All language subtitles for Evidence.of.the.Unexplained.S01E05.1080p.WEB.h264-BETTY

NARRATOR:
Strange flying objects are reported

over Sweden's nuclear power plants

NARRATOR:
The Swedes ask themselves...

- Is this the return
of the ghost rockets?

NARRATOR: Close encounters
of the beautiful kind.

- I was literally bending my neck,
looking up at it.

My jaw just dropped.

NARRATOR:
Who, or what, are the Nordics?

- Aren't aliens supposed
to be green,

bug-eyed monsters from outer space?
Well, not always.

NARRATOR:
UFOs, once the stuff of fantasy,

now caught on camera,

finally forcing governments
to reveal what they know.

- UAPs are unexplained,
but they are real.

- Many of these phenomena have been
sighted in training ranges.

We're very much concerned
about safety of flight.

- So, let's just speculate
for one moment

that these things,
whatever they are,

are here to do not very good things.

NARRATOR: Impossible engineering...

terrifying encounters...

sinister cover-ups.

This is...

- (hooter blares)

NARRATOR: January, 2022,

alarm bells sound at one of Sweden's
three nuclear power stations.

- A security guard
reports the appearance

of a strange flying object

in the air over Forsmark.

The Swedish police
respond immediately.

- A police spokesperson,
Petra Blomqvist,

confirms that police officers
on the ground

and in a police helicopter
can verify the account.

NARRATOR: She says they're observing
an unidentified aircraft

operating near
the nuclear power plant.

- Shortly after being spotted
by police,

the UAP moves eastwards

until it disappears
over the island of Graso.

NARRATOR:
But this is just the beginning.

A further craft appears over another

of the country's
nuclear power stations.

- A local man named Daniel Petersson

is driving south from Gothenburg

near the Ringhals
nuclear power plant.

He has his family with him
in the car.

- The Petersson family spots
a bright light in the sky,

which seems to be growing stronger.

They document the encounter
with Daniel's phone,

and report it to the police.

- They scout around,
but they don't see anything.

- The police launch a nationally
co-ordinated investigation

into the mysterious incidents

and later, Sweden's national
security service, SAPO, takes over.

NARRATOR:
Sweden's three nuclear power plants

provide 30 per cent
of the country's energy.

If anything happened
to even one of them,

the country would be
thrown into chaos.

But then the UFOs start appearing

over the country's
other strategic sites.

- Other reports
include Kiruna and Lulea airports,

the Royal Palace in Stockholm

and the Oskarshamn and Barseback
nuclear power plants.

- Whatever these objects
in the sky were,

it seems some of them
were of considerable size.

Swedish media reported that some
of the UAPs were large enough

to withstand the wind
blowing in the area.

NARRATOR: Is Sweden under attack
from some sort of unearthly force,

enormous objects menacing Sweden?

A population cries out for answers.

The older generation here remember
that this has happened before.

- The last time Sweden experienced
such intense UFO activity

was in 1946.

This was before the term "UFO"
was even coined,

before the Kenneth Arnold sighting
that started it all, before Roswell.

- The Swedes call UFOs
"Spokraketer," or ghost rockets.

NARRATOR: Just one year before
flying saucer mania

arrived in America, Sweden was hit
by a terrifying wave of its own.

the word "UFO" hadn't been invented,

so the Swedes coined their own name

for these weird metallic objects
that suddenly

appeared in their skies.

- The ghost rockets
were a series of sightings

of unidentified aerial objects,

more than 2,000
at the end of just one year.

- The interesting thing about
the ghost rockets, then and now,

is that Swedish scientists noted

they didn't behave
like normal projectiles.

- They had manoeuvrability
and they had control.

And that's something
we're still seeing now.

- The similarities between then
and now are compelling.

The sightings most often consisted
of fast-flying-rocket

or missile-shaped objects,

with or without wings,
visible for mere seconds.

NARRATOR:
And just as with American UFOs,

there were tantalising
stories of crashes.

- In the case of the ghost rockets,

many reports were made of things
crashing, often into lakes.

The best known of these crashes
occurred on July 19th, in 1946,

in Norrland, Sweden.

