Original subtitles

Ezekiel saw the wheel.

This is the wheel he said he saw.

These are unidentified flying objects that people say they are seeing now.

Are they proof that we are being visited by civilizations from other stars?

Or just what are they?

The United States Air Force began an investigation

of this high strangeness in a search for the truth.

What you are about to see is part of that 20-year search.

Eastern Kentucky, 0416 hours, 14 July.

Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!

North Central Virginia, 0502 hours, 14 July.

Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.

Good morning, Sergeant. Major. Glad you could make

it. I tried your barracks, where'd they find you?

In love.

Still? Or again? Constantly. They call Libby?

On her way.

You know, Mage, I knew it.

I told you last night Venus was going to be in full bloom. Yeah,

I didn't know you were talking about the sky.

Very good, sir.

I like that.

What we got?

Farmer named Anderson and his wife saw a light dancing in the sky at about 4.15.

Eastern Kentucky, 10 miles south of Flat Ridge. Any

confirms? Not yet. I called Fort Campbell.

They dispatched an intelligence team to interview. They'll teletype us.

Next about 0440, truck driver on Route 119 just south of Charleston, West Virginia,

says something came out of the sky, grabbed his truck,

and shook it like a baby's rock.

Something shook his truck. A call came from Charleston General Hospital.

They had to put him under sedation.

Good morning.

Hi, Libby. Good morning.

Where is it?

Talk about timing. Blue Book.

Check out those two sidings and see if we've got anything in between.

Yes, sir. Go ahead.

Let's see if we got ourselves any nigh-shy folks who saw

something and didn't think it was worth reporting.

Let's just hope there's none of those folks from the Laughing Academy.

Thank you, sir.

A police captain in Estabrook, Virginia, a lady called in,

said a flying saucer landed in her front yard about 5 o'clock this morning.

Kentucky?

West Virginia?

Virginia, they've had a busy morning.

Silver Hill radar site, Washington, D.C., 0602 hours, 14 July.

Hey, Gus, a Caribbean island, 10 letters.

Um...

Hey.

You got something? Thought you said we'd have no traffic for another 20 minutes.

I did.

I'll say it again. Air Atlantic 52 from Kansas City, ETA,

our control zone, 0622. ETA is now 18 minutes.

Must have caught a monster of a tailwind.

If he did, he lost it somewhere.

Moving slower now.

I make him just under 200 miles an hour.

It's too slow for a 727. That can't be our commercial.

Probably some cowboy coming back from a party. Didn't follow flight plan.

That's no weekend flyer. I paint it big and solid, Jerry.

Airbus, I'm painting a target bearing 275 degrees. No reported traffic in that area.

Roger.

Give me distance and course.

I'm on a 100-mile scale. I read 90 miles.

Steering 089 degrees.

Right. Work up his ground speed.

Radar. Need altitude on a bogey at 90 miles.

Coming in on a 278 degree radial.

Gus, you sure your bogey's not Atlantic 5-2? We'll make sure.

Washington Center to Atlantic 5-2.

Do you read me 5-2? This is Washington Center. Over.

Roger, Washington. This is Air Atlantic 5-2. Go.

We're painting a target approximately 80 miles from us, closing slowly.

Do you see anything out there? Over.

Negative, Washington.

We see nothing.

We show 145 miles for you on flight plan and schedule, over.

Roger. Can you give me your altitude and airspeed, over?

5-2 here, flight level 330, speed 295 knots. Inbound, Nottingham

fixed, 278 radio. Atlantic 5-2.

Squawk 2438, over.

Roger.

Squawking 2438. Atlantic 5-2 still way out of range.

We still got her unknown.

Radar, still waiting for a readout on our bogey.

Roger.

Thanks.

Our unknown is at 6,000 feet. Let's ask Atlantic 52 to take another look-see.

They're real careful, though.

This is Washington Center to Atlantic 5-2. We confirm your flight level 3-3-0.

Start your descent to flight level 2-0-0.

Report out of 3-3-0. Over.

Roger, Washington.

