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I'm Tim Tate. I've been
an investigative journalist

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for almost half a century.

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And what I specialise in
is exploring official archives,

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unearthing dusty old files
from government departments,

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spy agencies, the police.

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This strange figure looked
very much like an astronaut.

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And what I have found
in those collections,

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both in Britain
and in the United States,

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is a truly extraordinary collection
of real life X-Files.

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True Cryptids, like the Yeti and
the Mongolian Death Worm .

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And those files disclose
investigations by the police,

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by governments, by spy agencies.

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Shortly after that transmission,
Captain Schaefer's radio went dark.

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To examine and uncover the truth
about phenomena

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which are truly out of this world.

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It's a great piece of branding,
the death ray.

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Everyone knows where to stand
in the death ray.

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When someone goes missing,

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we all know there must be
a rational explanation.

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But in our first X-File,

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the only logical interpretation
seems to come from another planet.

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Captain William Schaffner

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was a 28 year old
U.S. air force pilot,

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and in September 1970,
he was on attachment to the RAF.

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And at that time, we're involved
in this standoff with the Russians.

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Still the Cold War,
a lot of tension.

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And every now and again,

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the Russians would send aircraft
over the Arctic

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probing NATO defences.

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Radar stations have picked up
a wave of high-flying supersonic

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bombers heading for targets
all over Western Europe.

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And we had a whole series
of air bases

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where aircraft will be at standby,
known as QRA,

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which stands for
Quick Reaction Alert.

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So these are cockpit-ready pilots
who were there 24 hours a day

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waiting for the order to come
from the RAF

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to scramble into the air
over the North Sea,

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to go and fend off
whatever is waiting for them.

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In the modern world,
the emphasis is on speed.

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The Lightning is said to be
the fastest aircraft in the world

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on active service.

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William Schaffner was
an experienced pilot.

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He'd flown in the US Air Force
during the Vietnam War.

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The RAF listed him formally
as combat ready.

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Scramble. Scramble.

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At 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday,
September the 9th, 1970,

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Schaffner was scrambled
to intercept an intruder.

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Something unusual had been seen
on radar

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coming over the North Sea
towards Flamborough Head

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in Yorkshire,

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it had gone much further than what
they would have expected

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a Russian intruder aircraft,

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so they needed to get
into the air quickly.

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Bill Schaffner leapt
into his Lightning,

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so he went up and got he
an RAF pilot behind him,

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his wingman,
and they were being directed by

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the radar ground controller
RAF Staxton Wold.

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And he reported back
when he spotted the interloper.

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He wasn't able at that distance

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to determine what type of aircraft
it was,

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but he was able to calculate
its speed,

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160 knots or thereabouts,

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well below the speeds at which
his Lightning was capable of flying.

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And Lightning is
an apt description of its ferocity

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and speed,

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twice the speed of sound,
1,320 miles an hour.

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That's the incredible ability
that's part of Britain's defence.

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He was talking to the ground
control and he said, I can see-

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I can see some lights
in the distance.

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I'm going in for the interception.
And he was told, be careful.

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You know,
you need to sort of slow down.

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So he was moving
towards it to intercept it.

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As he got closer,

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he realised that
there were some strange blue lights,

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that there was kind
of conical shape,

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and also seeing this sort of
football shape as well.

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Schaffner did relay the fact that
this was an unusual sight,

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or rather, he did say about
how it's turning around,

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it's coming straight towards me,

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and that he was going to take
evasive manoeuvres.

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Shortly after that transmission,
Captain Schaffner's radio went dark.

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That night in September
would be the last time

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anyone ever saw or heard from
Captain William Schaffner.

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Pilots had only a very
limited survival time

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in the cold September North Sea,

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so the RAF quickly mounted
a full air-sea rescue operation

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to try and find Captain Schaffner
and his missing Lightning.

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Code named Foxtrot 94.

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The pilots had,
they had an ejection mechanism.

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So if you're in trouble,
you could hit a button,

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it blew off the cockpit

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and you'd be propelled
out of the aircraft

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and you would have
an inflatable dinghy

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that would open up and
give you some time

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before you were spotted
by the air sea rescue.

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But no sign of the pilot,
no sign of the aircraft.

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It had vanished.

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Royal Navy divers located
the Lightning plane

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five weeks later on the seabed.

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The bizarre thing was that
when they recovered the aircraft

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and looked in the cockpit,

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there was no pilot
and the cockpit was shut.

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William Schaffner was
married with two sons,

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but all the RAF could tell them
was that he had died

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in an unfortunate accident
whilst on active service

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and his body had not been recovered.

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The ensuing official inquiry was
conducted,

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as with everything else related
to the fate of Foxtrot 94

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under conditions of
complete secrecy.

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What changed that was a phone call
made to the offices

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of the Grimsby Evening News in 1992.

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The caller, when he was put through
to the newsroom

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and spoke to a journalist,
refused to identify himself.

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But what he said was that he had
been a member of the RAF team

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which examined the remains.

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He said that on the night
that Foxtrot 94 had been lost,

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number five squadron and
Captain Schaffner had been on

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a unique top secret mission.

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And that top secret mission was
to intercept UFOs.

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Even more astonishingly,
the anonymous caller provided

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a transcript of the radio chatter
between Captain Schaffner

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and his ground control.

