All language subtitles for Unidentified.Inside.Americas.UFO.investigations.S01E01.The.UFO.Insider.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-TEPES

UFOs with extraordinary
capabilities are present in our skies,

according to a team of former
US Government insiders.

This program features
military eyewitnesses

describing these unidentified
craft for the first time.

In 2017,

this New York Times headline
shocked the world.

A clandestine US
government program

had been investigating UFOs.

The Pentagon
has confirmed the existence

of the Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program

that studied UFOs, and
they released video.

There's
a whole fleet of 'em.

My gosh.

For eight
years, the secret program

was run by this
man, Lue Elizondo.

Time and time again,
we were coming up

with these mystery objects,

performing in a way
that defies logic.

Frustrated by
what he says was a cover up,

Elizondo quit

and joined forces

with an elite group of
former government insiders.

We're gonna figure out

how to get to the bottom of it.

Now they
have one mission.

To expose what they say
is the truth about UFOs.

US airspace
is being violated

by vehicles of unknown origin
with advanced capabilities.

It was raining UFOs.

I put my entire
career and future on the line

because I believe
in what I believe in.

Carl Sagan once famously said,

extraordinary claims
require extraordinary proof.

He was absolutely right.

But now we have the proof.

Lue Elizondo is on his way
to interview a key eyewitness

to one of the most stunning
UFO events in recent history.

We're trying to
build a case here for the jury

and so when you're building
a case for the jury,

there is nothing more compelling
than eyewitness testimony.

They were there, and by the
way they're trained observers.

These are people who
can think critically.

And this particular pilot
has never given an interview

about this incident, ever.

In 2004,
this Navy fighter pilot

was training for deployment

aboard the USS Nimitz
Aircraft Carrier.

Now a high-ranking
officer, this is her first

on-camera interview
about the incident.

She wants to keep
her identity hidden

due to the sensitivity of
what she's about to say.

I wanna make sure that
everybody in this room

understands that her identity
has to remain protected

at all times, so with that
includes when you're writing

notes on email
back to executives.

Hey, that was a
great interview with.

Don't write that.

Don't put it in there.

Just say the pilot.

Wingman pilot will be appropriated...

So, it's the Wingman pilot.

I still have a security
clearance so as a result

we will not be discussing anything
classified at all during this interview.

In fact if at any time,

anything is discussed
that's classified

we will stop the interview
right there and then.

Sure.

Elizondo
was still bound by an oath of secrecy,

so
he hopes testimony like this

will force the government to
acknowledge UFOs are a threat

to national security,
and to take action.

Because this issue
is such kryptonite

inside the national
security establishment,

he needed to figure
out a way to do it

so that what he's gathering
could be made public.

These are not crazy people
that are reporting this stuff.

These are the people that
we entrust our security to.

Why don't we just
start from the beginning.

We were operating

off the coast of California

in a designated
military working area

with our carrier strike group.

We had launched to
perform a practice fight

against each other

to rehearse our maneuvers.

On
November 14th, 2004,

this pilot took off from
the deck of the Nimitz,

as the wingman to a second jet,

flown by her squadron commander.

She soon found
herself in the middle

of one of the most significant
UFO encounters on record.

It was daylight and--
Oh yeah.

It wasn't in the
middle of the night?

Clear blue
skies, middle of the day.

Normally
fighter pilots

are directed by a radar plane,

known as a hawk eye.

But the two F/A-18 Super Hornets

are suddenly
redirected by controllers

on the USS Princeton.

We were interrupted

by a shipborne controller.

Their tone was urgent

and their requests were,

unusual.

This is not an exercise.

This is a real-world intercept.

Didn't have much experience.

I thought maybe it's a
drug run or something

coming up the coast of Mexico.

And I thought, wow
that'd be cool.

With no
information about their target,

as the two jets arrive at
the designated location,

they're confused.

My heart sank.

There was something
in the water.

There was a churning,

and I went from being
sort of giddy, excited,

to thinking, oh my God, now
we're on-scene commanders

of a wreck, somebody's
crashed and,

aircraft
is sinking.

And this is when
you notice an object.

We
were all clamoring

to get on the radio.

Do you see, in the water,

what the ---is that?

A bizarre
craft is hovering

over the churning water.

What does it look like?

No windows.

No flight surfaces.

So no wings at all?

No wings, no?

Smooth, white.

No intakes, no smoke trail.

It looked like a giant Tic Tac.

Give me a rough size.

Maybe 40 feet.
Okay, 40 feet, fair enough.

