All language subtitles for Phantom.Signals.Series.1.5of6.To.Catch.a.UFO.1080p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

Narrator:
A blip on the screen,

A faulty frequency,

A relentless hum.

Everyday operations
that can go unnoticed

Until a major glitch occurs.

"okay, something weird
is going on."

Narrator: But what does
the error really mean?

It's a whole bunch of different
signals and frequencies.

Something is trying to manifest.

If it's not explainable,
I guess you could call it a ufo.

Narrator:
And what is the fallout?

There's reports of private
security with machine guns.

They're in a world of trouble

Because they literally
don't know what side's up.

Narrator: In some instances,
it can end in tragedy.

And in others,
it can lead to madness.

This is driving me nuts.

Mckinnon: We are a long way
from being able to say

It's unexplainable.

We just don't know
the answer yet.

Narrator: We are surrounded
by endless streams of data,

Information bombarding us

From all corners
of our known universe,

Sometimes a blip,
an inexplicable signal,

Mysterious interference.

-- Captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by
discovery communications

1953.

On a cold night
in late November,

An unidentified blip

Is picked up by a u.S.
Air force radar station.

It appears out of nowhere,

Flying over lake superior
near the canadian border.

Smerdon: The ground controller
couldn't raise it by radio,

Which is unusual because
they weren't out of radio range.

They scrambled f-89c
interceptor called a scorpion,

Which is a fairly advanced
tracking airplane.

Narrator: Pilot felix moncla
and radar operator robert wilson

Take off
from kinross air force base.

They go off on a routine
intercept mission.

Smerdon: Our mandate is to be
airborne within five minutes

And to go and climb up

And find that airplane,
intercept it, close on it

And identify it positively.

After we do that,
we go home...

Or we shoot it down.

Narrator:
As they approach the location

Of the mysterious blip,

Moncla's jet has trouble
locking in on the bogie.

He must rely entirely
on ground control

To guide him into the small
target in the vast sky.

At 8,000 feet in altitude,
he starts to close in.

As this object and the aircraft
moved closer together,

It appeared that the two things
just formed one blip or blob.

Kislenko: One of the guys
manning the radar station

Says one blip
swallowed the other blip.

And then moncla's blip
disappeared.

[ beeps ]

Narrator: Radio communication
from moncla stops.

The radar people were expecting
the aircraft

To come out the other side
or move around it

Or do something.

Narrator:
But as ground control waits,

The scorpion never reappears.

That must be horrifying
because your first reaction

Is that the people on board
that plane are dead.

Narrator: The air force knows
it has a problem.

It's been 20 minutes since
the last contact with moncla

And his jet is reaching
the limit of its range.

Search and rescue are launched.

40 minutes after
moncla's plane went silent,

Search and rescue pilot
lieutenant william mingenbach

Picks up what sounds like

The missing pilot's voice
on his radio.

[ radio chatter ]

And they recognize him
apparently

Because they can recognize
his accent,

And so it seems to be moncla.

Narrator: After the transmission
heard by lieutenant mingenbach,

There is total silence.

Moncla and wilson are never
heard from again.

Everything just disappeared
without a trace.

You would expect that
if the plane went down

As a result of a crash,
there would be wreckage.

They find nothing.

Narrator: According
to the official reports,

The unusual target moncla
and wilson were pursuing

Is alleged to be
a royal canadian air force c-47

That drifted
30 miles off course.

Here you have two bases
in 1953 --

Canadian and american --

That are governing
the same airspace

And the shared border
across the lakes.

We're allies, but, of course,
you know,

That is sovereign airspace
and you want to make sure

Nobody's violating it
and nothing goes wrong.

What makes a bogey a bogey
is there's no identification

That goes along with that blip.

Identification friend or foe,
iff,

The transponder has been around

Since the end
of the second world war.

If the radar operator
can positively identify

That aircraft, either by iff
or by voice,

Then the fighters are scrambled.

Narrator: As the investigation
into moncla and wilson's

Disappearance continues,
canadian pilot gerald fosberg,

Who is believed to be
the unexplained second blip,

Is brought in for interrogation.

He said, "listen, I was,
first of all, not off course.

And second of all, there was
no intercept aircraft."

If the c-47 was the bogey
and it was flying along,

As we say in the business,
fat, dumb, and happy,

According to his
navigation aids, he's on course.

Something tragic happens

Before the scorpion
gets up beside the c-47.

They have a malfunction.

They have to break off
the intercept,

Whatever happened.

The c-47 could have kept going,

Not knowing that there was even
an intercept in progress.

Kislenko: So if you take fosberg
at his word,

There is something seriously
wrong with this situation.

Narrator: The canadian report
doesn't corroborate

The u.S. Conclusion
that fosberg was the bogey.

If it's as straightforward
as the american air force

Says it was,
then the canadians

Should have very obviously
had the exact same answers.

