All language subtitles for Alien Files Reopened S01E01 1080p WEB h264-FREQUENCY_track3_[eng]

[narrator]
Ever since humankind
first looked to the heavens,

we have asked the question,
are we alone?

Tales of otherworldly beings,

ancient prophecies
and predictions,

and sightings here on Earth,

have heightened our sense
of anticipation.

But in recent years,

these claims have become
more frequent.

Do you believe
our government has made
contact with intelligence?

Extraterrestrials?

Something I can't discuss
in public setting.

[narrator] More insistent...

Biologics came
with some of these recoveries,
yeah.

[narrator]
...and ever more dramatic.

In one of the most remarkable
historic incidents,

in July 1952,

the United States Air Force
scrambled fighter jets

to intercept UFO's
flying over The White House.

...that the recent sightings
are in no way connected

with any secret developments.

[narrator]
Top secret investigations
were long,

explanations given,

but the truth
remained elusive.

And whatever it was,

it appears to have returned
several times since.

Do you believe you UAPs

pose a potential threat
to our national security?

Yes.

-Yes.
-Yes.

[narrator]
What are we not being told?

Our team of experts
reopen the files.

They'll analyze
the intelligence,

investigate the science...

and reveal the truth.

July 19, 1952. Washington DC.

A clear, hot
and humid evening.

The skies are quiet.

In the control tower at
Washington National Airport,

air traffic controller
Ed Nugent,

is enjoying
an uneventful night.

When suddenly,

seven contacts appear
on his radar screen

just 15 miles outside
the nation's capital.

It's a problem.
No flights were scheduled.

There have been
no radar communications.

These contacts
shouldn't be there.

[Nick] Well, the Cold War
was just getting started.

So, seven uncorrelated targets
on the radar

could've caused
an absolute panic.

But according
to all the reports,

everyone was really calm.

[narrator] In fact,
when Nugent calls his boss
Harry Barnes over,

his first instinct
is to make a joke.

His first comment is,
"Here's a fleet
of flying saucers for you."

[narrator]
Upstairs in the glass lookout
section of the tower,

another controller, Joe Zacko,

was experiencing
a similar anomaly.

A single unidentified contact

streaking across
his radar screen.

When he sought
visual confirmation,

he couldn't believe his eyes.

There was
a single bright light

just hovering in the sky.

Just sitting there.

He turned to his colleague
Howard Cocklin and said,

"If you believe
in flying saucers,

that could be one for sure."

[narrator] As they watched,

the light zoomed off
at incredible speed.

This was just the start

of what would become
an international sensation.

[narrator]
With the stakes so high,

air traffic controllers
first needed to confirm

their equipment
had not malfunctioned.

A radar works
in a pretty simple manner.

You have a massive antenna,

and this sends out a beam
of radio waves

into the surrounding space.

Now, if these radio waves
hit a solid object,

you get a reflection,
a return of the radio waves

and they're picked up
by the antenna.

So, radio waves travel
at the speed of light.

So, if you get a reflection
of a solid object,

you get that return very,
very quickly.

Now, this return
appears as a blip

on the radar screen.

What an experienced
radar operator can do

is see that blip

and interpret a lot
about the object
that reflected it.

Its size, its shape
and also its trajectory.

Commercial planes
generally maintain

the same speed and trajectory.

So, the blip does the same

and moves smoothly
across the screen.

But in Washington in 1952,

these contacts
were not doing that.

[narrator] The speeds
the objects were traveling at
were unprecedented.

Some showing bursts
of up to 2200 kilometers
per hour.

And one was tracked traveling
at close to 11,000 kilometers
per hour.

The area around Washington

was home to two
of the biggest Air Force bases
in the United States.

And with unidentified craft
in US airspace,

Harry Barnes followed protocol
and contacted them.

[narrator] All the bases
in the area,

commercial and military,

were seeing the same contacts
on their radar screens.

One controller, William Brady,

also reported a direct line
of sight contact.

He said it was an orange ball
trailing a fire,

unlike anything
he'd seen before.

This wasn't a civilian.

This was someone
from the Air Force.

So, if this isn't a UFO,

then the alternative
is unthinkable.

