NARRATOR: In the 21st century,
UFOs have gone from fringe science
to mainstream obsession.
JEREMY CORBELL: With the interest from so many agencies including NASA,
everybody's getting into the game of understanding UFOs.
NARRATOR: A new generation of researchers
is employing technology so advanced
it can unlock clues invisible to the human eye.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: We have physical scientific evidence
of these phenomena existing with real scientific equipment.
NARRATOR: And unidentified flying objects have even captured the attention
of experts at the highest levels of government.
The Pentagon is now seriously investigating
the extraterrestrial question.
NARRATOR: Is humankind now closer than ever
to understanding the strange events
that are happening in our skies?
GEORGE KNAPP: We have a lot more information. We have a lot of cases.
We have stories of people who've interacted with them.
It's an exciting time.
NARRATOR: There is a doorway
in the universe.
Beyond it is the promise of truth.
It demands we question everything
we have ever been taught.
The evidence is all around us.
The future is right before our eyes.
We are not alone.
We have never been alone.
NARRATOR: June 5, 2023.
The news website The Debrief
reports that former intelligence official David Grusch
has given Congress classified information
about deeply covert military programs
that possess craft of non-human origin.
The sensational report captures the attention
of people at the highest levels of government.
By law, we're required to take that seriously.
The Inspector General has referred it to the committee
as an urgent concern and one with some credibility
to it, so we'll do our job.
NARRATOR: David Grusch is just the latest in a number
of high-level whistleblowers who have
come forward in recent years with claims that
the U.S. government knows much more about the UFO phenomenon
than they have disclosed to the public.
I think this new report is interesting because it continues
to show that we really have to talk about this.
Now, I suspect that there's an undercurrent of "we'd really
rather not talk about it,"
but there are people within the military
who really wouldn't mind talking about this a little more
because they're curious, too.
Now, on the official end, at least,
you can report these things
without fear of retribution, and that wasn't always the case.
NARRATOR: For the first time in history, members of Congress,
senators, and even former presidents
are openly talking about the possibility
of an extraterrestrial presence on Earth.
NARRATOR: This paradigm shift has emboldened whistleblowers
like David Grusch to come forward
with extraordinary claims
and represents a major turning point in the hunt for UFOs.
What makes the modern hunt for UFOs different
than what we've seen in the past
is the fact that it's becoming legitimized.
We have recent revelations from the U.S. military
talking about sightings that they've recorded
and have finally released under some pressure.
All these people are gonna come together
to learn how to study UFOs,
UAPs as we now call them, which is a brilliant idea.
GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: The Pentagon has been incredibly
opened-minded suddenly to admit yes,
we've investigated UFOs.
But that is only half of the story
because we know that they've been investigating
UFOs even earlier,
starting in the '40s and '50s.
NARRATOR: In 1947,
Air Force General Nathan Twining,
head of the Air Technical Service Command,
established a program known as Project Sign
to collect and evaluate information
about reported UFO sightings.
Project Sign was a short-lived endeavor, about a year or so,
and it was during that time that there was the reported
"estimate of the situation,"
that said that this is a bonified phenomena
and we need to study it.
Following on the heels of Project Sign was Project Grudge,
aptly named,
which took a very dismissive tone
to the phenomena and concluded there is nothing here.
NARRATOR: At the conclusion of Project Grudge in 1952,
the military created Project Blue Book.
The program continued to collect and evaluate
UFO data, but now in a more public fashion.
Project Blue Book was largely not interested
in whether there was a phenomena,
but more in controlling the public narrative.
PYLE: Project Blue Book really wasn't an open conversation.
It was the Air Force looking through the stuff saying,
"No, no, no, no, no, swamp gas, weather balloons,
atmospheric effects, what have you, hyster-- mass hysteria."
They're putting out a report and saying,
"Nothing to see here, move along."
NARRATOR: Between 1947 and 1969,
investigators working on Projects Sign, Grudge,
and Blue Book collectively reviewed
over 12,000 sightings worldwide.
However, on December 17, 1969,
Air Force officials announced that they had concluded
their inquiries into the UFO phenomena.
The government said, "There's nothing to investigate,
but, by the way, there's 701 unexplained cases."
