All language subtitles for On.The.Trail.of.UFOs.S01E03.The.Places.You.Will.Go.1080p.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

(Tense music)

(Crowd murmurs)

- The real bright one is
Venus, it's the planet Venus.

I know what it is, I've seen it.

The real bright one to
the right of the moon...

- it's clear by now
that ufos are seen

pretty much everywhere,
at least in every place

that has the required
formula for a sighting,

which really just
boils down to one,

a strange object
in the sky, and two,

well, a person, obviously.

But there are locations
around the world

that seem to attract
the weirdness,

places where reports come

with greater
frequency than others.

Often, the number of
reports isn't the only thing

that sets these areas apart,

but the strangeness
of them as well.

The Chestnut Ridge
has been a haven

for the unusual
for centuries now.

In the 1800s, farmers
recounted sightings of ghostly

apparitions, hairy creatures,
and airborne fireballs

with the same
frequency that locals

in other parts of the
country might recount

running into bear, deer, or elk.

That's what brings
me to the Ridge today.

In the last couple of months,

Stan Gordon has
taken a higher number

of ufo reports than usual,

and he's invited his along
on one of his investigations.

Tonight we're on the
property of a local woman

who lives outside of
kecksburg who has reported

multiple unusual
objects in the past month.

- She had over the
last several weeks,

people in this area and
other areas miles away

are reporting at night
seeing high-altitude objects

in the sky they're
not familiar with,

and a lot of people
have been out for years

looking at the sky at
nigh when it's beautiful,

but this is different.

Some are reporting
bright, luminous objects

that sometimes are zig-zagging,

sometimes object appear to
come together in the sky and join

and some hover and
then some take off

at a high rate of speed.

So once again, if you're
only getting one report,

but when you're
getting different reports

from different
people miles around,

it's something of
interest to look into.

- Yeah.

(Tense music)

- More of them out here now.

- There is a nice
aircraft that shows how...

- the store right there?

- But also over the hill not
far away, several miles away,

you can see the Chestnut Ridge.

Of course, this whole
area has had a history

of sightings for
years and years.

People are continuing
to report seeing things.

(Crickets chirping)

(Dramatic music)

(Radio crackles)

(Mysterious music)

(Birds singing) (Tense music)

- In ufo vocabulary,
the phrase hot spot

comes up constantly.

Defining what it is
exactly that separates

a hot spot from any other
location where people

occasionally witness
the paranormal is difficult,

but to follow the
line of thinking

put forth by many modern-day
ufologists and researchers,

a hot spot is anywhere
that multiple reports exist

over an extended period of time,

involving a larger than
usual number of phenomena.

If that's the case, how many
of these areas are there,

and what can possibly
account for the fact that

they exist in the first place?

Places like the Nevada desert

and the upper reaches
of the east coast

are often linked
with the ufo subject,

but while there are an
unusually-high number of reports

in those regions, a
lot of their reputation

is owed to pop
culture and the media.

How much of the
idea of a hot spot

is due simply to an eagerness
by location news outlets

to reporting on
aerial phenomena?

Hot spots often become a
sort of mecca for ufologists,

who will make
pilgrimages to the area

in hopes of witnessing
something for themselves.

The Chestnut Ridge
hasn't yet reached this level

of popularity, but others
like the Hudson valley

or Gulf breeze in Florida
are considered a prime travel

destination for those seeking
to see something strange.

If there's anyone
who can help expand

on where exactly ufos are seen

and whether or not they
are actually ufo hot spots,

it's probably Eleanor haskin.

Ellie is a good friend
who also happens to have

a Ph.D. in folklore and a
background in the ufo world

as someone who once
investigated sighting reports.

- So when someone
begins to investigate ufos

or to take a
critical look at ufos,

or even really delve
into the phenomena at all,

you'll find that
there are areas,

particularly in the united
states and around the world,

that seemingly have a high
concentration of sightings,

and this is really odd, right?

Because you wouldn't
really think that

certain areas are
drawing in more ufos,

so some of these areas
that have these multitude

of sightings include
places like point pleasant,

West Virginia, west Texas,
Chestnut Ridge, sedona.

