwest
of the United States.

This opened the floodgates

for literally hundreds
of reports to pour in.

NARRATOR: Just two weeks after
this flurry of UFO sightings,

the infamous
Roswell Incident occurred.

But it was actually a sighting
that happened a day earlier

that thrust military officials
into the hunt.

On July 7, 1947,
at Edwards Air Force Base,

then called Muroc Air Base,

Major J. C. Wise was sitting
in his XP‐84 fighter jet,

experimental aircraft,

when he noticed
that people on the ground

were watching an object
off in the distance.

He looked and saw a bright,
spinning, yellow object

about 10,000 feet in the air

that was a ball of about
five to ten feet in diameter.

After the sighting,
it was actually required

that all officers fill out
a form if they saw anything

that might be regarded
as a UFO or a flying saucer.

And in addition to that,

they were told not to discuss
their sighting

or what was on their report
with anyone.

In the wake of the incredible
number of UFO reports

that reached the military
in the summer of 1947,

Lieutenant General
Nathan Twining at Wright Field

created a new order

to ensure that all UFO reports
reached the military.

This led to the creation

of the first official
UFO research program

on the part of the military
known as Project Sign.

NARRATOR:
On January 22, 1948,

the U. S. government authorized
its first official study

of the UFO phenomenon.

The highly classified agenda
was known as Project Sign.

WILLIAM HENRY:
Project Sign officially argued

that these UFO sightings
were authentic

and hinted
that they were, in fact,

extraterrestrial in nature.

But the higher‐ups
in the military stepped in

and redacted those statements,
canceled Project Sign,

turned it into Project Grudge,

which ultimately became
Project Blue Book.

REDFERN: The Air Force
closed down Blue Book

because essentially they said
they didn't find any evidence

that UFOs were real

or represented a threat
to national security.

Between 1948 and 1969,

the U. S. Air Force
collected 12,618 UFO reports.

Of that number,
701 remained unexplained.

NARRATOR: While the Air Force's
official stance was

that Project Blue Book produced
no compelling evidence

that extraterrestrial craft
occupied Earth's airspace,

one important contributor
to the study strongly disagreed.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek,

a professor in the Department
of Physics and Astronomy

at Ohio State University,

was appointed as scientific
advisor for UFO studies

during Projects Sign,
Grudge and Blue Book.

HARZAN:
Dr. Hynek was a pure skeptic

at the very beginning
of his career

as a consultant
to the United States Air Force.

In fact, he considered these
UFOs to be utterly ridiculous.

But as he got
more and more involved

and began talking to
more and more quality witnesses,

like military fighter pilots,

it became clear to him
that there really was

something to
this whole UFO question.

When asked in his later years
what turned him around

on the whole UFO question,
Dr. Hynek said two things.

The first is that
the Air Force was dead set

on putting an answer
on every single UFO report,

even if they had
to force the answer.

The second is
that he started talking

to very, very credible witnesses

that led him to believe
that these objects

were, in fact, real.

NARRATOR: In the intervening
years, UFO investigators

and scholars have attempted

to access Project Blue Book
case files

utilizing
the Freedom of Information Act.

But the names, details
and other personal information

of all the witnesses and
sightings have been blacked out

from the documents, preventing
any further examination.

HENRY: Considering the way
the U. S. government

has labeled UFOs "top secret,"
we have to at least be open

to the possibility
that higher‐ups

within the U. S. government,

or even those higher
than U. S. government,

are absolutely aware

of extraterrestrial involvement
in human affairs

and have sought
to cover up this phenomena

for the past six decades.

NARRATOR: Considering
the top‐secret nature

of these projects,
is it possible that

the incredible claims
of Dr. J. Allen Hynek are true,

and that actual contact
with extraterrestrial craft

has been concealed
from the general population?

Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes, and claim

that mankind
has had contact with aliens

since our earliest
civilizations.

NARRATOR:
Humboldt University.

Berlin, Germany.

January 28, 2016.

Astroarchaeologist
Mathieu Ossendrijver

announces what he calls
"a truly astonishing find."

He has discovered evidence
that astronomers living

in the ancient city of Babylon

invented sophisticated
mathematical equations

to track the movement of Jupiter
some 2,000 years ago.