Large enough
to scare the hell out of me.

It was so unnerving because

it was so unpredictable.

High G, rapid velocity,
rapid acceleration.

So you're wondering:
"how could I possibly

fight this?"

We have no ordinance onboard,

unless one of us ram this thing,

which, the way it was maneuvering
would have been impossible,

so I stayed in high cover.

The wingman
watched from above

as her commander flies
directly at the strange craft.

Now Elizondo is on
his way to interview

the other pilot in
the air that day.

The wingman's commander.

These are reports
from military pilots.

They've been in combat,
and this is something

that they cannot explain and

it's shaking them
up to the point

that they're willing to
risk their professional standing

by coming
forward and talking about it.

Brother Dave, how are you?

What's up Brother Lue,
how you doin' man?

I'm doin' better than I
deserve, how you doin'?

Good, boy you
live in a castle, man.

I wouldn't call it a castle.

Retired US
Navy commander David Fravor

led the Black Ace's squadron,

flying combat missions over
the Middle East and Africa.

He now works in
the private sector

as an aeronautics consultant.

Commander Fravor
is a very rare breed.

He's one of the few folks

that actually run towards
danger, not away from it.

Fravor was the wingman's commanding
officer that day over the Pacific.

He had
that fighter instinct,

so it wasn't surprising
his actions on that day.

I really wanted
to see what it was.

I mean, if I could have
joined right up on it

and got like Blue Angel close,

then I probably
would have done that.

As Fravor
attempted to get a closer look,

his wingman watched from above.

This object
seemed to recognize that

we were there, and went
from this very low altitude

to maneuvering in an
erratic, very rapid manner.

So hair on the back of
my neck is standing up.

I'm thinking I'm gonna be
watching a disaster here.

Coming up
on Unidentified...

How does the story end?

This rapidly accelerates and it's gone.

The government needed that, discredit
this phenomenon,

get your government to do what it's
supposed to do, and find out what this is.

Wake up.

This is real, wake up.

Most of my questions are gonna

be focused on the
five interrogatives.

The who, what, when,
where, how, and why.

Just like we're doing a terrorism
or an espionage investigation.

Lue Elizondo
may be the most significant

US official to ever claim
the UFO phenomenon is real.

For two decades, he served
as a counterintelligence

officer for the
Department of Defense.

Lue is in many
ways an enigma.

Here is a guy who has
spent decades, really,

in the intelligence community.

Whether it was the
Taliban or it was Al-Qaeda

or it was ISIS, or it was Guantanamo
Bay, he had to deal with all of it.

Lue Elizondo has the most insane career
you would ever hear.

He started out in special operations
with the US Army,

and then he moved his way up into
all these shadow organizations,

doing all these...

all that really secret,

crazy stuff you see in the movies.

And then he ended
up becoming the guy

that's in charge of
all those programs.

Lue is the rare exception,

who was willing to stick
his neck out and take risks

that is not usually rewarded in the
bureaucracy.

The strategy that most people
adopt is to keep their heads down and

go along, to get along, don't draw
attention to yourself.

Keep that pension in mind.

And Lue was the guy who was willing to

really engage and
stick his neck out

and try to be a change agent.

And he was handling some very sensitive
issues.

And he had the kind of savvy

that you need to be successful at that
level, because you're really dealing with

areas that are bitter gray areas,
oftentimes where there's no clear

authority to get things done.

You have to persuade people, and you've
got to be summoned with some character

personality and willingness
and ability to engage people.

And Lue had all of those attributes.

Lue is not somebody who

you would think would come up with
these fanciful stories about UFOs.

But as I got to know him, as I
met with him several times over

a couple of months, I came to
believe that he was someone who

had come into this issue,

very skeptical,

and came out of it
almost a religious believer,

that, wow, this stuff
is really happening.

These are really
credible reports from

pilots, from other
people that are not wacky.

And so I think he became a convert,

and not just a convert, but someone who
felt that it was his

job to try and get
more senior leaders

in the Pentagon, to
pay attention to this.

In 2009,

Elizondo took over
the $22 million dollar

Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program,

or AATIP,

that investigated
encounters between UFOs

and the US military.

What the
hell is that, man?

Look at it fly!

Is this the three reports?

Is this five reports?

We were made
aware of many, many,

many, many incidents.

It remains a sensitive number.

Those numbers are increasing
on a regular routine basis.

Some of these incidents
are very, very recent,

and very compelling.

But in 2017, he
made the shocking announcement.

He was walking away from
a 20-year military career

and going public.