(Dramatic music)

- Mark matzke is part of
the small town monsters

crew and podcast host.

He's also written articles
on fortean subjects

and is extremely well-read
on the subject of ufos,

and his day job as
a lutheran minister

gives him a perspective
on the subject

that many in the field
might shy away from.

He's also spent hours taking
part in witness interviews

and putting boots on
the ground in areas

that have gained a
reputation as a hot spot.

- There used to be a time
when you thought of ufo hot spots

as being largely a
rural phenomenon,

and the reasons for that
are fairly easy to understand.

On one hand, if you
have a darker sky

than you would have
in an urban setting,

there is much more
observational potential

out on farm land, for example.

- The Hudson valley
is a place that crosses

the suburban with the rural.

Located within
eyesight of the big apple,

the valley is cut in half by
the waters of the Hudson river

and is a strange
mixture of large towns,

tiny villages, and
isolated pockets of people

living amongst the
breathtaking views

afforded by the nearby
mountains and forests.

This is where new
england really begins,

and during my
time in the valley,

I was never unaware of
the beauty and mystery

that have been pulled
together in this place.

While the region holds
some of the earliest

settled areas on the east coast,

the Hudson valley's
history isn't just rooted

in the founding of our country.

Sightings of strange
lights in the sky

go back to the great
airship waves of the 1900s,

and still further
back to the 1600s,

giving it the reputation
in ufological circles

of being one of the east coast's

most well-regarded hot spots.

- I may be biased,
but the Hudson valley

is a beautiful area stretching
along the Hudson river

from New York City north to
Albany, approximately 200 miles,

so we're talking about a
fairly large geographical area.

Once you get out
of New York City,

suburbs, dairy farms, lots
of woods and mountains,

an enormous amount of lakes,

reservoirs, and bodies of water.

- Can you talk about
the Hudson valley stuff?

- Yeah, I mean, so back in
the, I'd say early-mid-'80s,

even stretching
into the early '90s,

the Hudson valley of New York,

thousands of boomerang-shaped
craft were being reported.

- I would say late-1982
to '89 was what I believe

is the biggest wave
anywhere in the country,

anywhere in the world ever.

When tens of thousands
of people on any given night

would see these
massive triangles,

this is was an equal
opportunity wave of ufo sightings.

Many police officers,
emergency room physician,

air force personnel,
teachers, just regular everyday

old people going
back and forth to work,

it was everybody.

- While the Hudson
valley begin to erupt

with unusual activity,
locals across the region

began to report their
own bizarre sightings

to anyone who would listen.

While in the town
of goshen, New York,

we had the opportunity
to meet and speak with

a witnessed named Gary tribert,

who had a bizarre
string of events unfold

in his life beginning
in the 1960s.

Among the series of fascinating
stories he would tell us

was one involving
what he believes was

one of the infamous
Hudson valley black triangles.

- Just one night my wife
went to bed kind of early

and I was sitting up watching TV

and my dog was
going crazy outside,

and finally I went out because
he wouldn't stop barking

and I saw this
object and it was like,

I'd describe it as a
ball of Christmas lights,

but it was huge because
there was a house next to me

and it was, you could see
it over top of this house,

and I walked down, I
lived back on a private road

and I walked down my
driveway and out to the main road,

and I watched this thing,
and when it got close to town,

it shot up in the sky,
you know, like a bullet,

and then just a little dot
and it shot back towards east.

I ran home, woke
my wife up, of course.

I said to her "you would
believe what I just saw,"

and coaxed her out of
bed, she came down,

and as we're
standing there talking

on the front steps of
my house, I see the point,

this point coming over my roof,

and it ended up being
like this gigantic triangle

that engulfed the sky,

and I took a step off the steps

and waiting for this
thing to catch up to me,

it was moving so slow,
and we watched it leave.

I was just mesmerized
watching this thing move away

and then it just kind of
headed north and away,

and my wife stayed
and watched that,

but she won't talk about
it now, she kinda denies it.

- And these were being reported

by law enforcement
first and foremost,

which is like a dream come
true for a ufo investigator.

