Original subtitles

NARRATOR: This program is about unsolved mysteries.

Whenever possible, the actual family members

and police officials have participated

in recreating the events.

What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

Tonight, a special "Unsolved Mysteries" report--

"Mysteries of Alien Beings."

Who are they?

And where do they come from?

Are they real, or imagined?

In recent years, hundreds of people

have come forward with startling accounts of abduction

by alien beings.

Even though the descriptions are strikingly similar,

there is no hard evidence that such beings actually exist.

For many abductees, the memories are triggered by a vivid dream.

JACK WEINER: I was starting to have

nightmares-- really terrible nightmares

that I could not explain.

But I found myself in a very brightly-lit room.

I had no idea where I was or why I was there.

To my left, I could see my brother Jim, Chuck Rak,

and Charlie Foltz sitting on some type of bench,

and they were all naked.

And while I'm trying to figure this out,

I notice this dark, shadowy type figure

emerging from this bright light in front of me.

It wasn't like other nightmares, where

you have some strange dumb dream or something,

and you forget about it the next day.

This would stick with me for days and days.

It was like I couldn't think about anything else.

I couldn't function.

It was horrible.

Not so long ago, it seemed inconceivable

that aliens and UFOs would become the topics

of everyday conversation.

Yet a recent poll revealed that nearly half of all Americans

now believe that UFOs are real.

In the next hour, a new, in-depth look at what

may be the most remarkable phenomenon of our age.

We'll take you to Area 51, a top secret military installation

tucked away in the remote Nevada desert.

You'll meet a man who claims that he worked near Area 51

and witnessed the test flight of an alien spacecraft.

For almost 50 years, the so-called Roswell incident

has fascinated and confounded UFO researchers.

Tonight, in an exclusive update, a new eyewitness account

suggests that the army did, in fact, recover the bodies

of alien beings in 1947.

And the fantastic saga of the Allagash Four--

four young men who claim that they were abducted by aliens

during a camping trip in the Maine wilderness.

Their chilling story may seem unbelievable,

but more and more people have become

convinced that such accounts are based in fact, not fiction.

Join us for this special report, "Mysteries of Alien Beings."

[music playing]

It scared us.

We didn't know what it was, or didn't

know what to think about it.

It just dumbfounded us.

We were just in awe.

There was no wings.

There was no motors.

There was no propellers.

I know it wasn't the planet Venus.

And I know it was not atmospheric phenomena.

These were some kind of craft moving over our house.

I noticed two cigarette-like shape things,

with the hump in the middle.

I said, what the hell is that?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): There's

no way of knowing how many people

believe in and have actually seen a UFO from outer space.

But it seems safe to assume that reliable sightings now

number well into the thousands.

Typically, a sighting involves a single eyewitness.

In other cases, a small group will see the same thing

at the same time.

In the most dramatic episodes, an entire community

will report seeing the same object in the sky for weeks,

months, or even years.

That is exactly what happened over New York's Hudson Valley

between 1983 and 1986.

Perhaps no account was more convincing than that of Ed

Burns, a computer engineer.

ED BURNS: Out of nowhere, I got a lot of static on the radio.

I thought maybe I was on the wrong number,

and then I already turned the dial again.

And that's when I looked up and saw this craft.

It was a triangular chevron ship.

And the back of that chevron had to be as large

as a football field, at least.

It was one solid piece of a chevron shape.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The wedge-shaped chevron

object described by many Hudson Valley eyewitnesses

was no stranger to UFO historians.

It first appeared in 1947, when a pilot named Kenneth Arnold

claimed that he encountered not one, but nine mysterious flying

objects out on a search and rescue

mission over Washington state.

When a headline writer tried to describe what Arnold saw,

he coined the phrase "flying saucer"

and helped launch the modern era of UFOs.

PHILIP J. KLASS: Soon people all over the country

were reporting UFO sightings.

But by the early 1950s, the Air Force had

reached the conclusion-- the correct conclusion,

in my opinion--

that all UFO reports were explainable

in down-to-earth prosaic terms.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): But some

of the more impressive encounters

could not be explained.

When a wave of UFOs swarmed over the small town of Lubbock,

Texas in 1951, a college student named

Carl Hart, Jr. took a remarkable series of photographs.

Incredibly, more than 30 years later, the same v-shaped lights

were described by many of the Hudson Valley eyewitnesses.