- What witnesses described
as a rocket-shaped object,

grey with wings, crashing into
a lake, with a mighty thunderclap.

- In 1946,
the Swedish military tried

to track and recover the debris.

They made a number of dives
at the wreck sites.

Just like before,
they found neither a flying object,

nor the remains of one.

But sometimes they did find craters,

as if there had been
something there.

Right after the investigation,

the Swedish Air Force officer
leading the search,

Karl-Gosta Bartoll,
submits a report.

He states there was a disturbance
at the bottom of the lake,

that even though
nothing was recovered,

there was clear evidence
that the object had disintegrated.

Bartoll continued to speak
about the event.

Nearly 40 years later in 1984,

he told researcher Clas Svahn

that there had been an object,
that it had disintegrated,

perhaps even in flight.

And he insisted that what people saw

throughout
the ghost rocket phenomenon

were real physical objects,

and many remain unexplained.

NARRATOR: On October the 10th, 1946,

Swedish defence staff said publicly
that some ghost rocket sightings

were unambiguous and clear,

and couldn't be explained as Swedish
aircraft, or natural phenomena.

People were terrified and pressure
mounted on the Swedish government

to do something.

- Given the political climate
of the time,

there was also another explanation
which could have potentially given

the Swedish government
an easy way out.

- The government told the people

that it could simply be
a Russian takeover

of the V-2 missile sites
at Peenemunde, Germany,

testing early cruise missiles.

- This was a great explanation
from a military perspective

because it didn't require
confirmation,

and it was the sort of information

that would naturally
not be public anyway.

But, privately,
they weren't so sure.

NARRATOR: A document released
50 years later in 1997

shows US military advisers
in the region

were sure that these were not
any known craft from Earth.

- Suddenly the official story
started to look shaky.

The debris,
which was reportedly natural,

was attributed to meteor showers,

but observations did not match

any of the characteristics
of meteors or meteorites.

- And the theory that these might
be coming from Peenemunde,

well, that was investigated
as well.

- Apparently, that investigation
was also left wanting.

It seems that many
in the Swedish military believed

what the US seemed to believe.

NARRATOR: 75 years later the Swedish
government again finds itself

having to reassure
its terrified public.

And today, as in the 1940s,

the authorities initially suggested
the most likely source

of these intruders
is once again Russia.

- In February this year,
a Russian man was arrested

for flying a drone
over the Swedish Royal Palace.

- The drone incursions
also follow an announcement

by Sweden's Lieutenant General,
Michael Claesson,

Chief of Joint Operations
for the Swedish armed forces,

that the nation will be bolstering
its visible military presence

on the island of Gotland in response

to increasing numbers
of Russian landing craft

passing through the Baltic Sea.

NARRATOR: And the reports
of new UFO encounters

coincides with weird activity
on the internet.

- The recent spate of sightings
at Swedish nuclear power plants

has been accompanied by a rather
bizarre TikTok campaign.

- This campaign is rumoured
to be backed by Moscow.

And in it Swedish children
are warned that war is coming.

It's really creepy and actually
it's really quite cruel.

NARRATOR:
Vladimir Putin's government

has threatened to invade Sweden
in the past,

but as authorities investigate
more closely,

the connection to Russia
seems a little less conclusive.

- On the 4th of February, 2022,

Prosecutor Hans Ihrman stated
there was no evidence

that foreign powers were
behind the drones at Forsmark,

Oskarsham and Ringhals.

He said it was unclear
what was actually observed.

NARRATOR: Just as in the 1940s,

Sweden seems to be targeted
by an unknowable enemy.

- The fact it's such a concern for
the military speaks volumes too.

- Whether it's Russia, or someone,
or something else,

it remains a mystery.

NARRATOR: Most so-called UFO footage
is tiny and indistinct,

or clearly fake.

Not this video.

- In February 2022,

UAP footage of a classic
flying saucer shape,

appearing in shocking proximity
to an aircraft,

shows up
on a popular US message forum.

NARRATOR:
The disc-shaped object appears

to be at least 50 feet in diameter,

and dances dangerously close
to the wing of a plane in flight.

