WEBVTT - Pale Blue Dot 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.880 Hi Strange is released weekly every Thursday, brought to you 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:07.080 absolutely free, but if you want to binge the whole season, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:11.000 it's available right now on Apple Podcasts for all Tenderfoot 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:15.160 plus subscribers. You'll also get exclusive bonus episodes throughout the season. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:17.480 For more information, check out the show notes. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:24.560 Enjoy the episode. 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.960 Hey, Hey Animation. 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:32.960 Do you mind if I toss this mic on you? 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:39.319 Could you just stay your name? 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:47.680 I'm Travis Walton. Today is January twenty ninth. 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:49.720 How long has it been? 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:49.919 Now? 0:00:53.479 --> 0:01:02.360 Forty five years? Forty five years and three months. But 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:08.520 some things don't change, you know, Some things about it 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:13.640 haven't gotten any easier at all. I wish that this 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.720 had never happened. It's not been a good thing for 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:23.560 my life, for my family in some ways, they don't 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:24.840 even see the real me, you know. 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:39.880 This morning I woke up, had breakfast and some coffee, showered, 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.839 then went to my office. I had a few zoom calls, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.360 a quick lunch, did some scrolling on TikTok and Instagram, 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.560 sent a few emails and some more emails the. 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:55.720 First yawn of the day. 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:01.080 Left my office, went to my local neighborhood bar. I 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:06.000 love a good Jim Martini, a phone call, another email, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.120 another email, time to eat dinner and go to sleep. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:15.480 Okay, I think you get it. 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.080 We all have a version of this, a routine, a pattern, 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:22.440 our habits, whatever it is. 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:24.320 We all have shit. 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:30.600 To do, more than enough to worry about, jobs, relationships, politics, religion, COVID, whatever, 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.720 the next version of COVID is an endless amount of 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.960 things to keep our minds busy. Life can feel like 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.360 a hamster wheel doing the things we know until we 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:43.000 get too tired and fall asleep. 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:45.280 That sounded depressing. 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.200 My point is it's almost by default that we as 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.440 humans remain focused on what's right in front of us, 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.800 and for the most part we have to. But if 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:04.280 you ever just stop, stop and step outside and just 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:09.400 look at the sky, sometimes all the things in our 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:14.440 daily lives suddenly feel incredibly small, and maybe that's a 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:14.839 good thing. 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:21.160 The Earth is a very small stage in a vast 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:27.680 cosmic arena. Our planet is a lonely speck in the 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.560 great enveloping cosmic dark, the pale blue dot. 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.640 This is the voice of the late Carl Sagan, renowned 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:39.480 astronomer and an astrophysicist, famously describe the Earth as a 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.480 pale blue dot. He put our tiny existence into perspective, 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.600 artfully explaining not only our responsibility to each other, but 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:48.680 also to our planet. 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:51.160 Consider again that dot. 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.240 That's here, that's home, that's us. 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.240 Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.040 Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.960 where we make our stand. To me, it underscores our 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.760 responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:15.120 preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only on. 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:16.360 We've ever known. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:21.960 My name is Payne Lindsay, and for the last five 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.719 years or so, I've spent my career making true crime 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:29.320 podcasts and investigating cold cases. Ever since I was a kid, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.720 gazing up at the stars with something I love to do, 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.800 wondering what else could be out there, or if there 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:39.680 was anything at all. Well, scientifically speaking, the likelihood of 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.640 intelligent life existing somewhere else in the universe at this 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:47.360 point is almost certain. Space is literally so big that 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.080 it makes our numeric system look stupid trying to explain it. Example, 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.760 we live in the Milky Way, Venus, Earth, Mars, you 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.360 know the rest. There are over one hundred billion more 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.279 planets in the same galaxy and beyond the Milky Way. 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.000 It's believed that there are likely ten trillion more galaxies. 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:07.680 So doing the math. 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.159 That brings us to a whopping one septilian number of 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.200 planets in the universe. That's a one with twenty four 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.800 zeros after it. What are the odds? We're just so 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:24.880 damn lucky one inceptilian, I guess. But even if science 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.640 supports the idea of extraterrestrial life, we here on Earth 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.800 have an incredibly hard time grappling with it. Hoaxes, pseudoscience, 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:37.440 attention seeking people. It's all clearly muddy the waters. And 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:38.040 I get it. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:39.599 Little green men are fun. