Original subtitles

Tonight on "The Proof is Out There:

Unexplained Edition".

Across the skies, strange patterns and signals.

Are they random or something more?

We've been told space is a lifeless void, but is it?

Wow, I can't believe I'm capturing this.

The video that has some questioning

if something lives on the Moon.

I've spent hundreds of hours outside watching the Moon

and I've never seen anything like it.

The shape on Saturn

that has people scratching their heads.

When the hexagon jumped out at me, I was gobsmacked.

And from deep space, what is a Dyson sphere?

Maybe we're looking at--

is really a galaxy

hiding behind your star.

Around the world,

unexplained encounters are being recorded.

Tonight's focus, signs from space.

Our experts will analyze the evidence

and then pass a verdict.

There are a lot of questions about this footage

and plenty of unknowns.

The proof starts now.

Good evening and welcome to "The Proof is Out There".

Is there life on the Moon?

Scientists of yesteryear gave this question

considerable thought.

In fact, an 1846 textbook says, quote,

"It is the general opinion of astronomers

that the Moon is inhabited."

Nearly two centuries later,

could this next video be the proof?

July 21st, 2024. Austin, Texas.

It's about 11:30 PM

and Eric Eman is in his backyard moongazing

when he spots something peculiar in the viewfinder

of his Seestar S50 telescope.

It was a mix of excitement and disbelief.

I've spent hundreds of hours outside watching the Moon

and I've never seen anything like it.

A round object appears

to travel in a downward diagonal

from right to left across the face of the Moon.

Its movement appears purposeful

and unwavering from its straight path.

Then a wider shot captures the object

as it completes its 45-second journey across the Moon

and glides into the darkness of space.

I was just looking at it, mesmerized the whole time.

Like, wow, I can't believe I'm capturing this.

The video is so astounding

the local news shares it for all of Austin to see

and no one can explain it.

I definitely think it was some type of saucer vehicle.

And Eric isn't the first moongazer

to consider an alien presence on or around the Moon.

In fact, it was a NASA scientist who reported in 1970

that the Moon rang like a bell during an Apollo mission.

This sparked speculation

that the Moon may be harboring an alien base.

The Hollow Moon theory suggests

that the Moon is not in fact a solid body but is hollow

and that inside that cavern is a whole alien civilization

that has launched probes or missions out of the inner Moon

and to explore the area around us,

potentially even the Earth.

The theory may sound out there,

but recent radar data collected

by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

has revealed a large cave

roughly 500 feet below the Moon's surface,

which could serve as a shelter or even a base.

So where did the Moon come from in the first place?

The most widely accepted theory

is the giant impact hypothesis,

the idea that the Moon was formed by debris

created in a collision between Earth and a small planet.

Will our experts be able to draw their own conclusions

about Eric's object?

First, we don't really know how far away this object is.

Is it possible it's not close to the Moon at all

and is instead something small in our own sky, like a drone?

Well, there's different kinds of drones,

but typically we'd be able to see the shape

of the drone pretty obviously in this view.

But we just see this black blob here.

That black blob tells us it's something further away

that's been magnified by the telephoto lens.

So the object is likely large

because of its visibility

and far away because of its lack of detail.

In fact, this object could be so far away

that its straight line trajectory

could be an orbital path.

Now, if you see something move across the Moon,

it's typically a satellite in orbit around the Earth

that passes in front of the Moon.

And the thing that's interesting about this

is that when you watch them cross the Moon,

they're gonna look like a silhouette against the Moon

because the Moon is so much brighter

and so it'll appear as this dark object crossing the Moon.

The best indication that this is not a satellite

is that we can see the object

after it's passed the edge of the Moon.

Take a look.

We punched up the brightness and magnified the image,

and notice how the object is still visible.

It doesn't disappear into the blackness of space.

That's because it's not in space.

You wouldn't see any brightness around it.

What we're seeing here in terms of brightness

is actually the brightness of the atmosphere

illuminated by the Moon.

This is because the gas particles

in Earth's atmosphere trap and scatter the moonlight,

but in the vacuum of space there are virtually no particles

to scatter the light.

