Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Mysterious orbs of light...

BILL BIRNES: Reagan says, "I just saw a UFO."

He's not just being crazy.

He knows exactly what it is.

NARRATOR: ...strange visions...

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: George Washington sees this glowing,

beautiful creature who describes

the future history of the United States.

NARRATOR: ...and glowing humanoid figures,

all reported by presidents of the United States.

NICK POPE: We have an extraordinary series of stories.

President after president after president

being associated with a sighting.

NARRATOR: For decades,

the White House has denied

having any knowledge of alien craft visiting Earth.

JOHN PODESTA: Even discussing UFOs tends

to be viewed as a career‐ender.

NARRATOR: But is it possible that extraterrestrials

have been monitoring

and even influencing America's presidents?

LAURA EISENHOWER: It's really hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact

that there was all this E. T. contact going on.

DENNIS KUCINICH: There's a line, "You shall know the truth,

and the truth shall set you free."

NARRATOR: There is a doorway

in the universe.

Beyond it is the promise of truth.

It demands we question everything

we have ever been taught.

The evidence is all around us.

The future is right before our eyes.

We are not alone.

We have never been alone.

In a wide‐ranging interview,

Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson asks

President Donald Trump his thoughts about UFOs.

You gave an interview the other day

in which you said you've been briefed

on unidentified flying objects.

Are they‐‐ are they real?

Personally, I tend to doubt it.

We have had people saying that they've seen things.

I don't assume it's correct, but,

you know, I have an open mind, Tucker.

NARRATOR: To UFO experts,

the president's response raises a key question.

If U. S. intelligence officials

have secret knowledge of alien visitations,

are American presidents informed or kept in the dark?

In August 2019,

former British Ministry of Defense UFO investigator

Nick Pope posed this question to Tucker Carlson.

Do you think he knows more than he's letting on?

Or do you think, as some people say,

even the president doesn't know?

My impression was

that the president does know more than he said.

Once in office,

every president has become mum on the subject.

And what it tells you is

they likely know something

that they've decided to keep from the public.

Look, I don't know what they know.

And so perhaps they have a good reason

to lie to the public about it,

but... I doubt it.

NARRATOR: Months later,

as the 2020 election year begins to heat up,

several of Donald Trump's presidential challengers

are asked by New Hampshire‐based reporter Daymond Steer

of The Conway Daily Sun

about where he or she stands on the issue of UFOs

and government disclosure.

It's very unlikely that we're alone in the universe.

I think one of the things a president could do

is to look into what's there,

uh, in terms of what's the‐‐ what does the science say,

what does our military say.

Of course, we have to explore that

and look at that, if it is true.

NARRATOR: Many people would be surprised to discover

that 36% of all U. S. presidents

have had encounters with unidentified

or unexplained UFO phenomena.

This, according to a recent poll,

is a full 20 points higher

than the number of similar encounters experienced

by average Americans.

We have an extraordinary series of stories.

President after president after president

either seeing a UFO,

commenting on a UFO,

being associated with a sighting.

MARTIN MORGAN: It's not something that just flashed

in American culture briefly.

We can date it back to 1800.

We can date it earlier than that.

This is not a new phenomenon.

Presidents throughout history have been encountering this

during almost the entire history of the American nation.

NARRATOR: Could aliens be trying to steer the destiny of America

by influencing its presidents?

Perhaps the answer can be found

by examining the very first presidential encounter

on record.

Amid freezing conditions,

epidemic disease

and shortages of food, clothing and supplies,

General George Washington's Continental Army

faces possible destruction.

MORGAN: In late 1777,

George Washington was kind of at his lowest point.

The Continental Army had been driven out

of the national capital of Philadelphia

to a winter encampment at Valley Forge.

There was an optimism that they would eventually be able

to push the British out of Philadelphia.

But that optimism was dim and bleak

in December 1777 at Valley Forge.

NARRATOR: Years later,

an aide to General Washington revealed what happened next.

BIRNES: Washington went out into the woods at Valley Forge to pray.

And he saw this image

of this spirit garbed in white

that assured him, "You will win this war."

And the spirit laid out for Washington

the history of what would be the United States of America.

After this meeting,

Washington was‐was invigorated.

He was inspired.