At the dawn
of the nuclear age,

the possibility
that the Russians

had developed an aircraft

that could penetrate
our airspace undetected

would've been considered
an enormous threat.

[narrator] Unbelievably,
despite multiple radar
contacts

and two visual confirmations,

fighter planes
were not scrambled
immediately.

As nights turned
to early morning,

finally, there are eyes
in the sky.

As capital Air Flight 807

departs Washington National
for Detroit,

the control tower asked pilot
S.C. Pierman

to report
any unusual sightings.

He said, "There's one,
and there it goes."

Just like that,

you got visual confirmation
from the air

from a pilot
with almost two decades
of experience.

He saw the same
orange ball that Brady saw,

and then it zoomed off.

[narrator]
Captain Pierman reported
that for the next 14 minutes,

he witnessed
the incredible sight
of six bright lights,

streaking across the sky
at tremendous speed,

describing them as
"falling stars without tails."

Barnes has finally had enough.

He's got multiple
radar contacts

directly over The White House.

This is now
a national security issue.

So, he calls the Air Force
as a matter of urgency

and he says,
"We have unidentified craft
in restricted airspace."

[narrator]
At the closest Air Force base,
Andrews,

the runways were closed
for repairs.

Instead, F-94 interceptor jets
are dispatched

from Newcastle Air Force Base
in Delaware,

some 160 kilometers
from the capital.

Despite combing the skies,

the Air Force pilots
see nothing.

And with no more
radar contacts,

they're ordered back to base.

But as soon as
they're out of the way,

the blips are back
on the radar.

[Laurie] Jets are scrambled.

And the UFO's would reappear.

The jets would return
to the base,

and the UFO's
once again would appear.

They wanted to be seen.

It's as if they were playing
some form of game.

[narrator] When daylight
once again returns,

they disappeared as suddenly
as they had arrived.

The events of the night
were a total mystery

witnessed by just
a handful of people.

But this small group
of witnesses

were all highly-trained,
credible professionals.

This was not
a random light in the sky.

This was clearly
an unidentified flying object.

This object was
in government airspace

over The White House
viewed by professionals.

This was known
as the Washington flap.

Even Truman wanted
to know the truth.

[narrator] By Monday,
the 21st of July,

reports of
the strange sightings

over Washington
had hit the press.

And reporters
were demanding answers.

But the US Military
and government
quickly closed ranks,

they had learned
from their previous brushes
with UFOs.

[Chuck] In 1947,

shortly after the alleged
Roswell incident,

US Government commissioned
a top secret study

into reported UFO sightings.

The first study Project Sign
ran for a year.

Project Grudge followed
and ran from 1948 to 1951.

In 1952,

several important things
happened

in the intelligence world.

The NSA was founded

and Project Grudge
was elevated

to Project Blue Book.

[narrator] Heading up
Project Blue Book,

the US Air Force's
top secret UFO study

was Captain Edward J. Ruppelt.

Captain Ruppelt
enlisted in the US army
Air Force in 1942.

He was just 19,

and he became
a highly decorated
US bomber crewman.

After the war,
he went into the reserves

and got a degree
in aeronautical engineering.

During the Korean War,

he was recalled
to the Air Technical
Intelligence service,

which is based
at Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base in Ohio.

It was also the home
of Project Blue Book.

[Nick]
At just 29 years of age,

Ruppelt is responsible

for the UFO phenomenon
in its entirety.

And particularly, of course,
assessing the defense

and national security
implications.

There's a lot riding
on this one guy.

[Laurie]
Any US citizen that reported
something strange,

reported it to Ruppelt,
who oversaw Project Blue Book.

So, by the time he took over,

there were 2000 cases
already reported

and he had to investigate
all of them.

Ruppelt hadn't been in the job
for long

when he was warned
out of the blue.

"This is going to happen.
A big event is coming."

[narrator] In mid-1952,

Ruppelt had met
with a scientist

from an unnamed
government agency.

This scientist
insisted to him,

"Within the next few days,

you're going to have
the granddaddy

of all UFO sightings
in Washington or New York.

Probably Washington."

Did somebody know that
something was in the offing?

Was this planned?

Did someone
have fore knowledge

and tip him off?

