All language subtitles for Unidentified.Inside.Americas.UFO.Investigation.S02E07.Airline.Encounters.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

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ANNOUNCER: This program is
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- [Narrator] Tonight
on "Unidentified,"

a startling investigation.

Are UFOs a threat
to the thousands

of commercial
airplanes in our skies?

And the millions of
passengers on board.

- Something was coming
up underneath me,

unverifiable, unidentifiable
but undeniable.

- [Narrator] Airline pilots,
once afraid to speak out.

- If you even uttered
a word of this,

you were gonna lose your
career, point blank.

- [Narrator] What are these
objects that are being seen?

- [Man] It's pulsating
too, man, that is nuts.

- [Narrator] From the cockpits
of America's airlines.

- [Man] There's something
just passed over.

- If one of these did
hit one of our airplanes,

it most likely would
kill everybody on board.

(dramatic music)

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

Thanks to a team led by former

Pentagon UFO investigator,
Lue Elizando.

- 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.

- [Narrator] They discovered
five unique characteristics

that UFOs have in common,
called the five observables.

They also released
ground breaking videos.

That forced the Navy
to admit its pilots

were coming face to face
with unidentified objects.

- [Reporter] The US Navy made
a shocking admission today.

- [Reporter] Strange flying
objects caught on tape

by their own fighter
pilots are in fact, UFOs.

- [Narrator] Now a new
wave of military witnesses

is coming out of the shadows.

- [Man] I'd 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.

- [Man] 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.

(jet engine whirring)

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Lue Elizando
is investigating the link

between UFOs and
commercial airliners.

From his time in government
tracking UFO reports,

he knows commercial pilots
are seeing something but what?

- The question is, is there
some sort of underlying interest

that these have potentially
with commercial aircraft?

If pilots are saying
they're seeing these things,

we have to take it seriously.

- [Narrator] Today, Elizando
is meeting with Scott Goodnow,

a pilot for a major airline
who is coming forward

for the first time with
his own shocking encounter.

- Scott, thank you
very much for spending

this afternoon
with me here today.

- Sure.

- [Lue] So Scott Goodnow is a
captain for a major commercial

carrier but he also
has military experience

with the United States
Air Force also flying.

In this particular case, you
kinda get best of both worlds.

- [Narrator] In October,
2016, Goodnow was the pilot

of a flight from
Memphis to Los Angeles.

His Airbus 320 was carrying
nearly 200 passengers.

- It was just
beautiful weather out,

nice, smooth conditions and
I was just kinda scanning

the sky and I was looking back

towards the lights of Phoenix.

- [Narrator] That's
when he says he saw

a strange object
in the distance.

- I noticed a orange
spherical shape.

It was brighter than any
of the lights on the ground

and brighter than any
of the lights in the sky

and it was in an
unusual position,

it was right on the horizon.

It just looked different
than anything in the sky.

The center of the
aircraft had some

sort of an aura around it.

It looked like there was
some sort of light pulsating

in the middle.
- [Lue] Okay.

- [Narrator] Goodnow says the
orb suddenly changed course.

- It started moving
at an angle toward us.

It was getting bigger and I knew

that thing was getting closer.

Eventually it got close enough
that I took my phone out

and took a picture of it.

You can see the northwest edge.

- [Lue] Holy s--,
yeah, there it is.

- [Scott] And if you swipe.

- [Lue] Oh, man.

- [Scott] That was the
second photo I took

as it was getting closer

and last, the
third of the three,

that was the closest

and what looks like an aura,
some sort of an aura around it.

In the middle you can kinda
see a stripe of some sort.

- [Narrator] The UFO that
appeared to be coming straight

for Goodnow's plane was
exhibiting one of the five

observable, anti-gravity.

- These luminous orbs have
been described as having

no control surfaces,
no flight surface,

no apparent means of
propulsion and you also have

this ability to defy
Earth's natural gravity.

I know it's hard to
explain from a cockpit,

the size something
is but how big?

- When it got close
to us, it looked

significantly bigger than us.

I've seen a lot of
airplanes that are somewhat

close to us and they looked
much smaller than this thing.

- You're at 36,000 feet,
what was your air speed?