Are the striking similarities a coincidence, wishful thinking,

or perhaps part of an unmistakable pattern

that stretches back hundreds of years?

JEROME CLARK: There are many things

that happened in the distant past

that we are never going to understand fully.

In fact, when you go into history and into folklore,

you get intriguing accounts of odd phenomena seen in the sky.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): This antique German woodcut depicts

a, quote, "frightful spectacle" that

occurred in Nuremberg in 1561.

Could it be that the random chaos of lights and symbols

depicted here is the same phenomenon that

was photographed in the skies over Canada in 1974,

more than 400 years later?

This Renaissance painting of Madonna and child

seems perfectly normal.

However, closer inspection reveals a strange craft

hovering in the background with an earth-bound observer

witnessing the event.

For many historians, comparisons between past and present

suggests that UFOs are not restricted to the modern age.

Strange globes seen over Basel, Switzerland in 1566.

A photograph taken in Salem, Massachusetts in 1952.

A French token, minted in the 1680s,

seems to show the underside of a circular object

floating in the sky.

Could it be the same object described during the 1980s

by a group of American airmen stationed in England?

It seems amazing to scientists that, if you take all these UFO

reports at face value, that all the visitors

have somehow managed to clean up after themselves perfectly.

How come we have never had any picnic garbage?

We've never had a leftover calling card,

a shred of clothing, a piece of the space

ship, some of their motor oil dripping on the ground?

Nothing which could then be tested in our laboratories

and clearly established as alien.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): But many researchers believe

the government does have proof of alien contact,

and has had it since 1947, when this

startling headline appeared in the Roswell,

New Mexico "Daily Record. "

[thunder]

The story began with a violent storm on July 2nd, 1947.

A few days later, a local rancher

led two military officers to a pasture

where something had crashed during the storm.

You want to just stay there, Mr. Brattle.

Lieutenant?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Major Jesse Marcel Senior,

an intelligence officer and combat pilot,

was unable to identify the debris.

Years after this incident happened,

we would talk privately among ourselves about what

the possibilities of this--

what this thing was.

And I know that we came to the conclusion

it was not of earthly origin.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Jesse Marcel, Jr.

was 11 years old at the time, and vividly remembers a night

his father brought pieces of the wreckage home.

He is one of the few people still living that claims

to have handled the debris.

Where did you find all this stuff?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Marcel recalls

that the most remarkable fragment was

a short piece of I-beam covered with strange symbols

and embossed markings.

Looks like some kind of hieroglyphics.

JESS MARCEL, MD: This writing could

be described as like Egyptian-type hieroglyphics,

but not really.

The symbols that were in the I-beams

were more of a geometric type configuration

in various designs.

It had a violet purple type color,

and it was actually an embossed part of the metal itself.

[door sliding open]

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Other witnesses

have claimed that the Army not only

recovered the wreckage of a UFO, but the of its occupants.

Captain Pappy Henderson was stationed at Roswell in 1947.

Two years before he died, he described

what he saw to his wife.

SAPPHO HENDERSON: My husband told me the bodies were small,

smaller than human bodies.

The heads were larger, and the eyes were rather

sunken and a little slanted.

Clothing was of material unlike anything he'd seen before.

They were strange.

They were not of this Earth.

When my husband, who was a man of truth, who was trusted

with 29 different Army aircraft planes,

First Pilot, Aircraft Commander, tells me this story,

I believed him.

[thunder]

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Shortly

after the details of the crash were made public,

the Army changed its story.

They admitted to making a grave mistake,

and announced that the flying saucer

wreckage was in fact debris from a downed weather balloon.

[music playing]

For almost 50 years, the events that took place

at Roswell and the official explanation

have fueled suspicion and charges of cover up.

As recently as September 8th, 1994,

the Air Force released yet another report

stating that the rumors of alien contact were groundless.

In spite of these assertions, witnesses

continue to come forward, insisting

that the reports are true.

Of all the new accounts, the story related by a man

named Glenn Dennis is too compelling to be ignored.

In 1947, Glenn Dennis was 22 years old

and just out of college.

That summer, he was working as a mortician's assistant

at a funeral home in Roswell.

Two days before the saucer story broke,

Dennis received a strange phone call from the Roswell Air Base.

Ballard Funeral Home.