So what we're seeing here is an object

that's inside Earth's atmosphere.

Satellites don't go inside the atmosphere,

so it can't be a satellite.

We know that the object is moving

about seven or eight times its own size per second.

If this was something like a balloon

that was only two feet in diameter,

it's only moving about 10 miles per hour,

just about wind speed basically.

So I'm gonna go with balloon.

The trouble is it's moving downward,

but regular balloons don't move in that kind of fashion.

They're gonna move in the wind horizontally,

so it would be moving this way, not that way.

Our verdict, unidentified object.

We doubt this is a UFO from a lunar civilization,

but with convincing arguments from both our experts,

we're not sure what it actually is either.

But if there is life on the Moon, we may learn soon enough.

NASA plans to send to astronauts there again

as early as 2027.

Apollo 16 was NASA's fifth successful Moon landing mission,

one of its primary objectives to inspect, survey,

and collect rock and soil samples from the lunar surface.

But did this Moon mission encounter extraterrestrial life

as well and did NASA bury the truth?

April 25th, 1972 the Apollo 16 command module, Casper,

has spent a total of five days in lunar orbit

circling the Moon a total of 64 times.

But due to issues with the service module engine,

the crew redocks with the command module

and departs for Earth one day earlier than planned.

As the men pull away from the Moon,

they film a truly unexpected sight through the window.

A disc-shaped structure appears to be moving

in an unusual trajectory above the lunar surface.

It appears to have a dome in its center

and a horizontal line or bar sticking out.

The camera looks away but shifts back once more

in time to catch a final glimpse of the object.

This video has long drawn the attention of UFO enthusiasts.

It's understandable that people would see this

and think it is a UFO.

This kind of has that classic circular or disc-like shape

that UFOs typically have, but also it's at the Moon.

We don't know a lot about the Moon.

It's a very alien environment, and people who are convinced

that NASA has been withholding evidence of aliens

would point to this as evidence that NASA missed hiding.

Hang on.

Could NASA really be hiding signs of extraterrestrial life?

Well, one of history's most esteemed astronauts said yes.

Ed Mitchell was an Apollo astronaut

and he was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 14,

which meant he walked on the surface of the Moon

and he maintained throughout his life that NASA had evidence

of alien life.

He was sure that there were some extraterrestrials out there

that they had engaged with.

In 2003, Japanese engineer

Hiroshi Nakamura wrote an article

hypothesizing that this disc could only be

an extraterrestrial object.

He said that it is, "The only explanation consistent

with mission data."

According to Nakamura's analysis,

the object's wobbly movement is indicative

of something three-dimensional, and its width estimated

by comparing it to the craters on the Moon

could be as big as 70 miles.

There are a lot of questions about this footage

and plenty of unknowns, which kind of explains why this clip

of the footage is so popular among UFO circles.

According to NASA,

people have now taken more than 4 million photos in space.

Does this footage stand out among the rest

as proof that something or someone is out there?

Before making one giant leap to conclusions,

we check with our experts.

First, a theory promoted by debunkers over the years.

This was just a glimpse of Earth.

The reason why this could not be the Earth

is because the Earth should be larger

than what we've seen here,

and it specifically has two circular bands.

Some believe the object wasn't even really there,

that it was a reflection from the window.

But there's an easy way to tell.

Camera reflections would be either an internal reflection

or a lens flare and they have a characteristic look to them.

We would actually see a brighter spot

and it would look like a fuzzy thing over here

on the opposite side of the field.

It wouldn't be right next to it here,

it'd be across the center of the frame.

It looks to me like we're seeing a physical object.

Could it truly be some sort of spacecraft

like a UFO, as Nakamura suggested?

Well, we see one big problem with Nakamura's analysis.

He presumed that the object was as far away as the Moon

and therefore huge.

But our analysis puts this object closer to the camera

and therefore smaller.

When the camera moves around,

the object doesn't change position at all

relative to the command module.

So what that's telling me is that this object

is probably literally right outside the command module.

It's not very far away at all.

The fact that the camera moved towards the object

and then moved back,

I do not believe the astronaut thought

that that object was that important.

And none of the astronauts have came out and said that

they saw extraterrestrials on their mission.

