Original subtitles

ANNOUNCER: This program is rated PG, and contains

ANNOUNCER: This program is rated PG, and contains

mature subject matter.

Viewer discretion is advised.

)

- [Narrator] Tonight on identified.

- [Narrator] Lue Elizondo expands his UFO investigation

to South America.

- Are they seeing the same thing in the skies that we are?

- [Narrator] From never before seen video.

- [Narrator] To an alleged midair showdown with the UFO.

- Oscar Santa Maria was given the order.

If it isn't ours, shoot it down.

- [Narrator] Is there a connection to ancient sightings?

- They were being witnessed

by these people who've lived on this land

for thousands of years.

- [Narrator] And what can military officials there reveal?

- [Rubin] They think that I'm covering up things.

Covering up?

- [Lue] What?

That for me was a drop the mic moment.

(air whooshing)

- [Narrator] Everything we know about UFOs is changing.

Thanks to a team led by former Pentagon UFO investigator,

Lue Elizondo.

- That is real whatever that is.

- [Narrator] And former top intelligence official,

Chris Mellon.

- This is a current continuing phenomenon.

It's happening, it continues to happen.

(air whooshing) (static crackling)

- [Narrator] They discovered five unique characteristics

that UFOs have in common.

They call the five observables.

And released groundbreaking videos,

that forced the Navy to admit its pilots

were coming face to face with unidentified objects.

- [Male Reporter] The US Navy

made a shocking admission today.

- [Female Reporter] Strange flying objects

caught on tape by their own fighter pilots

are in fact UFOs.

- Something needs to be done.

- [Narrator] Now a new wave of military witnesses

is coming out of the shadows.

- I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared ---less.

I never seen anything move like that.

Shape, size, speed,

it's clearly unidentified.

- [Narrator] The team is united on a new mission.

Connect the dots to reveal the truth about UFOs.

- [Pilot] This thing had no capability

like anything on earth.

- [Narrator] And warn the world about the dangers

they might represent.

- [Chris] Carl Sagan once famously said

extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

He was absolutely right.

But now we have the proof.

(static crackling)

(plane engine humming)

- [Narrator] Lue Elizondo is on a mission to South America.

Known for being a UFO hotspot,

home to thousands of unexplained sightings.

(air whooshing)

(piano keys playing)

Chile, Argentina and Peru are at the center of the storm.

(static crackling)

- In Chile, which is thought to have the most UFO sightings

of any country in the world,

a Navy helicopter reported this UFO.

It's Tic Tac like shape,

similar to objects reported by US Navy pilots.

(static crackling)

- [Pilot] Look at this thing.

It's rotating.

- [Narrator] Elizondo's first stop is Lima, Peru.

- Are they seeing the same thing in the skies that we are?

And if so, that's yet another piece of the puzzle

that this is truly a global phenomena.

(city humming)

(car honking)

(traffic humming)

- [Narrator] He's learned there's a retired general

with an incredible story to tell.

- [Lue] I'm on my way to meet general Spicer now

in San Isidro here in Lima, Peru.

This military officer happens to be former general.

And this is an individual who's not only a trained observer,

he's also an instructor.

So, he understands aircraft

probably better than most people.

So general Spicer,

have you ever witnessed anything that left you

scratching your head wondering what the hell was that?

- [Narrator] April 11, 1980,

La Joya Airforce Base in southern Peru.

Spicer and a young lieutenant named Oscar Santa Maria

are lined up for inspection

when a strange report comes in from the control tower.

- [Narrator] A large glowing object

is hovering outside the basis restricted airspace

and isn't responding to radio commands to identify itself.

- [Lue] You're talking about almost 2000 people

in formation standing on an airfield

watching as Oscar Santa Maria was scrambled

to go intercept this thing.

- [Narrator] Santa Maria takes off in the Sukhoi Su 22,

part of a fleet of advanced fighters

Peru had recently purchased from the Soviet Union.

- [Lue] A Sukhoi 22 supersonic swing wing Aircraft

variable geometry wing.

One of the fastest aircraft at the time on the planet.

- [Narrator] As Santa Maria Soviet made jet

screams over the base.

(jet engine roaring)

He maneuvers to get a visual on the strange object.