VOICE ON PHONE: Mr. Ballard, please?

He's not in, but this is Glenn Dennis, can I help you?

VOICE ON PHONE: Glenn, this is Captain Mizer.

I'm the mortuary officer over at the base.

Yes, sir?

Listen, I was just--

GLENN DENNIS: And he was wanting to know

what size hermetically-sealed baby caskets did we have?

Did we have, specifically, 3 feet 6 inches?

Or did we have maybe no larger than a 4-foot

hermetically-sealed casket?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): That afternoon, Glenn Dennis

was called to transport an injured airman

to the Roswell Base.

When he arrived, he was surprised to find the base

infirmary surrounded by MP's.

Two ambulances parked at the curb

immediately drew Glenn's attention.

GLENN DENNIS: I looked into the ambulance,

and I saw quite a bit of wreckage of some type.

It looked like stainless steel that had become in contact

with a high degree of heat.

And it was a purplish bluish color.

And I noticed one large piece of the wreckage,

it looked like there was some Egyptian hieroglyphics.

[music playing]

[cart wheel squeaking]

MALE VOICE: Nurses, seal off that corridor!

GLENN DENNIS: The confusion at that

day that I was out there was so great,

that I don't think anyone really knew

what the other man was doing.

And I don't think they even knew each other.

I think they were brought in from different military bases

or whatever.

MALE VOICE: I want to make sure those MP's

know that nobody is to get--

Sir?

Is there anything you want me to do?

Can I help you?

I'm Glenn Dennis with the Ballard Funeral Home,

and we have a contract with the base.

Well, this area is off limits today.

Yeah, but there was a crash outside.

Do you want me to go back and get ready or anything?

Son.

This is an off-limits area today.

You're not allowed in here. Sergeant!

Escort this man back to the funeral home.

GLENN DENNIS: Two MP's came up and said,

sir, we have to escort you back to your mortuary.

Hold it right there!

Bring that man back here.

Now, you get this straight.

When you get back to town, you didn't hear anything,

and you didn't see anything, because nothing happened here.

Do you understand me?

That's not true.

I just saw a crash outside.

Nothing happened.

You can't tell me what to do.

I'm a civilian.

Oh, really.

GLENN DENNIS: And that's when he said,

look, mister, somebody will be picking

your bones out of the sand if you

go starting a lot of rumors.

You got me?

Get him out of here.

GLENN DENNIS: There was a door opened into one

of the supply room, and a nurse that I knew personally

was coming out.

You better get out of here.

You're gonna get in a lot of trouble.

MALE VOICE: Get him out of here!

GLENN DENNIS: Something very drastically

was wrong at the base.

MALE VOICE: Hold that door!

[coughing]

GLENN DENNIS: Naturally, I was curious, and mad,

and couldn't believe what was happening.

So the first person I thought of was to contact a nurse

to see what she might know, and could she bring me up

to date on what was going on?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): As Glenn Dennis was being escorted

from the Roswell infirmary by two MP's, a group

of doctors stumbled out of a storeroom

overcome by noxious fumes.

With them was a nurse who Glenn recognized.

You're gonna get in a lot of trouble.

MALE VOICE: Get him out of here!

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Hoping to find an explanation

for the strange events at the base,

Glenn Dennis asked the nurse if she would meet with him.

You have to promise me that you will not mention my name.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The next day,

the nurse agreed, on the condition that Glenn

never reveal her identity.

Yesterday, I went into the supply room

to pick up some bandages, and there

were two officers there who ordered

me to take notes during this--

GLENN DENNIS: What she said that she saw that they

were doing a partial autopsy.

And there were these two old hospital gurneys with these two

little crash bags on top.

GLENN DENNIS: There was a crash bag that was open,

and there was two very mutilated, very small bodies.

They weren't children.

I've never seen anything like that.

And then one of the officers had these long forceps.

GLENN DENNIS: I turned a hand over that had been severed,

and they were explaining that it was a very fragile hand--

only four fingers.

Let me draw it for you.

Um-- like an arm, with um, four fingers,

with little suction cups.

GLENN DENNIS: The head was very large.

The eyes were set back.

They didn't have the ear lobes or anything.

There was like two ear canals.

There was only two orifices were the nose.

The mouth, she explained, and what she said she wrote down,

was only like an inch slit.

