All language subtitles for Secrets.Declassified.with.David.Duchovny.S01E02.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- Throughout time,
governments and the people

who work for them have done
strange and even terrible

things in the name
of national interest.

Tonight we look up.

Imagine an intelligence agency
stealing a fighter jet

in broad daylight.

- He risks being blown out
of the sky at any instant.

[dramatic music]

- And can we ever know
with certainty

what happens at Area 51?

- This is actually responsible

for more than half of all
reported UFO sightings

in the 1950s.

- This is pure evidence
that the government is

hiding something big.

♪ ♪

- It's time to bring
these secrets of the skies

back down to Earth.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[tense music]

It's fall 1954.

In Burbank, California,
aerospace manufacturer Lockheed

is designing
a top secret aircraft

whose very existence
will ignite

one of history's greatest
conspiracy theories.

♪ ♪

- This plane is
cutting-edge technology,

but it's kind of weird.

It uses advanced materials
like titanium

that's strong and lightweight,

but it also has
these strange features.

Like its gangly,
and the landing gear

is lined up
like bicycle wheels.

- This is
a curious-looking bird.

This plane has
130-foot-long wings

that droop at their length,
to the point that

they actually will
hit the ground

when the plane is grounded.

- Most unusually, though,
for a plane produced by

a fighter jet company,
this aircraft isn't

going to carry a single weapon.

- The reason for this
plane's extreme design

is its extreme mission.

It's being made
for the U.S. government

to fly at
record-breaking altitudes

on top secret
reconnaissance missions

over Soviet territory.

♪ ♪

- In the 1950s,
the Americans are worried

about the technology
that the Soviets have.

The rumor at the time
is that the Soviets

had developed a bomber
capable of flying from Moscow

to the United States.

So the CIA comes up
with this ingenious plan

to find out if it was true.

- We don't have much
of a spy network operating

in the Soviet Union
in the 1950s.

The Soviets are protected
behind an Iron Curtain.

If you can't go through
the Iron Curtain

or sneak behind it,
you might have to fly over it.

[dramatic music]

- To avoid detection,
the CIA decides to build

a state of the art spy plane.

- Any aircraft that are flying
over Soviet territory

might be suscepted
to air defense,

including
sophisticated missiles,

and they might be accused of
violating international law.

♪ ♪

The solution is to create
an aircraft that flies

twice as high
as the Himalayan peaks.

- 70,000 feet and above.

♪ ♪

- No plane has flown
so high for so long.

To achieve it means developing
brand-new technology.

♪ ♪

- So the government
tasked Lockheed

to build this spy plane.

And their solution
is essentially

to make a giant glider

and to stick
a jet engine on it.

- Flying at
the altitude that it is

presents all sorts
of new challenges.

For instance, traditional
jet fuel just won't work.

- They need to invent
an entirely new

type of kerosene fuel

that doesn't boil off
at low pressure.

- Lockheed's engineers call
its new creation

The Angel, as it flies
so close to heaven.

The government designates it
Utility Aircraft 2,

or the U-2.

But building
this incredible plane

is only half the battle.

♪ ♪

- When the U-2 is complete,
the government needs

to figure out how to test it
and, most importantly,

where to test it.

- Building a plane in secret,
that's doable,

because it's done
inside of a hangar.

But testing a plane in secret,
that's a lot more difficult.

♪ ♪

- For decades, the location
of the U-2's testing site

remains one
of the government's

most closely guarded secrets.

But conducting so many flights

of this classified plane

has a strange side effect.

- When they start testing
the U-2,

UFO sightings go up
tremendously.

The public sees it.

They have no idea
what they're looking at.

Air traffic controllers
and professional pilots,

they don't know either.

- They see
the shimmering in the sky.

They don't know what it is.

It's really high up there.

Therefore,
they think it's a UFO.

♪ ♪

- Rather than confess that
they're testing a top secret

new plane, which might alert
the Soviets to their plan,

the CIA launch a cover-up.

- They claim the sightings
are due to natural phenomena.

So understandably,

the conspiracy theories
go nuts.