- Oh, approximately
520 miles per hour.

- [Narrator] Captain Goodnow
called air traffic control

but they said they couldn't see

any object on their
radar near his plane.

- Literally, as quickly as I
saw it, it just disappeared.

Like a light in a
room being turned off.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Could
what Goodnow saw

be a conventional object?

Or is it something else?

- There are an extraordinary
number of drone sightings

being reported these days by
commercial airline pilots.

They're typically
easily to distinguish

from UAP or UFO reports.

- [Narrator] To Chris
Mellon, this object

was not performing like a drone.

- [Chris] They're typically
only a few hundred

to a couple of thousand
feet in elevation.

They're a foot or two across.

They're moving at slow speeds.

- [Narrator] Elizondo
recently investigated

a similar object seen
by an airline pilot

off the south American coast.

The orb wasn't red but
shared other characteristics

with the one seen by Goodnow.

- You don't see wings
and control surfaces

and ailerons, what you
see is this object

that seems to be surrounded
in this fuzzy glow.

There are enough
observations and similarities

that we may be dealing
with related technologies.

In fact, what we perceive
as visible light,

is actually a Doppler
shift of energy.

What we are perceiving is
a shifting of the light

in the visible spectrum and
so that's why maybe some

of these orbs have
different colors.

- [Chris] There is a
legitimate safety issue.

There have been close
calls that commercial

pilots have reported also.

The potential for midair
collisions is increasing.

- This stuff needs
to be disclosed.

- [Narrator] Goodnow
is not alone.

Over the past few years,
there have been several

high profile
encounters between UFOs

and commercial aircraft.

In March, 2020, the captain
and co-pilot of an airliner,

en route to Memphis,
Tennessee, captured video

of this unknown
object over Mexico.

- [Narrator] In 2018, in
the skies over Arizona,

two pilots reported a mysterious
craft racing overhead.

- [Narrator] Months earlier,
two F-15s were scrambled

after multiple commercial pilots

reported another fast
moving unidentified object.

- [Narrator] And
like many pilots,

Goodnow didn't just
have one encounter.

He had another
sighting years earlier

in the skies over Las Vegas
that baffles him to this day.

Coming up on "Unidentified."

- What was the
distance between you

and that object that you saw?

- Within 20 miles.

- [Lue] Okay, so close enough to
really get a decent look at it.

- Yeah, close enough
that we were getting nervous.

- [Narrator] And another
pilot reports a UFO

came so close, he thought
it would hit his plane.

- Some object was
coming up underneath me.

I said it if gets inside 100
feet, I'm gonna maneuver.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Scott Goodnow is
a former US Air Force pilot

who now flies for
a major airline.

His encounter with a UFO raises
troubling safety questions

about unidentified objects
near passenger planes.

Now, Goodnow reveals he's
had more than one encounter.

In December of 2009,
he was first officer

on a flight preparing
to land in Las Vegas

when another strange
object appeared in the sky.

(dramatic music)

- [Scott] We started to
descent into Las Vegas.

It was around 11 o'clock p.m.

And we had a visual
encounter with,

the only way I could describe
it, it's like a giant

radio antenna but this
antenna was as high as we were

and we were at 35,000
feet at the time.

And it had strobe lights.

It was stationary

and I was the first one
to see it simply 'cause

it was just right at
our 12 o'clock position

so straight off the nose.

- How many people were with
you that day in the cockpit?

- Just one pilot, he
was pretty concerned

because our trajectory,
we were going right at it.

- [Narrator] At 35,000
feet, Goodnow and his pilot

are heading right
toward the object.

- What was the
distance between you

and that object that you saw?

- Within 20 miles.

- [Lue] Okay. So close to
really get a good look at it.

- Yeah, close enough that
we were getting nervous.

- Okay.

I imagine flying at
the speed you guys fly,

20 miles comes up pretty quick.

- It does.

- He's gotta make a split
decision as to, first of all,

identify what the hell
it is and second of all,

can I avoid it, is it in my way?

He's got the lives
of 200 other souls

sitting in the back
of his aircraft.

- [Narrator] Goodnow and his
pilot take evasive action.

- They are an aircraft
that is not super highly

maneuverable, it's not
responsive, it's not nimble.