Or was it just a lucky guess?

We don't know.

But it's a very strange
remark.

[narrator]
With this prediction
fresh in his mind,

how did Ruppelt react
to the news

of the UFOs
over Washington DC?

Surprisingly,
he was never even
alerted to it.

Ruppelt learns of the incident
only by chance.

A few days after it happened,

he lands at Washington
National Airport,

buys a newspaper in the lobby,
and sees the headlines.

[Chuck] So, straight away,
he's off to the Pentagon,

taking names
and asking questions.

Then they start asking him
what to do,

because journalists
are refusing to let go
of the story

and top brass
don't know what to say.

[narrator]
But Ruppelt is less concerned

with the political
implications,

and instead focuses
on actual evidence.

He works all night,

laying out the events
of the 19th of July,

and plotting the course
of his investigation.

He starts with a call
to the headquarters
of the US Military

seeking assistance

in his bid to visit
the air traffic controllers

who had witnessed
the UFO phenomenon.

He called the Pentagon

to try to get hold
of a staff car,

but he was rebuffed
and they said to him,

"No, this is
just for full colonels

and generals."

So then, he goes
to the finance office

and he tries to rent a car.

And they say,
"No, take a bus."

And he's like,
"Well, I don't know
the transit system.

Can-- Can we not
get around this?"

And, and again, they say no.

[Laurie]
They told him to take a taxi
and to use his per diem.

But his per diem wasn't enough
to get him out there again.

[narrator] He asks to speak
to the finance officer
directly.

But the finance officer
had apparently left early
to beat the traffic.

Ruppelt knew he was defeated.

"I decided that
if flying saucers were buzzing
Pennsylvania Avenue,

I couldn't care less,"
he wrote after the events.

"I caught the next airliner
to Dayton."

And he flew home.

But then one week later,
something remarkable happened.

They came back.

[narrator] One week
after the initial wave

of UFO sightings
over Washington DC,

on the night of 26 July, 1952,
at 10:00 p.m.,

Air Force intelligence
official, Edward Ruppelt

receives a call
from a Washington journalist.

The unexplained lights
are back.

What does the Air Force
plan to do?

[Chuck]
And he says, "I have no idea.
Probably nothing."

And so he calls the Pentagon

and he finds out
he's absolutely right.

They're doing nothing.

He's not gonna let
a second chance pass him by.

He sends Fournet and Halcomb
to National's control tower.

[narrator] The two US officers
arrive at the airport

to an incredible scene.

The air traffic controllers
are tracking

a dozen unexplained blips,

almost double the number
they had seen the week before.

The objects were flying
at low speed in arc formation.

Andrews Air Force Base
was seeing the same thing.

Same number of blips,
same locations,

something was definitely
happening.

Commercial pilots also saw
glowing lights in the sky,

and they reported it
to national.

The evidence was stacking up.

And he was convinced that
what he was seeing on radar

were actual metal objects.

[narrator]
Major Fournet radioed
a passing Air Force B-25

to request
they survey the area

and see if they could get
official visual confirmation
of these UFOs.

They saw nothing.

Just a tourist boat
on the Potomac.

[narrator]
The scientific explanation
floated at the time

was that these blips
could be the result

of a temperature inversion.

If you have, uh,
two layers of cold air

with a hot air layer
in between,

it creates what we call
a refractive zone,

which will bend the radar

so that some things
on the ground

can actually appear
in the air.

So, at that time,
the controllers,

the air traffic in Washington,

would've been familiar
with this problem.

[narrator] In fact,
there hadn't been a day

without a temperature
inversion over Washington
for several weeks.

So, radar operators
had constantly been
distinguishing

between legitimate contacts

and illusions created
by temperature inversion.

[narrator] However,
Fournet and Halcomb
are certain

that these are legitimate
airborne targets.

And at 11:00 p.m.,

they scramble two
interceptor jets
from Newcastle.

[Nick] The exact
same thing happens.

The F-94's arrive
and the blips disappear.

One of the planes
gets its airborne radar

locked on to one
of these targets,

but quickly loses it.

The F-94's returned to base,
and then the blips reappear.