Narrator: In fact, there is
no report of an incident

Involving any canadian aircraft

In the lake superior area
on that date.

And that's where the trail
of questions begins.

The first thing I would ask
is why there was

Only one aircraft scrambled
to do the identification

Because we normally
flew in pairs.

If there had been
a second aircraft,

It would have seen
what happened.

The u.S. Military would have
had a certain stake

In keeping aspects
of the secrets.

There was probably a lot of,
shall we say, butt covering.

Hayes: You don't want it
getting out

That one of your craft crashed,

And you don't know
what made it crash.

Kislenko: The fact
that you don't talk about it

And don't do more
exhaustive research,

Of course, people are gonna
start to think

That you're covering stuff up.

Even if that part about
the canadian pilot is true,

It still doesn't really go
any ways to explaining

Why this jet disappeared.

If you've got a solid airplane
being merged together

With a ball of light,

That's not something
that happens every day.

So radar people are saying,
"how can we explain this?"

Adve: Radar works by sending out
a radio signal.

If there is a target,
the radio signal hits the target

And comes back to the radar.

We can tell how far the target
is by how long it took

For the signal to go,
then come back.

Smerdon: When a fighter
interceptor is scrambled,

They're just given an altitude
and an intercept heading.

And when the radar operator

In the back of the aircraft
locks on to the target,

Then he takes over
the intercept,

Maneuvers his pilot to the
position where he can look at it

And identify it
with his eyeballs.

Adve: It's not even clear
that we have evidence

That there was a target there.

The ground station could see
this target very clearly,

Seemed to have a lock on it,
did not ever lose it,

But the aircraft did not.

That's a very unusual thing.

If there's actually
something up there,

Its radar should be
able to see it.

Narrator: Ground control steers
moncla towards the bogey.

He is seen intercepting
the mysterious blip,

And then moncla's signal
disappears without a trace.

Where did the aircraft go?
Did it merge with it?

Was this a portal
that this craft went into

And came out on the other side
in another dimension?

We just don't know.

I think there is maybe
some merit to the theory

That moncla and wilson

Did actually intercept
some kind of object in the air

That may have been some
sort of advanced technology.

Kislenko: This is the era
of the u-2 spy plane,

And it does fly
very high, very fast

And is specially designed
to not be detected.

There are icbm tests
that are going on.

There are high-elevation
balloon tests

For both military
and scientific purposes.

There are top-secret
military programs

Designed to build better,
faster, more important jets.

Narrator: Could an encounter

With a top-secret
experimental craft

Be the cause
of the plane's disappearance?

I don't think it was
an experimental aircraft

He was chasing.

These experiments
would have happened

In much more remote areas
of the continent,

Especially if they wanted
to keep it from the russians.

That was a significant political
factor in the united states.

They have a burgeoning cold war,
obviously,

With the soviet union.

And that means that americans
are quite paranoid

About things like communist
infiltration, communist plots.

A lot of fears around
soviet invasion

Were about the soviets invading
through northern canada.

Narrator:
Moncla's plane disappearing

So close to the canadian border
without an explanation

Fed into the overall concern
of the times.

Soldiers are trained
that the communist menace exists

And therefore are on guard.

When the kinross incident
happens,

They took this very seriously

Because they didn't know
what it was.

If it's not explainable

Or it's not positively
identified in other ways,

I guess you could call it a ufo.

Narrator: Coming up...

The kinross incident
fits quite squarely

Into the early days
of the ufo craze.

Narrator: ...Is the official
story of the disappearance

A smokescreen
for a larger conspiracy?

The orchestration of secrecy
and cover-up

Became a very,
very well oiled machine.

Narrator: November 1953,

A u.S. Air force interceptor
is sent on a mission

To identify an object
in the sky,

Only to vanish moments later.

The american government's
attempt to explain this

Just made it stranger.

Seemingly appropriate answers,
people stop asking questions.

I think there were a lot of
people who knew what happened,

Couldn't explain it,

But they knew that there was
some anomalous object up there

That did something to our craft.

The kinross incident
fits quite squarely

Into the early days
of the ufo craze.

Kislenko: There are already
unprecedented events,

Very secretive in nature bases
which are popping up,

All sorts of strange stuff.

There are lots of films
coming out

That featured
extraterrestrial invasions.

So, of course, everybody was on
high alert at all times,

Especially when we're talking
about things in the air.

Project blue book was the u.S.
Military's investigation

Into ufos
to figure out what they were,

If they posed a threat,
where they might be coming from.

There are supposed to be
authorities that go out

And check and recheck
all of the facts and figures

To map out the possibilities
of alien life coming to earth,

But also to, of course,

Understand
what the public is seeing

And thinking at
a particular point in time.

Narrator: One incident that
helps intensify the ufo craze

Happens just over a year before
moncla's plane disappears.

