01x02 - Giant UFO in Texas

[bunniefuu]

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♪ ♪

STEVE ALLEN:
January the 8th, 2008,

it was approximately
6:00 PM in the afternoon,

and the sun was just going down,

and my buddy Mike Odam
called me and says,

"You want to come over
and enjoy the afternoon?

We'll build a campfire
up on the hill

and just hang out
and sh**t the breeze."

And I said, "Sure can."

Second I got out of my pickup,

I noticed some lights
coming at us

at a very high rate of speed.

I asked Mike and Lance if they
was seeing what I was seeing,

they replied back,
"Yes, we're seeing it."

We saw a craft coming
from the east going west.

Had extremely large lights,

like a magnesium flare,

almost burnt your eyes
to look at it.

And it was moving
extremely fast,

faster than any normal aircraft
that we have around here.

And as we watched it, we saw
that it had two F-16 jets

in hot pursuit after it,
chasing it.

I know what a F-16 is.

I go to air shows and
pretty familiar with aircraft.

It was unbelievable.

It left us all in shock,

you know, it was, uh,
out of this world.

♪ ♪

LARRY KING: Last week, several
people in Stephenville, Texas,

witnessed what many
are calling a UFO.

STANTON FRIEDMAN: The Air Force
has lied about UFOs

for 60 years, actually.

And this would be
in keeping with that.

LESLIE KEAN: In the late '40s
and early '50s,

there was so many sightings
across the United States.

It was in the middle
of the Cold w*r,

so government officials
were trying to figure out

what these objects were.

CHRIS MELLON:
The government examined

over 12,000 UFO sightings.

Many of those bore
a striking resemblance

to what we're seeing today.

JOHN A. SAMFORD: There have been
a certain percentage of reports

by credible observers of
relatively incredible things.

MARK O'CONNELL: The Air Force,
I think, for a time

may have been making
an honest effort

to clear the air
about the phenomenon.

Unfortunately,
it didn't last too long.

J. ALLEN HYNEK: To this time,
there is no valid

scientific proof that we have
been visited by spaceships.

KEAN: They were inundated
by these reports

and just wanted to be done
with the whole thing.

LAWRENCE J. TACKER:
We are not hiding anything;

we have nothing to hide.

KEAN: This became the launch of
taboo on a more official level.

Ridicule became sanctioned.

ALLEN: I would like
to have answers,

but I'm not sure if
we'll ever get any.

HYNEK: We get reports
every night.

MAN: I don't know what
the hell it is.

MAN: Looks like
a rotating right around it.

MAN: I'd like to report a UFO.

KEAN: In 2017, two colleagues
and I published a story

in The New York Times

about a secret Pentagon program
studying UFOs.

The story was on the front page
of The New York Times,

and it was huge,

it was covered everywhere
all over the world.

It was like such a sea change
for me as a journalist

and also for the issue
of UFOs in general.

For most people, this was the
first time they heard anything

about any official relationship
between the government and UFOs.

But actually in the late 1940s,

the government was really
starting to wake up

to what this issue
was really all about.

MARK RODEGHIER: It's extremely
important to understand

that the Cold w*r affected
both the perception of UFOs

and how it was handled
by the military.

MELLON: It's hard for us
today to remember

what the mindset was,
but it was dire.

It was life and death
between the United States

and Soviet Union.

There was people out with
binoculars all over the country,

constantly searching the skies
for a Russian strike.

O'CONNELL: It was only natural
that during the Cold w*r,

UFOs sort of got folded
into this overriding fear

of what might attack us
at any given time.

(phone rings)

OPERATOR: Air Defense, go ahead.

WOMAN: Bravo, hotel,
three five, black, west.

OPERATOR: Check. Thank you.

KEAN: And then, in 1947,
just when these Cold w*r fears

were starting to take hold,

there was a very famous sighting
by a pilot named Kenneth Arnold.

That was the sighting that
marked the beginning

of the modern era of UFOs.

ED MORROW: It all began
with an incident

which occurred in 1947.

On the afternoon of
June 24th of that year,

Kenneth Arnold made the first
report on flying saucers.

O'CONNELL: Kenneth Arnold
was a private pilot

searching for a military plane

that had crashed
sometime earlier,

and he sees,
off in the distance,

a chain of nine silvery objects.