[narrator] The two officers,

along with
the tower controllers
at National and at Andrews,

continue to track the objects
for another two hours.

At just after 1:00 a.m.,

they make the call to scramble
the interceptor jets again.

This time,
they saw lights in the sky.

The pilot, William Patterson,

tries to engage
one of these objects.

He's gunning it in one
of the fastest jet fighters
in the world.

This thing is designed
to intercept

and chase enemy jets.

And yet, whatever he's chasing
is running rings around him.

It's outpacing him.

It's leaving
the best technology

that the United States
Air Force has just standing.

[Laurie] So,
Patterson simply gives up.

He quits the chase.

And whether they're enemies
or whether they're aliens,

this is very serious.

[narrator] Eventually,
the US Air Force jets
returned to Newcastle.

And before dawn,

the lights
and the radar contacts

disappear once again.

The Monday morning headlines
of the 28th July, 1952

were every bit as sensational
as you might expect.

"Saucers swarm over capital."

"Jets chase DC sky ghosts."

But beyond the headlines,

there were very few facts
to go on.

And so,
we have an unidentified
Air Force personnel

telling reporters
that these are not UFOs,

but we don't know
what they are.

-[speaking German]
-[people shouting]

[Christopher] World War II
was fresh in our memory.

The Cold War
was just starting.

And here is the Air Force
admitting they don't know

what is flying
over Washington DC.

This is huge news.

[narrator] Enter Major General
John Samford.

He's the director
of Intelligence
for the US Air Force.

Not knowing what or who
was in the air

around the nation's capital,

could be
a significant embarrassment
for him.

He's at the Pentagon,

and he calls
what turns out to be

the largest press conference

since the end
of the Second World War.

[Chuck] But this is
Tuesday afternoon.

Ruppelt's still investigating.

They still know
next to nothing.

[narrator]
Regardless, Sanford,

who was later to become
director of the NSA

had an innate gift
for spouting gibberish.

When asked a simple question

about what the pilots saw
in the skies

above Washington
the previous Saturday,

he gave a typically
evasive response.

So, the general
gives a master class

in kind of nothing speak.

He's talking and talking,

but not really
saying anything.

However, there have been
a certain percentage

of this volume of reports

that have been made
by credible observers

of relatively
incredible things.

Our basic difficulty
in dealing with these

is that there is
no measurement of them

that makes it possible for us
to put them in any pattern

that would be profitable
for a deliberate,

uh, custom sort of analysis
to take the next step.

[narrator] He talks
for an hour and 20 minutes,

saying little of value.

He eventually lands
on the temperature inversion
theory.

Hot air over Washington.

The press seemed to like it,

and it quickly becomes
the official reason
for these sightings.

Every publication
ran with the same story.

This was merely
a trick of the weather
and the atmosphere

that had fooled the radar
and confused the operators.

The mystery was solved.

Prior to General Samford's
press conference,

Ruppelt's team was receiving
more than 50 reports a day

during the Washington event.

In the week following
the press conference,

that dropped to just 10.

As far as the public
was concerned,

the UFO uproar was over.

There were no further
radar anomalies.

No more sightings
over Washington DC.

The temperature inversion
had answered

the American public's
questions

and calmed their fears.

But had they been sold
an elaborate lie?

[narrator]
On consecutive weekends
in July 1952,

a swarm of unidentified
flying objects

buzzed the White House
in Washington DC.

To date,
no satisfactory explanation
has been given.

In order to understand
UFO's properly,

you have to know
what was going on

in the culture and society
at the time.

[narrator] By this point
in postwar history,

UFO sightings
were nothing new.

People have always witnessed
strange objects in the sky.

But what changes
is their interpretation.

In the Bible,
they were angelic chariots.

In the 1800s,
they were phantom airships.

[narrator] In World War II,

pilots gave these
phantom craft a name.

We'd had also during
the Second World War,

the so-called Foo Fighters

which were seen
actually by both Allied
and Axis pilots,

each of whom thought
it was a secret weapon
of the enemy.

[narrator] And then,

there was the first alleged
UFO visitation

of a major US city.

In the early hours
of February 25, 1942,

fourteen hundred
anti-aircraft ammunitions

filled the skies
over Los Angeles.