- [Narrator] Back at base,

the giant glowing object was considered a threat

that needed to be taken out.

(upbeat music)

- Oscar Santa Maria was given the order,

if it isn't ours, shoot it down.

(jet engine roaring)

- [Narrator] Santa Maria says the object accelerated

to more than 1200 miles per hour

and suddenly stopped in midair.

- And every time he tries to get close to the object,

what happens?

The object moves away he can't get close.

(air whooshing)

- [Narrator] Santa Maria says

he fired off round after round,

but the object appeared to absorb the fire

with no visible damage.

- No obvious scientific propulsion,

no engine, no exhaust, no jet plume

or anything else that you would normally associate

with a traditional aircraft.

- [Narrator] The smooth orb-like object

which outmaneuvered Santa Maria's fighter jet

is displaying two of the five observables

identified by Elizondo as being common to UFOs.

Instantaneous acceleration,

the ability to immediately

achieve high speeds,

and anti-gravity,

the ability to fly without apparent propulsion or lift.

(static crackling) (upbeat music)

- [Lue] A lot of what they're telling me does reaffirm

information we've already had.

Particularly on the five observables

continue to be reinforced during my engagement down here.

So that for me is encouraging because it shows that

we're on the right track.

- [Narrator] After he returned to base,

Santa Maria created this sketch

which shows an object that by all known laws of physics

should not be able to fly or absorb gunfire.

- [Narrator] Documents show a confidential source

inside the Peruvian Air Force

reported the incident to the US Embassy in Lima,

which notified the Pentagon.

Why?

One theory is that the object Santa Maria saw is not alien,

but American made.

Bill Scott is an expert on top secret aircraft

and was an editor at Aviation Week.

He believes the object could be related to a US effort

to spy on the Soviet presence in Peru.

- We had some satellite surveillance, of course,

but you can fly some kind of reconnaissance aircraft over,

get some pretty solid pictures,

that's even better.

- [Narrator] In 1980, the Cold War was burning hot again,

and the Soviet made Sukhoi SU 22

that Oscar Santa Maria was flying

was one of the most advanced aircraft

ever delivered to South America.

Did the US send some kind of advanced surveillance craft

to monitor the Peruvian Air Force's new capabilities?

Some of the vehicles that they might use,

drones of some sort,

they didn't care if they were seen.

They wanted not only, let's say the South American country,

but they also wanted the sponsor, the Soviet.

So know we're keeping an eye on you.

- [Narrator] Five years earlier in Vietnam,

the US using a drone called the Ryan 147 Lightning Bug.

- They used Ryan 147 for a number of reconnaissance roles.

So they were just,

jet powered, rail launched,

they put cameras on them

and eventually over the years

they would put a lot of electronics on there.

(air whooshing)

- [Narrator] Could what Santa Maria saw

have been an advanced version of the Ryan 147?

- I don't think that would be any of these

Lightning Bug drones,

because they were a lot more aircraft-like.

They had wings on them,

long fuselages,

typically had an under chin inlet.

- [Narrator] What was the bizarre object

that was allegedly impervious

to Oscar Santa Maria's machine gunfire.

And can Lue Elizondo connect the dots

to a sighting 40 years later

seen and this never before released video?

(electronics humming)

(static crackling)

Coming up on Unidentified.

- I saw this bright light,

and I was like okay, what is this?

I took out my phone

and when I zoomed,

I got to see this circular shape.

- What's the likelihood

that this could be a traditional aircraft,

scale of 1-10?

- Zero?

(static crackling)

- I think each individual is a critical piece

to this jigsaw puzzle.

If it's not for their testimony,

then we're missing a critical piece.

Ultimately, you can't put together a puzzle

unless you have all the pieces.

(intriguing music)

- [Narrator] Lue Elizando has just met with a pilot

who says he engaged in midair showdown

with a UFO in southern Peru in 1980.

- [Narrator] One theory

is that the object was the US reconnaissance drone,

but the primitive drones at that time

don't match the pilots description of what he saw.

- [Photographer] I think he's gonna be wearing

just black shirt.

- [Man] Yeah.

- [Narrator] And now a commercial pilot

has come forward with a similar sighting in 2019.

- [Crew] We're just gonna mic you up over here really quick.