And he realized this is divine fate,

for the United States to exist.

But he first had to defeat the British, which he did.

NARRATOR: Could George Washington really have had

an otherworldly visitation at Valley Forge?

If so, he isn't the only Founding Father

associated with an alien encounter.

In 1801,

Thomas Jefferson filed

one of the country's first official UFO reports

after astronomer William Dunbar told him

about an unexplained aerial sighting

at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

In his report,

Jefferson wrote of a fast‐moving, luminous object

about 70 to 80 feet long

that flew by at about 200 yards above the ground.

After it disappeared over the horizon,

the witnesses heard a tremendous impact in a nearby forest.

Upon investigating,

they found a crash site

where everything had been burned and scorched.

Thomas Jefferson, when he was vice president,

wrote up an official report

of a UFO sighting that had happened in Baton Rouge.

He wrote it up for the American Philosophical Association.

So that, arguably, is the first case

where someone who would go on to be president

made an official UFO report.

NARRATOR: The American Philosophical Society

was founded by Benjamin Franklin,

who, like Thomas Jefferson,

openly expressed his belief

in the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

MORGAN: The Founding Fathers' worldview

accommodated the idea that there would be people in other worlds.

And that was principled upon this idea

that you cannot limit God's creativity

just to the world that you observe.

They literally had a vision

of not just the world where we live

but the world beyond it.

And that‐that world beyond theirs,

um, was populated by extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: Could the Founding Fathers have been aware

of an otherworldly presence that was helping to ensure

the success of the American experiment?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest that so, too, was the man who took office

at another crucial moment in the nation's history,

Abraham Lincoln.

On April 14, 1865,

just hours before he would be assassinated,

President Lincoln made a shocking admission

to General Ulysses S. Grant.

WILLIAM HENRY: Lincoln met with Grant,

who was awaiting news from General Sherman

about a battle in North Carolina,

and Lincoln assured General Grant

that news would come and it would be positive.

And Lincoln told him that, on the eve of every great battle‐‐

Antietam, Gettysburg, Bull Run‐‐

he had the same dream.

He was in some kind of indescribable vessel

that he was sailing at a very rapid pace

and that this, in fact, led him to understand

that this would be a positive outcome for the Union forces

and lead to the doom of the Confederacy.

POPE: It's almost as if,

at these pivotal turning points in human history,

the president is shown how the United States

will ultimately triumph.

It's a sort of galactic manifest destiny.

NARRATOR: For many,

UFO sightings and strange encounters reported

by U. S. presidents may seem

like little more than frivolous trivia.

But could such events indicate

that there is an unseen hand

guiding the course of the nation?

And if so, where is it leading us?

At the estate of Theodore Roosevelt,

the 26th president of the United States,

a giant orb of light is witnessed by dozens of neighbors

hovering in the sky for nearly two hours.

In 1907,

there was a spectacular UFO sighting

over Sagamore Hill,

one of the residences of President Teddy Roosevelt.

Now, Roosevelt, at the time,

was working on a critically important speech,

and in this speech, he would set out a strategic vision

for the United States to develop a truly modern navy

that would propel the United States

into the position of a global superpower.

MORGAN: As a part of his vision,

Roosevelt wanted to develop Pearl Harbor.

It could be said that were it not for Roosevelt

realizing that vision for the future of the nation,

that American intervention in the First World War

might not have been as significant as it was.

BIRNES: So...

were the UFOs, were the strange lights over Sagamore Hill,

at the same time Theodore Roosevelt was coming up

with this vision of a world consortium of nations,

are they somehow linked?

NARRATOR: Researchers find this incident compelling,

not only because it is connected with a U. S. president

at a critical moment in history, but also because reports

of UFO sightings were incredibly rare

at the beginning of the 20th century.

After World War II, however, this was no longer the case.

And it happened under the watch

of the country's 33rd president,

Harry S. Truman.

LARRY HOLCOMBE: The Truman Administration

was really the golden years

of flying saucers, as they were known then.

You had Kenneth Arnold's sighting.

You had Roswell.

But then the great incident was

the great Washington merry‐go‐round,

where, in two weekends in July 1952,

Washington D. C. was overrun

with strange objects that were tracked

by the radar at National Airport

and radar at Andrews Air Force Base.

