Original subtitles

- [Tony] Tonight on "The Proof Is Out There: Alien Edition,"

a possible UFO,

a passenger jet

and a near miss over New York City.

What really happened in the sky?

- When I looked back,

there was something in there.

I definitely did see something.

- [Tony] At 30,000 feet,

a pilot reports a strange encounter.

What did he see

when the instruments showed nothing at all?

- Nothing was seen on radar.

It would move, and then it would go out.

- [Tony] And over China,

another pilot records a UAP

no one can explain.

- These orbs seem to be blinking

in some kind of pattern or signal.

- [Tony] With UFO reports at an all-time high,

we're examining the most compelling evidence

caught on camera.

Tonight's focus,

pilot and passenger encounters.

Our experts will analyze the evidence

and then pass a verdict.

- I can't tell you what this is.

So categorically, it's a UFO.

- That these things can

and absolutely will be an air safety issue.

- [Tony] The proof starts now.

[dynamic music]

- Good evening, and welcome to "The Proof Is Out There".

Due to ongoing tensions with its neighbor, India,

Pakistan is highly sensitive

about anomalous incidents

in its airspace.

So when a team of Pakistani commercial pilots

spotted a mysterious object

outside their window,

they took notice

and took out a camera.

January 23rd, 2021.

A Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320

is on a routine flight from Lahore to Karachi

when suddenly the pilots notice a bright ball in the sky

over the city of Rahim Yar Khan.

- [Tony] At first, the object appears to glow and pulsate,

but that's because the camera is trying to focus on it.

Slowing down, the video shows the object

appears to be a solid white orb.

Excitement grows as they struggle with a smartphone

to zoom in and hold the object in frame.

- [Tony] This isn't the first time

pilots have reported strange orb-like objects

over Pakistan skies.

- In January of 2019,

a report was filed that the crew on a flight

from Karachi to Sakkur

saw an object floating about 105 feet above their aircraft.

The object they saw wasn't bright,

it was kind of oval shaped.

The incident was immediately reported

to air traffic control in Karachi,

but the details of the sighting

were never released to the public.

- For decades, commercial and military pilots

faced scorn and ridicule

for reporting UFO sightings,

which could have resulted in a loss of critical information.

Our team of experts

is about to give this Pakistani airline crews footage

the attention it deserves.

[suspenseful music]

[inquisitive music]

- We don't see rotors, we don't see a jet engine.

We don't see anything that would propel it.

We don't see control surfaces,

that type of thing.

And so it's not a plane or a helicopter.

- [Tony] These experienced commercial pilots

had no idea what they were seeing.

- [Tony] Could that be because it's something

not of this world?

- [Lt. Tim] We know that from the Pentagon

and their official UAP investigative office

that the sphere or, you know, round shape

are the most commonly reported UFOs that they have.

So, you know, this shape of UFO

is very consistent.

- [Tony] But McMillan also notes,

if it's a UFO,

it's certainly not acting like one.

- Typically when you're thinking of UFO,

you're talking about sightings of objects

that perform in ways that we can't comport

with any known technology.

So is there anything in this video that I see

that would tell me that it requires

an explanation for it being alien?

No.

- [Tony] Instead, McMillan believes

the orb-like shape of this object

isn't that unusual to find in the sky,

and he disagrees with one of the pilots on board.

- The round sphere shape

is not an aerodynamic shape,

so it's something that is having to maintain altitude

by lighter-than-air gases.

And for me, the only type of airborne object

that it would be consistent with would be a balloon.

- [Tony] So is there a clue to the kind of balloon it is?

- This might be a Pakistani version

of a Chinese spy balloon.

If so, that payload would be hanging

directly beneath the balloon,

lost in the glare, you'd never see it,

because those payloads are closer to the balloon.

They're not hanging way down below,

like many aerial weather balloons have hanging from them.

- [Tony] But proving it,

McMillan admits, for now,

the full evidence isn't there.