- [Narrator] He's asked not to be identified.

- [Lue] I wanna thank you very much

for having the courage to come forward.

- [Pilot] Thank you.

- In this particular case,

this individual wants to keep his identity protected because

he was afraid he may lose his job.

First of all, what kind of pilot are you?

What do you fly?

- [Narrator] The pilot has flown domestic

and international flights

for the past 11 years.

- [Narrator] At about 2 am,

his Airbus A320 is flying at 35,000 feet,

approximately 150 miles off the coast of Chile.

- [Narrator] But this time he sees a bright white orb

tracking the plane to the west.

- I would love to see that video.

- The pilot plays the video for Elizondo.

It appears to show an orb

inside another orb.

- [Narrator] The pilot pans to the radar screen

to record his exact location.

- [Lue] I'm glad he did that, that's smart.

- How long did you observe this light

outside the cockpit window.

- Wow, okay.

- What you filmed there, it's a real object.

Now I don't know what it is.

But you have,

that's something that actually occurred.

Now, maybe it has a terrestrial explanation,

maybe it doesn't,

but one thing we do know is that is real,

whatever that is.

- [Narrator] But what was it?

The pilot shows a video

that appears to be of the same object

taken two days earlier

and nearly 2000 miles away

over Peru's largest airport.

(traffic humming)

- [Narrator] The Peruvian Air Force

investigated the incident,

concluding they were unable to identify the orbs

seen over the airport.

- That is a pretty bizarre looking craft.

That isn't like anything that we have.

- [Narrator] But one theory

may provide a simple explanation.

Over the past decade,

Google has launched a fleet of high altitude balloons

to provide Internet access to remote areas around the world

called Project Loon.

These large white balloons

fly above Peru as high as 65,000 feet

and could have floated from Peru to Chile.

- [Lu] So if this was, let's say, one of these balloons,

would you have been made aware of it

by a ATC?

'Cause their flight safety issue?

- [Pilot] Of course, yeah.

- At this point is too early to tell if what the pilot saw

is indeed the same objects ever reported

over the Lima airport just days prior.

There are some people that are absolutely confident

it was a Google balloon.

There's other people said there was no Google balloons

in that area.

So I think it's too premature to tell.

- [Narrator] The cellphone video makes it difficult to tell

if the object displays any of the five observables

common to UFOs.

So Elizondo

sends it to a retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Chris Cook,

an aviation consultant,

and former top gun pilot.

- Hey there, Chris.

- Hey Lue, how are you?

- I'm doing pretty good.

- [Narrator] Elizondo wants to know

if the strange object in the video

looks like anything Cook has seen before.

- Can an aircraft commercial or military look like that

from far away?

Typically you would see navigation lights, right?

- One of the things that we do when we're at altitude,

especially flying out in the middle of nowhere,

if you do spot another aircraft,

determining lights or the landing lights on,

it's kinda like a courtesy.

But I've never seen anything like that

where it's just one spherical light

outside of maybe a bright planet.

- [Narrator] Elizondo wants to explore the theory

that the object might be a Google balloon.

- I've heard of these things.

But why would a balloon be illuminated that brightly

at that altitude?

And if it is a balloon,

then you would expect there to be some closure on it, right?

Because it should be stationary.

It's a little baffling.

- One of the statements the pilot made to me is that

he had the impression that there was this oscillation.

Do you have any idea at all what might give the appearance

of some sort of oscillation?

Are there aircraft that will pivot back and forth or...

- Not in my experience.

I have not ever witnessed any type of aircraft

at that altitude

that have those characteristics that you just explained.

- [Narrator] But does it show any of the five observables?

- When I look at these incidents,

I'm not just looking at video,

I'm comparing it to the five observables.

Extreme acceleration and hypersonic velocities

and no control surface flight surfaces,

no obvious means of thrust or propulsion.

Is there anything in that video that you see

that you say, "ah hah,

that's an unusual performance characteristic"?

- This look like nothing I've ever seen.

- What's the likelihood

that this could be a traditional aircraft?

Scale of 1-10.

- Ah, zero.

- Wow.

- [Narrator] To cook,

the object clearly isn't a traditional aircraft.

But what is it?

- In this particular case, there's information out there

that does not neatly fit within

the categories of information we have.