- The footage, which is now
known as the "Flyby Footage,"

was evidently shot by an individual
on an airplane.

But we don't know
who this individual is.

NARRATOR: It's not known where
this mysterious video was shot,

but the craft bears
a striking resemblance

to a similar object photographed
over Costa Rica in 1971.

If it's real, this new UFO footage

is some of the most incredible
ever shot.

And suspiciously,
it emerges just weeks before

America's first public congressional
hearing into UFOs in 50 years

which occurred in May 2022.

- Was the government aware
of the footage

prior to its appearance online?

And if so, is there more footage
that they're just not showing us?

- Is the US government concealing
crucial UFO footage?

NARRATOR: At the hearing Deputy
Director of Naval Intelligence

Scott Bray did produce film
of an unidentified flying object.

- Let me share with you the first
video we have here today

which shows an observation
in real time.

NARRATOR: It was an historic moment

as this never-before-seen footage
of a UFO

was streamed live to the world
from the US Congress UFO Hearing,

in Washington DC.

The watching world held its breath.

Would this be the smoking gun,
definitive proof of UFOs?

- There it was. In many cases that's
all that a report may include.

NARRATOR: Pinpointing this airborne
intruder on the video

proved difficult.

- We were shown footage of an object
zooming past a military jet plane,

but it just goes by so fast.

It's blink, and you miss it.

- Explain what we should
be looking at?

- Absolutely.
- Is that it right there?

- It looks reflective in this video,
somewhat reflective,

and it quickly passes by the cockpit
of the...of the aircraft.

- And that's the object
we're looking at right now.

- That's it right there.
- OK.

- Why would they go to such
lengths to show us

such underwhelming clips,
especially when we know

that there are better clips
out there on YouTube?

- One argument is they were showing
just enough to shut everyone up.

- They're just giving us a crumb

when there's a whole cake
that they're hiding.

NARRATOR: There are strong
indications the government

has much better footage
that it's keeping under wraps.

The office of the Director
of National Intelligence

released its Preliminary Assessment
on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,

in June 2021.

It acknowledged the existence
of UFOs,

but revealed little else
of substance.

* But then university Professor
Bob McGwier came forward.

McGwier was formerly at the top
military think tank in the USA,

the Institute for Defence Analyses.

He claimed what the public were
shown doesn't scratch the surface.

- The professor said
that some members of Congress

were reportedly shown 70 pages
of classified material.

He said, quote,
"They got to see the good stuff."

- He also claimed
to know several people

who are on
the behind-closed-doors meeting

of The National Security Council.

And he said that they had been
shown 14 classified clips of UAPs.

- Some of the unseen
footage is allegedly shot

at distances of less than 50 feet.

- Could the US government
really be sitting on material

so explosive that it can't
be revealed to the public?

NARRATOR: Many photographs
and videos have emerged

of UFOs that seem extraordinarily
clear and detailed.

But without a clear chain
of custody,

or supporting radar
or scanner data,

it's impossible to tell
if they're real or fake.

So, could this mysterious
close-up clip,

which appeared on the internet
just before the hearing,

be one of the 14 classified clips
said to have been shown to senators?

- It appeared online a few
weeks before the May 17th briefing.

Now, I'm not saying that there's
a connection between the timing,

but it certainly seems interesting.

- Most of the UFOs or UAPs
caught on camera

appear a significant distance from
wherever the video's being shot.

But this one appears so close, you
can almost reach out and touch it.

- Or could it be a fake?

Since the footage
first appeared online,

it has been hotly contested.

Definitely, some sceptics claim
that it is too good to be true.

- (people aboard the plane
muttering)

- You have to wonder
what's really going on here.

One of the clues
that all is not as it seems,

is the muttering that you can hear
of other people on the plane.

NARRATOR:
If you compare this reaction

to those of the USS Nimitz
pilots when they encountered

a Tic-Tac shaped object
from their cockpit window,

it's very different.

The pilots went berserk.

PILOT: Whoa, got it!
Ha ha ha ha! Whoo-hoo!