It's designed for
comfort and safety

not to take evasive maneuvers
and pull a five G turn

and avoid a collision.

- We did get a vector off
course from air traffic control

because we didn't
wanna hit this thing.

- That's interesting,
what was their reaction

when you radioed
into air traffic?

- I don't know if he understood
what I was asking for 'cause

usually when we ask
for radar vectors,

it's cause of weather.

- What was the atmospheric
conditions that night?

- Clear skies.

- [Lue] What was
your visibility?

- Clear in a million.

- I gotta ask the
obvious question.

How do we know that maybe
it wasn't just ambient light

in the cockpit?
- Sure.

- That was reflecting
off of the cockpit window

and that's what you're seeing.

- One of the first things
we did, we actually

turned all the lights, interior
lights in the cockpit down

to make sure that we could
debunk any ambient lights

that we were seeing
reflecting off the windshield.

And when we turned all the
lights down, that's when we

were able to get a good look
at the lights in front of us

that we're looking at.

- [Lue] Ahh.

- [Lue] Some folks may ask,
okay, maybe they're helicopters.

- First of all, I know that
helicopters just can't get up

to 35,000, conventional
helicopters

just can't get that high.

- Sure.

- [Scott] And I ended
up querying

air traffic control about it.

And air traffic
control contacted Nellis

Air Force Base
approach control 'cause

we were close to their airspace.

- [Narrator] Nearby Nellis
Air Force Base confirms

they have nothing
on their scopes

but then another airplane radios
in to air traffic control.

- Shortly after, an
American Airlines flight

from the south asked
the same questions.

They made a call to
Air Traffic Control

and said that we
see the same thing

and they were coming
from the opposite.

So, they were south
of the object,

we were north of the object.

- Oh that's interesting, okay.

- So two different
perspectives, same story.

- At any time, were you or
the American Airlines or air

traffic control able to get
a radar hit on this thing?

- [Scott] None.

- [Lue] Were any reports filed?

- [Scott] I did file something,

never heard back

and I hear from other pilots
that did the same thing

that that's kind
of a common thing.

When you make these calls
or you file these reports,

there are never follow ups.

I haven't experienced
a follow up,

I know people that have done it.

Never experience a follow up.

I think that's
pretty frustrating.

- Yeah, good, absolutely.

- [Narrator] As a pilot,
responsible for hundreds

of passengers, Goodnow
believes there's too much

at stake to stay in the shadows.

- Looking back, if one of these
did hit one of our airplanes

it most likely would
kill everybody on board.

- [Narrator] Goodnow
says he doesn't know

why no one followed
up on his report.

But what is known is
that the Las Vegas area

is a hot spot for UFO sightings.

Las Vegas is less than
100 miles from Area 51.

The US Government testing ground

for highly classified
experimental aircraft.

Could what Goodnow saw have been

classified military technology?

- Out in Groomlake, Area 51,
there was a lot of new stuff

that had come out in
the black world programs

that were highly classified.

- [Narrator] Bill Scott is a
former Air Force flight test

engineer, an expert on secret
US military technology.

- The engineers, scientists,
had a chance to try

a lot of different things,
so there was a full gamut

of objectives, of needs, so

they tried these
different shapes.

- Mr. Goodnow is describing
what looked to him

like some sort of
antenna structure.

The question is,
was it an antenna?

Or was it something
entirely different?

It's not the first
time I heard about

an antenna like
structure in the sky.

Are they related?

- Because they're
in the black world,

they're still very classified.

We know for a fact out
in Groom Lake, Area 51,

there were tons of sightings.

Could that explain
some of the phenomenon

that people are
reporting over the years?

- [Narrator] Elizando sits
down with fellow team members,

all government insiders
to review the story.

They examine the 2016 encounter

with an unidentified
orb over Phoenix.

- [Lue] Within a few minutes,

the thing now is
parallel with him,

here and close enough, we
started at 20 miles away

is now five miles away and
is actually passing them up.

- [Tom] What data
are we consistently

getting from these guys?

- [Lue] So we're getting
these orbs that pulsate

their light, they disappear
like that, either blink out

or you see them
go to the horizon.