Doesn't mean it's not relevant, no.

We have to take all the data point.

Maybe it'll make sense,

maybe there's more than five observables.

(soft music)

- [Narrator] The Lima airport incident

is just one of dozens of UFOs

the Peruvian Air Force has investigated

and then released their findings to the public.

Is a level of transparency

Elizondo thinks the US can learn from.

- When you look at a map

and you remove all those national lines,

we're all connected.

We're all of Americans. And at the end of the day,

it's really incumbent upon all of us

to protect this hemisphere from anything and everything.

- [Narrator] It's the Peruvian Air Force's

Centennial conference

and Elizondo is invited to speak to a group of Airmen.

- There are things in our airspace

that are indeed unidentified

and they are real.

We are observing vehicles or objects

that have no control surfaces, no wings,

and no visible form of propulsion.

My only purpose really for being here

is not to make you believe,

is to ask you to report.

- [Narrator] When word of Elizando's talk

reaches the highest office,

he's called to a meeting with the head of the Air Force.

- [Lue] General Garcia is responsible for

protecting the airspace over Peru.

That includes every mission from counter-terrorism,

to counter-narcotics,

to surveillance.

He has a huge responsibility

and ultimately, the buck stops with him.

So this is for me a very important meeting.

- [Narrator] It's a major step in Elizondo's quest

to exchange information with military leaders here.

General I'm coming here to you

as a citizen of the United States

and a citizen of the world.

My ultimate goal for meeting with you

is simply to emphasize our willingness

to work with Peru

in a cooperative relationship.

- I would like to congratulation to you

because you are doing great work.

You will have the opportunity to talk with another officers.

- [Narrator] The general and Elizondo

discuss how the US and Peru

can jointly investigate unidentified aerial phenomena

and how to share their findings.

- I'm very pleased that you agree

that this should be an international

cooperative effort.

- Si.

- Thanks very much again.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you. - Mucho gusto.

- Gracias. - Mucho gusto.

- [Narrator] But for now, for Elizondo

the origins of the glowing orbs is still a mystery.

Could there be a clue in a series of unusual orb sightings

spanning generations?

He's on his way to find out.

(static crackling)

Coming up on Unidentified.

- Friends, neighbors, family members

see these things on a regular routine basis

and they go back millennia

in oral tradition talking about orbs

flying across their land.

(static crackling)

sic)

While we were in AATIP, we cast a very wide net

we had some information pertaining to Latin America.

But that information was provided to us

via other individuals.

- [Narrator] Lue Elizondo was traveling from Peru to Argentina

to investigate a series of UFO sightings in South America.

Here in Patagonia,

people had been reporting similar lights in the sky

for centuries.

Local residents so they typically look like firing orbs.

(soft piano music)

(air whooshing)

- [Narrator] Recently new lights have appeared in the sky

further down the road.

Andrea Morales explains.

- What did you think when you saw this light?

- [Narrator] Could these spinning lights

be the same objects seen over Chile.

Elizondo uncovers an interesting lead.

According to eyewitnesses, the appearance of spinning lights

coincided with a foreign object of a different kind.

(calm music)

- I was very surprised to hear that

there is a highly sophisticated

Chinese satellite ground station

literally plopped in the middle of nowhere

next the town of Las Lajas.

The question is, what in the hell is it doing here?

(static crackling) (people clapping)

- China spent $50 million

to build the 16-story antenna and Mission Control facility.

The compound is 40 minutes from the nearest town

and secured behind an eight-foot barbed wire fence.

It stated purpose

to help the Chinese land a spacecraft

on the far side of the moon.

- China is an emerging superpower.

If you're trying to gather telemetry,

say, over the southern hemisphere,

you need a ground station with line of sight.

So as they become more active in space,

they need footholds in parts of the region

and parts of the world that they didn't have in the past.

- The local police have informed us

that they're not even allowed on the property

or even near it.

The only involvement they had

was initially when it was being built during construction.

- [Narrator] US officials believe the 450 ton antenna

could be used to spy on other countries'

satellite communications.

But is it connected to the appearance

of the spinning lights seen by locals?

Could the lights be advanced surveillance craft

sent by the Americans to keep tabs on the Chinese

or are the Chinese the ones

watching the new lights in the sky?