There was some form
of battle happening.

The morning came,
the smoke cleared.

The reports said that

they had seen one to five
unidentified flying objects,

though previously
the night before,

they didn't seem to think
that there were any.

Very confusing story.

[narrator]
In the immediate aftermath
of World War II,

came the story
that brought to the world

the whole concept
of the flying saucer.

[Christopher] In June of 1947,

Kenneth Arnold was flying
over the mountains
of Washington state

when he saw nine shiny objects
flying near Mount Rainier.

He described them
as flying as a saucer would

if you skipped it
across water.

This opened up the possibility

that strange objects
in the sky

might be
extraterrestrial craft.

The Arnold sighting
was a catalyst

that changed
our interpretation

of strange objects in the sky.

The way they were described,

the speed with which
they were flying,

made people start to think
strange objects in the sky

might be
extraterrestrial craft.

[narrator] Hollywood ran
with the idea,

helping to popularize
and legitimize

the idea of flying saucers
in the public consciousness.

[Christopher]
Films such as 1951's
The Day the Earth Stood Still

featured friendly aliens.

But post 1952,

the aliens took a turn
for the worst,

movies such as
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

and Mars Needs Women

started priming people
to think that aliens
might be evil.

[narrator] And the relatively
new genre of science fiction

was far from the only factor
adding to our anxiety.

In 1952,

the United States
was coming down

from the victory and elation
of World War II.

And facing a new Cold War,

which caused
a lot of concern and fear.

To have mysterious objects
flying over Washington DC
was very troubling.

People were now enjoying
post-war prosperity,

but also knew that
we now held the power
to destroy our own planet.

Maybe by detonating the bomb,

we captured
the extraterrestrial's
attention.

Perhaps these
more advanced ETs
were observing us

to protect us from ourselves.

Or maybe they realize
we're on the path

to becoming a threat to them,

and we need to be kept
in check.

[Nick] This was an era
where trust in the government

and the authorities
was pretty much absolute.

So, when the government
made an explanation

or gave an explanation
for something,

people were more likely
to believe it.

[narrator] Even the report
of a crashed flying saucer
in Roswell, New Mexico,

can be explained away

with a plausible
official statement.

So, people forget, I think,
now talking about UFO's

that in relation to
the classic Roswell incident

that within 24 hours
of saying, "We've recovered
a flying disc,"

they said, "No,
It was a weather balloon."

And everyone said,
"Okay then," and moved on.

It was erased
from the public consciousness

because of what
the military said

and the way in which
that was accepted.

It was only decades later,
in the late '70s,

that Roswell was essentially
rediscovered.

It wasn't until
the publication
of The Roswell Incident,

written by Charles Berlitz
and William Moore in 1980

that the idea of government
cover-ups of UFO incidents

became common knowledge.

People have suggested
that the DC incident in 1952

was a government
disinformation scheme.

But that wasn't
a contemporary opinion.

This is not a popular opinion.

A lot of people
disagree with me on this.

But I worked
for the ministry of Defense

for 21 years,

and I can say that the view
from within government

is you don't tell lies.

It really is only a handful
of circumstances,

often to do with
intelligence matters
where it's allowed.

[narrator]
But we do have evidence
of cover stories

being used to explain
unusual activity.

That's a delicate issue.

I would say a lot of
highly classified operations

can have cover stories.

And I wouldn't call those
cover stories disinformation.

It's just how we protect
classified information.

There's a big difference

between trying to
explain something away

and actually doing
some form of analysis.

The long arm of the government

did reach Ruppelt
in Project Blue Book.

And he did spend
all of his time
creating explanations,

as opposed to doing
an actual investigation.

[narrator]
With general agreement

that US intelligence agencies
were capable

of constructing cover stories
to obscure the truth

behind the July 1952
UFO sightings,

Major General
Samford's promotion

of the temperature
inversion theory

requires additional
scientific investigation.

[Dr. Aderin-Pocock]
A temperature inversion occurs

when you get
a layer of cold air
close to the ground

and a layer of warm air above.

But with layers
of different density,

this changes the path
of the radio waves

through the atmosphere.

This can give you
a misreading of the position

of the object
you're looking at.