He said they look sort of like
silver pie plates

with a crescent cut out of them.

And he times them at going
over 1,000 miles an hour.

RODEGHIER: Nothing in 1947
was capable of traveling

1,200 miles an hour.

Nor did we have any aircraft

that looked like this.

KENNETH ARNOLD: They seemed to
flip and flash in the sun,

just like a mirror.

Kind of weaving and going
at a terrific speed.

O'CONNELL: He landed at his next
stop at the next airport

and told the flight crew
what he had encountered,

and people pretty much
just laughed him off.

But when got to his next stop,

there were reporters
waiting for him.

He described their movement as

"a saucer skipping
across the water."

And that reporter thought,
"Ah, flying saucers.

That's what we'll call 'em."

And that's what we've
been using ever since.

In the aftermath of
Kenneth Arnold's report,

there were hundreds
and hundreds of reports

pouring into the Air Force
every day,

and the Air Force couldn't
just ignore that.

KEAN: It was in the middle
of the Cold w*r,

and so government officials
were trying to figure out

what these objects were.

O'CONNELL: General Twining
saw this phenomenon

as a possible threat
to our country.

So, he issued a very famous memo
in which he said,

"The phenomenon reported
is something real...

not visionary or fictitious."

Those were pretty big words
coming from a general

in the Air Force
in the summer of 1947.

KEAN: The Twining memo marked
the beginning of an era

in which the Air Force would
become deeply involved

with the question of UFOs.

The government was put in a
position where it had to decide

was it going to engage
with this phenomenon,

and if so, how much of it
was it going to make public?

That continued on
in the decades that followed,

and it impacted all the cases
that came decades later.

MELLON: The Stephenville, Texas,
UFO case

is very intriguing to me.

In 2008, a large, unidentified
flying object was observed

by a large number of people
from the ground.

ALLEN: When we first saw it,

it had seven lights
across the back of it,

all blinking in
no particular order.

As it approached Stephenville,

these seven lights became

an arch shape of seven lights,

and then a brief moment later

they burst into a flame,

and it looked to me like
the flame was contained

in a rectangle box.

Somebody had made the comment,

"Well, is it half the size
of a Walmart?"

I said, "It's much bigger
than a normal Walmart."

ROBERT POWELL: What made the
Stephenville case so interesting

was that in a four-hour
period of time,

you had dozens of reports
of an object.

And they all described
seeing the same thing.

ALLEN: It happened about
12 and a half, 13 years ago.

I still think about it
quite often.

We're still trying to find out

and discover what
the cause of it was.

It just had two large,
bright, intense red lights

with a white light
in the center of it,

and it had two military jets
behind it,

which everybody saw in town
the jets.

They was running full throttle,

but they wasn't able
to catch it.

CLAUDETTE ODAM:
There were fighter jets

chasing those lights.

And the jets couldn't
keep up with them.

And then it just left,
it was gone. That fast.

PRODUCER:
What do you think it was?

ODAM: I don't know what it was,

but I know it wasn't
an airplane.

♪ ♪

ALLEN: After that, I spoke to
probably 200 or 300 people

that witnessed it.

Business owners,
city councilmen, policemen.

But no one could say
what we saw that night.

So I called
the Stephenville Empire-Tribune

to see if anybody may
have got a visual on it.

The editor directed me
to a newspaper reporter

named Angelia Joiner.

She interviewed me
over the phone,

and she started digging deep

to help find out
what we was seeing.

She was hell-bent
to find out the truth.

♪ ♪

SARA VANDEN BERGE:
My name is Sara Vanden Berge,

and I was the managing editor of
the Stephenville Empire-Tribune

for 14 years.

In 2008, Steve Allen and
a couple of his friends

saw some suspicious lights, and
they called into the newsroom

and talked to Angelia Joiner.

Angelia Joiner was one of my
reporters at the Empire-Tribune.

Sadly, Angelia passed away
of COVID last year.

Angelia was a super fun person,
but she took her job seriously.

Good writer, she was thorough,

she was, she was
a good reporter.

ANGELIA JOINER: Steve Allen
called me and said,

"Hey, I got a story for ya."