They described there was no teeth,

that it was just like a piece of cartilage, maybe.

Then they opened the next bag, and there was a whole creature

in there that wasn't mutilated.

It was just horrible!

I'd never seen anything like that in my life!

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): In all, the nurse claimed

to have seen three bodies.

She was adamant that none of them was Earthly in origin.

After Glenn left the nurse, he returned to his office.

When he casually unfolded the newspaper on his desk,

it was the infamous edition of the "Roswell Daily Record."

Glenn never saw the nurse again.

A few weeks later, rumors circulated

that she had died in a plane crash

after being transferred out of the country.

To this day, Glenn Dennis remains

convinced that the details of her story are true.

There had to be some type of a body present.

There had to be something there.

I don't think the nurse lied about it,

because I don't think she knew how to lie in the first place.

And I just think something happened very unusual.

And I doubt very seriously if the world

will ever know what happened.

I'm absolutely convinced that the Roswell events crystallized

government secrecy about UFOs.

[music playing] I think Roswell became

important to the military because, possibly

for the first time, they actually

could get their hands on the remains of a flying saucer.

They had the debris.

They had bodies.

They had possibly the remains of a propulsion unit.

This was an unprecedented opportunity.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): 600 miles west of Roswell,

somewhere in the midst of the vast Nevada desert,

is top secret military installation.

It has been called The Ranch, The Funny

Farm, Dreamland, Groom Lake, and, most commonly, Area 51.

It doesn't appear on any map, and although it can be seen

with the naked eye from an adjoining ridge,

the Air Force insists that Area 51 does not exist.

It's been there since the 1960s,

and it's a site where extremely advanced

aviation technology is tested, usually

under cover of darkness.

Some of these objects actually look like what

people have reported as UFOs.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): This amateur video

was shot near Area 51 using a special digital zoom lens.

Skeptics say the strange lights seen here and in other videos

are experimental military aircraft.

But others remain convinced that they are, in reality, the test

flights of alien spacecraft.

The only thing I was told is that I

was going to be working on an advanced propulsion system.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Bob Lazar

says he worked for six months at a secret installation near Area

51.

Something different than a jet or a rocket.

Something different than a propeller, which I thought

was fantastic.

That was exactly what I was interested in.

I had no idea that this was of extraterrestrial origin.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): As astonishing as it may seem,

Bob Lazar claims that the United States

Government is in possession of alien spacecraft.

One of them, nicknamed the sport model,

measures 52.8 feet in diameter.

Lazar claims he witnessed a test flight in March of 1989.

The flight of the disk was short.

The bottom of the disk itself glowed a very faint blue.

As it rose to about 20 or 30 feet,

the sound dissipated, and then it was completely silent,

and hung silently in the air, which

was which was quite a sight for something that size.

It moved very slowly over to the left,

very slowly over to the right, and then it sat back down.

It was very uneventful-- well, as uneventful

as a flying saucer test could be.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): While some charge that Bob Lazar is

a fraud and lacks scientific credentials,

others maintain that his story is essentially true.

In the five years I've been working on this,

I've accumulated approximately two dozen other witnesses who

would corroborate this story-- people who worked at Groom Lake

and Area 51 in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s,

all of whom have different bits and pieces

that would tend to corroborate.

People who have seen the flying disks.

People who have worked at the base and watched the tests.

People that have been told by the superior officers

that these things came from somewhere else.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): When "Unsolved Mysteries" asked

the Air Force about Area 51, they refused

to acknowledge its existence.

Bob Lazar believes that the shroud of official secrecy

is hiding much more than alien spacecraft.

I did have the opportunity to view autopsy photos.

And when they were taken, I couldn't even guess.

They were black and white.

The being was dead.

It was only an upper chest photograph of the being.

Its chest was cut in a T fashion with the skin pulled back.

And what was removed was one large organ.

I think the situation has become more complex

as the years have passed, since there seems

to be the possibility that we're dealing not just with one

species of extraterrestrial, but possibly several, who

may have several motives.

Any discussion of the possible motives

of extraterrestrials who may be visiting the Earth

is purely speculative.

We have no way of knowing.

But if UFO reports are taken literally,

they certainly do suggest that we

are dealing with a technological civilization--

in other words, a civilization with an

advanced scientific knowledge.

You don't get advanced scientific knowledge

without a great degree of curiosity.