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:41.479 They look cool on a T shirt or a mug 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.600 from a gift shop, But what's the real deal here? 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.320 Very quietly, over the last two years, the conversation surrounding 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:59.800 UFOs has started to slowly shift. Navy pilots have come forward. 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.480 With evidence, my god. 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.680 Aircraft maneuvering in ways that defy our current understanding of 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:06.600 the laws of physics. 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.520 Congress is meeting about it, NASA has joined the SARCH. 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:12.760 If there's ever been a time to look at the 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.360 subject a little more seriously, it's probably right now. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.640 UFOs on radar harassing a US Navy warship off the 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:23.640 California coast. 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.400 This Navy video showing the pilot's reaction to the strange 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.320 aerial encounter. What pilots described as aircraft that flew in 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.080 a manner that defied physics. 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.920 It's rotating, by god, the whole I have a look 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:38.440 on the NFA. 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.680 The UAPs or unexplained aerial phenomena, that's what the military 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:49.880 calls them, physical evidence of off world vehicles not made 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:50.440 on this. 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:55.080 Earth, no wings, rotors or detectable exhausts, Unable to track 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.440 where they came from or where they disappeared. 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.400 Tool on it. 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:02.440 Oh my god, I hope that's a plane. 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.440 Oh gee, please be applying, How please we can hire you? 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:07.039 Ready for this cha? 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.520 And sure there's no wide eyed alien saying take me 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.440 to your leader here, But there is a record number 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.960 of strange sightings in the sky throughout the entire world 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.800 that no country on Earth has been able to rationally explain. 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:26.080 Yet this question are we alone? Has been an everlasting 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.640 drive throughout human history. If we could just shake it 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.760 all down, cut through all the nonsense, if we could 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.200 dissect all the real evidence we have today with an 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.000 open mind and a healthy amount of skepticism what might 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.640 we actually find, because I think learning the truth about 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:47.520 anything is supremely important. Part of evolving is simply opening 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.440 your mind to possibility. 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:52.040 But the ultimate challenge. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:56.000 In this way of thinking still remains, we all have 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.800 shit to do, and even if we found all the 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.880 answers going to change my life today or the responsibilities 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.800 I have tomorrow. But maybe it's a big enough question 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.960 worth leaving the monotony of my daily routine and just 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:15.720 attempt to answer. I'm stepping off the hamster wheel because 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.840 I know it'll be right there waiting for me if 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:20.120 I ever decide to come back. 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:28.800 All you have to do is listen. Welcome to high strange. 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:37.920 Do you believe in UFOs? Applying the correct definition to 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.240 the word UFO, that question doesn't make any sense. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:42.640 What they're really saying. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.360 When they ask do you believe in UFOs? Is do 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.800 you believe that we're being visited by extraterrestrials? They're not 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:49.880 saying do you believe that there are objects in the sky. 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:55.360 We can't explain two very different things. If you said 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.880 to somebody I study UFOs, they laugh. I try to 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:05.640 even avoid the word UFO. I study data about objects 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:07.160 in the sky that we can't explain. 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:10.400 This is Leslie Kane. 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:14.040 She studied UFOs for over two decades now, written multiple 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:16.280 articles for The New York Times and made their best 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:17.360 seller list as an author. 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.520 I did not get into UFOs by any kind of 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.400 intentional design. What happened was I was working at a 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.800 public radio station in Berkeley, California, in the nineties. This 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.480 colleague from France sent me this report about UFOs that 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:33.240 changed everything for me. 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.240 The report that made it to her desk was titled 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.560 UFOs and Defense, a scientific study into whether there were 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.040 any dangers or national security threats related to UFOs? 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.400 Are there any dangers? Are they a national security issue 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.200 because these things are up in the skies? It was 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:59.600 a ninety page study written by admirals, generals, a chief 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:04.199 of police, police scientists, authoritative people who weren't going to 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.720 be making up stories. They interviewed all these pilots, and 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.720 they looked at data from around the world, and they 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.880 drew the conclusion that the best hypothesis to explain the 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.600 cases they studied, the most valid, logical, rational explanation for 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.000 this is that these are visitors from somewhere else. I 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.319 couldn't believe it that generals and admirals and police officers would. 