And I could tell
by talking to him,

you know, the way
his voice changed

and his inflections changed,
and, and he was just so sincere

when he was describing it to me,

I knew this guy saw something.

He really saw something big.

VANDEN BERGE:
After Steve Allen called,

she pitched the story
to me and said,

"Here's what's happened,
what do you think?"

PRODUCER: Did you have any
concern at that point

about reporting on this?

VANDEN BERGE: Yeah, it just
seems like, you know,

it's the thought of
the little green men

coming out of the spaceship.

It was sort of
tabloid-ish to me.

That was my concern
as a journalist

who wanted to be
taken seriously.

I was afraid that, you know,

this would somehow
taint my reputation.

So, I said put something
together and pitch it to me

tomorrow evening when
I get back to the office,

and then we'll talk about it.

JOINER: This sighting
was like right here

in our core readership area,
and I thought, you know,

the readers are gonna like this,

they're gonna really like this.

So, and the people, they, they
know the people in the story,

that's another thing.

So that was another reason
I went ahead and did it.

PRODUCER: Do you, uh...

JOINER: And the editor
left early.

(laughs)
You have to cut that part!

But she did!

(laughs)

VANDEN BERGE: Next morning,
at the end of my driveway

was the paper.

I picked it up,
and across the top had

"UFO Sightings in Erath County"
in like 72-point font.

It was just huge.

After I had left for the day,
the publisher and Angelia

redid the front page and went
to press, and I had no idea.

I almost had a nervous breakdown
right then.

I could not believe that, um,

that that had happened
overnight.

Two hours into my day,
I got a call from the publisher.

She said,
"Things are blowing up.

We've sold out of all
the papers we've had."

That was my first indication

like, wow, people are
really interested in this.

KIDS: You need to get
a helmet, ma'am!

You need to get a helmet.

VANDEN BERGE: It generated
a lot of excitement here.

A lot of businesses had
T-shirts made and sold those,

and the high school kids
had fun with it.

MAN: Stephenville
may be typical,

but what's happening
in the skies above it

is a whole 'nother story.

JOINER: It kind of is the talk
of the town right now.

MAN: Angelia Joiner
is a reporter

with the town's newspaper.

She's now on the strangest

and possibly the biggest
story of her life.

VANDEN BERGE: It went from
this little story

to this huge, out of control,
worldwide frenzy.

ALLEN: I started getting phone
calls from all over the world:

Brazil, Japan, England.

And the next thing you know,

CNN, and quite a few other
TV things showed up

and wanted our story.

KEAN: What's notable about
the Stephenville case,

and other cases that
are similar to that,

is that despite
the numbers of witnesses

seeing these gigantic craft,

nobody in positions of authority
came to investigate.

That's in contrast to what was
going on in the '40s and '50s

where there was
an Air Force program

and they would
investigate cases.

NEWSCASTER: Here is a picture
that was released just today.

It shows four luminous objects
in formation

in the sky over
Salem, Massachusetts.

Now here on this map
are pinpointed locations

where some 30 saucers
have been sighted

and are still unexplained.

O'CONNELL: In 1949, the military
started looking into

all these stacks
of UFO reports

that the Air Force
was receiving.

MAN: Headquarters United States
Air Force has issued

a directive for a detailed study
of flying disc reports.

KEAN: The program was initially
called Project Sign,

then became Project Grudge,

and then it was named
Project Blue Book.

O'CONNELL: Project Blue Book
was operated

out of the dingiest office at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

They had a malfunctioning coffee
pot, they had a couple desks,

they had a big map up
on the wall, and that was it.

But they just had a system down.

MELLON: Project Blue Book
started as a good faith effort

by the government to collect
reports and investigate UFOs.

When there were big cases, they
would sometimes dispatch someone

to interview the witnesses.

O'CONNELL: The Air Force
was pretty open

about Project Blue Book.

O'CONNELL: Alongside
the military employees,

the Air Force felt
that they needed

a credible scientific opinion
to support their research.

INTERVIEWER: Is it in
the realm of possibility

that there are spaceships
someplace in this universe?

HYNEK: Well, if you
put it in the word,

use the word "possibility"
and not "probability,"

then I would have to say,

I think as any scientist
would have to say,

it is certainly possible, yes.

O'CONNELL: J. Allen Hynek was a
mild-mannered college professor

from Ohio State University.