- It certainly has all the appearance

and shape of a balloon.

And so what type of balloon it could be

could be anybody's guess.

[suspenseful music]

- Our verdict, McMillan is leaning balloon,

but the pilot himself

insists that's not what this was.

For now, to be safe,

we're going with unidentified object.

The frantic camera work

just doesn't give us a clear enough image to be definitive.

A rep from the airline

claims they don't know what the object was either,

but they won't be launching their own investigation.

[suspenseful music]

What do Pakistan, New Mexico and Columbia have in common?

If you're a regular viewer,

you know that they're all locations

where strange flying objects

have been caught on camera

by professional pilots.

August 9th, 2022, the Pacific Ocean.

Commercial airline pilot Chris van Voorhis

is about 90 minutes into a flight

from Honolulu to Los Angeles

when nearby pilot chatter

calls his attention to an anomaly in the sky.

- At this point in time, when we started looking outside,

we were able to pick up the anomaly

that they were talking about.

- [Tony] Through the cockpit window,

Chris records a bright orb

appearing to the northwest,

just below the Big Dipper.

- [Chris] Okay, there it is.

- [Tony] Let's slow it down and take a closer look.

The light moves around a bit

before quickly disappearing.

- [Pilot] Yeah. - [Chris] Oh dang, it went away.

- [Pilot] Did you get it?

- [Tony] Chris continues recording

for more than two minutes

as the light intermittently disappears and reappears.

- [Chris] We were rather awed by it

and dismayed at the same time.

Nothing was seen on radar.

It would move, and then it would go out.

Now, sometimes this is indicative of a satellite,

and usually we'd see satellites

during either sunset or sunrise

and it would be reflecting the sun

from their solar arrays.

But this wasn't directly after sunset or sunrise.

- [Tony] But this sighting is far from a first

for either Chris or his fellow pilots.

- I've seen quite a bit up there,

and I know quite a few pilots

that have seen these orbs or anomalies,

maybe up to 50%.

- [Tony] Chris's video appeared in national news coverage

on the growing topic of pilot encounters.

- This is not unique.

There's videos captured like this all the time.

Needless to say, it's always a bad combination

to have a commercial airline

flying in the vicinity of an unknown object.

That is an air safety issue.

[inquisitive music]

- [Tony] In fact, pilots overseas

are facing similar safety concerns.

- [Luis] There's also reports by pilots in European countries

of these strange lights.

One sighting wasn't on the pilots' radar,

and air traffic control, or ATC,

also did not report the incident.

- [Tony] And these sightings can leave a lasting impression.

- This has changed my beliefs tremendously.

It's opened my mind to the possibilities of

everything from interdimensional travel and portals

and time travel and extraterrestrials.

- One of the more prominent pilot whistleblowers

is Ryan Graves,

the first active duty US Navy aviator

to go public about regular UAP sightings.

He testified about his own encounter to Congress in 2023.

So did Chris see one, too?

Our experts review the data.

[inquisitive music]

Is this just a case of mistaken identity?

We first ask if this ball of light

could be natural,

like a meteor or fireball.

- A fireball is a very fast-moving object,

and it looks like an object

that is leaving some sort of like a small trail.

In the video that we see here,

we don't see trails.

- [Tony] So perhaps this light

is emitting from a manmade craft,

like the afterburners found at the rear of a jet.

Like Chris, we don't see it.

- [Lt. Tim] When a fighter jet is using afterburners,

it's the equivalent

of just slamming your foot on the gas in a car.

And so you wouldn't see afterburners

just burning consistently over any length of time

because the act of putting your foot on the gas

burns a lot of fuel.

- [Tony] Okay, well this is the middle of the Pacific,

could it be some secret military technology

we were never meant to see?

- It is in this weird corridor in the Pacific

between California and Hawaii

that is frequently used by the government

for various testing.

- [Tony] In fact, the nearby Pacific Missile Range Facility

is the largest range of its kind,

and is known to test advanced technology systems.