This is David Brinkley in the radar room

at Washington National Airport.

On these radar screens last Saturday,

they saw something strange and unusual

and, at the moment, unexplainable.

It was not an airplane. It was not a cloud.

Nobody knows what it was.

HOLCOMBE: The second weekend, jets were scrambled...

...and one pilot called and said,

"What should I do?" Meaning, should I fire on them?

And the strange objects

all of a sudden backed off and disappeared.

NARRATOR: When President Truman was questioned

about UFO incidents, like the Washington D. C. sightings,

he remarkably did not deny the possibility of flying saucers.

Oh, yes, we discussed it at every conference

that we had with the military, and they never had been...

never were able to make me a concrete report on...

There's always things like that going on, uh, flying saucers.

NARRATOR: Many researchers point out

that it was at this point in history‐‐

the dawn of the Cold War‐‐ that Truman established a policy

of government secrecy that has come to be known

as the National Security State.

MORGAN: President Truman really sends us down the path

to the modern security state,

with the National Security Act of 1947.

It created the National Security Council,

and it created the Central Intelligence Agency.

Truman is responding to what is now the oncoming Cold War,

this new conflict that will dominate our global politics

for the next five decades.

NARRATOR: Whatever Truman's motivation

for drastically increasing government secrecy,

the topic of UFOs was caught in the web.

UFOs were something that people were experiencing,

and right at the moment when it appears that that activity

is kind of reaching a head, suddenly we have the creation

of the modern National Security State.

Truman clamps down on the open discussion of such things.

STEVEN BASSETT: That's a critical moment in history.

Truman made a decision that was fateful,

and had he gone a different way,

it would have changed the entire 20th century.

When we look at the relationship between presidents and UFOs,

we can split this into two categories.

The historic sightings and encounters.

Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt.

We can say that there's almost a benign element here.

It's almost as if the United States

is being guided and helped.

But then the development of atomic weapons seemed to be

the ultimate game changer.

NARRATOR: Harry Truman's successor,

President Dwight D. Eisenhower,

is on a golfing vacation

when he fails to show up for a scheduled public dinner.

The press corps is given no explanation

until the president finally reappears the next day,

at which time his staff announces

that he had been at an emergency dentist appointment

for a chipped tooth.

But curiously, Eisenhower's medical and dental records

contain no reference to this dentist visit.

Eisenhower goes to Palm Springs,

and he actually disappears.

There's no doubt about this from the presidential records.

BIRNES: It's really an astounding story.

He's secreted out to this Air Force base

where he meets with aliens.

And he and the aliens strike up a treaty.

And here's the treaty:

"You can stay in our skies, surveil us.

"You can study us.

"In return,

"we want all of your technology,

and we agree not to disclose your existence."

Why?

Because this is after the 1952 invasion

of the UFOs over Washington,

so there's an urgency to Eisenhower

striking a treaty with them.

NARRATOR: Numerous whistleblowers later came forward

claiming that Eisenhower met with extraterrestrial beings

not just once but three times.

And many who have researched these events,

including Eisenhower's own great‐granddaughter,

are convinced a treaty was actually signed.

I just feel like I was just born into this family

to be the one willing to tackle it, willing to give it a voice,

willing to... kind of disseminate it.

And I know it's really hard for people to wrap their heads

around the fact that, during Eisenhower's administration,

there was all this contact going on.

And it's gotten to the point

where there's so much information about it

that it‐it really can't be denied.

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that, after World War II

and humankind's development of atomic weapons,

alien visitors communicated directly

with officials within the United States government,

perhaps even Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower?

Ufologists say yes

and suggest further evidence of communication

between extraterrestrials and the White House

can be found by examining a strange incident

that involved President Richard Nixon

and an alien body.

37th President of the United States Richard Nixon

is entering his fifth year in office,

mired in a seemingly never‐ending

military conflict in Southeast Asia.

MORGAN: Richard Nixon was under a great deal of pressure by 1973.

He was heralded into office with the recognition

that he would be our savior from Vietnam.

He gets into office basically promising the American people,

"I'm gonna get you out of that."

But I do promise action,

a new policy for peace abroad,

a new policy for peace and progress

and justice at home.