When modern astronomers think
about the timing of events

in the solar system, we use very
complicated computer programs

that take into account things
like special relativity

and general relativity.

We didn't think that ancient
astronomers would have had

the capacity to make the same
calculations we do today.

We knew that the Babylonians
were able to predict

when Venus would appear and
which constellations would be up

at certain times of the year,
but we never would have expected

that they were using one of
the precursors to calculus

to figure out the motions
of Jupiter in the sky.

When the Babylonians looked
where Jupiter was in the sky,

they would record
where it was one night,

and they would draw a point
on a graph.

They would record the time
on the bottom axis

and the position
on the top axis.

They'd do this the next night.

They'd see Jupiter
was over here.

And then the next night,
it's over there and over there.

And they could then draw
a corner down to the time axis,

and then they'd draw a line.

So you end up
with a trapezoid in space.

NARRATOR: How did the ancient
Babylonians understand

mathematical concepts that were
thought to have been developed

by Isaac Newton
in the 17th century?

And why were they
mysteriously concerned

with the precise movements
of Jupiter,

a planet that they associated

with one of
their most important gods,

Marduk?

The principal deity
of ancient Babylon was Marduk,

and he was associated
with the planet Jupiter.

And there was a large mythology

around his departure
and eventual return.

They were very interested
in the return of their divinity,

so any sign that
the planet Jupiter would give

would be of great interest.

DAVID WHITEHEAD: Why was Jupiter
so important to this culture

that they actually conscribed it

as being one of their gods
called Marduk?

Was it that they believed that
Marduk came from this planet

and would eventually return
one day?

Are they recounting
an extraterrestrial visitation

from the past?

And were they given
this advanced knowledge

as a way of knowing

of when
this extraterrestrial being

would one day return?

It's quite compelling
that many ancient cultures

went to great lengths
to track these celestial bodies.

NARRATOR: Much like
the Breakthrough Listen project

of today, many ancient cultures
took great measures

to study the heavens.

All over the planet,
there are stone observatories.

These are systems of stones
arranged to line up

with the planets
in celestial moments,

suggesting
that the ancients were

really quite advanced
in their study of the stars

to use these and use them well.

We are fascinated,
our current scientists,

in the accuracy in the alignment
that they have arranged

and how they are so similar,
these observatories,

these configurations
all over the planet.

It would be one thing
if we found

one ancient megalithic
stone observatory.

But the fact is
that there are at least ten

all around the world
that were fashioned

in megalithic structures.

The most popular one
is Stonehenge.

Stone observatories,

oftentimes not only do
they track the stars

but sometimes they track
specific constellations.

First and foremost, Orion,
Sirius and the Pleiades.

So I have to ask
the question why.

Because in association
with those observatories,

we have stories

of beings arriving
from the Pleiades,

from Sirius and Orion,

imparting knowledge
to our ancestors.

This whole idea
of observing the stars

is something
that is innate in our soul.

All of our ancient cultures
were visited

by the same type
of extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: Is it possible
that the Babylonians,

as well as
other ancient civilizations,

were watching the stars for
signs of extraterrestrial life?

And if so, were they watching

because contact
had already been made?

Why were they obsessed
with tracking

the movements of stars
and planets?

Was it just for orientation,
so they could know

what direction they're traveling
when they're navigating

on ships?

Or could it be
that they were actually visited

by beings
that came from these planets?

I think absolutely yes.

NARRATOR: Could
our ancestors' near obsession

with the movement of the stars
be proof that they were

in fact the first alien hunters?

If so, could it lead to proof
of extraterrestrial contact

hundreds or even thousands
of years ago?

And might these ancient
stone observatories

be leading today's alien hunters
towards the next big discovery?

NARRATOR:
Barron, Wisconsin.

Summer 1934.

At the age of nine,

Coral Lorenzen spots
a saucer‐shaped object

floating across the sky.

It makes no sound
as it moves slowly northwest,

before disappearing
over the horizon.

The encounter lasts
just 20 seconds

but will forever change
the course

of UFO investigations.

One of the early important
UFO researchers

in the United States
is Coral Lorenzen.

She had a UFO sighting long
before the flying saucer wave

of the '40s took place.

And it stayed with her
her whole life.

HARZAN:
In August of 1951,

Coral took on a role
of being a reporter

for the Green Bay Press‐Gazette

and wrote stories about UFOs.