I had tried in vain to
work within the silos

of the organization,
but I ultimately left

the Department of Defense

because of my loyalty
to the department

and to the secretary,
not disloyalty.

For the past year,

Unidentified's cameras have had exclusive
access

to Elizondo and his new team

as they track down
military personnel

willing to go on the record

with their incredible
encounters with UFOs.

You are able to
provide a play-by-play

of what actually went
down those moments

that you were
encountering that Tic Tac.

That's correct.

So all that's gonna
be hugely important.

He's meeting with one of
the Navy's top former figher pilots

who came face-to-face with a
Tic Tac shaped UFO in 2004.

Flying a Navy fighter
is probably one of the most

spectacular jobs you could
ever have in the entire world.

It's like a rollercoaster
times 10,000.

And I got to do it
in some semblance

of a tactical
airplane for 18 years.

On
November 14th, 2004,

Commander David Fravor
and his wingman pilot took off

from the USS Nimitz, which was
on maneuvers south of San Diego.

I was the
commanding officer

of strike fighter squadron
41 the Black Aces.

We flying brand
new super hornets.

The nuclear
powered USS Nimitz

was the lead vessel of
a carrier strike group

that included the destroyers,
USS Higgins and Chafee,

the attack submarine
USS Louisville,

and the radar-equipped missile
cruiser, USS Princeton.

If you asked any
senior military officer,

what is the crown jewel of
the American military arsenal?

They would say the aircraft
carrier battle group.

If we have to go into
combat sometime quickly,

it's likely gonna be a
carrier battle group

that's gonna be there first

and it's gonna be
in action first.

It was an
air defense exercise.

Two good guys against
two bad guys.

Probably 70 miles, 60
miles off the coast

in the gap between San
Diego and Ensenada.

Suddenly,
the pilots are contacted

by radar operators
on the Princeton.

The Princeton control
comes up and says:

"We're gonna suspend training."

"We have real-world tasking."

The
pilots are revectored

to a new destination,
but aren't told why.

So we start heading
off to the west.

The other plane is
on my left hand side.

I was
the junior pilot

trying to keep up
with the senior pilot

in the leader aircraft.

We're looking, we don't see
anything on our radars at all,

and we're talking to each other

trying to figure this out.

The Princeton's
AEGIS SPY-1 radar system

is powerful enough
to

track an object as small as
a baseball, at an altitude of

80,000 feet,
but the jets are flying blind.

We're trying
to see what was out there,

which is difficult when you
know what you're looking for.

It's even harder
when

you don't know what you're looking for.

So it goes down,
60, 50, 40, 30, 20,

it gets all the way down.

They get to a point where they
can't separate us from the blimp.

They call it merge plot,

which means you're
in the same space

at whatever you're looking for

and you gotta start
looking outside

because the radar
can't help you anymore.

Then far
below in the water,

they see what looks
like a plane crash,

or a submerging submarine.

But the weapons officer in
the rear

seat of Fravor's jet spots something else.

I hear, hey skipper, do you see,

and when he says that
and as he's saying that,

I notice the Tic Tac.

It's white, it has no wings.

It has no rotors.

I go, holy, what is that?

He goes, I don't know.

According
to this leaked summary

of the incident, contact was made here

30 miles off the coast.

70 miles south of the
US-Mexico border.

At first, the strange craft

stays close to the surface,

moving unlike anything
the pilots had ever seen.

This thing would
go instantaneous

from one way to another,

similar to if you
threw

a ping pong ball against a wall.

And we start to kind of orbit

'cause now we're gonna
watch this thing.

So we start a right hand turn.

And we're going
from a clock code,

the object is in the
middle of the clock,

and we're at six o'clock,

and we're driving
around in circles.

So we get to about nine o'clock

and it's just still doing
its little erratic thing,

kind moving around this
disturbance in the water,

and I go, hey, I'm

gonna go check it out.

I'll go down there.

As we're coming
down nice and easy,

we get to about the
12 o'clock position,

and all of a sudden it
goes, verp, and it kinda turns,

and now it's mirroring us
and it starts coming up.

Ok. Now it knows we're here.

It
seemed to be aware

and it seems to recognize him.

It goes from basically
just almost a hover

into a pretty aggressive
climb up to our altitude,

so there's a bit of fear

because now you're out
there dealing with something

that you have no
idea what it is.

It's actually reacting
to what we're doing.

I kind pull a nose
to where he's gonna be,

and he's coming up, he
just rapidly accelerates

beyond anything
that I've ever seen,

crosses my nose, and it's gone.