NARRATOR: However, some ufologists
suspect the audio track

has been deliberately muted

to avoid identifying the pilot
who leaked the footage.

Whether or not this incredibly
close encounter is real or fake,

former Counterintelligence
Special Agent Lue Elizondo

believes there are
at least 100 UAP incidents

that warrant further investigation.

- I am a man of national security.
I always have been.

The same type of skill sets
I use to hunt terrorists

and spies are precisely the same
skill set I used to hunt UFOs.

We have something in our skies.
We don't know what it is.

We don't know how it works.
We don't know where it's from.

We don't know its full capabilities.

And, by the way, we're seeing it
over controlled US airspace.

And no one wants to say anything.

Everyone wants to pretend
like it's not real.

I took an oath very early on
to serve my fellow citizens,

and to defend this country from
all enemies, foreign and domestic.

And at the end of the day

the enemy was...was the bureaucracy.

- Why isn't the government
reacting more strongly?

Could it be that they've seen
all this before?

- The DoD simply doesn't
have an explanation.

It's going to open up a Pandora's
Box. They don't have the answer.

Why admit a problem for which
there is no solution for it?

- We've all seen horror
and sci-fi movies

with malevolent aliens.

But could the truth be even worse?

NARRATOR: There've been decades
of unexplained mutilations

all around the world.

But one in 1988, Sao Paulo, Brazil,

has left investigators baffled.

- A bloodless corpse with its organs
removed in Brazil.

A bloodless corpse with the same
organs removed in New Mexico.

- The wounds in different incidents,
in different parts of the world

bear striking similarities
to one other.

- What's going on?

NARRATOR: It's been suggested
these mutilations

are the work of extra-terrestrials,

that humans are now
the lab rats for aliens.

- According to reports,

there's a young boy walking along
the edge of a reservoir

when he sees a flock of vultures

seeming to feed on something nearby.

- After scaring the birds away,

he sees the corpse
of a middle-aged man on the ground.

And it looks as if it's been
horrifically mutilated.

- The internal organs
had been carefully removed,

along with his eyelids,

part of his jawbone and tongue,
his colon.

- Two perfectly round holes,
about 1.5 inches in diameter,

were found on the body's armpits
and also two on the legs.

- These incisions
were found to be symmetrical,

and the muscle tissue had somehow
been sucked right out.

- His body was certainly
tampered with

by someone
with extraordinary medical skills.

His organs were
removed with surgical precision.

This was something
that was done with intention.

- It's absolutely gruesome,
but the weirdest part

was the lack of blood
reported in the victim,

as if something
had just sucked it away.

NARRATOR: Encarnacio Zapata Garcia
and Dr Rubens Goes,

who first revealed
this supposed gruesome death,

said they'd been told
by local police

that they knew of 12 other very
similar cases in the same area.

- Despite the rumours circulating
amongst the locals,

nothing was reported
in the local newspaper.

In fact, the grizzly findings
of this case

might never have come to light
if it wasn't for the release

of a coroner's report
about the incident in 1994.

- The coroner's report was
accompanied by photos

of the mutilated body.

NARRATOR:
Images too horrific to show in full.

But hideously mutilated bodies
are an all-too-common occurrence

when man inflicts inhumanity on man.

- Sao Paulo in the 1980s
had a lot of problems with gangs.

But the circumstances
of this man's death

bore very little resemblance to the
other kinds of gangland executions

that they were seeing at the time.

- The guy's kidneys,
liver, intestines,

and pancreas
were all reported as missing.

Why would any gangland killer
go to so much effort

to cleanly remove these organs?

NARRATOR:
But the Brazilian man's wounds

do match injuries
found on another man,

whose horrifically mutilated body
was discovered

after he was said to have
been dragged into a UFO.

- One of the most
shocking incidences

supporting
this alien-mutilation theory

is the 1956 case
of US Sergeant Lovett

and Major William Cunningham.

- Both were searching for debris

near White Sands
missile testing grounds

near the Holloman Air Force Base
in New Mexico.

- Cunningham report
hearing Lovett scream.

He runs over and witnesses,
what is to this day,

one of the most horrific
alien encounter reports known.

