All language subtitles for Ancient Aliens S13E01 The UFO Conspiracy

NARRATOR:
Is the U. S. government

covering up the truth
about alien contact?

And if so, why?

JOHN PODESTA:
The government seems to be

completely unaccountable

to the American public.

They rarely release anything

that they know
or their findings.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: The fact
that the U. S. government has

investigated thousands
and thousands of reports

leads me to think
they know much more

than they let us believe.

NARRATOR: Could the government
have a secret agenda,

one known to only a select few,

and perhaps dating back
hundreds of years?

GEORGE NOORY: The government's
program continues

to be deny, deny, deny.

NICK POPE: Sometimes,
government finds it helpful

to sow seeds of disinformation
and misinformation

to hide the facts
about these sorts of programs.

STEVE BASSETT: Hillary Clinton
was basically saying,

"You are going to give me
the information I need

to disclose
the extraterrestrial presence,

or I'm gonna fire
every single one of you."

PODESTA: People want to know
what the government knows,

and they ought to know
what the government knows.

NARRATOR:
On December 16th, 2017,

The New York Times
ran an explosive story

entitled "Glowing Auras
and 'Black Money':

The Pentagon's
Mysterious UFO Program."

It was the first time
the American public learned

of a top secret
U. S. government project,

the Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program,

otherwise known as AATIP.

The revelations
concerning the existence

of the Pentagon's AATIP program
are extraordinary.

It is the single
biggest ever news

in the whole history
of the UFO phenomenon.

It's not quite a spaceship
in a hangar smoking gun,

but it's the closest
we've ever been.

I assure you that nothing
like this has ever happened

in the history of this issue.

This is a milestone.
This is a watershed.

NARRATOR: The article reported
that the program had been run

by a former Pentagon official
named Luis Elizondo,

a senior career
intelligence officer

with top security clearance and
with experience in everything

from microbiology
and parasitology

to the study
of global terrorism.

It was Elizondo's job
to investigate reports

of unidentified flying objects,

and to measure what threat they
could pose to national security.

AATIP received these cases
from various different channels.

In some cases, reporting would
come up through Navy channels.

In other cases, it would come up
through Air Force channels.

In other cases,
it would come through

the intelligence community,
and all roads led to our office,

regarding the phenomena.

NARRATOR:
Elizondo played a key role

in the government's
top secret AATIP program

prior to his leaving
the government in 2017.

Among the reasons given for
his departure was the bitterness

he felt that the research
he was conducting,

and the conclusions that he and
his colleagues were reaching,

were not being taken seriously

by other agencies
within the government.

Even Congress, to which
AATIP owed its funding,

was hard-pressed to give
Elizondo so much as a hearing

so that his findings could be
made part of the public record.

Interestingly, just two months

after Elizondo's exit
from the government,

The New York Times
broke the major story,

exposing the AATIP program
and many of the facts

surrounding the government's
secret research

into UFO activity.

When I read in The New York
Times this front page story

that the government was running
this semi-secret program

to investigate, well,
aerial phenomena,

which is kind of
a code word for UFOs,

yeah, you know, I thought,
"My God, all these years,

"you know, people who think
that we're being visited

"were claiming that
the government was, in fact,

"possessing some
secret knowledge about this.

And, sure enough, they did have
this secret investigation."

NARRATOR: For Luis Elizondo,
The New York Times article

served as a vindication

for the years that his research
went unrecognized

and his warnings unheeded.

For if the UFO activity
being recorded was real,

so, too, was the possibility
that it was being caused

by technologies
that were not only unknown,

but of extraterrestrial origin.

NOORY: Elizondo,
he resigned because he felt

the government
considered this a joke.

I think that the fact
that these folks are out there

trying to get the answers
that we're all seeking,

absolutely fantastic.

And they're getting
to top government officials.

And someday,
we're gonna get the answers

from people like that--

not from government,
but from people like that.

NARRATOR:
Luckily for Luis Elizondo,

one of the people who took him
and his research seriously

was musician and UFO researcher
Tom DeLonge.

PODESTA:
Tom DeLonge, who is most famous

for his being the lead
in Blink-182.

I've known Tom for a while,
and he spearheaded an initiative

that's brought together a number
of scientists and others

to both continue to study
the phenomena on the outside,

in the private sector,
and to raise funds to do that.

POPE:
His enthusiasm, his passion

has driven things forward.

A lot of people were saying,

"What does a rock star
know about all this?"

Let's not forget that sometimes
even people in government

and military and
the intelligence community

get a little more starstruck
than they should by celebrities.

Tom DeLonge was able to use this
to leverage, I guess, access

where others had
tried and failed.

NARRATOR:
In October 2017,

Tom DeLonge announced
the creation

of his To The Stars Academy
of Arts & Science,

an organization devoted
to the study of UFOs

and the possible existence
of extraterrestrial activity

here on Earth.

When Elizondo left the Pentagon,
he was determined

to bring AATIP's years of
investigation out of the shadows

by releasing several
of the videos he had collected.

One of them featured
this incredible encounter,

taken by a fighter jet
in Florida in 2015,

now known as the Gimbal video.

NARRATOR:
On December 18, 2017,

DeLonge and Elizondo revealed
a second shocking video

which was released through
The Washington Post.

This UFO had been tracked
by the USS Princeton

for several days
over the Pacific Ocean,

approximately 100 miles
southwest of San Diego.

On the screen, it also says
the speed of the F-18

is 250 knots, roughly
about 280 miles per hour.

This F-18 can't seem
to get any closer

to this vehicle, whatever it is.

Now, the F-18's one of
the highest technology

fighter crafts on the planet.

And it can't catch this thing?

When it darts offscreen
to the left,

it would be going
extremely fast.

The g-forces would
turn a person inside it

into, like, tapioca pudding.

I mean, it would kill them.

NARRATOR:
In March 2018,

a third Pentagon video entitled
"Go Fast" was released,

and featured yet another
unexplained aerial encounter.

(pilots laugh)

NARRATOR: But perhaps
the most shocking information

to come from Tom DeLonge
and his To The Stars Academy was

Luis Elizondo's claim that
Bigelow Aerospace had modified

its buildings for the storage
of strange metal alloys

of unknown origin,
also known as metamaterials.

Now, hold, stop the presses
right there.

What are these metal alloys?

POPE:
Luis Elizondo has referred

to these as "meta materials."

The implication is that they're
not special magical elements,

or anything,
but they do seem to be

materials that
have been studied.

According to Elizondo,
tests have been run.

The answer has come back:

whatever these things were,
they came from space.

PODESTA:
There was also indications

that there were certain polymers

that were discovered
at crash sites

that were unexplained
and were reviewed.

RICHARD DOLAN:
You know, for years and years,

UFO researchers had talked about
crash retrievals of UFOs,

or that elements
of these objects

had been recovered
and were being studied.

And skeptics would laugh
at these claims.

You know, how ridiculous

such conspiracy
paranoid fantasies were.

Well, guess what.

Now we have it confirmed.

What are these materials?

Are they of this Earth?

Are they from an advanced
alien intelligence?

Were these metals actually taken
from crashed UFOs?

What are the sources
for these kinds of metals?

These are the kind of questions
that we need to learn

the answers to if we're gonna
get to the bottom

of understanding what
the government knows about UFOs.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that
the U. S. military has recovered

crashed extraterrestrial
spacecraft,

and that wreckage
from these aircraft

is currently being stored
and studied

by a top-secret team
at Bigelow Aerospace?

TAYLOR: One of the really
interesting things about AATIP

is how much information
hasn't been released.

We hear things that are coming.

There's this report
that was written

that we're supposed to get
to see at some point.

Haven't seen it yet.

And then, are there more videos?

We've seen, I think,
three videos come out

that they've released.

There has to be more.