MORGAN: And then what does he do when he gets into office?

He expands the military mission in Vietnam.

NARRATOR: To escape the daily rigors of his tumultuous presidency,

Nixon schedules a golf outing with his friend Jackie Gleason,

the famous actor and comedian who starred

in the 1950s hit TV series The Honeymooners.

Nixon and‐and Jackie Gleason‐‐

they were very good friends

and frequently played golf together,

in Florida, usually.

And Nixon knew that Jackie Gleason was known to be

a very, uh, big UFO buff.

He had probably one of the largest libraries

on the subject in the world at that time.

(whirring, shutter clicks)

EISENHOWER: His house was designed to look like a‐a UFO

and same with his guesthouse.

He was always asking, you know, Nixon questions,

and Nixon, you know, disclosed a lot to him.

NARRATOR: According to an article written by Beverly Gleason,

who was Jackie Gleason's wife at the time,

the actor's golf outing with the president

led to an extraordinary experience.

Hours after Gleason returned home,

a limousine arrived unannounced.

Who's in the car?

It's President Richard Nixon.

And, by the way, there's no Secret Service.

He tells Gleason to climb in.

"This is your dream."

They drive to an Air Force base in Florida.

And what does Nixon show Gleason?

He shows him alien artifacts,

pieces of a UFO

and a dead alien in cold storage.

When he got home, he told his wife all about it‐‐

what he had seen

and how Nixon had taken him there.

And he told other people.

I actually got the interview with Beverly Gleason.

We actually interviewed her.

She stayed to the story.

Jackie was very shaken up when he came home after this thing.

And he was very angry when she made public

the fact that he had seen these bodies.

BASSETT: This is extremely important,

because it indicates that, almost certainly,

Nixon was fully briefed on the E. T. issue.

And if the president wants to go see an E. T. body,

by God, he's gonna get to see one.

And if he's got Jackie Gleason with him, fine.

NARRATOR: When his ex‐wife's story was published in 1983,

67‐year‐old Gleason remained silent about it.

So, too, did Nixon.

Is it possible that the incredible story is true?

UFO historians suggest

that Nixon's actions led to a clampdown

on the information shared with future presidents

and what they were allowed to say publicly.

Attendees of a local Lions Club meeting

spot a mysterious object hovering in the night sky.

Among the witnesses

is future President of the United States Jimmy Carter.

HOLCOMBE: At the time,

Jimmy Carter was standing outside with a group of men,

and they saw a great orb,

uh, in the sky.

Something very unusual that changed color

from orange to a bluish color and back again

and‐and grew in size.

NARRATOR: Nearly four years later,

Carter remained so intrigued by what he witnessed

that he filed an official report

with the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena,

or NICAP.

CAMERON: Jimmy Carter,

when he was running for president,

he had made the promise, "If I become president,

I will release all the files."

POPE: What happened?

He was elected president

and then he walked it back and he said,

"Well, maybe there are some UFO sightings that have

"national security implications,

and perhaps not everything can be released."

BASSETT: The question is,

what role have presidents played

in maintaining this truth embargo,

authorizing it and so forth?

Well, that's somewhat dependent

upon whether they were briefed or not.

Truman was briefed on everything that happened at Roswell

and anything else E. T.‐related.

Eisenhower absolutely would have been briefed in full.

Kennedy, maybe not.

Nixon, we think, was briefed.

Carter, stonewalled and so forth.

One of the stories that's been floating

around the UFO community is that the Democrats don't get

a proper briefing because they don't have the connection

to the military the way the Republicans‐‐

The Republicans know more.

So, the story has always been

that Jimmy Carter didn't get told anything.

Bill Clinton didn't get told anything.

But Ford, Reagan and Bush all knew what was going on.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that there is a party bias

when it comes to what an incoming president is told

about the UFO phenomenon?

Or could Jimmy Carter have been denied access

to government UFO files

because he had promised to release them to the public

during his campaign?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining what happened to a presidential candidate

after he admitted to his own UFO sighting.

TIM RUSSERT: Did you see a UFO?

During the Democratic primary debate at Drexel University,

moderator Tim Russert turns

and addresses presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

RUSSERT: Congressman Kucinich, a serious question.