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That transcript appeared to record
Schaffner describing

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the object he encountered.

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He said, in this transcript,

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it emitted a blinding,
bluish light...

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...and was flying far faster
than any other aircraft.

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And then the transcript recorded him
saying,

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wait, it's turning towards me.

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I'm gonna have to take
evasive action.

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After that, the radio went dead.

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When the newspaper
published the story,

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the silence surrounding Captain
William Shafner's disappearance

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mutated from being
an unexplained accident

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into a full-blown conspiracy theory
involving a cover-up,

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UFOs, and alien abduction.

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The family of Bill Schaffner,

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by that point his sons were
in their 20s,

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they looked on the internet
and they saw all this stuff

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about their dad dying
as a result of an alien abduction.

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So you can imagine how they felt,

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because they felt, oh my God,
you know,

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we've never found the truth
about what happened to our dad.

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And now we're reading
all this stuff on the internet.

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In 2002, Schaffner's sons
asked the British government

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to release any information
they had

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relating to the disappearance
of their father.

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But it took a further six years

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before the contents
of their investigation

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was finally released in 2008.

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The main problem that was found
was the fact that Schaffner,

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despite being an experienced
fighter pilot,

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hadn't really received
the proper training for this,

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for low-level flying at night.

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Another factor is the fact
that Schaffner was impatient

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to get back into the skies
when he had scrambled.

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Initially, he was meant to make sure
that the Lightning

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was properly serviced,

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but he'd actually left
without it being fully completed.

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Unused to flying
the Lightning at low speeds,

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Schaffner stalled the aeroplane.

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Having stalled at low altitude,

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the plane hit the water
and skidded on the surface

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before starting to sink.

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Schaffner had only seconds
to activate his ejector seat.

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The cockpit wouldn't blow
when he hit the button

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that should have blown it off.

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So what did he do next?
I'd have to manually do it.

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And he's motoring this cockpit open
and trying to think,

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have I got all my life saving gear
with him?

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And he hadn't.
It had become detached.

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So he gets out of the cockpit,
he's in the water,

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and the cockpit's closing like that

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before he could retrieve anything
from the cockpit,

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the aircraft sinking,
and he drowned.

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This seems to account
for the order of events

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that left Captain Schaffner stranded
as his Lightning sinks,

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but it doesn't explain the object
that Schaffner reported seeing.

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The RAF knew all along
what it was, this object.

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It was a Shackleton.

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A Shackleton was
a British aircraft

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and the descendant of
the Lancaster bomber.

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It was used primarily by the RAF
against Russian submarines.

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In September 1970,

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it was on exercise playing the part
of a Russian intruder.

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The crew of the Shackleton
were interviewed and they said,

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yeah, you know, we were there.
We knew it was an exercise.

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We knew that Lightnings would be
coming in and shadowing us.

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And we saw this aircraft pass by.

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We saw its lights and then it just
vanished and we assumed

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it had hit the water.
Which was exactly what it had done.

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But none of this takes
into account the testimony

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of the anonymous whistleblower,

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who knew it was a secret mission
to intercept a UFO,

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and who provided transcripts
in which Captain William Schaffner

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reported seeing lights in the sky
shortly before he vanished.

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When the transcripts of
Captain Schaffner's communications

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were finally released
in the official inquiry,

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it deviated significantly
from the whistleblower's report

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to the Grimsby Telegraph.

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There is no mention of taking
evasive action,

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and the alleged flashing blue light
is not referenced.

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So how did Captain William Schaffner
become the poster boy

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for British UFO conspiracy theories?

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At the time, very little was
revealed from the incident.

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Some of this, of course,
was just the normal protocol

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of dealing with aircraft crashes
and disappearances.

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But I do think there was a bit of
an official cover-up in terms of

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just what had happened to Schaffner,

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because there were a certain amount
of failings in this

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that would have been very
incriminating for the MOD

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and for the RAF.

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This is why no one trusts
what the government says,

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because there's so many examples
of this kind of thing,

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unnecessary secrecy,

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things where they did know
the answer to a mystery,

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but deliberately keep it
under wraps for decades.

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And that allows conspiracies
to develop.

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And a lot of it is well
over the top, unnecessary secrecy.

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There's no reason why
Bill Schaffner's family

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couldn't have been told at the time
what had happened,

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but for some reason they weren't.

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There is, though,
one small coda to this story.

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When the file was released,

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it turned out to have been stored
in a collection held by the RAF

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and the government.

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And that designation was:

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Inquiries into
Unexplained Aerial Phenomena,

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UFOs.

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Would the world be
a better place

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if paranormal abilities
really existed?

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But what if those who had
those incredible powers,

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fell into the hands of our enemies?

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In the 1960's, remarkable claims
emerged from Soviet Russia

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that they had found someone
with the ability to move objects

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using only the power of their mind.

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What's more,
they could prove those claims.

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There was moving footage
of telekinetic experiments,

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and those films featured

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an otherwise unremarkable
Russian woman

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called Nina Kulagina.

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The incredible footage
shows Kulagina sat at a table

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surrounded by scientists
and journalists

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as she apparently
moves objects with her mind.

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This rare talent for moving
objects by force of will alone

246
00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:57,600
has been termed psychokinesis or PK.