They were doing this for,
like, five years,

or maybe even
a lot longer than that.

I bet you there's a lot more.

DAVID CHILDRESS:
Other secret military programs

have been going on
for many, many decades.

And it's really just the tip
of the iceberg.

NARRATOR: Was the U. S.
government's AATIP program

the only one to be investigating
extraterrestrial activity?

And, if so, how was
it started, and why?

And was the government
seriously concerned

that such activity
was happening?

Or was the bigger concern
that the public

would find out about it?

NARRATOR:
Washington, D. C., 2007.

Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid of Nevada

summons Senator Daniel Inouye
from Hawaii

and Alaska Senator Ted Stevens
to a secure room

in the Capitol Building
for a secret meeting.

He convinces them
to lend their support

to fund a project
researching UFO reports

in the interest
of national security--

the Advanced Aviation Threat
Identification Program,

or AATIP.

Senator Reid was successful
in getting money

into the Defense Department
budget

to create a small office
to look at

what the government knew,

and to study some more recent
incidents that had occurred,

and to delve into
the background,

and to try to explain
what pilots who had encountered

strange aerial phenomena
couldn't explain.

NARRATOR:
Without any public debate,

$22 million is allocated
for AATIP

from a black money budget
that few people know about

or can monitor.

PODESTA: Much of it,
I think, was classified.

Much of it was unclassified,

but I think people didn't know
about the program.

I'm very glad that my friend
Harry Reid decided

that he would pursue this
and sought money for it.

Senator Stevens was genuinely
interested in the topic.

But none of them
went out and discussed it.

NARRATOR: When later asked about
his support for the program,

Senator Reid said that he was
inspired by his friend,

retired former senator
and astronaut John Glenn.

Glenn, the first American
astronaut to orbit the Earth,

told Reid that he thought
that the federal government

should be looking seriously
into UFOs.

But there are some who believe
that Reid's support

owes less to John Glenn
than to his friendship

with one of the senator's
largest campaign contributors:

Robert Bigelow, the founder
of Bigelow Aerospace.

Robert Bigelow owned
a series of hotels,

and he sold it
and made a lot of money.

He decided then he wanted
to get into space exploration.

He's fascinated by
extraterrestrials and UFOs.

NASA was providing insight,
as opposed to oversight--

which is an important
distinction there...

NOORY: And his dear friend,
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada,

was convinced by Robert Bigelow

to get the government
to spend $22 million

into this program
to investigate UFOs.

MIKE BARA: It's not
a coincidence, to my mind,

that he was involved in

the Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program.

He builds rockets and planes
and who knows what else,

and he seems like
a perfectly logical person

to have been the point man
in the private sector

for using the information that
was gleaned from that project,

whatever it was, and we don't
know what a lot of it was

because it's classified.

NARRATOR:
At the time,

the fact that much
of AATIP's research was

outsourced to Bigelow Aerospace
made perfect sense.

First of all, the company
already had a staff

of highly qualified
aerospace engineers.

And, secondly, an outside
company could operate

without the kind
of public scrutiny

imposed on
a government-based agency.

Bigelow could operate
in total secrecy.

Private companies aren't held to
the Freedom of Information Act.

Private companies can do
whatever they want to

with their funding, and
you can't go then and fill out

a Freedom of Information Act
request.

That's a way to keep things
more secretive.

NARRATOR: But was the AATIP
program's need for secrecy

merely designed
to keep its UFO findings

independent of public scrutiny?

Or was there
a greater interest in hiding

not only what AATIP was finding,

but also what those in charge
of the program were looking for?

In May 2017,

Robert Bigelow was the subject
of a profile

on CBS's 60 Minutes.

The piece was meant to focus

on Bigelow's relationship
to NASA

and his activities in creating
life-support habitats

for future astronauts.

During his interview,
Bigelow revealed to 60 Minutes

that he was not only
an aerospace enthusiast,

but a full-fledged believer
in extraterrestrials.

Do you believe in aliens?

I'm absolutely convinced.
That's all there is to it.

Do you also believe
that UFOs have come to Earth?

There has been and is
an existing presence--

an E. T. presence.

And I've spent millions
and millions.

I've probably spent more
as an individual

than anybody else
in the United States

has ever spent on this subject.

Is it risky for you to say,

you know, in public
that you believe

-in UFOs and aliens?
-I don't give a damn.

-I don't care.
-You don't worry

that some people will say,
"Did you hear that guy?

He sounds like he's crazy."

-I don't care.
-Why not?

It's not gonna
make a difference.

It's not gonna change reality
of what I know.

Bob Bigelow said,

"E.T.s are here.
They're right under your nose."

And he uses the word "E. T."
He doesn't beat around the bush.

BASSETT:
Robert Bigelow became my hero.

That "I don't give a damn"
really was for a lot of people.

It was for every billionaire
space jockey out there,

whether it's Elon Musk
or Branson or Bezos.

But guess what.

None of those people
have ever said to a reporter,

"You know, I'm pretty sure
there's extraterrestrials here."

Bigelow did.

LINDA MOULTON HOWE:
We must now go and ask the head

of Bigelow Aerospace
what does he mean

that aliens are
under everyone's noses.

This story really is begging

for somebody
to go to Robert Bigelow

and say, "Can we now go
and see your warehouse?"

What a fantastic next step
it would be for the world.

NARRATOR: Although funding
for the AATIP program

was quietly ended in 2012,

there are those who believe
that its focus on the study

of recent UFO activity

and on the study
of extraterrestrial life

are still alive and well,

although now further hidden
under a different agency name.

When the Pentagon
grudgingly admitted

the existence
of the AATIP program,

they did a clever thing,

and they said that the funding
had run out in 2012.

The implication was
that the program was no more,

but with my knowledge of the way

in which these classified
sensitive programs are run,

pulling the funding part

is not the same
as terminating the project.

NARRATOR: But while some version
of the government's

AATIP program may still be
operating in secret,

the same cannot be said

for some of the agency's
former employees.

And there is one in particular

who is not only open to the idea
that aliens do exist,

he has made it his mission

to communicate his findings
throughout the world.

NARRATOR: When The New York
Times story broke,

revealing the existence
of the U. S. government's

ultra top secret AATIP program,

UFO experts
and ancient astronaut theorists

had validation
for what they knew

had been happening for decades:

that the government has proof
of extraterrestrial visitation

and that they have been
hiding it from the public.

TSOUKALOS:
The investigations were denied

during the time
of their happening.

And it's really curious
that we're always told,

"No, these programs
are not happening."

And then, 20 years later, these
documents are being released

to reveal the fact that
these investigations did happen.

My initial reaction
to the information

that was released
in December of 2017

was that this has really been
going on for over 70 years.

NARRATOR: Although
the government's AATIP program

was established in 2007,

it was by no means
the first top secret program

designed to investigate
UFO activity

in the United States.

The first was known simply
as Project Sign,

and it was set up
within the U. S. Air Force

to investigate
unexplained aerial phenomena,

such as the event now known
as the Battle of Los Angeles.

What's called the Battle of L. A.

is actually one of the earliest
unexplained UFO mysteries

in modern... our modern era.

Three months after Pearl Harbor,

it took place on the early
morning of February 25, 1942.

An unknown object appeared
over Los Angeles

and anti-aircraft guns
opened fire on it.

(rapid gunfire)

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
The anti-aircraft guns

began barking during a blackout

ordered by the IV Interceptor
Command at 2:25 a. m.

1,430 artillery shells
were fired

at several unknown objects.

Many eyewitnesses
on the ground saw this.

There was concern that the
Japanese were somehow involved,

but there was no
Japanese aircraft carrier,

no chance
that Japanese airplanes

could have been
responsible for this.

The Secretary of the Navy
said to the public,

"It was just war nerves.

There was nothing out there,
whatsoever."

