Original subtitles

- Tonight on "The Proof Is Out There,"

an Arizona UFO that somehow splits in two.

Is it tied to one of the most famous UFO incidents

of all time?

- Several people believe that this was a coverup

and something else was operating over Phoenix that night.

- [Tony] Where did this girl get the power to scale walls?

- It's incredible,

and it doesn't seem like it should be possible.

The internet actually nicknamed her Spider-Girl.

- [Tony] Is this remote island home

to a Bigfoot that can swim?

- Sasquatches do not fear the water at all.

- [Tony] And does this ancient pair

of footprints prove a giant walked the earth?

- For a person to make a 30-foot-long stride,

they would have to stand at least 60 feet tall.

[suspenseful music] [switch clicking]

- [Tony] Around the globe are videos.

- [Observer] What are those things?

- [Bystander] It's moving.

- [Tony] Photos and sounds that defy explanation.

[air squeaking] [suspenseful music continues]

- [Kirsten] We don't know where they come from,

who made them, or how they operate.

- [Tony] What are they?

- [Commenter] Some sort of bizarre mutation.

- [Expert] What's exciting is nobody really knows.

- Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.

[flame whooshing] [victim thumping]

- I'm Tony Harris,

and as a journalist for more than 30 years,

I've followed the facts where they take me.

Now I'm bringing that spirit of investigation

to the world's strangest sounds and images.

We'll analyze each one with top experts.

[vehicle crashing]

- It's a credible case,

it's a credible video.

- [Tony] And pass a verdict on what it is.

- This video was clearly faked.

- The proof starts now.

[suspenseful music]

Good evening, everyone,

and welcome to "The Proof is Out There."

Arizona is famous in UFO circles

for the Phoenix Lights incident of 1997,

but most people don't know that's only one

of several similar incidents reported

in the area over the years.

Are they connected and are they legit?

Check this out.

It's October 12th, 2004 in Phoenix, Arizona.

At around 7:45 PM, local resident Jeff Woolwine

has set up a camera to film the night sky

when he captures something out of this world.

His video shows a bright white oblong-shaped light

hovering in the sky.

Eventually the light begins to blink

and then remarkably it appears to slowly split apart,

transforming from one single object

into two separate entities.

Shortly after they break apart,

the two lights gradually disappear, one after the other.

[tape rewinding]

- It's amazing, you know, because you're out there,

and you're watching,

and these things just magically appear in the sky.

There's no airplanes dropping these things out.

There's no explanation on why these things are here.

- [Tony] Jeff says this is exactly

what he's spent years looking for.

- I've been seeing these Phoenix Lights

ever since I was a kid, and you know,

it really made me go on a quest to find out what

is really going on here in our Phoenix skies.

- [Tony] So since this is Phoenix, the big question is,

is Jeff's footage related

to the most well-known UFO sightings here ever?

Journalist MJ Banias takes us back to March 13th, 1997,

the night that would make the term Phoenix Lights

famous worldwide.

- Multiple people reported seeing very strange lights

hovering over Phoenix, Arizona.

They formed a large V-shaped object

that hovered for several hours.

Other reports circulated of individual lights moving

around Phoenix as well.

There's some photographs of lines of lights

that kind of show up in the sky.

- [Tony] At the time,

some felt the V-shape formed one massive craft,

estimated to be the size of more than 10 Boeing 747s.

With so many witnesses,

the government was forced to investigate.

- It took several months,

but eventually the US military confessed

that they were actually running operations over Phoenix.

The operation was known as Snowbird.

A whole bunch of A-10 aircraft were in the sky,

and they were testing out different models of flares.

- [Tony] But was that the real story or a cover story?

- Several people believed that this was a coverup

and that the military was essentially trying

to hide the fact that something else

was operating over Phoenix that night.

And Jeff believes that his video seems to show

that perhaps there is some sort of resurgence

of the Phoenix Lights.

[screen whooshing]

- It turns out Phoenix Lights

is actually a bit of a misnomer.