247
00:13:58,400 --> 00:14:02,880
Nina Kulagina is a Russian housewife
who has this ability.

248
00:14:03,040 --> 00:14:06,400
She was born in Leningrad
in 1926,

249
00:14:06,560 --> 00:14:09,200
and her birth name was
Ninel Mikhailova.

250
00:14:09,360 --> 00:14:12,800
So usually in the West,
we call her Nina Kolagina,

251
00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:16,440
but she was actually called Ninel,
which is N-I-N-E-L,

252
00:14:16,600 --> 00:14:19,040
or Lenin backwards, which was
a popular name at the time.

253
00:14:19,200 --> 00:14:21,920
She was born two years
after Lenin's death.

254
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:27,440
Her adolescence was very traumatic.
It coincides with World War II.

255
00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:31,240
At the age of 14,
with the Second World War raging,

256
00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:34,760
she joined a tank regiment

257
00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:38,400
and she was assigned to the defence
of Leningrad

258
00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:44,360
in the lengthy and bloody, terrible
Siege of her city by German forces.

259
00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:48,400
She was badly wounded
during the fighting.

260
00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:51,560
In the early 1960s,

261
00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:53,960
it seems that she had
some kind of breakdown

262
00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:56,360
linked to her injuries
in World War II.

263
00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:58,560
And so the first time
that she showed

264
00:14:58,720 --> 00:15:01,280
her psychic abilities
was in hospital.

265
00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:06,000
There was a radio report about
a woman who was said to be able

266
00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:09,800
to see colour with her fingers,
and Ninel had the same ability.

267
00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:12,960
Apparently, she could pick out
threads from a box of threads

268
00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:15,880
and pick the right colour
without being able to see them.

269
00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:22,040
She simultaneously discovered that
these powers were not always benign.

270
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:26,160
Kulagina described events
in which,

271
00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:27,800
during times when she got angry,

272
00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:31,600
objects, vases, China pottery
would fly across the room

273
00:15:31,760 --> 00:15:33,120
and smash themselves

274
00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:36,480
and she attributed this
to her telekinetic powers.

275
00:15:36,640 --> 00:15:40,480
Kulagina and her husband set out

276
00:15:40,640 --> 00:15:44,800
to record her telekinetic powers.

277
00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:49,520
And they made short films
in which she is seated at a table,

278
00:15:49,680 --> 00:15:54,160
with an everyday household object
in a glass case in front of her.

279
00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:59,320
And by sitting and staring
at the object,

280
00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:04,000
she is able, as these films show,
to make it move.

281
00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:08,040
These early home movies
soon came to the attention

282
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:09,560
of the Russian authorities,

283
00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:12,320
who signed Nina up to
a scientific programme

284
00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:15,400
which could test whether
her abilities were real or fake.

285
00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:18,520
And once again,
it was all captured on film.

286
00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:23,560
Kulagina was studied intensively
for more than 10 years

287
00:16:23,720 --> 00:16:26,680
by Professor Sergeiev of
Leningrad University,

288
00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:29,640
and the films of her demonstrations
became the subject

289
00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:31,560
of unending controversy.

290
00:16:31,720 --> 00:16:36,120
Did she have genuine paranormal
powers or was she a charlatan?

291
00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:39,320
She's putting a lot of force
and effort into what she's doing.

292
00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:41,800
She's waving her hands
over certain items,

293
00:16:41,960 --> 00:16:44,840
she's wearing a short-sleeved top
and short-sleeved skirt,

294
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:48,480
so we can see nothing like a watch
or anything else is on her arms.

295
00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:51,600
And so you can see
all these different compelling items

296
00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:54,160
being moved,
groups of matches sliding together,

297
00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:56,120
a cigarette upended,

298
00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:59,160
just moving across the table
without falling over and rolling.

299
00:16:59,960 --> 00:17:04,360
In 1968, Russia mounted
the first parapsychology symposium

300
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:08,360
in Moscow. Expert observers
from the West were invited.

301
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:12,280
And were amazed at the footage
of Kulagina's telekinetic powers.

302
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:14,920
They were also allowed to watch
Nina perform,

303
00:17:15,080 --> 00:17:18,480
and the reports they sent back
were nothing short of startling.

304
00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:25,000
They described witnessing Kulagina
seated six feet away

305
00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:29,040
from a case which held an egg...

306
00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:34,280
...and seeing Kulagina's mind,
apparently,

307
00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:39,400
separating the yolk from the albumen
of this egg

308
00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:42,080
without her ever touching it.

309
00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:44,600
Kulagina was involved in
an experiment

310
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:48,840
which involved a heart
being suspended in a solution

311
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:50,840
that kept it artificially beating.

312
00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:56,440
That was wired up to electrodes
and the heart rate was monitored

313
00:17:56,600 --> 00:18:01,640
and what they found was
that the heart could be sped up,

314
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:05,240
slowed down,
and eventually stopped by Kulagina.

315
00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:09,240
One of the Westerners who was
present at that demonstration

316
00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:13,240
took secret footage,
and that made its way to the West.

317
00:18:13,400 --> 00:18:16,600
And from that moment, the,
what we might call the paranormal

318
00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:19,680
community in the West,
and also Western scientists,

319
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:23,120
became fascinated
by Kulagina's powers.

