Original subtitles

ufos don't recognize national borders

they are seen over all seven continents

of the world they're spotted over

deserts mountains towns and cities day

or night

all year round

there are thousands of segments of

videotapes and photographs of these

objects many of which have been analyzed

by some of the best laboratories in the

world as being authentic

[Music]

there she is

there she is right there

oh my god

[Music]

[Music]

many of the flashing glinting blips in

the sky are easily dismissed

natural phenomena or man-made aircraft

account for most

others can't be so easily explained

ten percent of americans have seen these

things that's 26 million people a

similar number in the united kingdom

have

i personally

uh you know really i'm a doctor from

north carolina i do emergency medicine

but i'm interested in this because when

i was quite young i saw one of these

things in broad daylight silent metallic

discs floating along no question in my

mind these are real

[Music]

on the high plains of central mexico

where the earth meets the heavens a team

of sky watchers led by dr steven greer

prepares for an encounter with a ufo

we came here for the purpose of

observing them and if we can to try to

signal to them and get them if possible

to land in a field or near us or hover

nearby

it's our intent to be able to

communicate if we can to the fullest

degree possible

[Music]

night scopes

and they magnify the ambient light about

30 thousand times so in other words at

night when the star light and you have

no moon it

it magnifies the ambient light and

frequently if we see an object that

we're wondering if it's

extraterrestrial origin we'll be able to

get it get a good fix on this and see if

there are any aviation lights on it or

anything and it's very very sensitive

and we have a million candle power light

for

nearby signaling here

we set these strobes out during the

event in mexico one thing i didn't share

with you which is very important is that

it illuminated the whole leading edge of

this huge triangle you can imagine a

massive triangle the size of three

football fields the whole leading front

edge of it became a light that was

lining out when we did this

we've had these tones played back to us

in field work before

in many locations

they just come through they'll come

through a circle like this you'll hear

this

suddenly a sighting

[Music]

oh wow did you see that

there it is now look look at it it's

flashing it's jumping

[Music]

but it jumped all over

did you see that it was left oh

boy what a great thing that you know we

were just talking about how something

always happens at this time

yeah well so there it is

for dr stephen greer and his team seeing

flying saucers is now an everyday

experience

but 50 years ago these objects had no

name

the sky watching obsession started one

afternoon on june 24 1947

kenneth arnold a private pilot was

flying over the cascade mountains in

washington state helping to look for a

crashed military transport plane

arnold suddenly glimpsed nine disc

shaped objects hovering in formation

just in front of him

they were like nothing he had ever seen

before

[Music]

full of excitement arnold reported the

sighting an enterprising journalist

coined the term flying saucer and it

stayed with us ever since

they uh they seemed to kind of weave in

and out right above the mountain top

and uh i would say that they even went

down into the canyons in several

instances or probably a hundred feet to

my knowledge there isn't anything that i

read about that would go that bad

[Music]

what the hell are we looking for

i see it

above and ahead of me

i'm trying to close in for a better look

as news broke of arnold's ufo sighting

thousands of people began to see strange

lights and objects in the sky these men

are about to see actual motion pictures

of flying saucers some of the witnesses

are persuasive this is captain willis

sperry an airline pilot giving an

official account of his sighting of

unknowns

the object was flying head-on at us

it was 50 times the magnitude of the

brightest star

pilots are particularly good witnesses

for many reasons

first of all their motivation to become

pilots in the first place they like to

be up there in the sky

they like to

be in control they have command

authority and for a senior captain of an

airliner for instance he has to make

proper judgments at all times

a psychologist who specializes in

perception hanes has spent 10 years

collecting pilots accounts and

photographs of ufos

when something strange happens they can

evaluate it they don't just accept it

blindly

and because their career might be on the

line they won't report something unless

they've already thought through the

possibilities of what it might be

and if they've eliminated everything

else and they're left with the ufo then

they will report a ufo

since that day when kenneth arnold saw

nine discs hovering in the skies

credible witnesses have continued to

describe close encounters

we're inside the cockpit of a boeing 737

over the southern andes of argentina

the ufo was here static

initially

we thought it was moving towards us

but as we got closer to our turning

point

the lights on the ufo became brighter

i was concerned and began signaling to

the object with our own lights

the lights on the ufo then dipped as if

it was responding to us

i just didn't know what to make of it

the pilot alerted ground control

[Music]