So, they didn't explain why they didn't explain those cases.
They just said, "Um, there's nothing worth pursuing here."
NARRATOR: When Project Blue Book
concluded with 701 UFO cases
left still unexplained,
UFO researchers were skeptical about the government's claim
that they were no longer interested in the phenomenon.
Decades later, it came to light
that the U.S. government
was secretly investigating UFOs once again.
In 2007, the Department of Defense established
the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program,
or AATIP,
a highly classified project
tasked with investigating unidentified aerial phenomena.
AATIP was officially acknowledged
by the Pentagon in 2017,
but soon after, it was discovered that the government
had a second top secret UFO program underway.
Since 2017, there's been a lot more digging
and revelations that have gone on.
It turns out the program was actually called AAWSAP,
the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program.
KNAPP: AAWSAP was the biggest UFO program
in the history of our government.
They had 50 full-time investigators.
You think about Project Blue Book,
they had a handful of people working on it full-time.
50 full-time investigators
who traveled all over the country, all over the world,
gathering information,
and they created the world's largest UFO database.
200,000 cases.
And none of it has been made public.
None of it has been released.
NARRATOR: In 2020,
the U.S. government established yet another program
within the Department of Defense
called the UAP Task Force.
Its mission was to scientifically investigate
and analyze military encounters
with unidentified aerial phenomena.
The chief scientist assigned to the task force
was Dr. Travis Taylor,
who has worked on various government and military projects
going back decades.
He was offered the position while investigating
anomalous events on Skinwalker Ranch in Utah.
After the first couple of weeks
that I had come out to Skinwalker Ranch,
we made some measurements that startled me.
I thought the measurements looked real similar
to electronic warfare
or non-lethal human weapons systems.
So I reported this, and I was invited to the Pentagon
to give a presentation on what I had seen.
The director of the UAP Task Force came into the meeting
and invited me to join the task force.
NARRATOR: Dr. Taylor and his colleagues at the UAP Task Force
analyzed 144 cases
documented by military personnel around the world,
including photographic and video evidence,
as well as scientific data taken of the encounters.
On June 25, 2021,
their preliminary findings were presented
to the Congressional Intelligence
and Armed Services Committees.
TAYLOR: Of those 144 cases,
only one of them we were able to actually find
was of terrestrial origin.
It was something like a high-altitude balloon
that was being used for scientific, uh, equipment.
But 143 of the 144
was actually unexplainable with the data that we had.
I get asked all the time, "Tell us the things
that hasn't been released to the public yet."
Well, I can't do that, of course.
I-I signed non-disclosure agreements.
And unless the government releases it
as public information, I can't talk about it.
NARRATOR: Could the U.S. government's UAP investigations
have discovered important information
that is being intentionally hidden from the public?
And, if so,
might we soon learn of even more astounding evidence
that has yet to be revealed?
While the government still operates largely in secrecy,
the hunt for UFOs has now been taken up
by mainstream scientists and academics,
and some of them are convinced
that we may already have proof
of an intelligent alien civilization.
NARRATOR: Ithaca, New York.
1960.
At Cornell University,
astronomer Frank Drake
launches the first search for alien life
performed by an academic institution.
Using a massive radio telescope,
Drake and his team scan the cosmos
for evidence of radio signals
that could be coming from an extraterrestrial civilization.
While the Cornell program
ultimately found nothing of interest,
it paved the way for similar scientific efforts.
The most prominent is the SETI Institute,
which stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
SETH SHOSTAK: The kind of experiment that we do at the SETI Institute
is a listening experiment.
The idea is fairly straightforward.
We're gonna aim some antennas in the direction
of that little star over there, which is not too far away,
and might have some planets, and you know, tune as much
of the radio dials as we can to see if we pick up a signal.
You have to look at a lot of stars in order to catch one
that happens to be broadcasting into space now.
So, that's basically the strategy.
You're just trying to find something
that indicates there's somebody up there
at least as clever as we are.
NARRATOR: SETI astronomers have been listening to the cosmos
since 1984,
and in that time, they have come across
some truly bizarre phenomena,
like an anomaly, first detected in 2007,
known as an FRB, or fast radio burst.