And I'm like, whoa.

The Tic Tac
appears to have vanished,

but as the jets streak
towards a pre-arranged

rendez-vous location
known as the cap point,

the radio channel
becomes frantic.

The controller from
the Princeton comes up

right as we're doing
all this and says,

hey sir you're not
gonna believe this.

He goes, but that thing
is at your cap point.

According to Fravor,

the Tic Tac accelerated
from a standing position

and flew approximately 60
miles in under a minute.

As fast as 3,700 miles an hour.

How did the Tic Tac know
the pilot's cap point?

And how did it
accelerate so quickly?

You got something
that could accelerate

and disappear and then
show up 60 miles away.

Kind a bit odd a little
cause you go whoa,

we don't have that.

I'm talking, we're
flying a,

one of the premiere airplanes
on the planet.

What was this?

There was a
capability out there.

Don't know where it's from.

Not saying it's
from outer space,

but not saying it's
from here, either.

Back on the Nimitz,
the pilots tell the rest of

squadron what just happened.

The next crew
is getting ready.

So we're talking
to them about this

and they're like, you
gotta be kidding me.

They
took us seriously.

And the WSO, the guy
in the backseat said,

I'm gonna go find it.

The
next jet to launch

had a targeting pod with an
infrared sensor and camera.

It jammed the radar

but he got a lock on it

and that's the
video that you see.

That doesn't weird you out,
I don't know what does.

Coming up on Unidentified.

I have no idea what that thing is.

And it's not acting like...

aircraft.

That's not acting like anything I've
ever seen.

Hey guys, how're you?

Good Lou, how are you?

Good.

Hopefully you can shed
some light on a few things.

On
November 14th, 2004,

two pilots launch
from the USS Nimitz

and intercepted a
UFO over the Pacific,

south of San Diego.

What does it look like?

No windows,
no flight surfaces.

It looked like a giant Tic Tac.

They
believe this video, recorded

later that day by
a pilot from their squadron,

shows the UFO they saw.

It's one of three Department
of Defense UFO videos

Lue Elizondo helped
get released to the public.

When the three
videos came out,

there was this shock
by the world community

that oh my gosh,
these are real videos.

This effort that
we are embarking on

I think is gonna change
the conversation forever.

Now Elizondo is meeting with
two leading aviation experts

to analyze the videos,

and see if they can
help

explain the pilots
extraordinary encounters.

What I'd like to do is
go through these videos

very carefully and get
your thoughts on these.

The providence on these videos
is very well established.

They are genuine
DOD military videos.

Retired lieutenant
colonel Chris Cooke

is a top gun pilot

who spent a career
flying the military's

most sophisticated fighter jets.

Ross Aimer flew
commercial

aircraft for more than four decades

and works as a consultant

for the National
Transportation Safety Board.

It's the first time the
three men have spoken.

So the first video
I'm gonna show you

this afternoon was taken
in the 2004 timeframe.

The first
video shows the Tic Tac

shaped object seen
by the Nimitz pilots,

captured by an F-18's
infrared camera.

If you looked
at it out of context

you'd think, oh this is
just another UFO video,

but from my perspective
he absolutely captured

what we saw earlier in the day.

The
grainy 90-second video

shows the Tic Tac flying slowly,

then zipping away at
what appears to be

a high rate of speed.

The altitude is
20,000 feet.

We're in the TV mode
now so it's visual.

The display's
indicators are familiar,

but image on screen is confusing.

It doesn't appear to
have any characteristics

of any normal aircraft
that I've witnessed flying.

The experts
wonder how the craft

is staying airborne
without wings.

No flight control
surfaces, I don't see that.

Does not look like
an aircraft to me.

Yeah.

But in these
images of a fighter jet,

also shot with an
infrared camera,

the heat from the engine
is clearly visible.

Everything we know
about propulsion systems

is they create an
intense amount of heat,

so if it was a
conventional type aircraft,

you would most definitely
see some type of Heat.

IR signature plume
Signature, yeah.

behind the airplane.

If you wanna defy Earth's
gravitational force,

the way to do it is with either a
propeller to mechanically displace air.

Jet engine to compress air

and to create an equal,
opposite reaction,

or a chemical explosion
like a missile or a rocket.

Each one of those has
a telltale signature,

yet here are things
that are able to

seemingly effortlessly defy
Earth's gravitational force

and maneuver in ways

that are complete contrary

to anything that we would
presume should be able to fly.