There is this weird
aura around them that

we have continued to see
over and over and over again

with other reports.

Ah, this particular case
he had photograph,

three photographs of it.

What I'm trying to do for us,
it to try to cast wide net.

It's great to have folks,
like a commercial pilot,

who's also military, coming
out and saying these things

on camera, who's still
a commercial pilot,

right now, flying.

- [Narrator] Aware of the
dangers in speaking up,

most pilots remain silent.

- [Tom] And it's a risk for him.

- [Lue] It is a risk, and
he's saying,

look, there's a lot of taboo,
there's a lot of stigma

associated with this, a lot of
guys don't wanna come forward

because they don't wanna
be taken off flight status.

- Would that happen,
they literally reporting

could potentially get
taken off flights?

- [Lue] Absolutely you could.

- Crazy thing is, when they made

"Close Encounters
of the Third Kind,"

in the beginning scene,
you know, the pilots,

and they go, do you wanna
report it and both pilots

in the movie say no,
but here we are, pilots

are still acting the same way.

- [Narrator] While many
commercial pilots continue

to report sightings of
unidentified objects,

none have ever appeared
to come close enough

to strike the plane.

But now, according to one
pilot's never before heard

testimony, one almost did.

Coming up on "Unidentified."
(jet engine whirrs)

- You have to make a split
second decision coming soon

and the worst case scenario
is not even thinkable.

(dramatic music)

was getting closer.] I kg

Eventually it got close enough
that I took my phone out

and took a picture of it.

- [Narrator] After
interviewing an airline pilot

who had to take evasive
action to avoid hitting a UFO.

- Thanks for taking the
time to be with us today,

thank you so much.
- My pleasure.

- I really appreciate it.

- [Narrator] Lue Elizondo meets
a new pilot who claims

the UFO intercepted his
plane in one of the closest

alleged encounters on record.

- [Lue] Please have a seat.

- [Production Crewmember]
Peter take one.

(slate claps)

- So I was a pretty experienced
captain, seen a lot.

In the military, I was
a night instructor.

I had a lot of experience
under my belt at that point.

- [Narrator] Peter Kiriazes
flew multiple aircraft

from fighter jets to the Boeing
777 for more than 30 years.

- [Lue] This is a guy who winds
up joining the Marine Corps

and becoming a covert
attack helicopter pilot

but then makes a decision
to move up to becoming

a Marine Corps fighter pilot.

Pete is one of those guys
who's trained to actually

go into combat and
look for trouble.

- [Narrator] In 2003,
Captain Kiriazes says

he had a UFO encounter that
would haunt him for years

and underscore what's at stake
for millions of passengers.

- [Peter] It was a little bit
after 9-11.

Everybody was a little sensitive

so we felt a little more of
a bond to our passengers.

It was a beautiful night,
no clouds, smooth air.

We blasted off from
Dallas Fort Worth.

We had one leg
left to Charlotte.

The airplane was
functioning perfectly,

got up to 35,000 feet,
we started cruising

and everybody just relaxed.

And then all of a sudden, I
get a radar altimeter display

and it immediately just pops on.

- [Narrator] A radar altimeter
is designed to let the pilot

know how close the
plane is to the ground.

- It's a simple system,
it's just emitting

a straight, vertical radar beam.

When you transition to
landing, it'll go 100 feet,

50 feet, 20 feet, 10 feet.

So at 35,000 feet cruising
along, I get a radar altimeter

display at 25 hundred feet.

It has to bounce off something,
it can't just generate.

- [Narrator] Captain
Kiriazes is shocked.

The altimeter is telling him
something is only 25 hundred

feet directly below his lane.

- And I'm thinking it's
gotta be just erroneous,

it's gotta be just a mistake.

- But then the situation
becomes much more serious.

- So then it goes, 22, 23,

20, 18, 17 and then it stops.

The first officers
and I just immediately

snapped to attention,
some object

was coming up underneath
me, unverifiable,

unidentifiable but undeniable.

- They've called the tower,
tower says, "We see nothing.'

Radar, nothing on radar,
there's nothing squawking.

Squawking is a term that
they use for something

that is pinging with a
transponder in a frequency

that we can identify as
being a friendly aircraft.