The first sightings in 1997 occurred earlier that night

near Henderson, Nevada,

nearly 300 miles from Phoenix.

So two separate events could have been conflated

into a single moment.

Either way, the question still remains,

is Jeff's footage proof that the Phoenix Lights are back?

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

Rich Hoffman of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies

begins by comparing Jeff's footage

with the reports from that fateful night in March of 1997.

- The Phoenix Lights were a triangular shape,

not two lights in the sky like this.

The residents were describing one structure

that was having multiple lights and this is like one,

so there's no comparison there.

- [Tony] Yet, even if this isn't related

to the Phoenix Lights,

how does one explain the mind-boggling moment

when Jeff's alleged UFO appears

to divide into two separate objects,

which then disappear?

Astronomer and video effects designer Marc D'Antonio

thinks he may know.

- Earlier in the video, it looks like it's just one object

because they're probably behind each other,

but later on as the objects move apart from each other,

it gets more and more elongated,

and then you start to see two distinct and separate objects.

So is this a splitting UFO

or is it two objects behind each other?

- [Tony] If it is two objects,

are they decidedly less exotic than alien craft?

- Are they balloons?

Are they drones?

Are they aircraft?

Well, this was 2004.

It's not very likely that they were drones,

unless it was some kind of military drone.

- [Tony] The main type of unmanned military aircraft

in use in 2004 was the remotely operated predator drone.

It's the size and shape of a small airplane,

which also doesn't explain how the lights on it could split

like we see in this video.

So does that mean we need to call this a UFO after all?

D'Antonio has his doubts.

- This was probably a launch of two sky lanterns.

- [Tony] A sky lantern is a miniature hot air balloon

made out of oiled paper and a wire frame

with an opening at the bottom for a candle

or other small source of fire.

- [Marc] The giveaway is that they vanish.

[graphics whooshing]

That's because the flame packets are fuel

and that fuel gets exhausted after a little while,

and when it gets exhausted, the flame goes out.

And that's just what we see here.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

- Our verdict?

This splitting object or objects remain unidentified.

D'Antonio's sky lantern idea is intriguing,

but how could they fly so close together

that they appear as one?

The original Phoenix Lights

and similar incidents in the Phoenix area in the 2000s

have been attributed to flares set off

by the military and others,

yet there are still those who are skeptical

of these down-to- earth explanations.

[graphics whooshing]

Since this show began,

we've been interested in a legendary beast said

to lurk in the depths of Canada's Okanagan Lake.

We have promised to stay on the story

whenever there's a new sighting caught on camera.

Well, it's happened again.

October 2020, Frind Estate Winery

on Okanagan Lake, British Columbia.

It's a really calm day on the lake.

Adam Schwartz and his family step onto a pier

for a scenic view of the water when Adam spots this,

an odd formation of waves undulating against the current.

Let's take a closer look.

You see what looked like humps here, here and here.

Schwartz thinks this may be the legendary monster.

- Well, there's no boats out here and, of course,

Kelowna and Lake Okanagan

is known for its sea monster,

the Ogopogo.

And everyone who's seen it on the news

or friends and family that we've shown it to,

think, oh, that looks very convincing,

like something's out there.

[eerie music]

- This is Lake Okanagan.

It has a long history and tradition

of lake monster sightings that go back centuries.

The local natives talked

about something called the N'ha-a-itk,

which was a great serpentine animal that lived in the lake.

- [Tony] These indigenous people

would even leave sacrificed animals in the water,

believing that allowed them safe passage from the monster.

According to Ken Gerhard,

the Ogopogo has more compelling photographic evidence

than any lake monster around the world.

- In fact, about a month earlier,

a couple sailing out on Lake Okanagan saw the head

of some type of strange animal

that almost looks like a dragon.

[camera clicking] - [Tony] In this photo,

you can see the creature's brownish tone

and what appear to be two horns jutting

from the sides of its head.

- Many of the descriptions of the Ogopogo include something

that has horns and will describe the head

as having a horse-like or sheep-like shape to it.