- [Lt. Tim] So it's not totally out of the question,

but normally that's done in a very controlled setting,

where it wouldn't be visible to the public.

- [Tony] So while possible,

the fact that Chris and other commercial pilots

were allowed to fly here

makes secret tech unlikely.

Then could it be a genuine UFO?

- [Lt. Tim] I don't see any characteristics

that are unusual or anomalous,

but at the same time,

I can't tell you what this is.

So categorically, it's a UFO.

And if you add into the mix

the eyewitness testimony,

maybe this is more unusual than the video gives it credit.

[suspenseful music]

- Our verdict, genuine UFO.

If you're a commercial pilot

or a veteran who wants to report a sighting,

Ryan Graves' nonprofit, Americans for Safe Aerospace,

can help.

The organization provides us a secure system

to collect information through its witness program.

And while you're at it,

you may as well let us know, too.

- Let's talk about air travel.

The procedure typically involves baggage check,

security, boarding, takeoff,

and UFO sighting?

March 25th, 2024.

It's a beautiful day above New York City.

Michelle Reyes is on a commercial airline

preparing for landing at LaGuardia Airport.

Michelle pulls out her phone

to record the skyline out her window,

but Michelle's shot is interrupted

by something speeding by.

Let's play that back in slow motion.

[rewind whirring]

A black oblong object enters frame right,

just above the horizon.

The object appears to be tilted slightly forward.

In less than a second,

it exits frame left,

leaving Michelle unsure if she saw anything at all,

until she watches that video back.

- When I looked back,

there was something in there,

so I was like, "All right, I'm not going crazy.

I definitely did see something."

I posted it online

just to see if someone could say like,

"Hey, this is not out of the ordinary

and we'd see this all the time."

I was just really curious.

- [Tony] Many online share Michelle's curiosity.

So much so that her video was picked up

by multiple national news outlets.

Across the country,

people are perplexed by Michelle's sighting,

and it's not hard to see why.

- There's been a lot of reports

of these larger cylinder-shaped or cigar-shaped craft.

So people looking at this

and saying they see a cylindrical UFO,

I can certainly understand why they would see that.

- [Tony] In fact, these cylindrical UFOs

have crossed paths with commercial aircraft

in recent years.

- There was an incident in 2021

with an American Airlines pilot

flying to Phoenix, Arizona,

reported over New Mexico

seeing a large cylindrical object

fly directly over his own aircraft.

- [Tony] But these near misses

didn't just start in the last few years,

they actually go back almost as far

as the modern UFO age as we know it.

In 1948, two commercial pilots

were flying over Alabama

in the early morning hours

when they saw a wingless cylindrical craft

speeding toward their plane.

The pilots veered to the side,

dodging a near collision.

What's worrisome is that these near misses

seem to be getting more frequent

as the years go on.

Long Island-based researchers Jerry and John Tedesco

have seen it themselves,

not far from where Michelle Reyes recorded her sighting.

- It was October of '23, early morning,

and I was just videotaping flight traffic

in and out of the airport.

And on the extreme zoom,

I saw an airliner making its rotation to come into JFK,

and I saw this object passing the path of the airliner.

- The cylinder-shaped object's seemingly showing up

quite often in these reports.

So it's consistent, it's a persistent pattern.

[laughing] It's definitely gotta be taken seriously.

- [Tony] That's because if objects like these

are sharing the skies with civilian aircraft,

it's a problem.

- The greatest concern here

is that air traffic control

didn't see this and didn't report it.

That is proof positive that these things can

and absolutely will be an air safety issue

if we don't do something about it.

- In 2023, a "New York Times" investigation

found that near misses involving commercial aircraft

were happening multiple times a week nationwide.

Will our investigation reveal another kind of safety threat

in our skies?

[inquisitive music]

Could this indeed be a cylindrical UFO

crossing paths with this commercial plane?

Well, while from the side

it might look like a cylinder,

it might be something else entirely.