- Why is there a Chinese grond station here?

Why is everybody so secretive about it?

They have an overt mission

then they have another mission apparently.

- [Narrator] For Elizondo, the mystery deepens

with reports of similar orbs see nearby in Buenos Aires

decades earlier.

Today, he's on his way to investigate.

- [Chris] What Lue's doing on these trips

is consistent with what he did in the Defense Department.

Anything we can do to help establish the validity of this

so that people have permission to engage on the topic,

move forward to get scientific and national security answers

contributes to that effort.

- Elizondo is hoping to get answers from two pilots

who had one of South America's

most mysterious UFO sightings.

I'm here to have a meeting with commander Hector Flores

and his co pilot.

He was a commander in the National Guard

here in Argentina.

And apparently he and his co pilot

were witness to a very interesting event

which included potentially some of engagement with a UAP.

Well, hopefully we'll be able to see if there's any

similarities to some of the other engagements

we've already talked to other people about.

(static crackling)

- [Narrator] Coming up on Unidentified.

- [Lue] Are 100% sure

that all of those you have 100% answer on.

- Misperceptions

is 99.9% of the cases.

- You can close 100% of your investigations

to 100% of your satisfaction, but what does that mean?

I believe he's closed them all.

I'm not sure he solved them all.

(static rattling)

(traffic rumbles)

- [Narrator] Lue Elizando is in Argentina

on a mission to investigate multiple sightings

of strange orbs across South America.

- [Lue] Señor.

- Mucho gusto.

- Igual,igual.

- Jorge, mucho gusto.

- [Narrator] He's meeting with two pilots

whose bizarre 1972 encounter

had been kept secret for 40 years.

- [Lue] I'm here this afternoon to meet

with Hector Flores and his copilot.

They were serving under a dictatorship here in Argentina.

These were tumultuous times for Latin America

and Argentina in particular.

- [Narrator] A military junta had taken over

and had its sight set on becoming

the region's super power.

- [Narrator] National guard pilot, Hector Flores

and Jorge Torrecilla were on a routine training flight

with a student

when they witnessed something extraordinary.

- [Narrator] The pilots say a large red and blue orb

suddenly appeared over their plane.

- They're describing characteristics

that we haven't yet seen, or at least didn't come

through ATIP channels in North America.

Particularly those that really tend

to loiter for a long time.

Who's to say that there's only five observables.

- [Narrator] The two men created this drawing of the object,

but when their report reached base officials,

they were ordered to keep silent

and the truth about what happened was buried.

- [Jorge] Gracias amigo.

- [Lue] we're headed to the Condor building,

the nerve center of the air force here for this country.

- [Narrator] Elizando has heard answers

to what happened back in 1972 may be found here,

in Argentina's official UFO program.

Colonel Rubin Lianza heads the Air Force unit.

- [Rubin] We are neither debunkers nor believers,

since we are not chasing the paranormal nor are we afraid

of encountering something inexplicable.

- [Narrator] He says the 1972 incident can be explained

by an event that happened the same night.

(engines roar)

On November 2nd, Argentina's junta launched a rocket

into the upper atmosphere.

It was part of a lead up to a secret missile program

and the pilot's testimony was sealed in a classified report.

- And this is the unclassified file.

They said, "We saw the object, at heading azimuth 320."

That is exactly northwest.

And up to 25 degrees above the horizon.

It is plenty coincident with the only sector

of the sky where that cLued should be.

- [Narrator] The launch left a cLued of barium gas

that created a strange purple haze in the sky.

- You can see the deployment of the barium cLued here,

falling down, as it ionizes the gas on top of it.

Ionized gas is the red one, non-ionized gas is the blue one.

And as it falls, there is a purple belt in the center.

- [Narrator] Like many UFO stories in South America,

this case was wrapped up in military secrets.

It often takes time, but Lianza says he's found explanations

for every case that's come across his desk.

- Right.

Are you hundred percent sure that all of those,

you have a hundred percent answer on?

- Misperceptions is 99.9% of the cases.

- [Narrator] Lianza's program may be similar

to Elizando's Pentagon unit.

- And is this an Argentine capability you have here?

- [Narrator] But their conclusions

could not be more different.

- We're constantly looking for new data, new data points.

