All language subtitles for UFO.2021.S01E03.WEBRip.x264-ION10_3_English

suspenseful, dramatic music

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[David Fravor] Both airplanes
see a disturbance in the water

and a white, 40-foot-long
Tic Tac-shaped object.

[Kevin Day] I knew
they were something anomalous.

What flies like that?

Nothing I'd ever seen.

[George Knapp]
It's picked up on radar.

It's real.

[Gary Voorhis]
Helicopter landed.

Two people got out.

I was asked to get everything
in the computer room

that had anything on it.

All of those disks
were taken offship.

[Day]
I started having nightmares.

End-of-the-world type
nightmares.

I don't know what it was.

But I know it's real, and I know

it's coming our way.

[John Greenewald Jr.]
There was a private organization

funded by a billionaire

that aimed to investigate UFOs.

[Knapp] Really off the charts
strange stuff

starts happening.

And that's when AATIP was born.

[Luis Elizondo] There is
very compelling evidence

that we may not be alone.

[Greenewald] There were
very little things known

about Mr. Elizondo as a person.

Who was he?
What was he really doing?

And when
the Department of Defense

is saying,
"Yeah, the guy on the news,

in The New York Times,
he did not lead that program,"

what do you do with that?

Who do you believe
at that point?

[James Carrion]
I'm not a skeptic.

What I am is just...
I'm a truth seeker.

Those writers were fed
that information purposely.

They wanted that article
to get out,

and they found some believers
to release it.

Where's the proof?

There is no proof.

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pulsing, intriguing music

The belief that UFOs exist,

that they are alien in origin,

is just a belief.

People take it on faith.

There is no proof

other than stories,

witness accounts,

anecdotes.

Lot of folks
that make the rounds

of the UFO conferences,

they don't have an interest
in finding truth.

They're perfectly okay

with this subject
being perpetuated

from now till eternity.

They like the fact

that it's conspiracy

that continues and continues
and goes on and on.

That's never been my goal.
My goal is

I want to find out what
the truth is in my lifetime.

So, find out that truth
no matter what.

My interest in UFOs
actually started

when I was 11 years old.

[woman] My God, it's got lights
all the way around it.

[Carrion]
My mom used to subscribe

to all the tabloid magazines,

so the National Enquirer,

for example.

You know, back then,

there were alien stories.

So I would clip out
all of these different stories

about UFOs and aliens

and collect them.

I've always thought,

"Is there something more
to this?"

Are these just stories?

Is there some truth to this?

But then one day,
out of the blue, there was

some front-page news
that happened

where
these intelligence analysts

that were
from Augsburg, Germany,

they went AWOL from their post.

dramatic, ominous music

What ended up happening was

they went to Florida...

...because they wanted to attend
a MUFON conference.

That's where I first heard
the word "MUFON."

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"MUFON" stands for

the Mutual UFO Network.

[Ralph Blumenthal] There are
people in the private sector

who actually attract UFOs,

and there are
countless sightings.

[man] Look at that.
It's going behi...

Yes. What the hell is that?

Yo, look how slow it's moving.

I have never seen a UFO,

and yet there are hundreds
of thousands of reports.

And there are organizations
that track these reports.

One of them is
the Mutual UFO Network, MUFON.

[Carrion]
Their mission statement

is the scientific investigation
of UFOs

for the benefit of humanity.

[Knapp] Independent UFO research
is fraught with peril.

It's a swamp. It's a mess.

There's so much information
in there that is unreliable,

so many people who make claims
that can't be verified.

[man]
Whatever it was

moved up and to the left.

Uh, it hovered there for...

probably about 60 seconds.

[woman] There was no sound,
that's the funny thing.

-Or-or the lights.
-Yeah.

-You know, the usual lights.
-No sound, no blinking lights.

[Carrion] When I became
the international director

in 2006,

I really had the sincere desire

to make MUFON a more
science-based organization.

I rewrote
their investigative manual.

I formed
their rapid-response team.

I really tried to instill

more ethical behavior

in terms
of witness interviewing.

[man] There's so many theories
floating around.

No one has an answer.

A lot of it is just speculation.

And just get good data.

[man]
This is really strange.

Very strange object
in the sky here.

A yellow center.

Looks like it has... it's moving
away from me a little now.

[Leslie Kean] For years,
when a case would happen,

witnesses would call
a local MUFON group

and report it.