NARRATOR:
Although the U. S. Army Air Force

officially dismissed
the objects seen in the sky

as weather balloons,

they failed to explain
why so many weather balloons

would have been floating over
Los Angeles in the first place.

In the years following
the Battle of Los Angeles,

numerous other UFO sightings
were reported,

including the one
widely referred to as

"the Roswell incident,"
in which an unidentified object,

referred to in the press
as a flying saucer,

reportedly crashed on a ranch

just outside the town
of Roswell, New Mexico,

on July 4, 1947.

Within 24 hours,
the story changed.

And they said,
"We made a mistake.

"It's not a flying disc.

It's just debris
from a weather balloon."

DOLAN:
The Roswell incident was

probably a major contributor
to the establishment

of what became known
as Project Sign

just a couple of months later.

NARRATOR:
By the time Project Sign

was established in 1948,

UFO sightings
had become so frequent,

they could no longer
be ignored or dismissed.

Given the fact that there was
a Cold War escalating

between the United States
and the Soviet Union,

concerns that UFOs
might be spy satellites

or foreign-made weapons
gave some justification

to the increasing paranoia.

Answers needed to be found.

But just as the government's

first official UFO program
was getting started,

it was suddenly
and mysteriously shut down.

There was a very big incident
during the summer of 1948,

when a report went to
the Air Force Chief of Staff,

General Hoyt Vandenberg,

and it stated,
"This is real. They're here."

And Vandenberg closed down
Project Sign.

NARRATOR: But why would
the Air Force Chief of Staff

shut down a program
designed to study UFOs

just after being informed

that UFOs were not only real
but of genuine concern?

There seems to be
a pattern of suppression

over the last 70 years when
it comes to the UFO subject.

And all of these government
investigations into UFOs,

where they look into it,

then they say
there's nothing to it.

Then they look into it again,

then they're finding
that there is something to it.

But they don't want
to say what it is.

NARRATOR:
For the next four years,

UFO sightings continued
to be reported,

so many, in fact,

that the government could no
longer dismiss them as hoaxes,

weather anomalies,

or simply the product
of mass hysteria.

By March 1952,

a number of high-ranking
Air Force generals

became so frustrated
with the military's

previous attempts
to properly investigate

so-called flying saucers
that they launched a program

that would be the most serious
and best-funded to date:

Project Blue Book.

Under the command of Air Force
Captain Edward Ruppelt,

this new top secret agency
would take UFOs

and their potential threat
to national security

very seriously.

Project Blue Book
produced a standard form

for people who wanted
to report a UFO.

What did it look like?
Was there a sound?

They even had a chart
for people to calculate

the angle of elevation.

If UFOs are nothing
to worry about,

why is the Air Force
requesting so much information

about the true nature
of what the witnesses saw?

NARRATOR:
In January 1953,

after gathering hundreds
of reported sightings,

photographs and interviews,

Captain Ruppelt and astronomer
Dr. J. Allen Hynek

prepared and presented
their best 23 cases

to a CIA-formed panel
of scientists

led by Dr. H. P. Robertson.

The Robertson Panel concluded

that the evidence
could all be dismissed

as natural occurrences

and was not worth the effort
of the government.

And it was the Robertson Panel
which was the origin

for a lot of the propaganda
that was put out in the media

when it came to UFOs.

They wanted to publicly
ridicule the subject,

so that people wouldn't want
to be associated with it,

basically killing
all the public interest

in this field so they could
continue to research

these exotic technologies
behind the scenes.

NARRATOR:
In 1969,

Project Blue Book
was finally shut down

on the grounds
that there was no proof

the unidentified objects posed
a national security threat

or were of
extraterrestrial origin.

But was that really
the end of the story

or only the beginning?

In February 2018,

Nick Pope, the former
Director of Defence Security

at the British
Ministry of Defence,

traveled to Washington, D. C.,
to meet with Chase Kloetzke,

a registered lobbyist
for UFO disclosure

and a former program developer

for the U. S.
Department of Defense.

Chase Kloetzke has investigated

numerous U. S. government
secret studies into UFOs

and has examined many
of the once-classified files

pertaining to Project Blue Book.

I've got this Project Blue Book
file from the FBI archives.

And the first page I want
to really go over with you

is this one that indeed reads
"UFO fact sheet."

Okay, so this is basically
a summary of the position

with regard
to Project Blue Book.

-Right, the official statement.
-Okay.

And so, this says,

"Since the termination
of Project Blue Book,

"no evidence has been
presented to indicate

"that further
investigation of UFOs

by the Air Force is warranted."

"Terminated."

Well, was the program really
terminated? That's my question.

Absolutely. And if it was,
what took its place?

Well, yes, the Air Force

isn't suddenly going to stop
being interested

in uncorrelated targets
in its airspace.

Right, absolutely.
And the second document,

I really want you
to weigh in on.

It doesn't make sense.

POPE:
Wow. 12,618 sightings.

That's a lot.

And 701 of them remained
completely unidentified.

That's a staggering amount.

These are the cases
that were properly investigated,

interviewed witnesses,
radar tapes were looked at,

and still no answers found.

Wait a minute.
Here, look. Here it is.

At the end of the program,
the unknowns drop.

They go from 32 to 19
to three and one.

I smell a rat.
They've cooked the books.

-They can't pull the plug
on the program...
-Right.

...if you've still got
a high number of unknowns.

So they clearly
pushed those cases

out of the unidentified column

and into the cases that are
explained, at least publicly.

This is their way out.

NARRATOR: Was Project Blue Book
officially shut down

because it had simply found
no convincing evidence

that UFOs were real?

Or was it because the government

had come to
the opposite conclusion,

that not only were they real
but of extraterrestrial origin,

a truth that could be
so potentially disturbing,

it needed to be covered up
even deeper than before?

NARRATOR:
As far as UFO researchers

and ancient astronaut
theorists are concerned,

proof that the U. S. government
has not only known

about extraterrestrial activity
on our planet,

but has been systematically
covering it up for decades,

first came in the form

of a single roll
of 35-millimeter film,

anonymously sent
to a documentary filmmaker

by the name of
Jaime Shandera in 1984.

The film, when developed,

showed images
of an eight-page memo

allegedly written in 1952

by the first director of
the CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter,

to President-elect
Dwight Eisenhower.

In it, Hillenkoetter
informs Eisenhower

of the existence of a top secret
government think tank

that was originally set up

by President Harry S. Truman
in 1947.

It was referred to
in the memo as MJ-12,

initials which stood for a far
more mysterious group of men

known as the Majestic 12.

The authorization
to establish MJ-12

allegedly came from
President Harry Truman

on September 24, 1947.

This was actually one day
after the famous memo

in which
General Nathan Twining wrote

a three-page letter
about these flying saucers

to another general,

talking quite explicitly
about their characteristics,

the fact that this was real,
not visionary or fictitious.

No one anywhere,
outside of this group,

is to know anything about UFOs,

E.T.s, crash retrievals,

bodies, any of it.

That document identified
the 12 people

who were MJ-1 through MJ-12.

The first one, MJ-1,

was Admiral Hillenkoetter
of the Navy.

There were four military people,

there were
four technical people,

and then there were
just general government people.

They were the kind of people
you'd expect

to have been involved in
an important top secret program.

NARRATOR:
While the authenticity

of the MJ-12 documents
is still being debated,

what is known is that,

in 1954, Eisenhower thought
enough of the UFO phenomenon

to order that a new
secret military base be set up.

Located 83 miles northwest
of Las Vegas, Nevada,

Area 51 would later
become infamous

as the most top secret
military base in the world.

BARA: Area 51 is the secret base
of all secret bases.

For a long time,
it was the place

that we went to
to study foreign technology.

NARRATOR:
During the 1970s and '80s,

T.D. Barnes worked
at the secret base,

reverse-engineering
captured enemy aircraft,

like Russian MiG jets.