- There are some people
who argue that the U-2

in its early stages
of development

is actually responsible
for more than half of all

reported UFO sightings
in the 1950s.

- In 2013, the U.S. admits
for the first time

what many have long suspected.

The name of U-2's secret
test base is Area 51.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- One of the reasons
that Area 51 is

so important and so secret
is that it's near

the Nevada proving grounds.

And no one in their right mind

is going to want
to go into an area

where they're testing
nuclear bombs.

♪ ♪

- They specifically
purchased the land

for testing the U-2.

Were it not for the U-2,
there would be no Area 51,

and we would have lost our most
iconic UFO conspiracy location.

- While Area 51 becomes
the most notorious UFO site

in the world, the U-2 plane
becomes one of America's

most vital intelligence tools.

- Between 1956,
the first operational flight

July 4 through May 1 of 1960,

the U-2 program
dispelled the missile gap

and the bomber gap.

There was none.

We were still ahead
of the Soviets,

even though they were saying
they were ahead of us.

♪ ♪

- Over the next four years,
30 flights photograph

almost 15% of the USSR.

This provides 90%
of the CIA's hard intelligence

on its fiercest rival.

- The CIA thought
it had a shelf life

of two to four years.

Well, other than the B-52,

the U-2 spy plane
is the longest-flying airplane

in the U.S. Air Force's
arsenal,

and it's still flying today.

♪ ♪

- The U-2 isn't
the only secret

aviation project to fly
into the record books.

A decade later, the world's
first supersonic plane

prepares for its maiden flight.

But this isn't the Concorde
in London or Paris.

This is in Moscow,

and this aircraft
is named Tu-144.

♪ ♪

- The maiden flight
of the Tu-144 is a massive

engineering and propaganda win

for the Soviet Union
over the West.

Up until that point,

the only planes to fly
over the speed of sound

are military jets.

No one has ever built
a large-scale plane

like this that can
carry passengers,

because the immense technical
challenge of it all.

♪ ♪

- The Soviet designers
are on cloud nine.

♪ ♪

The creators of the Concorde
are in shock.

♪ ♪

- In 1962,

Britain and France entered
into an agreement

to share resources
to develop and build

a supersonic passenger jet
called the Concorde

and get it in the sky
before the Soviet Union.

- The fact that
the Tu-144 beats Concorde

into the sky is a surprise.

Even more shocking,
it has the same design.

- Both planes have got
the same sleek nose,

the same delta wing shape,
and the same

afterburning turbojet engine.

The Tu-144 is so similar
that the Western press,

they called it the Concordeski.

♪ ♪

- The Soviets insist
their craft is

100% Russian ingenuity,

but Western engineers
point to a series

of suspicious events
during Concorde's development.

[tense music]

- Right from the onset,
the Soviets showed

an incredible amount
of interest

in the Concorde program.

Could there also be a mole
within the organization,

someone within the trust
of the Concorde program

giving secrets away?

♪ ♪

- Rumors of industrial
espionage remain just that.

Then, in 1992,
a Russian bureaucrat

walks into the British embassy
in Latvia with a bold offer.

♪ ♪

- A disillusioned KGB worker

named Vasili Mitrokhin said

that he had scores of documents

that he would willingly hand
over in exchange for asylum.

♪ ♪

When MI6 agents get to
Mitrokhin's house in Russia,

they find a treasure
trove of material--

more than 25,000 pages.

In total, it's about six
trunks' worth of material.

- During his time at KGB,
Vasili was actually

hand-copying notes that

he had access to
as an archivist.

This discovery would turn out
to be the largest single

source of information
ever collected during

the entire history
of the Cold War.

- Buried in this vast
intelligence stash

is evidence of a spy
codenamed Ace.

- Agent Ace seems to be
a British engineer

who was leaking information
to the Soviets.

This is how the Tu-144 got in
the sky before the Concorde.

- Agent Ace was the mole that
the UK and the Concorde program

suspected
from the very beginning.

- For 20 years,
the identity of Agent Ace

remains a mystery.

But in 2023,
a British professor

pieces together clues
from Mitrokhin's archive

to crack the case.