But when you look
at the investigations,

you'd realize that civilian
UFO research organization

could only do so much.

That's why I've always advocated

that we need a government agency

in order
to do proper investigations.

Little did I know

that there was
this project going on

in the Defense Department.

The Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program.

The Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification...

Identification Program.

A recent report by
The New York Times

unveiled the existence of
a real-life X-Files...

[reporter] Tens of millions
of dollars for the project

were pushed through

by former Senate majority leader
Harry Reid.

A lot of the money went
to Bigelow Aerospace

run by a longtime friend
of Reid's, Robert Bigelow,

a big believer in UFOs.

I wasn't surprised.

No, actually, at the time,
it was sort of a,

"Aha.
That's what that was all about."

Robert Bigelow
approached MUFON in late 2008.

Bob Bigelow
is an interesting person.

I've always
sort of thought of him

as sort of
the modern-day Howard Hughes.

-[applause]
-A billionaire-- lots of money--

who has a vested interest
in the space program

and seems to have, also,

this vested interest
in the UFO field.

Correct.

In 2008,

when I was
international director,

Robert Bigelow asked MUFON

to submit
some scientific papers.

Scientific papers
that would project

futuristic technology

that we could glean from UFOs.

You know, some sort of
far-out advanced technologies.

[Knapp] $22 million dollars
is given to BAASS,

an organization
created by Robert Bigelow.

And he advertises online.

He recruits scientists,

private investigators,
former cop and military folks.

People with experience

investigating
different phenomena,

criminal activity.

People who are good judges
of character.

They put together
a gigantic pile of information.

[Greenewald]
When you look at the fact

that $22 million dollars
went over to the private sector,

a subsidiary
of Bigelow Aerospace,

and that they produced
38 reports,

you got to ask, "That's what...

Really what
$22 million dollars bought?"

Where did that money go?

[Carrion] Well, we submitted
some papers in 2008.

He allegedly liked them.

And then in 2009,

Bigelow invited us back to form

a relationship
where he wanted to use MUFON

as the investigative arm

for his new company
called BAASS.

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January of 2009,

I went to Las Vegas

along with a couple
of other MUFON board members

to Bigelow's headquarters.

And we sat down
with, uh, Hal Puthoff,

Jacques Vallée,

Robert Bigelow

and a couple other folks

I did not recognize
and were not introduced.

And Harold Puthoff
was a physicist

who had done work

in this psychological
mind expansion experiment,

the PSYOPs operation
the CIA funded for many years

and its intelligence gathering.

[Diana Walsh Pasulka]
Jacques Vallée is

one of the first big
what we call UFO researchers.

He's a computer scientist,

and he's also an astronomer,
and he helped

map the first mapping of Mars.

[Knapp] Those are the same
people that were part of NIDS.

[Carrion]
We sat down with Bigelow,

and we talked about how we could
formalize that relationship.

I had a formal presentation

where I described
how MUFON could act

as sort of
the rapid-response force

for getting quickly

to what could be described
as a major UFO event,

how we could gather evidence.

And then feed that back
to BAASS.

Bigelow was offering MUFON
something along the lines

of $50,000 per month

over a 12-year contract

with, uh, future expansion,

and he said
that it was not his money.

He said, uh,
"This is coming from a sponsor."

So I asked him point-blank,

"Who is your sponsor?"

And he said
he couldn't reveal that.

That bothered me.

So then I asked Bigelow again,
point-blank,

"Is your sponsor
a government organization?

Or is it
an intelligence agency?"

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He point-blank told me no.

Well, fast-forward to 2017.
We find out

that it's the DIA
that was behind this.

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The Defense Intelligence Agency.

[Carrion]
Honestly, I don't think it makes

a lot of sense
that the government

would have an interest
in UFO groups

like MUFON other than for,
let's say, deception reasons,

psychological reasons,

maybe
counterintelligence reasons

for the same reason
that, uh, you know,

homicide detectives
don't want amateur sleuths

around homicide, uh, scenes.

The government would do it
for just one reason,

which is to manage
that organization.

The common thread
that you can find in this story

from the very early days of UFOs

starting in 1946
all the way till now...

There's one common thread,

and that's human deception.

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[newsman] For 22 years,
the government officially

investigated UFO sightings.

Those records, now declassified,

are kept here,
in the National Archives.

The files include case records,
pictures-- like this one,

which the Air Force labeled
a hoax--

and artifacts.