- [Narrator] Then as the
captain and his co-pilot

continue to monitor
the radar altimeter.

The mysterious object
makes moves again.

And then it goes,
18, 17, 50, 12.

And it went to a thousand feet.

It was behaving in a
way that wouldn't really

be logical if it was broken.

So at this point, I'm thinking,
well, let's make some turns.

You're allowed to make
loose shallow S turns

without getting air traffic
control busy or upset

so we made some shallow S turns

and you know, we're
kind of trying to look

over our wing and
below us or behind us

and we couldn't see anything.

- He's not willing to
jump to any conclusion

of what this might be, he
goes through the necessary

process of elimination,
okay, could it be this,

no, could it be that,
no, can it be this, no.

- And then it went
800, 700, 500, 400,

300 and it stopped.

I mean the worst possible
situation to be in as a captain,

your brain says this
can't be happening

but you have to deal in the
here and now in the present

so then it goes 200,

then it goes 100.

- How close is 100 feet when
you're flying an aircraft

at 525 miles an
hour at 35,000 feet?

100 feet is, it's
a thumbnail away

from where you're
at and that distance

can be closed in literally
a fraction of a second.

- The worst case scenario
is not even thinkable.

You have the responsibility
of all these lives.

You have to make a
split second decision,

coming soon and you have
nothing to base it on

but one bit of information.

- [Narrator] If Captain
Kiriazes' readings are correct,

something is flying directly
under his plane and closing in.

With nearly 100
passengers on board.

He readies himself
to take control.

- If you've ever seen a
jet, they've got a little

button here, it's called
the auto-pilot button,

my thumb was hovering over
the auto pilot button.

I said, if it gets inside
100 feet, I'm gonna maneuver.

- [Narrator] Captain
Kiriazes keep his eyes locked

on the altimeter
reading of 100 feet.

- It just stayed there,
it seemed just eternal,

it was just so long.

And then it just went away

and at that point, our heart
rate's going pretty fast

and we thought, what
the heck just happened?

- [Narrator] A short time
later, the flight lands

in Charlotte and
Captain Kiriazes

begins looking for answers.

- I checked the log
book on that airplane.

It never had happened before

and in all the 30 years of
flying with a radar altimeter,

that has never happened.

With anybody I've ever talked
to, it's never happened.

- [Narrator] Experts
are at a loss as to what

could've been beneath the plane.

- I've talked to some
very brilliant pilots.

Air Force Academy, Naval
Academy and I've posed this

to them many times and no
one can really give me a good

answer and so the conclusion
is there's something else

with a technology that's much
more sophisticated than ours

that's operating with
an additional set

of physical laws and rules.

- [Narrator] Pilots like Captain
Kiriazes will never forget

what they saw and they aren't
the only one seeing UFOs

near passenger airliners.

Air traffic controllers,
the eyes on the ground

are coming forward with
chilling testimony.

(jet engine roars)

Coming up on "Unidentified."

- The pilot says they
had lights in the middle

with strobes on the
end, it was star shaped

and it was about 300
to 400 feet long.

(dramatic music)

- [Lue] Howdy, Robert.
- [Robert] Howdy.

Thank you very much
for joining us today.

We really appreciate it.

- [Narrator] Luis Elizondo is
meeting with Robert Schlenker

an air traffic controller who
was trained in the military.

For more than 30 years,
Schlenker has guided

thousands of commercial
planes to safety.

On May 25 1995, Schlenker
arrived for his shift

in Albuquerque, New Mexico,

to learn that an airline
pilot had reported a UFO

just minutes earlier to
air traffic controllers

on the outgoing shift.

- The evening shift guy,
he gives us a briefing.

He said, "Hey, this guy
sees something out there."

Don't know what it is.

- [Narrator] Not long
after the incident,

an independent civilian
UFO organization

created a report on
the strange encounter.

They also uncovered audio
tapes of conversations

between the pilot and
air traffic controllers.

- [Robert] The pilot said they
had lights in the middle

with strobes on the end.

They was star shaped,
this was horizontal,

and it was about 300
to 400 feet long.

- There's nothing painting,
painting is a term that they use

at different radar
can hit something

and get a signature off of,
that object has been painted.