320
00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:28,680
But on seeing the films
of Kulagina's psychokinesis or PK,

321
00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:32,080
there were others in the West
who recognised that the Russians

322
00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:35,640
now had control of a power
with a much darker potential.

323
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:39,360
The Soviets claimed
they've already devised machines,

324
00:18:39,520 --> 00:18:42,440
that create magnetic and other kinds
of artificial fields

325
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:46,560
that increase psychic powers,
particularly telepathy and PK.

326
00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:50,440
To suddenly have papers coming out
saying that they've got

327
00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:52,960
just one subject alone
and perhaps many others.

328
00:18:54,120 --> 00:18:57,880
With their mind manipulating things
and can affect biological systems,

329
00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:00,720
can think of someone at a distance
and stop their heart,

330
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:03,040
for warfare that is
extremely advanced

331
00:19:03,200 --> 00:19:05,720
and a very powerful weapon
to have and harness.

332
00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:08,520
The United States commissions
a report from military intelligence

333
00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:12,160
that looks at all aspects
of Soviet psychic research,

334
00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:15,400
and it concludes that
the Soviet Union has

335
00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:19,960
at least 20 different institutes
that were involved in research

336
00:19:20,120 --> 00:19:22,440
at a cost of
21 million dollars per year.

337
00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:27,160
The CIA was then about
to begin its own experiments

338
00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:28,840
in parapsychology,

339
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:34,360
convinced that
Moscow would produce a weapon

340
00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:38,000
against which the United States
would be powerless.

341
00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:42,360
As a result of the Cold War,

342
00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:45,160
the United States was spending
billions of dollars

343
00:19:45,320 --> 00:19:47,760
on conventional and nuclear warfare.

344
00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:50,760
Now they would need to pump even
more time and money

345
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:54,680
into psychic research if they were
going to catch up with the Russians.

346
00:19:54,840 --> 00:19:58,040
But the big question that hung over
Nina Kulagina was,

347
00:19:58,200 --> 00:19:59,600
how did she do it?

348
00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:02,680
There were many sources that
claimed that

349
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:05,720
basically Kulagina's abilities
were fraudulent,

350
00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:07,160
that she was faking it,

351
00:20:07,320 --> 00:20:11,480
basically that she was using
either hidden wires or hidden cords,

352
00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:15,080
or magnets in order
to conduct her experiments.

353
00:20:15,240 --> 00:20:19,520
In the 1980s, there was a magazine
article that claimed this,

354
00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:22,280
and Kulagina sued the author
of the article,

355
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:24,800
and she actually won the case.

356
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:28,760
The judge said there's no evidence
that Kulagina was faking it,

357
00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:31,680
and a lot of the claims
in the article were fake.

358
00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:34,640
The films of Kulagina
do contain an explanation

359
00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:39,760
of what powers she was tapping into
to achieve her psychokinesis or PK.

360
00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:43,880
According to Dr Rabbitts
in the 1951 Yale Journal

361
00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:45,200
of Biology and Medicine,

362
00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:49,880
the action of the sun and moon
also affects the body's force field.

363
00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:54,080
Dr Sergiev agrees, the most
favourable time for PK

364
00:20:54,240 --> 00:20:56,680
is during magnetic disturbances
of the earth

365
00:20:56,840 --> 00:20:59,040
caused by sunspot activity.

366
00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,200
According to the Soviet view,

367
00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:04,520
PK is not accomplished
by mind over matter,

368
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:06,800
but rather by mind over force field.

369
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:09,520
However she was doing it,

370
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:13,160
the film seemed to show that the
tests had a genuine physical effect

371
00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:14,400
on Kulagina.

372
00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:17,120
The films claim that these effects
were backed up

373
00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:18,720
by scientific evidence.

374
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:20,640
She loses up
to three pounds

375
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:22,840
after a demonstration
of psychokinesis.

376
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:27,440
For days after doing the tests,
her arms and legs hurt.

377
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:31,640
Kolagina was also wired up and
her heart rate was monitored

378
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:35,720
and they found that her heart rate
increased to around

379
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:37,680
240 beats per minute.

380
00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:41,600
And many sources suggest
that in other tests,

381
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:44,640
she suffered terrible problems,

382
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:48,200
ranging from a loss of sight,
pain in her spine,

383
00:21:48,360 --> 00:21:51,800
the opening up of the wound
that she had from World War II

384
00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:53,720
and eventually a heart attack.

385
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:57,520
When Nina Kologina died
of a heart attack in 1990,

386
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:00,480
many believed it was due
to the strain on her body

387
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:02,560
caused by the forces
she wielded

388
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:05,440
in the many scientific experiments
she performed.

389
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:09,320
Ever since, debate has raged.

390
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:13,920
Was she a real life x-woman,

391
00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:17,840
someone who could move objects

392
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:21,440
just using the power of her mind?

393
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:25,000
Or was she a talented trickster

394
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:29,600
supported by Soviet scientists

395
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:34,000
who were serving a much deeper
and more sinister purpose,

396
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:35,520
for the Kremlin.

397
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,640
It's an amazing story
and the footage is fascinating.

398
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:43,080
And the idea that both the
Soviet Union and the United States

399
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:46,560
are involved in this campaign
of psychic research

400
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:49,520
is something that we don't usually
associate with the Cold War.