SHOSTAK: Fast radio bursts were found
by an astronomer at West Virginia University,
and he found a signal
that only lasted for a fraction of a second.
Just like... (imitates burst) like that,
about the time it takes your eye to blink, okay?
And it went from high frequency, to lower frequency.
(imitates burst)
So, the question is:
All right, where are they coming from, and what are they?
And if it's very far away-- as they turned out to be--
it's in somebody else's galaxy,
and we can pick it up here on Earth,
it's got to be something that's really powerful.
But we still don't know what fast radio bursts are.
NARRATOR: While researchers continue to search
for the source of the fast radio bursts,
another, perhaps even more intriguing,
celestial phenomenon has been observed in recent years,
interstellar objects, meaning objects
from other star systems, entering our solar system.
The first interstellar visitor ever detected
was a strange, oblong object called "'Oumuamua."
'Oumuamua was discovered by a telescope in Hawaii
called Pan-STARRS
on October 19, 2017.
And the size of 'Oumuamua was roughly
the size of a football field,
somewhere between 100 and 200 meters.
NARRATOR: Astronomer Dr. Avi Loeb of Harvard University
sent shockwaves through the world of academia
when, shortly after 'Oumuamua was detected,
he made the extraordinary claim
that the interstellar object
may be some type of extraterrestrial craft.
RICHARD DOLAN: Avi Loeb did a very detailed analysis
of 'Oumuamua and noted that
its acceleration after it passed the sun was-was
beyond what you would get from a gravitational boost.
So that was interesting
and difficult immediately to explain.
Professor Loeb said that 'Oumuamua behaved
artificially, unnaturally.
He pointed to multiple areas
like speed, acceleration, trajectory,
where he said this was artificial.
So, in every respect,
this thing raised some big questions.
A lot of people who would've disregarded
somebody else saying that
as being kind of wacky,
said, "You know, this is the chairman
"of the department at Harvard. This is somebody we respect.
Maybe we got to have this conversation."
So, I think Loeb was very courageous to do that.
LOEB: Only over the past five years, the first interstellar objects
were discovered by astronomers,
and that's what brought me to the subject,
and, hopefully, within the coming decades,
we'll have some evidence that tells us
whether 'Oumuamua was from another civilization.
And the way to find out is not to argue about it
philosophically, but rather to look at the sky.
So, I established the Galileo Project
in July 2021 to search
for objects that may be artificial in origin,
from another civilization.
NARRATOR: In 2021,
Professor Loeb and his colleagues
raised nearly $2 million
and founded The Galileo Project,
the largest effort to research UAPs
in the history of the academic world.
Using a network of new and existing telescopes,
as well as a variety of sky-scanning technologies,
the Galileo Project aims to systematically search
for possible extraterrestrial objects
both in space and within Earth's own atmosphere.
LOEB: Within the Galileo Project, we are planning
to design a space mission when the next
unusual interstellar object,
like 'Oumuamua, shows up,
and we might send a probe
that will take a close-up photograph of it.
An object like 'Oumuamua
could potentially be of artificial origin
and indicate spacecraft that were sent
by other civilizations.
That would have huge implications
for the future of humanity.
NARRATOR: Professor Loeb is hopeful that the Galileo Project
will help pave the way for other scientists to search
for evidence of extraterrestrial life
without fear of ridicule or repercussions.
It is for this reason that he named his project
after the Italian astronomer Galileo,
who was persecuted in the 17th century
for daring to challenge
the established scientific notions of the time.
So, the philosophers during the days of Galileo
refused to look through his telescope
when he was arguing that the evidence he finds
implies that the Earth moves around the sun.
They wanted to believe that the Earth
is the center of the universe,
and so, they simply avoided the data,
and they put him in house arrest,
so that nobody would listen to him.
So, of course, if there is ridicule and stigma
and we don't want to fund the searches,
then we will be exactly in the same position as those
philosophers who refused to look through Galileo's telescope.
If we are open-minded and willing to consider
that possibility that we are not alone,
and that we are not the smartest kid on the cosmic block,
then we might find something.