Anyone in authority, whether
it's military, law enforcement,

when they're the ones
having these experiences,

that's a big risk for them to
come forward and say that.

- I can't tell you how many
dozens if not hundreds

of police officers
had these sightings.

Many accounts of they
hear in one jurisdiction

that this vehicle is
passing overhead.

They would jump in
their cars and chase it

and you would have
several precincts in one night

trying to follow this object.

- So the Hudson valley
ufo wave started with police

and kind of ended
with the police.

They actually investigated
all these cases,

not just some ufo
cranks or enthusiasts.

- Were most of the
sightings taking place

in rural areas or
suburban areas,

or what were the locations like?

- The sightings took
place from anywhere from

midtown Manhattan,
people's apartment balconies

or driving down the street,
to extremely rural locations.

The bulk of the
activity, I'd say,

we can just lump into suburbia.

You know, small central
towns, sometimes smaller cities.

- So geographically,
I think at this point,

it's safe to say that in the
United States, for example,

there's nowhere that
ufos haven't been seen,

to where some of the most
well-known modern cases

have taken place in
largely urbanized settings

with multiple witnesses.

- That waned, as I said,
the end of the 1980s.

There was a mini-wave in
the pine bush, New York area

into the mid-1990s,
and as for this area,

I can't really say there have
been any other waves, per se,

certainly short
bursts of activity,

but nothing to compare
to the '80s or 1909.

- My time in the Hudson
valley was eye-opening.

Not simply because
of the unusual melding

of unpopulated and
heavily-populated areas,

but also because
it's so clearly a place

where unusual
things still happen.

Amongst the tiny
towns and villages,

there is such an acceptance
of the ufo subject by locals

that many of the
people we spoke with

spoke about it as if it was
any other mundane topic.

If places like the
Chestnut Ridge

are an example of anything,

it's just how unusual some
geographical locations can be.

What it is that witnesses
are encountering

in areas like this truly
defy rational explanations,

and simply seem to create
an endless litany of questions.

While the sheer volume
of reports in places

like the Hudson valley and
the Ridge share commonalities,

the unending parade of weird
that marches across the skies,

and occasionally the
earth in Pennsylvania,

sets up another type
of hot spot entirely.

- One of my
associate researchers,

Jim brown up in fayette
county in September

had an incident
where in the afternoon,

there'd been a
storm, it was over,

it was a beautiful clear sky,

there was one cloud in the sky.

He sees first this
big black sphere.

He said it looks like
the size of a full moon

when you see it up in the sky.

It comes out of
the one direction

and moves directly into this
cloud, but it never comes out.

A short time later, two
more of these big black

spherical objects
from different direction

come across the sky,
one behind the other.

They both enter the
cloud, they never come out.

His wife runs in the
house to get a camera

in case another one shows up.

While she's in there,
the fourth one appears,

but this one had spikes
out of several parts

of the diameter of this thing.

It's kinda moving
around and rotating.

He goes into the
cloud, never comes out,

and then that cloud begins
to change to a yellowish color

and begins to fade
out and disappear.

- So there are these hot spots,

and some scientists
believe that these hot spots

could be places where, you know,

perhaps there are portals
or there are multi ways

to access other dimensions.

- The concept of a
window area is related to

that of a flap, except the
window element of that

attempts to get
at an explanation.

The idea of the window
presupposes the existence

of a realm beyond what we
can normally see or sense.

- Tribal traditions all over
the world have this concept

of these portal areas,
window zones, sacred lands.

Sometimes it's a taboo area.

Their view is that
these pieces of land

are areas of connection
to other worlds.

- There was some
aspect of this area

that you could kind of access,

either multiple dimensions
or something like that,

where there are kind
of portals or gateways

that things were
coming in and out of.

That could be a reason
that there are these hot spots

around the world for
paranormal activity.

- But a window would then
be a time and a location

where whatever is in that realm

that we typically
can't experience,

something comes through
the window into ours.

So that for a time, we
see the light in the sky

or we see the
strange physical craft

that seems to leave some
markings in the earth behind.