- [Narrator] The
object is displaying

one of the five observables
known as low observability.

The ability for an object
to cloak or conceal itself.

- So you have pilot
testimony up here,

saying they're seeing something.

And okay, well could
it be an aircraft?

There are some airships,
there are some dirigibles.

Lockheed has a
very large airship,

but they do not
fly at 30,000 feet

and they're still
not 400 feet long.

(instrumental music)

- [Narrator] Schlenker
takes over the shift

and continues to investigate
the reported UFO.

- Now, it's Robert's job to
figure out what the hell it is.

So what does he do
they get on the horn

with folks like NORAD to say,

"Hey, are you seeing
this as well?"

- [Narrator] NORAD
is the North American

Air Defense Command.

It's a joint US, Canada
defense organization,

established in 1957 as
an early warning system

in case of a Soviet
nuclear attack.

(rocket engine roars)

- So this audio file is
actually has your voice on it?

- [Lue] Is that correct?
- Yes.

- [Narrator] Schlenker
explains to the NORAD operator

exactly what the airline
pilot reported seeing.

- [Robert] Yeah.

- He says, "Yeah, Fox
Mulder X-Files UFO."

It does not fit
any normal profile

or characteristic of
any known aircraft.

- [Narrator] The NORAD
operator tells Schlenker

they don't see anything
on their radar.

But then a short time
later, he gets a call.

- [Narrator] Search
only means the object

wasn't emitting a
transponder code,

which is used to
identify aircraft

and help avoid midair crashes.

And ultimately, the mysterious
cigar shaped UFO disappears.

It wasn't the only time
civilian air traffic controllers

guiding commercial
airliners turned to NORAD

when tracking an object on their
scopes they can't identify.

- Hey, Jim, how are you?

- I'm doing wonderful,
Chris. Nice to see you.

- [Narrator] Colonel Jim Cobb

was the senior command director

at NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain
in Colorado from 2004 to 2008.

- [Schlenker] NORAD
is responsible

for North American aerospace.

They have a network of
sensors and resources,

millions of tracks a year.

If there's any single
one that is unidentified,

they try to account for it.

- [Narrator] Cheyenne
Mountain is a critical part

of NORAD's airspace
surveillance operations.

The command center is
carved deep into the rock

to protect the United States
against a nuclear attack.

- [Schlenker] I think
it's very significant

that Colonel Cobb
is willing to speak

because this kind of
phenomenon is very real

and warrants more attention
than it's getting.

(instrumental music)

- [Narrator] In 2008,
Colonel Cobb arrived for duty

and found the command center
pulsing with activity.

- As I walked into
the command center,

the track had already
been detected.

The feeling from the command
center was that it was

in the extreme northeast
of the NORAD airspace

and gained interest
to the civilians.

- [Narrator] Civilian
air traffic controllers

in the northeast had picked
up an unidentified object

on their radar scopes
near the coast of Canada,

heading south into
American airspace.

It's on a path not
far from the one taken

by dozens of passenger planes
coming from Europe to the US.

- The entire room was standing.

It's not unusual to
have an unknown track.

And it's usually, the
vast majority of the time

resolved fairly quickly, some
kind of equipment degradation

or you can piece
together where they are,

where they may be going.

This had none of that

- Was the track following a
conventional flight profile

in terms of speed,
altitude, direction?

- No, it was essentially
east coast, north to south.

It did not have any electronic

encoding,

that if it was a
civilian airliner,

you would get feedback
from their transponder.

- Do you recall, by chance,
what altitude or speed

this object was moving?

- It did not give
any readout.

And I was not privy
to the ground speed.

It did not paint an altitude
or any identifying features.

So that's all we had to go on.

- [Narrator] As this
unknown object continued

down the east coast, NORAD
commanders are confronted

with the question.

Is this UFO a threat to the
US or other air traffic?

And if so, how to respond?

- [Announcer] Coming
up on Unidentified.

- Command at NORAD
initiated a scramble.

We launched the first group of
alert fighters to intercept.

(dramatic music)

(jet engines roar)

- [Narrator] In 2008,
Colonel Jim Cobb was on duty

at NORAD's command
center in Colorado,

when a UFO was tracked
in the US airspace

along the east coast, not
far from a busy corridor

used by dozens of
commercial airlines

flying in from Europe each day.