NARRATOR: While government UFO research remains top secret,
data gathered by the Galileo Project
will be open to the public,
with findings published in peer-reviewed journals.
The academic community's growing interest
in unidentified aerial phenomena marks a new age of UFO hunting.
An age that now includes scientific studies
by the world's premier space organization,
NASA.
NARRATOR: French Guiana. December 25, 2021.
MAN: We have liftoff. Décollage.
Liftoff from a tropical rainforest
to the edge of time itself.
NARRATOR: At the Guiana Space Centre,
NASA launches the most powerful telescope ever constructed.
The James Webb Space Telescope
represents an ambitious $10 billion effort by NASA
to see further than ever before
into the deepest parts of the universe.
Nearly six months into its mission, on July 11th,
James Webb delivers its first incredible images
of previously unknown galaxies, stars forming, and black holes.
To many, the early success of this powerful tool
demonstrates new promise that scientists may soon answer
an age-old question: Are we alone in the universe?
We can now look into space with more clarity
than in all of our previous human history.
And with the new James Webb Telescope,
some of those amazing images
that we've gotten from Hubble 20, 30 years ago,
now are even more rich, more detailed, more amazing.
And with James Webb, too, you know,
we will discover more and more exoplanets.
And some of those exoplanets
may contain similar intelligent life like on Earth.
PYLE: Part of what the Webb Space Telescope
is designed to do is to look
for planets that exist in what's called
the-the habitable or the Goldilocks zone.
So, they're the right distance from that kind of star
to possibly be able to support life.
Looking in the future, ten, 20 years,
I think, and a lot of people
that are a lot smarter than me think,
that we're probably gonna have found something
we can classify as extraterrestrial life.
NARRATOR: Considering the amazing images
that the James Webb Space Telescope has produced,
UFO hunters are asking, what would we find
if NASA applied their incredible technology
to search for evidence of extraterrestrials
already visiting Earth?
The question may soon be answered
because, on June 9, 2022,
one month before the release
of the first Webb telescope images,
NASA officials announced their plans to commission
an independent study on UAPs.
BLUMENTHAL: When you think of it,
NASA is the perfect organization to conduct research.
They run the Space Station.
They have satellites that probe deep into space.
They have interstellar missions out there
in the far reaches of the cosmos.
If they're coming into our atmosphere
from-from deep outer space,
NASA would be the first one, uh, to be able to detect that.
NARRATOR: On May 31, 2023,
NASA held its first public hearing
to discuss the agency's mission in studying UAPs.
And it's now our collective responsibility
to investigate these occurrences
with the rigorous scientific scrutiny that they deserve.
It provides an opportunity for us
to expand our understanding of the world around us.
As an organization dedicated to exploring
the unknown, this work is in our DNA.
NARRATOR: Could the unprecedented efforts of NASA
to join the hunt for UFOs
ultimately provide the tipping point
in finding evidence of extraterrestrial life?
And is it possible,
as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that NASA
already possesses strong evidence
that intelligent beings exist beyond Earth?
NASA's experience with UFOs...
...dates right through
from the very first Gemini missions,
all the way through the Apollo missions,
all the way through to the Moon landings,
we have encountered UFOs.
Former Apollo, uh, astronaut Edgar Mitchel,
who I-I knew personally,
spoke openly about his knowledge
of not even just having seen UFOs but alien bodies
and technology in the possession of the United States government.
You had other NASA astronauts, Gordon Cooper,
famously talked about UFOs that he saw as a pilot.
You had James McDivitt, a NASA astronaut,
and-and quite a few others having seen UFOs.
There's the astonishing photo of a triangular craft
taken in 1986 from the space shuttle.
And it, too, is a-a bright daylight photograph,
and you can clearly see this triangular craft
there outside the window of the space shuttle.
Now, the image is labeled "space debris."
So, that's-that's the official view
on what this is, but this is an interesting image.
Uh, it shows something obviously quite structured,
and it is unmistakably triangular.
There have been multiple accounts
of strange things picked up on NASA videos and photos.
They've got huge databases.
And one of the things when NASA announced
that they were going to do this study is, they said
"We are going to be looking at data."
And people were asking themselves,
"Well, what data are they talking about?"