- [Tony] The majority of these Ogopogo sightings

are clustered in the months of September and October,

like this one.

Gerhard believes there's a good reason for that.

- It's important because those

are the peak salmon fishing months at the lake.

The salmon runs in British Columbia come in,

starting in June and July and August,

and then the salmon begin to spawn in the lake

in September and October.

So if this creature is feeding on salmon,

then it would make sense that there are more sightings

of the Ogopogo during those months.

[suspenseful music] [graphics whposhing]

- Fans of the show may recall that our experts were unable

to explain this alleged Ogopogo video from 2019.

Will they be able to solve this mysterious sighting?

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

Marine biologist Dr. Shea Steingass dives

into one of the prevailing theories

that this is just the result

of something called the thermocline.

- When different densities

and temperatures of water collide in a lake,

you can get these really large-scale disturbances

that appear to propagate through the water

and maybe look a bit like a sea serpent.

But this is a pretty calm day and being in a lake like this,

you would be less likely to have such a dynamic thermal wave

interrupting the water like we see here.

- [Tony] So could it be the legendary Ogopogo we're seeing?

Steingass is doubtful

due to the frigid temperature of the lake.

- Ogopogo is said to be 15 feet long or longer.

An animal like this would not be able

to the thermoregulate in Lake Okanagan.

When you look at aquatic animals and cold environments,

you often see what is known as a fusiform body shape,

essentially the body that's shaped like a football.

They have less surface area to warm up

and to thermoregulate.

A long, sinuous sea monster

would simply have too much surface area

that it would have to constantly heat.

It would simply be too cold.

- [Tony] And as for that horned creature

that was photographed a month earlier,

many have pointed out that if you look closely,

you can see what appears to be the head

and bill of an upside down duck.

And these horns are most likely just a pair of webbed feet.

So if the Ogopogo is a myth, then just what is this thing?

We turn to wildlife biologist Dr. Stephanie Manka.

- What I believe is happening

is that wind is hitting this part of the lake

and creating a wave effect and the wave is casting a shadow.

If there was an animal swimming and it came to the surface,

you would expect circles rippling.

We don't see anything like that.

So people think that they're seeing an animal in the water,

but really it's the shadow of a wave.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

- Our verdict?

We are calling this a visual effect created by wind.

So we did not find Ogopogo this time,

but there have been enough alleged sightings

to keep us on the hunt.

- Any superhero fan knows that once Peter Parker

was bitten by a radioactive spider, he became Spider-Man,

able to climb walls and catch thieves.

But that's all comic book stuff, right?

Certainly no one in the real world

could possess those abilities.

Well, this next video might change your mind.

It's July 9th, 2023 in Pingtan, China,

known as the County of Islands.

A mother and her children are at home watching something

on television when something

in their own living room steals the show.

The family's home surveillance camera is rolling

as one of the kids climbs onto the back of the sectional

and then makes her way up the wall,

perching herself in the upper corner of the room.

Another video, this one taken on a phone camera,

shows a closer angle of the eight year old

demonstrating her wall climbing talent.

- It's incredible,

and it doesn't seem like it should be possible.

The girl's mother uploaded the video

and the internet actually nicknamed her Spider-Girl

because what we're seeing here is very similar

to the abilities that Spider-Man has.

- [Tony] Some have even compared the video

to another alleged wall climber we've shown you before.

- That video shows a woman climbing a wall

and she's actually holding another woman by her hair

as she climbs.

And when the woman reaches the top of the wall,

she lets the other woman go. [victim screaming]

Our experts determined

that that video was a fake, thankfully.

This video, though, appears pretty authentic,

so maybe it is the real deal.

[graphics whooshing]

- If this girl keeps going,

she may one day scale the heights of Alain Robert,

also known as the Human Spider.

In 2015, Robert broke the world record

for most buildings climbed

after he scaled his 121st skyscraper.

So is this footage a fraud

or do this girl's wall climbing talents stick?

Let's find out what our experts think.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

First, is the video for real?