She got lots of responses
from other people

who had seen similar objects.

NARRATOR:
In 1952,

Coral and her husband,

a former U. S. Army
Air Corps officer,

Jim Lorenzen,

established the first
independent UFO organization,

known as Aerial Phenomena
Research Organization,

or APRO.

Coral was highly disappointed
with how the Air Force

and the government was handling
this whole UFO question.

She knew
that these craft were real.

She felt there needed to be
an investigative body

not beholden to the government

that could look
into this question.

The Lorenzens decided
the best way

to investigate the phenomenon

was essentially to set up
an investigative group

with people in different
disciplines and fields

who could look at reports,
study them,

and determine
what the witnesses had seen.

At the height of its success,

APRO actually had
more than 3,000 members,

many of whom
were out in the field

investigating things,
compiling reports,

and really putting together
a huge body

of highly credible data,

which far exceeded anything,
really,

that Blue Book, Sign
and Grudge were doing.

This was the first
civilian organization

to go and investigate UFOs.

And once she broke the ice
on this,

other organizations
began coming and being created.

One of those organizations
was called NICAP.

Admiral Fahrney, who was
at the time in World War Two

considered the guided missile
scientist of the Navy,

helped found and
became the chairman of NICAP.

Even more interesting,
the other member of NICAP

was the first head of the CIA,

Admiral Hillenkoetter.

If there was anyone who should
know if UFOs were real or not,

you would think
it would be the head

of the Central Intelligence
Agency.

In 1960, Rear Admiral
Hillenkoetter stated

the following three things:

one, that the UFO phenomenon
was real;

two, that it was not Soviet;

and, three, that we had not
adequately studied

scientifically
the UFO phenomenon.

NARRATOR:
A former director of the CIA

admitting that
the UFO phenomenon is real?

Might Admiral Hillenkoetter
have come across

definitive evidence
of alien craft visiting Earth?

Despite his audacious statement,

the government maintained
its position

that no UFO reports
had proved credible.

But the number of public
UFO societies continued to grow.

On May 31, 1969,

APRO member Walt Andrus created

his own volunteer‐based
organization

that combined Missouri,
Iowa and Illinois.

What started
as the Midwest UFO Network

would ultimately change its name
to the Mutual UFO Network,

or MUFON, when it grew to become

the largest UFO investigation
organization in the world.

POPE: MUFON now has
thousands of members.

They have state directors
and field investigators

covering the entire
United States,

and indeed a number
of other countries, too.

And unlike the way in which
things were done in APRO days,

MUFON's model involves giving
a lot of autonomy to the states.

They organize
their own conferences.

They handle research projects,

and they literally get
boots on the ground

and go out and investigate.

These organizations
became very popular

because there was
an overall change and shift

in the thinking of
what these phenomena were.

People were now coming out
and looking up to the skies

just to look for the possibility

that there could be
something up there,

understanding the potential
of what these objects could be.

NARRATOR: According to
ancient astronaut theorists,

aliens have been visiting Earth
throughout mankind's history.

So why is it that so many people
in the mid 20th century

suddenly became obsessed
with finding evidence

of extraterrestrial encounters?

Some suggest
that the aliens themselves

may in fact be responsible
for this increased awareness.

Coral Lorenzen's
setting up of APRO,

and Walt Andrus's
breakaway organization MUFON,

all of these were inspired
by personal UFO encounters.

So could it be that there was

more than chance alone
at work here?

Could it be that some force
was somehow targeting people

like Coral Lorenzen
and Walter Andrus?

Is there an overseeing presence

that lies behind these
apparently chance encounters?

NARRATOR: Could it be
that while extraterrestrials

have kept their presence

concealed from humanity
at large,

they have chosen specific
individuals as emissaries,

that will ultimately reveal
a greater truth?

And if so, might their plan
to reconnect with humanity

have been set in motion in 1934,

when nine‐year‐old
Coral Lorenzen first spotted

a strange object in the sky?

Perhaps further answers can be
found by examining efforts

to not only find evidence
of extraterrestrials,

but to contact them.

DAVID WILCOX:
This is a total game‐changer

because it suggests
that a civilization

that can harness the power
of an entire star

actually does exist,

and we can see it
with our telescopes.

NARRATOR:
Delaware, Ohio.

