WILLIAM SHATNER: A deadly pathogen
delivered from outer space,
a mysterious illness
brought on by an unidentified flying object
and an alien affliction
that creates strange fibers
under the skin.
Since the dawn of time,
the human body has had to learn
how to combat countless microorganisms
that attack our muscles and organs and cells.
And while modern science has stopped
many dangerous earthborn viruses
and bacteria from killing us,
there's a growing concern that even deadlier strains
are on their way,
traveling to us from the farthest reaches
of outer space.
Will Earth's next pandemic
come not from here on this planet,
but instead from another world?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
SHATNER: Here in this former mining town,
where people spent decades
digging for precious metals below ground,
researcher Robert Ward
is the owner of a rock collection
unlike anything else found on Earth.
Because these pockmarked specimens,
with their dazzling patterns and unusual compositions,
originated in outer space.
ROBERT WARD: Over the past 30 years,
I've built one of the world's largest
private meteorite collections.
We have some of the finest samples
of some of the most important
meteorite classes on display.
We have rocks from the Moon, Mars.
We have a vast diversity of meteorites
from all over the solar system.
SHATNER: Despite the remarkable origins of Robert's collection,
there is one meteorite that is quite extraordinary.
It is known as a chondrite,
which means that it formed
in the earliest days of the solar system.
And the reason Robert's meteorite is so special
is that, unlike most other chondrites,
which are so fragile that they typically break apart
and explode as they enter Earth's atmosphere...
...this one remained intact
even after it impacted on the ground
at 28,000 miles per hour.
WARD: So, this is an actual piece of the meteorite itself
that I recovered essentially intact.
And you can see, it's fairly soft,
and it comes apart easily.
And it's not a dense object like an iron meteorite,
so when it enters the atmosphere,
it's supposed to break apart according to physics,
and this one didn't.
SHATNER: Why didn't the meteorite
in Robert Ward's collection explode before it hit the Earth
like other chondrites?
Perhaps a clue may be found
by examining the story of its impact
and what happened in the aftermath.
High in the Andes mountains,
residents of this tiny village are distressed by the presence
of a mysterious light
that appears suddenly in the noonday sky
and begins racing towards them at an alarming speed.
WARD: In the skies over this tiny village
of Carancas in Peru,
a small asteroid actually entered the atmosphere,
and these people saw what they thought
was a star in the sky falling.
And the object tore through the atmosphere.
And this is a pretty big thing,
it was probably the size of a compact car,
and it's penetrating the atmosphere
at 28,000 miles an hour.
And then, bam,
it impacts like a nuclear bomb
pretty much right at the edge of their village.
And they see this ejecta cloud
go into the sky.
There was a smoke trail in the sky.
It terrified them.
SHATNER: Despite their fear,
curious locals begin to gather around the impact site.
What they discover is a 20-foot-deep
by 100-foot-wide crater that is flooded with water.
And buried deep in the Earth is a 12-ton meteor.
While the massive crater was a remarkable site to see,
many local villagers found themselves overcome
by a mysterious illness.
HUGH NEWMAN: When this meteor strike happened,
a lot of people were trying to get a glimpse of it,
trying to get a sample of it, even.
But what happened was there was a toxic reaction to it,
and loads of people became incredibly sick.
ANDREW COLLINS: They started to suffer
from what might be described as radiation sickness.
And in addition to this, their own animals
started suffering in a similar way.
So, what was going on here?
Was this simply a meteorite that had landed at Carancas,
or was there something more?
SHATNER: More than 200 people
were admitted to the hospital
after being exposed to the Carancas meteor.
According to reports, they suffered from symptoms
ranging from severe headaches, dizziness, nausea,
to skin rashes and respiratory problems.
(speaking Spanish)
SHATNER: While many of the villagers believed their sickness
was a punishment from God...
MAN: Señor Jesus...
SHATNER: ...doctors began to suspect
that the meteor had released a deadly toxin
from deep underground.