On July 19, 1952,

Seven objects
are caught on radar

In the prohibited air space
near the white house.

This is something that would
really feed into these fears

Of soviet invasion
or extraterrestrial invasion

If it looks like
they're targeting the president

In the white house,
the center of america's power.

Viggiani: The radar operator
tracked this thing

At 130 miles an hour,

Then eventually
at 7,200 miles an hour.

If you fly a normal aircraft
at that kind of speed,

You get a sonic boom.

This does not happen
with ufos.

Narrator: Unable to dodge the
public's fascination with ufos,

A statement is made
by the u.S. Air force.

Viggiani: They pulled in general
john samford and he supplied

A whole lot of nonsense
for everybody to chew on.

We've been able to explain them
as hoaxes,

As erroneously identified
friendly aircraft.

Hayes: The more
the government attempted

To explain away ufos
or debunk them,

People increasingly see
more and more ufos.

However, there have been
a certain percentage

Of this volume of reports

That have been made
by credible observers

Of relatively incredible things.

Hayes: A military pilot in terms
of seeing something in the sky

Is more credible than someone

Who has no training
whatsoever in that.

Of course, there are theories
that as part of cover-ups,

Certain people were ordered
not to report certain things

Or certain things were stricken
from the record,

And that the men in black showed
up at their doors and subtly

Or otherwise told them
to keep their mouths shut.

Narrator: Could a government
cover-up of a ufo encounter

Explain why there were
no reports of wreckage

From felix moncla's plane?

They had to present any kind
of explanation

They could to make sure
that it didn't become,

You know,
"pilot gets eaten up by a ufo."

So what do you do?
You create misinformation

And you create other things
around it

That create confusion.

Narrator: Is the strange
radio transmission

40 minutes after the plane
vanished

A military attempt
at misdirection?

If somebody is listening in
on moncla's transmissions,

Recording that, resending that
is trivial.

Fallah:
The real question here is,

Did he hear a specific message?

If he hears specific words
that make a sentence,

That's when
you start considering,

Is it a real signal from moncla

Or is it some other type
of hallucination?

If you're the pilot that's been
sent up after moncla

To see what's going on,

You're obviously going to have
a higher level of alertness.

When you become more alert.
What you're really doing is

You're just ramping up
the volume

On every sensory input that
you're getting at the time.

Now you start trying
to make sense of that noise.

And when you're listening
to noise and you have an idea

For what you want to perceive,

You're more likely to hear it.

Kislenko:
And so you're left

With a really unusual
proposition.

Is that somehow
a phantom signal?

Is the plane somewhere in limbo?
It's weird.

Unless, of course,
it was extraterrestrial crafts,

And there was some kind
of weird encounter.

They actually did swallow
the plane

And somehow some kind
of transmission got out.

Narrator:
Could a government cover-up

Be at the heart of moncla
and wilson's disappearance?

The only reason I think that
moncla's blip disappeared

Was because he hit the water.

He crashed.

Narrator:
Contributing to the theory

That moncla's plane crashed
are reports

That the pilot suffered
from attacks of vertigo.

Smerdon:
Vertigo is a hallucination.

It's usually accompanied
by a sense of spinning.

The orientation of the inner ear
helps you determine

Your orientation to the world --

Upright, laying down,
whatever.

If you pull 1, 2, 3g
in an aircraft,

The fluid in your inner ear
reacts to these g forces,

And they can set up
some very strange conflicts

Between what the ear is sensing
and what the eye sees.

So when I experience vertigo,
and I experience vertigo a lot

Because of the maneuvers
we used to do,

We had to rely
on our instruments.

We had to trust them implicitly
because that's all we have.

If he loses control

And goes into
maybe perhaps a spiral dive,

He's in the water in seconds.

I don't know if anyone's
ever landed an aircraft

In lake superior
and lived to talk about it.

It's freezing cold.

If you're in that
water immersed,

You're going to last
half an hour if you're lucky.

Narrator: If moncla
and wilson did crash,

Why hasn't any trace
of the plane been found?

Macdonald: Search and rescue
in the '50s

Would have been really limited

To looking
at the surface of the water.

If they found something that was
on the surface of the water,

They could deploy divers.

But when an aircraft or some
other object hits the water,

It doesn't generally do
a straight path to the bottom.

It's taking an angle.
It's changing.

It could be affected by waves
and sometimes current.

Arama:
Lake superior is probably

The most hostile
inland lake in the world.

I've been out on a canoe
where the waves could go

From completely docile
to 30-foot waves.

The chances of finding
the target under the water

Where you found that surface
debris is very, very slim.

Lake superior is deep and dark,
and a lot of things

Get lost, never get found
because divers can't go down

And find them.

Most of the things
that are being found

Are being found using sonar.

