52x01 - What Are UFOs?

[bunniefuu]

♪ ♪

PILOT:
Look at this thing!

PILOT 2:
It's rotating.

PILOT 1: Whoa, got it! (laughs)

Woo-hoo!


laughing on radios)

What the (bleep) is that thing?

NARRATOR: Disturbing videos
of U.F.Os. have been taken

by some of the best-trained
pilots on the planet.

We actually have military
pilots who are saying,

"I saw something that
I don't understand."

PILOT: Course unknown
and speed unknown.

MICK WEST: We don't
know what they actually saw.

We only have their
interpretation of it.

So this is the helmet
that I was wearing.


really irresponsible to suggest

that all of these things
are of the same origin,

that they're of the
same technology,

that they're of the
same phenomenon.

We can't say it's aliens, but
we can't say it's not aliens.

People in New
Jersey are concerned.

NARRATOR: And what about
the expl*si*n of news reports

of strange objects
flying over New Jersey?

Upwards of 49-plus
drone sightings.

SHELLEY WRIGHT: As
scientists, we also want

to get to the bottom of this.

There's an aircraft... there
we go. Ah, there we go.

NARRATOR: "What Are U.F.Os.?"

Right now, on "NOVA."

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In the
halls of Congress,

Navy pilots are speaking out.

This object remained for
about 45 seconds or so

before darting off
over the mountains.

We were seeing
objects with our radars,

with our cameras,

and even with our eyes
flying on an almost daily basis.

DIETRICH: We're very
sensitive to how things turn

and how things accelerate
and how things move,

and this didn't follow any
of those laws of physics.

NARRATOR: As of 2023,

military and commercial pilots

have reported seeing 801
objects they couldn't identify.

DIETRICH: When we're talking
about having an unidentified thing

in our airspace, whether
it's directly overhead

or in our coastal waters,
we need to figure out,

is this an issue
of flight safety?

Is this an issue of
national security?

Is this an adversary
spying on us?

NARRATOR: Or could
it be top-secret tech

developed right here at home?

ALEX HOLLINGS: I
can tell you unequivocally

that the government does
keep secrets when it comes

to aerospace technology.

The Pentagon has what
we often call a black budget,

which can sometimes
exceed $65 billion in a year.

ALEJANDRO ROJAS:
Even within the military,

there's never been
a consensus, really,

that it's this or that or
that it's not extraterrestrial.

♪ ♪

We cannot rule
out extraterrestrials,

but you have no evidence for it.

It comes back to the evidence.

♪ ♪

HAKEEM OLUSEYI: Regular
citizens have been reporting things

for decades, and
yet we hear nothing

from the government
about what this may be.

SHELLEY WRIGHT: And now
that we have more observations,

more cameras, more cell phones

that are taking pictures of
phenomenon in our atmosphere,

scientists need to come forward

and talk about how we
can identify these objects.

MICHAEL WONG: In science, we
encounter anomalies all the time.

And it's our job
to try to figure out

what those anomalies are
telling us about the universe.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: This isn't the first
time unidentified flying objects

have captured our imagination
and startled the world.

It was back in the 1940s

that sightings
started piling up.

June 24, 1947.

As he flew near Mt.
Rainier in Washington State,

pilot Kenneth Arnold
spotted something strange.

ROJAS: As he was flying around,
he said he saw these objects

glinting off of the sun.

Because they moved like
they were skipping off of water,

the term "flying
saucer" came about.

At the time, there were
other people having sightings,

but this is the one
that just really kind of

ignite this interest in
the public about U.F.Os.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: From
New York to California,

people started to report
seeing flying saucers

just about everywhere.

Sightings were
spreading like wildfire.

HOLLINGS: Culture
informs our understanding

of the world around us.

If you expect to see a U.F.O.

that looks like a pie tin,

well, when you see
something unusual in the sky

that you have trouble
discerning what it was,

your brain may
be more apt to say,

"That looked like a pie tin."

NARRATOR: It may seem
strange that in the 1940s and '50s,

so many Americans were
suddenly spotting objects in the sky.



But with the Cold
w*r in full swing,

it was a time of heightened
anxiety and worry

about new threats overhead.

This was a time period
in which there was a lot

of military technology
development.

Coming out of World w*r II,

we have developed radar.

♪ ♪

SEAN KIRKPATRICK:
This was the first major w*r

where air power
was a huge player,

and there was a lot of
unknown tech emerging.

All of these things
kind of came together.

And then, of course, you
had the Roswell incident.

NARRATOR: Roswell, New Mexico.

A rancher came
across another piece

of the flying saucer puzzle.

ROJAS: Essentially,
this ranch hand comes in,

says, "I found this material."

They send a couple
of Air Force people

from Roswell Army
Airfield out to take a look.

One of them says, "Hey, I
think this stuff was weird."

They take the
material to Fort Worth.

Fort Worth says it was
obviously a weather balloon.

Story's over.

NARRATOR: But the
public wasn't buying it.

And Hollywood saw an opportunity

to run with a captivating story:

aliens... sometimes
friendly and sometimes not...

were visiting planet Earth.

HAQQ-MISRA: The lack of
answers by the government

did leave a void,

and Hollywood and,
and entertainment

certainly filled that void.