My feeling is that this is a spotlight fixture

on the command module.

This here is the stalk with the wire.

This thing right here

looks to me like a funnel-shaped light shield

to help increase the brightness.

And then that thing we see in the middle

could be a light bulb.

But why would a spaceship need a spotlight?

On Apollo 16,

they had to actually go outside the command module

and do what's called an EVA, an extravehicular activity.

And when they did the EVA, or the spacewalk,

they had to use additional lighting.

So it was the EVA floodlight housing and mount

on the command module of the Apollo 16.

We agree with D'Antonio. This is an EVA floodlight.

NASA's Artemis program is scheduled

to land astronauts on the Moon's south pole

as early as 2027.

If they spot anything strange,

we'll be sure to let you know.

SETI, an organization dedicated

to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

spends time and money pointing giant radio telescopes

at distant galaxies.

But maybe there is no need to search light years away.

One man thinks he may have uncovered evidence

of advanced intelligence a mere 94 million miles from here

at the center of our own solar system.

From 2006 to 2022, David Toon,

a retired army aviation officer,

has been conducting imagery analysis

on NASA archived solar satellite photos.

He's reviewed over 5 million

and has singled out more than 50,000

that he thinks show suspicious events or objects.

Look closer.

Set against the soft plumes of energy

are hard-edged objects

in various colors, shapes and sizes,

all hovering in close proximity to the Sun.

David believes these are examples of technosignatures,

which are defined as signs of intelligent life

beyond our Earth.

The images indicate there is a more organized pattern

to these objects.

The lines, the shapes are all basic evidence

that there's intelligence behind it.

It's not just a natural phenomenon.

Clement Vidal speculates that life could evolve

to use solar energy to fuel itself.

He refers to these creatures as stellivores.

Much like we consume organic material to fuel our bodies,

there could possibly be alien life out there

that uses solar energy to fuel itself.

Today, as the SETI Institute continues the search

for extraterrestrial intelligence,

it is giving credence to the stellivore theory

as it decides which stars to look at next.

But could these hypothetical beings

really be actively feeding on our Sun?

Let's see if our experts can shed any light on the subject.

The reason why I don't think this is applicable

to our current situation is that in the stellivore model,

that is an explanation for certain binary star systems.

A binary star system occurs

when two stars orbit a shared center of mass,

making them gravitationally bound to one another.

Since our solar system is not a binary system,

this is not really an applicable hypothesis

to the current situation.

We could be looking at natural gases,

plasma or other things coming out of the Sun

together with a camera artifact

that makes that chunk of gas look more geometric

than it actually is.

I think the most likely culprit

is simply a camera artifact.

It's not a sign of it any kind of object

floating out there near the Sun.

It's just a sign of how the technology actually works.

Recently, we had an example in the news

of a coronal mass ejection.

Headlines around the world read things like,

"Piece of the Sun breaks off and forms a vortex

and scientists are baffled."

And this just underscores how there are natural phenomena

that the Sun produces that can still baffle us.

That doesn't mean they're paranormal or extraterrestrial.

Our verdict, these are unexplained solar images.

While we agree with McCarthy

that some of these images may be easily explained

by camera artifacts,

we can't prove it for all of them.

We also can't say for certain

if this is or is not a natural solar phenomenon.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has now gone on

for more than 60 years with no luck,

but nobody's giving up.

After all, there are still hundreds of billions

of stars to investigate.

In 1960, physicist Freeman Dyson theorized

that advanced aliens might create megastructures

to surround stars and capture their energy.

Are a set of deep space photos proof it's already happened?

May, 2024. London, England.

An international team of scientists

releases a groundbreaking study

in the Royal Astronomical Journal,

naming their endeavor Project Hephaistos.

They sifted through decades of research on millions of stars

in search of evidence to prove Dyson's theory

and they found this.

You're looking at infrared readings

from deep space telescopes.

The dense black dots stand out

because they are giving off massive amounts of infrared heat

from an unknown source.

The researchers say that heat

could be one of these Dyson spheres

harvesting the power of a star.

Freeman Dyson initially proposed

that it was a large structure

that a very advanced civilization could build

around their host star.