His job was to go through
all these stacks of UFO reports

that the Air Force was receiving

and try to find out
what's going on.

MELLON:
Project Blue Book examined

over 12,000 UFO sightings,

many of them bore
a striking resemblance

to what we're seeing today.

Crafts with a similar shape,
sometimes the same color,

hovering, then sh**ting off
instantaneously

at hypersonic speeds.

Multiple, multiple cases
like that.

O'CONNELL: While working
for Project Blue Book,

Hynek noticed that he was able
to explain 80% of cases.

But he also noticed that there
was about a 20% residue of cases

that he hadn't been able
to explain away.

RODEGHIER: Allen Hynek
came into the UFO project

with the attitude which is,
there's nothing to UFOs,

but he was a good enough
scientist to say,

"Wait a minute,

I'm seeing reports here that
are not easily explainable."

O'CONNELL: The Air Force
and their UFO study project

may have been making
an honest effort

to clear the air
about the phenomenon.

Unfortunately,
it didn't last too long,

simply because they were just
overwhelmed with reports.

MAN: This is the Kremlin.

Russia today is regarded as
a grave threat to our nation,

to our freedom,
to the peace of the world.

♪ ♪

KEAN: In the '40s and '50s,

tensions with Russia
were building.

MELLON: The Cold w*r was
so intense at that point,

so there was a genuine concern

that the UFO phenomenon
could be exploited.

RODEGHIER: The US government
felt adversaries

could hoax UFO sightings

and then clog up
our reporting channels

and then have a surprise attack.

So the idea was that
the UFO problem

was not a security problem
as such,

meaning aliens aren't going
to land and, and attack us.

What the UFO problem was,
it was a sociological problem,

and it was one that demanded
a different approach.

NARRATOR:
The CIA entered the picture

by convening a panel
of top scientists

to examine UFO phenomenon.

The thinking was that the enemy
could exploit UFOs as a decoy

in the preparation for
an attack on the United States.

Five outstanding scientists

and various Air Force and CIA
representatives were to meet.

Among the panel members
was J. Allen Hynek.

MELLON: In 1953,
the Central Intelligence Agency

formed a scientific panel led
by a highly regarded scientist

named Robertson to examine this
phenomenon and its implications.

KEAN: The Robertson Panel was a
group of hand-picked scientists

who came together to try
to determine a way

to damp down
public interest in UFOs.

O'CONNELL: Dr. Hynek was
actually brought in

to be a consulting witness
to the Robertson Panel.

HYNEK: The panel members
were seated around this table.

It was a rather somber and
impressive occasion, actually.

O'CONNELL: The mission given
by the Robertson Panel

was essentially to make people
stop filing UFO reports.

KEAN: They proposed two methods
to damp down public enthusiasm.

One was through debunking.

The second one
was through education,

teaching people to explain UFOs

in other ways than
something extraordinary.

It was an extremely important
moment in the evolution

of how government was going
to engage with this topic.

This became the launch of taboo
on a more official level,

where it was becoming
policy in a way.

Ridicule became sanctioned.

The Robertson Panel conclusion
seemed to have a big impact

on Project Blue Book.

The project began to dismiss
as many cases as possible

and provide sometimes
ridiculous explanations for them

just to have an answer
and make them go away.

O'CONNELL: Hynek's job
became going through

all these UFO reports

and explain them away
as natural occurrences.

Comet, meteor, sh**ting star,
sun dog, eclipse.

HYNEK: I would say the great
majority are balloons, meteors,

satellites, aircraft seen with
the sun glinting off of them.

Generally, quite usual things
seen under unusual circumstances

or surprising circumstances.

RODEGHIER: Dr. Hynek did his job
very thoroughly.

Allen was a fellow trying
to please the Air Force

and what they wanted.

O'CONNELL: Hynek would have
a bunch of reports

dropped on his desk,

and he would explain
them all away.

If a report said
"probable airliner,"

they would cross out "probable"
and just say "airliner,"

and that's what the witness saw.

It was kind of an insult to the,
to the, to the intelligence

of the American people.

Hynek had taken the job
for the extra money.

Struggling young professional
with a growing family,

of course he's not gonna
turn down work.