FILM NARRATOR: "Earth
vs. The Flying Saucers."

HAQQ-MISRA: And we are
left with a wide assortment

of scenarios imagining

contact with aliens,

with saucers,

or aliens on the moon or Mars,

or alien invasions

that are quite dramatic.

FILM NARRATOR: What are they?

Where do they come from?

Certainly, this can instill
a lot of fear in people.



In the absence of scientists

or other authoritative voices

filling the gap

and, and explaining
what's going on,

all we heard from
the authorities was,

"There's nothing to see here."

NARRATOR: But behind the
scenes, the military was investigating.

HAQQ-MISRA: Probably
the most significant

historical
investigation of U.F.Os.

By the government
was Project Blue Book.

It investigated thousands and
thousands of U.F.O. sightings.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: For
more than 20 years,

military investigators and
scientists scrutinized the data,

looking for answers.

What are all these objects?

Do any of them present a
clear and present danger?

Scientists like
astronomer J. Allen Hynek

were brought in to help the
Air Force connect the dots.

ROJAS: Dr. J. Allen
Hynek was the consultant

for the Air Force from


the entire time they were
investigating this topic.

He was a skeptic himself

because of that early
association with aliens

and little green men.

So when they
approached him, he's, like,

"I'll do this, but
I'm going to easily

"be able to debunk
this in no time,

because this is just silliness."

NARRATOR: Project
Blue Book ended in 1969,

when the Air Force
released the Condon Report.

After investigating more
than 12,000 U.F.O. sightings,



When you've not explained
that much of your data,

as a scientist,
that's not acceptable.

NARRATOR: And it
wasn't acceptable for Hynek.

He'd had a change of heart

that would last a lifetime.

ROJAS: He started to see that
there was data there that indicates

that not all of these
are easily solvable,

and that they do
deserve investigation.

But he would stay away
from the alien side of things.

He would try to focus on,
you know, "This is a mystery

we don't understand."

But it's just too
difficult to do,

because the media
and the public just can't

disassociate those things,
the aliens and the U.F.Os.

OLUSEYI: This created an
environment that scientists

and any serious person
did not want to go near it.

So aliens were right in there

with ghosts, the Loch
Ness Monster, Bigfoot...

it was all part of this,
the unknown, spooky stuff

that probably ain't true.

NARRATOR:
Because of this stigma,

today, the Department of Defense

refers to these Unidentified
Flying Objects, U.F.Os.,

as U.A.Ps... Unidentified
Anomalous Phenomena.

DIETRICH: They
changed it from U.F.O.

to U.A.P. to try to
reduce that stigma,

to try to get away
from that history,

that historical trigger
that happens in our brains.

WRIGHT: The word U.F.O.,
unfortunately, has become a taboo word

within the scientific community.

It's actually been a disservice

to our community and our society

for not trying to teach
and communicate

about what actually
is in the night sky.

NARRATOR: There's no
shortage of things in the night sky

that can seem strange.

Some are natural,

like the colors of
the Northern Lights,

the beauty of a meteor shower,

planet Venus in the night sky.

Even clouds that form
strange saucer-like shapes.

♪ ♪

And plenty that are
not-so-natural wonders.

KENNETH HARRIS II: Right
now above my head are planes.

You can hear a helicopter
flying over. (helicopter flying past)

There's probably some
drones up there, too.

And if you're in the right
place at the right time,

you can probably even
see some satellites up there,

because there's a
lot of stuff out there

that might not be as
strange as you think it is.

VIDEOGRAPHER 1: So
weird, that's not a plane.

KIRKPATRICK: The
number of things that are

in our sky today are thousands.

VIDEOGRAPHER 2: Oh, my God.

VIDEOGRAPHER 3:
Now it's not moving at all.

It's hovering right there.

WRIGHT: We have
weather balloons.


daily around the world.

You can actually see
things in Earth's orbit

from the ground.

You can see, for instance,
the International Space Station

at night, flying overhead.

NARRATOR: And if
you see a cluster of lights

traveling across the night sky,

they're probably part
of a satellite system

called Starlink.

KIRKPATRICK: When Starlink
launches a 60-satellite string,

people look at that and go,
"I don't know what that is."

And it looks really
weird and concerning.

Technology, I think, has created
much more clutter in the sky

and an ability for us
to misinterpret things.

HAQQ-MISRA:
There's a lot in our sky,

and if we're studying
U.F.Os., of course,

you have to know what's
in the sky that is known

before you can
identify what's unknown.

NARRATOR: That's
especially difficult when it comes

to some of the strangest
sightings ever made...



NARRATOR: those
videos taken by Navy pilots.

One of the most famous
is nicknamed "the Gimbal."

We recorded the Gimbal object

when we were down off the coast

of Jacksonville, Florida, aboard

the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt

in 2015.

NARRATOR: Former F/A-18
pilot Ryan Graves will never forget

what some pilots in
his squadron told him

about their bizarre
U.A.P. experience.

The event unfolded during
a night training mission.

PILOT: This is a


They see something strange.

They've been closing on
it for a couple of minutes

as they fly towards it
to better understand it.

It has to be a drone...
that's the logical thing.

No one's out there saying it's
U.F.Os. or aliens or whatever.