The ability
to fly without wings

or an engine is one of five
distinct characteristics

Elizondo's Pentagon team
discovered.

Calls the observables.

He considers them the program's
breakthrough discovery.

Anti-gravity,

the ability to fly

without apparent means
of propulsion, or lift.

Instantaneous acceleration,

the ability to reach
a high rate of speed

in a short amount of time.

Hypersonic velocity,

speeds over 3,700
miles per hour.

Five times the speed of sound.

Low observability,

a capacity to cloak or conceal.

Trans-medium travel,

the ability to move through
space, air, and water.

Any one of these, mind
you, would be an absolute

strategic game changer for
any foreign adversary to have.

And yet, here we have
things doing all five.

Nobody that I know is
aware of

some break though that
we've made in technology

that could allow aircraft to do
what these reportedly are doing.

Bryan Bender
is one of the reporters

who broke the story of the
Pentagon's secret UFO program.

These aircraft seem
to defy all of the known

aerodynamic properties
that we're familiar with.

So, let's let the
film keep rolling.

The object
the Navy pilot is tracking

suddenly seems to get bigger.

So what just happened
there,

what's he doing?

He's changing
the zoom.

The object then
appears to accelerate rapidly,

disappearing off screen.

That's a significant
rate of acceleration

in a horizontal plane
off to the left.

That's very fast.

The object
appears to perform

a similar maneuver to
what the pilots witnessed.

We're all amazed at
how fast this thing just

took off and disappeared.

Instantaneous
acceleration at this rate

would produce a force of gravity

or g-force so extreme it
would crush a human being.

I have no idea
what that thing is.

It is not acting like a--

Aircraft.

It's not acting like anything
I've ever seen.

Yeah.

If there are vehicles out there,

aircraft that are doing
things aerodynamically

that we've never
even thought of,

then I think we
potentially could have

real trouble down the road.

There was another
F-18 that was flying

with Commander David Fravor
that day and for the first time

frankly ever, we were able
to talk to that individual.

There was some
frustration and frankly

there was a little bit of fear.

Lue Elizondo
is briefing his team

on new information he's learned

about the USS Nimitz incident.

This elite group of
former government insiders

was formed in 2017.

Bound by their conviction,

that the craft in these videos
must be investigated.

We can make a
difference and do things

because we have the
connections and the network

and if we can continue to
establish credibility

with people on the hill
and the executive branch

we might be able to
take this the next step.

Chris Mellon
served as

Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Intelligence.

Steve Justice was a
top aviation engineer

at Lockheed Martin's
legendary Skunk Works.

Al Puthoff was a
scientist for the CIA.

If you were trying to
come up with the A-team

of former high-level
government officials

who would come
forward on this issue,

you can't really think
of a better team.

Lu Elizondo, Chris
Mellon, these are guys

who still have
security clearances,

still have networks
in Washington,

still are in the
business if you will.

Chris Mellon who's put his
entire family's reputation

on the line to do this.

Steve Justice left a very

lucrative job at Lockheed's
Skunk Works to do this.

But by far
the most unlikely member

of Elizondo's new
team is the man

who brought them all together.

The last show I played

was in front of 100,000 people.

The lights and the pyrotechnics
and all that stuff

was going off right behind me

and then they wonder why I'm
not doing that now.

So back
it up, introduce yourself.

Yeah,

My name is Tom Delonge

a lot of people know me
for my band Blink-182,

I started that
band when I was 16

but I got to that point where
my daughter was two years old

and I was gone for
two years straight

and I really really
needed a break.

The only other thing I was
ever interested in was UFOs.

I was so fascinated with this topic,
specifically, because

I think it was like an escape from
growing up in a broken family in suburbia,

the idea of
who we are

and how we see ourselves and where
we're going and where we're from, and

what this is all about.

That all seemed to be wrapped up in
this idea of

unidentified flying objects.

And a lot of people would ask.. why?

I said, well, you know, you're dealing
with a subject that has science,

that has religion, and it has
government secrecy and national

security, and it has

physics and consciousness, there's
like, there's like a never ending

rabbit hole in any one of those things.

Delonge
walked away from stardom

and dedicated
himself to disclosing

what he believes is
the truth about UFOs.

I needed to get
in the government

and I needed to find the people
that deal with this subject

and let them know what
I'm thinking of doing.

Delonge says he
was able to secure a meeting

with a high-level
Aerospace Executive

with deep connections
to the military.