[Music]

i told him several times that we had no

knowledge of any aircraft in his path

[Music]

as we were preparing to land

just before touchdown

there was a power cut

and all the runway lights disappeared

i then had to take the decision to abort

the landing

[Music]

suddenly all the equipment in the

control tower goes crazy

which should have been off after the

power cut suddenly starts flashing

[Music]

near the airport a retired police

officer witnessed the unfolding drama

the ufo was a bright orangey color and

it had small flashing lights around the

sides that sparkled like a welding torch

it was a huge light that glided off

towards the lake

and saw that behind the 737 there was

indeed a large intense light

that seemed to accompany the jet towards

the lake

is

[Music]

the ufo appears to be waiting for me

hovering above the middle of the lake

it allows me to fly over it

and then it glides off over the

mountains

that's when it disappears

[Music]

the airport's director had to make sense

of an encounter with the unknown

[Music]

i've never wanted to come across

something that i simply could not

understand

but that's just what's happened

i can't find any logical explanation to

this event

all i know now is that there is

something out there

after this experience i now have to

think that we are not alone in this

universe

for a completely different way of seeing

ourselves

[Music]

every year the number of files

documenting ufo sightings by aircraft

pilots increases

[Music]

to dick haynes pilot testimonials are

clear evidence of extraterrestrial

intelligence

when you talk to enough military pilots

and they say there's nothing i could

have done to get away from that object

or i went to fire a missile at one and

it wouldn't fire my missile system

wouldn't fire

that begins to raise some fundamental

questions it makes you a little uneasy i

think

and i can understand why many of my

colleagues don't want to study this this

subject

it

[Music]

it forces us to to adopt a larger view

of things

[Music]

but now we have more than just the word

of eyewitnesses

sky watchers are armed with a new weapon

the camera

every flash in the sky every object that

flies is now immortalized on film or

tape

[Music]

some places on earth seem to attract

unidentified flying objects more than

others

in the skies above bonnie bridge in

scotland there have been more ufos cited

than anywhere else in britain

bonnie bridge in scotland

over seven years more than 2 000 people

have come forward with their evidence

for extraterrestrial invasion my friend

and i

arrived here to take photographs for a

college project that we were on

and uh over beside the the pylons the

two flashing pylons over at kincardine

power station and we noticed

two small lights

but we assumed to be a helicopter or a

plane and

as we were watching it it moved over

towards grangemouth stadium

and

it hovered for about a minute

and then

what we noticed was the lights

we thought were turned off

actually the object turned round and the

lights were on the other side of it

and

from there what happened was

it tipped and swooped and then flew

directly over our heads and i point the

camera up to the sky

and press the button and then the

photograph that i did actually get was

quite spectacular

two miles away in the countryside the

malcolm family has been seeing strange

fluttering lights in the sky for years

we're driving along this main road just

behind me

and my dad pointed out the car and he

says look what sat us in the farmer's

field

so i stopped the car and the two of us

jumped out

and

we looked at this object it just

appeared out of no place

and it was like the size of a jumbo jet

you can't really explain the shape of it

because it was so

light it was a brilliant white light on

it and it was you couldn't get a shape

in it

it was possibly a bit

jumbo jet sized oh it was

and it stopped again and two white

sphere objects came out the side of it

and

one especially came really close to the

car and that i must admit caused a

slight

panic

the next thing the two smaller objects

went back into the bigger object and it

just totally vanished i mean it didn't

go up or down or sideways it just like

disappeared

this is one of the many videos of a ufo

filmed by the family

the malcolm's have even built a special

platform where they keep a vigil of the

heavens

[Music]

the family's sky watching began with

this object

one night neil malcolm was driving home

suddenly he was aware of a bright light

that seemed to be following him

the incident had a profound effect on

him

for months he has refused to talk about

it

all we've seen is weird objects flying a

bit in the sky

lights

doing

various

acrobatics in the sky

like going side to side up and down no

aircraft could do it kind of things

and basically all we want is something

just to turn and say right

that is unhappening

and just explain us what it is and then

fine go back off no problem it's just

something definitely a nearby aftertaste

what could these lights be

[Music]

finally neil agreed to explain what had

happened

it was huge

far bigger than the car

and uh

so i just

confined in the road

came out of the yard

and it was absolutely massive so i

jumped through the car and it was still

hovering above the yard

so i ran in they told the rest of their

family

they all thought i had been in a crash

or something the state had come in

and they

they know around us is still there it

says come out and see it so they all ran

out

and sure enough that it was still there

i have no idea

no idea at all

since 1990

over 2000 people in bonnie bridge have

reported seeing ufos in the skies

overhead

[Music]

in another part of europe the belgian

authorities were just as confused as

those scottish sky watchers

in 1991 hundreds of people started

recording strange unidentifiable objects

in the sky

the belgian air force could see

something on their radar screens too

they scrambled their fighters to

intercept the intruders

but they couldn't find them

they had vanished

was this what everyone had been waiting

for

was this the evidence that was needed

that extraterrestrials were visiting

earth

at that time the u.s air force was

testing its latest war machine over

europe

stealth the ultimate fighter was

probably the cause of all the panic

[Music]