It's just an unknown thing.

And what is it?

NARRATOR: While their camera
only captures the image of one object,

their radar tells a
more complex story.

PILOT 2: There's a whole
fleet of them... look on the S.A.

PILOT 1: My gosh.

GRAVES: As they
gather more information,

and they see a, a whole
fleet of them on their radar,

it's harder to understand
what they're seeing.

And you can hear
that in their voices.

PILOT 2: They're all
going against the wind.

The wind's 120
knots from the west.

PILOT 1: Look
at that thing, dude.

NARRATOR: Then the object
does something downright bizarre.

PILOT 1: Look at this thing!

PILOT 2: It's rotating.

GRAVES: You see the
object appears to rotate,

and then the video
cuts out at that point.


don't know what the Gimbal is.

We still don't know what it is.

NARRATOR: There's no doubt
many of the recordings of U.F.Os.

Made by Navy pilots
look very strange.

To try to decode them,

it's crucial to understand
the kinds of sensors

and cameras being used.

So the vast majority
of the evidence

that's excited the
public imagination

about these videos
comes in the form

of infrared imagery.

NARRATOR: Imagery taken with
an onboard infrared camera system

called ATFLIR.

Sean Kirkpatrick,
former director

of the government's
department in charge

of investigating U.A.Ps...
What is it reflecting...

NARRATOR: and
engineer Josh Semeter

explore how the world
looks in infrared light

with the help of Teledyne
engineer Donnell Lago.

So what you have
here is, you got

the visible on this side
here, it's a 4K visible image,

and then the
thermal on this side.

NARRATOR: On the
right side of the screen,

the camera is
capturing visible light:

light the human eye can see.

But on the left side,

the Boston skyline
looks radically different,

because this is a thermal image,

taken with an infrared camera

that detects variations
in temperature.

The cars on the bridge

are emitting more heat
than the background.

The more heat an object
emits, the whiter it appears.

The less, the darker it gets.

And can you switch
that? Yes, we can invert it.

We can make
everything that's black hot

and everything
that's white cold.

And that's exactly what
we see our pilots doing.

Pilots, when they see things,

they will toggle back and forth

so that they can try to
get the best contrast... Mm.

To try to figure out what
they're looking at, you know.

So why don't we try and
see if we can see any aircraft?

NARRATOR: Even
on a hazy day like this...

There's an aircraft, there
we go. Ah, there we go.

NARRATOR: it doesn't
take long to spot one.

KIRKPATRICK:
There is an aircraft

that you can't tell, in
the infrared, is an aircraft.

Mm-mm. But in the
visible, I sure can.

Yep. Exactly.

All right?

And now, why don't we
switch it to black is hot?

Play the same game,
yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Play the same game
and see what it looks like.

LAGO: There's a plane there.
SEMETER: Mm-hmm, oh, there we go.

There's a plane, there's a
plane, there's a plane. Okay, yep.

There we go.

KIRKPATRICK: There you go.

SEMETER: I saw this just
little dot tripping through the field.

And I was only looking
at the infrared camera.

And Sean, who was
watching the visual camera

next door, said,
"There's an airplane."

And I looked over

and this enormous aircraft
was moving through the scene.

KIRKPATRICK: It's just a blob.

LAGO: Just a little blob, yeah.

So that was an image of the
engine. KIRKPATRICK: Yeah.

LAGO: Yeah. KIRKPATRICK: That's
basically all you saw... you didn't see

the rest of the fuselage.

The world looks very different

in the infrared
versus the visible.

NARRATOR: Exploring the
deceptive nature of infrared light

provides scientists
with valuable clues

to why a plane could take
on an otherworldly shape.

But it doesn't explain
why the Gimbal

seems to move in
ways that defy physics.

The Gimbal video is one of

the most famous U.F.O. videos,

and with good reason, I think,

because it looks
like a flying saucer.

NARRATOR: U.F.O. investigator
and conspiracy debunker Mick West

spent years analyzing
the Gimbal video

frame by frame,

clue by clue.

The interesting thing
about the Gimbal video,

besides it being
a flying saucer,

is this rotation it does.

And this was very puzzling.

It took a long
time to figure out

what might be going on there.

NARRATOR: Mick brings a
unique set of skills to this challenge.


and grunting)

WEST: I used to program
video games many years ago.

I really enjoy the
process of solving puzzles,

and I use my 3D
geometry and trigonometry

and algebra and all the skills
that I use in games programming

to analyze the U.F.Os.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Mick
starts his investigation

of the Gimbal by combing through
publicly available information.

The plane that captured the
Gimbal video is an F/A-18,

equipped with an infrared
camera mounted beneath the wing

in a targeting pod.

Next,

he builds a simulation of
the plane and the camera,

which is on a device
called a gimbal.

The gimbal enables the camera
to rotate as it tracks a target.

But the camera isn't
the only thing in motion.

♪ ♪

The pilot's display reveals
that the object is also moving,

from the left side of
the plane to the right.

WEST: To track something

going from left to right,

which is what we're seeing
here, the camera actually

has to rotate, and it has
to rotate a specific amount

as it traverses over
from one side to the other.

NARRATOR: Using the
simulation he's created,

Mick makes a
surprising discovery.