All of a sudden out of
nowhere I had an opening

and I just go, I am not
naive to the subject,

I understand the national
security implications

of this subject but I
am asking for your help

because I need guidance.

I just need somebody to
help me and give me advice

and he leans back
and he goes, "okay".

That's when my life
changed completely.

Soon Delonge
was covertly communicating

with powerful people including
General William McCasland,

the former head of a
billion-dollar

Air Force research lab

and John Podesta, the
former presidential advisor

who once said his biggest
regret in the White House

was not releasing the
government's UFO files.

Tom called me out
of the blue, sort of,

"who is this fellow and
why is he calling me"

and we began to chat
and I began to chat

with some of the other
people he was talking to

and he clearly was

establishing a network of people
who had serious credentials.

There are people like me who
see this as an incredible

mystery and enigma that
needs to be resolved.

Delonge says they were all
part of an elite group

of high-ranking officials
dedicated to UFO disclosure

but they wanted to
remain in the shadows.

Do you think
there's a way over time

that we can open up some
of these discussions,

declassify material?

We ought to be serious about
investigating what's going on

Other countries have done
that, other countries

have declassified the
information they've had.

He's one of the most tenacious
individuals I've ever met.

He got to the highest
levels of the US government

to include Podesta.

Hello, South LA.

But in
October 2016, on the eve

of the heated
Presidential Election,

Delonge was thrust
into a media storm.

WikiLeaks released more emails.

The result,
it appears, of massive hacks

into the National
Democratic Committee,

private email account of
Clinton Campaign Chair,

John Podesta, and
who knows who else.

Delonge's
communications with John Podesta

and others were stolen
by Russian hackers

and published
online by Wikileaks.

The one rule they
had is we will help you

but don't go out and
tell anybody who we are,

that's the only fucking rule.

Overnight
Delonge found himself at the center

of the decades-old debate about UFOs.

I think a lot of people
thought that Tom Delonge

was being
used, was being used as a tool.

They'll tell him some stuff
that's not true and it'll be

a diversion and we'll fool the
Russians or fool the Chinese.

George Knapp is
an investigative journalist

who has reported
extensively about UFOs.

I'm just going to ask you point blank:

Is Tom Delonge being controlled by a

small group of powerful insiders?

No.

No, no I think Tom DeLonge
has plotted out his own course.

He's got some really good advisors
who are not part of the government.

All of these events
that have happened

are because Tom DeLonge
used shoe leather,

knocked on doors,
made phone calls.

What Tom has started in the
last year is unprecedented,

I think in the history of
the study of this field.

By
the fall of 2017,

DeLonge had assembled his team.

Then he
learned the head of the

Pentagon secret UFO Program

had resigned in protest
and wanted to join forces.

It was Luis Elizondo,
he was the guy

that I wasn't supposed
to know his name ever.

It was the guy that
worked at the office

of the Director of
National Intelligence.

And they said, but
there's one other thing.

There's the first
three videos of UFOs

are going to be declassified

for the first time
in US history.

Oh my gosh dude.

Wow, what is that?

Look at it fly.

Coming up
on Unidentified.

I was at area 51 talking
to some guys there,

and I said, you guys, ever
seen anything really strange?

And much to my surprise, these guys
said, yeah, we see some really strange

stuff here at night.

Building number one is on fire.

The whole outside of the building
there was just a huge explosion.

Chris Mellon understands what it
means for America to be under attack.

On 9/11, he was one of the
highest ranking officials

inside the Pentagon.

I have lived through and
survived intelligence failures

including the attack
on the Pentagon.

This was a group of 20
guys with no special skills

or capabilities or technology

and they were able to wreck
massive havoc on our country.

To me, what is most
interesting about this case,

most pilots don't report
these kinds of incidents

and more people are bringing
information in case it does

which is a sign that, you
know, we're establishing

some credibility
and some presence.

Now Mellon's
out of government,

part of an elite team
of investigators,

raising the alarm
about what they see

as another potential
aerial threat.

What is really
motivating me right now

is the Nimitz case.

We had multiple naval aviators

and what they saw
in broad daylight

over an extended period
of time was corroborated

by the most sophisticated
sensor systems,

air defense systems on earth.

Any reasonable person
would have to conclude

defies present understanding
of what aircraft

are capable of doing,
it was clearly something

beyond the pale.

Chris Mellon's is
an innocent character.

He's never been very
public, his jobs

have sort of demanded him
to work behind the curtain.

Mellon hails
from one of America's richest

and most powerful families.

The Mellon's made
fortunes in oil, aluminum, and banking

and wielded
power for generations.