- When you do closer analysis,

you can actually see

that there's something kind of spinning.

So it could be just a large disk.

- [Tony] Still sound like aliens?

Not so fast.

In 2019, Romanian engineers

successfully built their own flying saucer

called the All Directional Flying Object, or ADIFO.

In other words, a disk-shaped drone.

But wouldn't something like that have been noticed?

- [Lenval] The pilots would've been able to see it coming by

and explain it.

Air traffic control would've picked it up.

This was not picked up by any radar system.

- [Tony] So is this just something ordinary

captured in a way

that makes it look extraordinary?

- [Rich] You've got the aircraft going north,

the wind coming from the opposite direction,

which is really meaning that this is going maybe wind speed.

So you have the aircraft,

and then the wind speed carrying it aloft

creates this effect

where it's zooming by.

I think that it's more like a party balloon.

- [Tony] Specifically, we're thinking

of those number-shaped balloons

that people usually get to denote their age.

The theory is one of those numeric balloons

may have gone astray.

- [Rich] I think it's a zero.

In the beginning of the clip,

top-right-hand corner,

there is the aircraft's wing.

So what you're able to see

is that this object is just beyond.

And so the size matches,

the winds were moving along in such a way

that it's potentially coming from Staten Island.

Everything matches up in terms of it being a zero balloon.

And she happened to see it as they were going by.

- Our verdict,

party balloon.

See how this zero-shaped balloon looks

turned on its side?

That's what we think Michelle saw

when she looked out her plane window.

It's amazing what a change of perspective can do.

- For millennia, Turkey has been a bridge between cultures,

a crossroads between Europe and Asia.

But as you're about to see,

it might also have been the meeting point

between human civilization

and extraterrestrial life.

[pensive music]

It's May 13th, 2009,

and night owl Yalcin Yalman

is stargazing in the suburbs of Istanbul, Turkey.

Shortly after 3:00 a.m.,

something strange appears in the sky

over the Sea of Marmara.

Yalcin immediately grabs his Canon MiniDV camera,

a videotape, and records this.

It appears to be some sort of saucer-shaped craft.

It's hovering silently for half an hour

about a mile away

and 500 feet above the sea.

But watch what happens when Yalcin zooms in.

Do you see that?

Now, take a look at the footage

when we zoomed in and cleaned it up for you

to get a better look.

Yalcin says that what you are seeing here

is a cockpit window,

and they're inside the alleged craft.

He's saying you can see two aliens

piloting this thing,

right here

and right here.

Yalcin is sure he's made contact.

In fact, he claims it's been happening for years.

[Yalcin speaking in foreign language]

- [Tony] For millennia, strange things have been reported

in the skies over Turkey.

In 74 BC during a battle between Greek and Roman armies,

thousands of soldiers

witnessed a flaming object of molten silver

shaped like a wine jar flying above them.

- In 2016, Turkish air pilots

reported that they saw a UFO

go over their plane

with green lights.

The pilots say they saw this UFO about 17,000 feet,

but the airport authorities

reported that they had no evidence on their radar

of any of the sightings that the pilot saw.

- [Tony] Now, we've never seen a window on a UFO before.

Yalcin's cockpit aliens

appear to be a unique phenomenon,

and one the Turkish government

has taken very seriously.

- [George] The Turkish government came back

and said that this is authentic,

and this spacecraft is nothing

to do with any military programs or anything.

So this could be an extraterrestrial.

- UFOs are such a hot topic in Turkey

that in 2001 a museum opened in Istanbul

containing various photos,

videos, reports, models,

and even a library about UFOs

and extraterrestrial life.

But are we ready to add this video to the collection?

Our experts take a deeper dive into the footage.

[suspenseful music]

[inquisitive music]

- We always look to the metadata first.

And this block-like pixelation,

this is an indication

that excessive amounts of compression

were applied to these pixel areas.