Sonar works by using sound beams
that will strike an object,

Bounce back to the receiver

And really build,
like, a 2-d image for you.

And when you're looking
at sonar images,

You're looking for
lights and shadows.

So objects show up as lights.

And then there's
a bit of a shadow

That is behind the objects.

And you can tell approximate
size of things

Or height off of the floor
by how long that shadow is.

Narrator: 2006,

More than 50 years
after the plane's disappearance,

Adam jimenez and jim bisset from
the great lakes dive company

Announce their discovery
of an f-89

On the bottom of lake superior.

They saw this object,

And the object
kind of looked like an airplane.

And then nearby, the object
was this big, round, disc thing

With something that looked
like a trail off of the back.

And their theory was that
the airplane had hit the object.

So what they're claiming is this
is the wing of an aircraft

And the other one's
buried in the sand.

You know, you're not really
seeing any lighted-up areas

Here at all.

You're just seeing shadow.

I would be looking
for an object here

That was casting
that long shadow.

So I would really be questioning
whether or not

That was an aircraft on a sonar.

So I'm going to flip to the
the teardrop flying saucer here.

What they were claiming is that
the depression in the middle

Was something like a flying
saucer type of shape.

That's a big stretch.

This could be a coil of wire.

This could be, you know,

A gas bubbling coming out
from underneath it.

Just really nothing definitive
about that that says,

You know,
flying saucer or saucer at all.

Narrator: On September 22, 2006,
jimenez and bisset

Were interviewed
on "coast to coast am."

And then almost as mysteriously
as they originated

And provided alleged evidence of
the wreckage, they disappear.

The company that they claim
to work for didn't really exist.

The website that they had up
for a short amount of time

Just sort of went away.

Hayes: Of course, there are
people claiming that this is

Just further evidence
of a cover-up.

Macdonald:
Dive teams do find things.

You know, if it's something
that wasn't meant to be found,

Certainly the government
can step in and say,

"hey, we don't want you
messing around there."

I don't think they ever
found it, to be honest.

Maybe they realized
that they were going to get

Caught in this lie
and just decided to take off.

Hayes: There are definitely
documented cases of hoaxes

All the way through the history
of the ufo phenomenon.

But in my research,
they account for less

Than a percent of all sightings.

I think that
most people reporting

Are actually
sincere and authentic.

But in this particular case,
they obviously were not.

So to the best of our knowledge,
the craft and the pilots

And the radio operator
just simply vanished.

Narrator: Coming up,
for the past half century,

People around the world
have been

Reporting a mysterious hum.

Like, the windows would vibrate.

You almost wonder
if they're going to shatter.

This is driving me nuts,
this noise.

Narrator:
A strange sound agitates

And haunts across the globe

In places like auckland,
new zealand,

Taos, new mexico,

Bristol, England,
and windsor, canada.

The hum sounded like
a very low-frequency rumble.

Mike:
It resonates through the walls.

You think it's the fridge,
and you turn the fridge off,

And it's still there.

Sonya: Almost like a car

That is playing
really loud music.

And you hear
that subwoofer noise.

Mike: It actually goes from a
high-pitch volume to a whistle,

And then you get
to "boom, boom, boom,"

The low frequency
right after it.

Sonya: It's enough
to shake your house at times.

The windows would vibrate.

You almost wonder
if they're going to shatter.

This is driving me nuts,
this noise.

Narrator: The hum is more
than just an irritation.

It may actually be making
some people ill.

Months ago,
my wife was just fuming.

The whole house was vibrating.
It was actually making her sick.

She wanted to get out of here.

Upset stomach, headache,
sore neck, sore shoulders.

Narrator: How can a sound affect
someone's health?

The typical frequency range
of hearing for the human being

Is from 20 to 20,000 hertz.

Typically, the hums are in
the low frequency

Or sub frequencies.

If it's below 20 hertz,
those are the sounds

That people say
they can feel it.

Mckinnon: If you've ever been
to a concert,

And you've stood right up
against the speakers

And you feel that thumping,

You're not just hearing it
with your ears through the air.

You're feeling it through
the vibration of your bones.

Narrator: The human body
produces frequencies of its own,

Caused by a physiological
process,

Like the beating of the heart
and movement of blood.

When an external vibration

Matches the frequency
of this process,

It's called
a resident frequency.

A lot of the organs in our body

Have resonant frequencies
below 20 hertz.

And if you're to excite
these organs

Or these bones in your body
and they start to move,

It'd be almost like
the sensation of seasickness.

Narrator:
The health consequences
of the hum are varied.

But does it have a commonality
in other aspects?

Mckinnon: The hum is renowned

For having
some geographic hot spots,

Places where more people
hear it than other places.

Novak:
The question really is, though,

Are these hums the same
or are they different?

So you could have the hum
in one region

And there might be
a local explanation.

And then somewhere
halfway around the world,

It could be something else.