One of the theories about why people actually got sick
is when the meteor hit the Earth,
it created this 100-foot-wide crater.
And so, people have now believed they may have got poison
simply from what was coming from the Earth,
and it being hit by this meteor.
COLLINS: It is a fact that, in the area of Carancas,
there is a high level of arsenic in the ground,
and almost certainly, this was vaporized as well.
And this was one of the things that was making
both the people and the animals so sick.
SHATNER: Is it possible that the impact of the Carancas meteor
released arsenic into the environment,
poisoning those who came into contact with it?
Or did it deliver an unidentified contagion
from outer space?
WARD: There's always been questions within the scientific community
about whether there could actually be biologics
on a meteorite.
So, you know, some kind of
alien microbe or whatnot in a meteorite.
Meteorites contain amino acids, sugars, water.
All the building blocks for life are on these asteroids.
So is it possible? Absolutely.
GRAHAM LAU: This is an idea that has been around in science fiction
for a very long time, this idea that there could be
viruses or-or some kind of pathogenic bacterium or cell
that could come from space and fall onto the planet,
maybe coming down in a cometary impact
or coming down with some of these grains
of dust and material.
SHATNER: Is there any evidence that toxic pathogens
were delivered to Carancas from the cosmos?
While Robert Ward and his team secured a small meteor sample
from the impact site,
the answer to just what biologics may have landed
on Earth remains buried deep underground.
WARD: Well, our ultimate goal was obviously to find
this large meteorite
that we presumed was in the bottom of the crater.
We were literally standing on the crater rim,
and the water's being pumped out and we are so close.
We were literally within feet of uncovering this large,
possibly multi-ton meteorite in the bottom of the crater
when all work was brought to a stop by the mayor.
The excavation wasn't gonna come to fruition,
which was very disappointing.
SHATNER: Could the Carancas meteor
have actually contained evidence of alien germs?
Perhaps we'll never know,
but the sheer possibility is truly frightening.
For me, the biggest fear is actually germs and diseases
from outer space via an asteroid or something hitting the Earth.
Once the virus is here, by definition,
it looks like all our other viruses.
Unless you catch a meteor in the act
of delivering the virus,
there's not gonna be a real signature
that it came from space.
Now, it's still fairly improbable.
It's a little more likely
that you just get viruses on the Earth,
but the idea of a virus that's stuck
in an asteroid and then lands on Earth,
it's not as crazy as people think.
SHATNER: Greek philosopher Anaxagoras
is conducting astronomical observations
when he spots a bright object approaching in the western sky.
This fortuitous event is believed to be
the first recorded sighting of Halley's Comet,
and the inspiration for Anaxagoras
to propose an idea so incredible
that it shocked the ancient world.
He suggested that life on Earth first originated in outer space.
It is a fascinating theory known as panspermia.
Panspermia is the basic idea that some key building blocks
for life, chemical-wise,
came from meteors or asteroids hitting the Earth.
And then, once those hit Earth, they're dispersed,
and that can be a key chemical step in the start of life.
KAKU: At first, the panspermia theory was laughed at, but not anymore,
because more and more evidence indicates
that life started on the Earth relatively soon
after the conditions were ripe enough
to create germs that could survive on the planet Earth.
SHATNER: Is it possible that life on Earth
sprung from germs that came from outer space?
And if it did happen before,
could it happen again?
Well, at the dawn of the space age,
NASA considered it such an alarming prospect
that they took extreme precautions
to protect humanity from accidental exposure
to deadly alien microbes.
ROD PYLE: As early as the Apollo program for Apollo 11,
there were concerns in the scientific community
about some potentially dangerous pathogen
coming back from the Moon.
PYLE: And they were concerned enough
that when the astronauts came back,
they had to go into quarantine for 21 days.
Because we don't want germs to come out
that could've interacted with something on planet Earth.
SHATNER: Today, fears of alien contagions seem to be growing.