But I don't detect any evidence of this program

interacting with something that would introduce CGI.

There is no indication that they were trying to deceive

or mislead.

- [Tony] So if it doesn't appear we have a doctored video,

has Yalcin really been dealing with aliens?

- Back in 2009,

we didn't have the cameras we have today.

He's zooming in on it all the way.

And in my view,

I don't think that you're gonna be able to see anybody

in a craft like that.

- [Tony] Turkey is a NATO member

and has the second largest army in the organization.

So is it possible this could be an experimental aircraft?

- [Lt. Tim] This is a particular area

where you do have military drills.

And in fact, NATO holds different annual drills

simulating wartime environments.

However, all of the telltale signs of aircraft

as we know them

are really kind of thrown out of the window.

We definitely don't have any aircraft

that are lenticular or saucer shaped.

Beyond that, if it's gonna be an aircraft,

you're gonna hear something,

whether it's the jet engines of a plane

or that rotor thunder of a helicopter.

And in this case,

the individual said he didn't hear anything

while filming it.

- [Tony] So what else could this be?

- [Marc] It's a case that's been around for a long time.

That doesn't mean it's true,

it just means it's not solved yet.

Our verdict, we're going to classify it

as a genuine UFO.

Our experts make good points.

And we'll agree that those images in the windows

probably aren't alien space pilots.

But that doesn't mean we can identify

what this thing actually is

until we get more definitive evidence.

- The US military has had some now famous encounters

with UFOs in recent years,

but it may not be alone.

Back in the final years of the Cold War,

an encounter in the skies

over the low countries of Northwestern Europe

prompted a robust military response.

That sparked a controversy over what really happened

which continues to this day.

[inquisitive music]

It's March, 1990,

over the Belgian countryside.

Two F-16s are deployed by the Belgian Air Force

after radar spots an ominous object

hovering in the air.

They see this.

They see this.

You're looking at an actual recording

of what was on their flight radar lock-on.

In the center of the screen,

at an altitude of 7,000 feet,

is a diamond-shaped blip.

This blip indicates there's something solid in the sky,

though it doesn't necessarily represent

what this solid object actually looks like.

The radar's altimeter, measuring in thousands,

indicates the odd object races thousands of feet higher,

then plummets back down again at breakneck speed.

And it seems to accelerate to 990 knots,

or more than 1,000 miles per hour,

before bolting out of range.

The pilots never make visual contact.

But back on the ground,

one resident of Brussels

claims to capture this footage

of three lights in a triangular pattern passing overhead,

- This video was shot in March of 1990 over Belgium

on the same night of the radar sighting.

- [Tony] A few months later,

Belgian Air Force Colonel Wilfried de Brouwer

holds a press conference about the incident.

- [Tony] And there's another layer to this story.

This wasn't the first Belgian sighting.

There'd been a string of strange encounters

just months before.

- [MJ] It starts in November of 1989.

Multiple reports start coming in

of seeing three lights in the sky.

- [Tony] During that first wave of sightings,

no less than 30 different groups of witnesses

describe seeing three bright lights up in the sky.

- [MJ] What they see is

that these aren't three distinct

lights, but rather three points of light

on one very large triangular-shaped object.

- [Tony] The witnesses claim to have seen the object

slowly glide at low altitude

northeast across the Belgian landscape

from the town of Liege

to the border with the Netherlands and Germany,

more than half a dozen police officers

working that evening

also spotted the mystery aircraft.

But it wasn't until months later

when the Air Force picked up that strange UFO on radar

and this footage was captured

that they seemingly had proof

that this was a technologically amazing craft.

- There was nothing that existed

that could outperform this F-16 aircraft.

But the pilot says that, as he's pursuing this object,

the object makes essentially a quick turn

and deviates off his radar system

and he loses it.

[suspenseful music]

- In total, this Belgian triangle

was seen by more than 1,000 witnesses

over these several months.

With so many viewers and the military involved,

could this be the real deal?