[narrator]
But temperature inversion

is only one
potential explanation

for the phenomenon
of July 1952.

There are a lot
of different ways

you can get strange things
on the radar screen

that have nothing to do
with what's really there.

For example, just recently,

scientists have discovered
microorganisms

that live permanently
in the upper atmosphere.

And we know that
some bacteria and organisms
are bioluminescent.

So, maybe some
of the lights we see

moving around in the sky
are actually living organisms.

[narrator] Adding further room
for doubt

on the official line
of temperature inversion,

is the sudden disappearance
of the radar blips

when the scramble jets
arrived.

[Eric] Well,
I can think of one scenario.

Let's suppose
those radar glints
that we're getting

were actually the result

of what we call
Bragg diffraction,

which is radar reflecting off
of periodic turbulence
in the atmosphere.

When they send the jets up,

they're gonna break up
that pattern

and you'd see
the radar glints disappear

just by the act
of the airplanes flying
into the air.

[narrator]
If this was the case,
why then,

even when these blips
disappeared

from air traffic control
screens in Washington,

were there identical anomalies
still being seen by analysts

at CIA headquarters
in Langley, Virginia?

Next is the visual evidence
provided by expert witnesses,

the pilots
and the control tower staff.

There's a reason
why pilots are considered
really good witnesses,

and that's because
they are much better

than the average person
at estimating height,

speed and distance.

Their lives depend on it.

The way the objects maneuvered

does give us
some form of indication

that they're being operated
by some form of intelligence.

[narrator]
The military's reaction
to the phenomenon

also suggests that
this was no atmospheric event.

We don't scramble jets
for temperature inversion.

This was not the first time
any of these professionals

experienced
temperature inversion.

It is not cost effective
or practical

nor is it following
appropriate protocol.

[narrator] Add to that
an institutional reluctance
among pilots

to not report
extraordinary sightings

unless absolutely necessary.

There is a huge culture
of underreporting

because of the stigma

and also because
of the perceived threat

of a psychological evaluation,

which would lead
to a pilot being grounded.

And for a pilot
to lose their wings,

well, that's the worst thing
in the world.

So, they keep quiet.

[narrator]
Despite all attempts
to explain away

the UFO sightings
of July 1952 scientifically,

there is little doubt
that the interceptor pilots

and tower crew
believed they were tracking

and had seen physical objects

as opposed
to a freak weather system

or trick of the light.

A radar blip
can be an anomaly.

A visual sighting
can be a mistake.

But combine the two

and you've really
got a situation

where the whole is greater
than the sum of the parts.

A radar visual case
tells you that there was
something there.

But of course,
it doesn't tell you what.

If we were allowed
weather phenomena,

then we can look
at manmade reasons
for these sightings.

[narrator]
There were rumors at the time

that Boeing
was secretly producing

experimental aircraft
for the US military.

Could this have been
a test flight
of a groundbreaking

new military aircraft
or weapon?

Well, of course, there were.

There were a lot
of companies at the time

like Lockheed
and Conveyer and others

who were testing
experimental aircraft.

But there was nothing
at that time

that comes even close
to performing

like the things
we're talking about.

Boeing had contracts
with the Air Force.

It participated
in technology at Area 51.

Boeing built interceptor jets

and spy planes
throughout the 1950s,

when the fear
of a Russian attack persisted.

The Northrop Grumman craft
that's designed

as one long, sleek,
wing-looking craft.

The shape of the craft
was unusual

and was often misidentified
as a UFO.

As many military craft are.

They have to go through
numerous tests.

They test them over the public

to see if the public
will recognize it.

Then they test the components.

The speed
and everything of the craft
out in other places.

These are stealth craft.

They're stealth
because they're interceptors.

They're made to be not seen.

The X43 is a craft
that flies
at 7,000 miles per hour.

One can only imagine
what other crafts

are currently
under development.

Look, in 1952,

there was nothing
that could perform like that.

And today there's nothing
that can perform like that.

There are some exotic forms
of propulsion

that NASA's been evaluating.

For example,
magnetic levitation

and various forms
of ion drives

that could give you
a lot faster performance

than we have today.