♪ ♪

- Agent Ace's real name

is Ivor Gregory James,

and he is
a Hong-Kong-born engineer

who went to work in Britain
in the 1970s.

- It was discovered that
Agent Ace had actually

supplied the Soviets
with more than 90,000 pages

of documentation related
to new aircraft designs

over more than a decade.

♪ ♪

And inside that
supply of information

were details related
to the Concorde program.

♪ ♪

- The theft
of the Concorde secrets

is one of the largest
industrial espionage operations

of all time.

But for all its
initial success,

there's a good reason
you probably

never heard of the Tu-144.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- At this prestigious
Paris Air Show,

both the Concorde
and the revised Tu-14

are the star attractions.

- The Tu-144 flies at
the Paris Air Show.

♪ ♪

And initially, it looks great.

It takes off fine.

It flies for a few minutes.

♪ ♪

But then it stalls
and crashes.

♪ ♪

- It all breaks apart
in flames.

♪ ♪

- It is a massive
embarrassment

for the Soviet Union,

and the plane's reputation
never recovers.

- The Tu-144
only ever completes

100 domestic flights.

[solemn music]

The rumors are
the sonic jet ends its days

shipping mailbags in Siberia.

♪ ♪

[tense music]

- It's 1967,

and a mysterious light
in the sky

over a key
American missile base

is about to set off alarms

and ignite
a long-running mystery.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- On March 24, Robert Salas
arrives for his shift,

overseeing 10 nuclear missiles
at Malmstrom Air Force base.

♪ ♪

As a young missileer,

his job is to serve
as the first line of defense

as part of America's
nuclear arsenal.

♪ ♪

- In the late 1960s,
the Minuteman ICBMs

are really the centerpiece
of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

♪ ♪

- Malmstrom is one
of multiple sites

that houses
1,000 nuclear missiles.

Each one is in its own silo,

and 150 of them
are at Malmstrom.

♪ ♪

Those missiles are
kept on alert

and ready to fire
on very short notice

in the event
of a nuclear exchange.

♪ ♪

- Salas's work is critical
to national security,

but it also gets
a little repetitive.

- I actually had
a chance to serve

at Malmstrom Air Force base
as a nuclear missile officer.

And when you're there,
you don't feel very important.

You're just one of about
1,000 other people

who are all there taking turns
going underground

and monitoring these missiles.

But in reality,
you really are carrying

the weight of nuclear
deterrence on your shoulders.

- This particular shift
at Malmstrom

is anything but routine.

- Salas is in his command
headquarters, and suddenly...

[phone rings]

He gets a call from

the gate personnel

at the entrance to Malmstrom.

- And the guard reports
that there's

some sort of strange light
that's flying,

moving in a strange pattern
over the actual base itself.

This is an area that's
restricted from aircraft

and restricted
from commercial travel.

So what is this light
that's flying overhead?

- They don't seem to be
engaged in threatening action,

but it is
a little disconcerting

to see unexplained lights
above the base.

A few minutes later,
Salas gets a second call.

- And this time the guard calls
Salas in a cold panic.

- There's a glowing orb
of red light

that's hovering right above
the gate to Malmstrom.

[tense music]

- Needless to say,
nobody knew what this was,

and Salas,
who's 100 feet underground,

has no idea how to make
any sense of this at all.

- Salas orders
the gate personnel

to not allow anything
to pass the gate.

- And then within
just a few seconds,

all 10 missiles under
Salas's command go dark.

[dramatic music]

- These Minuteman missiles are

the most sophisticated,

technologically advanced
nuclear weapons

in the American arsenal.

♪ ♪

The idea that 10 of them

could suddenly all malfunction
at the same time

is unthinkable to Salas.

- 10 missiles actually
covers about 15 square miles

of location, all controlled
by a single launch

control capsule where
Salas was actually sitting.

♪ ♪

- With no explanation,

the red orbiting light
disappears.

- The missiles reactivate,

and it's almost as if
nothing happened at all.

♪ ♪

- Was this a Soviet spy craft

sent to disrupt
America's defenses

or some unidentified
aerial phenomenon?