What we considered
reverse-engineering was...

was taking a plane or a radar,

taking it apart,
looking at the electronics,

how they built it.

We were all bound
by security oaths.

We could not talk.

NARRATOR:
But is it possible that,

in addition
to reverse-engineering

foreign fighter jets,

Area 51 employees
were also working on other,

out-of-this-world technologies?

BARA: To my mind, it's also
clear that the U. S. government

has had crashed
extraterrestrial technology,

and Area 51 would have been
the perfect place

to reverse-engineer and test
that particular information.

NARRATOR: In order
to insure that the activities

at Area 51 and elsewhere were
kept hidden from the public,

members of the military,
and even officers,

were sworn to secrecy.

But luckily for UFO researchers
and ancient astronaut theorists,

not everyone involved
was willing to keep quiet.

Some became whistleblowers,

who risked everything from
public scorn to imprisonment,

in order to let the public
learn the truth.

Washington state.

June 24, 1947.

Aviator and businessman
Kenneth Arnold

witnesses
nine fast-moving objects

flying in tandem
near Mount Rainier.

He times them as they fly
between two mountain peaks,

and calculates their speed

to be between
1,200 and 1,700 miles per hour,

at least
600 miles per hour faster

than the fastest aircraft
in existence at the time.

Kenneth Arnold is the guy
who actually is credited

with coining the term
"flying saucer,"

because what he saw
were objects that were flying

at some distance
from his airplane

that were sort of skipping
and jumping and wobbling

and doing very, very unusual
high-speed maneuvers.

So that's where the term
"flying saucer" came from.

NARRATOR: Although the U. S.
Air Force formally categorized

Kenneth Arnold's experience
as a mirage,

other reported sightings
were not so easily dismissed.

The public was starting
to demand answers.

Once the initial sighting
happened by Kenneth Arnold,

and the Roswell incident
took place,

there were sightings everywhere
around the United States.

They were happening
all over the world.

NARRATOR:
In 1949,

retired Marine Corps
pilot-turned-writer

Major Donald Keyhoe
was asked by True magazine

to write an article
on these numerous sightings.

Although Keyhoe was a skeptic,

he spent the next eight months
conducting his own research

by tapping into his contacts
in the Pentagon

and the military.

Eventually,
he came to a conclusion

he would have considered
unthinkable:

flying saucers
were not only real,

they were of
extraterrestrial origin.

HOWE:
Major Keyhoe

was one of the last real
military voices,

from the time of
the Truman administration

going into
the Eisenhower administration,

who was honestly trying
to tell the truth.

NARRATOR: Keyhoe's article in
True magazine shook the nation.

It was not only
a solid piece of journalism

on the topic of UFOs,

but served as
a stinging indictment

of the U. S. military and
the government's determination

to keep the public in the dark.

HOWE: That True magazine,
it was historic because

it went to a heck
of a lot of people.

Then, in 1958,
Keyhoe went on a program

called the
Armstrong Circle Theatre,

which was
a live television program.

ANNOUNCER:
"UFO: The Enigma of the Skies"

on the Armstrong Circle Theatre.

Major, you've seen our report
on the Air Force conclusions

dealing with the current
UFO sightings.

Well, I was excited to hear that

Keyhoe was going to
debate the Air Force.

And now, Mr. Edwards, I would
like to make a disclosure,

something which has never
been revealed to the public.

Toward the end of the program,
he broke in and said,

to the effect,
"I'm going to say something

that the public
has never heard before."

If the hearings are held,
open hearings,

I feel it will prove beyond
doubt that flying saucers...

(audio fades)

HOLCOMBE: At that point,
his sound was lost.

What was Major Keyhoe saying,
and who cut him off?

(no audio)

Thank you, Major Keyhoe.

NARRATOR:
It was later discovered

that Air Force officials
had been stationed

in the control booth
during the broadcast.

And there are many who still
believe that Keyhoe's audio

was deliberately cut in order
to keep him from revealing

top secret information
concerning the government's

ongoing UFO investigations.

The Air Force was lying.

NARRATOR: But why was the
Air Force so concerned about

the American public hearing
Major Keyhoe's statement?

What did they have to lose
if they were forced to admit

their ongoing investigations
into UFOs?

I wrote this down
because I think

it's one of the most important
historic sentences,

and it comes from Major Keyhoe.

"For the past 175 years..."

That would be 1772.

That would be before the
founding of the United States.

"...the planet Earth
has been under systematic,

"close-range examination by

living observers
from another planet."

TSOUKALOS:
This is nothing new.

These cover-ups have happened

for thousands and thousands
of years.

Throughout ancient texts,
there are references

to what I call
"misunderstood technology."

WHITEHEAD:
In modern times,

you'll hear stories
of UFOs and spacecraft,

because now we have the language
to talk about technology.

Whereas in ancient times,
they didn't have any reference

to that kind of technology.

So they would have thought
this is something

that's angelic or from
another dimension or god-like.

(deep whirring)

The fact that the U. S.
government has investigated

thousands and thousands
of reports

leads me to think that

they may know much more
than what they let us believe.

NARRATOR: Proof of
the U. S. government's complicity

in covering up
extraterrestrial activity

does not only come
in the form of leaked documents

and the contents
of secret files.

Sometimes the evidence comes

from credible
firsthand accounts,

not from whistleblowers,
but from American astronauts.

Everything that NASA does
is supposedly aboveboard.

Everything they do,
they should tell us about.

We should know about
all of their launches

and missions and who
all the astronauts are.

They themselves are not sharing
all of the information.

Most of it is being kept secret.

NARRATOR:
The Baikonur Cosmodrome.

April 12, 1961.

The Vostok-1 rocket
achieves liftoff,

and Soviet cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin

is heralded
as the first human in space.

The event serves
as a wake-up call

to the United States and NASA,

whose Project Mercury program
would, over the next two years,

launch six of its own astronauts
into space.

The Space Race--

to land a human being
on the Moon-- was on,

and mankind was now
a space-faring species.

BARA: The achievement
of putting a man in space

was almost a miracle.

Nobody knows what they might see
or encounter out there,

extraterrestrial spacecraft
or even E. T. s themselves.

MAN:
Liftoff.

NARRATOR:
Although the first five

Mercury missions
go off without incident...

MAN: Liftoff
30 minutes after the hour.

NARRATOR: ...during
the sixth and final mission,

astronaut Gordon Cooper reports
an unusual encounter.

While aboard his spacecraft,
he reports

a green glowing object
quickly approaching his capsule.

The UFO is also picked up
by NASA's tracking station.

But by the time
Cooper splashes down

in the Pacific Ocean,
reporters are told

that any questions about the
incident are strictly forbidden.

There's no question that NASA
actually has protocols in place

for how astronauts
should deal with

and report or not report
anomalies.

Now, over the years,
there have been astronauts

that have kind of
broken those protocols.

Gordon Cooper is one who talked
a lot about a UFO sighting

he had on a Mercury spacecraft.

And that upset
quite a few people at NASA.

NARRATOR:
In June 1965,

two years after
Gordon Cooper's flight,

Gemini 4 astronaut
James McDivitt

reports seeing a metallic object

flying in orbit
alongside his spacecraft.

And, once again,
the event is quickly covered up.

There have been many stories
over the years

coming from astronauts
of various missions,

from Mercury missions,
from the Apollo missions,

and even from
the Soviet missions to space,

where astronauts
have come out and said

that they have seen
these UFOs flying around,

that they've been followed,

that they've seen
unconventional aircraft

on some of their missions.

BARA: There's a story
that Buzz Aldrin tells

about Apollo 11, where
the Apollo 11 spacecraft

was followed for many,
many hours by an object

that was so strange that
they actually reported on it

through their private channels.