But Chris Mellon found his
calling in Intelligence.

Overseeing the budgets for some
of America's most secret programs.

I was at the Senate
Armed Services Committee

and a report emerged
indicating the United States

had lost a nuclear
weapon, so they sent me

to try to find out what happened
to the missing nuke warhead.

Back when I was
a junior person

in the Department of Defense,

we all knew who
Christopher Mellon was.

This was a man who
had all the secrets.

He is by far one of the
most astute and intelligent

individuals I've ever had
the privilege to work with.

He is a true legend,
a living legend.

He was individual that
was highly regarded

as being one of
the most proficient

and professional individuals
in the department.

Chris Mellon has
spent decades working

not only in the
Department of Defense

but also with the Senate,
but at the highest levels.

One of his large
accomplishments being putting

together the Joint Special
Operations Command Bill,

which is merging all of
our special operations

into one division that
reports all the way up

to the president.

It's a major, major
piece of legislation.

He truly is a
master strategist

and so understanding
how government works

and how the intelligence
community works

and how congress works,
that takes a level of

expertise that you
don't find everyday.

Chris Mellon was
a former staffer

for the Intelligence
Committee on Capitol Hill.

He was an intelligence
official inside the Pentagon.

In the beginning it was a
very opaque sort of process.

In other words, he had
something he was working on,

something that was bubbling up

that was going to soon
be ready for primetime,

ready to be shared
with the public.

Was I interested in
talking about it?

And of course I was intrigued

because I cover the
Pentagon and anything

from the intelligence world

that may be coming out of
the shadows into the light.

I was at Area 51
talking to some guys

there, working in
some programmes

and I said, do you guys ever
see anything really strange

I was almost embarrassed to even ask
about it because of the stigma

surrounding the topic.

and much to my surprise
these guys said,

yeah we see some really
strange stuff here at night.

The deeper Mellon looked
into the controversial

subject the more
he began to question

why the government was doing nothing
about it.

Here's a guy who presumably would know

or be able to find out

if these sightings
were related to some

very restricted
military program that

these Nimitz pilots, for example, were
not aware of.

And

clearly, Chris doesn't seem to think
that these instances were

military aircraft being tested in
secret.

He feels so strongly about it that he
came out of the shadows

when it's not really in his DNA to do
that.

Chris Mellon and Lue Elizondo

weren't the only officials within the
government

concerned about a potential threat.

The Pentagon secret
UFO unit AATIP was

established by a
small group of senators,

including former
astronaut John Glenn,

World War II veterans
Daniel Inaway and

Ted Stevens.

And former senate majority leader Harry
Reed.

It's amazing
that an individual

who worked at such a
high level for so long

is a majority leader of
the United States Senate,

would choose this among
all of the myriad of issues

that he engaged on, with
all of the challenges

confronting our country today

and this is one that he chooses,

in the twilight of his
career, to try to carry forward.

In 2009, Reid sent this letter

to the Deputy
Secretary of Defense

arguing America needed to study

the potentially groundbreaking

technology behind
these bizarre craft.

Before it got into the
hands of our enemies,

Reid requested a small unit

with one of the highest
levels of secrecy.

It was the birth of AATIP.

He's making that case and
that the strategic implications

are so great that we have to
accord it special protection.

This
wasn't the first time

the US government studied UFOs.

The Air Force launched
Project Blue Book in 1952,

when a rash of UFO sightings
put the nation on edge.

This is David Brinkley
in the radar room

at Washington National Airport.

On these radar
screens last Saturday,

they saw something strange
and unusual and at the moment

unexplainable it
was not an airplane,

it was not a cloud that
nobody knows what it was.

For the next 17
years, the Air Force studied

over 12,000 UFO sightings
and found 701 cases

that couldn't be explained

but they concluded the incidents

posed no national
security threat

and officially shut Project
Blue Book down in 1969.

It wasn't lack of
compelling information,

it was actually the result
of compelling information.

Ultimately they determined
that they needed

to tamp down the concern,
the public concern,

in part because
during the Cold War

this could create
some kind of hysteria

and overwhelm our
air defense systems.

So, the government
behind the scenes

concluded that they needed
to discredit this phenomenon.

Mellon
claims Project Blue Book

created a stigma around UFOs

that continues to this
day inside the military.

I talk to people in the
Pentagon who had relayed

that they were concerned
it was gonna make

the Defense Intelligence
Agency look bad,

they were more concerned
about the optics of it.