To find out,
the Air Force sends a team

from an ongoing
secret investigation

known as Project Blue Book.

♪ ♪

- Project Blue Book was
a U.S. Air Force program

that started
in the early 1950s

and ran for about 15 years

to track and classify all
unidentified aerial phenomena

and see if any of them were
a threat to national security.

- Investigators
from Project Blue Book

look into this incident
at Malmstrom,

and they don't think
it's an alien spacecraft,

but they also can't find
any other logical explanation.

- The official word is that
the government doesn't know

why those missiles shut down.

- Malmstrom is
instantly classified

like many other Project
Blue Book sightings.

- Salas signs
a nondisclosure agreement,

and he's sworn to secrecy

about the events
that occurred.

He's convinced that if he tells
anybody what he saw,

he's going to face prosecution
and probably be put in prison.

- The Blue Book investigation
ends three years later,

and its findings
are made public.

The government concludes
that UFOs pose no danger

to America's defenses.

- There is nothing to hide.

- There's nothing
to hide at all.

- And no credible
evidence exists

for extraterrestrial
technology or vehicles.

[tense music]

Problem is, Robert Salas
knows what he saw.

♪ ♪

Decades later, in 2010,

he decides to tell his story
to the world.

- In 1967,
I was a First Lieutenant

stationed at Malmstrom
Air Force base, Montana.

- When Robert Salas came out
with his story,

UFO theorists and the community
really seized on it and said,

"This is pure evidence that
the government is hiding

something that happened
out there."

♪ ♪

The UFO community
starts to believe

that Project Blue Book
is designed to just

debunk UFO conspiracies

instead of actually
investigating them.

- I think the U.S. government
does know more about

some of these UFO sightings
than it lets on,

but that doesn't
necessarily mean

that they're alien spacecraft.

A mystery is in some ways
just as challenging

as an actual secret.

Still, today,
the U.S. government is

just as likely
to classify its ignorance

as it is it's knowledge.

[dramatic music]

- It's 15 years
into the Cold War.

Controlling the skies is vital
to defending the land.

One idea of an ambitious
U.S. general

involves a fleet of covert
nuclear bombers

that circle the enemy nonstop.

But on a winter's night
in 1961,

this plan goes up in flames
over North Carolina.

[whooshing]

- It's just before midnight
on an unusually warm evening

in the small town of Goldsboro.

Some of the residents
are still awake

when suddenly
their rooms start to glow

with a strange red light.

They see this giant B-52 bomber
with just a single wing on fire

passing over their homes.

[dramatic music]

- I can only imagine being one
of the residents of Goldsboro.

You hear this loud crash,
this boom outside.

It's a B-52 blowing up right
over your head, more or less.

It had to be
a horrific moment.

♪ ♪

- The plane explodes,
scattering debris

across two square miles
of cotton farmland,

igniting fields of crops.

♪ ♪

- Military helicopters start
to descend upon the scene

quite instantaneously,
just about.

- Next thing they know,
a voice on a loudspeaker

is yelling at everyone
to evacuate.

♪ ♪

- The residents of Goldsboro
are told this crashed plane

has scattered deadly cargo.

Two 3.8 megaton
thermonuclear bombs,

each 200 times
more destructive

than the one
that leveled Hiroshima.

What the world
doesn't yet know is that

this crashed bomber is
part of a classified

national security initiative

named the Airborne
Alert Program.

♪ ♪

- The Airborne Alert Program
is the brainchild

of General Power,
and the idea is that

the U.S. Air Force is
going to be ready

to deliver a nuke
to the USSR at any time.

♪ ♪

- General Power comes up
with this idea

to fly B-52s 24 hours a day,

because we want to make sure
that we are able to strike

Russia at any time, should they
launch these missiles at us.

- For a brief, shining moment,
the Soviet Union

pulled ahead
of the United States

in the Cold War
nuclear standoff.

They had that first
strike advantage.

♪ ♪

- So it seems absolutely
batty and insane.

But undoubtedly, many in
the 1960s were thinking,

this is exactly
how we ensure that

the United States survives
should the Cold War

give way to a hot war.