This chrome-plated cylinder,
which the Air Force concluded

was probably part of
an auto ornament,

was sent to J. Edgar Hoover

by a man in Washakie, Wyoming,

who wanted to know if it was a
threat to the national security.

[Greenewald] When I
first started looking into UFOs,

I really had no idea
what I was getting myself into.

I went on the Internet,
and, you know,

being a 15-year-old kid,

thinking,
"Hey, if anybody's gonna tell me

the truth about UFOs, it's
the United States government."

And honestly, it's probably

the biggest mistake of my life.

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I grew up fascinated by magic.

And in my mind,
the greatest trick of a magician

is to make the audience look
at your left hand

so they don't see
what's going on in your right.

-[gasping]
-[applause]

And I never knew it at the time,

that it would play a role
later in my life

researching the United States
government connection

to what UFOs were.

And there's a really,
really strong connection,

in my mind,
between being a magician

and handling the secrets
of the U.S. government.

The government doesn't want you
to know everything,

so they will create
the illusion of something.

That's their left hand,

because they don't want you
to know

what's going on in their right.

[Carrion]
My belief through my research

is that the UFO subject

was a deception effort

created by intelligence agencies

to kick off the Cold War.

They created the UFO myth

for disinformation purposes.

The origin of all this
would be, actually, Roswell.

Classic deception.

If you look
at the summer of '47,

Kenneth Arnold
had his June 24 sighting.

You had lots of sightings
after that

that most people discounted

as, "This housewife saw this"

and, "This farmer saw that."

But they found this material
on their property.

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As I come out
of the canyon there,

I notice to the left of me

a chain, which looked to me
like the tail of a Chinese kite,

going at a terrific speed,

flipped and flashed in the sun,

just like a mirror.

[Kate Dorsch] Kenneth Arnold's
sighting takes place

at a very interesting nexus.

We are coming out
of World War II,

in this postwar moment where...

we have the atomic bomb.

We think that the Soviets
are a decade or more away

from having the bomb.

But our relationship
with the Soviet Union is

fast deteriorating.

There is a heightened
cultural tension

during this time,
where any moment

can be your last.

That these nuclear warheads
can be dropped on us, unknowing,

unbidden, with no preparation
and no warning.

So people are living in this
heightened state of awareness

and intensity and anxiety

on an existential level.

And then enter the UFO.

[shutter clicking]

[John Hayes] I don't know
what they saw in '47,

but I'm quite sure
it probably was Project Mogul.

But I think if you find that
people talk about things

over a period of time,
they begin to lose

exactly when the date was.

And there were lots
of dummies dropped;

there were 20...
about 2,500 balloons launched

during this 30-year period

in New Mexico alone.

[insects trilling]

[Dorsch] The Roswell story is
actually one of my favorites.

It might still be
largely apocryphal.

The story is
the United States Air Force

and the military was testing

these very, very large
surveillance balloons

called Skyhook balloons,

that were highly classified,
top secret,

intending to fly them
over the Soviet Union

at very, very high altitudes.

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And...

one of these things came down
in Roswell.

And some low-level Air Force kid
went out to see

what the farmer had reported

and said, "Oh, the--
It's just a balloon."

[Carrion] The story was that
they found this balloon.

No big deal.

[Dorsch] The higher-ups
at the Air Force found out

that this was being shared,

that the story
about the balloon was out,

that we were testing
these high-altitude balloons,

and came back and said,
"It was not a balloon.

We don't know what it was,
but it was absolutely not

a high-altitude balloon.

So whatever you've heard
is not at all true."

Because they did not want this
in the news.

They did not want
the Russians to know

that we were testing these
very high-altitude balloons

and were or were not successful.

[Carrion] What really cemented
the subject of UFOs

in people's minds in 1947

was when

the 509th Bomber Group,

which was the only atomic unit
in the world at the time,

sent out that press release
and said, "We captured a UFO."

They put an official stamp
of reality

on the UFO subject at that time.

[Dorsch] In the absence
of other explanation,

the extraterrestrial thing

gains traction.

You start to see
a narrative about aliens.

And, even then,

Betty and Barney Hill are

one of the first
abduction stories

that takes place in the 1950s.

[Carrion] At that point,
it becomes its own myth.

My mother and I have both had

close encounters
of the fourth kind,

also known as
abduction experiences.