- Cunningham says that he saw Lovett
being dragged along the ground

by a long, sort of, snake-like arm
that's coming out

of what looks like a flying saucer.

- A circular silver object hovering
about 15-20 feet above ground.

- Cunningham reported
then seeing Lovett being pulled

into the craft which then
rose vertically into the sky

and disappeared.

- This guy is an army major.
He's trained in observation.

And, at least on paper,
he looks like a credible witness.

- According to the reports,
base personnel said

that at the time of the incident,

an unidentified object
appeared on the radar.

NARRATOR:
Three days later, it's reported

that Lovett's naked corpse
is recovered,

ten miles away
from the alleged abduction site.

- His corpse had been
severely mutilated.

His tongue had been cut out,
his eyes had been removed.

His anus and genitalia
had been removed.

- The most puzzling aspect
of this case was the report

that the body had been
completely drained of blood.

- Sound familiar?

NARRATOR: The Lovett Case Report
was allegedly filed in a document

called the Project Grudge
Report 13

in a series of files on UFOs

made by the US Government.

- Guess what, though? The US
government denies its existence.

- Some UFO researchers say that
there's a widespread practice

of aliens abducting us,

performing experiments, and then
dumping the bodies afterwards,

and that the government
is trying to conceal this.

NARRATOR: In the US alone,

600,000 people
are reported missing each year.

In the UK, it's 170,000.

Researcher David Paulides claims

to have found a disturbing pattern
of hikers, hunters

and campers vanishing without trace

in America's remote national parks.

- Are at least some of these
the result of alien abductions?

NARRATOR:
If the phenomenon is capable

of doing these things to humans,

it raises disturbing questions
about how they view us.

- If aliens have a biology
and anatomy similar to us,

which is not beyond the realm
of the possible,

could they be abducting us

in order to replace their organs
with our own?

- Is this medical experimentation?
Genetic experimentation?

Is it for food?

- Could they see the Earth as just
a giant organ supermarket for them

to harvest at will?

NARRATOR: September 2020.

Saint Louis, Missouri.

29-year-old Lily Nova
is about to be confronted

by what she believes
is an alien life form.

- I've always been very
interested in the universe and space

and found out
that you could take photos

of the Milky Way and of space.

- She was taking photos of the stars

when she suddenly saw a craft,

the likes of which
she'd never seen before.

It apparently zoomed towards her,

hovered for a moment,
and then disappeared.

- I was literally bending my neck,
looking up at it.

I could see the shape.
I could see the lights on it.

It was
like a dark-grey, metallic,

diamond-like shape

with a ring of bluish-green lights
and red lights,

like two lines
of lights going across it.

My jaw just dropped.

NARRATOR: These encounters continued
and Lily says soon realised

she could communicate with the
apparent spacecraft's occupants.

But these terrestrials were not
the bug-eyed caricature of aliens.

- I received a telepathic image
of a woman in light skin,

and she had a skin-tight,
grey-silver uniform on.

She was very beautiful.

She just looked like a...
maybe like a beautiful model.

And then there were about four
or five crew members

standing behind her.
I couldn't see their faces,

and after that, I've been seeing
a lot of the Nordic-looking ones,

the ones with blonde hair
and blue eyes.

NARRATOR: The entities Lily claims
to have made contact with

present as human beings,

albeit super-attractive
versions of us,

almost as though they've walked
out of a glossy magazine.

It'd be easy to dismiss
this as a fantasy,

but human-looking occupants of UFOs
have been reported before.

- It's the 21st of October, 1954.
Staffordshire, England.

Jesse Roestenberg is in her home
when she hears a sound.

She says it sounds
like a cauldron of water

being poured onto a blazing fire.

- It was a very loud sshh, you know.

Jesse is called to her garden
by her sons Anthony and Ronald.

- And they were both
laying flat on the grass.

"Mummy, Mummy,
there's a flying saucer."

I said, "Don't be silly, get up."
And then when I looked up...

MAN: There it was.

- What Jesse says she sees is what
looks like a giant Mexican hat,

a flying saucer that hovers
above them and their house.

And it's about the size
of their roof.