- These areas are geographically
spaces of high weirdness,

and what I have found
through investigating

these areas over the
years is that again,

the native traditions
talk about these areas

and they say "nope, that's
the place of the spirits,

"that's the place
where things happen.

"You take a chance
if you go out there."

- There's a type of
explanatory power

that's meant by the window.

It opens for a period.

Whatever is back there
or behind it comes through,

interacts with us for a while,

and then goes back
through and is gone.

- While the Chestnut
Ridge seems to be a popular

destination for unknown
aerial phenomena,

the entire state of
Pennsylvania has a history

of sightings that date
back to the 1700s.

Sean Porter is based in
the state of Pennsylvania

where he's been evaluating
the ufo topic since he was a kid.

While Sean doesn't consider
himself a ufo investigator,

he's more familiar with
the subject than most

and has been involved in
a number of investigations,

including one that
has ties to another

one of my interview
subjects, Alexander pedikov.

Like Porter, pedikov is
something of a newcomer

to the ufo subject.

He's a filmmaker and
adventurer from New Hampshire

who documents
strange subject matter

when he isn't hiking
large swaths of the us.

Both Porter and pedikov
investigated a series

of unusual events that
occurred at a small farm

less than two hours
from the Chestnut Ridge

and ended up with more
than they bargained for.

- We call it area 516
up in clearfield county.

They have all kinds of
strange phenomena going on,

strange lights, orbs
of lights appearing

in these fields
around their home.

- I interviewed this
family claiming there were

black helicopters and orbs
and all sorts of other things,

and especially ufos.

So the first year, you know,
we had a little town hall

meeting, we talked
to lots of locals

and there were tons of
stories of people seeing

strange lights in the sky.

- My flags started going up

when I start hearing
all these things.

Great, it's just another
one of these cases

where you've got one mystery
compounded by another mystery,

you're never gonna sort it out,

you're just wasting your time.

This is a plot of land
where a family has a home

on one area of the land,

a family owns a
house up on the hill.

They're all, you
know, it's family land,

they are all relatives
and they all have different

experiences and
different things going on,

but some of it's so similar.

Either they see of
hear an upright figure

walking around their property

or they see strange
lights in the sky.

We get up there, spend
time with these folks,

and I'm down in this little
campground they have set up,

and I'm left there with a
couple of the younger kids,

and this flash of light happens,

and I can't explain it,
no lightning, nothing,

I can't explain
this flash of light.

So I see the flash of
light, one of the kids goes

"did you see that thing standing
in the woods over there?"

(Screeching)

And I'm like "no,
but we're getting out,"

and I took them back home.

(Man yelling)

People had told me
that they had experienced

the same thing, as
they're going through,

they see this flash of light

and entities standing
off in the distance.

- So once we returned
in may of 2019,

one of the, I think it was the
second night we were there,

we were all kind of
dispersed in different areas

doing sort of night ops.

I was of course posted down
in the woods near this property,

and there's just
absolutely beautiful stars.

So we decided to
reconvene up at the property

that we were staying at
and just kind of hang around

the fire pit, we didn't
have the fire on,

but we were just gonna
do some star-watching.

And right after the midnight,

we saw what appeared to be,

actually when I first looked
in the corner of my eye,

I just saw this kind
of object in the sky,

and I immediately
thought it was either a star

or the moon that
was behind a cloud,

and we all noticed that
as you started watching it,

it basically just started
moving through the sky

in a motion almost like
a leaf in slow motion,

just kind of bobbing
up and down.

We quickly realized that
this was not the moon.

I mean, there were no
clouds in the sky at all,

it completely cleared up,

so this was the
only thing in the sky,

and we just sort of
started watching this thing,

and at one point
about two minutes in,

a smaller object flew off
of it and flew back into it,

like a bright little light.

Now this object was
not really defined,

it was like a, I described
it as like a haze,

and then this smaller
object was a lot more defined,

just like a bright
little light, just shh.

This secondary object is
parallel to the undefined object

the entire time in the video,

and towards the end they
kinda just become one.