Atlantic 5-2.

Coming out of flight level 330 right now. Kind

of early, aren't we, good buddy? Over.

Fly now 270, Radio Nottingham.

We want you south of present course.

We'll turn you shortly. I'll have you over the Oxon fix.

When you approach the runway 36, when you level at 2-0-0,

look for visual at 10 o'clock low. Over.

Roger, Washington. What exactly are we looking for?

You tell us.

We still paint that same unknown at 6,000. Very 279 degrees. Eyeball carefully.

First of all, can you see Bill, sir? Yeah.

Roger, Washington, at flight level 2-0-0 right now, experiencing some turbulence.

Who should tell us about that, good buddy?

Over. 5-2, we have no report of any turbulence.

You see what, 5-2? I don't know.

Looks like a big ball of light hanging in the sky below us. It's like a football.

Shall we go down and take a closer look? Negative, 5-2.

We've got a load of passengers wanting to get home without a side trip.

Continue your approach to runway 36.

Contact approach control now 217.4. Roger, Washington. Will do.

Morning, Charlie. Morning.

How'd you like to start your day with a real keen problem?

Yours or mine?

Mine now, yours maybe.

We have an unidentified slow mover at 6,000,

confirmed by a visual sighting from a commercial airliner. What'd he see?

A blob of light, but it's moving into our control zone. Just one?

Boss, you better come over and take a look at this.

What's the matter?

This thing just took off straight up at about 1,000 miles per hour.

Is it still climbing? No, sir.

The radar height finder indicates the target's hanging at 20,000. Hanging?

Yes, sir.

Now, I paint ground speed at just under 100 knots an hour. There's no plane,

nothing, that can operate at 20,000 feet at under 100 an hour.

That's close to hovering. You're so right. Now, stay on it.

Build and maintain a 20-mile buffer zone around that UFO.

No more observations from commercial aircraft or anybody else,

except military interceptors.

Defense Operations Center, Fort Lee. Go ahead, Washington.

We've seen a UFO entering our control region. No flight plan, no radio response.

Roger.

The flight level 200278 radio.

Maneuvering erratically.

Estimate it could be over any DC target in 20 seconds.

Roger. Tell Andrews to intercept and identify. Roger.

Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, 0617 hours, 14 July.

One niner point four.

Washington D.C., 0620 hours, 14 July.

Silver Hill, Delta Red Leader, hydraulic failure. A warning, returning to base.

Roger, Red Leader.

Delta Red 2, continue intercept.

I have radar lock on ahead and above. High speed, I'm

bending the throttle. Roger, Delta Red 2. We confirm.

We show you 10 miles from target. Roger. 10 miles holding lock on.

I've lost the bogey.

Delta Red 2, we show loss of target. Confirm? Negative,

negative. I still have a lock on.

I'm at Mach 1.2 going through 2,000. He's staying ahead of me, almost straight up.

There's nothing there.

Delta Red 2, we do not copy your target. I say again, you have no target.

I'm on him big and heavy, I tell you.

I see him. I see him.

Roger, Delta Red 2.

What do you see?

I see... We repeat.

I paint him still climbing.

He'd be above his service ceiling. He can't be climbing straight up.

No, Charlie.

He's going straight down.

Charleston, West Virginia, 0750 hours, 14 July.

Anyway, I was beat. I couldn't even see through the windshield.

So I pulled off onto the shoulder to take a break, you know?

I'm just about to light up a smoke.

When I see this light, you know, like a hunk of fire,

and it was barreling right at me like a red-hot bowling ball.

The next thing I know, I wake up here.

Major Gatlin, your secretary's calling, long distance.

Excuse me, I'll be right back.

This is kind of crazy, huh, Sarge?

I mean, the doctors will tell you. I was not drinking.

I mean, no pills, no nothing.

Mr. Burke, is there a possibility that your truck was hit by lightning? Lightning?

Come on, I've seen lightning hit trees, houses, maybe a hundred times. I mean,

it's zap and done. No, sir,

this thing came right at me like it had a mind of its own. All right.