Some of the locations
may be explained

By a very large
and historical presence

Of a u.S. Military
industrial complex.

Narrator: Taos, new mexico,
is located 66 miles

From los alamos national
laboratory,

Originally built for designing
and testing nuclear weapons

During the manhattan project.

Mckinnon: One of the
explanations for the hum

Is it could be nuclear testing.

In geophysical signals,

An explosion looks
like a sharp jolt,

But then fades away.

And the bigger it is,
the bigger explosion is.

In order to have enough
nuclear explosions

To generate a consistent hum,

We would need to be constantly
setting off nuclear weapons

All of the time.

Taos has been home also to some
very top-secret air force

And cia-related projects
from the 1950s onwards.

So it is quite possible
that folks in taos

Are hearing distortions

Along the line
of military technologies.

Narrator: The military uses
low frequencies

For certain operations,
such as signaling submarines

And sometimes for other,
more harmful purposes.

We have lots of evidence that
sound has been used as a weapon.

In world war ii,
at the siege of stalingrad,

Russian soldiers played
very loud music against germans

In the middle of the night
to disorient and keep them up.

And then in 2017,

Canadian and american diplomats
in havana

Were complaining
about a frequency,

A sort of vibration sound.

Most of them likened it
to the idea

Of a large diesel truck idling.

They were complaining
about disorientation generally,

And some complained
about being violently sick

And some actually were diagnosed
with some brain damage.

So people immediately assumed

That this was some sort of
intelligence operation

Being conducted by either
the cuban government,

By potentially
the russian government.

These are countries which,
of course,

Are generally adversarial
to western interests.

Narrator:
Complicating attempts

To discover
the source of the hum

Is the fact
that not everyone can hear it.

And the people that don't hear
it do think we're crazy.

Sonya:
We definitely heard it.

Two doors down,
they heard it,

And the woman
across the street heard it.

But the person who lived
right beside us

Didn't experience it at all.

Mike: Right now,
I'm sitting in the house.

The fridge isn't running.

Furnace isn't running,
and I can hear the hmmmmmmm.

Procter: It's hard to determine
whether or not this is real.

Is this something that is really
a natural phenomenon

Outside of them,
or is it something

That's happening
with our brain and interior?

We think of the ear
as picking up sounds

And being a passive receiver
that hears it.

But in fact, the ear itself
produces sounds

That go back to the ear

Called spontaneous
otoacoustic emissions.

If frequencies are coming in

And you're producing
your own otoacoustic emission

Coming out there,
you're going to have a cycle

Where you're hearing the sound
that you're producing.

So a normal individual should
just filter out the frequency

Of whatever their own internal
emissions are producing.

But maybe that fails.

Maybe that could be part
of the hum.

Narrator: Only 2% of people
worldwide can hear the hum.

Is it possible these people have
some sort of altered perception?

It's possible that the hum
is a sensory transformation,

Which is where you get a sense
in from one sense,

But you misattribute it or
process it as another sense.

You get into this idea
of synesthesia,

Where people can start
tasting colors or seeing sounds.

6% or 7% of the population

Have some minor level
of synesthesia somewhere.

Narrator: In windsor, canada,
a facebook group has started

For those who can hear
the sound.

The group was able to help
investigators pinpoint

A possible source of the hum.

We had a monitor
that we programmed

To send us alerts
any time of the day

When a certain frequency level
was detected.

We were able to coincide
what we measured

To what people throughout
the city were also reporting

At the same time.

All of the evidence
pointed to zug island.

Zug island
is a highly industrialized

Part of the detroit river
on the detroit side.

It's got a long history
of several industries,

With the most predominant
and oldest one being u.S. Steel.

The canadian government
did reach out,

And while there seemed to be
a lot of goodwill

At the bureaucratic level
over in the u.S.,

They just couldn't get private
industry to cooperate.

It was dead silence.

We could not get to the island.

We're not permitted to do
measurements right on the island

Mike:
Because we wanted access,

They had to put up
different security.

They had to keep us off.

We had both homeland security
and the detroit police

Approach us,
and there's reports

Of private security
with machine guns.

Narrator: Coming up,

What is it they're doing
that is so secret?

Kislenko: The refusal of anybody
associated with zug to talk

Feeds the conspiracy theory.

Narrator:
For the past half century,

People around the world
have been reporting

A mysterious auditory phenomenon
called the hum.

It feels like it's coming
from the ground.

It's enough to shake
your house at times.

Leading experts
to speculate on its cause.

They may assume that
it's something to do

With secret weapons or malintent
by foreign governments.

Narrator: Some residents
of windsor, canada,

Believe their hum is coming
from a steel plant

On nearby zug island.

Looking at all
the potential sources of energy

That could produce something
like the hum,

The most obvious
was the blast furnaces.