Our experts try to identify both the object on radar

and the one that was filmed.

Are they one and the same?

If so, what could it be?

[inquisitive music]

- The important thing here is to notice

that there are three objects in the view.

And the objects don't get any closer to each other

or move apart from each other,

they stay near each other,

almost as if they're connected in some way

through a structure.

So we're probably looking at a cohesive, singular object

that has lights on it.

- [Tony] So could this be a real triangular UFO?

- [Marc] I can never pronounce that this is real.

There's no data indicating that it is.

I can only say that it's compelling.

From my point of view,

the jury is still out.

So does that make it a hoax? No.

Does it make it real? No.

But it doesn't take away from the fact

that this footage exists

of an F-16 Fighting Falcon

tracking an object on its radar.

- [Tony] Sources say the ground footage

was filmed at around 2:20 a.m.

about two hours after the F-16s

spotted something on their radar.

So could these two incidents be connected?

And what would that mean?

- What this radar screen is telling us

is that essentially this object

descended from 10,000 feet

to roughly 500 feet or below

in just a matter of seconds.

To do that, we're talking about something

that would have to be moving exceptionally fast,

upwards of Mach 40.

Those types of g-forces would crush a person.

- [Tony] So McMillan agrees with the Belgian Air Force,

a human couldn't withstand these forces,

but maybe an alien could.

Well, hang on,

McMillan has a different theory

as to what the F-16s' radar screens

may have detected.

- [Lt. Tim] I think possibly what we're looking at here

is something called Bragg's scattering.

It's a scattering effect with the radar.

Pockets of high humidity,

ice crystals, cloud cover,

different things like that

can actually cause the radar

to produce false echo returns.

The pilots themselves never visually saw anything,

only the radar.

In this particular case,

I would say that the idea that radar scattering

caused these false returns

could be a very plausible explanation for it.

- [Tony] But remember, this object was detected

on multiple radar systems,

so it's unlikely it would be Bragg's scattering

in every case.

That's why many who've studied this incident

remain perplexed.

[suspenseful music]

- Okay, it's true,

the incredibly fast speeds caught on the F-16s' radar

could be a glitch,

but our verdict is genuine UFO.

We have no way of confirming

if the object seen on radar

is the same one filmed in Brussels,

but it does seem remarkable that these two pieces of footage

came within hours of each other.

And decades later, the former Air Force colonel

and now retired major, General de Brouwer,

still can't account

for the thousands of UFO sightings

reported in Belgium

over those months.

- In November of 2021,

the Pentagon announced the establishment

of a new UFO task force,

and just in time for our next sighting,

which took place on that very same day.

Coincidence?

We'll let you decide.

November 24th, 2021,

a commercial plane is on an early morning flight

near Hong Kong.

As the plane flies over the South China Sea at 39,000 feet,

an unusual site out of the right window

prompts the pilot to whip out his cellphone and record this.

Nine orbs are moving across the sky

in three organized rows.

Let's zoom in.

The wildest part,

watch how the orbs on the left disappear

before three more orbs reappear

on the far side of the formation,

and the cycle repeats.

- These orbs seem to be blinking

in some kind of pattern or signal,

until finally, one by one,

they slowly, slowly disappear,

and then they're all just gone.

- [Tony] The video quickly goes viral,

racking up nearly 300,000 views.

But the question is, what could they be?

- There were a number of theories

as to what the lights could actually be.

One of the most popular is, of course,

that they were UFOs.

- [Tony] Patterns of strange lights in the sky

have been observed for decades.

In 1951, a group of scientists

from Texas Technical College

claimed to see a group

of 15 to 30 bluish-green objects

flying in formation.

A student at the college

snapped these photographs,

and the phenomenon became known as the Lubbock Lights.

The incident grab headlines across the nation.

But why would this formation of lights

be so near another airplane?

Grundhauser says some ufologists have theories.

- Some theories include

that they are trying to show us

the technology that they have,

almost in comparison to the technology we're using.