401
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:53,280
So this is kind of esoteric,
psychic Cold War,

402
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:58,080
what we might call a psychic arms
race, is absolutely fascinating.

403
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:24,320
Some objects are
the stuff of legend.

404
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,080
They are so revered
that the thought that they might

405
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:29,560
actually exist seems impossible.

406
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:33,520
That is unless your mind is bent
on world domination.

407
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:40,600
A few Christian relics have
generated

408
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:44,000
as much academic interest,

409
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:46,200
scientific controversy,

410
00:23:46,360 --> 00:23:48,960
and wild conspiracy theories

411
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:51,520
as the Holy Grail.

412
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:53,680
Early medieval poems,

413
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:56,240
a 19th century opera

414
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,200
and Hollywood movies

415
00:23:58,360 --> 00:24:01,160
have cemented the Grail's place

416
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:04,560
in the mythology
of supernatural objects,

417
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:08,880
objects which have
some mystical, paranormal power.

418
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,400
But what is
the otherworldly source

419
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:12,840
of the Grail's power?

420
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,800
It was known as
the drinking vessel

421
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,480
that was used during
the Last Supper.

422
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:22,120
And so it was associated
with the blood of Christ.

423
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:25,800
And was therefore a particularly
precious and holy object.

424
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:29,520
It's believed by some that
if you have the cup of Christ,

425
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:34,560
you have access to some form
of eternal power or invincibility.

426
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:39,240
It's a highly venerated,
highly symbolic object

427
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:43,760
that is invested
with supernatural religious power

428
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:46,440
that is connected to Jesus Christ.

429
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:49,760
It has been reported
to be in a cathedral in Spain

430
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:51,160
or a French chateau?

431
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:52,920
Is it a cup in Wales

432
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,240
or could it even be in the
Metropolitan Museum in New York?

433
00:24:56,400 --> 00:25:00,000
All we know is that some wanted it
for its religious significance,

434
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:02,800
while others had far more
sinister intentions.

435
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,080
1920, Hitler began.

436
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,760
He was considered just
a joke then, a raving crackpot.

437
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:13,280
What Nazism was trying to do
was to fuse all forms

438
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:14,920
of belief systems

439
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:19,720
such as Christianity,
occult, superstition, astrology,

440
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,240
you name it, and blend them

441
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:27,200
to form this new super religion
that's gonna last a thousand years.

442
00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:30,480
The Nazis are interested
in creating a mythology

443
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:32,400
for the concept of Aryanism.

444
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:34,000
And as a part of this,

445
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:37,080
they're trying to create a mythical
pedigree for the Aryan race.

446
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:39,120
You know, that doesn't exist,
so what do you do?

447
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:41,000
You go into actual history
that exists,

448
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:42,680
and then you try to use that
for it.

449
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:47,320
They wanted to connect
the Aryan race

450
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:51,400
with the life of Jesus Christ.

451
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:54,600
Now, of course,
Jesus Christ was Jewish.

452
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:57,600
He was a Jew growing up
in The Middle East

453
00:25:57,760 --> 00:25:59,800
thousands of years ago.

454
00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:01,240
For the Nazis,

455
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,320
it was a very uncomfortable fact
that he was a Jew.

456
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:09,240
What the Nazis wanted to do is
to portray Christ as an Aryan.

457
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:11,400
Essentially a white man.

458
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:14,320
A strong believer in all
things occult,

459
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,600
the man who took on the task
of creating this new association

460
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:21,200
between the fictional Aryan race
and Christianity

461
00:26:21,360 --> 00:26:22,640
was Heinrich Himmler.

462
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:26,120
Heinrich Himmler,
grim and bloody name in Nazidom,

463
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:27,680
the hangman of freedom.

464
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,680
0 Heinrich Himmler was
the Reichsfuhrer-SS,

465
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:34,240
or the guy who led the SS
for quite some time,

466
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,400
and he very particularly
is interested in creating

467
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:38,920
this Aryan mythos.

468
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:41,120
So he spends a lot of time
trying to create

469
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,720
a theoretical ancestral heritage
for Aryanism.

470
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,320
Then in 1934,

471
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:52,680
Otto Rahn, an otherwise obscure
German academic historian,

472
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:57,800
published a book which
would fuel Himmler's obsession

473
00:26:57,960 --> 00:26:59,560
with the Grail

474
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:03,360
and with its place and importance
to...

475
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:09,440
...his Brotherhood
of Aryan Teutonic Knights.

476
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:13,240
He's written a book that's called
the Crusade Against the Holy Grail.

477
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,000
And he's convinced that
a group of heretics

478
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:17,640
who lived in southern France,

479
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:19,480
who were sometimes called
the Cathars,

480
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:20,920
had hold of the Holy Grail.

481
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:22,680
And he writes a whole book
about this.

482
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,200
That becomes really popular
with Himmler,

483
00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:28,320
who is really the big one
pushing forward this idea

484
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:30,080
of an Aryan mythology.

485
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:34,080
And so you get these ideas kind
of roped together,

486
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:38,280
and basically it's a way
of justifying Nazism.

487
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,320
Himmler had formed an organisation

488
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,240
which was part of the SS,

489
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,040
a kind of think tank
called the Ahnenerbe,

490
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:50,360
which means ancestral heritage.