They could be the result of
a process that they were running

Or they're just simply
having issues

With their blast furnaces.

We weren't permitted
to do measurements.

So while all the evidence
points to this,

It's still
somewhat circumstantial.

Narrator: A veil of secrecy is
preventing further exploration.

Novak: Perhaps they're doing
something that's classified.

You think that they could say
that -- "it's classified.

We can't talk about it."

Sonya:
From all over the world,

People have come specifically
to research this hum.

And then they arrive in windsor,
and it's --

It ceases. It stops.

And that's frustrating
because then it makes it look

Like we're out of our minds
and it doesn't exist.

Kislenko: Zug island is
one of those things

That always kind of
makes me go, "hmm,"

When it comes to any kind
of conspiracy theories.

There's a sort of understandable
curiosity behind zug,

But I don't necessarily leap
right towards the idea

Of there's something
secretive going on.

No major steel manufacturer

Is willing to disclose
all of its processes.

However, the sort of mysterious
comings and goings of the hum

And the refusal of anybody
associated with zug

To talk to people obviously
feeds the conspiracy theory.

In order to provide some sort of
misdirection or disinformation,

The more conspiratorial things
you let loose

About whatever the issue is,

The better
the level of confusion.

It's sort of
part of human curiosity.

Even a little bit of information

About something
that's interesting

Or that could have
a little bit of a kick to it,

People are all over it.

Narrator: But the hum isn't
only happening in windsor.

There are hum hot spots
all over the world,

Thousands of miles
from zug island.

I think we know what's causing
the windsor hum,

Even though we don't have
that smoking gun in front of us.

But then you go
to taos, new mexico,

And they don't have
that same factory.

So what's going on there?

Narrator: Some theories suggest
that perhaps the hum

Is not a man-made phenomenon.

Mckinnon:
The earth is always moving.

It isn't a static thing.

We have hundreds of earthquakes
every day,

Most of them too small to feel.

We have waves crashing
into the beach.

We have wind blowing the trees.
Their roots move in the ground.

All of these things can create
a pressure wave in the air

That is too low frequency
for humans to pick up,

But we monitor it
in the infrasound network.

Infrasound is defined

As that limit
of human hearing and below.

Technically, you shouldn't
be able to hear the sound.

But technically, earthquake
acoustic noises

Are also too low to hear.

But we've managed to pick them
up on tape recorders before.

So every now and then,
they go right up above

That 20-hertz limit
into the audible range.

Narrator: Could this theory

Apply to some
of the hums around the world?

Auckland, new zealand, is on
a tectonic triple junction.

It's got one plate on top,

And it has other plates
going underneath it.

This means it gets a lot of
very, very large earthquakes,

And it also gets volcanoes.

So it could very well be a sound

That could be the source
that's going on.

Narrator: The area
around taos, new mexico,

Has had six
low-magnitude earthquakes

In the past year alone.

But there are other ideas.

Taos is on a layline.

Narrator: Laylines are based
on the much disputed theory

That ancient builders
located their structures

Based on patterns
of invisible lines of energy

Running through the planet.

And we know that ufos
tend to congregate

Along those laylines.

Ufos have been reported
to have a sense of vibration

Or hum to it.

Narrator: Still,
another theory suggests

That the vibrations are coming

From massive waves
crashing on the ocean floor.

Think about on the bottom
of the ocean,

Just eddies and waves
hitting the bottom

In a rhythmic kind of way.

And it's just enough

To be able to cause
a little hmmmm

That people who have the
sensitivity are picking up.

Narrator:
Some of these waves

Can be picked up by seismometers
thousands of miles away.

Mckinnon:
The insight lander on mars

Has the world's most
sensitive portable seismometer.

When they were testing it
in central colorado,

They were actually picking up
the sound of the waves

In the atlantic and the pacific
at the same time.

Novak: It's something
that could be viable

Because it's great amounts
of energy.

And low-frequency sound
at a high-enough energy

Can travel
extremely long distances

Because of the long wavelengths.

Narrator: Whether the hums
are all the same or different,

A man-made menace
or natural phenomena,

The biggest mystery remains
why so few people can detect it.

For all we know,
there's a small, little gene

That in these people
causes their --

Their basilar membrane
in their ear

To be able to pick up a sound
at one very low frequency.

Mike: I'm keeping track of all
this on a regular basis, 24/7.

So when somebody finally says,
"well, what proof do you have?"

I've got 17 terabytes of
sound files, handwritten notes.

What do you want to hear?

Narrator: Coming up...

Frustrations were
reaching their peak.

Narrator:
...In a quiet canadian town,

Citizens are being plagued
by a strange phenomenon.

This frequency
was off the charts.

Now people are starting to get
super nervous because of that.

Narrator: Something
mysterious and alarming

Is happening in the parking lot

Of a small-town grocery store
in alberta, canada.