Shirley MacLaine writes in her new book

that you sighted a UFO

‐over her home in Washington State, ‐(murmuring)

that you found the encounter extremely moving,

that it was a triangular craft.

Now, did you see a UFO?

Uh, I‐I did.

‐And, uh, the rest of the account... ‐(murmuring)

Hold‐‐ I‐I didn't‐‐ I‐‐

It was an unidentified flying object, okay?

It's like‐‐ It's unidentified.

I saw something. Now...

And, also, you have to keep in mind that more‐‐

that Jimmy Carter saw a UFO

and also that more people in this country,

uh, uh, have seen UFOs

than I think approve of George Bush's presidency.

NARRATOR: The debate moment made national headlines.

Many political commentators speculated

that this admission damaged his campaign.

PODESTA: I think, uh, for most people, it's been

the‐the notion that you are even discussing UFOs

tends to be viewed as a career‐ender.

You know, people think you're a little bit wacky if you're‐‐

if you're, uh, taking the phenomena seriously.

NARRATOR: But just what did Dennis Kucinich experience?

Former British Ministry of Defense

UFO investigator Nick Pope

has arranged to meet with Dennis Kucinich at the location

of his 1982 UFO encounter,

the former home

of Academy Award‐winning actress Shirley MacLaine.

The home, which has since been sold,

overlooks Mount Rainier,

the site of the infamous Kenneth Arnold flying saucer incident

that ignited the UFO craze in 1947.

‐Hey there! Welcome! ‐Hi. ‐Hi.

NARRATOR: The current owner agreed to allow Nick and Dennis

to take a look around.

‐Come on in. ‐Go ahead. ‐Thank you.

Wow.

‐Yeah, really. (chuckles) ‐(chuckles)

What a fabulous view.

Oh, look, there's nothing like this.

This is, of course, the location where you had your UFO sighting.

Can you tell me about it?

Well, uh, Nick, I was seated

at a dinner table with myself and two friends.

And I noticed a light in the distance.

Came from the hill directly over the house.

‐Come on. Let me show you, okay? ‐Okay.

‐Wow. Fabulous. ‐So, I was standing out here.

The‐the scope was here.

I‐I brought it up here...

...so that I could get a look at the light.

And when I looked at it, I saw it wasn't just, uh, one light.

It was a series of lights, like a grid,

one stacked on another.

I went back and I looked

and then I saw something that was extraordinary.

I‐I said the lights were separating.

They were definitely moving in this direction.

So, at that point, I came right to the edge here,

and I looked out into the hills to watch

what proved to be three crafts moving in this direction.

Just to be clear,

first seen over there

‐to directly over the house. ‐Right.

Right in the hills in the distance

and then in a straight line.

That straight line would just go right overhead here

and then above the house and then‐‐

‐and then quickly accelerating out of sight. ‐Right. And then whoosh.

Just like that, gone.

‐And that was the last you saw of them? ‐Oh, yeah.

NARRATOR: The next day,

Kucinich described the experience to Shirley MacLaine.

He would say nothing more about it for 26 years.

And then, when running for the Democratic nomination in 2008,

his private UFO sighting would become a public event,

affecting presidential politics in a most unexpected way.

When the question was asked,

I‐I think there was mention of, you know, feeling almost a...

an emotional connection,

that it spoke to you.

I mean, not in a literal sense but feelings.

I don't know that I ever communicated that to anyone.

But I will tell you this,

that it‐it was extraordinary.

It was exciting.

How could it not be?

I mean, anybody who would see anything like that

would have to be excited.

And was I?

Uh, yeah.

NARRATOR: After the debate,

commentators like Chris Matthews questioned

whether Kucinich's admission had, in effect, disqualified him

from the presidential race.

But he was surprised by the reaction of another candidate,

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

Is that disqualifying for a presidential candidate,

‐to say you've seen UFOs? ‐(chuckles)

You know, I've never seen one.

Uh, you know, Roswell, New Mexico, is the hotbed of UFOs,

‐and I promote Roswell as a tourism issue. ‐I know.

The federal government has not come clean on all that issue,

and it should. But, no, I've never seen one.

‐It's an incredible... ‐Wait a minute! Stop the music!