In 2024, researchers
at the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense
have warned NASA that they must seriously enhance
current safety protocols to defend our world
against potential alien illnesses.
And with more exploratory missions
deeper into our solar system,
those precautions could mean the difference
between life and death.
DENNIN: I think one of the slightly scary things
are germs coming in through the astronauts,
because y-you don't know necessarily what the life cycle
of either the virus or bacteria might be.
That could mess up our ability to catch it,
quarantine it or deal with it.
Could astronauts unwittingly bring
extraterrestrial viruses and bacteria back to Earth?
Well, some believe a recent discovery suggests
that it may be a very real possibility.
Outside the crew's living module,
cosmonaut Anton Sklaplerov
makes a shocking discovery.
There's a colony of unknown bacteria
living on the outside surface of the spacecraft.
DENNIN: He discovered basically a bacteria
on the outside of the ISS
that he felt pretty clearly
must have come from outer space somehow,
whether just debris or floating in the dust.
And this obviously would be very, very important
to know or understand whether or not
it came from outside or from Earth.
SHATNER: Even Russia's space agency Roscosmos
concluded that the bacteria discovered on the ISS
did originate from somewhere in outer space.
While other scientists remain skeptical,
the possibility does cause concern.
Just what would happen
if a dangerous bacteria of alien origin
were to ever reach Earth?
It's possible that if an alien pathogen
finds itself on the Earth, it would very quickly adapt
and evolve to our local environment
and start invading us,
because it's just how life works.
SHATNER: While the notion of an alien bacteria
infecting life on Earth may sound far-fetched,
some experts claim it's not only possible
but that it's already happened.
The normal daily activity of humans on Earth
is stopped in its tracks.
Alarming numbers of people all around the world
are sick and dying from a pandemic called COVID-19.
Many scientists believe this contagious virus
originated in diseased bats in Wuhan, China.
But in July 2020, a scientific paper is published
that proposes that the virus was carried on a meteor
which flew over the city of Songyuan, China
on October the 11th, 2019,
sending viral debris down to Earth.
KAKU: This article comes out of left field
saying that maybe these germs come out of space,
people raised an eyebrow and said,
this sounds like science fiction.
It doesn't sound like real solid science.
Well, let's be honest, you can't rule it out
that certain organisms can actually exist and thrive
in the vacuum of outer space.
SHATNER: The idea that our next pandemic may arrive
from outer space is profoundly disturbing.
But perhaps even more frightening
is the fact that, according to some studies,
bacteria that develop in outer space
have the capacity to become supercharged.
One of the interesting experiments
that scientists are doing aboard the ISS
is to grow different types of bacteria
and see how they grow in space.
And shockingly, salmonella specifically
have been shown to be more virulent
and reproduce faster, grow faster.
One of the slightly scary things is when bacteria,
and particularly salmonella, was tested,
it basically turns on a whole bunch of genes
in the bacteria that are self-defense genes.
And it becomes tougher. It can resist antibiotics.
And what you get from space is a super bacteria.
SHATNER: The possibility that outer space
can cause bacteria to become supercharged
is nothing short of terrifying.
And if an astronaut did become infected
with a strain of super bacteria,
is there anything we could do about it?
Any alien pathogen, if it's alive,
it needs the same basic things
that Earth-based life does.
Our planet may have the wrong temperature,
the wrong pressure,
the wrong mixture of gases in the atmosphere,
the wrong chemicals in our soil.
Any of that could be a threat to this pathogen
and simply snuff it out the moment it arrives.
But the honest truth is,
we wouldn't know it until it's too late.
While one can hope that Earth's atmosphere
would be inhospitable to alien germs,
many experts believe that microorganisms from space
can make themselves right at home here on our planet.
In fact, there's one infectious pathogen
that was contracted in a Canadian forest
and is almost certain
to be of extraterrestrial origin.