- No one has ever tried
to keep a fleet

of nuclear bombers
in the air 24/7.

- So General Power
and his planners

developed these routes that
will go along the Soviet border

and come back out.

- These were grueling missions
that are testing

the limits of human endurance.

The reality was
that they're circling

in a B-52 over
the Arctic Circle,

waiting to start a nuclear war.

♪ ♪

- They have to be refueled
while in flight.

And that's very dangerous,
because these planes are

carrying a nuclear payload.

- You have an American
strategic bomber

thundering through the sky
at 40,000 feet

with a bomb bay full of
thermonuclear weapons,

trying to receive kerosene
from another airplane

while they both bounce around
in turbulent air.

What could possibly go wrong?

♪ ♪

- You just wrap
your head around it.

Think about that.

There are at least two nukes
on every plane.

♪ ♪

- But General Power
and our military

think it's worth the risk.

♪ ♪

- After the Airborne
Alert Program

has been in secret
operation for years,

General Power decides
to make it public

on January 18, 1961.

He wants to use its existence
as a deterrent to the Soviets.

But exactly one week
after his announcement,

one of his bombers
springs a fuel leak,

and the residents of Goldsboro
end up running for their lives

from two unexploded
nuclear bombs.

- Shortly before this mission
was undertaken,

Boeing realized that
there was a mechanical issue

with the B-52s,

and essentially,
they were doing a callback.

But this B-52 had yet
to make the list.

That's when trouble strikes.

[whooshing, crashing]

- The military evacuate locals,
cordons off the area,

and brings in a crack team
of bomb disposal experts.

- One of the bombs
is very easy to find,

safely hanging from a tree,

ready for the government
to take it away.

Now, the second bomb,

that one's a bit harder
to get to.

- The second bomb experiences
a failure to deploy

of its retarding parachute.

And the result is it slams
into the surface of the Earth,

going 700 miles an hour,

and digs itself in
to a depth of 180 feet.

- The authorities dig
for seven days and nights

under floodlights,
in rain and snow,

to try and find the bomb.

- One wrong move,
and it could all go boom.

♪ ♪

- So finally, they decide
that further digging

represented a greater danger
than just isolating the device

and leaving it alone.

♪ ♪

- They realized
the better thing to do

is to seal it up
and call it a day.

- They leave the bomb in place
and they just buy the field

from the farmer
for 1,000 bucks.

- The deed to this land
forever states

that the owner
is not to go more

than five feet into the ground
for any purpose.

- 45 years later,
the Air Force releases

a never before seen document
detailing the crash,

compiled by a senior nuclear
weapons safety officer.

It reveals a shocking secret

and the paper thin
margin between near-miss

and nuclear apocalypse.

- This document that
comes out decades later

reveals that the first bomb,

of its multiple redundant
security devices,

all but one are compromised.

- As if by miracle,
it stopped at the final stage.

We're one tiny
electrical sequence away from

a thermonuclear explosion
in North Carolina.

♪ ♪

- As for the second nuke,

the one that is buried deep
in the soil of Goldsboro,

it's been half a century.

It hasn't blown up.

So I guess we're doing OK.

And fingers crossed.

[dramatic music]

- In the '60s,
the Soviets released

one of the most formidable,
most agile,

and most lethal fighter jets
ever made.

But this must have weapon
to rule the skies

is not for sale
to Russia's enemies.

So for the young nation
of Israel,

stealing its secrets might
tip the balance of a war.

[dramatic music]

- In the 1960s, a Soviet Union
created a brand-new,

cutting edge fighter jet

that had the entire
Western world on edge.

And it's a game changer.

- It's so fast and agile
that it becomes

the biggest selling fighter
in history.

It is also designed to be
simple to make

and cheap to produce,
which means air forces

could have lots of them.

- It's called the MiG 21.

♪ ♪

And for one fledgling
nation, Israel,

this nimble new fighter plane
spells disaster.

- Israel is surrounded on all
sides by hostile neighbors.

[tense music]

- Islamic countries
that were buying

MiG 21s from the Soviet Union.

♪ ♪

- What the Israelis want
to do is study the MiG 21.