Well, the data they already have
and have been collecting for decades.
NARRATOR: Now that NASA is officially
investigating UFOs,
might we soon have definitive evidence
that there is an alien presence on Earth?
While the world's premier space agency
may be better equipped than anyone to uncover
the truth about unidentified aerial phenomena,
some researchers believe our greatest weapon
in the hunt for UFOs is the smartphone,
carried by ordinary citizens all over the world,
who are now capturing high-definition footage
of events that defy all conventional explanations.
NARRATOR: In primitive rock art throughout the world,
there are depictions of what look like flying craft
and strange beings.
According to ancient astronaut theorists,
these images represent the earliest documentation
of extraterrestrial encounters,
and they believe the best UFO hunters
have always been ordinary citizens
recording what they see with their own eyes.
In the ancient astronaut opinion,
those stories of UFOs today
are the same stories
that our ancestors in the remote past also explored,
and their cell phone cameras
were the walls of caves,
and reliefs and carvings
in which they commemorated
those incredibly significant events
that they were eyewitnesses to.
KNAPP: These things have been here interacting with us forever.
On every continent, in every culture,
throughout human history.
We call them by different names.
They appear in different guises.
We used to say they were flying shields,
flying chariots.
Then they became flying saucers, uh, ghost rockets.
UAP, UFO,
whatever term you want to use,
it's all the same phenomena.
NARRATOR: In 1870, photographer Howard Kimball
took the very first UFO photo,
which captured a cylindrical object
above Mount Washington in New Hampshire.
Since that time, thousands of photos of UFOs
have been taken all over the world
many of which are grainy or blurry.
But now, thanks to incredible advancements
in camera technology,
anyone with a smartphone
can capture high-definition photos
and videos of anomalous events in the sky.
KNAPP: Technology has changed so much
over the past 30, 40 years
that now it's possible for regular Joe citizens
to be part of this investigation.
We all have computer power greater than the computers
that sent humans to the Moon 50 years ago.
POPE: Couple this with the fact that people know
UFOs are now being taken seriously by the government,
and what we have
is an army that has been mobilized.
An army of UFO hunters
armed with cutting-edge technology.
The hunt is on.
NARRATOR: A key player in the modern-day hunt for UFOs
is documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell.
Corbell has been successful
with acquiring U.S. military videos of UAPs
and gaining permission to share them with the public.
He is also helping to disseminate
compelling footage shot by civilians
using the power of social media.
I've been trying to modernize my approach
in that I use social media
as a way to instantaneously get information out
and obfuscate all the channels of suppression
for this type of information.
So from Instagram to Twitter to TikTok,
you name it, all of these are social weapons
for us to get information into each other's hands.
The modern hunt for UFOs is now becoming proactive
rather than just reactive.
DANIEL ZETTERSTROM: Social media
has been of great importance
to the modern-day hunt for-for UAP.
Not only does it allow us to connect directly with witnesses
and with journalists who write articles,
and get them a bit more educated on the issue,
engaging with various figures on social media
means that we're asked to adhere
to a standard of evidence that we weren't before.
NARRATOR: Images captured by smartphone technology
and the dissemination of them on the Internet
have led to literally millions of people
all around the world becoming involved in the hunt for UFOs.
While smartphones have made it possible
for anyone to record high-definition footage
of strange events in the sky,
serious UFO hunters are employing
multiple technologies to separate
the extraordinary from the mundane.
You have to really sort through
a lot of things and make sure
that what you're seeing is truly a UFO.
There could be some anomalies due to lighting.
There could be birds.
There could be other experiments
or different types of technologies
going on in that area.
Sometimes, you have to have
advanced technology to figure that out.
I took a trip to Mount Adams
about four years ago on a retreat,
and the first night, I was able to see 13 UFOs
that were moving around, changing course and direction,
getting brighter and also getting dimmer.
And some of them actually even descended down
onto the mountain and then went back up with lights on.
Now we had our satellite tracking on,
our apps, we had our ISS tracker on
to make sure we weren't seeing anything
that was already up there.
Clearly, they were something that is unidentified
and we can't really figure out exactly what it is,
but it definitely was an amazing phenomenon.