We'll see you here.

It came right at me, Sarge.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

It knew what it was doing.

Silver Hill Radar picked up a UFO this morning.

Oh, I'm getting that feeling.

It's starting to grow big.

Libby will call the Carlyle woman in Virginia who said

she saw the saucer land and postponed our interview.

We've been ordered to Washington.

Right now?

Andrews sent up two interceptors.

One of them reported he'd seen an unknown up close. Next, he went down.

Mach 1.5.

1,100 miles an hour.

He must have made a real tall hole.

Andrews Air Force Base. 0915 hours. 14 July.

This is Harry Fritz on Gatlin, Project Blue Book, sir.

Coleman, Delta Red leader. I'm Graham, sir.

Delta Red 2. Who was he?

Gary McNair, First Lieutenant. Remains have been sent to Van Lodge.

Where'd you find his body?

Strapped in the cockpit.

Got any early ideas on what happened to him, Captain?

Not yet. They don't have very much to work with. If I

could have stayed with them, maybe we'd know.

Why did you abort?

Why had to, sir?

Hydraulic failure, lost pressure. McNair married? Yes, sir.

No children.

We haven't been able to find the plane's canopy.

If it flew at that height, it could be anywhere. Why should it? He didn't eject.

No.

And that's a very large why not.

His ejection mechanism was sound.

No failure there.

But if he lost his canopy at 60,000... That's right at the aircraft service ceiling.

Is he some kind of hot dog?

No, sir. I checked that.

His rating was excellent.

Then it's a good bet he must have been chasing something at that altitude.

I understand that National Airport reported to Silver Hill Radar

that they had identical readings on that unknown.

Is that confirmed? Confirmed, sir. There's no canopy, so we obviously lost it.

The depressurization at 60,000 hits them like a blunt instrument, and it's all over.

Yes, sir. Might have happened that way. Yeah, might have.

I think we've got to do better than that.

Let's find that canopy.

Washington, D.C., 1219 hours, 14 July.

Gary James McNair, 26 years old.

Joined the Air Force after four years at Cal Berkeley. What was his last physical?

Seven weeks ago. Including psychiatric?

Routine.

You beginning to think he might have blown it up there? I don't know.

He reported chasing a target when ground radar showed nothing.

You tell me, Harry.

Air Force 19, this is Andrews Waterpool.

19, go ahead.

We have a telephone patch for Major Gatlin from Captain Graham.

Affirmative, go ahead.

Gatlin here.

Graham, sir. We found that F-106 canopy four miles

from the crash site. It's in the lab now.

Outstanding, Captain. How soon can you have it for us?

We've got to make dye tests, Magnaflux. We need a day, sir.

Can you make it any sooner?

No, sir. Not if you want qualified answers. Sorry.

All right. Thanks, Captain. 10-4.

Ever think of retiring, Major?

We could open up a live bait store in Death Valley.

This is McNair.

This is Harry Fitz.

I'm Jake Gatlin.

I'd like to extend our deepest sympathies.

Yeah. The, uh...

The chaplain and the base commander were here this morning.

I know it's very difficult for you, but we have to ask you some questions.

If you could just tell us how your husband felt yesterday.

We're just trying to reconstruct your husband's frame

of mind when he got in that airplane this morning.

My husband is dead. Now you leave me alone.

Miss McNair, we're just trying to determine if...

Something happened up there, didn't it?

You're hiding something from me.

You'd better tell me what you're hiding from me. You tell me.

You tell me what killed my husband.

Andrews Air Force Base, 0916 hours, 15 July.

The cracks marked in green indicate those fractures we

believe were caused when the canopy struck the ground.

The ones marked in red we believe occurred during flight.

Die tests are not infallible, am I right?

Yes, sir. They run about 75% accurate. It's that other 25% we're interested in.

Yes, sir.

The pilot did not eject. He didn't blow the canopy.

Yet it was separated from the aircraft during the flight.

We found it four miles from the crash site.