in nevada photojournalist mark farmer

isn't waiting for official answers he

investigates military secrets his way

[Music]

i'm agent x and i'm here on a dirt strip

in alamo nevada about ready to take an

airplane now to area 51. take a look

inside what is america's most secret air

base

we're flying over these mountains out

into the tickaboo valley and we're going

to fly right along the restricted line

of area 51 right to the east of that

restricted line and right to the north

and we'll come back and we'll get some

get some good shots of the base

[Music]

the u.s air force denies this base even

exists

it isn't marked on any map

over the years many people have become

convinced it hides the evidence everyone

is looking for that extraterrestrials

have visited earth

texas

[Music]

it's known as area 51

and is famous as the key research and

development site for america's next

generation of military hardware

the conspiracy theorist insists that

area 51 is also reverse engineering

alien spacecraft technology

could these hangers be hiding the

remains of crashed flying saucers

[Music]

the pilots

that that use these air spaces refer to

this as the box and i've talked to a few

of them a lot some of them like to come

through this place here coyote summit

and pop up as high as they can real

quickly so they can just

look over and see what's in there then

they go back down

but

it just goes to show that even the

normal guys with top secret clearance

with access to some of the

you know highest technology cutting edge

aircraft that are out there are not even

allowed to take a peek or talk about it

but agent x doesn't buy all the legend

uh as far as the stories with all the

aliens i mean there are a couple

compelling tales

unfortunately even the most compelling

tales and and the best eyewitnesses of

which you know myself i've seen a couple

ufos out here

there's no evidence to indicate that

anything is alien

there's no

burden of proof here to indicate that uh

we're reverse engineering anything that

we're in possession of alien technology

or or that we're flying flying saucers

around you know it all comes down to uh

where's the disk

for many the disc had indeed landed near

roswell new mexico in 1947.

the story would become the classic case

fueling all future conspiracy theories

and lead millions to scan the heavens in

the hope of catching a glimpse of

extraterrestrial beings

[Music]

on july 2nd in 1947 in the searing heat

of the desert near roswell in new mexico

cattle rancher mack brazil came across a

scattering of metallic and wood debris

strewn across his land

a few days later he contacted local

sheriff george wilcox who called the

roswell army air base

intelligence officer major jesse marcel

was sent to investigate and retrieve the

debris

[Music]

marcel told the press he had found a

crashed spaceship and that the debris

had been flown to higher headquarters

for further inspection

hours later the army announced that it

wasn't a spaceship but a wrecked weather

balloon

by then it was too late

the world wanted a flying saucer

this book by a retired air force major

increased the public's distrust of

official explanations

major keyhole as author of the book

flying saucers are real what is your

opinion of these new sightings of

unidentified objects with all due

respect to the air force i believe that

some of them will prove to be of

interplanetary origin

during a three-year investigation i

found that many police have described

objects of substance and high speed one

case polish reported their plane was

buffeted by an object which passed them

at 500 miles an hour obviously this was

a solid object that i believe was from

outer space

when you deal with something like

roswell i mean you have to look in the

time this is after the second global war

this is

very close to what is the only atomic

bomber base in the world

we are faced with a foe the soviet union

that we don't know what it's doing

something falls from the sky

whether or not it was project mogul when

it was a weather balloon whether or not

it was extraterrestrial in nature

something did happen there

we are in the radar room at national

airport washington dc on july 26 1952

for the first time unidentified flying

objects have been sighted over the

nation's capital during the cold war

fear of soviet invasion seized the

imagination of the american public

i see them

[Music]

they're all around me

they're moving in on me

they're coming closer

ufos became invaders and they were often

tinted red

they're coming right at me

[Applause]

invaders from mars he saw the land from

outer space

he saw them capture innocent people only

to destroy

[Music]

from mars capturing humans at will for

their own sinister purposes turning them

into diabolical instruments of

destruction

[Music]