Is there a recommendation you would have?

- I don't think with all due respect,

you're going to find the Holy Grail of UFO evidence,

not even in an X-files that are in a drawer

in the armed forces of South America.

The fact that the case is not solved is not a guarantee

of paranormal explanations for them.

You know, all crafts have to dump the remaining fuel.

- [Lue] Right, bleed it out.

- Bleed it out.

Think the approach has to be changed

and it has to be changed towards the scientific method.

- [Lue] Your approach, it makes sense.

It's logical, it's unbiased.

- [Rubin] If you ever talk to the independent witnesses,

I will appreciate if you tell the same words to them,

because they think that I'm covering up things, covering up.

- [Lue] You can close a hundred percent

of your investigations to a hundred percent

of your satisfaction, but what does that mean?

I believe he's closed them all.

I'm not sure he solved them all.

Thank you again.

- [Rubin] Thank you.

- [Narrator] Coming up on Unidentified.

Is there more to South America's UFO story

than meets the eye?

- [Mark] A number of the larger UFO groups

were actually set up to provide sort of eyes on the sky

for the American intelligence services.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Lue Elizando is in South America

to investigate a rash of orb-shaped UFO sightings,

and learn what they can reveal about the UFO phenomenon.

Elizando's just met with the head

of Argentina's UFO investigation agency.

The colonel claims that all of the countries thousands

of sightings can be identified.

- [Lue] Are you hundred percent sure that all

of those you have a hundred percent answer on?

- Misperceptions, it's 99.9% of the cases.

- [Narrator] Elizando wants to know

what other governments here can reveal about UFOs.

He's in Uruguay at the General Artigas Air Force base,

home to the longest-running official UFO program

in Latin America, dating to the 1970s.

- This is an effort that has been going on now

for a better part of 40 years,

and actually tends to be a gold standard.

- [Narrator] Colonel Ariel Sanchez

and Captain Marcos Temesio run the program

and have agreed to share their secrets.

-[Lue] Buenos dia.

Me llamo Luis Elizando.

Gracias amigo. (gate squeaks)

- Great to see you. - Hi, how are you?

Great to see you too.

- Hey great, absolutely,

thank you very much for having us here.

- [Narrator] Elizando asks

if there have been any orb sightings.

- [Narrator] Colonel Sanchez briefs Elizando

on a case from 2011, where a bright sphere was seen

over Montevideo and captured on video.

The object has never been identified.

- During my time in the US government,

I realized very quickly, it's imperative

that you have partnerships and relationships

with other countries.

The more people that we can talk to

and get more perspectives that we can gain,

the better off we're gonna be.

- [Narrator] Following the presentation,

Elizando sits down with Colonel Sanchez

and Captain Temesio, who drop a bombshell

on why they believe the program was created.

- That for me was a drop-the-mic moment.

You mean to tell me that the longest-standing

official UFO investigative agency

in the Latin American hemisphere was allegedly created

at the behest of the US government at the time.

What?

- [Narrator] Elizando sees a connection

to America's legendary UFO program, Project Blue Book.

- So it's okay for you, US government,

to go down to Latin America and say,

"We're gonna take our Project Blue Book

and all the methodologies that we use, investigative,

we're gonna give you the handbook

and you're gonna use that,

and you're gonna establish your own program?"

- [Narrator] Project Blue Book was a series of UFO studies

begun by the Air Force in 1952,

in response to a rash of UFO sightings.

For the next 17 years,

Blue Book studied over 12,000 sightings

and found 701 cases that could not be explained.

And the Air Force officially shut down

Project Blue Book in 1969.

But has Elizando discovered the US continued

to secretly study UFOs with the help of other countries?

- The fact that we asked Uruguay

to establish a program is absolutely indicative

that we thought it was interesting as well on our end,

that we should be looking at these things.

You think we're gonna go ahead and tell a country

to do something, but we're not going to look at it ourselves

or want their information?

Come on, that's not the way it works.

- As part of the ongoing Cold War,

South America just became an intense flashpoint.

It was feared that the Soviet Bloc could

then get a foothold on the American continent.

- [Narrator] Researchers like Mark Pilkington believe

the US may have quietly helped set up UFO programs

around the world, not as a way to look for aliens,

but to monitor our enemies.