Sir, what caused it to separate during the flight? Simple loss of pressure.

The canopy fractured, cracked.

It was ripped right off the aircraft.

What caused it to fracture?

Structural fatigue?

No, sir, not according to our periodic maintenance check two weeks ago.

The aircraft had eight flights prior to the crash.

No write-ups.

Then, sir, what caused the canopy to crack during flight?

This piece of hardware fell 60,000 feet to the ground.

The Major said it.

Diet tests are not infallible. But that's what happened.

Has to be.

Has to?

What else could it be, Major?

North Central Virginia, 10.05 hours, 15 July.

And then it settled down, right here.

It was the same flying saucer I read about in the newspapers,

the one over our nation's capital.

Your pilot must have been unfriendly. He had to be.

Yes, they never would have shot him down.

No one is saying the pilot was shot down, Mrs. Carlisle.

Everybody knows that. And that's exactly what I told those reporters.

It landed here, ma'am? Yes, sir.

Right here in Estabrook, Virginia.

No, ma'am. I mean that it landed in this particular spot.

Not really.

It never really seemed to touch the ground.

Mrs. Carlisle, would you please tell us exactly what you saw?

Yes.

I'm happy to. I was asleep, and then I was awake.

And there was no sound.

No sound at all.

And I was...

Drawn to the window.

Now, don't ask me why.

And then I saw...

No.

No, I'm not afraid. Thank you.

And as quickly as it came, it was gone.

Why did you say, no, I am not afraid, thank you?

Oh, because he spoke to me.

I didn't hear the words, but I understood as if he did.

He told me they were visitors, and they meant us no harm.

Yes, ma'am.

I felt wonderful as they left, all tingly and excited, full of energy.

Oh, excuse me. That's telephone. Excuse me, gentlemen.

Let's take a sample, check it for radiation.

Do you believe her?

I don't know what to believe, Harry.

I don't know what other people see.

I don't know what that dead pilot saw on his

radar that people on the ground didn't see,

or what he saw in the air that made him fly at it,

or what happened to him because he saw it and the rest of us didn't.

You know, I'm coming to one real conclusion about this job. What's that?

We got more unanswered questions than a Senate subcommittee.

Harry, check on those construction workers and

have a talk with them. Check on Andrew's metro.

Pull together a weather profile from Kentucky through the crash site,

including any activity over Charleston, West Virginia. You got it,

but where's that going to take us?

Maybe someplace we haven't been. Hello, Major. This is McNair.

Please come in.

Major, they've sealed the casket.

We're just trying to make it easy for you.

Then make it easy.

Let me see my husband's body.

Mrs. McNair, your husband's aircraft hit the ground over a thousand miles an hour.

I don't think you want to see him, not according to the autopsy report.

A newspaper man came to see me after you left.

He's been following these UFO things for years.

He says that my husband could have been snatched

right out of that plane before it ever crashed.

He says that the Air Force is afraid to admit that it's

helpless against some power from another world.

Now, that Carlisle woman in Virginia, she saw the thing.

He's using you. Believe me, I've seen it before.

Hang on to your husband's memory. Don't turn it into a sideshow.

I just want to know what happened to Gary.

I think something might have happened to his aircraft.

How, Major?

They're still machines.

That's it.

That's all you've got to tell me?

That's all we know so far.

This is McNair. All that newspaper man will tell you is what you want to hear.

But not what you want to read.

I promise you.

Major?

Major Gatlin? You're wanted at the Pentagon.

Sir, your ID will be returned to you when you leave. Your badge, Major?

Brigadier General Colburn will escort you from here, sir.

Good day, sir. Follow me, Major. Stand behind me, please.

Sir? Major Gatlin, Project Blue Book.

All right now, Major. Please be good enough to tell us what in hell is going on.

No definite explanation, sir.

Not yet. Your opinion, Major.

Was there something up there?

I don't know, sir.

I know there was one object sighted.

There were no prior sightings here in the Washington area.

One UFO could mean a reconnaissance mission. The

next question would be, reconnaissance of what?