Basically we watched this thing

until it went over the horizon

and it went over the
horizon, we were all still

standing there for
a couple of minutes,

and then a bright object
went from right to left,

just shh, lightning speed

just through the
sky and that was it.

- While the Chestnut
Ridge is certainly a region

that remains
active with reports,

it's never a guarantee
what you'll find when you go.

In my short time there,
the only things we saw

in the night sky were
planes, satellites, the moon,

and the planet Venus,
leaving me to wonder if maybe

the window closes when
those on the other side

know they're being sought after.

- It's creepy at night.

- The concept of a
window area or hot spot

isn't particularly new, and
they certainly aren't relegated

to Pennsylvania or New York.

Seeking to find some
sort of through-line

between these locations
becomes very murky, however.

While some researchers
have tried to connect areas

more active than
other by ley lines,

fault lines, and other
less scientific patterns,

the fact is, these places
exist around the world

with no definitive
characteristic

that runs between all of them.

- There are a lot of hot spots,

a lot of them are
around air force spaces,

which says a lot, whether
it's again alien technology

or manmade secret
experiments, test aircraft,

then I can't say.

Also bodies of water, I
mean, my own ufo sighting

took place over a body of water

and I cannot tell
you how many people

have come to me and said "i
saw something over this lake"

or "I was at the
beach and I saw this."

What does that mean,
I couldn't tell you,

but a lot of people
did theorize that

whatever intelligence lay
behind some of these ufos,

that water could be some
sort of resource for them.

- New england is
no stranger to these

sort of triangle areas,
most famously we have

the bridgewater triangle
just south of Boston

where there's a whole host
of strange things reported,

especially ufos, lots
of spook lights seen

in the swamps there in
the bridgewater triangle,

and then you have in
Vermont, southern Vermont,

the bennington triangle,
and then in New Hampshire

you have what's called
the ossipee triangle,

which is basically
this perfectly circular

mountain range just south
of the white mountains.

I think it just
goes to show that

people do kind of like
that idea that there are

confined areas where
this sorts of things happen

maybe more often than others.

- The New York times broke
this story in December 2017

that the Pentagon
was investigating ufos.

What people don't realize
is that at the beginning,

this project was
more than just ufos.

This was inspired by this
place called skinwalker ranch.

There were people
claiming to see bigfoot,

there were portals that
people said they saw.

A lot of weird cattle
mutilations and ufos,

all this stuff was
going on in this ranch,

this area of Utah, but
especially at this ranch.

The senator of
Nevada was Harry Reid,

who was friends
with Robert Bigelow,

who had actually hired
a group of scientists

to investigate
this ranch in Utah.

Harry Reid got $22
million to start this program

that was actually called aasap,

but it was to investigate all of

the paranormal
things happening there.

Then they said that there
weren't these hot spots

around the world for
paranormal activity,

they were investigating it,
and interestingly enough,

this group of
scientists and others

seemed open to that idea.

- Window areas
are pretty interesting.

I mean, we look at
areas like sedona

where you see ufos
coming in and out en masse

or by themselves and just
disappearing out of sight.

- Sedona's tricky to
investigate and I'll tell you why.

The sedona in the
late '80s, early '90s

became a major new age mecca.

You had people moving
there and coming there

from all over the country
who were interested in

a wide range of different
alternative modalities,

everything from crystal
healing to channeling

and all these other aspects.

So in the midst of that,
you get the native traditions

from the area that talk about
the power centers and that,

yeah, it's a place of what
people now call vortexes.

It's a place of very
special pieces of land.

It's a tricky area, it's
a fascinating place,

and it's really beautiful
and hey, you know,

if aliens want to come
down and visit a cool place,

sedona's definitely one of them.

- Debates still rage
within ufo circles

as to whether or not
there even such a thing

as a hot spot or a window area.

In the last year, it has been
posited that a window area,

as put forth by John
keel, really only exists

in a place where an
undiscerning investigator resides.

The idea being that
someone like Stan Gordon

or John keel create
the window area

simply by failing to debunk
any of the reports they take in.

This would ignore the
decades and occasionally

even centuries' worth of history

relating to unusual
phenomena in these locations.