I would expect that an extraterrestrial civilization

would visit the Earth for exactly

the same reason we visit the remote outposts

of our own planet--

to learn things.

[saucer whirring]

ROBERT STACK: The implications are almost

impossible to comprehend.

Skeptics maintain that the very concept of alien contact

is absurd.

But others suggest that the evidence

can no longer be ignored.

In recent years, hundreds of credible ordinary people

have come forward with alarming reports

of being taken aboard alien spacecraft against their will.

In a moment, the remarkable story

of four men who believe they shared a close encounter

of the fourth kind--

alien abduction.

[music playing]

JACK WEINER: I was starting to have

nightmares, really terrible nightmares

that I could not explain.

I found myself in a very brightly-lit room.

I had no idea where I was or why I was there.

To my left, I could see my brother Jim, Chuck Rak,

and Charlie Foltz sitting on some type of bench,

and they were all naked.

I was wondering why they weren't helping me, because I

felt like I was in danger.

And while I'm trying to figure this out,

I notice this dark shadowy type figure

emerging from this bright light in front of me.

(GASPING)

I would wake up, sweating and breathing heavily, and just

in a state of terror and shock.

Are you OK, Jack?

Ooh.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): For years,

Jack Weiner told no one about the nightmares

except his wife, Mary.

Then in late 1988, Jack's twin brother

Jim confessed that he was being haunted

by the same disturbing nightmares.

They started happening more and more often.

And they seemed to be becoming more

and more real in terms of what I was

remembering about these things.

There were always certain elements of the dream

that were the same--

some type of creature, and being helpless, being violated

was a feeling I often woke up with.

It was a real surprise to find out that Jim was having

identical dreams, because I didn't

want to talk about my dreams, except to Mary.

And then when I found out he was having them, it was like, wow.

Something is going on here.

But we just couldn't put our fingers on it.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): In every dream,

the twins were with Charlie Foltz

and Chuck Rak, two friends he had met in art school.

The twins began to wonder if their nightmares could be

connected to a bizarre experience the four

men had shared 12 years earlier during a camping trip in Maine.

In August of 1976, Charlie, Chuck, Jack, and Jim

spent two weeks along the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.

The Allagash covers thousands of acres in the northernmost part

of the state.

One of the area's most prominent features

is a mountain named by the Abenaki Indians.

They called it Katahdin.

To them, it is a sacred place.

On the second night out, Jim noticed

a bright object in the sky.

It's right over there.

JIM WEINER: It was just floating above the treetops.

It didn't seem to be moving in any direction.

And I looked at it through the binoculars for maybe 15

seconds, 30 seconds.

And it suddenly just winked out from the outside edges inward.

Go on.

Where is it?

I mean, it literally just went whoosh-clap-- like that.

And it was gone.

It's very strange, wasn't it?

JIM WEINER: I thought maybe it was a weather balloon,

or perhaps a helicopter that had just turned a light off

that was flying over.

But there was something about this thing

that left me with an odd feeling that wasn't quite right.

But I really didn't dwell on it.

Well, let's get that tent up.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The men

continued through the Allagash Wilderness.

On the fourth day, they decided to try some night fishing.

They built a bonfire to mark their campsite.

You guys gonna want to give me a hand with this fire?

CHARLIE FOLTZ: And that far north

at night, it is pitch black.

And we had a nice, good-sized fire going.

Not too large that it would get out of control

and burn the forest, but it was borderline.

It was a fairly good fire that would have lasted

four hours, bare minimum.

And then we struck out onto the lake

just as it was getting dark.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Chuck Rak

was first to realize they weren't alone.

CHUCK RAK: I had a feeling that there was someone

staring at me from behind me.

I turned over my right shoulder, like that,

and I saw this large round globe of light

that looked exactly like what we had seen two nights previously.

Hey guys, look at that!

CHARLIE FOLTZ: It was a type of a thing

where we didn't have to ask what or where.

We just seemed to know where he was looking.

And we all turned and looked.

It had this roiling effect to it, like a miniature sun.

Very, very bright.

It lit the tree tops up like daylight.

And it was absolutely silent.

CHUCK RAK: After looking at it for what

seemed like several moments, we decided to signal this thing.

And that's when Charlie picked up the flashlight,

and squeezed off a message, SOS.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The response was instant.

[whoosh]

The sensation I had was one of absolute elation.