After repeated attempts to
identify the target failed,

NORAD commanders were
left with only one choice.

- Command at NORAD
initiated a scramble.

And as such the alert
forces in the northeast

launched in pursuit
of the unknown track.

They chase it or to
identify it down the coast.

- [Narrator] The fighter
jets are scrambled,

but can't find the target.

- After the initial
assets were launched,

subsequent alert
fighters down the coast

were also launched in
an attempt to gain some

identification of the track.

- [Narrator] Every
Squadron that searched

along the coast for the
target comes up empty.

- Were they able to get a visual

or radar lock on at any point?

- No,

not at all.

- What do you attribute that to?

- Range, speed,
possibly altitude.

Again from group of
interceptors all the way down,

nobody caught it.

- And then it exited out over
the Caribbean, is that right?

- Yes, that is correct.

It went all the way down
the eastern seaboard

until it exited the airspace

that these civilians
were monitoring.

And then all of a sudden,
the room got real quiet

and a lot of people were going,

"No clue, no clue what it is."

- [Narrator] No one was ever
able to find an explanation

for the incident.

But what Elizondo and Chris
Mellon are discovering

is that these UFO
sightings are often

near heavily trafficked
commercial flight paths.

On the west coast,
most commercial flights

make the journey
to Asia on a route

that takes them over the
Northwest and Alaska.

- By the way, we've had
reports in the past,

that Alaska does tend to
be a hotspot for UFOs.

- [Narrator] With so
many airlines flying

that Pacific corridor,
is there potential

for a midair impact with a UFO?

To gather more data,

Elizondo is meeting with
a civilian contractor

who saw something while
working in Alaska.

- [Lue] Howdy, sir.

- [Narrator] But
still works closely

with a government agency and
wants to remain anonymous.

- Pleasure to meet you.

- [Lue] I do know that
there are consequences

for coming on camera.

They're still involved
with a US federal agency

in aviation and they've
got a lot to lose.

- [Narrator] In 1999,
this unnamed witness

and two other workers
were sent to repair

a navigation beacon
near Cold Bay

in Alaska's remote
Aleutian Islands.

(instrumental music)

- The navigation system at Cold
Bay is very, very critical.

And so when that
navigation source is down,

it can lead to a lot of delays,

and plus it's used as
a waypoint for flights

that are over-heading
Cold Bay as well.

It was our very first day going
out there for this retrofit

and we could see volcanoes
and glaciers every which way,

not a cloud in the sky.

- [Narrator] The over 9,000
foot tall Mount Shishaldin

towered on the horizon.

- My coworker and I are
parked in the truck,

looking at the
Shishaldin volcano,

when a silver,
metallic, shiny disk

came at a high rate of speed
approaching from the right.

We watched it probably
for about five miles,

it took just seconds
to cover that distance.

And then it came to
an abrupt sudden stop

at the base of Shishaldin.

- [Narrator] They say
they gazed in astonishment

at the stationary shiny
disk for over a minute.

The disk then makes
another rapid move.

- Suddenly, it shot
vertically up in the air

towards the top of
the volcano and again,

it stopped there abruptly for
a minute, maybe two minutes.

And then it zoomed off.

And didn't leave no contrail.

It was just gone,
I don't know how

how the object did what it did.

But I'd seen with
my own two eyes.

(instrumental music)

- Now, I've heard this before.

And as he's telling me this,

I'm actually starting
to get chills

because I am now reliving
several other events

where people have told
me the exact same thing.

I think the observables here,
instantaneous acceleration,

I think it's
hypersonic velocity,

and maybe even
trans-medium travel,

if it did indeed, wind up
going from an atmospheric

environment to a near
vacuum environment.

- Eventually we looked
at each other and said,

"Did you see what I just saw?"

And we both agreed
we'd seen what we saw

and went on about our business.

- [Narrator] The technicians
also agreed to stay quiet.

We've talked about
it amongst ourselves

over the years, but we've
never talked to anybody else

for fear of retribution or
getting our clearances pulled

or something such as that.

There's

no potential upside.