BUZZ ALDRIN: I'm looking
out the window, and I see...

What's that?

There's an object that's moving
with respect to everything else.

Geez. It's not supposed
to be doing that.

Wonder how far away it is.

If it's a long ways away,
it's going mighty fast.

If it's not too far away, it,
uh, maybe isn't going very fast.

Wonder what it is.

"Hey, Neil. Look at this."

We look at it.

God, what is that?

Probably the, uh,
upper stage rocket.

Yeah, but didn't we just watch
that thing carefully

out in front of us,
out the window,

light its engine and go...
(imitates whooshing)

Well, I guess that's not what
we're looking at, (chuckles)

'cause that's a long ways away.

What's the odds
that it's some alien

or Russian or something else?

But we were not about
to cancel the Moon mission

and putt-putt over there
to find out which one it was.

(chuckles)

WHITEHEAD:
There's been many astronauts

that have come forward
that have talked about this,

so it seems like some of them
want to talk about it,

and others are either afraid
to talk about it,

or they've been silenced
for some reason.

NARRATOR: One person involved
with the early space program

who did not remain silent
was JoAnn Donaldson,

a young biomedical engineer
at NASA.

In 1972,

during the Apollo 17
Moon mission,

Donaldson's job was to monitor
the astronauts' vital signs

and to observe their pre-flight
and post-flight recovery.

JoANN DONALDSON: Ron Evans was
in charge of the command module

while Gene Cernan
and Harrison Schmitt

were on the surface of the Moon.

When the command module
would orbit the Moon,

part of the orbit would take it
behind the Moon,

what we call "loss of signal"
to Mission Control.

Day two, Ron came out
from behind the Moon,

reported in to Mission Control.

And Gene comes up
on the comm link and says,

"Hey, Ron, you're not lonely
up there without us are you?"

And Ron reported back, says,
"Nope, I got company."

Everybody was just
kind of taken aback.

It was like, you know,
"company"?

That itself implies
that there was something else

up there with him.

Well, Mission Control's
first reaction was,

"Guys, are you joking?"

And Ron says,
"No, this is not a joke.

"There is an object flying
in formation with me,

up here, circling the Moon."

When Ron reported that the
object was leaving his orbit,

he calculated that they had been
in formation with him

for approximately five

to five-and-a-half orbits
of the Moon.

NARRATOR: As far as
the public was concerned,

nothing out of
the ordinary happened.

At the exact moment
that astronaut Ron Evans

reported he was not alone,

NASA officials disconnected the
public feed for media outlets.

The following day, NASA ordered

a conference call for everyone
involved in the incident.

DONALDSON: We were all told
we're gonna continue on

with the mission
as if nothing has happened,

and do not discuss this anomaly

with anyone outside
of your command.

NARRATOR: After the Apollo 17
crew splashed down

in the Pacific Ocean,
JoAnn Donaldson examined Evans

as part of the post-mission
recovery procedure.

DONALDSON: Ron was sitting up
on the side of his bunk.

And he goes,
"Well, I'm reliving

"what I saw while I was
in orbit around the Moon.

"I don't think
the Russians had launched

"something this big in orbit.

"I estimate this thing
was 40, 45 feet long.

It was cigar shaped."

BARA: Now, any cylindrical
object like that

is not gonna be something
that we made. So what was it?

Clearly it was not one of ours.

WHITEHEAD:
We trust these astronauts

to report back on what they see.

They're essentially scientists

that are exploring space
on our behalf.

But a lot of people
are unaware of the fact

that many of our astronauts
have spoken openly about UFOs.

Many of them were fighter pilots
before they became astronauts,

and they have seen
craft flying as pilots.

Could it be that they've been
pulled aside and told,

"This is all you're allowed
to say and no more,"

because NASA
is trying to silence

these astronauts
from telling the truth?

NARRATOR:
Another Apollo astronaut

who openly admitted his belief
in extraterrestrial contact

was Edgar Mitchell,

the lunar module pilot
for Apollo 14.

In his later years, he claimed
many of his colleagues

had strange
paranormal experiences

during their missions,
and frequently declared

that most UFO phenomena
are directly connected

to extraterrestrial activity.

EDGAR MITCHELL: I have had no
firsthand personal experience,

but all the evidence from
the research people that I know

from both Europe
and the United States

have investigated
all the sightings

from dozens of years.

And it's pretty sure
it's all true.

I believe that the alien craft,
presuming they're reality--

I think they are,
others think they are--

have been coming
for a long, long time.

NARRATOR: As the sixth person
to walk on the Moon,

Mitchell's opinions concerning
UFOs and their connection

to extraterrestrial encounters
have been difficult to dismiss.

But if otherworldly entities

have been making contact
with us--

not only for decades
but for centuries--

what is their goal?

NARRATOR:
July 20, 1969.

NARRATOR: Millions of people
around the world

are glued to their televisions

to watch one of the greatest
achievements in human history.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong

is about to become the first
Earth-born extraterrestrial

by stepping foot
on the surface of the Moon.

NARRATOR:
Although Richard Nixon

is the current president
of the United States,

most give credit to the man

who held the office
six years earlier,

John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Many years ago, the great
British explorer George Mallory,

who was to die on Mount Everest,

was asked why did he want
to climb it.

He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there,
and we're going to climb it.

NARRATOR:
But even as Neil Armstrong

and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin

were still engaged
on their historic mission,

Nixon and the team
at NASA now faced

an even more daunting challenge:
What to do next?

The Moon mission had gripped

the American consciousness
as nothing before,

and even though
a number of return missions

had been planned, there was
nothing on the launch pad

that could top
landing a man on the Moon

as either a national goal

or effective
political propaganda.

To this end, in 1972,

as Nixon began planning
his reelection campaign,

the space shuttle program
was announced.

It was also
during this same time

that the president's
chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman,

proposed the creation
of a documentary film

that would depict Nixon
as being fully committed

to the development of a number

of ambitious
science-based programs.

To produce it, Haldeman turned

to successful advertising
executive-turned-filmmaker

Robert Emenegger.

HOLCOMBE: They knew that Bob
had made promotional films

for the Department of Defense.

So he was contacted and asked

if he would come to a meeting
in Los Angeles

with the Committee
to Re-Elect the President.

And they said,
"We need a media consultant.

"We'd like somebody
to come on board

"and make a documentary
that would support Nixon,

"a documentary about
some perhaps secret project

"that the government's
been working on

that can be released
or declassified."

Well, they run around
the country

being shown all sorts
of secret projects.

They went to Wright-Patterson,
and they were shown

very classified
laser experiments.

They were shown dolphins being
trained for demolition work.

They were shown dogs being
trained for various tasks.

Then they were taken
to Norton Air Force Base,

which at that time housed
the Air Force film depository.

Paul Shartle was the director
of the depository.

They were taken into a building
where these films were kept.

They were taken into
what was known as a clean room,

meaning it was free
of any bugs, microphones,

video equipment, anything.

NARRATOR: It was during his
meeting at Norton Air Force Base

that Robert Emenegger learned
that Paul Shartle had

a different agenda
from that of the president,

and a different film
in mind than the one

that had been
initially proposed.

Shartle said,
"I'd like to ask you this:

How would you like to make
a documentary on UFOs?"

And Bob Emenegger was stunned.

He told me at his home,

he said, "I didn't know
anything about UFOs.

"I was shocked.

"They said if we would make
the documentary,

"we would be given 600 feet
of 16-millimeter film

shot at Holloman Air Force Base
of a UFO landing there."

NARRATOR:
For Robert Emenegger,

it was an offer
too good to refuse.

Believing he had
the full support

of both the president
and the military,

he set about to make
the U. S. government's

first official film
on the subject of UFOs.

He quickly recruited
Rod Serling,

Burgess Meredith and José Ferrer
to narrate the film,

and the final explosive scene
was to show actual footage

of an alien encounter.