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:31.559 Say that these were all qualified experts from extremely varied backgrounds. Scientists, pilots, 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:37.400 technical directors, police chiefs, admirals, air force generals, the kinds 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.679 of people you'd probably listen to as a journalist. 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.360 To me, it was like, oh my god, this is huge, 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:48.480 the biggest story there is completely blew my mind. Even 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.319 if there's this small chance that we are being visited 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.400 by something from another world, isn't that like a massive story. 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.480 It was to me. I tried to pitch a story 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.000 to a lot of editors, pitch the story to them, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.240 and I learned nobody wants to hear about this topic. 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.679 The papers were afraid of taking the risk that they 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:13.680 would be laughed at. UFOs were completely stigmatized, considered to 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:14.120 be a joke. 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:21.520 Basically, the stigmatization around UFOs has been an enormous obstacle. 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.679 This is Brian Bender, senior correspondent for Politico who covers 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:28.679 national security. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:33.320 No one wants to be the UFO guy. 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.000 I too do not want to be the UFO guy. 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.240 And trust me, I mean it when I say that 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.680 I feel like the conspiracy rabbit hole surrounding this topic 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.559 is a dark, slippery slope. It starts with just wanting 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.079 to know what this thing is. Then the next thing 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:52.319 you know, you're analyzing Egyptian pyramids searching for clues from aliens. 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:54.520 It's not a career builder. 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:56.920 It's not a career builder, it's you know, it's a 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:00.520 tenfoil hot wearing Do I want to be considered that person? 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:05.440 As a journalist in Washington covering national security for the 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:07.960 first twenty years of my career, UFOs never came up 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.240 at all. I mean, he just wasn't a topic that 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.440 people talked about. It didn't mean that there weren't people 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.520 out in the world talking about it, It just was 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.880 never a topic that as a reporter covering the Pentagon 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.880 you ever really came across. If I come to my 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:25.360 editors and say I want to write about UFOs, you 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:25.920 know they're going to. 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:27.560 Roll their eyes and I'm not going to be taken 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:28.280 very seriously. 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.800 Summer of twenty seventeen, I got a call from a 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.160 source of mind. He said, hey, you know, I think 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.840 I might have a good story if you're interested. There's 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:45.000 this guy. He's in the Pentagon. He's a career intelligence 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:50.079 officer and he's been working on UFOs. First of all, 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.400 I was like the UFOs, the Pentagon studying UFOs. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:55.520 Like in modern day. So it was intriguing to me. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.120 But at the same time, I was like, you know, 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:01.439 I don't know that that's a politico story. There's this guy, 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.600 he's about to leave the government and he's leaving quite frustrated, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.200 but he's ready to go public with this. 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.240 So I met him. I also did some betting of him. 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.040 Is he who he says he is? And what is 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:15.600 his background and who? 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:17.560 Was very clear to me in the beginning that he 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.440 was very credible, and started digging a little further, peeling 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:26.320 back the onion layer. And it turned out the program 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.040 that he was working on in the Pentagon, that was 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:32.960 researching UFO sightings was actually initiated by Senator Harry Reid 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.600 from Nevada got some of his fellow senators to put 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.440 twenty two million dollars into the budget, a senior politician 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.720 who wants the Pentagon to study UFOs, and made it happen. 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.880 I mean, I'm a Pentagon reporter and I cover Washington, 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.240 and we have a Senator who's got twenty two million 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.920 bucks out of the taxpayers send it to this office 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.400 over at the Pentagon, and now they're looking into the UFOs. 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.120 And now the guy who's been doing it says, I've 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.720 learned all these really interesting things and nobody seems to care. 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.679 That immediately rang a bell in my head that it's 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.640 not just a UFO story, it's also a political story. 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.320 If the government was using taxpayer dollars to fund a 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.360 secret UFO research program, who was just the hook he 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:18.600 needed to publish a story. Simultaneously, unbeknownst to each other, 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.000 Leslie Kane was chipping away at the same story. 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.240 Because of the years of reporting I'd done on this, 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.600 I got to know some of the sort of key 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:30.480 inside players. One of them invited me in October of 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:35.040 twenty seventeen to a meeting with a man named Luis Elizondo. 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.520 Lou Elisondo that anonymous source from the Pentagon who claimed 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.200 to have run the UFO research program was a man 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.640 named Lou Elizondo, and he didn't just have an interesting 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.360 story to tell, he had evidence to support it. 