It's also possible that,

especially when it comes to military aircraft,

maybe the aliens are just getting the measure of us,

seeing what our technology can do.

- Today, the formal US government name

of the UFO task force

is the Airborne Object Identification

and Management Synchronization Group.

Lord, if you can come up with a clunkier name,

please, please, email it to us.

This organization wasn't established

until after more than 100 incidents

documented by military planes

were officially classified as unexplained.

So did this pilot's strange encounter

over the South China Sea

merit a report with the department?

We ask our experts.

[suspenseful music]

- What's interesting about this recording

is there is a moment

where that automatic iris makes a change,

and the white balance overall in the image changes

and the intensity of the objects doesn't.

They stay fairly consistent.

So I did not detect any evidence

that these objects were overlaid into the recording

or any CGI was used to create them.

So this video does appear to be genuine.

- [Tony] Are we looking at

some kind of atmospheric phenomenon?

- When we see lightning,

it's a very quick flash.

It's a discharge of electricity.

In this case, it's a light that appears to be fairly static

for a couple of seconds,

and then it goes away.

There really is no weather phenomenon out there

that would manifest itself as an orb or a light.

- [Tony] If it's not atmospheric,

could these be actual alien ships?

- They're not doing anything amazing

in terms of moving very fast.

They don't appear to be shooting upwards,

which is a typical thing that you see in UFO videos.

So it probably has a

relatively Earthly explanation.

- [Tony] Maybe that steady formation that rules out UFOs

rules in another explanation.

Drones.

- [Nick] Now, we see very impressive aerial setups

sometimes where lots of drones

fly in synchronized shapes,

but no one's going to be making a drone display

at 20,000 feet over the South China Sea,

and drones are probably not gonna be bright enough

to be seen at that distance.

- [Tony] But West does find a clue in the video

that he believes is key to solving the mystery.

- I think probably what we're looking at here

are three military planes dropping flares.

- [Tony] Many fighter jets employ decoy flares,

which burn on contact with the air

and at a temperature hotter than the engine exhaust.

They're deployed to attract heat seeking missiles.

And it's possible this timed formation

is due to a training exercise.

- [Nick] These decoy flares,

they need to burn as bright as possible initially

so that they can guide the missiles

away from the plane,

and then they're just allowed to burn out.

- [Tony] Meanwhile, US government officials

claim China has fully militarized

at least three artificial islands

they've constructed in the South China Sea.

- It's probably Chinese military aircraft

just doing some kind of exercise.

Fighter jets are usually highly camouflaged.

So since it's dusk,

there's gray clouds behind.

It's simply too far away to see the planes.

[suspenseful music]

- Our verdict, military flares.

The South China Sea

has gained major geopolitical significance

because a huge share of the world's maritime shipping

passes through it.

Given that the area has seen a variety

of territorial disputes of late,

it's not too surprising

to see a military presence in the airspace above it.

- Germany has its own history of UFOs

going back at least as far as World War II.

This next puzzling footage

is a much more recent sighting

out of Deutschland.

And whatever it is,

we know it's not one of the 99 Luftballons.

[inquisitive music]

September 29th, 2014.

It's a beautiful day in Berau, Germany,

a rural southern village

near the Swiss border.

A photographer sets up his camera

to film the perfect sunset.

But when he watches the footage back,

he has captured something else entirely,

a bright streaking orb jetting across the sky.

Suddenly, the object seems to zigzag violently

before continuing downward.

Let's see that again.

[dynamic music]

- [Eric] The way that it moves,

it doesn't look like the behavior

that any Earthly vessel could possibly undertake.

- [Tony] Much of the online speculation

centers on the location of the sighting,

a place considered by some

to be the birthplace of the modern UFO phenomenon.

It was 1944 behind German lines.

The elite 415th Night Fighter Squadron

reported strange phenomenon

in the skies over Germany.