[indistinct chatter]

[Carrion] And if they created
the UFO myth,

that means they also perpetuated
the UFO myth.

My name is Richard Doty.

I'm a former

intelligence officer
for the United States Air Force.

I worked for the Air Force
Office of Special Investigations

from 1978 to 1988.

[Knapp] Richard Doty
is an interesting character.

He actually was someone
who worked on the inside

in disinformation.

Yeah, there is disinformation.

Of course there is.
There is-is attached

to every classified project.

It-it comes with the territory.

Yes.

Absolutely.

We did do that, yes.

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We don't call it disinformation.

We call it
counterintelligence operation.

Convincing the enemy the...

whatever we wanted them
to believe.

If some people tapped
into something

or they photographed things

that were being tested
at Kirtland Air Force Base,

we have to develop an operation

and convince 'em what they saw

were UFOs.

Which led into
the Paul Bennewitz operation.

soft, hypnotic music

Paul Bennewitz

tapped into
a highly classified program

at Kirtland Air Force Base.

In the early '80s,

the Air Force
was testing drones,

and drones
were highly classified.

But on the base,

we had a-a National Security
Agency facility

with a high-energy laser.

[beeping]

When a Soviet satellite
would pass over the base,

the laser would hit
the lens of the camera,

blinding that satellite,

so the satellite
couldn't take any pictures.

Paul's seen these things.

Paul photographed these things.

[Bill Moore]
Whatever it was

that Bennewitz was
involved with,

he was the subject
of considerable interest

on the part of not one
but several government agencies.

And that they were actively
trying to defuse him

by pumping as much mis--
disinformation through him

as he could possibly absorb.

[Doty] Some of the information
that we give

has to be accurate,

because people have
common sense.

So you have

to give 'em
a little bit of real information

before you throw in the, uh...

the, uh, disinformation.

They believe a little.

And then you add more

and more and more,

and that person opens
their mind up and says,

"You know what?
I think this is all real."

Maybe the government
wants them to be the believers

because what they saw
were in fact

our testing crafts.

[insects trilling]

Paul was a believer.

I became friends with Paul.

He became friends with me.

Over a period of time,

after this was all over with,
I sat down

with Paul and tried
to convince him otherwise,

and Paul wouldn't hear it.

He said, "You don't have
to tell me these things.

I understand it's classified.

I understand you don't have
to tell me these.

I believe it was UFOs."

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[Carrion] Somebody's
a true believer in UFOs,

you can't convince them
otherwise

that this is not alien
in origin.

What it really boils down to
is it's a religion.

It's a belief system

that-- just like you can't
convince folks otherwise that

God doesn't exist

or that Christ didn't exist.

[Doty] The strange part
of the Paul Bennewitz operation

was Paul Bennewitz photographed
things that weren't involved

in secret government projects.

[shutter clicks]

He photographed UFOs.

He actually photographed a UFO
over Dulce, New Mexico.

I didn't-- I didn't lie
to Paul Bennewitz.

I had a job to do.

I-I wasn't a maverick.

I just didn't go out
and do this on my own.

My supervisors told me, "Listen,

we don't want him
to go out to the public,

go on camera and say,

'Hey, I just tapped into
a secret laser

on Kirtland Air Force Base.'"

Obviously,
we can't have that happen,

So all I had to do was say,

"Well, you know what, Paul?

Maybe what you did see
was UFOs."

soft, tense music

[Greenewald] Look,
we've established in history

and documents through
the Freedom of Information Act,

the CIA and the military complex
as a whole

has really aimed to
essentially mislead the public

when it comes to UFOs,

tell them something that
necessarily is not the truth.

We've seen it time
and time again,

through the decades,
over and over and over.

[Mark Walker]
As the ranking member

of Terrorism
and Counterintelligence,

we have questions.

Uh, it comes down to some of
the new infrared radar systems

that we're putting
in some of our new jets

are detecting some things
out there.

We want to know the information.

And that's why it's important
that we take a look at this.

[Greenewald] In the process
of us, the general public,

posing that question, hearing

those nightly news stories
for 90 seconds

about "this could be alien,"

all of that
takes the attention away

from that left hand
of the magician.

And that is the classified
pieces of technology

that are being utilized, tested

and potentially implemented
tomorrow.

[insects trilling]

Take a facility like

Area 51.