But when it came time to receive

the incredible footage
he'd been promised,

Emenegger had the government's
once-open door

slammed in his face.

They had been promised
really dramatic footage,

said to be completely legit,
of a UFO landing

at Holloman Air Force Base,
in 1964,

which had alien beings come out,

like The Day the Earth
Stood Still, essentially.

HOWE:
Out came some kind of a ramp.

Our contingent of humans
walked up,

met these two EBENs,

"Extraterrestrial
Biological Entities."

And then in this doorway
was a being unlike the EBENs,

and that it was holding
a rod that had a spiral

that went around the rod,
and that this was used

to communicate with our team.

CAMERON:
This was a film

that had four
different vantage points.

They were shooting one from
the air, three on the ground.

And the craft landed,

the aliens came out,
and they stored the craft.

All this was on film.

NARRATOR: But on the day
Emenegger was to be given a copy

of the 16-millimeter footage
from the Air Force,

the filmmaker received
an unexpected phone call.

(phone ringing)

HOWE: It is one of those
like out of a Hollywood feature.

It's supposed to be coming.
A courier is on the way.

They cannot believe it.
It's really gonna happen.

They're gonna see
all of this film.

And then another phone call:

"We're sorry, the approval
has been rescinded.

No film."

CAMERON: Colonel Coleman
from the Pentagon said,

"The timing isn't right.

We can't allow you
to use the film."

HOLCOMBE:
Bob Emenegger was crushed.

He said, "Why?"

And he found out that,
"Making a documentary

"exposing UFOs as being
extraterrestrial

would not help the president,
but conceivably could harm him."

NARRATOR:
Ultimately, Robert Emenegger

was forced to complete
his documentary

without the sensational footage
he had been promised.

It was a documentary called

UFOs: Past, Present,
and Future.

And they also had a book
by the same name.

NARRATOR:
As written by Robert Emenegger,

and directed by Ray Rivas,
the documentary

proved to be both popular
and influential.

Even without the smoking gun
footage, it caused a sensation,

and was later credited
as one of the inspirations

behind Steven Spielberg's
1977 blockbuster

Close Encounters
of the Third Kind.

CAMERON: The Robert Emenegger
disclosure effort

is what I call it.

I said, "You know, that film,
Bob, that's very strange.

"You know, if it weren't
for the location,

that's Close Encounters
of the Third Kind."

And he said,
"What, I didn't tell you?"

And I said,
"You didn't tell me what?"

"I didn't tell you I gave a copy
to Steven Spielberg?"

And I said,
"No, you didn't tell me that."

So the documentary
was done in 1975.

Steven Spielberg's Close
Encounters of the Third Kind

came out in 1977.

And so, when you see Close
Encounters of the Third Kind,

it's the Holloman
Air Force Base story,

just changed the location.

It's exactly what the story was.

NARRATOR: While the alleged
alien UFO footage

from Holloman Air Force Base
has never surfaced,

many ancient astronaut theorists
believe it still exists,

under lock and key.

What I am really truly expecting
is that somewhere,

from 2018, going forward
in the next decade,

that finally all of that film
is going to be released,

and that we will finally
enter the true history.

NARRATOR: Did the U. S. Air Force
really have footage

of secret meetings between
government officials

and extraterrestrials?

And if so, where is it now?

Coming up...

NARRATOR:
For decades, American presidents

have officially denied that they
have received any information

that extraterrestrials
are visiting Earth.

But considering that the
U. S. government has conducted

at least four major
investigations into UFO activity

since the 1940s,

why has there been so much time
and taxpayer money devoted

to studying something

that the government claims
isn't happening?

We don't know
for an absolute fact

what kind of briefings
presidents actually receive,

when they come into office,
about extraterrestrials.

But we do have some indications

from some documents
that do exist,

one of them being the original
MJ-12 presidential briefing

for President Eisenhower,

telling him all about
the crash at Roswell.

NARRATOR:
On November 2, 2005,

a document surfaced
that was allegedly a transcript

made from a recorded
presidential briefing

held at Camp David
in March of 1981.

Present were
President Ronald Reagan,

CIA director William Casey,

Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger,

and a mysterious person
known only as "The Caretaker."

According to the document,
during the meeting,

The Caretaker shared
evidence that aliens

have been visiting the Earth
for thousands of years,

and that modern American records
of such encounters

officially began in 1947,
following the Roswell incident.

BARA: Certainly,
if you look at Ronald Reagan,

he's somebody who brought up
aliens all the time.

To my mind,
what Reagan is communicating is,

"Yes, Roswell happened.
Yes, it is significant.

"Yes, there are aliens.

"And we'd better
get used to this idea

or figure out
how to deal with them."

I, William Jefferson Clinton...

NARRATOR:
But it was with the inauguration

of President Bill Clinton
in January 1993

that many UFO researchers
believed

they finally had an ally
in the White House.

If the United States Air Force
did recover alien bodies,

they didn't tell me
about it, either,

and I want to know.

BARA: So, when Bill Clinton
gets into office, he called in

his presidential aide
Webb Hubbell,

and the first two things that he
asked for after he was president

was who killed JFK
and are there aliens.

Clinton knew that there was
something up about aliens

and UFOs that people
were not being told.

NARRATOR:
In his quest to shed light

on the government's
secret UFO investigations,

President Clinton found
an unlikely ally

in billionaire philanthropist
Laurance S. Rockefeller,

who used his influence
to push full disclosure

about possible extraterrestrial
activities on Earth.

The way it started was
Laurance Rockefeller,

who was one of the famous
Rockefeller brothers,

had been shown a documentary
on Roswell

and was very interested.

So, the election was going on
at the time,

and he said, "Whether Ross Perot
wins or George Bush wins

"or Bill Clinton wins,
I'm going to the White House

and I'm going to get them
to disclose the UFO story."

NARRATOR:
In 1993,

Laurance Rockefeller
began inviting

a select group
of UFO researchers

and ancient astronaut theorists

to join him
for an important first meeting

of what would become known
as the Rockefeller Initiative.

In 1993,
I got a phone call saying,

"Linda, we'd like you to join

"a group of your peers

at Laurance Rockefeller's ranch
at Jackson Hole."

So, we met.

There were people
like Robert Bigelow,

now the head
of Bigelow Aerospace.

And there were others that were
authors and scientists.

CAMERON: One of the people
who helped edit the letter

on UFO disclosure to the
president of the United States

was Hillary Clinton.

She was the first lady
at the time.

NARRATOR: Another person
close to Bill Clinton

who was an advocate for
government investigation of UFOs

was John Podesta,

who served as the president's
assistant in 1993

and became his deputy chief
of staff in 1997.

I've had a long career,
trying to fight

against government secrecy
and create more openness.

Right after I left law school,
I started working on that

at the Department of Justice,

then at the Senate
Judiciary Committee.

And then when I worked
for President Clinton

in the White House,
I was one of the people

spearheading an initiative,

to declassify
what turned out to be

over a billion pages
of documents

that were resident
at the National Archives.

In President Clinton's case,

I think he was interested
in the phenomena.

He had worked with his then
science advisor Jack Gibbons

to understand what was going on.

CAMERON: This correspondence
starts going back and forth

for three years.

Rockefeller is putting
immense pressure

on the White House to disclose.

NARRATOR:
Laurance Rockefeller requested

that the 1947 Roswell incident
be a starting point

in the government's disclosure.

CAMERON: They went out
and they reinvestigated Roswell.

It came back,

and Bill Clinton saw
the final report in 1995.

PODESTA:
President Clinton's one of

the most curious people
I've ever met.

I think he wanted to know
what the Air Force knew,

and got a report back that,
in my view,

was a little bit unsatisfying.

He was furious,
from what I was told.