491
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:52,680
And it was quite
a large organisation

492
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,360
that looked at different aspects
of Aryan history

493
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:59,160
in order to link them
to the new Germany

494
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:01,840
that was being created by the Nazis.

495
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,840
So he invited Rahn
to join the Ahnenerbe,

496
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:10,520
and gave him opportunities to go
and seek out the Holy Grail.

497
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,920
Rahn, however, was eccentric.

498
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:19,680
He had a drink problem, he was gay,
he didn't fit into the SS ethos.

499
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:24,000
Nevertheless,
Himmler continued to support him.

500
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:29,760
If he did anything wrong,
if he was caught... misbehaving,

501
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:33,280
Himmler would punish him
by giving him guard duty

502
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:35,520
at Dachau concentration camp.

503
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:40,040
And we know that Rahn was deeply
disturbed by what he saw there.

504
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,920
The Ahnenerbe took
these very amounted,

505
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:48,360
these very, very long
and costly trips all over the world,

506
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:49,920
to places like Tibet,

507
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:53,440
you name it, all over the world,
to try and find evidence

508
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:57,800
that kind of linked
the modern Nazi state

509
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:02,040
to the cradle of humankind.

510
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:07,200
Now, it is possible that
during some of those expeditions

511
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:13,120
that actually the Nazis were looking
for objects like the Holy Grail.

512
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,440
But you better believe
that if they found some little cup

513
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,000
on route and thought that was
the Grail,

514
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:21,120
they would have brought
it back to Berlin.

515
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,880
But how were Himmler and
Rahn going to find the Holy Grail?

516
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:26,920
It could be anywhere in the world.

517
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,600
Himmler found the answer
in an opera by Richard Wagner.

518
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,360
The inspiration of Richard
Wagner's grandiose operas

519
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,840
was shrewdly utilised by Hitler

520
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,840
to glamorise his nation's age-old
pattern of treachery and violence.

521
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:44,760
Parsifal took the original
mediaeval tale of Percival

522
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,880
and placed it at the centre
of an occultic tale

523
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,800
of magical forces and redemption.

524
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:56,880
And the opera suggested
that the Grail's resting place

525
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,280
was in the Pyrenees Mountains

526
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,640
on the border
between France and Spain.

527
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,360
Himmler is particularly interested
in the Grail

528
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,000
to the point that he actually
goes looking for it.

529
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,520
And he ends up over in Catalonia
at a place called Montserrat,

530
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,440
which is kind of like Monsalvat,

531
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,080
which is a reference
to the Holy Grail,

532
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,640
very specifically
from a Wagner opera.

533
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:25,320
He doesn't find it, surprise,

534
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,240
because the Holy Grail is
probably not real.

535
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,600
But what he does find is
a lot of tunnels

536
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:32,600
that are underneath monasteries
and castles,

537
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,360
which is completely normal,
just absolutely ordinary.

538
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:37,440
That's how you would kind of get
things in and out

539
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:38,600
if you're under siege.

540
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,120
But he kind of takes this as some
kind of proof

541
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:42,720
that there was the Holy Grail

542
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,480
and it's being squirrelled around
varying places.

543
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:49,840
But he obviously believes
enough in it to go looking for it.

544
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,280
And interestingly, also, he doesn't
believe enough in it to fake it.

545
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:55,840
You know, you would think that
a Nazi like this might just be like,

546
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:57,720
oh yeah, look,
we found the Holy Grail.

547
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,960
He doesn't do that. He says
that it's an inconclusive search.

548
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,080
The Nazis didn't really
hide their belief in the Holy Grail,

549
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,400
as it was part of The Aryan myth.

550
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:10,280
And so it came
to the attention of the Allies.

551
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,360
The British were very much aware
of the fact that there was a lot

552
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:16,760
of Nazi interest in the occult.

553
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,520
They were very much aware that
there might have been propaganda

554
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:21,840
value in this.

555
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,800
So I think the British and
the Allies were very wary

556
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,840
of what the Nazis were doing.
Did they take it seriously? No.

557
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:37,680
What would have happened
if the Nazis claimed

558
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:39,400
that they had found the Holy Grail.

559
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:42,560
How would they have used
its occult power?

560
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:46,760
Himmler took possession
of Wewelsburg Castle

561
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:52,880
as the headquarters of his mystical
Aryan Brotherhood

562
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:54,720
of SS Knights.

563
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,240
He had a crypt constructed

564
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:02,640
around which 12 SS leaders

565
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:07,200
would conduct occult ceremonies
in front of an occult symbol.

566
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:10,120
And that number 12 was not
coincidental

567
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,960
because that was exactly
the number of knights

568
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:18,360
around King Arthur's
fabled round table.

569
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:22,680
Himmler conflated the two myths.

570
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,200
I think that people are obsessed
with the idea that the Nazis

571
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:27,720
were searching for the Holy Grail

572
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:30,840
because the Nazis were so horrible
and terrifying

573
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,920
that we want an occult explanation
for their behaviours.

574
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,440
It's difficult for us to say
this is just a group

575
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:38,160
of really terrible people

576
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:40,920
who wanted to exterminate
whole other groups of people.