But as his theory developed and progressed,

Dyson postulated that perhaps a Dyson sphere

doesn't necessarily need to be one structure,

but rather a series of smaller objects that surround the Sun

that are connected via some sort of network

and are able to collect energy from that sun.

Now, the Sun emits as much energy in 15 minutes

as the entire Earth consumes in a year,

and any technology that could harness such energy

would leave telltale clues in the infrared spectrum.

Fresh off the groundbreaking discovery from England,

a second study from Italy found a whopping 53 stars

showing similar potential technosignatures.

Did this new research reveal definitive proof

of Dyson spheres and advanced alien life?

We turn to our experts to find out.

It's possible that we are observing

excess infrared radiation

because of discs of dust and debris.

These discs form around stars

when stars are forming planetary systems

and they're disc-shaped because they tend to get flattened

because of the angular momentum of stars as they rotate.

This can cause a heating that generates infrared radiation

that we can observe with our infrared telescopes.

Maybe we're looking at a galaxy

that is hiding behind this star

and the infrared radiation

that we're picking up is from a galaxy.

It gets confusing because a picture is flat.

A picture is two-dimensional.

Reality is three-dimensional

Researchers at the American Astronomical Society

agree, arguing that the heat

in these images are a false positive

resulting from the star's alignment with distant galaxies.

In other words, it's all a matter of perspective.

The telescope that's picking up a so-called Dyson sphere

might actually be looking at a star

with a galaxy way out in the distance behind it.

When they're aligned, the telescope reads it

as just one very bright signature.

And maybe this could explain why we're seeing

some excess amount of infrared radiation in the data.

Does that mean that these aren't Dyson spheres?

I think even from a theoretical perspective,

the concept of a Dyson sphere is very shaky,

and even if there are civilizations out there

millions and billions of years older than us,

I can think of a lot better ways of harnessing energy

than the construction of a Dyson sphere.

But despite some skepticism,

Dyson spheres remain on NASA's list

of potential technosignatures

to help identify extraterrestrial civilizations.

Our verdict, galaxies.

Professors Szydagis and Kaku both say

these infrared readings are probably not

catching a Dyson sphere in action.

So for now, the search for intelligent life

and unlimited energy continues.

The James Webb space telescope has been crucial

in teaching us more about our universe.

It discovered carbon dioxide on one of Jupiter's moons

and even water vapor on a distant planetary system.

But as many answers as we've been getting,

images like this next one raise even more questions.

Literally.

July 26th, 2023.

The European Space Agency releases a brilliant image

from the James Webb telescope

of two young stars forming 1,470 light years away.

Among the other cosmic swirls and sparkles in the picture

are objects easily recognizable as galaxies and stars.

And then there's one detail that shakes the world.

Zooming in below the mass of forming stars,

there's a tiny orange glow

that is shaped like a question mark.

The internet instantly began clamoring

about the strange object, what it could be.

One net citizen suggested,

"The aliens know that we've found them."

There were many people

that instantly jumped on this saying,

"It's a fake. It's been doctored."

And ESA, the European Space Agency quickly said,

"No, this is a real image and it hasn't been doctored."

The discovery of the question mark

was completely unexpected.

Some believe it may actually be a response

to humanity's own space exploration.

In 1977, NASA sent the probes Voyager 1 and 2

on missions to collect data

on the outer planets of our solar system.

In 2012, Voyager 1 officially left our solar system.

Could it be someone found it?

Our first Voyager probes included time capsules

and it introduced prospective extraterrestrials

to our civilization.

Maybe this question mark is their response.

Was this perhaps put there to catch our attention?

While others see the possibility

we're witnessing one of the most mysterious phenomenon

in the universe, black holes.

Maybe it's literally pulling the swirl

of that galaxy into what looks like now a question mark,

being sucked into this supermassive black hole.

According to the Center for Astrophysics,

there could be as many as 100 million black holes

in our Milky Way galaxy alone.

Could that be what we have here?

Or is there some sort of advanced intelligence involved?

Our experts are ready with some answers.

At the center of almost every galaxy that we've ever seen,

we see a black hole.