[Music]

in the 1950s america's science fiction

films were very much about the alien

about the threat of being taken over by

some foreign power and that alien was

conceived in much the same way we

conceived communism as hierarchical as

group mind as rigid

as disciplined as impersonal as

emotionless as an unstoppable force that

is going to take us over and destroy us

[Music]

in the communist soviet union the

military was also obsessed with the

threat of invasion

[Applause]

today top military personnel can reveal

that ufos were sometimes mistaken

for a u.s attack

zvozny

a russian town for cosmonauts and their

families

colonel marina popovich was a test pilot

at the height of the cold war

[Music]

on one occasion we were carrying out

night time target practice

we checked the performance of our

instruments and try to bring down the

target plane

suddenly the screen on the display

lights up

and we think it's the target plane that

should be two kilometers away

as the sights are being aligned the

screen lights up again but this time the

object is huge and really bright and

it's moving straight towards us

it could not have been the target plane

and for a moment we were about to open

fire

we were in a mig-21 and the object was

so close collision looked unavoidable

but suddenly the ufo tipped on its edge

and in a flash moved off the screen

we had recorded the encounter on film

and i have these photographs

they are stunning and i'll never forget

the experience

if the soviets had taken popovich's

sighting for an enemy invasion her close

encounter could have led to world war

that wasn't the only time a ufo might

have triggered military action

during the 1950s many other sightings

led to stage one alerts

the cold war is over but the enemy may

still be out there

the united states continues to monitor

space for any sign of a missile attack

from any country

this is space command a gigantic complex

under cheyenne mountain in colorado

the nerve center of u.s space

intelligence

we know what's up in space we track it

and we have many space support missions

if we have a missile launch any place in

the world the first thing that happens

is our space assets a satellite

sees the the booster on that missile

light after 30 seconds to about a minute

and a half the satellites will tell me

if that's in fact a missile

the direction it's going it'll give me a

basic indication of what areas of the

world may or may not be threatened by

that

and we provide the national command

authorities the president

and secretary of defense and their

counterparts in canada

with a picture of what's going on so

that they can

make the appropriate decisions

many ufologists believe that space

command has already tracked

extraterrestrial visits

well occasionally you know we get

we get calls right here in the cheyenne

mountain direct to the command center or

the space control center that

reports an unidentified flying object

we try to treat all the

callers with with respect that we should

because i've never had a crank call

they're all

sincere

and aside from my personal beliefs

about ufos and

space beings in other universes

i can tell you that we've never seen any

evidence to that here in cheyenne

mountain

[Music]

space command

ultimate sky watcher peering into the

immensity of space 24 hours a day

even the hard-nosed u.s military wonders

what could be out there

i believe that

we don't know what we don't know yet

and that

most anything

is is possible

on the continuum of possibilities and

that there's a whole lot more to learn

it was only in 1961 when soviet

cosmonaut yuri gagarin first ventured

into space that we saw how small earth

was in the immensity of the universe

ever since our imagination has been

fired by the conquest of space

[Music]

when you look through a vast layer of

atmosphere

and the sun is setting before your eyes

and that you're surrounded by some

unnatural colors unnatural harmony of

color music

and then you forget that you are human

you simply come to be part of what you

see

[Music]

russian film of cosmonaut kabul yanuk

training

over 300 humans have ventured into space

what they have seen and the pictures

they've sent back have inspired people

around the world and led them to wonder

if they can really be alone in the

cosmos

[Music]

i can't believe that in the vastness of

our galaxy when one looks in the starry

sky

that we are on our own in this boundless

world

no i don't believe it

i believe that there is another form of

life and that sooner or later this

meeting will indeed happen

[Music]

the space race changed the way we look

at our world forever for russia and

america alike the question had to be

asked is there anybody out there

[Music]

in 1989 when communism ended in eastern

europe the taboo over unusual phenomena

was lifted

unexplained sites proved just as

intriguing there as in the rest of the

world

russian television's ufo extro a weekly

report on ufo experiences

for the last eight years since glasnost

our program has had a great following

a general audience in russia is

fascinated by the subject and anything

to do with the spiritual and the unknown

alexander mayachenkov travels all over

the former soviet union investigating

ufo sightings for ufo extro

[Music]

to many in the former soviet union ufos

are no longer threatening invaders but

spiritual messengers from the heavens

[Music]

saratov in the volga region of russia

destination for astrophysicist and ufo

investigator vadim chernobroth from

moscow

we've just arrived in the town of

saratov in the volga

valley and although the weather

conditions are not perfect for field

activities we are here to investigate an

alleged ufo landing in this area

my task is either to confirm or dismiss

the report without prejudice

it could be a case of another wild myth

but the reports are strong enough to

warrant further investigations

[Music]

a two-hour drive from saratov and vadim

arrives in the rural village of

he has heard reports of close range ufo

sightings by local farmers

i saw a flying object like a triangle

with a wide and a sharp end

at the end there were two sorts of

colored headlights

as it was flying it would suddenly drop

down low like a plane and then zoom up

again

i dashed home and saw nothing else

it looked like some sort of cloud but i

was very surprised to see it move in a

different direction from the rest of the

clouds it seemed darker and it moved

against the wind

i saw it when we went fishing near here

in the village of pograniti

it was flying at an angle low and

silently

[Music]