But none of those
have really been reduced

to an operational setting
that would apply here.

[narrator] And what
of other rumors

that this was Washington
testing its air defense forces

against a new
and deadly Cold War threat?

The Soviets had just developed
the Tu-95,

which is a long range
strategic bomber.

There's no consensus
about this,

but at one level, it does make
some military sense

because a conventional attack

would take the form
of waves of aircraft,

but a single aircraft,
you might ignore,

because somebody
would be saying,

"Well, maybe
it's a temperature inversion,"

"Maybe there's a fault
with one
of the radar systems,"

but in reality,
the strategy would be,

"We'll send one bomber.

It will drop a nuclear bomb

which will decapitate
the political

and military leadership
of the United States

in a single swoop."

[narrator] To assure
that wouldn't happen,

radar operators
and military chiefs

would need
to be put to the test.

If this was the case,

and they had failed the test,

the one thing
that they would not want to do

is let the Soviets

or the public know.

[narrator] And finally then,
what of the theory

that the US military
had recovered a crashed

alien craft
at Roswell in 1947?

Which, by 1952,

it had learned to fly
and was putting it
through its paces.

[Eric]
There is no evidence here
to suggest

these were
of extraterrestrial origin.

The events do,
however, point out

that there's something
going on, unexplained,

that says there's a lot
we don't understand.

But a scientist
or an intelligence analyst

looking at that
wouldn't start with aliens.

We'd look at all
the other possibilities

and exhaustively
rule those out

before we seriously turned
our attention to ET's.

[narrator] While alien craft

might be the least likely
of all explanations

for the July 1952 sightings,

as conventional
answers diminish,

can a case be made
for visitors
from another planet?

[narrator] Though
the official line given

given for the July
1952 sightings

of UFO's
over Washington, D.C.,

remains
"Temperature inversion,"

it's clear
that no single explanation

fits all the facts.

Although it's a big leap

with no satisfactory
explanation for the phenomena,

could some form
of alien technology

have been responsible?

It's interesting
that more than 70 years later,

we still don't have
the answers.

We've had more sightings
and we have
even more questions.

The only thing
that's really changed,
perhaps,

since the 1950s,

is our willingness
to take the government's word
at face value.

We've also seen some aspects
of science fiction

become science fact,

which might make visits
from ET's more plausible.

Well, if you want
to make the argument

that this
was extraterrestrial,

first of all, I guess
you have to show

that alien life exists,

and with the best will
in the world,

though there are a lot
of people looking,

we haven't yet proven this
beyond reasonable doubt.

There are some scientists

who promulgate this idea
called panspermia,

in which life arrived at Earth

on an asteroid or comet
from somewhere else.

And one notion
that supports this

is that mathematicians
have looked at modern DNA

and done the math
on how many generations

and how many billions
of years would have had
to bake that DNA,

and found that the DNA
that exists today

would have been older
than the life of the Earth,

suggesting strongly
that life here

came from
extraterrestrial origin.

[narrator] Science theory
met science fact

as recently as 2023,

when Avi Loeb
at Harvard's Galileo Project

recovered tiny,
metallic spheroids

remnants
of an interstellar meteor

that crashed
into our atmosphere in 2014.

For the first time ever,
his study uncovered metals

unmatched to any
existing alloys

in our solar system.

True intergalactic material

unknown to human science,
originating from deep space.

The numbers,
distances and time frames

we are dealing with
are mind-numbingly vast.

We have calculated
that there are approximately

300 billion stars
in our galaxy.

And each one
of those stars is a sun

like our sun, our local star.

We've also worked out
that within the whole
of the universe,

there are approximately
200 billion galaxies.

But what we've been doing
in the last 30 years,

we've been actually detecting
some of the planets

going around
these distant stars.

We call them exoplanets.

So far, we've found
about 5,000 of them,

but we think
that there are many,
many, many more out there.

You only need one of those
to have developed something

close to light-speed travel

or mastered wormholes,

or to evolve to live
tens of thousands of years,

and interstellar travel
becomes a possibility.

[narrator] If the craft
over Washington were alien,

where might
they have come from

and how would they get here?