NARRATOR: In addition to devices that can detect airplanes,
satellites, and other known objects in the sky,
there is another powerful technology
now available to anyone with a computer
or smartphone called MADAR,
which stands for
Multiple Anomaly Detection and Automatic Recording.
DOLAN: In terms of having tools, there's something
in the United States called MADAR,
and this is about
70 to 100 different nodes around the country.
You can put this and attach it to your computer
where there's detection instrumentation
that will detect changes
in electromagnetic qualities in your area,
and other factors,
to detect various types of anomalies
that could be, uh, UAP.
NARRATOR: Could this new technological era
of the hunt for UFO evidence
finally lead to the answers that humankind has been seeking
for thousands of years?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest that perhaps
the most effective of all UFO hunters
is a non-human intelligence.
NARRATOR: In the 21st century,
UFO hunters are armed with technology
that allows them to record anomalies in the sky
with incredible clarity.
And today's technology can also glean new information
from photographs taken decades ago.
The northern highlands of Costa Rica.
September 4, 1971.
Photographer Sergio Loaiza is conducting an aerial survey
of Lake Cote for the National Geographic Institute
using a special map-making camera
that snaps photos at 13-second intervals.
WILLIAM HENRY: He's up in an airplane about 10,000 feet.
He's taking photos of a hydroelectric project,
and they're trying to calculate
the environmental impact of this.
So, he's just taking these ordinary photos,
gets back to the lab,
takes a look at the contact sheets
and says, "What's that up in the righthand corner there?"
It's this mysterious, circular,
shiny metallic craft.
NARRATOR: Curiously, the object does not appear
in either the previous frame of film
or the one after.
HENRY: Instantly, the National Geographic Institute says,
"You can't talk about this,
and we're gonna put a lid on this."
And they do for some time.
NARRATOR: According to Loaiza, he and his colleagues
were forbidden from divulging any information
about the object captured in the photograph,
which was estimated to be 160 feet in diameter.
But in 1979, the photograph was leaked
to the Argentine newspaper La Nación
and analyzed by UFO researchers.
HENRY: The photo
is studied later by Jacques Vallée
and other UFO investigators,
and they realize this is a tremendous photograph.
ZETTERSTROM: This photo has been official declared
by Costa Rica as an official UFO photo.
They don't know what it is after years and years of study.
NARRATOR: Many skeptics suggested that the object
was likely some kind of debris or smudge
that got on the film during the development process.
But in 2021, Esteban Carranza,
a friend of the Loaiza family,
was able obtain the original contact sheets
and have them scanned using the latest
and most sophisticated technology.
He gains access to the original contact sheets
and sends them off to a photographic lab,
and they do a reproduction of the image
using the most advanced technology
to bring it forward, and they come up
with this 1.8 gigabyte image of this craft.
NARRATOR: The debris and smudges
that were visible in the original photograph
are no longer present in the new higher resolution image,
but the saucer-shaped object remains
and is clearer than ever.
This higher definition scan showed some new details.
These new details help take a number
of prosaic explanations off the table.
For example, it was said
that it could have been a chip in the glass.
However, you can see that that's not the case.
This photo, in and of itself,
in its original state, was tremendous.
But now, with this incredible leap in technology,
we're able to bring it to life in an even greater way,
and it's just another example
of this great leap that we're making now
in our understanding of these UAPs.
NARRATOR: Another way in which UFO hunters
are utilizing evidence from the past is through
the advancements of artificial intelligence, or AI.
In 2023,
New York-based Enigma Labs
launched a project to crowdsource and quantify data
about UAPs with the help of artificial intelligence,
and also compare it with data going back
all the way to the 1940s.
Alejandro Rojas acts as the company's head
of research and content.
I help with providing background information
on UAPs and the history of UAP research.
And then also to make sure
that when we are
sharing information that it's very comprehensive.
So the articles, for instance, we write
on historical cases are going to have more information
than I think you'll find anywhere else.
NARRATOR: Enigma Labs hopes
that by creating a database of both
old and new evidence,
patterns will emerge that could
finally provide real answers to explain
the strange events that have been witnessed
in our skies for thousands of years.