RODEGHIER:
But behind the scenes,

Hynek gradually realized that
this was a scientific problem.

But he wouldn't go out
and state it publicly.

He didn't want to do that,
because it would have been

what the Air Force
didn't want him to do.

KEAN: Even though
it took place in 1953,

the Robertson Panel
was so potent

in terms of its desire
to clamp down, to ridicule,

to debunk, and to, quote,

"educate people to interpret
UFOs in other ways,"

its legacy carried on
through the decades,

and it impacted cases
like Stephenville

and other cases of the time.

WOMAN: Alright, stand by!

KING: Last week, several people
in Stephenville, Texas,

a small, rural town
of about 15,000,

witnessed what many
are calling a UFO.

In Selden, Texas,
is Steve Allen.

Also there is Angelia Joiner,

staff writer for
the Empire-Tribune,

the local newspaper
in Stephenville.

Angelia, what are some witnesses
telling you?

JOINER: The thing that I hear
over and over and over

is how bright the lights were,

so I think there's been a lot
of consistency in the spottings.

ALLEN: It was Angelia
that started digging deep.

She was hell-bent on trying
to find out what we saw

and what happened.

And it almost consumed her.

MELLON: The incredible thing
about the Stephenville sightings

was that witnesses reported
seeing F-16 fighters

pursuing this object.

ODAM: I heard this
really, really loud noise.

And I ran out the front door,

and there were fighter jets
chasing those lights.

ALLEN: Angelia wanted to know
what the Air Force knew

about the two F-16s
and what we saw.

She got in touch with the naval
air station in Fort Worth

and talked to
a Major Karl Lewis.

And Major Karl Lewis said
we didn't have any aircraft

in your area at that time.

I feel like we wasn't
given the truth,

and the military didn't seem
like they was interested

in any questions.

Then on about the tenth day,

the military issued
a press release.

WADE GOODWYN: Now in a plot line
that's out of The X-Files,

Air Force officials are saying
they concede they had F-16s

over Stephenville, Texas,
on the evening of January 8th.

Major Karl Lewis says there was

an internal
communications mistake.

ALLEN: The plot thickened,
but the Air Force wouldn't say

why they did in fact
have F-16s in the area.

GOODWYN: Angelia Joiner says
that the Air Force's admission

that it did indeed
have fighter jets,

as reported by the witnesses,
bolsters their story all around.

JOINER: Military coming out
with this at this point

just is going to
fuel the fire for,

okay, there is something
going on, now what is it?

ALLEN: We thought their attempt
to try to explain it away

was terribly strange.

We had more questions
than answers.

WALTER CRONKITE: UFO reports,
hoax or serious sightings,

wind up here at Wright-Patterson
air field in Dayton, Ohio.

The Air Force investigative unit
is known as Project Blue Book.

MELLON: In the wake of
the Robertson Panel,

Project Blue Book
was investigating

these civilian reports

as a way to tamp down
public concern.

For example, in Michigan,
there were at one point

a large number of sightings
by people in a community there.

And Walter Cronkite, the arbiter
of truth for many Americans,

covered the story.

CRONKITE: The great
flying saucer mystery of 1966

began here, near
Dexter, Michigan, late in March.

FRANK MANNOR: As I turned around
to come back on the porch,

I looked to the north of me,
and looked like a falling star,

meteor, it was red
and kind of coming down.

CRONKITE: Frank Mannor's UFO
remained over his swamp

more than four hours.

40 miles away, another swampland
and another UFO sighting.

WOMAN: I believe I saw it,
but I can't fathom it,

because it seems so unreal.

O'CONNELL: This was
a huge national story.

Everyone was demanding that
Blue Book solve the case.

And so they called in Hynek.

His Air Force Project Blue Book
boss said,

"Get out there and
put a lid on this."

CRONKITE: The Air Force sent
its chief scientific consultant

on UFOs,
Professor J. Allen Hynek,

to check the Michigan sightings.

HYNEK: The illusion of motion
frequently is given by the fact

that a little bit of swamp light
appears here, it goes out,

another one appears over here,
that goes out,

and but the illusion
as viewed from a distance

is that the object has
moved back and forth.

And sometimes this gas
will gather into a ball

and actually float away.