They want to know
its potential weaknesses

and ensure their own ability
to maintain air superiority.

- Israel's primary concern
was this new fighter jet

could tip the scales of power
for any future war

that might break out
in the region.

- If the Israelis lose
air superiority,

they'll lose the war.

If they lose the war,
they'll cease to exist.

♪ ♪

The commander
of the Israeli Air Force

tells the head of Israeli
intelligence agencies,

Meir Amit,
"If you can bring me a MiG,

you'll have done me
a good day's service."

[dramatic music]

- Meir Amit accepts
the challenge

and hatches
a covert plan to steal

a MiG 21
from right under the noses

of Israel's neighbors.

The first step?

Finding a pilot.

- The Israelis started to make
approaches to pilots

in a lot of different
countries.

- The Israelis identify an
Iraqi pilot named Munir Redfa,

and they identify this pilot
because in an Islamic country,

he himself is Christian.

♪ ♪

- They orchestrate
a meeting in a hotel room.

♪ ♪

- It's such
an important mission.

The agency's top spy chief
even watches the entire meeting

covertly through a peephole.

♪ ♪

- Redfa is a deputy commander
of an Iraqi MiG squadron,

and he's not happy,
because he's just been

passed over for promotion.

[tense music]

He believes it's
because he's a Catholic,

which is pretty unusual
in Iraq.

He's also very unhappy about
being ordered to join

a bombing campaign
against Kurdish tribesmen

on the Iraqis' northern border.

♪ ♪

- In all the cases
I've ever worked,

in all the spies
I've ever recruited,

it was a deep,
real relationship

between us and them.

Just because you have differing

political idealizations

doesn't mean that you aren't
human beings together.

All you have to do
is think in terms of,

what can I do to inspire them
to feel safe with me

and solve that action they
need solved in their lives?

- It's a very delicate process
to create a defector,

to turn a patriot
into a traitor.

And every defector comes
with their own interests,

their own needs.

Sometimes it's education.

Sometimes it's finances.

But in every case,
all a defector is looking for

is to have some sort
of control over their future.

♪ ♪

- Redfa is offered $1 million,
Israeli citizenship,

and safe passage
for his entire family

if he agrees to fly
his MiG 21 to Israel.

- Redfa goes for the deal,

but there's one
significant setback: fuel.

- As a Christian, Redfa is
subject to a lot of scrutiny.

His movements are
tightly controlled.

- So he's rarely allowed to fly
with a full fuel tank.

This keeps him close to home.

♪ ♪

Even if Redfa has a full tank,
a journey to Israel

takes him through
hostile Jordanian airspace.

He risks being blown
out of the sky at any instant.

- It's two full years
before Redfa gets his chance.

[dramatic music]

- Eventually, it happens.

He's told that he'll be part
of a formation flight

with a full tank of gas.

♪ ♪

- Mid-flight, he breaks away
from his formation

and heads for Israel,

powering over
Jordanian airspace.

The Jordanians scramble
two jets to give chase,

but they can't match
the MiG 21's speed.

♪ ♪

Redfa hits his afterburners,

sometimes flying as low as
700 feet to avoid missiles

locking onto his plane.

- After a 65-minute flight
of sheer terror,

he reaches a base
deep in the desert

on his last drop of fuel.

♪ ♪

- 30 years later,
details of this daring,

state-sanctioned heist
are revealed

to a journalist writing
a history of the Mossad.

♪ ♪

And it's now seen
as a turning point

in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

- The ending of the story is
that the Israelis discovered

the MiG's weaknesses,
and in the event

that they have to fight it,
they're better prepared.

This operation underscores
just how good

Mossad is at understanding
their adversaries

and exploiting opportunities.

- An intelligence organization
that belonged to

a small country
that was less than 20 years old

was now capable of carrying out
one of the biggest

heists in history.

- The arms race
to control the skies

has had governments everywhere

investing in groundbreaking
secret projects.

So maybe it was only
a matter of time

before the most enduring
design in science fiction

gets a shot: the flying saucer.

Meet 1959's Avrocar.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- The Avrocar.