- As you watch, you can see the subject's reflection,

the way that the feet are positioned, the hand motions,

and even the hair all appear

to be consistent with one another,

so the video appears to be genuine.

- [Tony] Then, does this girl really

have spider-like climbing abilities?

To answer that, we need to know how spiders really climb.

- First of all, spiders are really light

so that works towards their advantage

because gravity is not acting upon them as much.

Also, they have small hairs on their feet

and those hairs have smaller hairs called setules,

and they form triangular tips.

And what happens is there's temporary forces

that form between the spider feet

and the walls called Van der Waals forces.

- [Tony] Named for the Dutch physicist,

Johannes Diderik van der Waals, who first proposed the idea,

a Van der Waals force is an electrostatic attraction

that occurs between molecules in extremely close proximity,

like a 25 millionth of an inch.

This is due to the positive and negative charges

within molecules attracting each other

like opposing magnets.

- These small hairs enable spiders to grip to surfaces

with a force 107 times greater than their weight.

- [Tony] But this girl clearly lacks a number

of these arachnid features.

- She doesn't have the tiny spider hairs

and her skin looks pretty smooth.

She's also not obviously as light as a spider,

- [Tony] So is there some other way she's defying

the relentless force of gravity here on earth?

Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku explains what he thinks

is actually going on,

and it has something to do with the location

where this was filmed,

on an island right off the mainland.

- Notice that A, she's small,

B, the amount of muscle mass per kilogram

is higher for small objects than for big objects.

The fact that they're near the ocean

and the air is humid helps to a degree.

If there's too much water vapor in the air,

then you slip and fall down.

If there's only a little bit, then you stick.

- [Tony] That's because the small amount of water sandwiched

between the girl's skin and the wall acts as a binding glue,

increasing the friction and causing the skin to stick.

- So the fact that she's small,

she's skinny and she sweats a little bit,

allows her to perform these feats

that a large person could never perform.

- [Tony] So while she may not be Spider-Girl,

her technique does bear some resemblance

to the arachnids, in principle.

- It's somewhat similar to what spiders do in

that her skin is resisting the wall

and becoming kinda like sticky to it,

but she has another wall to support her,

where spiders are just working

with the bottoms of their legs and the one wall surface.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

- Our verdict?

This is the result of the muscle mass on the girl

and the moisture in the air.

We don't have to test out

this girl's web spinning abilities

to know she's not exactly Spider-Girl,

but that doesn't make her talent

for wall climbing any less impressive.

- Syria is one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions

of the world,

but a mid-20th century archaeological excavation

has left some wondering if a giant human once lived there

who would've towered over most dinosaurs.

It's 1955 in the village of Ain Dara, Syria

on the east bank of the Afrin River.

An archaeologist has discovered

a 3,000-year-old Hittite temple

with stone sculptures of lions, sphinxes and mountain gods,

but among the usual carvings and sculptures

lie enormous imprints of mysterious origin,

two three-foot long human-like footprints emerge out

of the stone floor at the portico

where the temple once stood.

Another left footprint lies a few feet in front of the pair,

and a final right footprint

is embedded at the threshold of the main hall,

some 30 feet away.

- We don't see the right footprint

until the other side of this enclosure.

For someone to make a 30-foot stride,

that person would have to be at least 65 feet tall.

We have to wonder if these aren't some type of ancient gods

or giants that walked upon the earth.

- [Tony] Now, the Hittites were an ancient people

who first occupied what is now western Turkey.

They began expanding into northern Syria

and by 1340 BC,

became one of the most dominant powers in the Middle East.

And coincidentally,

godly giants were depicted in the Hittite empire.

- One of the biblical tales

is that fallen angels actually came down

and mated with human females,

and the offspring of this were known as the Nephilim,

half god, half man, very violent, large giants.

Is it possible that Ain Dara is one of the actual locations

where the Nephilim may have resided?

- [Tony] And Martell says that Ain Dara

isn't the only place where ancient gods

and their giant offspring once reportedly roamed.