♪ ♪

RODEGHIER: Allen made
an ill-fated remark about,

"Well, some of these sightings
could be caused by swamp gas,"

and the witnesses were, um,
upset to say the least.

The people of Michigan
thought that Hynek

was making fun of them,

that he thought they were
all loonies and kooks.

And the whole thing
blew up in Hynek's face.

MANNOR: They think you're a nut,
tell you the truth,

that's just what
they figure you are,

and I'm not gonna
take it no more,

I don't want nobody
down in here.

I just...leave me alone.

KEAN: When Hynek came up with
the swamp gas explanation,

we don't really know whether
he believed that or not.

But we do know that he was
working for the Air Force,

and they were committed
at that point

to discrediting sightings
like this one.

It was a real turning point
for the beginning

of people really just
having had enough

of these kinds of bogus
explanations for these events.

Following the swamp gas
incident,

the public was outraged,

and even members of Congress
became involved.

GERALD FORD: We've had
several incidents in Michigan

that many reliable citizens felt
were sufficient to justify

some action by our government,

and not the kind flippant answer
that was given by the Air Force

where they passed it off
as swamp gas.

RODEGHIER: Gerald Ford, who was
a congressman at the time

in Michigan, decided
that his constituents

were not being taken seriously.

KEAN: Gerald Ford listened
to his constituents

and decided that he should call
for congressional hearings.

FORD: I think the American
people would be more assured

that there were or were not if
such a public hearing was held.

KEAN: On April 5, 1966,

Harold Brown,
the Secretary of the Air Force,

and J. Allen Hynek walked
into the Capitol Building

to answer questions about

Blue Book's investigation
into UFOs.

HAROLD BROWN: We have not
been hiding anything.

The investigations
have been made public,

the explanations of those, where
there is a clear explanation,

have been made public.

O'CONNELL: They brought in
the secretary of the Air Force,

and he just stonewalled.

And then it came to be
Hynek's turn to talk.

He made his own statement that
he hadn't shared with anyone,

and he said, "Look, we need to
sponsor a scientific study

and tell us whether
this is something

we need to keep studying."

REPORTER: How many really
mysterious incidents are there

that you'd like to go back
and look at again?

HYNEK: Well, as I mentioned
in the hearings this morning,

I have picked some 20 cases,

I think those, I would recommend

that they be looked at
quite closely.

A scientists has to keep
open-minded on an investigation,

a scientific one,
without fanfare,

a quiet look at the data,
I think, is in order.

KEAN: Hynek was
initially a skeptic,

but as he went
through the years,

he gradually learned that there
really is something to this.

Hynek started to believe that
we could learn a lot more

about the phenomenon through
better scientific study.

And in fact that's what happened
in Stephenville, Texas.

STEVE HUDGENS:
Good evening, everyone!

My name is Steve Hudgens.

I'm senior field investigator
for MUFON.

We're down here to investigate
this extraordinary event.

We have our section director
from Waco, Dave Fields,

and Director of Research
Robert Powell.

POWELL: My name is
Robert Powell.

My educational background
is in chemistry,

and I work in
the semiconductor industry

as an engineering manager.

Early January of 2008, I'm the
director of research at MUFON.

The term MUFON stands for
Mutual UFO Network.

I went up to Stephenville
with multiple investigators,

and we began to interview
the witnesses.

JOINER: Hey!
MAN: How are you?

JOINER: I'm good, how are you?

POWELL: I met several key people
such as Angelia Joiner,

Steve Allen, and Lee Roy Gaitan.

And Lee Roy just gave me
the best description

of what happened
that day to him.

LEE ROY GAITAN:
As I walk out to my car,

I saw 10 to 12 bright,
fluorescent orbs.

They're moving really quickly
and then they stop.

And then all of a sudden,
they sh**t off.

But what was surprising,
as I'm still looking,

probably 20, 30 seconds,
I hear two jets.

POWELL: After interviewing
Lee Roy, the first thing

I decided that I could do
was get radar data.

Freedom of Information request
to the FAA,

and I got that data back
after about six to eight weeks.

And it was incredible.

POWELL: Good morning.
My name's Robert Powell.

I'm the director of research

with the MUFON organization.

We obtained radar data from the
Federal Aviation Administration

in the Stephenville area.