[birds chirping]

There is this mythology around

a piece of a UFO
from an alien spacecraft.

soft, tense music

[Donna Tryon]
Some of them are just curious.

They don't know what it's about.

Other people believe
that they've been abducted.

Other people believe
they are actually aliens

and they want to go out there
to hopefully get back home.

[newsman] Now, one million
UFO enthusiasts on Facebook say

they'll storm Area 51

because a spaceship
crashed there

and then we took the aliens
captive to study them.

Is that the problem?

That's one way of thinking.

[Greenewald]
You can't fly over it.

You can't get near it.

And there's probably a heck of
a lot we can't see underground.

[newswoman]
There is so much

activity going on out there.

Overhead espionage,

countermeasures against
electronic warfare,

paramilitary training.

It's got all these elements

and you throw
the UFO lore into it,

you got a lot of ears
and eyeballs on Area 51.

[Knapp] It could be drones.
It could be test aircraft,

It could be satellites.

It's all the things that people
mistake for alien craft,

if that's what
you want to call 'em.

We don't know what they are.

[Greenewald] We know that is
the ultimate testing ground

for advances in technology.

[Joerg Arnu]
They talk about,

"Well, we have a prototype.
It's not flying.

We're just building
a flying prototype now."

It's been flying for years,

out of Area 51,
right over these hills.

[insects trilling]

[Knapp]
There are documents to prove it,

and a lot of this material
had been squeezed out

of the government via FOIA,

uh, Freedom of Information Act.

You've got all kinds
of human activity going on.

Attempts to spread
disinformation. That's real.

That's happened. That comes
with just about every

advanced secret project,
uh, that we have,

that it's
standard operating procedure.

Doesn't mean that everything
is disinformation.

Another day,
yet another new explanation

from the U.S. government

for all those unexplained
UFO sightings in the sky

since the 1950s.

This time,

it's the CIA's turn.
They say

that many Americans who saw UFOs
were really seeing

U-2s,

-America's then high-flying
-[whirring]

and highly classified
spy planes.

[Knapp]
The U-2 and the SR-71 planes

those spy planes
could fly way up there.

They don't land
in people's yards.

They don't hover
over people's houses.

They're not glowing
round objects.

They were created
to not be seen.

They're spy planes.
They fly way up there.

But the CIA says, "Oh, yeah,
all those thousands

of UFO reports, that's us."

[Carrion]
The problem is that

the data

that makes up the UFO subject

is filled with too much garbage.

It's too muddied.

It's a big landfill,
is essentially what it is.

-[woman] Another one, too!
-[woman 2] Where?

[Carrion] There's enough
muddy data in this subject

that we don't need more...

questions.

Right? We need answers.

-[man] It was a UFO.
-[Carrion] What I've noticed

through the years is that,
whenever the subject of UFO

wanes in the media,

something happens that
all of a sudden

increases interest again.

[woman]
We saw five lights in a row.

[Carrion]
The Phoenix lights, for example.

You have to understand,
you know,

if a-- something happens,
if an event happens,

there has to be a context to it.

[John Powell]
I was kind of excited

when I saw the Phoenix Lights.

I thought it was a competitor.

I thought, "Someone
has been doing this work

well before me."

But, to be honest,

I recognized the tech.
[chuckles]

gentle, mysterious music

In the '50s,

the Air Force was experimenting
with extreme

high-altitude balloons
and airships.

And they made dozens and dozens
of different designs,

experimented with wings,

all kinds of different shapes
of balloons.

And the winner

was, you know,
the "V" configuration.

It's the only shape
that allows you

to operate successfully in
all three aerodynamic regimes,

subsonic, supersonic

and hypersonic.

Well, they're flying balloons
up to Mach 10

in the late '50s and early '60s,

and they were flying in
at 300,000 feet.

tense, mysterious music

Our whole program
with the big V-shaped airships

is to go higher
and higher and higher.

Can you take that

all the way to space

and do away with the rocket
altogether?

That's what we've been doing
here for 42 years now,

working on the Airship to Orbit
project.

We built a series of vehicles
for the Air Force,

resulting in the largest one,

called the Ascender 175,
in 2004.

The Ascender is
the same configuration

as the Phoenix lights,
so, naturally,

it looks like that vehicle.

And the way it was described,

how it moved,

it moves like this vehicle.

Since there's no engines on it,

it's doing
all this fast maneuvering

and making no noise at all.

It appeared.
Your whole brain tells you

it has screamed away.