SHATNER: 51-year-old Stefan Michalak
is prospecting for silver and quartz
in a remote corner of Manitoba,
when he suddenly witnesses an event so remarkable,
that it is considered the best documented UFO case
in Canadian history.
It is called the Falcon Lake Incident.
My dad, uh, going off to Falcon Lake that weekend,
he was off on another one of his rock hunts.
And the part where he was prospecting at Falcon Lake,
there was several gold mines there.
So, eventually he makes his way
to a relatively high piece of ground
and that's when he looks up,
and coming out of the southwest sky
are two objects,
and they're a sort of an orangey, reddish color.
They were giving off a lot of light.
He's wearing goggles,
they have welder's glass that flips down.
The only reason he had them was so that when he's chipping rock
he wouldn't hurt his eyes. Now, this will come in handy.
The first UFO lands
about 140 feet away from Dad
and it's making all kinds of clanking and spitting
and hissing sounds.
So, when Dad turns his attention to the one that landed,
the next time he looks up,
the other one's on its way up, and gone.
SHATNER: At first Michalak thinks the UFO
might be an experimental NASA or Soviet spacecraft,
but the longer he observes it,
the stranger it becomes.
MICHALAK: Dad's looking at this craft
and he doesn't know what to make of it.
It's a mirror metal craft.
There are no seams.
There's no rivets, there are no screws.
There's a sort of a dome on the top
and it's got slits in it.
So, he's wearing gauntlets, long gloves,
and he reaches out to touch the craft,
-and the fingertips all melt. -(exclaims)
Now, suddenly... (imitates whoosh)
out comes this blast of something,
lights his shirt on fire and sends him back.
He falls to the ground,
he's busily trying to put out this fire that's on his chest.
He's wearing a strappy, uh, cotton undershirt.
So he pulls that off and throws it to the ground.
Meanwhile, this craft is continuing to rise and leave.
And then...
gone.
Just right back in the direction it came.
SHATNER: According to official documents,
in the immediate aftermath of his distressing encounter
with the unidentified craft,
Michalak becomes disoriented,
severely burned,
and suddenly very ill.
MICHALAK: He hasn't taken more than two steps
and he's on his knees and he's throwing up.
He's been burned.
But that's just, you know, regular burns,
thermal burns.
But this is, this is doing something to him.
Then he's sweating.
Then he's-- his head starts to go,
and now he's spinning.
He realizes if he doesn't get out of here,
he's gonna die here.
SHATNER: By sheer force of will, Michalak somehow managed
to stagger back to town, and eventually makes his way
back to a hospital where he is immediately
put under observation.
Doctors discovered
that Michalak's white blood cell count
had dropped to very low levels.
He was feverish and confused.
No one was sure what to make of his unusual symptoms.
But what truly confused doctors on call
were the strange burn marks
found on Michalak's chest and abdomen.
The examining doctors found
a grid-like pattern of, uh, red burns.
It was described as a checkerboard pattern,
and these were somehow thermal burns,
chemical burns, as if something in the gas
from the UFO was very hot
and conformed to the appearance
of the grid with all these little dots on it.
Whatever experience had occurred to him definitely happened.
It was real, and the evidence was on his own body.
SHATNER: Despite numerous tests,
no one could diagnose Michalak's mysterious ailment.
In the official police report following his close encounter,
officers noted that Michalak suffered from headaches,
blackouts,
and severe weight loss.
Could Stefan Michalak have caught some type of infection
from his contact with the unidentified flying object?
Or might his symptoms be the result of being poisoned?
Stan Michalak arrives
at the University of Manitoba's Archives
and Special Collections
to examine the surviving artifacts
of the Falcon Lake Incident.
It's been a while.
Oh, my goodness.
So this is the undershirt that he was wearing on the day.
He did rip it off himself.
It was torn up quite a bit.
You can still see...
on the front of the shirt,
the pattern left behind
when the craft burnt his skin.
I want to know what caused that burn.