WEST: The amount the gimbal
rotates and the time it rotates

is exactly what would be needed

for the camera to
track this object.

NARRATOR: He's come up
with a theory about why the object

appears to rotate,

and sets up an experiment
to demonstrate how it works,

using his cell phone
and his desk lamp.

WEST: Take your cell phone

and point the camera at a,
a bright light, a single light.

And then rotate your cell phone.

So you've got a rotating
camera, but nothing is rotating,

except the artifacts
of the camera.

So if you have a glare,
like an artifact of the camera,

when the camera rotates,

the scene itself doesn't
rotate, but the glare rotates.

And I think that's what we're
seeing in the Gimbal video.

It's possibly something
like a distant plane,

something that's
hot off in the distance.

The heat of the engine was kind
of pointing towards the camera,

and that kind of
bloomed in the camera

and created this glare

that was so big, it
obscured the entire plane.

NARRATOR: But not
everyone agrees with this theory.

I want to be clear that
that's entirely possible,

but I personally

don't find that
particularly likely.

The reason for that is
strictly, this FLIR system

is something that military
personnel are trained to use

to identify adversary
and friendly aircraft.

NARRATOR: Pilots are well aware
of how the gimbal system works,

as well as the nature of common
camera artifacts, like glare.

GRAVES: I don't think
this was a distant plane.

I do believe it was an
object that was about

four to six miles away
from the fighter aircraft,

not a distant jet at 30
nautical miles away.

If it was a distant jet,
where would it come from?

Why were we not
receiving any indications

that it was or was not
part of our strike group?

NARRATOR: In 2021,

the Department of
Defense formed AARO,

the All-domain Anomaly
Resolution Office,

to investigate U.A.Ps.
Like the Gimbal.

To date, AARO considers
this case "unresolved."

So for us, anything
that remains unidentified

is a severe threat that we
should be paying attention to

as tactical aviators,

because that's exactly
what we're training to identify.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The
Gimbal isn't the only U.A.P.

that appears to defy
the laws of physics.


dark at the airport

in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.

U.S. Customs and Border Control

captured this video of
an oddly behaving object.

KIRKPATRICK: It looks like
the object is traveling quickly.

It looks like it's
disappearing into the water

and coming out of the water,

and disappearing
again, coming out,

and it's splitting into two,

and kind of
disappearing completely.

Enthusiasts will
point to that and say

that is evidence of warp
drives or interdimensional drives

and that it's transmedium

because it's going in
and out of the water.

Let me see.

NARRATOR: But could
there be another reason

that's more down to Earth?

So let's do this as a
controlled experiment.

NARRATOR: Engineer Josh Semeter

enlists the help of
Sean Kirkpatrick,

former director of
AARO, to cook up an idea:

can they recreate this
disappearing act in the lab

with a knife, spoon, and fork

and two surrogate U.F.Os.?

What I thought we'd try to use

to do this is a infrared sensor.

It just clips on like so.

NARRATOR: They
set it up on a tripod,

take a look, and see

absolutely nothing.

SEMETER: We're not
seeing anything at all

in these objects.

NARRATOR: Sean takes
the spoon and fork, along with

one of the U.A.P. surrogates,

and puts them in a cooler.

For just about... what
do you think, Josh?

A second? Ten seconds? Yeah.

It doesn't take long...
I'd say ten seconds.

It's more than enough.

NARRATOR: About ten
seconds later, give or take...

KIRKPATRICK: All right, let's take
them out and see what they look like.

Put that

right back where they were.

And what do we got?

SEMETER: Well,
there's three objects there.

Wow, that's pretty stark.

NARRATOR: We can
see the fork and spoon,

along with one of
the U.F.O. surrogates.

SEMETER: And...

KIRKPATRICK: I
don't see the other two.

Cannot find the other two.

But they are clearly there.

NARRATOR: But over
the next few minutes,

they gradually disappear again.

The question is, why?

SEMETER: There is a tendency

for objects that are at
different temperatures,

when they're in contact,
to eventually reach

the same temperature
as one another.

NARRATOR: It's
not a magic trick.

For an object to show
up in infrared light,

it must be a
different temperature

than objects it
is in contact with.

So, when the fork and spoon
exchanged thermal energy

with the table, thermal
equilibrium is reached,

making them invisible
in infrared light.

And that brings us back

to the disappearing objects
in the Puerto Rico video,

which were also captured
with an infrared sensor.

As the object becomes the same

either temperature or
irradiance as the background,

you won't be able to see it.

It'll become nearly invisible,

and it looks like it disappears.

NARRATOR: After months of
carefully analyzing the video,

scientists think
they have an answer.

KIRKPATRICK: We
think they're two birds,

and when they get
close to the water,

the effect on the
sensor kicks in,

where it's having a hard
time distinguishing the contrast

between the
background and the birds,

and they look like
they disappear,

and then they reappear

because the reflectance
changes, and then they separate,

and then it looks like
they land in the water.

NARRATOR: This
demo doesn't capture

all the conditions
of this sighting,

but Sean and Josh believe

that shifts in
temperature and reflection

might explain the
apparent disappearing act.

SEMETER: I'm satisfied
with that explanation,

because that's how
a scientist speaks

with respect to some
phenomenon that's not known.