August 15, 1977.

At Ohio State University's
Big Ear radio telescope,

astronomer Jerry R. Ehman
conducts research for SETI,

the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

While reviewing recorded data,

he detects
a highly unusual signal

originating from
the constellation Sagittarius.

They're looking for this
bandwidth of 1,420 megahertz.

Specifically, they believed

that this bandwidth
corresponds to water,

and that intelligent
civilizations might encode

the electromagnetic frequency
of water

with a detectable signal.

So there is Jerry Ehman,
on the Big Ear telescope,

doing his SETI work,
and a 72‐second burst comes in

on the 1,420 megahertz signal.

72 seconds
of very bizarre static

that does not look natural.

It looks artificial;
it looks like something

that was intelligently
built and sent.

So he writes "Wow!" next to
this part of the readout,

and it is now known
as the "Wow! signal."

And still to this day,
the Wow! signal

has never been
properly explained,

nor has it been deciphered.

NARRATOR:
While there are various theories

as to what may have caused
the now famous Wow! signal,

from terrestrial radio
broadcasts to comet trails,

SETI has not ruled out
the possibility

that it may represent modern
man's first radio contact

with extraterrestrials.

And they have plans to reexamine
the area where it originated

in the near future.

To get a firsthand look
into this continued search

for extraterrestrial life,
in March of 2016,

researcher and publisher
Giorgio Tsoukalos

traveled to the Allen Telescope
Array in Hat Creek, California,

where he met with the director
for SETI research, Seth Shostak.

This is truly amazing.

What can you tell me
about this place?

Well, this place is, uh,
an observatory.

But it's a radio observatory.

So these things around us,
these 42 antennas,

they pick up radio waves.

And we're trying to pick up
very special sort

of radio waves,
namely some that would tell us

somebody's out there.

By having lots
of these dishes here,

we can look at
more of the sky at once.

We can look at multiple
star systems at once.

Why radio waves?

What's so significant
about radio waves?

SHOSTAK: Radio waves go
at the speed of light,

and they also, by the way,
go through all the gas and dust

that's between the stars.

So, you know,
if you want to communicate

from one part of the galaxy
to another,

radio waves are
a great way to do it.

So the way this works is
actually kind of simple.

I mean, the cosmic radio static,
it comes in from the sky,

and it bounces off
that big reflector there,

that first one, okay?

‐That's‐that's a mirror
for radio waves. ‐Mm‐hmm.

And that redirects them
to this secondary reflector,

on the end, on the nose there.

And then they're directed
to the receiver,

and that's inside.

That information goes through
a fiber optic

over to the control room.

So, this is where the, uh, data
coming through the fiber optics

kind of ends up
after it's been processed

in a display like this.

And what are we looking at
right here?

So we're looking, in this case,
at three star systems

at once, okay?

So that speeds up the search.

It also allows us to determine

whether we're really seeing E. T.
or just interference.

The data from
one of these star systems

is being displayed over on
this part of the screen here.

This is called a waterfall plot.

That... can you see,
can you see that line

‐of brighter dots there?
‐This right here, yes. Mm‐hmm.

SHOSTAK: Yeah, that's,
uh, slightly more static

at that frequency
slowly going down the dot.

That's the kind of thing
we're looking for.

So then, if this here were
an actual E. T. signal,

how would it
differentiate itself?

Uh, would it be a bit thicker,

a bit more pronounced,
a bit longer or...

What are you looking for?

It could be all of those things.

So what you do is, when you find
a signal like this,

you make a test.

You'll just move the antennas
a little bit,

and see if the signal goes away.

And then point it back at the
star and see if it comes back.

You say, "Well, that's
looking promising."

You do that again,
go off, go on, go off, go on.

If you do that five or ten
times, you start to get excited.

I hope that that day will come
very soon.

SHOSTAK: The Wow! signal
continues to intrigue people.

So we are going to use
the Allen Telescope Array

to reobserve the Wow! signal,

look in the same spot
on the sky,

look over a wider range
of frequencies,

and‐and if there's
something up there

and it's still broadcasting,
of course we would find it.

NARRATOR:
While SETI has yet to find

an explanation
for the Wow! signal,

NASA's Kepler Telescope team
has continued to search

for signs of alien life
in other solar systems,

despite the U. S. government's
open denial

of extraterrestrial contact.