‐(laughing) ‐Stop the music, Governor.

Did you say the United States government is covering up

a history of the UFO sighting in your state?

‐You said the government hasn't cleared this up yet. ‐Well, the answer there is...

‐What are they hiding, that you say about a UFO? ‐No, they haven't.

Well, they‐they don't produce documents, Chris.

They should just get it all out.

‐And there's a known history about this. ‐What...

‐What is the conspir‐‐ What is your belief that they're hiding? ‐I think if they came clean,

if they released all documents‐‐

Look, I don't believe there are UFOs,

but the government has not handled this well

over the years. That's a historical fact.

NARRATOR: Three months after Kucinich's admission,

he withdrew from the Democratic race,

but he remains committed to a policy of disclosure.

KUCINICH: Information ought to be open for people to see

so we know what our government's actually about.

Let the people know. Let the people know

what's going on with unexplained aerial phenomenon.

NARRATOR: If extraterrestrials have been monitoring

and perhaps guiding the course of the United States

since the time of George Washington,

where is it all leading?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the president

who was most vocal when it came to speculating

about an alien invasion,

Ronald Reagan.

California Governor Ronald Reagan,

along with his security detail,

boards a Cessna aircraft bound for a fundraising event

in Bakersfield.

As the aircraft reaches an altitude of 35,000 feet,

Governor Reagan is startled by a mysterious orb of light,

which appears to be flying alongside his plane.

Ronald Reagan was flying in an airplane

and had an encounter with an unidentified flying object.

He asked the pilot to follow it.

They followed it for a period of time.

Reagan is enthusiastic about this.

When he lands,

he says, "I just saw a UFO."

He's not just being crazy.

He saw the UFO.

He knows exactly what it is.

NARRATOR: The pilot that corroborated Reagan's sighting

was Air Force Colonel Bill Paynter,

who claimed that the UFO appeared to elongate

and then rapidly shoot up into the sky.

HOLCOMBE: Some years later,

the pilot was asked,

did he really think that Reagan believed in UFOs?

And the pilot said, "After what we saw

"in the sky that night,

how could anybody not believe in them?"

NARRATOR: According to historians,

it was this incident

that sparked Ronald Reagan's lifelong interest

and belief in UFOs.

But unlike other politicians

who suffered ridicule for such beliefs,

Reagan did not, and for a very simple reason.

His closest aides kept him from speaking publicly

about his UFO experience

and his belief in extraterrestrials.

HOLCOMBE: The people that worked for him really tried

to keep Reagan under control, so to speak,

because they knew that he was very interested

in this subject and wanted to talk about it publicly.

So they had to kind of keep the lid on it, if you will.

NARRATOR: But did the UFO sighting

influence Ronald Reagan's policies

after he became the 40th president of the United States?

And, if so, could this have also been due

to the fact that, once elected,

he was given even more direct knowledge

of an extraterrestrial presence here on Earth?

Ancient astronaut theorists say "yes," and for proof,

they point to a mysterious document that surfaced in 2005.

I became exposed

to a very, very important document

that March 6 to 8, 1981,

then brand‐new President Ronald Reagan

was taken by his new CIA director,

William Casey, to Camp David.

With them were analysts from the CIA, the NSA, DIA.

And this briefing boiled down to an introduction

to Ronald Reagan of extraterrestrial species

that William Casey was saying, "Sir, you need to understand

that we are dealing with others on this planet."

NARRATOR: Curiously,

throughout his presidency,

Ronald Reagan brought up the subject of what would happen

in the case of an alien invasion

most famously in 1987, when addressing

the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Perhaps we need some outside universal threat

to make us recognize this common bound.

I occasionally think,

how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish

if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.

And yet, I ask you,

is not an alien force already among us?

TSOUKALOS: Reagan was the first one

who said publicly,

"It just needs one extraterrestrial threat,

and that would bring together the entire planet."

So, you have to ask yourself the question,

"Did he know something?"

POPE: Both in discussions

with the Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev,

Reagan alluded to an alien presence.

And Gorbachev says

he was quite taken aback when Reagan said this to him

at the critically‐important point of

pivotal arms negotiations.

And‐and suddenly, Ronald Reagan starts talking

about extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: Years later, during a symposium

in New York, President Gorbachev recounted the incident.