We don't speak in certainty.

So, for instance,

if one were to say,

"That is either

"two birds flying over the ocean

"or it is a alien
anti-gravity technology

exhibiting transmedium
characteristics,"

I choose the bird explanation.

NARRATOR: The
sighting in Puerto Rico

might simply be two birds,

and the Gimbal video
might be a distant plane,

but one of the most
famous U.F.O. sightings

has been even more
challenging for investigators.

DIETRICH: I was an eyewitness

to what is considered

one of the most important

U.F.O. or U.A.P. encounters,

and that's the U.S.S.
Nimitz-Tic Tac encounter.

NARRATOR: November 14, 2004.

About a hundred miles
southwest of San Diego,

Alex Dietrich, then a
young aviator-in-training,

along with her
commanding officer,

David Fravor, a seasoned pilot

with more than a decade
of flying under his belt,

set out on a routine
training exercise.

DIETRICH: It was clear
blue skies, calm waters,

when we get a call
by this controller,

kind of like an air
traffic controller

for our military exercise,

and they say, "Hey,
we need you to go

and check out this
contact over here."

NARRATOR: The radar on one
of the ships in the strike group

had detected an unknown object.

And this is 2004, just
a few years after 9/11.

The hair on the back
of our neck stands up,

and we go, "Hm, okay."

And we divert and
we head towards it.

♪ ♪

And we don't see
anything initially.

But somebody sees a
disturbance in the water,

and this strange thing is flying

very fast but erratically

over the, this
area of, of water.

It was off-white.

You know, sort of a, a
white, creamish color.

We didn't see a c*ck,
we didn't see windows,

and it moved in ways
that we didn't understand.

NARRATOR: Dietrich and
Fravor returned to the Nimitz

without taking
video of the object,

so another aircraft
went in pursuit

and captured this.

DIETRICH: We call it
affectionately a Tic Tac,

because it looks like
the little breath mint.

NARRATOR: Mick West
decides to take on the challenge,

to see if he can make sense
of the movement of the Tic Tac.

WEST: It's a very blurry video.

I think it's actually
out of focus,

and it's not actually
doing anything.

It's just basically flying away

and a bit to the left

in more or less
a straightish line.

But the thing is,

David Fravor's
description is very dramatic.

NARRATOR: In fact,

when Commander David Fravor

testified before
Congress in 2023,

he described an object that,

in his 18 years of flying,

traveled at speeds

he'd never seen before.

FRAVOR: As we looked around,

we saw a white Tic Tac object

with a longitudinal
axis pointing north-south

and moving very
abruptly over the water,

like a Ping-Pong ball.

WEST: He talks about the object

kind of Ping-Ponging
around close to the ocean,

and then doing
this very difficult

synchronized movement
up towards the top.

♪ ♪

I'm going to tie
it off over here.

NARRATOR: Mick
conducts an experiment

based solely on the
pilots' eyewitness reports,

using his backyard swimming pool

and his version of the Tic Tac.

WEST: Yeah, I made the
Tic Tac out of a piece of wood

and some bits of white
wire and painted it white.

NARRATOR: He suspends his
Tic Tac over the swimming pool...

WEST: About there.

NARRATOR: climbs
up a ladder with his phone,

and starts recording.

WEST: So, what I set up

with the pool demo is
just a good illustration

of what might have
happened to try to figure out,

what's actually moving here?

Is this object moving or
is the camera moving?

Because we don't have
any frame of reference,

we've just got
the pool behind it,

and so you kind of
zoom in a little bit,

so all you see is the pool,

it really looks like
the object is moving.

NARRATOR: Even though it's not.

It's only the camera
that's moving.

WEST: It's a good
illustration of parallax,

which, as we know,

is one of the big causes
of optical illusions.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: You may
have experienced this illusion

looking out the
window of a train.

The trees just
outside the window

appear to be moving in relation

to the landscape
in the background,

but the only thing that's
actually moving is you.

OLUSEYI: We're not reliable...
our eyes are not reliable.

If you're going to court,

and you're the accused,

and it's a eyewitness testimony

that's going to, you
know, the big evidence

against you, good luck.

♪ ♪

HOLLINGS: So,
when a military aviator,

especially someone
like Commander Fravor,

with combat experience,

says that they saw
something in the sky

that they can't quite explain,
that operated in a way

that seemed to contradict
what they understand

the laws of physics
would dictate,

I tend to give those
witness testimonies

a great deal of credence,
because these aviators

are not just highly
trained pilots,

they're highly
trained combatants.

The pilot observation is,

"I see something."

The data we need

is what the sensor is gathering.

And that's the numbers
we actually need.

KIRKPATRICK: In
the case of the Tic Tac,

the pilot did see something,

but some of the key
technical questions

hadn't been
investigated at the time,

and trying to
investigate those now

is not going to
give us a whole lot,

because there's
nothing to really examine.

The farther back in time you go,

the less data there is for
every one of these cases.

And back in 2004,

there was no data
retention policy

for these kinds of events.

Side... Yeah. SEMETER: This
one? Yeah, so, we're looking...

NARRATOR: According
to Sean Kirkpatrick,

the radar data from the
incident no longer exists,

so we'll never know

if it would support or rule
out Mick's parallax theory.