- In Baalbek in Lebanon,

there are huge trilithon stones stacked to make a platform.

Across the globe in Mexico, we have in Teotihuacan,

large step pyramids that look as though they were built just

for the gods to walk down these large steps.

Many of these locations all seem

to have similar properties which speak to the idea

that at one point giants did walk upon the earth.

[graphics whooshing]

- In 1577, a large skeleton found near Lucerne, Switzerland

was interpreted as the bones of an ancient giant.

The skeleton measured about 19 feet tall,

but was later determined to belong to a mammoth

or some similar form of ancient elephant.

Yet these prints in Ain Dara can't be mistaken

for those of an elephant.

So let's ask our experts

to put their stamp on these enigmatic indentations.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

Anthropologist Kathy Strain says there is evidence that

giants once roamed the earth, but were they giant enough?

- In 1998, Emory University did a study

where they found this gene called the X lineage

and some believe that it leads to taller people.

In the 1800s, the Smithsonian was doing excavations

when they found some skeletons

that were roughly seven foot, six inches tall.

We know that there are other people in the eight foot range,

and so it's possible

that this X lineage does lead to taller people.

However, it's still not going to get you in the range

of 65 feet tall.

- [Tony] Archaeologist Dr. Ed Barnhart says

there's also something about these imprints

that just doesn't add up.

- There are really only four footprints.

If indeed this was made by some giant being,

we could track those footprints out much farther

across the stone than simply the last four steps.

And if it was actually a 65-foot-tall person

in a Hittite world,

there would be a giant temple with a giant tomb,

with a giant body.

I'm an archaeologist, show me the artifacts.

- [Tony] So were these footprints forged?

- To me these represents carved footprints.

They were meant to have the sense that the god

or the goddess is walking in, standing in their own temple,

and then walking to where they would sit to be worshiped.

- They are symbols

that a giant person had walked into this temple

to pray there or perhaps to be prayed to.

An archaeological site usually is hiding secrets.

Maybe there was something that would illuminate

what these footprints meant to the Hittite people,

but unfortunately in 2018,

the Turkish Air Force bombed the site.

[bomb exploding]

- [Tony] The temple was sadly a casualty

in a Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces

in northwestern Syria during the Civil War.

- And so, a lot of the site was ruined in that bombing

and we can't recover what's now lost.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

- Our verdict?

These footprints

are likely manmade symbolic representations.

Tragically, the remaining secrets of this site

are now lost to history.

- Is Bigfoot stalking the wilderness of Canada?

If that feels like a no brainer,

let me give you another one.

Is Bigfoot swimming in the waters of Canada?

That question might just be answered in our next video,

but the footage is still a mystery in itself.

While the true origins of this video remain unknown,

internet rumors suggest this footage

was filmed in Ontario, Canada, sometime in 2022.

Two boaters are recording their voyage when their camera pans

to the shoreline of an unpopulated island

and they spot something emerging from the woods.

It's large, seemingly uniform in color and bipedal.

Let's zoom in on the footage and slow it down.

The creature appears to be almost

indistinguishable in color

from the forest behind it

and it bears at least one striking similarity

to the most famous alleged Bigfoot ever caught on camera.

- It is leaning forward at the waist

about five degrees or so,

which is also seen in the "Patterson-Gimlin film,"

which is of course the best example

of the way a Sasquatch moves.

It quickly goes back into cover because Sasquatches,

is like all wild animals,

don't particularly like to be observed.

That mottled color to the fur

is actually a benefit if you're trying to camouflage

that would help it blend into its environment.

- [Tony] One wrinkle though, this is on an island,

and though most mammals are able to swim instinctively,

a notable exception is the great apes.

So what does Bigfoot think of aquatic activity?

- Sasquatches do not fear the water at all.

They've been seen swimming off of southeast Alaska

and wading through lakes in Minnesota.

They're very often seen foraging

for plants around the edge of water.

- [Tony] Another theory worth considering,

could we be seeing a hermit or mountain man

who has forsaken modern civilization

for a life in the wilderness?