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.320 Lou Alexondo was preparing to come out of the government 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.680 in trying to pitch this story to mainstream media. 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.800 I went to this meeting with Luis Alessando and three 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:01.920 of there are people I knew. At that meeting, I 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.760 was shown these incredible documents, and then I was also 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:07.200 shown these three videos. 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.120 Oh going, I can for whin the wind for hunting, 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:12.200 pointing out for the west. 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:13.560 Oh, I think. 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.040 It's rotating, so I rot the thing. 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.360 Oh my god, there's a whole fleet. I have a 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:21.240 look on the FA. 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.280 Actual videos in the possession of the Navy of UFOs. 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.040 My mind was blown. All the journalism I'd done nothing 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:37.080 came close to this. The implications of this were huge. 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.720 The government was taken this seriously. The government had invested 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:51.120 resources into studying UFOs, which meant they're real. I brought 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.320 it to the editors at the New York Times, showed 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.160 them everything. There is something real that's unexplained. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:15:59.800 They were going to the New York Times. I think 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:01.920 they talked to the Washington Post. I went to my 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.160 editors and when can we run it? There was some 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.960 eye rolling a little bit in the newsroom. 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.360 There are real physical objects in the sky that demonstrate 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.120 extraordinary technology beyond the capability of what we have. 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.960 What is that How do they do that? How are 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:25.040 they flying that way? No sense from any. 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:25.600 Of the radar. 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.760 If there's an engine, it's not giving off any heat 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.440 going from the service of the ocean to seventy thousand 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.920 feet in a couple seconds, which would make any aircraft 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:36.880 we know blow up. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:39.840 We really want this. 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.120 Story out, but we're not even sure the mainstream media 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:42.640 will bite. 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:45.880 We had decided we were going to go with it. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.000 We ran the first story the same day that the 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:50.479 New York Times did. 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.640 In twenty seventeen, both Politico and The New York Times 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:01.440 ran stories about UFOs witnessed by military pilots, aircraft captured 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.760 on radar and video maneuvering in ways that farce topass 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:09.400 our current technology. When the story's published, the Pentagon responded 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:11.600 confirming they were real. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.440 Now, after a series of unusual encounters by Navy jets, 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.760 like this one in twenty seventeen showing an F eighteen 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.120 super Hornet encountering an unidentified object, the Navy has decided 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.840 it needs to codify how its sailors and pilots record 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:31.560 such unexplained events in case these flying objects are in 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:33.760 fact some kind of advanced aircraft. 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:36.040 The US Navy and. 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:40.160 Pentagon are trying to destigmatize reporting what they call unexplained 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:41.280 aerial phenomena. 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.760 For the first time in American history, there was physical 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.480 video evidence of an unidentified flying object captured by the 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:04.000 military that the government itself acknowledged to be real, not 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.680 just real, but that they don't know what they are. 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.600 Alongside these Navy videos, Brian and Lesley's stories unearthed the 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.639 top secret Pentagon program that have been studying these things 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:19.560 for years, depending on office. 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.040 That was created in two thousand and seven was called 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.920 the Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program. 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:31.560 The acronym was a tip very innocuous sounding name. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.919 Obviously, there's no UFOs in that name at all, and 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:36.040 I think that was on purpose. 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.240 It was sort of hiding in plain sight. 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.960 Recent report by The New York Times unveiled the existence 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.520 of a real life X Files Department. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:48.480 Secret UFO program has just been revealed millions of dollars 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:49.880 to look into UFO sidings. 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.280 It's a five year secret government program to investigate mysterious 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:54.359 flying objects. 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.840 It was set up to basically look at UFOs as. 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:00.880 We think of them, so you know them whatever you will. 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:05.639 Flying saucers in interviewing pilots or other military personnel that 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:07.080 were reporting these sightings. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.280 Thirty four studies they commissioned. 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.240 They hired smart people at different universities, scientists to. 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.320 Do basically theoretical studies. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.680 So, in other words, if the craft is doing this, 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.959 it's exhibiting these properties, how might that work? 