ROJAS: We're gathering a lot of data to hopefully
have a bigger database than anyone's had
out there about cases throughout the world.
And then applying AI to go through those cases
to scrub them to find those good cases.
NARRATOR: With this unprecedented effort
across all disciplines--
from academics, government, and technology--
is humanity on the cusp
of discovering compelling evidence that there is,
in fact, an extraterrestrial presence on Earth?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes.
Whoa, we got something! We got something!
NARRATOR: And point to the discoveries being made
at the site of the most intense UFO hunt
ever conducted, Skinwalker Ranch.
-Do you see this? -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Here, on the 500-acre property
known as Skinwalker Ranch...
Everybody keep your eyes peeled to the skies.
...a team of investigators is conducting
the most sophisticated
and comprehensive UFO hunt
currently underway anywhere on the planet.
Erik, we got something moving right overhead of us right now.
-That's not a plane. -I'm not seeing it.
TAYLOR: It just sped up. It just vanished.
Skinwalker Ranch is one
of the most anomalous areas on this planet.
Here's what people have seen in that ranch:
strange creatures suddenly appearing out of nowhere...
UFOs, instruments don't work.
When it comes to Skinwalker,
you've actually had some scientific research
and a lot of scientists
having their own encounters.
NARRATOR: Since 2016,
investigators have been using
state-of-the-art camera equipment,
ground-penetrating radar,
radiation detectors, and a host of other
highly sophisticated equipment in an effort
to meticulously study
and document anomalous activity at the site.
BRANDON FUGAL: We've made incredible progress
in documenting the reality of the phenomena.
We are just getting started
in scratching the surface
of what we are really dealing with.
That's significant.
NARRATOR: In 2019,
Dr. Travis Taylor was asked
to join the team at Skinwalker Ranch,
just before he was brought on
to the government's UAP Task Force.
I was really excited when Brandon Fugal
and his principal investigator,
Erik Bard invited me
to come out to Skinwalker Ranch
and join the investigation team.
-Hey, look! UAP right there! -Yep.
TAYLOR: Since I've been out there
at Skinwalker Ranch, I've seen so many different things...
-Y'all see that? -...that before
I would've not really believed they existed.
NARRATOR: For UFO researchers,
the investigations at Skinwalker Ranch
represent a promising new era...
-What are you seeing? -TAYLOR: A signal.
NARRATOR: ...one in which a former investigator
for the federal government and civilian researchers
can work together in the search for answers.
What is that?
TAYLOR: For me to be doing the task force work
and the Skinwalker Ranch work,
I think we're in a new era
of understanding the UAP-UFO phenomena.
It did come out of the mesa.
MAN (over radio): It came out of the mesa?
It came right out of the mesa.
Finally, there's Congressional oversight
on UFO investigation programs.
And maybe one day we'll find,
if they are extraterrestrial intelligence,
the public will get to know that.
NARRATOR: For the first time in human history,
the search for evidence of extraterrestrials visiting Earth
is the subject of a collaborative worldwide effort
across the scientific and intelligence communities.
20, 30 years ago it would've been a dream
if I would've opened the paper and I read
NASA is now studying UAPs,
and Harvard created the Galileo Project,
and other universities are following suit
by seriously investigating the extraterrestrial question.
And so today here we are, it is happening,
and so I am over the moon that this is happening.
PILOT: Look at that thing!
KNAPP: It's exciting as hell.
I never thought I would live to see
this kind of a change.
Where it is acceptable
for mainstream media to dig into it.
Where it's acceptable for Congress to authorize a program,
to hold hearings
to dig into it and demand information.
You know, in the end we have a lot more information.
We have a lot of cases.
We really don't have any solid answers.
I hope that in my lifetime we'll have some.
NARRATOR: Could humankind finally be on the brink
of making an incredible discovery?
Will irrefutable evidence of extraterrestrial visitation
come from a new breed of UFO hunters?
Like Harvard astronomers,
NASA scientists,
government researchers,
or even ordinary citizens?
Right there!
NARRATOR: Perhaps now that people from all walks of life
are investigating what's happening in our skies,
we will uncover an alien presence
that has been with us all along.
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