(laughter)

(laughter)

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that Ronald Reagan knew the truth

about extraterrestrial activity on Earth,

and then kept the facts a secret

for fear of creating a global panic?

As far as many researchers are concerned,

further evidence that President Reagan had knowledge

of an alien presence can be found

by examining one of his most high‐profile

and controversial initiatives‐‐ Star Wars.

NARRATOR: On March 23, 1983,

U.S. President Ronald Reagan

launches the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Nicknamed "Star Wars," its stated purpose is

to deter a Soviet attack

by basing defensive weapons in outer space.

I have approved a research program to find, if we can,

a security shield that will destroy nuclear missiles

before they reach their target.

MORGAN: Isn't it interesting

that this man who had this encounter in 1974

is the man who then, less than a decade later,

authorizes the Strategic Defense Initiative,

also known as "Star Wars"?

If you will pardon my stealing a film line,

"The force is with us."

NARRATOR: But was defending the United States

against Soviet nuclear aggression

Ronald Reagan's only motivation?

Some believe that the real purpose

of the Star Wars campaign was to fight extraterrestrials.

It's all about arming planet Earth so that

if the extraterrestrial presence

suddenly turns hostile,

we have the military hardware to resist.

NARRATOR: While Ronald Reagan's

Star Wars program was dissolved in 1993,

some researchers believe it set the nation on a course

for taking the next crucial step

towards connecting with other intelligences.

President Donald Trump reveals the official logo

for the newest branch of the armed services‐‐ Space Force.

With my signature today,

you will witness the birth of the Space Force.

And that will be now officially the sixth branch

of the United States armed forces.

That is something really incredible.

(applause and cheering)

NARRATOR: The USSF,

an offshoot of the Air Force,

was established by the Trump administration

to oversee military operations beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

POPE: One of President Trump's

most famous initiatives relates to the Space Force.

Inevitably, the UFO community have said,

"Well, this is about the aliens."

This is almost a carbon copy

of what happened under Reagan's presidency with Star Wars.

MORGAN: Trump's announcement

that the United States is going to have a Space Force

says something important about what he knows

as the president of the United States.

There have been disclosures since he became president

that seem to suggest that his move

in‐in establishing a Space Force has merit.

Space.

There'll be a lot of things happening in space.

Because space is the world's newest war‐fighting domain.

NARRATOR: The final push to create a Space Force

came just months after three leaked military videos

of unidentified aerial phenomena became widely circulated online.

CAMERON: The Navy goes in and shows Trump three videos‐‐

the Go Fast, the Gimbal, and the Tic Tac video,

and basically give him the video.

So what is Trump gonna say? "So what is it?"

And they had to have said, "We don't know, Mr. President.

"We're working on it. We're working on it.

We don't know. We know it's for real."

NARRATOR: Could the formation of Space Force indicate

that we are nearing the point

when an American president will finally reveal

to the world that aliens are among us?

BASSETT: The escalation of the UFO

presence has stimulated the awareness of the world,

driving the process forward

towards an announcement or confirmation

by government, which I call disclosure.

One of the fundamental purposes of the modern era is

to get the world to the point where it will confirm

the presence of these extraterrestrials.

Once the world has had some time

to adjust to that new, profound information,

open contact then becomes not particularly dramatic.

HOWE: In 2019 onward,

I think we're not in disclosure.

I think we're in confirmation.

Donald Trump, as president of the United States,

is admitting that we've got some of our best

military pilots who are reporting UFOs,

and he in the White House and the Department of Defense‐‐

they are watching what the Navy pilots are reporting.

The human race is now more ready than ever to accept the reality

of extraterrestrial involvement in human affairs.

And I think this is ultimately

the end game of the extraterrestrial plan.

And they're here to guide us, to assist us

and to help us to manifest a new future for humanity.

NARRATOR: George Washington encountering a glowing being,

Ronald Reagan witnessing

an orb of light through an airplane window.

Is it possible that America's presidents have known

for centuries the truth

about an extraterrestrial agenda?

If so, then perhaps we are on the threshold of learning,

not only the full history of the United States,

but also the hidden facts about an alien presence

right here on Earth.

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