- It's long been suggested that a number

of the larger UFO groups were actually set up

to provide, sort of, eyes on the sky,

for the intelligence services.

- [Christopher] Our government relies heavily on our allies

for intelligence collection around the world.

So it doesn't surprise me to hear

that they would be encouraging the Uruguayan government

to collect more information and assuming

that it would be shared with us.

- [Narrator] Did the US take it even further,

actively encouraging UFO sightings to distract attention

from covert operations in the region?

- Ideas of UFOs and extraterrestrial visitations

have been eagerly adopted over past decades

all over South America, and we might ask to what extent

those ideas were planted as part of disinformation

or clandestine intelligence operations.

- [Narrator] But even if the US had covert motives,

how can that explain the thousands of sightings

across South America, going back decades?

Coming up on "Unidentified."

- [Producer] Do you believe they're real?

- You know what, um...

(dramatic music)

)

- [Lue] I believe every time we engage a foreign partner

on this topic it helps us in our ultimate endeavor

for international cooperation on this.

- [Narrator] Lue Elizando has traveled thousands

of miles across an entire continent,

trying to unravel the truth

about South America's thousands of UFO sightings.

- [Lue] My motivation for going down to South America was,

I wanted to know what they've learned.

- [Narrator] He's spoken to several eye witnesses

with incredible stories of orb-shaped UFO encounters.

- [Narrator] Some suggest the sightings can be explained

by US intelligence tracking the activities

of adversaries in the region.

- We shouldn't be at all surprised to find

that those ideas were planted as part of disinformation.

- [Narrator] Others by high tech explanations.

- [Narrator] But other sightings are not

so easily identified.

- [Christopher] Anywhere in the world

we investigate this phenomenon,

we're gonna find most reports have

some sort of conventional explanation.

What's interesting are the reports that don't,

that we can't explain away.

- [Narrator] Like the orb that pilot Oscar Santa Maria

shot at over Peru in 1980.

- No obvious signs of propulsion,

no engine, no exhaust,

no jet plume or anything else

that you would normally associate

with a traditional aircraft.

- [Narrator] And what can account for the glowing orbs

that the Mapuche people of Patagonia have seen

in the sky for centuries, and a recent wave of sightings.

- [Lue] Could they be some sort of Google balloon used

to provide telecommunications to remote areas of Patagonia?

But then again, you know,

Google balloons don't make right angles

and fly over the horizon in the blink of an eye.

I'm just as perplexed now than I was before I went down.

- [Narrator] Do these incidents show

that UFOs have an unusually strong interest

in South America?

Or are the people of South America more willing

to believe in them?

- [Christopher] Throughout South America,

the mainstream media provides greater coverage

to incidents that occur in those nations.

So this is more openly accepted and discussed.

- [Narrator] For Elizando and his team,

one sighting maybe an anomaly, two a coincidence,

but multiple sightings across several countries

and hundreds of years is a pattern that can not be ignored.

- [Christopher] There've been enough extraordinary sightings

that were corroborated by many witnesses

and fighter aircraft, that there is a category there,

I would say, that seems to correspond

to what our Navy has revealed and spoken about.

- [Lue] This area may indeed be a hotspot.

- [Christopher] There has been a lot of activity there,

and it answers one of the big questions

that people often have is, is this a US only phenomenon?

The answer emphatically is no.

- [Narrator] Elizando says he'll continue his search

for answers wherever it leads him.

- A lot of what they're telling me does reaffirm

information we've already had.

So that for me is encouraging because it shows

that we're on the right path.

I think you need to go into this neither as a believer

or a disbeliever, just collecting the facts.

And that's hard to do.

That's really hard to do, especially when you come

from a background like I have

where you've seen a lot of things.

Yeah, it's really tough.

- You know what, with all due respect,

I'm not gonna answer that question.

What impacted me the most about my trip

to South America was the realization

that they want to cooperate with the United States.

Because it is a global phenomenon,

it requires a global discussion.

Knowing more about the UAP phenomenon may solve some

of the world's problems,

but it also may create more problems.

I think it's too early to tell.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter,

'cause whatever the truth is, that's what we need to find.

Leaving our heads buried in the sands

is just avoiding the inevitable.