But this does not look like what a typical black hole is.

A supermassive black hole

cannot be question mark shaped.

It can only be spherical, elliptical,

kind of a flat elliptical shape

if it's rotating with a great degree of speed.

Okay then.

Could it actually be a message from an alien civilization?

We are looking at it as it was billions of years ago,

not as it looks like now.

And so, not only did humanity not exist,

but any signal from Earth

has not been able to reach these vast distances yet.

But why does it look like a question mark?

One thing about a two-dimensional photograph

is you don't know how distances are.

If you could somehow leave the Earth

and look at this from a different angle,

perhaps the question mark would fall apart as a consequence.

You would see distinct features

unrelated to each other.

The question mark is probably the collision of two galaxies

and when you put them together from this angle,

it looks like a question mark.

The twisting top part would be the first galaxy

and that dot on the bottom, possibly the second.

I'm frankly surprised

we haven't found more question marks

because the universe is very big.

If we look hard enough,

we are going to find every kind of punctuation mark.

Our verdict, merging galaxies.

Sad to say this time it's no alien message,

but it is fascinating how much we can learn

about the universe from a fraction of a fraction

of a single image.

And the good news is that there will be many more to come.

The telescope is expected to remain operational up there

for at least 20 years.

We all wonder if there is other life out there

in the universe.

In fact, many believe aliens have been observing our planet

for thousands of years,

citing everything from the pyramids in Egypt

to the Nazca lines in Peru as evidence of contact.

Now, a strange discovery in a recent NASA photo

has some saying these visitors haven't just

been observing Earth.

Check out what we found on our next-door neighbor, Mars.

In March 2006,

the Mars reconnaissance orbiter begins its mission

of studying the atmosphere and terrain of the Red Planet.

Since then, the orbiter has taken almost 7 million pictures

of the Martian surface,

but it wasn't until 2021 that somebody noticed this.

It's a pair of long, parallel lines with indentations

that lead to what appears to be a half-buried disc.

And take a closer look.

See that perfectly shaped crescent edge?

A South African researcher says he found

what appeared to be the remains of a UFO crash.

The object that he was looking at was between 12

and 15 meters in diameter

and it could be the remains of a flying disc

that had crashed on the Red Planet.

If it was a flying saucer, did it come from Mars

or somewhere else in the galaxy?

And if so, was it observing Mars

because there was a civilization there?

For people that believe this UFO crash on Mars

is an actual UFO,

it may be connected to the Grays that visit our planet.

They've been visiting our planet for millennia

and possibly visiting Mars also.

Some believe that the Gray aliens crashed at Roswell

and they may have also lost control

of one of their vehicles on Mars.

Now, we know people have been seeing alleged signs

of civilization on Mars

ever since this famous face was discovered

in a 1976 photograph taken by Viking 1.

Most of these images, including the face,

were revealed to be natural geological formations

once higher resolution images became available.

But what about this?

I mean, that clean, circular edge is pretty clear.

Couldn't that really the back edge of a flying saucer?

Look at the outer edge.

This would be the crash path, right here.

And it sure doesn't look natural.

Let's find out what our experts think.

Take a look at the Moon.

On the surface of the Moon,

there's a crater called Messier A,

and what that is is a shallow meteor impact

that came in at a very shallow angle

and carved out an elliptical-shaped crater.

This is how a normal asteroid crash would look.

It comes in at a shallow angle.

However, on this specific trail leading up to the object,

you don't see much of that.

This object itself is still intact.

So then how can we explain

the smooth crescent shape of the disc?

There is speculation

that it could potentially be the heat shield off of a probe

that got ejected into the Martian surface.

Since 1960, there have been around 50 attempts

to send probes directly to Mars,

but only about half have been successful.

Is this disc the remnant of a failure?

If you look at the trench this object crashed down

on, it looks pretty wide and deep.

To me, that rules out any kind of heat shield crash

because the heat shield from a probe

wouldn't necessarily have enough energy

to carve out such a trench.

So if it's not manmade,

could we be looking at the remains of an alien spaceship?

This area is called Candor Chasm,

which is parallel to the Valles Marineris.