I wonder if at some
point this is gonna go down

as a historical document where people
are gonna look back and say, you know

it doesn't matter what side of the
aisle you're on,

that was heroic.

I was never
formally debriefed

and I wasn't taken seriously,

um, for years.

For over a decade,

the accounts of two
Navy fighter pilots

of an encounter with
an unidentified craft

South of San Diego were
dismissed by the U.S. Navy.

If I had
been a single seat pilot

and I had encountered
it by myself,

I probably wouldn't
have said anything.

I wouldn't want to risk
my security clearance,

I wouldn't want to
risk

people thinking I was a freak or crazy.

You actually get four
people that are eyewitnesses

to the performance of this thing
and then nothing gets done.

So the frustration that
comes out of that is why?

It was not only ridiculed
but then the Intel people

didn't seem to be
interested in their story.

It was the worst of both worlds.

For months,
Lu Elizondo and former

Assistant Deputy Secretary
of Defense for Intelligence, Chris Mellon

had been
working behind the scenes

to organize a meeting between the
two pilots and members of Congress.

If people see the
evidence, they'll understand

and they'll find it compelling.

Sometimes it's only by
bringing the information public

and bringing to the
attention of Congress

that you get action.

Elizondo is
driving across the country

and one of the pilots,
retired Navy Commander, David Fravor

calls to tell him

the unprecedented meeting
has just taken place.

Fantastic and they asked
you some hard good questions?

On the record, oh
my God, phenomenal.

Fravor
tells Elizondo,

that he and his wing man pilot

met in secret with
members of congress

responsible for national
security.

Holy ---dude.

The Senators
don't want their names revealed

because of the
sensitivity of the issue.

The press was not
informed and the meeting

is not found on any
official schedule.

Do you feel positive
that it was well received?

Well congratulations, you just
made history brother, again.

For the first time in
history, the US Senators

will agree for
the record on UFOs

affecting US military
aircraft and operations.

For Elizondo,
this meeting is the first step

in an effort to
wake lawmakers up

to a serious threat
to national security.

How does this story end?

I have no idea
who it was or what it was.

Maybe it's Elon Musk
or somebody out there

coming up with some, you
know, disruptive technology

that's gonna change our lives
like an iPhone.

You know, if you'd show me an
iPhone

when I was in high school
I would've thought it was vudu magic.

I hope it ends peacefully.

You have to ask yourself, is it ET,
or is it Independence Day, you know,

what's the intent?

And right now we don't know.

I promise I will try
not to yammer on too long.

I don't think necessarily
disclosure as an event,

I think it's a process, and
I think that process began.

We trust the American
people to know that

there are certain countries
that have nuclear warheads

pointed at New York
and Los Angeles

that could wipe out millions
of people in an instant

and yet

we don't trust
American people to know that

there's something in our airspace
and we don't know what it is.

There's a lot more I
don't know than I do know,

but that's okay.

That's why we have to continue
to seek to find the answers,

and collect the data
cause ultimately

the data will speak for itself.

I think the public is
closer to understanding

the UFO mystery than at
any time in my lifetime,

it's astonishing and yeah,
it's a little bit scary.

What's worst case scenario?

Have you thought about it?

Well let me tell you,
I've thought about it,

I'll tell you already, it's
too late, cause it's here.

So, we have a choice, we
can live with our heads

buried in the sand
and hope it goes away

or we can take our head out of the
sand and try to figure out how it works

but it doesn't really care what we
think in this room because it's here.

This season
on Unidentified.

There's a whole
fleet of them, my gosh.

Look at that thing, dude.

Never forget those voices.

You know those voices?
I know those guys, yeah.

Elizondo's mission
to track down more eyewitnesses.

If I hadn't seen
it with my own eyes,

I don't know if I would've
believed it either.

It was raining UFOs.

Leads him to
reveal a disturbing pattern.

They disappeared
down off the coast.

I could tell you
the lat and long.

I saw it disappear,
suddenly it,

it moved... like that, fast.

And to expose
an even larger threat.

These UFOs had an intense
interest in anything nuclear.

What are they
and where are they from?

The beams went down into
the weapon storage area

and I'm thinking, oh my God.

Now these objects
have a global presence.

Helicopter arrived and they

requested all the data
recording.

They didn't want the world
to know which is scary.

You don't what else
they're covering up.

Unidentified vehicles
are operating

at will in restricted airspace, just
minutes from the nation's capital.

Thousands
of people experience

unidentified flying objects.

What the
---is that thing?

It's time to look into it.

You can't ignore facts.