DIETRICH: I don't
know what we saw,

and I refuse to speculate,

because I think it would be
irresponsible of me to say,

you know, "Well,
it was definitely

an adversary spying on us,"

or, "It was definitely an alien

visiting from outer space,"
because I don't know.

NARRATOR: For Alex, that
was the end of the Tic Tac story.

DIETRICH: And then
I went on with my life,

my career, and I didn't
really think about it.

NARRATOR: That
is, until 13 years later,

when "The New York
Times" published this article

with links to the Tic
Tac and Gimbal videos.

When "The New York
Times" released this story,

it really gave the whole
topic a bit of credibility,

where a lot of people saw
it as taboo and sort of silly,

but if the U.S. government
has been investing

tens of millions of dollars

into investigating
these reports,

there seems like there
could be something to it.

HAQQ-MISRA:
People are interested

in this topic of U.F.Os.,

and Congress has
begun to get involved.

There's been a couple

of congressional hearings

calling expert witnesses

to try and figure out
what's going on here.

NICK LANGWORTHY: In your belief,

is this,

this flying Tic
Tac, I mean, is this,

is it capable of being

the product of any other
nation on the Earth?

No, I, actually, I think it
defies current material science

and the ability to develop
that much propulsion.

And I know there's
been some physicists

who have done
calculations, which is beyond

anything that we have.

NARRATOR: Should we be
concerned that some U.F.Os.

Are advanced technologies
from out of this world?

Or secret technologies
developed by our adversaries?

Or could there be another reason

U.F.Os. have remained
so elusive for decades?

Remember, back in 1947,
in Roswell, New Mexico,

when a rancher found
strange debris in his pasture?

The Air Force said it was
from a weather balloon.

But, as it turns out,

it was part of a classified
U.S. military program

called Project Mogul.

ROJAS: The Air Force
launched these balloons,

and they had these
sensors on them

where they can measure
vibrations in the air

to be able to monitor
Russian nuclear testing.

The general in Fort
Worth, Texas, decided,

"I'm going to cover up
this classified project,

"and I'm going
to show the public

that what we recovered
was a weather balloon."

NARRATOR: It would
take half a century

for the Air Force to admit

exactly what had
crashed in Roswell.

So there was a cover-up,

but it was a cover-up
of a classified project,

not, you know, an
alien spacecraft.

The secrecy led
to the conspiracy,

and certainly the Air Force
did not help themselves

by being secret and
dismissive of the topic.

NARRATOR: When it comes
to government cover-ups,

perhaps the most
infamous is Area 51.

Tales of alien spacecraft

hidden inside this
remote Air Force base

about 83 miles
northwest of Las Vegas

have persisted for decades.

It turns out, the military
has been secretly

developing cutting-edge
technology here

since the 1950s,

but did not even acknowledge
the existence of the base

until 2013.

HOLLINGS: There
are lots of aircraft

we know have been
tested at Area 51

entirely in secret at the time,

including the F-117,

the SR-71,

the B-2 Spirit, and many more.

Right around the same time

the B-2 Spirit was
in development,

common sightings of U.F.Os.
Around the United States

tended to transition away
from the pie saucer shape

we were familiar
with in earlier decades

and toward a more
triangular shape.

This is a model of what
people claim was the TR-3B,

which is a legendary aircraft
that people allege was built

using reverse-engineered
alien technology.

NARRATOR: By the 1990s,

rumors of
triangular-shaped spacecraft

became so widespread,

they became part
of popular culture.

Blockbusters like "The X-Files"

featured a triangular-shaped
alien spacecraft

hovering over Agent
Fox Mulder's head.

♪ ♪

HOLLINGS: I think the
government should and does

expect that the public is going

to fill in the blanks
as they see fit.

As long as people are talking

about aliens operating
out of Area 51,

well, then, they're
not revealing anything

about the legitimate
military platforms

that are being tested there.

It creates a bit of
a smokescreen.

OLUSEYI: There's always

advanced technological
programs going on

that are on a
need-to-know basis.

If you don't need to
know, even if you are

a member of the
government or the military,

you're not going to know.

And that's the way it should be.

♪ ♪

KIRKPATRICK: This is
all about spy versus spy

or military versus military

to maintain
technical superiority.

We don't want other people
to learn what we're building,

where we might employ it,

because then they can defeat it.

There are reasons to do that.

None of it is alien.

None of it.

♪ ♪

MOUNTAIN: I think
we are in an era where

conspiracy theories are popular.

Is this another one?

NARRATOR: When
it comes to sightings

by military pilots
and the public,

how can science help separate

unfounded conspiracy
theories from reality,

fact from fiction?

MOUNTAIN: From the
very days that Galileo

first lifted his
telescope to the sky

and made measurements of
the moons going around Jupiter,

everybody else could then
reproduce those measurements

and go, "Oh, yeah, he's right."

And that confirmation

is what has made the
scientific method so powerful

over the last 400 years.

The thing we need is data,

and we need real data,
and we don't have it.

We at NASA are...

NARRATOR: In 2022,

NASA brought together
a group of experts

to explore ways
to collect that data.

NASA should lead
the scientific discourse.

We need to elevate
this conversation.