We would have people who come in
and be like,

"I can't unlock my car.
I don't know what's happening."

To vehicles running
and not turning off.

They couldn't start
their vehicle

If it was the type of vehicle

That had a push-button
start in it.

There was also car alarms
that were going off.

They were like, "oh, I just --I
hit the unlock button

And opened up my door
and the alarm went off

And it won't stop."

The first couple of times,
I didn't think anything of it.

It was about the third time
that I was like,

"okay, something weird
is going on."

Carstairs is a small town
of about 4,400 people.

Very tight community. We're
the main grocery store in town.

So it's a center
of the community.

Nothing ever really happens
in carstairs.

So as soon as this happened,

It blew up social media
everywhere.

We couldn't believe
the amount of people

That were commenting on it.

Narrator:
The strange reports alert

The attention of paranormal
investigator melissa wilton.

I have been following

The carstairs key fob situation
from the beginning.

Narrator: Melissa begins
an investigation in carstairs

To find out what could be
causing the abnormal situation.

I am a paranormal investigator

That takes
a scientific approach.

We rely on data and evidence

That we collect
rather than psychics

And things like that that you
can't verify through science.

And so we use emf detectors

Which measure
electromagnetic fields.

Any electricity or energy
that's put out

By basically everything
in your house.

So your refrigerator,
microwave, tv.

So we'll go around
and take base readings.

If they spike, it might mean

That something
is trying to manifest.

Narrator: While melissa conducts
her investigation

Into
the paranormal possibilities,

Finding a solution is becoming
even more urgent

For store staff.

Kennedy: We paid for people to
get their vehicles towed

To a service center
and try to get it resolved.

And once they were off the lot,
it seemed to function fine.

Brown: Stephen and I decided
to test it out.

So in the parking lot,

I would attempt to lock it
and it wouldn't lock.

And then we drive a quarter mile
down the street,

And it would work fine.

We drove the truck
all around the town

And tried it in a variety
of different areas

And it all led back
to right around our store.

Definitely there was something
happening in the parking lot.

Narrator: With no explanation
for the crisis,

Speculation increases.

What force
is causing key fobs

To fail in the parking lot?

The fob transmits
a very, very weak signal.

It's designed to be very close
to the car,

And it's designed to be weak

So that your battery
would last a long time.

A malfunctioning piece
of electronics can interfere

With the fob transmission.

It could be any piece
of electronics

Within a 200-meter,
300-meter radius.

Melanson: I thought that it was
our automatic door

That had, like, a haywire sensor

That was, like,
sending off signals

That was messing with
everybody else in the area.

We also have a security system
within the store.

So people were speculating
that it was that.

So we called in an electrician.

We shut down all of the power
to the store

And that didn't have any effect.

It's got to be something, right?

So it's like
if you can't immediately

Find a solution to something,

Then your brain
starts to wander.

Brown: Some of the theories
that started to come out

Was the american military
might be involved.

And then that led
to, of course, aliens.

90% was aliens, that they were
hovering over this area.

I got a phone call where
somebody who very much sounded

Like a radio-show host said,

"hey, is it true

That you guys have aliens
in your parking lot?"

Kappeller: They assumed that
there was a paranormal activity.

There was all kinds
of weird talk.

Paranormal activity can suck
energy from electronics

Or batteries
in order to try and manifest.

If you're using a video camera,

Something paranormal
might drain the battery

And then you can catch it
on film

Because it killed your battery.

Something doesn't want you
filming there.

Narrator:
With the mystery still unsolved,

The store widens
their investigation.

Kennedy: One of our guests was
a shortwave radio operator.

So we had a directional antenna
and a laptop

With a piece of software
on it that read frequencies.

So he came in and he set that up
for us and it showed

That this particular frequency
was off the charts.

Kappeller: As soon as they saw
high frequency

That they never heard of before,

That got people going on
about conspiracies.

It's from aliens to somebody
made a homemade device

And is messing with people.

People were worried about it
affecting them.

You know, like microwaves
can cause cancer type thing.

There was actually people
that claimed

They won't even drive down
main street anymore.

They actually take
the long route around

To go to the post office.

Narrator: Coming up,
with no answers

And a town paralyzed, events
take an even stranger turn.

These two black vehicles
pull up,

And gentlemen
that are in suits come out,

Carrying weird machines.

I'm like, "alright, something's
up. Something's going on."

Narrator:
A mysterious force

Is plaguing the town
of carstairs, canada.

Key fobs failing, vehicles
refusing to start

And car alarms
wailing for no reason.

Frustrations were, I would say,
reaching their peak.

Narrator: Probes into the puzzle
are launched,

But no answers are found.

Kappeller: Any type of corridor

That they try going down
was a dead end.

Now people are starting to get
super nervous because of that.

Narrator: Paranormal
investigator melissa wilton

Is looking into possible
causes for the phenomenon.