577
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,720
So we want there to be a magic
that describes

578
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:45,200
what it is that they're doing.

579
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,280
It's easier than just accepting
that sometimes human beings

580
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:49,760
are really awful.

581
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,920
I think we have to be a little bit
careful with this obsession

582
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:58,640
with things like the Holy Grail and
the occult activities of the Nazis.

583
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:02,200
It's in danger of clouding the fact

584
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:06,840
that what the Nazis did was
to transform Europe

585
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,240
in the most diabolical way.

586
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,560
What if something was
so strange that it seemed impossible

587
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:41,920
to give it a name?
How would we refer to such a thing?

588
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,080
Warminster, where strange
sights and sounds at night

589
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:55,640
have been reported.

590
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,680
Warminster is
a quiet market town in Wiltshire,

591
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:00,960
where things like this
just don't happen.

592
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,720
Well, I've lived in Warminster
for 11 years,

593
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:08,080
and in the whole time,
the Warminster thing

594
00:34:08,240 --> 00:34:10,360
has been discussed.

595
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:12,600
Sometimes you hear it two or three
times a week,

596
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:14,720
sometimes you don't hear it
for weeks on end,

597
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,040
but you are Just aware, I think,
that it's always there.

598
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,280
There was enough interest
to pack a public meeting

599
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,080
in the town hall last Friday night.

600
00:34:21,240 --> 00:34:24,440
More than 300 people turned up
to hear the local council chairman,

601
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:26,400
Mr Emlin Reece, open the meeting.

602
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:28,040
The most disturbing factor

603
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:32,560
is that many of our townspeople have
been frightened by unusual sounds.

604
00:34:32,720 --> 00:34:36,680
The Warminster Thing began
on Christmas Day in 1964

605
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:41,360
with a lady who was walking
very early in the morning to church

606
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:43,600
and heard a noise in the sky

607
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,080
and lots of vibrations
and stuff like that.

608
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,600
At 6:30 that morning,

609
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,240
a local woman walking
to her church

610
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:05,680
along a country lane near Warminster
heard a sound behind her.

611
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:09,640
It was, she thought,
the sound of a gritting lorry,

612
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:14,160
but it was accompanied
by a very loud humming noise.

613
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:16,560
But when she turned round...

614
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,920
...there was nothing there,
and the noise suddenly seemed to go

615
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:27,400
from behind her and vanish off
up into the skies above her.

616
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:32,520
Many, many different sightings
over quite a long period of time

617
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:35,800
by many different people in
the community at different places,

618
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,600
but all within Warminster.

619
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:43,320
And I suspect because
there is, at this stage,

620
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,120
no clear explanation

621
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:51,880
of what those phenomena are

622
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:55,480
or represent, whether they're
connected or not connected,

623
00:35:55,640 --> 00:36:01,520
it's been given this rather...
loose generic term

624
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:03,520
the Warminster Thing.

625
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:08,200
It was the Thing
and it's earned itself that title

626
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:09,520
if you like, the Thing,

627
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:11,360
because people didn't have a clue
what it was.

628
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,720
Then in June 1965,

629
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,400
came the first "sighting"

630
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:21,160
of what was causing this fury,

631
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,880
the first sighting of
the Warminster Thing

632
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:29,200
and it was reported
in the local paper,

633
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:34,280
that what was causing
all of this concern,

634
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:38,160
all of this upheaval,
all of this panic,

635
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:41,440
was a flying saucer.

636
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:48,680
The early 1960s saw
a wave of UFO reports in Britain,

637
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:52,160
but the epicentre seemed to be
around Warminster in Wiltshire,

638
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:56,000
where stories of alien invasions
struck fear into the hearts

639
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:57,320
of the locals.

640
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,080
They were worried, because it is
something completely out of context.

641
00:37:01,240 --> 00:37:03,320
It's not what normally happens
in society.

642
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:06,960
Yes, so that was why they had
the meeting and had to turn away

643
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:11,200
two or three hundred people
outside the town hall in Warminster.

644
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,960
The meeting was thrown open
to the people of Warminster.

645
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,200
How many people here tonight
are afraid of the thing?

646
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:19,520
How many of you?

647
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:21,440
At quarter to four in the morning,

648
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:25,720
I was wakened
by this dreadful droning sound.

649
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,960
And I went to the bedroom window

650
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:32,480
and I saw this brilliant object.

651
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:35,400
It was quite low in the sky,

652
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:38,680
and I live up Beacon View that way,

653
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,840
I just couldn't move, and it was
going on for half an hour.

654
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:45,800
But it wasn't just
the locals who wanted to know

655
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:47,200
what was going on.

656
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,360
The meeting also attracted
a gaggle of ufologists.

657
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:54,000
Also in attendance, but trying not
to make their presence known,

658
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:57,040
were men in dark suits
from the Air Ministry.

659
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:01,080
The military were there,
but they weren't in uniform

660
00:38:01,240 --> 00:38:06,840
and there were plenty, as I say,
a lot of people attended

661
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:10,960
and clearly it was causing concern,

662
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,840
you know,
because no answers could be found.

663
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,320
The meeting didn't really
help because, try as they might,

664
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:22,480
the official explanations didn't
convince the citizens of Warminster.