Valles Marineris is the Grand Canyon of Mars.

It's a huge rift, a crack that's seven miles down

and would go the distance of Los Angeles to New York.

Valles Marineris is covered by volcanic plains.

A combination of sedimentary layers and volcanic lava flows.

These long streaks

that you see going across the surface here,

those are common all over Mars.

What looks like the trail of a crashed UFO

is actually an ancient geologic crack

in the surface of Mars.

But if it's a natural crack,

how did the object at the end of the trail

get the perfect curve of a spaceship?

If you look really closely,

you can see this one just happens

to be perfectly arcuate here,

most likely because the winds are coming over

and then they're falling into the crack.

And the only thing that's given everybody the idea

that it's a spaceship

is those dunes that are around the front

that make it look like there's a circular disc.

To me, this object doesn't seem to have gotten here

through natural processes.

Its shape and the way it seemed to settle into the landscape

is completely different

than any other object we've seen on the Martian surface.

So it seems we have another split decision here.

While Dr. Anderson's theory checks all the boxes,

McCarthy's point that finding a naturally perfect curve

does seem too good to be true.

Our verdict, for now, until we can get a closer look

and confirm what's there,

we're gonna go with unexplained phenomenon.

And if it is a crashed UFO,

we'll be the first to let you know.

Throughout history,

all kinds of strange things have fallen from the sky.

Dead birds, fish, even frogs.

But what about alien slime?

You never know what you'll find

when you start poking around.

It's October 2014 near Romney, West Virginia.

Diane Wingett is checking the blueberry

and raspberry patches at her weekend property

when she sees something strange

and alerts her husband, Randy.

There's some kind of jelly fungus here

at the base of our raspberry bushes.

It's just really weird.

It looks like crystals, but it's soft jelly.

Diane points out a large pile

of what appear to be gelatinous and translucent small blobs.

I suppose that's rare delicacy.

Someone's gonna come here and-

It's not caviar.

Not fish eggs, but it's cold.

Randy and Diane say they have no idea

what the strange substance is or how it got there.

When they come back to the property the following week,

the substance has vanished.

It seemed obvious it must have come from the sky.

The way that it landed and the position it was in.

We experience a lot of flyovers

by military and commercial flights,

so we thought, well, maybe, maybe that was it.

Maybe it was something from a-

- Plane. - From an airplane.

The couple posts the video online seeking answers

and a few years later, they receive a note

that changes everything.

We got a letter in the mail from a lady in Yakima

and she explained to us what it was.

She said, "It's been around for centuries.

It's called star jelly."

Star jelly.

A mystical substance long rumored

to come straight from the stars,

According to folklore, star jelly are actually pieces

of celestial bodies, whether they be meteors or nebula

that have come apart and fallen to Earth.

It typically disappears not long after it's been deposited.

In the 14th century, medieval physician John of Gaddesden

actually mentioned star jelly in his medical writings.

And even though people have claimed

since the Middle Ages

that star jelly appears after meteor showers,

McCarthy says some other ideas about its origin

are more down to Earth.

Some have said that maybe this is a fungi

that we're looking at,

or maybe it's the anal secretion of an animal,

or maybe it's unfertilized frogspawn

that have been eaten and then regurgitated by a predator.

This clearly doesn't look like the remains

of a fallen bird, fish or frog, but could it be their spawn?

This is quite a big pile, but some species of frogs

can lay up to 30,000 eggs at a time.

Could that be the answer?

We check with our experts.

It has a lot of qualities similar to frog eggs.

Like, it looks gelatinous or jello-like.

And when you look in it,

you can see, like, little specks too

and frog eggs have a center area that's darker.

What throws me off is that it's kind of jagged.

Frog eggs are more circular in shape.

And it's not in a pond or a wetland area.

Then perhaps this is a more primordial form of life

known as slime mold.

These unusual organisms defy all attempts at categorization.

They're not fungus, not plants, not animals.

It depends on the species,

but they can look like lots of different things.

They can look similar to fungus,

they can look similar to, like, algae.

They can aggregate into larger groups,

but they still look quite different

than what we're seeing in this picture.