I couldn't believe that we were really

going to find out what it was.

We attempted to communicate with it,

and it actually was responding.

Well, when the lights started coming toward us,

my curiosity was satisfied.

And I just dropped the flashlight.

The only thought in my mind was to get to shore.

I never looked back.

Come on, fellas, keep going!

Keep going!

JACK WEINER: I remember looking over my shoulder,

trying to keep an eye on this object

as it was coming up behind us.

And it was getting very close.

I mean, it was almost on top of us at this point.

And I remember thinking that we're

not going to outrun this thing.

There's just no way.

It was coming too quickly.

Let's go! Let's get to shore!

Come on!

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The next memory any of the men

had was being back on shore, staring up at the bright object

as though posing for a portrait.

But I remember thinking, my god, I could pick up a stone

and bounce it off the side of this thing.

That's how close it was.

I picked up the flashlight again,

and flashed at it a second time.

This time there was no response from it.

It seemed to just drift away from us.

As it was moving up, it seemed to implode somehow.

And it shrank.

And then all of a sudden, at a higher level,

it reappeared again.

[whoosh]

And then, all of a sudden, it just streaked away very,

very fast.

And within a few seconds, it was like a star.

Just another light in the sky.

I remember stepping out of the canoe,

and going up to the campsite.

And I remember there was no panic.

People seemed to be very relaxed.

Hey, guys?

What do you want to do about this fire?

It's out.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): All the men

agree that they were out on the lake for less than 20 minutes.

The huge bonfire should have blazed bright for hours.

Yet inexplicably, only coals remained.

Just go to bed.

We don't want to rebuild the fire.

JACK WEINER: The unusual thing is that we didn't stay up

for hours and discuss this thing, which

is what you would think four young guys

on a camping trip would do.

And we just seemed very fatigued.

And we just wanted to go to bed.

The next morning we got up, and got our camp together, and

paddled to the next campsite.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The men spent another 10 days

in the Allagash Wilderness, but never

again saw the bizarre light.

As the years went by, they told friends

and family about the UFO, but no one really believed them.

The men could hardly believe it themselves.

Then the nightmares began for Jim and Jack Weiner.

Finally, Jim contacted UFO researcher Ray Fowler for help.

Come on in, I want you to meet someone.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Fowler suggested the Allagash Four

undergo hypnosis with a trained hypnotherapist,

to recover details of the sighting.

Fowler has since written a book about the case called

"The Allagash Abductions."

From the beginning, Ray Fowler suspected

the men had been abducted by a UFO, but did not tell them.

One by one, they underwent hypnosis.

They all promised not to tell each other

about what they recalled until all the sessions were complete.

Each of the men--

Jim Weiner, Chuck Rak, Jack Weiner, and Charlie Foltz--

described what appears to be a classic abduction experience.

Afterward, each of them drew illustrations of

their incredible recollections.

These are their actual paintings and drawings.

All four said they were taken aboard the craft.

The aliens forced them to strip naked,

and seemed to be conducting medical examinations.

The aliens apparently took samples of the men's

skin and body fluids--

their blood, urine, and semen.

What follows are excerpts from the original hypnosis

sessions recorded in 1988.

JIM WEINER: (BREATHING HEAVILY) They don't know what to do.

I think they think I'm going to come after them.

I feel like I want to.

I feel like I want to- the first one that comes near me,

I'm going to throttle them.

That's what I want to do is throttle them.

I don't like these things.

I don't care where they come from.

They shouldn't be doing this to people.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Jim's brother Jack

found the faces terrifying.

JACK WEINER: They were right there.

Their face is right in my face.

I don't know why.

I don't want to know.

I don't want to know what they want.

Ooh.

They're saying things.

They're explaining things with their eyes in my head.

They're saying, don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid.

We won't harm you.

They say, do what we say.

Just do what we say.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Charlie Foltz

was the next to be examined.

CHARLIE FOLTZ: I'm afraid that it's like a doctor's office.

It's cold like a doctor's office.

It's cold.

They put the panel over your chest.

And then they scrape your arms, and your chest,

your legs and thighs.

(EXHALES SHARPLY) We shouldn't be here.

Let's keep thinking we'll be back in the canoe.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Chuck Rak

had a good view of what the aliens were doing to Charlie.

CHUCK RAK: See some sort of device on him.