SEMETER: The NASA U.A.P. panel

was formed to bring

that science
perspective into this.

That analysis has not been done.

A lot of people argue
that we have data,

but the vast majority
of that data is anecdotal,

and that's just
not going to cut it.

NARRATOR: The panel
recommended several ways

to collect more data,

including repurposing
existing technology,

like the National Weather
Service's radar system,

called NEXRAD...

radar stations that are
found throughout the U.S.

SEMETER: So those same
sensors should be able to see

if an object comes
whizzing through

at an extraordinary velocity.

It should be able to
pick up that type of thing.

That's just one example
of the type of networks

that we could repurpose
for U.A.P. research.

NARRATOR: Astronomer Avi Loeb

is taking a different
approach, collecting more data

in a novel way.

We just constructed

an observatory at
Harvard University.

We are monitoring
objects that fly overhead

and trying to make
sense of them.

NARRATOR: This
collection of instruments

is part of Harvard's
Galileo Project.

The Galileo Project

is developing several sites

that are spread across

a geographical region,

where each site has
an array of sensors...

optical cameras,

infrared images.

There's audio from
infrasound to ultrasound.

There's radar.

It's a wide array of instruments

to basically look at
the sky all the time

to, to see if you
find any anomalies.

NARRATOR: Some instruments
have otherworldly names,

like this one called Dalek,

after the cyborg aliens

featured in the
"Doctor Who" series.

Inside Dalek,

there are eight
infrared cameras.

LOEB: Behind the
window, there is a camera.

They overlap.

And so, they
get the full picture

of the entire sky at all
times, in the infrared.

When something of interest

is identified by the
main set of cameras,

we zoom on it in the sky,

and this is the camera
that can move around

and look at the
object of interest,

automatically, based on the
computer system that we develop.

You can imagine, if you have
a camera pointing overhead,

you're going to see a lot of
things that are identifiable.

So they use machine learning,

what people call
artificial intelligence,

that can recognize the knowns,

recognize the
birds, the airplanes,

the balloons, leaves,

all the known things,

and sort of reject
those, filter them out,

and then what you're
left with is the anomalies.

You're left with the things
that you cannot understand,

the things you can't identify.

And as we speak right now,

we are being
recorded. (chuckles)

So far, we have been
operating this observatory

for several months, and we saw

hundreds of thousands
of objects in the sky.

None of them appears
to be anomalous.

♪ ♪

But even if one in a million

came from outside of this Earth,

that would be big
news to humanity

and will change our future.

And that's what
drives my science.

♪ ♪

GRAVES: One way or another,

the more data we're,
we're able to bring

into this conversation,
the more we're

going to be able
to get to the truth.



NARRATOR: Ryan Graves
is trying to collect data

from a different
source: his fellow pilots,

military and commercial.

But there's a problem.

They're hesitant to
share their experiences

because of the taboo
surrounding U.F.Os.

GRAVES: They don't
feel comfortable reporting

because of that fear
that there could be

professional repercussions
at their employer,

social repercussions with
their peers at the airline,

because the conversation
immediately jumps to,

"Well, there's no proof
there's extraterrestrials.

You couldn't travel across
the universe to get here."

And it's, like, "Whoa,
whoa, whoa." (chuckles)

Pilots are seeing
things that are in the sky

that they don't
understand what they are

and are posing safety risks.

That's where the
conversation needs to stop.

And hey, is this not only
an aviation safety risk,

but is this a potential
national security risk?

♪ ♪

IYA WHITELEY:
So, I was asking pilots

whether they have
encountered the U.A.P.,

and they were
very cagey about it.

NARRATOR: Aviation and
space psychologist Iya Whiteley

is working with Ryan,
conducting research

to find out if this
reluctance to talk

about U.A.P. sightings
also impacts a pilot's ability

to focus on the job,

creating a safety issue.

WHITELEY: When the
pilot's seeing something,

I want to make sure that they're
comfortable speaking about it,

because it then occupies

their capacity and
focus and attention,

and takes them away
from actually flying.

If you're trying to ignore
something unidentified

in the distance, your
mind is still thinking,

"I'm not thinking about
it, I'm not thinking about it.


about it, I'm not thinking about it."

And now they don't see
what they need to be seeing.

You were just asking about

visual cues... Yes.

And what attracts
your attention.

Movement is what
attracts your attention.

GRAVES: Commercial pilots have
been seeing objects that have been

causing them some
serious consternation.

I don't think anyone would like

their pilot flying
their aircraft

to have an existential crisis

as they're flying their aircraft
and coming in for a landing.

♪ ♪

WEST: The more
cases we can explain,

the less distraction
there's going to be.

And if there is
actually any real threat

or any real issue out there,

then we can focus in on that

without all this extra noise.

NARRATOR: And
there's another way

we can collect more data...

with a little help
from the public.

So, it would seem like
they're going sideways.

NARRATOR: In the Lower
East Side of Manhattan,

at Enigma Labs,

a staff of software designers
and U.F.O. enthusiasts are

developing a first-of-its-kind
crowdsourcing app.

LAUREN BUTLER:
The goal is really

to bring people together

to share their
U.A.P. experiences

and their sightings.