If they came
from our nearest exoplanet,

that's an exoplanet
going around the star
Proxima Centauri,

that star sits
4.28 light years away from us.

Now 4.28 light years
is 40 trillion kilometers.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way,
is 100,000 light-years across.

So even if a beam of light
was sent

from the other side
of the galaxy,

it would take 100,000 years

to reach us.

[narrator] Our most
technologically advanced
space probe,

Voyager 1, has traveled
only 0.1% of the distance

to Proxima Centauri b
In the last 50 years.

[Chuck]
With our current technology,

it would take tens
of thousands of years

to reach the nearest
potentially civilized planet.

To make that leap
through time and space,

an alien race would have to
have had traveled

through a wormhole
to cross the galaxy

in a fraction
of what we currently believe
is possible.

In short, we have
no proven physics

that would underlie
any of this.

If faster-than-light travel
were in fact a reality,

it would be
as much a mystery to us

as would be time travel.

[narrator] But though
it might be a mystery
to us right now,

it may not be
for very much longer,

if the US military
industrial complex
gets its way.

When Congress found out
about the Pentagon's
AATIP program,

Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program,

they demanded answers,

and the answer came back.

We've done 38 scientific
and technical studies,

into things like antigravity,
invisibility, wormholes,

warp drive and stargates.

It sounds
like science fiction,

but people were working on it,

and they probably still are.

[Eric] We're in
new territory here.

There are what I would call
the known unknowns

of physics and science.

For example,
we don't know what makes up

95% of the stuff
of the universe

because we don't know
what dark energy
and dark matter are.

And so that's stuff
that scientists know
they don't know.

But there's a whole
other realm

which is probably much bigger,

which is stuff we don't know
we don't know.

I think the point
is we have to be humble

and not dismiss these things
out of hand.

[narrator] Through the lens
of advanced science
and technology,

and thanks to access
to recently released

contemporaneous records,

were now able
to re-examine the evidence

from the 1952 sightings.

Seventy years later,

we have better access
to records,

and we can see that the events
were not confined

to Washington, D.C.

While this incident
was happening

on the 26th in Washington,

an identical incident
was happening

2,500 miles away
in California,

where F94 was chasing
an orange, glowing light

that was moving
at remarkable speeds,

and then also disappearing
off the radar screens.

[narrator] And that wasn't
the last of it.

On the night
of July 29th, 1952,

a UFO traveling
at over 600 miles per hour

was caught on radar
flying over Lake Huron.

[narrator] More than half
a dozen reliable sightings

in three distant locations
in a single month.

In all three incidents,

pilots pursued
what they were convinced

was a physical craft
with extraordinary abilities.

That provides more credibility

that something was happening
beyond our understanding.

[narrator] Does this
new evidence,

combined with what
was known at the time,

help our experts reach
any hard and fast conclusions?

Something extraordinary
happened that night
in Washington, D.C.,

but we don't have
a full explanation for it.

And when people lack
an explanation,

they seek one out.

We don't like ambiguity.
We need answers.

So it's not surprising
that people have speculated

about what happened
in Washington, D.C.
ever since.

So in all fairness,
we have to say

that there is a case
for conspiracy.

There is a case
for non-human craft,

and there is a case
for, perhaps, a test plane.

But I do believe
that there is intelligent life
in the universe.

And I also think
that the craft

that were seen
during this UFO flap
over Washington

did display intelligence.

Maybe its alien craft,

or maybe
there's something exotic

going on in our atmosphere
we don't understand.

Either way, what a story.

[narrator] The sightings
over Washington, D.C.
in July 1952

were a watershed moment
in UFO history.

For some, they increased
Cold War paranoia.

For others,
they offered reassurance

that perhaps aliens
were watching over us

in this new
and terrifying nuclear age.

And still, others
were not so convinced
of their benevolence.

According to the government
at the time,

they were just
a trick of light,

an atmospheric
temperature inversion.

Today the clamor for answers
has grown louder

as science has stretched
our understanding

of what's credible.

The idea of UFO's
is no longer fringe.

Government
and military whistleblowers
have come forward,

and even
the United States Congress

is holding hearings
about what the military

and intelligence
establishment knows
about UFO's.

The days of half-answers
has passed.