- The incident involved a Bristol Beaufighter crew

led by pilot Edward Schlueter and his crewmates,

who were flying over the Rhine Valley

near Strasbourg.

The crew described eight to 10 orange orbs

flying at high speeds

off of their left wing.

- [Tony] The lights appeared from nowhere,

moving at erratic angles,

dancing around the planes.

The puzzled squadron could not shoot them down.

They also never appeared on radar.

The pilots dubbed the bright light bogies

allegedly captured in this photo Foo Fighters.

- [Eric] Since the Foo Fighters caused no damage,

the American crewmen

doubted that they were actually German secret weapons.

German pilots claimed to have seen Foo Fighters as well,

and they were just as baffled.

- [Tony] But there are other modern instances

of similar bright orbs

descending on planes, too.

On a previous episode,

we analyzed this 2020 sighting

from the Mexican skies

where veteran military

and commercial pilot Captain Erik Delgado

recorded this footage.

- [Erik] Oh man, that is phenomenal.

Dude, I'm so glad you saw that.

And you saw it drop out of the sky and just,

it just stopped? - I did,

[Erik laughing]

- [Erik] This is awesome, man.

- [Tony] Captain Delgado says this thing

dropped straight down from above

and hit his plane with some kind of spotlight.

- It looked like a lighthouse

in some thin fog as it's turning.

So that really got my heart going.

- [Tony] No doubt a UFO shining a light on your plane

would be a terrifying moment.

- I thought there could've been a safety issue

because initially this thing

is turning into us,

and then it decided to park itself off

our left wing tip. [laughing]

- [Tony] The glowing orb maintains its position,

pacing the plane.

Delgado says it stayed there for 25 minutes

before darting off at a sharp angle.

- [Tony] It's the kind of inexplicable maneuver

we've come to associate with UFOs,

from Foo Fighters

to those encountered more recently by Navy pilots,

to this very video.

Both the Foo Fighters legend

and the modern footage shot by Captain Delgado

remain mysteries.

How will this German orb footage

hold up to our experts' scrutiny?

Time for our team to dig in and find out.

[suspenseful music]

Is it possible all these highly maneuverable UFOs

are a single type of craft,

and this is one of them?

- It does seem to be going extremely fast,

and also, at one point,

executes a remarkable turn.

- [Tony] That single hairpin turn

might match Foo Fighter reports.

So if it's not a Foo Fighter,

could it be a meteor?

- This is a time-lapse video,

which means that we're looking at the sun

setting over a long period of time.

If that's the case,

this is way too slow actually to be a meteor.

- [Tony] Most meteors are visible for seconds,

burning up in a flash.

So the revelation that this is a time-lapse video

rules that out altogether.

The skip in time from the time-lapse

could also explain the erratic movement.

So it's not a meteor

or an alien spacecraft.

Could it be a non-alien spacecraft,

like a satellite?

- [Marc] This could not be a satellite

because it's still way too bright

to see even the brightest satellites.

Satellites do come out at sunset,

but only after the sun goes down.

- [Tony] Could this object have something

to do with the camera?

- [Marc] Here's the thing with cameras.

Whenever you point them into the sun,

you're gonna get things you don't expect

or don't want,

because the sun is immensely brighter

than anything else in the field of view.

So if this is something up in the sky,

as soon as it starts to go down toward the horizon,

it should slow down.

To your eye, it's not.

It stays the exact same speed.

That tells me that it's probably a camera artifact

of some kind.

[suspenseful music]

- Our verdict, lens flare,

or another kind of camera artifact.

We wish we could say this video

brought us closer to an answer

on the Foo Fighter legend,

but not this time.

Those mysteries continue.

And as we've seen tonight,

strange encounters are happening

on planes across the globe.

So the next time you fly,

you may want to book an aisle seat.

Thank you so much for watching

this special edition

of "The Proof Is Out There."

Please send us any video,

images or sound

that you think we should investigate.

And remember to keep those cameras rolling.

[dynamic music]