NARRATOR:
The Rockefeller Initiative

was hoping for a revelation,

but the U. S. Air Force
stuck to its position

that a crashed weather balloon
caused the Roswell incident.

CAMERON: Clinton goes
to Belfast, Northern Ireland,

in November of 1995.

He's lighting
the Christmas tree,

and that's when he gives
the famous speech.

He said he gets
a letter from Ryan,

which I tried to recover
in an FOIA.

There is no letter to Ryan.
I think they just made it up.

He said, "Ryan, if you're out
there in the audience tonight,

here's the answer
to your question."

No.

As far as I know,
an alien spacecraft

did not crash
in Roswell, New Mexico.

And, Ryan,
if the United States Air Force

did recover alien bodies,

they didn't tell me about it,
either, and I want to know.

CAMERON: That's why in 1997
the U. S. Air Force goes out

and does a second
Roswell report,

spends $20 million on it,

because the president
was furious.

NARRATOR:
According to the revised report,

the so-called alien bodies
that eyewitnesses claimed

they saw being pulled
from the wreckage

were dismissed as being nothing
more than crash test dummies

which had been tethered
to parachutes being used

in an otherwise
conventional test.

PODESTA: Dr. Gibbons pressed
first the Secretary of Defense

Les Aspen, and then
the Secretary of the Air Force,

to take this matter seriously,
to do a review.

The boxes were missing.
The documents were gone.

Nobody knew anything.

And, you know, the...
the trail kind of went cold.

NARRATOR:
In 1996,

the Rockefeller Initiative
was quietly closed,

and its participants--

frustrated that forces
within the government

still refused
to reveal the truth--

went away without the answers
they'd hoped for.

The Rockefeller Initiative is
considered by some researchers

to be the biggest
government UFO disclosure story

of all times.

BARA:
The fact that it even existed,

that it was sanctioned
in any way by the government,

that the report was accepted

by the White House
and people in the government,

I think is very,
very highly significant.

So it's kind of a very small
incremental step forward

in the process of disclosure

and moving us
towards the ultimate answers

to the questions
that we're all asking.

NARRATOR:
Washington, D. C.

July 1996.

Political activist
Stephen Bassett

becomes the first registered

extraterrestrial life
and disclosure lobbyist

in the United States.

For years,
he had been trying to organize

a hearing
with members of Congress

to present evidence
that the government was hiding

important information
from its people.

The extraterrestrial presence,
if formally acknowledged,

could bring in an age of reform,
where the human race

could get its act together,

because we're
running out of time.

As I got into the issue,

what I learned is
just how dysfunctional

the United States government
had become.

It is the vast expanse
of secrecy

and abuse of secrecy in power
that is lying

at the base of a great deal
of our problems.

And so I had
one simple fundamental task:

formal acknowledgment of
the extraterrestrial presence,

simple, clean and easy.

CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen, if you
could stand and repeat after me?

NARRATOR:
On April 29, 2013,

Bassett organized

the Citizen Hearing on
Disclosure in Washington, D. C.

The objective was
to bring together

the most compelling evidence of
extraterrestrial visits to Earth

and convince former members
of Congress

to take immediate action.

BASSETT: I had wanted
to do it since 2001--

bring in 42 witnesses,
from ten countries,

to testify in the main ballroom
of the National Press Club,

before six former members
of the Congress,

five congresspersons,
one senator.

And they testified
for 30 hours over five days.

It was an amazing event,

mostly because of the caliber of
witnesses that were brought in,

the investigators, researchers.

They don't want you
to know that.

NARRATOR: Witnesses
included John Callahan,

former division chief

of the Accidents
and Investigations Branch

of the FAA,

the former Canadian Minister
of Defence, Paul Hellyer,

retired Air Force captain
Robert Salas,

and many others who had
conducted extensive research

into the UFO phenomenon.

We live in a cosmos
teeming with life.

The fact that
some other civilizations

are more advanced than we are
may be humbling,

but that could be a necessary
step in our survival.

People are so afraid
for their lives, their families,

because they have had to sign
nondisclosure agreements.

CHAIRMAN: Witness from
the U. K., Nick Pope.

POPE:
Thank you.

Um, you should all have
a printed-out copy

of my opening statement.

POPE: I was one of the
witnesses, and I have to say,

this was the nearest
that we've gotten since,

oh, way back to the '70s
and the '60s, even,

to proper congressional hearings
on the UFO mystery.

You did work for the Ministry
of Defence in the U. K.?

That's correct, sir, yes.

POPE: I was asked
about my experience

within the British government's
UFO program,

and one of the U. K.'s
most high-profile cases,

the Rendlesham Forest incident.

NARRATOR:
In December 1980,

there were unexplained reports
of a glowing craft in the woods

of Royal Air Force Base,
Woodbridge.

Burn marks and broken branches
were later discovered.

Some have called this incident
"Britain's Roswell."

POPE: Even though I've left
government, I responded with,

"I can neither confirm
nor deny."

I don't think
the committee liked

my "neither confirm nor deny"
response,

and they pushed me
very hard on that.

Certainly, you've been involved
since you left.

Yes, sir, in a private capacity.

What's your opinion,

based on all that stuff
that you've had access to?

Is there an E. T. origin

to what's obvious sightings
of real UFOs?

It is a... a possibility.

KLOETZKE:
You could tell by the faces,

they really weren't quite sure
what to think of this yet.

By Wednesday, we have them,
you know, standing up,

pointing fingers, saying,
"We need to open those files."

POPE:
It drove things forward.

It took the UFO phenomenon
out of the fringe

and into the mainstream.

BASSETT: Thousands of people
watched it online.

We netcast it so that

members of Congress
and their staff

who were too timid
to come down and watch it there,

or members of the press
that were afraid

that they might be seen
watching it,

could watch it in the comfort
of their offices.

Sometime this year,
we may just enter a new world.

Thank you so much.

NARRATOR:
Based on the hearings,

four of the six
former members of Congress

pledged their support
to hold a world conference,

in conjunction
with the United Nations,

to address the disclosure

of all knowledge
of extraterrestrial contact

with this planet.

Then, on August 15, 2013,

less than four months after the
Citizen Hearing on Disclosure,

the United States government
made a shocking admission.

After decades
of denying its existence,

they finally admitted
that a secret base

known as Area 51 did exist.

Did the Citizen Hearing
on Disclosure

force the U. S. government
to act?

While the government
acknowledged

the existence of Area 51,
it still has not been revealed

just what it is
currently being used for.

And since that disclosure,

the perimeter around the base
has been extended

and security heightened.

Area 51 has to be
more secretive now,

because you got
so many other concerns.

We didn't have computers
to worry about, Internet,

all that sort of thing
that you've got today.

So it's a brand-new ball game
as far as security.

NARRATOR: While many considered
the government's admission

of the existence of Area 51
to be a bombshell,

an even bigger disclosure
was still to come:

the declassification of millions
of top secret CIA documents.

NARRATOR:
Bethesda, Maryland.

November 2014.

Stephen Bassett,

executive director
of the Paradigm Research Group,

launches an initiative directed
to influence Hillary Clinton.

Based on Clinton's work
with Laurance Rockefeller

in the 1990s,

Bassett believes
she could be an ally

in getting the government
to declassify its UFO files.

That political initiative
was begun

by sending a full copy

of the 30 hours of testimony
to every member of Congress,

addressing the Rockefeller
Initiative, naming names--

Secretary Clinton,
President Clinton, John Podesta,

George Stephanopoulos,
et cetera, et cetera.

That testimony created
a very significant dilemma

for the Clinton campaign team.

The political initiative forces
the Clinton campaign team,

which included Barack Obama--
he was on the team--

to speak to the issue.

Are we ready to go win
an election in November?