The Chestnut Ridge
and sedona were weird

long before local researchers
began taking reports

of strange lights in the sky.

So, do hot spots
even exist at all?

There is data that seems
to support that they do,

but why and how
will remain a question

I continue to ask for
the foreseeable future.

- I'm a little bit
skeptical of that

because I think a
lot of of sightings,

if you look at some of the data,

just have happened, in terms
of ufos, all over the place.

Just a lot of sightings
over the years,

and I think when
there's something like

a bridgewater triangle
or bennington triangle,

they kind of take on
a spirit of their own,

so people will go down
there with the intent

of probably having
an experience.

- So are these things
hopping in and out

of some sort of
wormhole of dimension?

I couldn't tell you, that's a
stretch for me personally.

I don't necessarily
believe that there are

specific areas that these
uap are flying in and out of,

but anything's possible.

- There is something
to the idea of a hot spot

or a flap area where various
phenomena can be reported

for a time, and it reaches
almost a fever pitch,

and then it stops.

- So oftentimes people
use an explanation

of mass hysteria in order
to qualify what's happening

in these places, and
what that means is

they'll say "oh, this one person
saw something unknown,"

they really
couldn't figure it out,

it was swamp gas, it
was a plane, it was a jet,

it was military, and that
story begins to spread

around a community and then
the community latches onto that

and more people start
imagining things happening,

and it really picks up like a
snowball rolling down a hill.

It just gets bigger and
bigger and bigger and bigger,

and people will qualify
that as mass hysteria

and say that's what's
happening in these communities,

where in actuality when
you really begin to investigate,

and what I mean
there is talk to people,

you find out that oftentimes
what they're reporting

is not necessarily an awareness
of someone else's story,

but instead,
unbeknownst to them,

these other sightings
have been occurring

and they too were seeing
something completely unexplainable

or outside their understanding

of the way the universe works,

and they don't really
know how to classify that,

and ultimately the stories

begin to look
similar as a result.

(Beeping)

- If the point of this journey
on is to seek answers,

then it seems to follow logic
I'd find my way to sedona.

Sedona in the '60s and '70s
was a contactee paradise,

a place where those
claiming to be in touch with

extraterrestrial beings would
come to call down the ufos.

Today it's far more
populated than it once was,

and though the ufo
subculture still exists here,

it's more hidden
away than it once was.

Still, activity continues
to be recounted by locals

and out-of-towners
alike, with places like

the stardust ranch taking
on a mythical position

as the place to go to see a ufo.

Multiple energy vortexes
are said to exist in sedona,

places where the
veil is particularly thin.

It's in these locations
spread about the region

that ufos are seen
on a nightly basis.

We've been told the best
place to encounter a ufo

is on the airport mesa
trail, which leads right to

one of these supposed vortexes.

So tonight that's
where we're going.

If the window is still open,

I'm all for getting a look
at what's on the other side.

(Tense music)

- Guys look at this.

- What?

- Look right there.

Up here.

- I think it's flying.

- It's flying fast.

- I got it.

- Everyone film.

- Russel, Jamie, do you see it?

- Yeah.

- Oh damn, this
looks crazy, dude.

- It does?

- Did you get it on there?

- Yeah.

- Show it to them.

- There's no sound.

- Not yet.

When did I turn into you?

- I think it's flying.

(Tense music) (Wind whistles)

- And just like that, whatever
it was we saw was gone,

presumably back through
the window it came in

and all I could do
was stand and watch,

and maybe in some
sick, twisted way,

wish I could follow it.

(Tense music)

Coming up on the next
episode of on the trail of ufos.

- When he approached the car
and asked what was going on,

they reported they were
chased for about 12 miles

by a large red ufo.

- I don't even think
we'd lit cigarettes.

My fried says
"what the f is that?"

And we looked and sure enough,

there was this
formation of lights.

- These creatures,
whoever's on inside the TV

looking at them, going
"what's going on here?"

Because they
didn't expect it either.

So then the TV goes
out, they run outside

and there's a big ufo
right over their house.

(Dramatic music)