SHATNER: To this day, no one knows
what mysterious substance burned Stefan Michalak
or if some kind of alien germ
triggered his sudden illness.
But during an official examination
of the alleged landing site,
high levels of radiation were discovered in the area.
And some suggest it could at least explain
some of Michalak's symptoms.
RUTKOWSKI: When the site was first examined
by military and government investigators,
the presence of high levels of radiation
were of such significance that there was a concern
that it might be a public health hazard.
And yet everything that they found at the site,
could not produce any satisfactory
explanation for what caused this incident.
The presence of radiation has suggested to
some people that this craft was nuclear powered,
uh, perhaps was leaking radiation when it landed.
Perhaps this case has some clues as to the true nature of UFOs.
PAIGE: You're putting yourself at risk
if you try to approach these craft
because you don't know what kind of contamination
is on these ships.
Whatever they're using for a means of propulsion
could possibly be carrying some sort
of radioactive material on board.
Maybe they use that as part of their propulsion systems.
But they also could be carrying bacteria
and fungus and things like that
that can harm us inadvertently.
It's terrifying to think that a brief encounter
with an extraterrestrial object
could make someone dangerously ill.
But perhaps more concerning
is a bizarre ailment
that some consider alien
simply due to the fact that we have absolutely
no clue where it came from.
SHATNER: Founded in the late 1880s,
the NIH has become one of the foremost
medical research centers in the world.
Here, experts study more than 10,000 rare diseases
identified across the globe.
And, in recent years,
there is one emerging illness
that has proven more confounding than the rest
called Morgellons disease.
Morgellons disease is an interesting disease
that scientists don't know a lot about.
But for a few hundred years, there have been cases of people
reporting fibers growing inside open wounds.
Red, blue, black fibers.
What are the fibers?
It's not entirely clear.
PAIGE: When we look at a disease like Morgellons,
we have to ask the question,
where did this disease come from?
We don't have explanations on how people
are getting infected by this.
It could be on your face, on your torsos,
anywhere on your body.
And I couldn't even imagine having something like this.
But they feel like there's something crawling
under their skin.
Bugs or worms or, I mean, can you even imagine?
It's horrible.
HERNANDEZ: I contracted Morgellons disease in 1999.
You have a lot of sores and weird feelings
where things are moving on your body.
I actually started with a little itch here and there.
I kept going to the dermatology
to actually get some cream for the itch.
And then it got very bad.
Bad enough that a couple of times
I drove to the emergency room in the middle of the night
because I felt a huge blob moving up my back.
And they told me, "No, no, no, no, it's nothing."
I actually was bedridden a few times,
and I actually couldn't even get up.
Once it gets bad enough,
it actually starts affecting your mind.
You can't think.
You're gonna have chills, headaches,
itching like crazy,
sores popping up everywhere.
What it feels like is basically the fibers have
grown throughout the whole body.
It is a living organism that keeps multiplying.
Those threads are alive.
SHATNER: If you think a disease in which people's skin
begins sprouting multicolored fibers
sounds far-fetched,
well, you're not alone.
And at first, Professor Randy Wymore
of Oklahoma State University
thought Morgellons disease was a figment of the imagination.
But after studying the strange condition
for more than 15 years,
he's come to the realization that it is very real.
Morgellons disease is a very unusual condition.
The population has, uh, lesions in their skin
that are very slow to heal.
They have fibers associated
with those lesions emanating from their skin.
So I went ahead and asked for some fibers to look at.
And they didn't exactly look like textile fibers to me.
So then I collected fiber samples from
just everywhere I could think of to compare
with the Morgellons fibers.
Well, basically, the bottom line was,
the Morgellons fibers don't look anything like cotton
or nylon or anything like that.
So I sort of was puzzled
by that, being a scientist.
So, in my own mind,
I was convinced that there was a biological component to this,
and not a delusion.
My initial hypothesis was: there has to be
a bacterial, fungal,
some sort of agent that's triggering these,
that could be producing the fibers.