So far, I've taken some readings

Of the electromagnetic
field levels.

When you have, like,
really high emf levels,

It can cause
all sorts of problems.

You never really know for sure

If it's paranormal or not
until we investigate.

Narrator: While melissa

Looks into
the potential paranormal causes,

The co-op staff continues
to examine other leads.

Kennedy: We have a rail line
that runs adjacent to our store.

They had placards out saying

That there have been changes
to their radio equipment

That might cause interference.

They had validated
for themselves

That their equipment
was not causing the signal.

We looked at the car dealership
to see

If there was
anything going on there.

Kappeller:
I work at two guys auto parts.

It's directly across the street
from co-op.

Kennedy: They disconnected
all their batteries

And the problem persisted.

And so they were eliminated
as a possible source.

Narrator:
Every local lead is followed

With no answers
forthcoming from anyone.

It actually got to the point
where the entire main street

Would all shut down
at the exact same time,

Shut everything down,
all power,

To see if it was still going on.

Narrator:
The co-op staff are baffled

And desperate for answers.

Perhaps a clue can be found
in another incident.

That year
at a north carolina restaurant,

Customers were upset
that their car key fobs

Had stopped working
in the parking lot.

It was discovered
that a nearby gaming house

Had used a jammer device

To interfere with radio signals
clients were using to cheat.

A jammer is usually
a high-powered transmission

That contains no information.

It's usually just noise.

And as long as the jammer
is stronger

Than the desired signal,
your fob isn't going to work.

Narrator: But there are no
gaming houses near carstairs.

So what's causing the fobs
to fail there?

Can the unusual frequency
of the parking lot

Be part of
a bigger criminal plan?

There was one theory that came
up that potentially

There was thieves out there

That were duplicating
the signal on the fob.

Adve:
So you would unlock your car.

That's a transmission
the thief records.

And the thief retransmits
that same fob signal.

Your car thinks that
it's you, unlocks itself,

And the thief steals your car.

Narrator: But is it really that
easy to steal a modern car?

Now fobs don't transmit
the same thing every time,

So every time they transmit
something slightly different.

Narrator: Melissa wilton is
concluding her investigation

Into the electromagnetic fields
around the co-op.

While high levels can indicate
paranormal activity,

It could also be the cause
of a different problem.

There's something
called the fear cage.

When you have a lot
of electronics around you

All the time
that are putting off

These really high emf levels,

They cause people to be paranoid
or to feel afraid.

They're more prone to think
like there's ghosts, demons,

Something like that.

So we have to take that
into consideration

When we're investigating.

Narrator:
This doesn't appear to be
what's happening in carstairs.

The emf readings were exactly
where I would expect them to be,

Mostly baseline
across the board.

They would spike
around the door,

Where I would expect them
to, around the open sign,

Which puts off
pretty high emf levels.

Some vehicles put a higher
emf levels from alarm systems,

But there wasn't
any really crazy spikes

That I couldn't explain.

I covered all my bases,
and I don't think that

I'm going to catch any ghosts

Or anything like that,
unfortunately.

Narrator: With paranormal
activity ruled out,

The store staff takes
the inquiry up another level

And calls
in the canadian government.

I contacted the ministry
of innovation,

Science and technology.

They have some testing equipment

To try to locate the source
of the phenomenon.

Narrator:
After combing the neighborhood,

The government agents

Track the signal's origin
to a specific zone,

One that had previously
been eliminated.

And all of a sudden,

You see these two black vehicles
pull up,

And gentlemen
that are in suits come out,

Carrying weird machines.

You know, they're very vague
about what they were doing

Because,
of course, you want to ask.

They walked around
our entire lot.

And once they zoned in on it,
it was a vehicle.

It was sitting on a trailer
because it needed work done

And the battery was dead.

It was like,
"that's impossible.

There's no way."

Narrator: The mechanics
take the vehicle apart,

Searching for the source
of the signal.

Kappeller:
It took about a day and a half.

And then we finally found
something that we're like,

"hey, this doesn't belong
to the vehicle."

The owner of the store,
he looked at it,

He said, "that's a jammer."

The police are trying to find
out how fast you're going.

So the jammer is just
sending out

This extremely strong signal.

It's like somebody shouting.

So it just overwhelms the radar.

It actually had
its own battery backup.

So it was able to continue
running even though the vehicle

Was not able to run.

After it was resolved,

It was just a sigh of relief
throughout the whole store.

Kennedy: We put it out
on our social media.

There was still sort of a little
bit of trolling.

"of course, it wasn't you guys.

Wink, wink,
nudge, nudge." right?

There's always going to be the
conspiracy theorists out there

That's not going to believe
a logical explanation.

You don't realize
how many signals

Are going at any one given time.

When you see what just one
signal can do to an entire town,

You realize how powerful
that is.