665
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,600
The reason that the rational
explanations didn't work

666
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,600
was that the strange events
kept being reported.

667
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,480
All of these stories found there
way onto the desk of

668
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:42,160
the Warminster Gazette's
chief reporter, Arthur Shuttlewood.

669
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:46,720
He had a number of sightings
which brought to his attention,

670
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,320
that galvanised his interest.

671
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:53,120
And that's-

672
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,240
The newspapers picked up on it,

673
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:59,880
especially the Gordon Faulkner
famous photo.

674
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:05,320
65, that created wonderful newspaper
reports of the Thing,

675
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:08,160
the Thing,
the invasion of Warminster.

676
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,760
The photograph,
this groundbreaking picture

677
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:13,520
of the Warminster Thing,

678
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:17,120
had been captured by chance
by Gordon Faulkner.

679
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:22,320
He'd been out and happened to have
his camera handy

680
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,320
when the Thing
streaked across the sky.

681
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:30,000
Ufologists flocked to the town.

682
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,760
So too,
according to local press reports,

683
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:37,960
did television's
favourite astronomer, Patrick Moore,

684
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:42,280
hopefully to catch a glimpse
of the Warminster Thing.

685
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:46,200
In the early 60s, the flying
saucer place was Warminster,

686
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,400
Cradle Hill.
I went there to do a programme

687
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:51,200
and talked to all kinds of people,
including various journalists.

688
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:53,920
When one person sees
a flying saucer, others will too.

689
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:56,520
Someone who joined
the throng of new witnesses

690
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:58,120
was Arthur Shuttlewood.

691
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,400
The previously sceptical journalist
reported his own close encounter

692
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:03,760
with the Thing.

693
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:09,880
He recounted his terrifying
experience of seeing

694
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:13,440
the Thing through a bedroom window

695
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:17,840
and of grabbing his cine camera and
pointing it at the object

696
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,960
as it flew across the sky,
only to find

697
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:23,720
that the camera twitched
in his hands

698
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:26,840
and then flew out of his grasp.

699
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:30,920
Some reports described
a fiery, cigar-shaped object

700
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:32,280
hovering in the sky,

701
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,400
but most Warminster folk have
seen nothing out of the ordinary

702
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,080
and strongly resent newspaper
stories about a town

703
00:40:38,240 --> 00:40:39,440
living in terror.

704
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:43,200
The presence of the Thing
divided opinion

705
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,560
among the people of Warminster.

706
00:40:45,720 --> 00:40:48,560
I've talked to people who say,
that's just a load of rubbish.

707
00:40:48,720 --> 00:40:50,320
People really believe that,

708
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:53,120
and people who say
that that's got to be a thing.

709
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:58,360
It's got to be a thing because
so, so many people over the years

710
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:03,440
have produced consistent evidence
that there is a Thing

711
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:05,320
and something's going on.

712
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:08,240
Whilst opinion was split,

713
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,440
there was one group of people
who were delighted at the arrival

714
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:13,360
of little green men in Warminster

715
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,760
because it attracted hordes
of ufologists and tourists.

716
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,920
Warminster started in around
about 1964-65

717
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:26,240
and went through till about 1978-80

718
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:30,960
and then it petered out to about
150-200 sightings.

719
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,680
These things, they're real,
they're genuine,

720
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:40,000
and but it's a matter of sorting
the wheat out from the chaff.

721
00:41:40,720 --> 00:41:44,680
And that's not crop circles, is it?
Or is it? I don't know.

722
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:46,680
Recently, I was very privileged,

723
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:49,440
as mayor
and chairman of the council,

724
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:54,320
to cut the ribbon to unveil
the newly painted mural

725
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:58,720
to celebrate 60 years
of the Warminster Thing.

726
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:06,960
But the key to a rational
explanation for the Thing

727
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:08,680
might be closer to home.

728
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:12,720
The army is much in evidence
in these parts,

729
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:15,080
and sceptics say that if odd things
are being seen,

730
00:42:15,240 --> 00:42:17,840
they're most likely rockets,
flares, balloons, or aircraft,

731
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,080
which the army's not talking about
for security reasons.

732
00:42:21,240 --> 00:42:23,360
There were secret aircraft going
around,

733
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,200
and of course some of those were
responsible for saucer sightings,

734
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,200
that was the case in Warminster, certainly.

735
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:30,680
Lots of extraordinary things have
happened to me

736
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:32,520
since I've been in Warminster.

737
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:37,360
But one of those things has not
been the Warminster Thing.

738
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:41,080
Historic reports,
including the Warminster Thing,

739
00:42:41,240 --> 00:42:44,760
showed that at the time,
and ever since,

740
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:49,880
the Ministry of Defence has taken
the idea of UFOs in general

741
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,920
and the Warminster Thing
in particular,

742
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:59,800
very seriously, as a potential issue
of national security.

743
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:05,000
Next time on Britain's X Files.

744
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:09,000
What happened when Uri Geller's
powers were tested by the CIA?

745
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:10,720
What was the real origin

746
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,800
of a mysterious crater
in a farmer's potato field?

747
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,120
Why did the Nazis want
the Spear of Destiny?

748
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,160
And we reveal the meaning
of a mysterious message

749
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:22,160
sent over 50 years ago.

750
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:50,080
Subtitles by Sky Access Services