It's effectively
what you would get

if you mixed a flying saucer

with a hovercraft.

- Project Avrocar
is the brainchild

of a British engineer named
John Carver Meadows Frost.

- He's a big dreamer, and he's
already got a project in mind

to begin to think about
the next generation

of aerospace design.

- Frost begins to study
this interesting

aerodynamic phenomenon
known as the Coanda effect.

- He shows that a jet engine's
exhaust can be routed around

to underneath the object,

where it forms an air cloud

that allows it to lift
off the ground.

- So basically, he's designed
a literal flying saucer.

♪ ♪

- His lab work convinces
the Canadian government

that this is actually
a possibility,

and they are willing
to support his work

for about two years.

♪ ♪

And for Frost, this becomes

his personal passion

to take this flying saucer
from a blueprint to reality.

♪ ♪

- But after a year,

the project's
astronomical price tag

forces the Canadians
to pull the plug.

Frost needs a new backer
to realize his dream.

♪ ♪

Luckily for him,
a rich neighbor to the south

is in the market
for a flying saucer.

- In the early 1950s,
the U.S. military

is looking for planes that can
vertically take off and land.

They're known as VTOL planes.

- Governments are
beginning to think about

what fighting World War III
would actually look like.

So they are focused
on developing

planes that can
take off vertically

that don't need long runways.

- Also, the military has been
rocked by a series

of newspaper articles
claiming that the Soviets

are developing similar tech.

Apparently, Nazi engineers
had secretly developed

a working flying saucer
during the Second World War,

and they were now working
for the USSR.

- So if there's even
the smallest chance that

the Soviets are developing
a game-changing VTOL aircraft,

the U.S. thinks
they need one too.

[tense music]

- The story goes that
when Frost gets wind of

the U.S.'s interest
in saucers,

he spots a visiting delegation

from the Air Force
and intercepts them

with his Avrocar prototype.

♪ ♪

- Frost apparently shows them
work so secret

even his bosses
don't know about it.

And shortly after,
the U.S. Air Force

agrees to fund a million-dollar

feasibility study into
his flying saucer research.

- For Frost, this is magic.

In an instant, his project
has gone from a side hustle

of the Canadian government
to accessing

the largest,
most powerful military

and budget in the world.

- We'll never know what
Frost said to get funding,

but a clue lies
in a remarkable document

made public in 2012.

In it, Frost makes
some extraordinary claims

about his flying saucer,
now code named Project 1794.

- Frost claims that
his saucer will far exceed

any jet fighter of the age.

♪ ♪

- It's going to be able
to go up to four times

the speed of sound,
fly to the edge of space,

travel between continents.

These are bold claims.

- If you are
an Air Force general,

this is a machine you
definitely want in your hangar.

- Progress is anything
but supersonic.

After eight years,
in 1959, Frost's team

finally has a prototype ready
for its first ever test.

And by this point,
the U.S. Army also wants in.

♪ ♪

- The U.S. Army has come
out of the Korean War

interested in having
basically a flying Jeep.

They see this flying saucer
as perhaps

their answer to moving
equipment,

moving troops,
and even fighting.

- So Frost has both the Army
and the Air Force, two bosses,

both pushing him for results.

- Everything hangs on
the Avrocar's first test.

The million dollar question
is, will this thing fly?

- In the Avrocar's
first test flight,

it doesn't go
completely as planned.

♪ ♪

Frost's design has some
fundamental problems.

It doesn't have
the control surfaces

that an airplane has
to ensure stability,

and it has no thrust.

Like, the thing can't go fast.

It's riding on a cushion
of air, but as it goes up,

the air dissipates,
so it loses its lift.

♪ ♪

It's just bad
all the way around.

♪ ♪

- After promising supersonic
flight at the edge of space,

Frost delivers
a wobbly 30 miles an hour,

3 foot from the ground.

Unsurprisingly,
the military pulls the plug.

- The project is canceled.

A complete disappointment
to everyone,

including, presumably,
John Frost.

♪ ♪

- Before it's grounded,
the Avrocar racks up

over $100 million
in costs in today's money--

a reminder that when it comes
to the national interest,

no idea is too crazy to try.