Many people, until
they've experienced it

or witnessed it themselves
are disbelievers.

They think you're
crazy or something

but having seen it, that
certainly made me a believer.

- [Narrator] Elizondo
believes the time has come

for all civilian
pilots and contractors

who have witnessed UFOs to
come out of the shadows.

But can he get anyone
to take action?

- [Narrator] Coming
up on Unidentified,

- [Lue] It's a brave new
world guys.

There are all sorts
of things in our skies

that we don't know
what they are.

- It's a significant thing
where I can never forget it.

There's a 15 minutes
out of a 30 year career

that will forever
last in your head.

(dramatic music)

(ominu)

- [Narrator] Luis Elizondo
has been investigating

the connection between UFOs
and commercial aircraft,

speaking to commercial pilots

about their
harrowing encounters.

- [Lue] Howdy, Robert.

- [Scott] And I noticed a orange
spherical type shape

that just caught my eye.

When it got close to us,

it looked significantly
bigger than us.

- There was a object coming
up underneath my aircraft

rapidly, your brain says,
"This can't be happening."

But you have to deal
and they're here and now

in the present.

When you go up into a situation
where you have nothing

to go on, and you have
to make it up as you go.

That's not a good place to be.

(instrumental music)

- [Narrator] With 10s of
thousands of commercial flights

taking off around
the world each day,

will more pilots come forward

with accounts of UFO sightings?

(instrumental music)

- I've had information
from other pilots,

given to me about things
that they've seen and done,

that it just seems to
be just overwhelming.

It's getting to the point now
where this isn't a surprise.

- It's a brave new world, guys.

There are all sorts
of things in our skies

that we don't know
what they are,

and I think they could pose
an issue for flight safety.

Commercial pilots are
getting concerned.

They have sometimes
hundreds of people

literally, their life
is in their hands.

You have in the back of
that aircraft, families

and husbands and wives
and children and brothers

and sisters and
sons and daughters.

- It is an increasingly
prominent issue.

So, it is important for pilots
to report this information

so that action can be taken.

- [Narrator] But Elizondo
still wants to know,

are UFOs specifically
targeting commercial aircraft?

And if so, why?

- Is there an inherent
interest as we have seen

between UFO activity and let's
say our nuclear capabilities

or our military aircraft?

And is that connection
the same between UFOs

and commercial aircraft?

I really don't know.

The more data we have, the
more we will have to work with

to hopefully determine an
answer, to find a solution

of what these things really are.

But at the same time,
we're not gonna find out

what these are unless
they're reported.

- One of these did hit one--

- [Narrator] But airline
pilots like Scott Goodenout

and Peter Kariotis
have come forward

to report what they've seen.

Many, still feel
afraid to speak out.

- [Chris] I think the airlines
is really where the issue is

for most commercial pilots
concerned about their career.

It's clear that they
haven't had a culture

that encourages reporting
and candor on this topic.

Too often, unfortunately, the
climate has not been favorable

simply to telling the truth

and reporting what
you're seeing.

- There's a certain persona,

especially major airline
pilots, who want to be seen

as pragmatic, logical,
calculating, predictable.

And some of these things
move into an area that might

have some people think that's
a little more of a fantasy

and maybe there's a little
bit of a stigma to it.

They are, "I got
this crazy pilot."

- [Lue] Whether you're American
Airlines or Delta

or any other carrier, you
should encourage your pilots

to report something if
they don't know what it is.

There are more
commercial aircraft

over the lower 48 states

than there are military
aircraft at any given time.

So, commercial pilots are
really our eyes in the sky.

They should feel enabled
to report that information

without fear of retribution
or consequences.

- [Scott] I had an opportunity
to come in and talk about

something that I think
is very important

and it's the safety of flying.

It's an issue of safety when
it comes to these objects

coming as close as they do
to these civilian airplanes.

- The public doesn't know.

The public doesn't know.

It was very scary.

Yeah, because when you have
an object within 50 feet

of an aircraft moving at
35,000 feet at 550 knots

at 50 feet, that's
(alarm beeping)

not good.

It's a significant thing
where I can never forget it.

There's a 15 minutes
out of a 30 year career

that will forever
last in your head.

(upbeat music)
(jet engine roars)