- She says she could see
the occupants

of the craft sitting in the dome,

and that they were extremely
beautiful blonde figures.

- They had large foreheads
and long golden hair

like a pageboy
or one of the old kings.

- Well, once you've seen the beauty

and...and the appearance

and the love that come through,

even from that UFO,

to me the eyes were magnificent.

MAN: Yeah.

You looked at the eyes
and the eyes compelled you.

And you can imagine how I felt.

Terrified inside,

but yet I was pacified
at the same time.

NARRATOR:
In science fiction books and movies,

aliens have typically been presented
as fearsome and grotesque.

- Aren't aliens supposed to be
green, bug-eyed monsters

from outer space?

Not always. In many of the sightings
the extra-terrestrials

are rather like the Targaryens
in Game of Thrones;

they're beautiful, blonde creatures
with chiselled features.

- They've been called Nordics

because of their
Scandinavian appearance.

NARRATOR: The inhabitants of Nordic
countries were historically famous

for being of tall stature,
with deep-set, light eyes,

thin lips, and straight noses.

Most genetic historians believe

these features are a unique
and random by-product

of various migrations into the area
from the Stone Age onwards.

But in accounts of close encounters,

this Nordic look crops up
again and again,

even in the testimony
from high-ranking military figures.

In the 1950s and '60s,

Bill Tompkins worked on advanced
technology projects

for US Naval Intelligence and served
on the Apollo Space Program.

He says his work went
beyond the normal world of science

and engineering.

- He worked on
above top-secret projects,

including, he claims, those related
to extra-terrestrial life;

things like reverse engineering,

extra-terrestrial communication
systems and UFO technology.

- On these programs,

Bill says that he was assisted
by three Nordics,

and one of them worked for him
as his assistant.

- They were nice young ladies.

They were smart.
They all were beautiful.

- These Nordics had an impact
on his work,

shaping designs and decisions.
And, according to Bill,

they had a know-how we didn't have
and still don't have.

NARRATOR: It may simply have been
that the projects Tompkins worked on

were top-secret US technology,
and those operational on it

were told the Nordics were
extra-terrestrial

as part of a bizarre cover story.

- It sounds incredible,

but these claims are not just
restricted to Bill Tompkins.

The Defence Minister in Canada
in the 1960s, Paul Hellyer,

says that we have a positive working
relationship with tall blondes,

or Nordics,
who visit and live on Earth.

- Extra-terrestrials have been
coming here for thousands of years.

They are concerned about
what's going on in the world

and they'll pick out a few
individuals and visit them,

or talk to them telepathically,

or send information to them
by channelling.

They have a deal
that they won't interfere,

but I think there's also a loophole
if things get bad enough

that they would make exceptions.

NARRATOR: According to Hellyer
and Ufologists,

these Nordics came
from the Pleiades star cluster.

It's a group of hundreds,
if not thousands, of stars,

located in the constellation Taurus,

440 light years from Earth.

The brightest of these stars
are visible with the naked eye

and have been known for centuries
as the Seven Sisters,

and legends link them
with supernatural beings

of unnatural power and beauty.

- Strangely this mythology is pretty
ubiquitous

across different mythologies,

whether it's Ancient Greece,

or Australian aborigine
or Native American.

This idea of seven women from Earth
who ascend skywards

to become these seven stars.

- Is it really a surprise that
so many different cultures

over time and across space
saw the same thing

in this particular constellation
in the sky?

- Could this be an indication
of an ancient visitation

from human-looking
extra-terrestrials?

NARRATOR: There are at least
a hundred billion stars

in our galaxy alone.

Every one is unique, and so are
the planets that spin around them.

They have different
chemical compositions

and different orbits and gravity.

The chances
of human-like lifeforms

developing on such wildly alien
worlds seems implausible.

But is it impossible?

One concept first proposed in 5th
century BC in Ancient Greece,

is the theory now named Panspermia.

It's the idea that life exists
throughout the universe,

and rocks, debris, and space dust

carry hitch-hiking micro-organisms

from one planet to another.

- Some have wondered if life on
Earth could have come from Mars.