It's like, "What just happened?"

I'm personally convinced
it was not this vehicle,

'cause this was later,

but it's definitely
the same technology.

What it tells me

is that the Air Force research
on V-shaped airships

continued.

And what kinds of things are
they doing with those vehicles?

[Carrion] There's nothing new
under the sun.

There's always a precedent
to something that happens.

soft, somber music

I think, with
the Nimitz event, you have

Navy pilots who said
they saw something.

They're usually
very good observers

and they have no reason
to be lying about what they saw.

I think the question is,

were they being manipulated?

[Greenewald]
There's a big possibility--

with incidents like the Nimitz,

the Roosevelt encounters,

and quite a few others
through the years--

there's a big possibility
that is done

by the U.S. military itself.

Now we know
that the U.S. Navy says,

"Well, we have no idea
what these things are,"

but that doesn't mean that
the United States Air Force,

who has been mysteriously quiet

about the whole UAP UFO issue,
doesn't know what they are.

The best way to test

whatever classified piece
of technology,

whether it be a drone swarm,
whether it be

a new radar reflector,
whether it be something

that can fly incredibly fast
in the sky--

what better way to test it

but against
the most powerful Navy

that you can find
on the planet Earth?

[Day] So I'm out there
doing an exercise.

Um, it's built around
the principle of safety.

And to have someone else
put a test

on top of that--

another exercise
on top of mine--

was highly ill-advised,

extremely dangerous
and probably even illegal.

[Greenewald] Can it chase it?
Can it catch it?

Can highly-trained
Navy personnel

deep under the deck

of the USS Princeton
see it on their radar screens?

What can they deduce?
What can they find out about it?

What can they see?

Military says
that that's not what happened,

but I think
that there's a big possibility

all of that is misinformation,
and they absolutely

are testing
their own technology.

[Knapp] I'm not an engineer
or scientist, but there are

all kinds of things
that we can't do on this planet.

The Tic Tac video is evidence
of an engineering

process that we don't have.

It's technology

that is still beyond
our cutting edge, that is in

the kind of things that we are
projecting 50 years in advance.

That's how
it's been explained to me.

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[Blumenthal] We've heard from
top experts in our government

and in the field
that the capabilities

of these objects exceed
anything known on Earth.

I mean,
that's the-the conclusion

that comes through
loud and clear.

The other thing is, uh...

In the defense industry,
in the government,

in private industry--
the consultants

who are working
with the government.

Now, are they all lying to
cover up some secret research?

Perhaps.

But certainly,

all the experts we've talked to
in and out of the government

say that these things seem
to have

capabilities not known on Earth.

If these things are
our own government's secret,

you know, weapons,
why would they be flying them

in a way that would endanger
our own pilots?

If they were secret

Soviet weapons,
why would they be flying them

in a way that would possibly
collide with our aircraft

and provide evidence
that they exist?

It doesn't make any sense.

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[Carrion]
I believe that the release

of that 2017 article
on the AATIP program--

that was a purposeful release,

just like Roswell.

What AATIP has done,

what Elizondo has done,

what the Navy has done is
they're putting

an official stamp
of reality on it.

As far as Elizondo
is concerned...

I'm always worried

about anyone who has one foot

in the world of government
or intelligence.

[Blumenthal]
We checked his records.

We saw his citations

for meritorious service.

You know, all that stuff.
You know, official--

Yes.

[Greenewald]
So I started looking into

Mr. Elizondo's background.

We know for a fact

by his resignation letter
that he was the director

of the National Programs
Special Management staff

that operated in the office

of the Under Secretary
of Defense for Intelligence.

Now why is this important?

Well, that placed him
in an office

that essentially
he operated like a ghost.

I was only able

to dig up, through the Freedom
of Information Act,

one reference to that office.

And that was
in a court transcript

from the trial
of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

So essentially he knew about
a lot of the highly-classified

and secretive elements going on

within
the Department of Defense.

In the beginning of 2018,
all of a sudden,

the Pentagon started issuing
these contradictory statements,

stating first, "Well, no,

we really weren't dealing
with UFOs."

And then they said
that they dealt

with anonymous aircraft or-or
something anomalous in the sky.

And then all of a sudden,
they took it all away,

and they said, "Nope, sorry.
We changed our mind,"

stating that AATIP,
at this point,

didn't have anything
to do with UFOs,

and that Mr. Elizondo
didn't head the program.