So maybe this substance does actually come

from the stars.

Meteors are a chunk of rock

that are coming towards the Earth.

Something like this would not stand a chance

making it through the atmosphere.

And think of stars, think of the Sun.

Extreme sources of energy.

This is jelly on the ground.

It's not releasing energy.

It's just a gelatinous substance.

Then what could this gross goo possibly be?

Hernandez says there's another hypothesis

based on a similar substance discovered in 2012

in Dorset, England.

The explanation to that was it was a sodium polyacrylate

that was used for agricultural purposes.

Given that it is an extreme absorbent of water,

it's able to retain that water for crops to be able to grow.

Diane tells us

that a few months before finding this substance,

she put some polymer crystals in the yard

to help with water retention.

But she doubts that's what this is.

When that got wet, it was round, not cubed,

so I knew it wasn't what I put in the ground.

Our verdict, we're calling this an unidentified goo.

It could be related to the water storing crystals

that Diane had used earlier in the year,

but the details don't seem to match up.

You've probably heard of Earth's polar vortices.

They are large swaths of cold winds

that circle around both of the poles.

Here they're shaped pretty organically

with a swirling motion,

but look just a billion miles away, give or take,

and you'll find that Saturn has its own polar vortex.

And the one in the north sure looks

like it was designed purposely by something intelligent.

It's 2007, above the northern hemisphere of Saturn.

The Cassini spacecraft is beaming data back to Earth,

showing a glimpse of Saturn's northern hemisphere.

But what's that almost perfectly equilateral polygon

there above the north pole?

When the hexagon jumped out at me, I was gobsmacked.

The question of what caused that

is one that still holds a lot of mystery.

Take another look.

Saturn is known for its rings,

but this hexagon is really bizarre.

No other planet has anything like it.

This hexagon shape on Saturn's north pole

was first discovered by the Voyager satellites in the 1980s,

so it's been present on Saturn for decades.

What's strange is it seems to have changed color

from blue to gold

and it appears much larger than originally thought.

So why is it here?

To some, it's evidence of a spiritual belief

known as sacred geometry.

Sacred geometry is the idea that certain shapes

and patterns appear like that for a reason.

We see this going back as far as ancient Hindu

and Christian cultures.

But what or who could have created

this seemingly deliberate form above Saturn?

Think about that perfect monolith

from "2001: A Space Odyssey".

It wasn't just a cool geometric artifact,

it was a mechanism for advancing intelligent life.

Could this sacred hexagon be something similar?

The hexagonal formation could actually be a key

to unlocking secrets of the universe.

Mathematicians say the hexagon

is nature's most efficient shape.

With mechanically balanced angles at 120 degrees each,

it can hold the most weight

with the least amount of material.

But is Saturn's hexagonal vortex proof

that there is more to the shape?

Our experts explore all the angles.

This hexagonal shape isn't actually visible

on any of the other planets in our solar system.

It's truly unique to Saturn.

It's almost like a snowflake

in it's precision and it's beauty.

So it is unique.

But is that proof it's the result of intelligent design?

This is a natural resonance

that's based on the way the bands on Saturn operate

and the way the atmospheric currents flow.

This atmosphere is a fluid of gas,

and so, as it's rotating,

it has what's called surface tension between the particles.

When two particles rub against each other,

they have, like, a tension to them.

These structures are so ingrained into the atmosphere

that they remain very constant.

A perfect example is Jupiter.

The Great Red Spot has been seen

since around the time of Galileo,

And why has the hexagon changed colors

since the end of 2012?

Fletcher says the key is understanding

that it takes more than seven Earth years

for seasons to change on Saturn.

As sunlight returned

to those springtime northern latitudes,

you get these smoggy particles

being created by chemistry high up within the atmosphere

that started to fill in the center of the hexagon

and making it appear gold.

Our verdict, surface tension

is creating this natural phenomenon.

And if it is a sign from an alien or divine intelligence,

we're not intelligent enough

to figure out what it means just yet.

It's been a journey.

From hexagons to star jelly to Dyson spheres,

we continue to look for signs of life beyond our planet.

Who knows what answers tomorrow might bring?

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.