- There's a certain type of person

that lives in far-flung corners of the continent,

whether it's Ontario or Alaska,

the type of person

that doesn't wanna be around other people,

a lot like Sasquatches.

These people like very often live alone

in a very rough life.

So is what we're seeing in this particular footage

just a glimpse of one of these hermits living off the grid

and perhaps wearing fur

to stay warm in such harsh environments?

[graphics whooshing]

- Perhaps the most famous American hermit was Chris Knight

who spent 27 years living in the woods

and stealing from homes in the North Pond area of Maine

until his arrest in 2013.

So what are we looking at here?

A criminal on the land, a Sasquatch out for a swim,

or something else?

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

First, let's start with a simpler theory.

Ontario's black bear population

is the second largest in North America,

and we know they can swim.

Could that be what we're seeing?

- The hair color kind of matches

with what you would think of a bear.

However, even though bears

can walk on two legs for a short distance,

the legs are shorter.

So I can safely rule out that that is a bear.

- [Tony] If it isn't a black bear,

could it be a person simply living off the grid?

- The gait and how it walks is very human-like.

It's got two arms that swing as it walks,

just like what humans do,

and the proportions of the legs

to the arms look correct for humans.

- [Tony] But anatomy is one thing, covering is another.

- I can't see anything like clothing,

belts or anything like that.

So I can conclude that it's not wearing clothing.

What we are seeing is something that has fur or hair.

Because it's covered head to toe with hair,

we can rule out that it's a human being.

- [Tony] Professor of anatomy Dr. Jeff Meldrum

explores the idea that this could be a Bigfoot

that swam to the island.

He says it's true great apes can't swim instinctively,

but some have learned.

- There are examples of apes that have learned to swim

and frequent swimming pools, even utilize aqua lungs,

clear regulators and swim in the deep end of the pool.

It's really quite fascinating, the potential that they have,

that possibility does exist amongst the great apes as well.

- [Tony] However, for Meldrum,

the issue isn't the swimming, it's the walking.

- The thing that concerns me is the gait.

The stoop seems overly exaggerated.

It doesn't have that natural spontaneity

that we see in the "Patterson-Gimlin film"

where the subject does in fact lean forward

about five degrees consistently.

This looks like a very self-conscious stoop

as if it were encumbered with artificial feet

and on an uneven surface.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

- Our verdict, it's not a hairy Bigfoot or a hermit.

We're calling this a hoax.

It's this kind of stuff

that gives serious Bigfoot research a bad name.

On the other hand, it makes doing this show a lot of fun.

- In 2010, an airport in China was shut down

for more than an hour

after air traffic controllers saw what they believed

to be a UFO buzzing around.

Chinese officials later denied the incident even happened,

claiming it must have been military exercises.

But can that be said for this next Chinese incident?

December 19th, 2022.

It's a clear night in Ordos City,

located in China's Inner Mongolia region.

Suddenly something appears in the sky above

that grabs everyone's attention.

One man points his phone up and captures this.

- A large spotlight in the shape

of an upside-down jellyfish seems to expand

and take over the heavens.

In its center, a bright cone of light descends right here.

Underneath it, a tadpole-shaped beam,

like a small lightning bolt, appears frozen in time.

What is this thing?

- We did have plenty of speculation

regarding this phenomena being some sort

of extraterrestrial event.

- [Tony] Some believe China's UFO story begins

with a set of disks found near the Tibetan border

called the Dropa stones,

which allegedly are 12,000 years old

and tell the tale of an alien spaceship crash.

Today, like the United States,

China has its own investigatory body

for unidentified aerial objects.

It's run by the People's Liberation Army,

or PLA, China's principal military force.

- According to the PLA,

they refer to UAP,

or unidentified aerial phenomena as UAC,

or unidentified air conditions.

- [Tony] So what did the PLA

have to say about this sighting at Ordos?

- There is limited intelligence

because China is keeping it very close to its chest

and not releasing very much about it.