I talk about this a little bit
on the screen here.

One of the first things I do
when I get the radar data,

is I find the F-16s
and I match that, yes,

that matches the time
they went by Lee Roy's home.

Then I look on the radar data
for unknowns,

and I find two miles south of
his home, just like he told me,

objects on radar that are
basically stationary,

just like he said.

And then, the really
interesting part

was, on radar, these objects
that were over his home,

the next radar blip,
the object is to the northeast,

towards Stephenville, and it had
traveled at a minimum speed

of 1,900 miles per hour.

And that is from stationary.

There's no way for me
to know what it was.

The only thing I can say
is what it was not.

It was not any type of aircraft,
because no aircraft can hover

and then move to a speed
of over 1,900 miles an hour

at low altitude and then
stop and hover again.

It's just not something
we have the ability to do.

♪ ♪

KEAN: There are so many
UFO sightings,

and the vast majority of them
can be explained.

But then there are those that
involve mass sightings

of something really unusual,
and in those cases,

people deserve an investigation
by the officials.

O'CONNELL: In the aftermath
of the swamp gas case,

the government decided to fund
a college research program

of the UFO phenomenon.

MELLON: At the time,
the Air Force was trying to find

a way to get out
from under the burden

of having to investigate UFOs
and comment on this.

And so a scientific panel
was established

to investigate and
assess the issue.

It was led by
a Dr. Robert Condon.

INTERVIEWER: The Air Force
has turned to

the University of Colorado

to investigate
unidentified flying objects.

And they've asked
Dr. Edward U. Condon

to head the project.

How do you propose
to go about studying

this particular phenomenon?

EDWARD CONDON: We'll pick
certain selected cases

that seem specially interesting
and, and go out and try to learn

more about them and those few
in greater depth.

RODEGHIER: The guy
who was leading it,

Professor Edward Condon,

had no interest in the subject
and had to be talked into it.

So, you have a professor who was
not looking to do a project,

that was given the project,
and things didn't go well.

KEAN: They reviewed 59 cases
and wrote them up in a study

that was close to 1,000 pages.

One of the events they covered
was the McMinnville incident

in 1950, where the farmer
and his wife

took a photograph
of a disk-shaped object

that came over their farm.

MELLON: The McMinnville
photograph

taken by a poor rural couple
in a remote area

who didn't seek any press,

and it showed a UFO very clearly
in black and white,

maybe 200, 300 yards away.

KEAN: Here's what
the Condon Report said

about the McMinnville sighting:

"This is one of the few
UFO reports

in which all factors
investigated,

geometric, psychological
and physical,

appear to be consistent
with the assertion

that an extraordinary
flying object

flew within sight
of two witnesses."

And there were other cases
they described in similar ways.

O'CONNELL:
When the final report came out,

the main body of the report
was open to the possibility

that UFOs might be real,

but the final summary
of the report

was written by
Dr. Condon himself.

Dr. Condon said,
"It's time for the government

to just wash its hands
of this whole thing."

That's about the only thing
most people read.

MELLON: The Condon Report
concluded in 1969,

this was not a threat
to national security.

There was no indication of
extraterrestrial connection,

and there was likely no benefit
scientifically

from continuing to
study this phenomenon.

Dr. Robert Condon was somebody
that was strenuously opposed

to the idea that UFOs could be
alien craft of any kind,

so from the outset
he had his mind made up.

Word is that Dr. Condon himself
didn't even bother to read

the report or review the data,
he just wrote his conclusion,

because that's what
the Air Force wanted to hear.

KEAN: Condon was definitely
the nail in the coffin

for Project Blue Book.

The Air Force had been involved
with looking into UFOs

for more than 15 years.

They were inundated by
these reports, frustrated,

and just wanted to be done
with the whole thing.

MELLON: The result was
the Air Force said,

"Well, we don't need
to follow this anymore."

So they used that as a rationale
to close down Project Blue Book.

Shortly thereafter,
Dr. Allen Hynek

renounced the whole process

and, and the way
the Air Force handled it.

KRESKIN: Some of us who followed
this whole phenomena

became interested
in the Condon Report.

What's your feeling about that?

HYNEK: Well, my feeling is that
the Condon Report

was a travesty on science.

KRESKIN: You don't feel it
presented a fair picture?