In September 2015, after more
than five years of research,

members of
the Kepler team revealed

some incredible findings

coming from the star
KIC 8462852,

also known as Tabby's Star,

named for the astronomer
who discovered it.

WILCOCK:
What we see from Tabby's Star

is changes in light output

that are not attributable
to comets, to planets,

to asteroids

or to other fragments
that would orbit the star.

We're seeing quasi‐periodic
dimmings of the light

that can be as much as a 21%
reduction in the luminosity

that's coming out of the star.

Now, we have the scientists
who are publishing papers

in which they propose
that one of the explanations

for what they are seeing

is a massive
extraterrestrial construct

akin to something known
as a Dyson sphere.

A Dyson sphere is actually
a gigantic structure

built around a star,

which harnesses the energy
of the star, and could in fact

be used to travel
from one place to another

within the galaxy.

This story is
a total game‐changer,

because it suggests that
a Type II civilization,

a civilization that can harness
the power of an entire star,

actually does exist and we can
see it with our telescopes.

NARRATOR: Is it possible
that astronomers hunting

for habitable planets may have
accidentally discovered

the first extrasolar
civilization?

And if so,
why does the U. S. government

continue to deny
extraterrestrial contact?

While the true cause behind
the light patterns

coming from Tabby's Star
has yet to be discovered,

ancient astronaut theorists
suggest

that world governments
have ramped up the hunt

for extraterrestrial life

because they already know
it exists.

NARRATOR:
Toronto, Canada.

September 2005.

Paul Hellyer,

who served as the Canadian
Minister of National Defence

from 1963 to 1967,

makes worldwide headlines

by announcing his belief
in the existence of UFOs,

and that
the United States government

has made great efforts
to conceal knowledge

of their existence for decades.

To date, Mr. Hellyer remains

the highest‐ranking
government official

to ever publicly declare
this information.

HELLYER:
I came to the conclusion

that there are issues here
so profound

for the future of
the United States and the world,

that they have to be
discussed...

openly and intelligently.

And one of them, of course,
was the possibility

the U. S. could get us
in an intergalactic war.

And so, I decided that
I should speak out.

UFOs are as real as
the airplanes flying overhead.

This is actually paralleling
something that Edgar Mitchell‐‐

the sixth man to walk
on the surface of the moon‐‐

suggested, that there were
multiple alien races

visiting the Earth.

EDGAR MITCHELL:
This is not unknown knowledge.

There are people that know

and there seems to be
many different,

perhaps several different
species of aliens visiting here.

And it looks like,
likely they have been

for a long, long time.

(alarm blaring)

People in the military
have witnessed UFO operations

around our military facilities.

And there's been quite a number
of reports of attempts to

destroy some of
our missile tests

and the missiles in flight.

They are not
particularly pleased,

the alien visitors,
with our warlike capabilities

and our nuclear capabilities.

UFO researchers have suggested

that the U. S. military
has secretly built

an installation
on the surface of the moon

to help combat an alien threat.

If there are extraterrestrials
visiting the Earth,

and they're potentially hostile,

it would make a great deal
of sense

that we would be
prepared for this.

NARRATOR: A secret military
installation on the moon?

Could such claims,
along with those made

by former Canadian
Defence Minister Paul Hellyer

and Apollo astronaut
Edgar Mitchell, really be true?

Perhaps further clues
can be found

by examining
recently declassified documents.

July 20, 2014.

The United States Army

declassifies and discloses one
of its biggest secret missions:

Project Horizon.

Project Horizon's mandate
was to create, by 1966,

three years before the first
NASA landing of men on the moon,

a military base which could hold
at least 20 individuals

and which would be expanded on
over time as well.

It would be nuclear powered.

It would have
its own water supply, oxygen.

And it really would be
the moon equivalent

of a military installation.

The feeling was,
from Wernher von Braun,

from NASA and indeed
from‐from the entire government,

that space would become
an important battlefield.

We talk about
conventional warfare

and how that would play out.

It's fairly clear that
if there is another war,

that space will be
a battlefield.

HELLYER: The United States
has been working for a long time

in building new weapons

based on the technology
that they've gained.

If you control
one of the approaches

to the Earth,
it gives you an advantage

that you wouldn't
otherwise have.