[Knapp] They can't keep
their story straight.

If you had asked them two weeks

before The New York Times
story came out, hey,

is there a program
called AATIP that studied UFOs?

They'd say no.

And then when it did come out,
"Oh, yeah,

okay, we had a program.

Yeah, it might have
looked at UFOs."

Then a couple months later,
"No, it didn't.

It didn't look at UFOs.

Lu Elizondo had nothing
to do with it."

Now they're in the middle
of trying to figure out

what they're gonna say next.

When you look
at the chronology of how

Mr. Elizondo got those videos
cleared

for U.S. government use only,
six weeks later,

all of a sudden he resigns.

Then there's a meeting that,
that takes that information,

it's given
to The New York Times.

Then within weeks, Mr. Elizondo

is on stage in the spotlight

on this new corporate venture.

October 2017,
To the Stars Academy announced

that they were going
to figure out

whatever these UFOs were.

Hello, I'm Tom DeLonge,

and thanks for joining us
live today.

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You had an all-star list
of former CIA operatives

and people tied
to the intelligence community.

But also the corporate world.

Jim Semivan, Christopher Mellon.

And Doctor Hal Puthoff was
at the...

at the capstone of it all.

[Puthoff] Starting as a kid,
I've always been interested in

the actual forefront of physics.

And so I've been always
involved in

looking at ideas that were

right at the edge.

The CIA descended
on my doorstep.

They said, "Oh, have we been
looking for you."

Every time there's a problem
somebody wants to solve,

they want a physicist

who's had clearances
they know they can trust.

And they know
the area's so weird

that no other physicists are
going to agree

to do anything about it.

Who you gonna call?

[Carrion]
There's a history

of questionable characters
in this field.

What I call the usual suspects.

All of these characters
that maintain government ties.

They do active
government research.

And they have
an interest in UFOs.

Why?

[DeLonge]
Now, if there's a subject

that could potentially change
the world

how would one approach it?

Especially if
the subject contained

Earth-changing technology,

the need to understand a coming
tidal wave of information,

and what my partners
and I call, again,

"the story of the millennia."

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[Greenewald]
Tom DeLonge had made

a name for himself
in the field of UFOs.

Obviously,
he needs no introduction

as being a rock star.

[DeLonge] When I signed
my first major record deal,

I took my first check,
bought a desktop computer

so I could research
the possibility

of intelligent life
in the universe.

[Carrion]
I don't know Tom DeLonge.

I don't want to speak badly
of him, but honestly...

To me he seems to be
a useful idiot

in all of this,
and I hate to use that term,

but that's sort of like the...

the term for somebody
who's being used unwittingly.

[DeLonge]
I sometimes call To the Stars

science fiction Disney
but for adults.

Tom DeLonge is an entertainer.

A... rock star

with a lot of resources.

He is putting attention
on this very interesting field

with a lot
of celebrity behind it.

[crowd cheering]

You have Tom DeLonge's
entrepreneurial background.

Very successful background.

You have a corporation
that is aiming

originally to raise
$50 million dollars.

I think,
and it's not popular to say,

but that money may be

a big motivating factor
for these men to come together.

If that doesn't scream PR move--

which is fine, but we have
to frame it appropriately--

that-- that's what
they were orchestrating

The New York Times to do.

Not necessarily
a piece on AATIP or UFOs,

but rather putting the spotlight
on an organization.

[Blumenthal] You always look
and see, "Are you being played?

Are you being used
for something?"

But first of all,
we reported what was

absolutely true,
that there was a secret program.

There was an unknown
Pentagon program.

Tracked UFOs, produced videos.

That was all true.

We were very careful not to lend

ourselves to any
promotional effort for

To the Stars.

[Carrion] A lot of the folks
that write these articles

or are investigating AATIP,

they are what I call

UFO perps.

They're perpetuators

of the UFO myth.

I absolutely believe
it was an op.

I think AATIP w-was
an op from day one.

From when it was first incepted.

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[Elizondo] We were brought
into the program to identify

some of these phenomena

and, basically,
try to collect enough data

where we could make
some positive analysis

and identify
what these things were.

A lot of folks think
that I'm sort of a turncoat

in the UFO field

because I've become
what they consider a skeptic.

I'm not a skeptic.

I-I'm not a debunker.

What I am is just,
I'm a truth seeker.