HYNEK: Condon committee was
unable to explain one quarter

of the cases that were submitted
that they studied.

ANNOUNCER: Our guest tonight
is one of the world's foremost

authorities on
unidentified flying objects.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek!

(applause)

O'CONNELL: When Project
Blue Book is shut down in 1970,

it freed Hynek to say and do
whatever he wanted

where UFOs were concerned.

Dr. Hynek worked nearly two
decades on Project Blue Book,

and during that time,

in the data that
Project Blue Book had collected,

the cases were still
breaking down

in that very same 80/20 ratio.

He was able to explain
80% of them away.

He was not able to explain
20% of them.

And now he started
to worry about that.

He was a scientist,
and he saw a trend,

and he thought that
might mean something.

HYNEK: If these things
didn't fit patterns,

then there's no way
of studying it.

But when you get reports from
Australia, Japan, France,

then you have to say, well,
either there's a virus

going around that's causing
everybody to become crazy

at the same time,
or there's something to it.

O'CONNELL: Hynek was finally
free to start investigating

what UFOs are
in any way he wanted.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

KEAN: I'm so glad you're doing
what you're doing.

'Cause there aren't
that many reporters

that take this seriously.

JOINER: Yeah!
KEAN: I'm glad you're doing it.

JOINER: I've gotten
tons of people,

you know, they walk up to me

and say, "Thank you for
reporting it as straight news."

And then I think they just,
it was their news judgment,

the publisher and the editor,

that, okay, we don't want
any more of this,

let's get back to normal.

KEAN: Some people said
you were fired.

Some people said, well, you
kind of wanted to leave anyway.

So, what was the actual story?

JOINER: I had given my notice.

They--I was asked not to cover
anything else on UFOs.

I came in, my computer was gone,
my Rolodex was gone,

and, uh, called to
the publisher's office,

and it wasn't a pleasant scene,

and they asked me
to pack and go, so I did.

KEAN: Thanks for
talking with me.

VANDEN BERGE: Sadly when Angelia
left, we never spoke again.

I hate that that story really
divided us, but it did.

She just could not get back
to doing her regular reporting.

It took over her life.

JOINER: I thought, you know,

the readers are
gonna like this,

they're gonna really like this.

So that was another reason
I went ahead and did it.

And the editor left early.

(laughs)
You have to cut that part.

But she did!

VANDEN BERGE: I have never
seen this, that's hilarious.

You know, it's funny
to see that, um...

Sorry, I just, I haven't seen
Angelia in a long time.

And she loved that story,

and you know, I look back
on that time

and I think I was so wrong,

and I thought I was so smart,
and I was so wrong,

because they had the foresight

to see something
that I couldn't.

And people did love that story,
it was fun for them.

♪ ♪

I've never spoken about this,

but about a year after
the story died down,

I was driving my daughter
to gymnastics one evening.

It was dusk, and I saw
(chuckles) the exact same thing

that everyone else had been
talking about the year prior.

A big thing, with the lights,
the clear lights

that kind of were
all over the place,

they went straight line,
and it took off.

♪ ♪

And I get goose bumps now,
even just remembering it.

Oh, my god, that's what we've
been writing about for a year,

and I was the biggest skeptic
of all, and here I am.

It was a strange moment,
for sure.

The next day
I got to the office,

never planned to
say a word to anybody,

and we had about a dozen calls
that day from others who said,

"Oh, my gosh, I think
I saw that again."

That's when I sort of went,

okay, there, there really was
something to this,

but it took me that long.

The government should be
looking at this, of course.

I have to believe that what
happened in Stephenville,

in Erath County, was big enough

that it got the attention
of the government.

I, I just believe that.

And I believe that they know
a heck of a lot more

than, than we do.

TOM SNYDER: Please welcome
from the Center of UFO Studies

in Evanston, Illinois,
Dr. J. Allen Hynek.

Dr. Hynek!

(applause)

KEAN: In the years
that followed,

J. Allen Hynek became a hero

advocating for
the study of UFOs.

RODEGHIER: Dr. Hynek realized

that this was a serious problem.

MAN: These things were coming
over our bases,

over our nuclear facilities.

MAN: I thought we were
under attack.

By who or what, I had no idea.