- [Tony] Banias notes that silence has led some to wonder

if instead of a war of the worlds,

we should worry about a conflict much closer to home.

There's been speculation this could be connected

to some secret Chinese space weapon.

It wouldn't be the first.

- Space, just like any domain, is going to be a battlefield.

One particularly interesting weapon that China has developed

is the Shijian 17 satellite.

Essentially it's an object that has a grappling arm on it

and grabs onto the adversarial satellite

so they can de-orbit the satellite making it unusable.

Fundamentally, this could very well be used

as a weapon should somebody need it to.

[graphics whooshing]

- What have we got here?

So far the only peep we've heard from the Chinese government

came through the local Inner Mongolia Weather Bureau,

which said it was not a weather phenomenon.

Will our experts reach the same conclusion?

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

We begin with military aviation expert Tim McMillan.

By the end of 2022, there were nearly 7,000 satellites

in orbit around the earth,

and on average one falls back to earth every week.

Could it be a crashing satellite like the Shijian 17?

- No, for a couple of reasons.

One being a satellite as it reenters the Earth's atmosphere,

you're gonna see that same level of motion

that you would expect from a shooting star.

But we don't see anything

that resembles that in these videos.

- [Tony] Then, is the object a candidate

for what the PLA calls an unidentified air condition,

what we call a UFO?

McMillan has a hunch we're seeing something very much

from this planet.

- To be honest with you, if I walked outta my house

and saw this in the night sky, I'd probably freak out.

But there are telltale signs

that as otherworldly as it looks,

this is gonna be a manmade object.

We can tell from the video here,

these bright plumes are actually calls from an interaction

between different gases in the Earth's atmosphere.

All of the characteristics point to it,

very likely a multi-stage rocket,

which is why we see the kind of differing variances

of light there.

- [Tony] Astronomer and video effects designer

Mark D'Antonio agrees, and sees even more clues.

- To me, this is the early smoke trail rising in the air,

and then as it gets up higher, we're looking up into it.

- [Tony] D'Antonio notes that smoke trail

has the hallmarks of an exhaust plume,

specifically from a rocket.

- Then the rocket changes perspective

and looks like it changes its angle of attack.

It's now heading more toward the horizon,

toward the horizontal.

- [Tony] In fact, he believes it all adds up

to a rocket launch.

- So in the anatomy of this, we have the beginning plume,

we have the later plume of the launch,

and then we see here this is where it all emanates from.

- [Tony] As for the type of rocket this could be,

D'Antonio offers a theory.

- I think that it's one of the ICBMs, which stands for

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

- [Tony] ICBMs can have a range of over 3,500 miles

and are primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery.

According to news reports,

the People's Liberation Army

began building an ICBM test site

in nearby Ordos City in 2021.

If this is an ICBM test,

it could mean that site is now fully operational.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

Government secrets are tough to crack, especially in China.

Our verdict?

All we can say is this is a Chinese rocket launch,

but what was it carrying,

a satellite, some new kind of space weapon?

For now, that's unknown.

- In earlier episodes, we've featured videos from Italy

of oddities in the sky that couldn't be easily explained,

but this next clip may be one of the most compelling

to ever come out of that ancient land.

Take a look and you'll see what I mean.

In the early 2000s,

journalist Paola Harris is handed a mysterious videotape

with an alleged UFO sighting.

Paola isn't told any details about the recording,

including when it was filmed.

All she knows is that it took place near the town

of Aviano, Italy.

- We didn't get the name of the photographer.

There was no return address,

so I didn't know what I was getting until I got home.

- [Tony] And when Paola plays the cassette,

she is shocked by what she sees.

An aerial craft shaped like a saucer flies gracefully

along what appears to be a riverbed.

As the UFO gets closer to the camera,

we see it appears to have several vents

and flaps on its oval body.

- It's a pretty big object

and it's very clear it's a classic disc

and it almost had like lights

around the circumference of it.

- [Tony] Then, after hovering for a few seconds,

we see the craft start to move again,

before quickly zooming off into the clouds.