Also, it's a launching pad

for anything you want to do
on Earth.

NARRATOR:
Could it be,

as some ancient
astronaut theorists contend,

that the U. S. military

was successful in the
construction of a military base

on the surface of the moon?

While the stated mission goal
was to establish dominance

over the Soviet Union
during the Cold War,

many believe the effort

was not against an antagonistic
global super power,

but an unknown
extraterrestrial force.

MARTELL: This is even
further expanded upon

when we look at Reagan's legacy

and some of these things
like the Star Wars initiative.

So, it's very possible that,

when we look at what was
happening in the Cold War era,

maybe they were trying
to divert attention

to what was really going on.

And that could have been
some type of collaboration

between us and Russia,

of putting a space base
on the moon,

or doing some other type
of space platform

that currently now exists
within our solar system.

There is no doubt in my mind
that Star Wars,

initiated by President Reagan,

was more related
to the possibility

of being able to take the
extraterrestrials on for size

than it was
against rogue states.

All of the best information
available is that it was

more intended as
a possible defense against UFOs

than it was
against rogue missiles.

NARRATOR:
Did the recent disclosure

of Project Horizon only serve
to try to dissuade inquiry

into a real and escalating
military presence in space?

And, if so,
is the military preparing

to actively hunt out the aliens
they've known about for decades?

Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes,

and suggest that
with a recent NASA project,

the U. S. government

has reportedly enlisted
average citizens

in the hunt
for extraterrestrial life.

NARRATOR:
April 21, 2015.

NASA launches
an unprecedented initiative

that creates a coalition
of scientific experts

with a mandate
to lead the search

for life in the universe.

This scientific endeavor,

known as the Nexus
for Exoplanet System Science‐‐

or "NExSS" for short‐‐

is a game‐changer
in the discovery of alien life.

COURTNEY DRESSING:
The NExSS is a multidiscipline,

multi‐institute approach to try
to answer the big question of:

are we alone in the galaxy?

The NExSS includes researchers

from multiple institutions
in different subfields.

It includes astrophysicists,
planetary scientists,

Earth scientists
and even helio‐physicists‐‐

people who study the sun‐‐

so we can put all of
the different pieces together

and really learn
what makes a planet tick

and what kind of planets
might have life on them;

and if those planets do exist,
whether they have life at all.

(steady beeping)

NARRATOR:
Since the launch

of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope
in 2009,

more than 2,000 exoplanets‐‐

a planet that orbits around
another star‐‐ have been found,

with thousands
of additional candidates

awaiting research
and confirmation.

DRESSING:
The Planet Hunters project

was the brainchild of NASA
and Yale researchers.

The idea of the project is to
allow average, everyday people‐‐

citizen scientists,
as we call them‐‐

the opportunity
to discover planets.

Citizen scientists have actually
done a tremendous service

to the astrophysical community
by looking at Kepler data

through
the Planet Hunters portal.

Citizen scientists have really
accelerated the pace

of exoplanet discoveries,

because that core
of 260,000 people

has looked at 20 million
light curves by eye.

It's really interesting
that NASA is doing this,

because the fact is
that they wouldn't be doing it

unless they believed
that there were:

A, habitable exoplanets
out there;

B, that the general public
could help in finding them;

and C, that there might be
alien life on those planets.

As the executive director
of MUFON,

I can tell you
this shift has already started.

We get calls from
credible scientists, engineers,

politicians and their staff,

who want to know more
about this phenomenon,

because they realize
that it is in fact real.

So, as we look
into this question

of who they are,
why they're here

and where they're from,

I think we'll learn more
about ourselves‐‐

about who we are,

where we're from
and why we're here.

In the search
for extraterrestrial life,

there are a number of questions
that need to be asked.

Where's this gonna lead to?

What are the implications?

If we find extraterrestrials
are benevolent,

well, that's good news;
it's gonna help us.

If we find out
they're malevolent and hostile,

we could find ourselves
in quite literally a world war.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that
governments around the world

are now openly on the hunt
for extraterrestrials

because they already have
knowledge of their existence?

And if so,
has the point finally come

when this truth
can no longer be covered up?

Perhaps it will soon be revealed

that aliens have been visiting
Earth for thousands of years,

and that we are not searching
for proof of their existence,

but watching for their return.