When this was first reported,

we upgraded some of our air defense units to a high state of readiness.

I ask you now, Major Gatlin, in your view,

does this UFO sighting pose a threat to our national security?

Until we investigate further, I cannot say that it does not.

Are there any other opinions before I advise?

Gentlemen, when we first initiated this Blue Book program...

We did so to avoid technological surprise and

to properly evaluate our threat analysis.

Major? Yes, sir? Until you and your people have had further opportunity

to investigate these UFO sightings here over Washington,

I'm going to put us on a standby to upgrade our defense posture.

Agreed? Yes, sir.

This is John W. In view of the current unknown sightings,

and in the event that they persist, I would like to advise that effective now,

we will remain on standby condition to bring all air defense interceptor

units east of the Mississippi to a higher state of readiness.

We will stand ready to upgrade to DEFCON 3.

That is correct.

Gentlemen, stand by to move to a 15-minute alert.

Is that your leader deplaning the Pentagon Express? That's him.

Been down to operations, right? About that Washington jazz, them UFOs.

That's what he's been talking about, right? Uh-uh, wrong.

He was down there getting you the good conduct

medal for tending to your own business.

That thing's going operation.

Got everything east of the Mississippi on the verge of a 15-minute alert.

Tell me about those construction workers. Well,

the first thing they saw were the two F-106s,

Delta Red Leader and McNair Flying Formation.

One aircraft, Delta Red Leader, peeled off leaving McNair.

He began a series of acrobatics.

According to the two construction guys, he was in a real dogfight.

Only one thing missing, the enemy. McNair was all by himself up there,

and suddenly he went into a steep climb, straight up. A few seconds later,

they saw McNair again, heading straight down.

They see anything else? They saw the flame from

the crash and they heard the double sonic boom.

Well, if we believe them, then why shouldn't we?

Then those construction men didn't see the same thing that McNair thought he saw.

Maybe Lieutenant McNair saw something that wasn't where he saw it.

Did you get that weather profile from Andrews Metro?

Yes, sir, you ask and you got.

Skew T log P tells us there was a well of an inversion

all the way from Kentucky through the crash site.

Heavy isolated thunderstorm activity smack over Charleston, West Virginia.

You have a rush? What's a rush? Gamblers talk when you feel you're getting lucky.

I'd call it a notion. Where's your notion taking us? Silver Hill radar.

I'll brief you on the way.

Silver Hill radar.

Can your computers figure out the exact elevation angles from

the UFO on your radar scopes to the ground receiver here?

Why? Because maybe the signal bounced.

Say again?

Bounced, or reflected. There was a heavy temperature inversion from

6 to 20,000 feet all the way from Kentucky through the crash site,

including isolated thunderstorms over the Charleston, West Virginia area.

We get our copy of Skew T, Log P. Just what are you saying?

We're saying that maybe, just maybe, your signal bounced off that inversion,

hit something on the ground, and came back to you the same way. No, Sam.

Is it possible? Let me ask you.

That pilot locked onto something up there, and he died trying to prove it.

We had a visual sighting from a commercial aircraft.

Andrew's radar, national airports, and ours.

We all painted the same boogie.

Are you saying we're all wrong? We're asking you to tell us.

It'll take time to work out those elevations.

If it's even possible. Look, sir,

the Air Force is sitting on the edge of a third stage alert.

Now, if there was or is anything up there, we damn well have to know, and now.

We'll go after it, Major.

What is a one in a million shot? That's all we need, just that one.

Stand behind me, gentlemen. Sir, Major Gatlin, Sergeant Harry Fitz, Project Blue Book.

Major, we've reviewed your findings concerning the

various reported sightings and the McNair incident.

Anything further to add?

No, sir.

All right.

Scrub the standby condition, return all units

to normal posture, defense condition five.

All right, gentlemen.

Take it to the people.

Our investigations lead us to believe that you people may have seen reflected light.

The reflection could have been caused by a rare

weather condition that existed that morning.

Experts call it a temperature inversion.