I believe there's
life in the universe.

Where I differ
from a lot of the believers,

is whether
that life has come to Earth.

Is it possible? Yes.

Have we possibly been
visited in the past? Yes.

Have we possibly been
visited now? Yes.

Is it possible we could be
visited in the future?

Absolutely.

Cannot discount that.

The universe is too big.

But... it's just a belief.

Right?

Where's the proof?

[Knapp]
Well, what do you call proof?

What's your idea of evidence?

What, what's evidence to you?

Evidence is enough
information to convince you

that something is true,
or at least true to some degree.

We have millions
and millions and millions

of people
who have seen these things.

We have thousands of events
that are unexplained.

Many of them, anyway.
We have, uh,

radar and visual sightings.

Every time you have a UFO story,

it's either disinformation

or it's a secret
military program.

Well, was the Pentagon
doing this stuff

250 years ago?

The craft
that were seen back then,

were they secret test planes?

Was that a disinformation
campaign run by the CIA?

The fact is that
these phenomena predates

the kinds of explanations
you're talking about.

It represents something
that we don't understand.

[reporter]
Frank Banners' UFO remained

over his farm
more than four hours.

His children saw it,
his in-laws saw it,

residents of the area saw it.

The police saw it.

[man]
It, uh, moved very rapidly,

at any speed or, rather,
any direction.

It would go, why,
it would change

and go to the right or the left,

and go crossways, um,
without hesitating a bit.

[man] It's going over...
See, over the mountain.

Whoa!

Shoot.

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[Knapp]
Every culture, every continent,

every civilization of the world
has reported this thing.

They use different terms for it,

but it's been with us
throughout human history.

It's bigger than the CIA.

We don't know what it is.

[Dorsch] There is a separate,
really interesting conversation,

like, the hierarchy of...

UFO belief.

I think there are people
who see things.

They've been told
that if they see something

they should say something.

[man]
There is no sound.

-It is...
-[woman] Changing direction.

[man]
It's changing directions.

But how do we separate
reputable witnesses

from crackpots?

It was hovering up here.

Uh, just below
the tops of the trees.

Well, I felt this numbing shock
and blacked out.

The guys in the truck said
they saw this brilliant beam

come out of the light

and hit me
in the head and the chest

and knock me flying
through the air.

[Dorsch]
I think that the trouble comes

with the abduction stuff.

[man]
I didn't see any neck.

It looked like it just sit there
on the body,

if you could called it a body.

And then just lifted me

off the ground, about...

about the height that...
that it was, or they was.

And we went in...

it was,
it carried me into the vehicle

or the craft or whatever
you want to call it.

Even some of the most ardent,

true-believer,

pro-UFO study scientists

do not make that leap.

[woman]
And these strange creatures

just sort of floated out.

...and took them
inside the spaceship.

And then they believe that
they were, apparently, examined.

Under some type of--
of eye or light.

And then,
the next thing he knew,

he was back outside again.

[Dorsch]
A crackpot is somebody
who believes

fervently without
any basis in scientific fact.

They might be extraterrestrial,
but they're not kidnapping us.

This kidnapping story
is ridiculous, right?

I find it difficult to accept
everything that was said.

However, I believe
that they were sincere.

I do not believe that either of
them,

at that time, was putting on.

But you know what I'm saying.

There are intelligent people
who say, "Hey,

we were out here, they, uh...

We saw them, we talked,"
and yet there's not one shred

of what they call
hard evidence

to support it.

[Dorsch] What makes
the UFO so interesting,

is that it is
such a scientific object.

And yet how do we articulate

and quantify and figure out

legitimacy and authority,
credibility?

[Blumenthal] That's what makes
John Mack so fascinating.

The fact
that a noted, world-renowned

psychiatrist at Harvard
would be so taken

by this idea of alien abduction.

In the past four years,
I've worked now

with approximately 90 people
who've had these experiences.

It then went to being floated
out of my room,

going up into a spaceship,
lying on a table...

I was aware that they were
putting an instrument

in my neck.

Poking and prodding.

Taking... skin samples.

[Blumenthal]
I was very taken with this story

because I was intrigued myself.

[Mack]
The only thing I knew

that behaves like that
is real experience.

This is not the way
dreams behave,

this is not the way
mental illness behaves,

it's not the way
fantasy behaves.

[Blumenthal]
John Mack actually believed

that these people were
telling the truth.

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