They've got a-- this looks like a silvery,

and it looks like it's got curves on it.

It's almost like it sucks something.

He's got his head tipped way back.

It's almost like he's in pain.

We're just there.

We can't help him.

We're just-- all we can do is watch him.

I don't know if you're aware of it,

and you probably aren't, because you haven't

been talking to each other.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): After the hypnosis sessions,

Ray Fowler brought the Allagash Four together.

For the first time, they discover that each of them

had recalled the same horrifying events.

We were amazed that Jack would say something about how he

remembered the light, or Chuck Rak

would say something that he remembered,

or Charlie would say.

And we'd sit there--

my god.

That's exactly what we remembered.

One person would pause to take a breath,

and the next person would pick up.

And you knew what they were going to say.

You knew what they were going to say.

And when they paused for breath, you could continue.

It was just amazing to come to the realizations

that all these things were really true,

and that they really had meeting.

And it was also kind of nice to know that I wasn't going

insane having these nightmares.

That they were, in fact, real memories of an event that did

happen.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Ultimately,

each of the Allagash Four took polygraph tests

and passed easily.

It is clear that they believe their memories are real.

To skeptics, however, stories of alien abduction

do not stand up to scrutiny.

Some suggest that images from the popular culture--

like these scenes from the 1953 Science Fiction

movie "Invaders From Mars"--

may be the inspiration for memories of alien abduction.

DR. WILLIAM COHEN: Some of the stories

that you hear about abductions are right out of the films--

I mean, almost verbatim.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Dr. William Cohen

is a clinical psychologist who specializes

in the study of repressed memory and hypnotic therapy.

--is media driven.

It's cyclical.

You get some good cases on TV.

People hear about them.

They think they may have had the same thing happen.

It sort of feeds upon itself.

And usually these are people who

have no interest in abductions, have not read about it,

are even unfamiliar with the nature of the beings,

and are shocked and astounded when they hear someone else has

had these experiences as well, or that there is

material in the media about it.

My experience of what's going on is the investigators

have a very clear-cut agenda about what they're looking for.

So if you get somebody that's doing UFO abduction research,

this is a person that generally has already

decided that UFO abductions are real, that thousands of people

are having them.

They have a symptom list.

And if you come in the door with those symptoms,

then you must have been abducted.

It really doesn't work like that.

The person comes because they've heard that I'm open to listen

to something which other therapists

or other mental health professionals have

not been able to listen to.

They're highly doubtful.

They don't want this to be true.

This is not a club anyone wants to belong to.

CHARLIE FOLTZ: If you were to tell somebody 40 years ago

that they would be able to see on an invention called

a television set, which didn't exist,

a meteorite crashing into a planet

that they can now watch at home, that's a reality check, folks.

And yet, 40 years ago that's science fiction.

This happened.

If you'd believe it, that's all right.

If you don't believe it, I don't care.

I don't care.

Because it did.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): When the Greek philosopher Aristotle

first suggested that the world was round,

skeptics dismissed it as fantasy.

When Copernicus theorized that the sun-- not the Earth--

was the center of our solar system,

many considered it heresy.

When Jules Verne wrote that a human being would

someday travel to the moon, science

rejected it as pure fiction.

Perhaps the day will come when our beliefs about the existence

of UFOs and alien encounters will undergo

a similar transformation.

We have these two camps--

the scientists, searching for life among the stars,

and the UFO believers, thinking that they've already landed.

I think in both cases, we share the dream.

The dream is that we're not alone in the universe.

That we have, if not brothers and sisters,

perhaps cousins out among the stars.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Publicly,

the scientific community remain skeptical.

Privately, however, they are working to achieve contact.

NASA anticipates that within the next decade,

the Voyager 1 space probe will become the first human artifact

ever to leave our solar system.

On board is a message in a bottle that has been dropped

into the vastness of space.

As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organization

of 147 member states who represent almost all

of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth,

I sent greetings on behalf of the people of our planet.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: It is either the greatest

hoax in human history--

an unprecedented mass hallucination--

or perhaps the single most important event

since the dawn of civilization.

For the hardened skeptic, proof will remain elusive

until an alien spacecraft is placed on public display,

or an extraterrestrial appears on the evening news.

Until that moment, one of the greatest mysteries of our age

will remain unsolved.

[music playing]