It actually looks now like whatever the microorganisms
are that are causing Morgellons disease,
they sort of cause the person's
cells to actually produce these fibers.
SHATNER: The Morgellons Research Foundation estimates
that more than 14,000 people worldwide
are afflicted with the disease.
The bizarre condition made headlines
when folk singer Joni Mitchell
announced that she suffers
from Morgellons' debilitating effects.
And even suggests that it may have
originated in outer space.
We know from stories of alien abductions,
from stories of alien contact, that there are
effects that people are experiencing
from those contacts.
The question is whether there is a relationship
between Morgellons disease
and contact with aliens or an alien presence.
SHATNER: While some have suggested that Morgellons disease
has come from outer space, due to the fact
that there's nothing else like it on Earth,
the reality is
no one really knows
what causes the presence of these strange fibers
or how the malady is transmitted.
And for those afflicted with the agonizing condition,
finding the origins of this disease
isn't nearly as important as finding a cure.
Too many people that I talked to, people are crying
because they can't get help.
The doctors tell them they're crazy.
And it is a bad feeling to actually be told that.
If you don't start treating it,
it's gonna get worse for a lot of people.
And this is not good.
Whether Morgellons disease is caused by a fungus,
something from outer space, or something
yet to be determined,
the idea of being infected with an alien organism
is profoundly unnerving.
But it's not as terrifying as another mysterious ailment
that causes the body to act as if it is...
...possessed.
SHATNER: Preeminent neuropsychiatrist Dr. Kurt Goldstein
publishes a shocking report on the first known case
of a truly bizarre disease.
With this rare medical condition,
patients lose complete control of one of their hands.
The hand acts independently,
as if possessed by an otherworldly force.
It's known as alien hand syndrome.
Alien hand syndrome was discovered as early as 1908,
uh, by Dr. Kurt Goldstein,
uh, when he was examining a 57-year-old woman.
And this was something that, up until that time,
was probably put down to some kind of madness,
and today, it is considered to be a very important subject
to try and understand within the medical community.
Alien hand syndrome is something where
people's hands, generally the left hand,
takes on a life of its own
and can quite literally
act independently to your conscious thoughts.
One example would be, you go and turn on a light,
but then your other hand reaches up and turns it off.
But more disturbingly is the fact
that these hands can also be quite malevolent.
REUBEN: Sometimes, people are forced to have their hands restricted
because, otherwise, that hand could
start to strangle them or attack them in some way.
Scientists still don't know what causes alien hand syndrome
and whether there's anything that can be done
as a cure for it.
Alien hand syndrome is a very scary
and, at this point, completely unexplained disease.
SHATNER: Since it was first discovered over a century ago,
there have been 424 published cases of alien hand syndrome.
Patients report hands that seem to be
under the control of an independent intelligence.
In fact, it has led some patients
to give their hand a name of its own.
While a singular cause of this affliction
has not been identified,
most doctors believe a brain injury
may trigger these bizarre symptoms.
The human brain is composed of two hemispheres,
left and a right.
Usually, the logic part is on your left hemisphere.
The artistic part is on your right hemisphere.
The two hemispheres are connected by a bundle of tissues
called the corpus callosum.
We know that head injuries
that damage the corpus callosum
caused one part of the body to operate independently
from another part of the body.
There are medical examples of this dating back
all the way from the beginning of the 20th century.
SHATNER: The possibility of losing control of your body
due to a problem inside the brain
is undoubtedly terrifying.
But some experts point out that a similar phenomenon
also occurs in nature.
It's a bizarre infection caused by an invasive fungus
that takes over an organism's mind,
transforming them into real-life zombies.
There are strange accounts of insects,
and ants specifically, who kind of get overtaken
by this fungus called Ophiocordyceps.
And it goes into their system and it drills
through the exoskeleton.
It kind of gets into their bloodstream,
and it creates a kind of nerve toxin,
and it eventually kind of controls the ants.