Writer MJ Banias says Italy

has a long history of UFO sightings.

In fact, in June 2023,

former intelligence officer- turned-whistleblower David Grush

made a startling claim.

- David Grush believes that the Vatican

was responsible for the coverup of UFOs.

He makes the claim that in 1933,

there was a UFO crash in Italy and the Italian government

as well as the Church

essentially attempted to hush it up

and secure the downed object.

- [Tony] And when it comes to UFOs near Aviano,

this wouldn't be the first.

- There is a bit of history with Aviano and UFO encounters.

- [Tony] The area is home to a NATO air base.

And on July 1st, 1977,

an air force guard observed a strange craft

hovering over the base,

which housed two secret jet fighters in a large hangar.

- This particular object had a sort of dome-shaped top.

It was emitting multiple colored lights

and it was 45 meter in diameter about the size

of the Navy Pier Ferris wheel in Chicago.

- [Tony] A team of military guards

and radar personnel purportedly tried

to capture that aerial object, but when they did,

they were hit with a mysterious power outage

and the craft disappeared.

But what about this craft

seen hovering over the river near Aviano?

Is it an alien encounter with a military base?

[graphics whooshing]

To date, the Aviano footage has garnered nearly eight

and a half million views on YouTube.

A number of netizens have identified the location

as somewhere near this bridge,

which crosses the Ceolini stream.

But let's see what our experts think

about what this thing really is.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

We begin with military aviation expert Tim McMillan,

who points out this UFO flying over the river

may not be as alien as you think.

- That particular shape is not exclusive

to the UFO alien kind of lore.

And in fact, going back to the 1930s,

the flying disc or lenticular design,

was already identified

as really being an exceptional aerodynamic shape.

- [Tony] One of the most well-known

saucer-shaped machines is the Avro Car.

It was developed as part of a US military project

carried out in the early years of the Cold War.

- That particular program never got off the ground,

both figuratively and literally.

The Avro Car was only able

to achieve a few feet off the ground

for just several moments.

And there's a more recent attempt at this

with a smaller drone called the ADIFO,

which integrates fans

and then also a rotating jet engine on it

to try to replicate this flying saucer flight.

- [Tony] As the footage was taken so close

to a military base,

could this be some sort of early-2000s military craft?

Well, hold on.

McMillan notices something off about the footage.

- One of the major problems that I see is the fact

that this object is flying really close over the surface.

Just imagine a helicopter that's flying extremely low,

that should be generating

significant displacement on the ground.

We don't see that there.

How is it able to hover over without having any type

of external effect on the ground?

- [Tony] Rich Hoffman

of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies agrees,

there's something not quite right here.

- You don't have an original video

and you don't have metadata or anything to go on.

Could I create CGI to look like this?

The answer is yes, I could.

- [Tony] For Hoffman, the most suspicious parts

of the video occur at the end.

- When I saw the object become that indistinct line or blur,

to me that suggested it was like more

like a CGI type of an artifact.

And I'm giving you the illusion

that it's taking off at a very fast clip.

- [Tony] With the red flags flying,

we head to our video forensics expert, Michael Primeau.

- We don't know where this file came from,

structural attributes

to be able to say whether

or not it's a genuine recording.

With the reduction in the quality it becomes challenging,

because we can't see detail.

- [Tony] But surprise, unlike Hoffman,

Primeau doesn't detect the use of any special effects.

- No evidence of CGI,

no evidence of third party editing applications.

But again, those things can be stripped

and anti-forensic technology essentially can be introduced,

in which case the result

of this authentication is inconclusive.

Without more information about the chain of custody,

we can't opine as to whether or not this actually occurred.

[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]

- So this thing remains unidentified

and it is certainly flying,

but we're not certain if this is even an object

or just a video hoax.

And with the ongoing military presence at Aviano Air Base,

something tells me

we'll be seeing more anomalous incidents there

in the future.

And that's our show for tonight.

Thank you so much for watching,

and keep those cameras rolling.

[suspenseful music]