You know, if people don't have

a place to talk about this

or report what they're seeing,

I think they can
feel really lonely,

and, and feel very isolated,

when, in reality, this is a
huge community of people

who should be able

to come somewhere and
talk about what they're seeing.

ROJAS: So, we're
collecting sighting reports.

We get a lot of Starlink
and Space X rocket videos.

But at the same time,
people are submitting things

that cannot be explained.

This time, I've got one
that I can't figure out.

Maybe you can help me out.

This is really cool.

Just this light
comes floating in,

and then it hovers, but wait.

But what is, what is
this blob of light here?

It came down
slowly, right? Yeah.

BUTLER: Those are
fireworks, I'd say, right?

ROJAS: Those are
probably fireworks.

ADAM: Probably smoke
rising up from... Mm-hmm.

ROJAS: And smoke
rising up. ADAM: Mm-hmm.


But in just a second, it will get weirder.

ADAM: What?
ROJAS: Isn't that weird?

Oh, it's getting brighter. MAN: It
gets brighter and brighter, yeah.

ROJAS: Yeah, it
keeps getting brighter.

And it's a broad beam of light.

ADAM: So it's not a star.

ROJAS: So what do you
think about, maybe, drone?

But, I mean,
look how still it is.

It doesn't have blinking lights.

I mean, it doesn't

look like a drone.

So let's fast-forward a little.

MAN: Oh, it went
up a little bit, okay.

ADAM: It's rising
up, it's rising up.

ROJAS: Yeah.

So it kind of gets dimmer.

And I'm watching the cam...
the camera's not moving.

And it rises up...
the camera's...

And it's rising
back up. Yeah, it...

This is a good one.

I don't know, I don't
know what that is.

NARRATOR: Apps like
this provide the public

with a place to
share their sightings,

but could one day
be a source of data

for scientists to study.

MOUNTAIN: We're not relying
just on, "Did you see something?"

We're asking your cell phone
to make a measurement.

It's going to record

the position of the
phone on the planet,

because we all have GPSes in it,

and, because it has
a little compass in it,

it will also tell us what
direction we're looking at.

So we can actually do
scientific experiments

with actual data,

because our modern cell
phones are so good now

at recording numbers.

ADAM: The more data, the better.

The more sightings,

the more eyes we get on,

on something that's
truly anomalous,

the closer we get

to maybe answering
that question:

"What is it?"

NARRATOR: Alex Dietrich has
learned from firsthand experience

that for many people,
data alone is not enough.

DIETRICH: The
topic is so charged,

because there are
so many conspiracies,

and it's such a...

You know, it does
something to people's brains

when you say "U.F.O."

NARRATOR: At the
University of Colorado Boulder,

Alex is trying to change that.

So, this is the helmet
that I was wearing.

You're welcome
to try to put it...

NARRATOR:
using her experience

as a way to teach students

how to separate
fact from fiction.

What is it about U.F.Os.?

What do we know?

And how do we know it?

What I find is that
some of my students

have been going down those
Reddit thread rabbit holes,

working themselves
up into a lather

with salacious headlines
for content and clickbait.

If you're reading an
article about U.F.Os.,

what do we look for when
we are looking at our sources?

I hope they will be

more discerning when
they consume media

going forward, that
they will question

where the information that
they're getting comes from.

Because I want to advocate

for us to all take a deep breath

and to come to this subject

with a lens of
critical thinking.

Critical thinking, people.



Let's all apply
critical thinking.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: And
that brings us back

to the million-dollar
questions...

could this be
extraterrestrial technology?

What would it take
for a spacecraft

to come from a distant world?

HOLLINGS: A very
important question

that we need to be asking today

when investigating
U.A.P. is whether or not,

even if there are advanced
alien civilizations out there,

if they have the means
to actually reach us.

MAN: Three, two, one...

NARRATOR: Consider this.

One of the fastest
spacecrafts ever launched,

NASA's New Horizons,

took nine years and five
months to reach Pluto,

three billion miles away.

Getting to the
closest star system

with a planet that
might harbor life

would take that tiny spacecraft

a whopping 80,000 years.

WRIGHT: The universe
is so unfathomably large.

There's a hundred billion
stars in our Milky Way,

and there's a
hundred billion galaxies

in the observable universe.

That's ten to the 22...
one with 22 zeros on it...

with the number of stars,

and the distances between stars

is incredibly vast.

HAQQ-MISRA: I have
not seen any evidence

that we have been visited.

I think it's still worth
looking for evidence,

because we can't
conclusively demonstrate

that we have not been visited.

Half of the timescale the
galaxy has, has existed,

there was no planet Earth.

So that's plenty of time
for life to have evolved

and technological life to have
developed on another planet.

OLUSEYI: The answer is,

get more data.

We need much, much more data.

And the way you're
going to get more data

is that you're going to
have more eyes on the sky.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: U.F.Os. have been

a part of our
culture for decades.

They've been the
subject of curiosity,

but rarely the subject

of serious scientific
investigation.

But that is changing.

GRAVES: I think it's critical

to be open-minded,
don't be dismissive,

and search for the data,
like any good scientist.

What I think is important

is that we are
collecting more than just

the eyewitness accounts,
but that we also have

the right hardware in place

for things that will be
seen today, tomorrow,

so that we don't sit here and...


bicker about,

about what happened


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