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.439 What kind of propulsion system might you need to be 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:29.080 able to do that? 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.439 Interviewing some of the witnesses, participants, chronicling what happened and 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.320 when it happened. That was the primary role of the 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.239 ATIP office. ATIPS spent a lot of time on a 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.560 particular case involving the USS Nimts aircraft Carrier. 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.800 The USS Nimets aircraft Carrier and its support ships carrying 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.440 the most sophisticated sensor systems in the world, had several 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:58.879 interactions with AAVs that is anomalous aerial vehicles. 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.840 So imagine it's like a normal day if there is 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:07.399 such a thing for the USS Nimics aircraft carrier sailing 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:12.600 off the southern California coast. F eighteens fighter planes take 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.760 off from the deck doing drills, doing their normal practice runs, 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.479 flown by some experienced pilots who were not just right 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.880 out of flight scold lieutenant commanders had been in for 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:24.880 a decade or more. 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.000 They're reporting that they're seeing with their. 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.840 Own eyes, also picking up on the faighteens camera, these 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:39.520 tic TAC shaped vehicles, many of them flying at enormously 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.919 high speeds, speeds that they can't even really begin to 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:44.359 keep up with them if they wanted to. 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.840 It was so advanced it rendered US capabilities ineffective. It 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:55.040 showed velocities far greater than anything known to exist. 0:20:55.760 --> 0:21:01.760 Numerous vehicles basically stalked the aircraft carrier days, and by 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.679 stock I mean pilots are flying off the aircraft carrier 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.720 doing their drills, and these tictacs are just flying circles 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:09.280 around them. 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.240 They could turn itself invisible both to radar and the 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.400 human eye, undetectable and unchallenged. 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:20.639 And at one point the faighteen pilots are supposed to 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.800 rendezvous some sixty miles away, is part of their daily exercise, 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.399 and they find out that the tic TACs they just saw, 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.760 they're already there. The tic TACs went from where they 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:38.120 were sixty miles in a couple seconds to the predetermined 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.560 rendezvous point. So the question was well, how do they 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:47.560 even know that's where we're going. Not only the pilots 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.560 themselves reporting it, but a Navy cruiser with a massive 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:55.040 radar on it also picking up these shaped vehicles on 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:59.520 its radar from multiple vantage points over multiple days. They're 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:04.280 seeing the things that they can't explain. This became a 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:08.760 big deal within the Navy, got reported up the chain, 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.400 and nobody really could explain it. 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:13.560 That became one. 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:16.600 Of the main cases that the aid TIP program went 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:18.960 back and tried to unpack and tried. 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:23.400 To explain is there any way we could understand how 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:24.720 those things could be doing that? 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:28.040 And maybe if we did, we could maybe get a 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:30.400 little further down the road of explaining where they're coming 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.200 from and who owns them. 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.320 Is somebody in them? 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:39.760 If that's a bad guy who had that technology, we're 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:40.439 in big trouble. 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:42.320 They're twaying with us. 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.280 The first hand accounts from military personnel aboard the USS 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.520 nenets were compelling, and if all their claims were true, 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:55.840 then the implications were massive. But there was still one 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:56.760 huge problem. 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:03.840 Nobody cares, nobody's listening. There's this sort of human nature. 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.040 If we can't really come up with good answers It's like, 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:10.640 I don't want to go there. There's no easy answers. 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:12.719 I don't know what to tell you. 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:18.320 They were captivating news stories, but that's it. The only 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:22.320 question that really mattered was still unanswered. What the hell 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:23.040 are these things? 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:26.600 Not everybody is on fire about wanting to know more 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.160 about UFOs? Are we alone in the universe? What does 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:34.560 this mean? Why are they here? It's something that most 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:37.040 people don't have the time and energy to think about. 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:42.639 It's absolutely understandable to me. People are making living, raising 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:45.160 their kids. They don't have the luxury of the time 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:49.520 to contemplate these kinds of things. This is a paradigm 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:50.760 shifting thing. 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:03.040 That gets to the point of the stigma changing. 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:06.320 Just for the last couple of years, there is more 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:10.760 willingness to come forward. But that's not because the Pentagon 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:14.960 decided that one day be more transparent. It's because members 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:18.040 of Congress who control the budget are demanding it. 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:19.920 They're saying, enough is enough. 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:22.800