(crowd cheering)

NARRATOR: Clinton's campaign
chairman, John Podesta,

is well known
for his interest in UFO

and extraterrestrial encounters,
and according to him, so is she.

Secretary Clinton, likewise,

was also kind of interested
in the topic,

and during the course
of the campaign said

that, if elected,
she would have ordered

a more thorough
declassification review.

She was very open.
She did not skirt the issue.

She talked about it very openly.

NARRATOR: Many believe
that had Clinton won,

there would have been
a seismic shift

from the government's
long-held policy of secrecy

concerning UFO investigations to
a new policy of full disclosure.

PODESTA:
The system of regulation

that creates our secrecy
system-- what's top secret,

what's confidential, these
lower levels of classification--

that's regulated and has been
since the Truman administration

by executive order
of the president.

The president sets forward the
general rules of classification.

And some presidents
have been more forthcoming,

wanted less secrecy.

Some have tightened the reins
and wanted more secrecy.

It makes a difference.

BASSETT:
The CIA and the Pentagon--

they were worried about Hillary
Clinton, Secretary Clinton,

all the statements she was
making, winning the presidency,

and going to the Pentagon
and basically saying,

"You are going to give me
the information I need

"to disclose
the extraterrestrial presence,

or I'm gonna fire
every single one of you."

As this year of 2016
went forward, we all expected

that this headline
that we've been waiting for

that is going
to break the protocol,

break the policy of denial,
was going to happen.

John Podesta was trying
to get ready

to open up that we're not alone
in the universe.

All of that crashed

when a different person became
President of the United States.

NARRATOR:
November 8, 2016,

Donald Trump was elected
as America's next president.

There would be no disclosure
of the secret UFO files.

PODESTA:
I've had a number of

members of Congress,

members of the U. S. Senate
say to me, "Keep going at this.

I'm really interested in it, but
I can't say anything about it."

NARRATOR:
But as a longtime advisor

to President Barack Obama,

John Podesta still had an ally
in the White House,

one who would remain there
for another two months.

January 17, 2017.

In Barack Obama's
last days as president,

the CIA posts on its website

nearly 13 million pages
of agency documents,

many of which pertain to UFOs.

It was a very, very big deal,
and people were excited.

All of these things
were efforts, I believe,

to educate people and to move us

in a direction that we can
accept, as a society,

that extraterrestrials are here

and have been here
for thousands of years.

NARRATOR: Investigator Chase
Kloetzke and author Nick Pope

have been searching for proof

that the U. S. government has
been hiding its interactions

with extraterrestrials.

Now they hope to find
new evidence among

the millions
of recently declassified pages.

Well, there's such a lot
to go through.

-KLOETZKE: Exactly.
-It comes back
to the old saying,

the best place
to hide a book is in a library.

And there are all sorts of gems
in here, I'm sure,

but, um, how would we ever know?

We've got to go through it
literally page by page,

-line by line.
-Right.

So we're taking a look
at this report.

December 1960.

This has come from Detroit,

and it's a sighting of
unidentified objects in the sky.

"Like a disc," it says,

which again, is something
I'm sure you've come across

in-in various reports,
as have I.

Yes, many.

POPE: And yet,
it has these redactions on it.

And again,
the question arises: Why?

If this subject is so
unclassified and unimportant,

why all these redactions?

-And this next document.
-Oh, wow. That's crazy.

KLOETZKE:
Right? Why even bother?

Only information is... the date.

13 million documents.

If there really was
a smoking gun in there,

it would be
almost impossible to find.

NARRATOR: So far,
the CIA archive has revealed

thousands of reports
of sightings

of unexplained aircraft.

One report said that,
of 1,500 official accounts

of UFOs since 1947,

an incredible 20%
remain unexplained.

But was the release
of the CIA online archive

another step towards disclosure
or a way to bury the truth?

When the Pentagon's
classified study into UFOs--

the Advanced Aerial Threat
Identification Program--

was uncovered later in 2017,

journalists
and researchers rushed

to file Freedom of Information
Act requests.

Will these files finally explain
what the government knows?

NARRATOR: 11 months after
the CIA's archive

is released
to the public in 2017,

The New York Times story
reveals

the Department of Defense's
AATIP--

or Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program.

NARRATOR:
As soon as the story breaks,

journalists and researchers
start filing

Freedom of Information Act
requests, known as FOIA.

There have now been 1,500 to
2,000 FOIAs on this program--

$22 million program--

and the government
at this point is saying,

"Program? What program?"

They're playing
the same old game.

"We didn't release those films."

But they're under
so much pressure.

BASSET:
If this keeps up for even

four, five or six more months,

I do not imagine how
disclosure can not take place.

PODESTA: Much of what was
undertaken and reviewed

still remains in the dark,

in classified form
at the Department of Defense.

I would hope that
they would declassify it

and release as much as possible.

-Good afternoon.
-MAN: Good afternoon.

CAMERON: When this story broke
in The New York Times...

-Jordan.
-CAMERON: ...guy by the name of

Jordan Fabian from The Hill--
he asks Sarah Sanders

the $64,000 question.

Does the president believe
in the existence of UFOs,

and would he be interested

in restoring funding
for that program?

Somehow that question
hasn't come up

in our back and forth over the
last couple days, but I will,

uh, check into that and be happy
to circle back. Jennifer?

CAMERON: As far as I know,
she has never come back around,

because you can't.

The president
has to stay out of it.

They want the community
to force the issue.

They want us to force the issue.

And that is why they moved it
to Bob Bigelow,

who's a contractor in Las Vegas.

It's private industry
that will do the disclosure.

BASSETT: History is
about to happen at a level

that's almost incalculable,
extraordinary, unprecedented.

It makes something like
the Roman Empire look trivial.

So, just think about that.

The announcement of
the extraterrestrial presence,

worldwide engagement,

open contacts
with multiple civilizations.

The revelations
about AATIP may be clues

that there's an agenda here.

This may be government trying

to slowly drip-feed this
information out to the public

in such a way that there
won't be out-and-out panic.

It may be a way

of slowly but surely
acclimatizing people

to the reality
of this phenomenon.

TSOUKALOS: The fact that
The New York Times published

a Pentagon story
is extraordinary.

And nobody really cared, so,

to me, that means that
while we are all talking about

that we may be connected
to extraterrestrials,

that this knowledge
is within us.

It's hardwired, so that,
hey, if they're coming,

it won't be panic
because we come from them.

I do think that the world is
ready for this knowledge,

and I think that it would be
the most revolutionary story

in the history of mankind.

NARRATOR:
Has the time finally come

when not only
the United States government

but nations around the world
will reveal what UFO researchers

and ancient astronaut theorists
have long suspected:

that extraterrestrial visitation
of our planet

is not only real,
but has been happening

for thousands of years?

There are many who believe
the answer is a profound yes,

and that the truth will lead
to a greater understanding

not only of mankind's past,
but of its future,

a future that will see humans

as the torchbearers
of a new generation,

and as the extraterrestrial
visitors of planets and galaxies

far beyond our own.

CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY
A+E NETWORKS

ou look at the face,
it's keeping record

not only of Egypt,
but the whole world.

Three, two, one.
Let it go.

We're trying to find microbes

coming from
the upper atmosphere.

We're gonna recreate

the exact flight path
over the Bermuda Triangle.

This is when you experienced
this time vortex?

I traveled 100 miles
in only three minutes.

DAVID CHILDRESS:
Wow!

Every block is bigger
than this car.

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:
Insane!

The reason this pyramid
is the most magnificent

is what you're about to see
inside the Great Pyramid.

TSOUKALOS:
This is incredible.

That's historic,

that we've actually seen it.

The possibility that
in the past,

we had interactions with an
extraterrestrial civilization.

You can't rule it out.

We have an impulse within us

to explore, to discover.

-There is where Area 51 is.
-Oh, wow.

What we actually

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