There has, after all, been material
interchange between the two planets.

We've discovered at least
175 Martian meteorites

on Earth. Now we know that
in Earth's early development,

Mars was habitable, there was
life of some description on Mars.

- Perhaps life came
from elsewhere in the galaxy.

Perhaps there's a continuity of life
all across the universe.

If so, then that would explain
why human-looking creatures

could have emerged in other
civilisations on other planets.

NARRATOR: But the specific Nordic
look, an atypical human appearance

associated with extreme beauty,

makes Pentagon UFO investigators
suspicious.

They entertain the possibility that
this Nordic look is a disguise.

- In China right now, because pandas
are an endangered species,

the zookeepers in the Chinese zoos
have realised

they can cause much less
disruption to the pandas exhibit

and their natural habitat
and their behaviour

if they put all the zookeepers
in little panda suits.

Now, to us it seems kind of funny
and comical,

but it seems to work.

By putting a zookeeper
that doesn't look like a panda

and putting him in a panda suit,

it turns out that they can get much
closer to the pandas to study them

and cause much less disruption.

Is it possible that there's
a super technical society out there

that people claim looks like you
and me, that are humans,

but could also be some
sort of camouflage, right?

If you can recognise someone as
looking like you

and acting like you
and talking like you,

it's a lot easier to relate,
and ultimately...

ultimately to communicate.

NARRATOR:
Perhaps we are zoo animals,

and our keepers, whose true
appearance would terrify us,

take on a benign disguise
to put us at our ease.

This maybe to initiate
communication,

or to lull us
into a false sense of security.

- In 2016, a seriously ill man

gets a medical pay-out
from the US Government.

- Nothing unusual about that,
except this payment

was for injuries sustained

in one of the most extraordinary
UFO encounters on record.

- In my eyes a payment
is tantamount to admission.

Is this evidence,

that this man's incredible story
of a UFO encounter is true?

NARRATOR: This was an incident

that the American authorities
said never happened.

- An event in which a man claims

to have come within
touching distance of a UFO.

NARRATOR: 1980. Rendlesham Forest,
in Suffolk, England.

An event was about to happen

that would change the lives
of everyone involved.

- Rendlesham Forest is one of the
most notorious UFO incidents.

- (birds twitter)

- In 1980,
at the height of the Cold War,

bright lights were seen
in Rendlesham Forest.

- Right by what was then the
high-security RAF Bentwaters base.

NARRATOR: At the time it was housing

various Air Force squadrons
from the United States.

- Two US servicemen, John Burroughs,
and Jim Penniston,

headed into the forest
to investigate.

- Penniston claims that they saw
a glowing, seemingly metallic object

that then disappeared
out of the trees.

- John Burroughs claims to come

within touching distance
of this object.

- The next morning,
an investigation squad

found a strange,
triangular mark in the forest,

possibly caused by this object.

NARRATOR: But the story was denied
by the authorities.

- The police claimed these strange
triangular marks in the ground

were rabbit scratchings.

- The light was passed off as the
nearby Orford Ness Lighthouse.

- The men were ridiculed.
Their mental health was questioned.

- But was there a cover-up
to undermine their credibility

and hide the truth?

The file was officially closed.

NARRATOR: Yet this notorious
incident had a very human cost.

- John Burroughs, who up until then
had had a clean bill of health,

started to feel ill

with symptoms that were consistent
with radiation exposure.

- In 2011, his health problems
reached a life-threatening climax

when the mitral valve
in his heart failed.

- And the surgeon
who operated on him had no idea

as to what could have caused
this condition.

- These are not just
psychological issues.

These are tangible, physical effects

supposedly related
to a UAP encounter.

- We actually have two individuals
that actually came up close

and personal to a alleged vehicle

that had landed temporarily
on the forest floor

and suffered
biological consequences.

In the vernacular, got zapped.

NARRATOR: John Burroughs was
convinced that Rendlesham

was the root cause
of his serious physical decline.

- However, when he and his doctor
tried to access his medical records,

the door slammed shut.

NARRATOR: Just three days after
the Rendlesham forest incident,

5000 miles away
on 29th December 1980,

two women and one of their grandsons
are driving near Houston,

East Texas.

- Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum
report seeing an enormous,

diamond-shaped vehicle being
escorted by a fleet

of Chinook helicopters.

NARRATOR: The object is claimed
to have been intensely bright

and made of a dull metallic silver.

- Small blue lights ringed
the centre

and flames periodically
shot out from the base,

creating a kind of cone effect.

- The heat from the object was
strong enough to make

the metal on their car
too hot to handle.

And when Landrum touched
the dashboard,

she claimed that her hand sunk
into the softened vinyl.

- The next day, Cash and Landrum
were suffering from nausea,

diarrhoea, generalised weakness,

a burning sensation
around their eyes.

And they felt as if they were
suffering from severe sunburn.

- One of the witnesses,
Betty Cash, also claims

to have been treated for cancer

after being exposed to
the radioactive UFO.

- In 1986, despite a lawsuit
for 20 million dollars,

a U.S. district court judge
dismissed the lawsuit.

- The judge noting that the US
military had made it

absolutely clear that they did not
have a diamond-shaped craft

in their possession.

NARRATOR: Both Betty Cash and
Vicki Landrum went on to live

for several more years after their
supposed close encounter,

albeit with health defects including
breast cancer and severe cataracts.

For John Burroughs however,

after years of scepticism
over his claims of illness

caused by the close encounter,
there's finally a breakthrough.

- In 2006, after
a Freedom of Information request,

the British Ministry of Defence
declassifies a report

which confirms high levels
of radiation at Rendlesham.

- But there's more.

- The report states that several
observers were probably exposed

to unidentified aerial phenomena
radiation.

- Armed with this information,

John hires a lawyer
who takes on the case.

- And in 2016, the US military gives
Burroughs a medical pay out.

- The US government seems to have
acknowledged

that the Rendlesham incident
did happen.

- And whatever was in the forest
that night

had caused the radiation
that led to Burroughs ill health.

- Remember,
this is a guy who's been ridiculed,

and his credibility has been
questioned for years

as he's suffered
with these health issues.

- But now he was being given
some kind of validation.

- And it only took 36 years.

NARRATOR: Perhaps any such record
would open a can of worms.

RAF Bentwaters at Rendlesham during
the cold war

was home to a secret stash
of nuclear weapons

in 25 fortified bunkers.

Could these have been
the source of the radiation?

- Is this alleged UAP causing
the radiation

or is this alleged UAP visiting
the site

because there's already
radiation there?

- Interesting note about
Rendlesham Forest.

There were three cast imprints
done in plaster

by some of the officers there,
in essence, to collect evidence.

What most people don't know is
that one of those plaster casts

still exists.

And embedded in that plaster cast

that I had the personal privilege
to actually hold in my hand

are some of the pine needles
that were on the forest floor

at the time,

that may have been compressed
by some sort of landing gear,

some of those pine needles
are still radioactive.

NARRATOR: Recently released
documents from the US Government

certainly suggest that there could
be a link between UAP's,

and injuries caused by radiation.

- The Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program

was a very secretive US Department
of Defence assignment

that ran from 2007 to 2012.

- In 2022, a report from
that programme written in 2010

was released under
the Freedom of Information Act.

- The report includes 42 cases
from medical files

and 300 unpublished cases
detailing human injuries

resulting from encounters
with so-called anomalous vehicles

that includes UFOs.

- In some of the cases,

people showed burns or other
injuries consistent with exposure

to electromagnetic radiation.

- It also noted cases of
brain damage, nerve damage,

heart palpitations, and headaches.

NARRATOR: The US government is
interested in the radioactivity

produced by UAPs,

and it seems UAPs are interested
in human capacity

to produce radioactive materials.

- There is a much more
comprehensive, I believe,

understanding of the nature of
the interest of UAPs

in our nuclear technology.

Let's not forget,
it's not just our weapons systems.

It's our propulsion systems.

It's our way of producing energy
as well.

There is a very, very direct,
very strong link

to UAPS in the development
of our nuclear technology.

The question is, what is it?

Subtitles by Sky Access Services