as temperatures drop to -30 vadim uses a

geiger counter and other instruments to

check if a ufo has landed here

he insists he's picking up signs of

recent ufo activity

[Music]

could you give me an estimate of the

speed of this object

if we work out its size which seems to

have been around 50 meters

and the angle it was traveling at

then we can get an idea of how far it

was above the ground and hopefully it's

velocity

it's hard to describe the size and shape

of the object

it was more like a shining blur that was

descending in a perpendicular path to

the earth

and it slowed down as it got closer to

the surface

vadim believes he can crack the secret

of faster than light travel if he knows

enough about alien craft

the data he collects from russia's sky

watchers will give him the information

necessary to build the first spacecraft

to travel beyond our own solar system

now that the wall has come down between

east and west both sides can see we all

want to find e.t

[Music]

but why are we so fascinated

[Laughter]

what does et give us that we can't find

here on earth

[Music]

in 1984 a young couple in new york had

an extraordinary experience

[Music]

there's nothing in the world that will

ever

change you or affect you the way

something like what happened to us

because it wasn't a fast light going by

we were singled out

and allowed to view this thing and to

let it show us for whatever reason

how stunning how magnificent how

advanced and how mysterious

these folks are

[Music]

we were on the brooklyn queens

expressway and as we were

heading toward the exit ramp to

metropolitan avenue

denise had noticed this strange red

light in the sky i really didn't pay

much attention to it until suddenly the

entire thing lit up

and we found ourselves standing

underneath this ufo

it was the most astonishing

and shocking

spectacle imaginable

because we did focus and pinch ourselves

and go oh my god this is a ufo this is

one of these you know flying saucers

and it was unmistakable it stayed there

very radiant very beautiful very

imposing and

totally silent

[Music]

we've not yet been able to crack the

meaning i think people just get so blown

away and they start

adding so much to it

it's hard almost to take it at face

value because it's it's so overwhelming

there is a definite reason why they

approach folks

i think close encounters spoke to a

rising need within the american society

perhaps more broadly than that

for the mystical for the spiritual we've

seen a breakdown of the church and its

role in society a loss of the mystical

forces of the universe as at least as

they were understood within traditional

religion if there's a hunger to touch

the spiritual to touch the mythological

and i think close encounters spoke to

that by having a mythological encounter

between human beings and aliens i think

that's part of what happens when people

do media do have these alien sightings

is that in one way or another they're

looking in their lives for something

that's larger than they are that's a

larger force in their community that

hunger for the spiritual i think governs

an awful lot of the the various

sightings and mythology around the

aliens has particularly since the 70s

forward

[Music]

[Music]

for those who believe that unexplained

lights in the sky are flying saucers

there is an ancient precedent

[Music]

in the heart of mexico city the

descendants of the aztecs talk of a

prophecy that appeals to the ufologist

among us

[Music]

mexico is a very magical mythical

legendary country that is why probably

people is more open and ready to accept

that what we cannot understand now

the aztecs believe

that

after every eclipse there was a new era

and they considered themselves

the children of the fifth son

that would make us the children of the

sick zone

[Music]

the ancient aztecs and mayans of mexico

believed their ancestors had been

visited by extraterrestrial beings

the eclipse would mark the beginning of

the age when they would return

they mentioned in this prophecy they

have

that under the era of the sick zone

everything that was buried and hidden

would be discovered

[Music]

in 1991

an entire nation held its breath

mexico believed the eclipse of 1991

would herald the return of the

extraterrestrial beings their ancestors

had talked

[Music]

[Applause]

in the following weeks mexicans reported

a record number of ufo sightings

[Music]

as the number of sightings increased

daily mossan went live on his regular tv

show and asked the nation to look up to

the skies

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

over a thousand videos poured in in the

national hysteria any blip in the sky

became evidence extraterrestrials were

now ready to land on earth

it was so important this show

that lasted from 11 o'clock at night

until 10 30 in the morning without

stopping

and it was a celebration everybody

remembers that program everybody

recorded that program and we had the

full participation of the public nobody

went to sleep that night

and then is when everything started

was it a ufo invasion just atmospheric

phenomena or creative camera work

whatever the truth thousands of mexicans

believed they had seen with their own

eyes clear evidence of ufos

and they had concluded

we are not alone

[Music]

as we approach the next millennium

unidentified flying objects have become

the uniting global obsession

in every country around the world sky

watchers are searching the heavens

waiting for the final answer to the

question on everybody's lips

is anybody out there

[Music]