Almost to the point where some of the ants
will then go and kill themselves
or climb up a tree and become completely useless.
We don't really understand exactly how
the fungus is manipulating the insects to want to do things
that is not in their best interest,
but it's clearly what's happening.
Insects are relatively simple organisms compared to a human.
And so, we can kind of write this off
as "just something that happens in the insect world."
But it does raise the question of, if a human was ever infected
with something similar, what would that look like?
There's an analogy that can kind of be drawn
between zombie insects and alien hand syndrome.
COLLINS: What's so worrying about alien hand syndrome
is that the hand itself seems to be
a separate personality
and is working against the individual,
almost as if it's possessed.
And if it can be possessed, is it possible
that this could be due to some kind of outside interference?
Could we possibly be taken over
by some kind of alien intelligence?
PAUL HYNEK: There's an outside force
controlling part of their biology, part of their body.
This may seem very strange,
but I'm inclined to believe that there are other forces
that affect our behavior that we really haven't discovered yet.
SHATNER: What will we learn about bizarre illnesses
that continue to defy explanation?
Some believe the answer has already been found.
Because according to a recent report, organizations
around the world appear to take the threat of potential
alien contagions very seriously,
including the United States government.
SHATNER: Here you'll find the headquarters
of the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON,
the largest and oldest civilian UFO organization in the world.
As part of its mission, MUFON has compiled
thousands of reports on UFO sightings
dating as far back as 1873.
And according to MUFON's investigators,
the data they've collected reveals
something quite shocking.
A significant number of people have reported
becoming seriously ill
immediately following a close encounter experience.
PAIGE: Being an investigator with MUFON
and talking with countless people
and conducting a lot of interviews,
there are some commonalities between these people
dealing with anomalies, or if people have encounters.
The obvious one is like the PTSD symptoms.
Just the feeling of isolation.
You'll often have a lot of symptoms
that are, uh, attached to maybe a radiation burn,
a radiation sickness.
Headaches is a big one. Hair loss.
Rashes.
Vomiting. Um, not being able to sleep.
Weight loss. These kind of things.
SHATNER: While MUFON investigates the connection
between UFO encounters and bizarre illnesses,
they are not alone
because this phenomenon
has also caught the attention of the U.S. government.
In 2022, a FOIA request revealed a shocking document
from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
titled "Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects
on Human Biological Tissues."
And according to the report, the United States government
is actively tracking mysterious illnesses
in people who've encountered anomalous crafts.
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency had this secret report
that was released with some rather astonishing revelations.
Revelations that people that have claimed to have
come down with diseases and malfunctions of the body,
have registered all sorts of illnesses
that seem to come out of encounters that people
have claimed with aliens from outer space.
REUBEN: This Defense Intelligence report is 1,500 pages long,
and it described ailments like headaches,
brain damage, nerve damage,
and something that's described as an unexplained pregnancy.
And so,
it makes sense that the Defense Intelligence Agencies
would want to know more about what could happen
when humans interact with organisms from someplace else.
PAIGE: I think it's important that this is studied
and looked at and taken seriously because
we're talking about the health of people here.
Disease, sicknesses, mental health, physical health.
And when you have this much evidence
and body of people that are suffering these ill effects,
then it needs to be taken very seriously.
So, if you look at the idea of aliens coming,
we have to imagine that the greatest threat
would be a disease they bring.
It could be a pathogen on their spaceship.
It could be something else entirely
that they were traveling with.
Even if they're super friendly, if we don't notice that
and take care of that, we could still be wiped out.
Obviously, it's pretty disturbing to think
that people are getting sick from interactions
with unidentified aerial phenomena.
And if it's true that the U.S. government
is tracking alien illnesses among the population,
let's think about the pressing question it raises,
should we be comforted or concerned
by what they've learned?
Either way, it's a stark reminder that,
even in the age of modern medicine,
we are vulnerable to a variety of maladies that,
for the time being, remain...
unexplained.
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