The actual source of that light could have been

many miles from your farm here. How's that?

Have you ever shined your flashlight into a mirror

and seen it reflect on an opposite wall?

The wife don't believe you.

I can't figure out the ignition here. It sure ain't been the same since that night.

That may have something to do with what we believe

happened to you on the night of the 14th.

Oh?

How so?

You remember how severe the storm was that night?

There was a great deal of electrical activity all around the Charleston area.

We think you may have witnessed a very rare weather phenomenon.

Not many people have seen it, but it does exist, and it could be what you saw.

Whatever it was, it knew what it was up to.

We examined your truck while you were in the hospital.

We found burn marks on the hood. Yeah, I noticed them.

You could have been struck by ball lightning.

Never heard of it. It's extremely rare,

but it's been known to occur in heavy electrical storms.

Scientists tell us that ball lightning has been known to cut wire fences,

explode in chimneys, chase people,

even find its way into houses through keyholes and cracks in the floor.

My goodness.

Tell me, either one of you ever seen it? No, sir. Never have.

Don't.

There's no way we can tell you that you did not see what you tell us you saw.

However, we found no physical evidence to confirm your sighting.

Well, I don't need any proof.

I saw what I saw.

Yes, ma'am.

We found no evidence of radiation here.

Now, what's that supposed to mean?

The machine you say you saw would have to be powered by some means.

The most likely possibility would be a system that

would leave behind traces of radioactivity,

to the best of our knowledge.

Uh-huh.

To the best of our knowledge.

Why? We didn't use it to get to the moon.

No, ma'am.

But we did leave evidence of our visit behind.

Because we didn't have the means to bring back all those expensive gadgets.

Now, did we?

Since we didn't use atomic energy, why should we believe that they do?

Isn't it possible they could be ahead of us?

The great distances that would have to be traveled to reach our planet would

require a propulsion system far more sophisticated than we now know.

We can only assume that it could be some form of atomic power.

There you go again, Major, assuming.

Without positive physical evidence, we have no choice.

Well, neither do I.

And I have all the positive physical evidence I need. It landed right there.

I saw it.

And it left without leaving a trace of anything behind.

Now, let's have some more lemonade.

I assume my invitation had something to do with this morning's newspaper.

We read it.

Small story on page 14.

Something about Pilot's wife refuses to play in the Air Force.

I think they mention your name.

Are you all right now?

The funeral was yesterday.

No, I can handle it.

You know what I cry about now?

That we didn't have a baby.

At least one. It's gonna hurt for a long time.

Do you know anything more about what happened to Gary?

A little.

A couple of airline pilots may have seen what

your husband saw, but we can't be sure.

We believe we're dealing with a temperature inversion that created a

series of reflections that were transmitted from a far distant point.

I don't understand.

We think Lieutenant McNair saw something, but he wasn't sure what he saw,

even though the radar scopes indicated something up there.

At least for a period of time.

Those radar scopes and the airliner saw something,

but were not certain what they saw.

That temperature inversion could have caused a

reflected light from a distant ground source.

Your husband and a flight leader were scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base

in an effort to confirm what the radar saw and what the airliner saw.

Gary saw it, but he didn't know what he was seeing. Is that what you're saying?

If the Major or I had been up there,

it's entirely possible that we would have seen the same thing,

and we wouldn't have known.

There's a great deal about weather phenomena that we don't know, but we're learning.

The radar.

I still don't understand how it could be wrong.

Radar is not infallible. There are known cases where it's been fooled before.

However, our computers do tell us that that radar signal

would present what would appear to be a moving solid

target due to that abnormal weather condition if the signal

was misdirected due to the temperature inversion.

If, Major?

If.

That's as close as we can come.

How many UFO sightings have you investigated?

We've lost count. The project has looked into over 12,000.

And I suppose a fair number of them are unexplained.

Yes, ma'am. Roughly 30%.

Thank you for the dinner.

It was very thoughtful.

My husband, Major, are you satisfied?

No, I'm not.

Thank you.