- The prototypes are quickly
dumped into storage

as a very obvious
embarrassment.

[dramatic music]

- In the 1980s,
decades of press censorship

are crumbling in the USSR.

And with this new freedom,
Soviet newspapers

focus their attention on
a topic that really sells:

UFOs.

[dramatic music]

- During the Cold War,
the Soviet government

is very much against
any stories that are

at all subversive
or unorthodox,

and a UFO sighting is both.

- Discussing UFOs would be
viewed as admitting that

there was some sort of power
out there stronger

than the Soviet Union itself.

And to do so would be not
only risking your career,

but also risking your freedom
and ending up in jail.

- The media can't really
report on this story at all

until the government kind of
lets up on these rules.

- In 1985,
things start to change.

- In this era of glasnost
and perestroika,

you have the opening up
of all of these incredible

hidden stories
that had been taking place

inside the Soviet Union.

- It was like
the floodgates were opened.

All of a sudden, Russia just
kind of went crazy for UFOs.

- Many scientists
inside the Soviet Union

questioned the truth
of these stories.

- Soviet authorities tried
to explain away the sightings,

saying that it's a natural
phenomena like ball lightning

that can give the impression
of a large glowing orb

that people say they saw.

- Ball lightning presents
itself in a circular form,

very similar to what
people report as UFOs

where they talk about
flying saucers

or balls of light in the sky.

- Others say that this is
just mass hysteria,

that people got one story,

and they just fed
into each other

and got really excited.

- It's easy to chalk this up
as hysteria,

sightings by
an uninformed public.

But then in 1991,
a whistleblower

from deep within
Soviet military circles

steps forward.

A pilot with a résumé
so decorated,

her claims demand
to be taken seriously.

♪ ♪

- Marina Popovich is
one of the USSR's

most decorated
and well-respected aviators.

- She's the first Soviet woman
to break the sound barrier.

She holds
100 aviation records,

and she's known
in the Soviet Union

as Madame MiG.

- The changes gave Marina
the opportunity

to talk about her experiences

and what she had seen
as a pilot in the USSR

without the worry
of repercussions.

- In press conferences
and media interviews

and her own writings,
she begins to make

some pretty fantastical claims.

- Popovich says she has

multiple experiences
with UFOs.

In 1982, she says
she was in Siberia

when she saw what looked
like a giant glowing orb.

[light music]

- At a press conference in
the Russian consulate

in San Francisco,
she claims that the Russians

have been able to retrieve
five different downed UFOs,

and she also claims
that there's evidence

of some sort of hybrid
breeding program,

breeding humans with aliens.

- And then in this
very dramatic moment,

she produces a photo
that she says

is a 15-mile-wide
alien spacecraft.

♪ ♪

- She says it is a UFO
that has either captured

or destroyed
Soviet space probes.

Scientists explain it away
as the picture

being very consistent with
the launch of a spacecraft.

But because Popovich
is so respected,

the UFO community starts
to back her,

saying that she's the only one
telling the truth

and the government is covering
up the real explanation.

- Her claims obviously create

an incredible amount
of interest.

I mean, you can imagine
the press would go crazy

over stories like this,

especially at that time
in history.

[dramatic music]

- Marina Popovich
isn't the first

government whistleblower
to cry cover-up,

but she's one of the most
influential.

- Popovich becomes probably
the best example that we have

on the Russian side
of a phenomenon

that's actually pretty common,

these so-called
UFO whistleblowers.

Government workers, pilots,
intelligence officers

who come forward and say that
they have privileged knowledge

or have seen hidden evidence.

- The whistleblowers will keep
coming forward with stories.

But until someone has
really verified evidence

that can be shown publicly,
it's just hearsay.

- But still today,
we don't know the truth

of what a lot of these mystery
sightings end up being.

Our world and our universe
is still weirder today

than we can imagine.

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

- For every covert mission
we discover

taking place in the skies,
many more remain hidden

until someone brings
these secrets to light.

I'm David Duchovny.

Thanks for watching
"Secrets Declassified."

♪ ♪