- Tonight on "The Proof Is Out There,"
an Arizona UFO that somehow splits in two.
Is it tied to one of the most famous UFO incidents
of all time?
- Several people believe that this was a coverup
and something else was operating over Phoenix that night.
- [Tony] Where did this girl get the power to scale walls?
- It's incredible,
and it doesn't seem like it should be possible.
The internet actually nicknamed her Spider-Girl.
- [Tony] Is this remote island home
to a Bigfoot that can swim?
- Sasquatches do not fear the water at all.
- [Tony] And does this ancient pair
of footprints prove a giant walked the earth?
- For a person to make a 30-foot-long stride,
they would have to stand at least 60 feet tall.
[suspenseful music] [switch clicking]
- [Tony] Around the globe are videos.
- [Observer] What are those things?
- [Bystander] It's moving.
- [Tony] Photos and sounds that defy explanation.
[air squeaking] [suspenseful music continues]
- [Kirsten] We don't know where they come from,
who made them, or how they operate.
- [Tony] What are they?
- [Commenter] Some sort of bizarre mutation.
- [Expert] What's exciting is nobody really knows.
- Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.
[flame whooshing] [victim thumping]
- I'm Tony Harris,
and as a journalist for more than 30 years,
I've followed the facts where they take me.
Now I'm bringing that spirit of investigation
to the world's strangest sounds and images.
We'll analyze each one with top experts.
[vehicle crashing]
- It's a credible case,
it's a credible video.
- [Tony] And pass a verdict on what it is.
- This video was clearly faked.
- The proof starts now.
[suspenseful music]
Good evening, everyone,
and welcome to "The Proof is Out There."
Arizona is famous in UFO circles
for the Phoenix Lights incident of 1997,
but most people don't know that's only one
of several similar incidents reported
in the area over the years.
Are they connected and are they legit?
Check this out.
It's October 12th, 2004 in Phoenix, Arizona.
At around 7:45 PM, local resident Jeff Woolwine
has set up a camera to film the night sky
when he captures something out of this world.
His video shows a bright white oblong-shaped light
hovering in the sky.
Eventually the light begins to blink
and then remarkably it appears to slowly split apart,
transforming from one single object
into two separate entities.
Shortly after they break apart,
the two lights gradually disappear, one after the other.
[tape rewinding]
- It's amazing, you know, because you're out there,
and you're watching,
and these things just magically appear in the sky.
There's no airplanes dropping these things out.
There's no explanation on why these things are here.
- [Tony] Jeff says this is exactly
what he's spent years looking for.
- I've been seeing these Phoenix Lights
ever since I was a kid, and you know,
it really made me go on a quest to find out what
is really going on here in our Phoenix skies.
- [Tony] So since this is Phoenix, the big question is,
is Jeff's footage related
to the most well-known UFO sightings here ever?
Journalist MJ Banias takes us back to March 13th, 1997,
the night that would make the term Phoenix Lights
famous worldwide.
- Multiple people reported seeing very strange lights
hovering over Phoenix, Arizona.
They formed a large V-shaped object
that hovered for several hours.
Other reports circulated of individual lights moving
around Phoenix as well.
There's some photographs of lines of lights
that kind of show up in the sky.
- [Tony] At the time,
some felt the V-shape formed one massive craft,
estimated to be the size of more than 10 Boeing 747s.
With so many witnesses,
the government was forced to investigate.
- It took several months,
but eventually the US military confessed
that they were actually running operations over Phoenix.
The operation was known as Snowbird.
A whole bunch of A-10 aircraft were in the sky,
and they were testing out different models of flares.
- [Tony] But was that the real story or a cover story?
- Several people believed that this was a coverup
and that the military was essentially trying
to hide the fact that something else
was operating over Phoenix that night.
And Jeff believes that his video seems to show
that perhaps there is some sort of resurgence
of the Phoenix Lights.
[screen whooshing]
- It turns out Phoenix Lights
is actually a bit of a misnomer.
The first sightings in 1997 occurred earlier that night
near Henderson, Nevada,
nearly 300 miles from Phoenix.
So two separate events could have been conflated
into a single moment.
Either way, the question still remains,
is Jeff's footage proof that the Phoenix Lights are back?
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
Rich Hoffman of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies
begins by comparing Jeff's footage
with the reports from that fateful night in March of 1997.
- The Phoenix Lights were a triangular shape,
not two lights in the sky like this.
The residents were describing one structure
that was having multiple lights and this is like one,
so there's no comparison there.
- [Tony] Yet, even if this isn't related
to the Phoenix Lights,
how does one explain the mind-boggling moment
when Jeff's alleged UFO appears
to divide into two separate objects,
which then disappear?
Astronomer and video effects designer Marc D'Antonio
thinks he may know.
- Earlier in the video, it looks like it's just one object
because they're probably behind each other,
but later on as the objects move apart from each other,
it gets more and more elongated,
and then you start to see two distinct and separate objects.
So is this a splitting UFO
or is it two objects behind each other?
- [Tony] If it is two objects,
are they decidedly less exotic than alien craft?
- Are they balloons?
Are they drones?
Are they aircraft?
Well, this was 2004.
It's not very likely that they were drones,
unless it was some kind of military drone.
- [Tony] The main type of unmanned military aircraft
in use in 2004 was the remotely operated predator drone.
It's the size and shape of a small airplane,
which also doesn't explain how the lights on it could split
like we see in this video.
So does that mean we need to call this a UFO after all?
D'Antonio has his doubts.
- This was probably a launch of two sky lanterns.
- [Tony] A sky lantern is a miniature hot air balloon
made out of oiled paper and a wire frame
with an opening at the bottom for a candle
or other small source of fire.
- [Marc] The giveaway is that they vanish.
[graphics whooshing]
That's because the flame packets are fuel
and that fuel gets exhausted after a little while,
and when it gets exhausted, the flame goes out.
And that's just what we see here.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
- Our verdict?
This splitting object or objects remain unidentified.
D'Antonio's sky lantern idea is intriguing,
but how could they fly so close together
that they appear as one?
The original Phoenix Lights
and similar incidents in the Phoenix area in the 2000s
have been attributed to flares set off
by the military and others,
yet there are still those who are skeptical
of these down-to- earth explanations.
[graphics whooshing]
Since this show began,
we've been interested in a legendary beast said
to lurk in the depths of Canada's Okanagan Lake.
We have promised to stay on the story
whenever there's a new sighting caught on camera.
Well, it's happened again.
October 2020, Frind Estate Winery
on Okanagan Lake, British Columbia.
It's a really calm day on the lake.
Adam Schwartz and his family step onto a pier
for a scenic view of the water when Adam spots this,
an odd formation of waves undulating against the current.
Let's take a closer look.
You see what looked like humps here, here and here.
Schwartz thinks this may be the legendary monster.
- Well, there's no boats out here and, of course,
Kelowna and Lake Okanagan
is known for its sea monster,
the Ogopogo.
And everyone who's seen it on the news
or friends and family that we've shown it to,
think, oh, that looks very convincing,
like something's out there.
[eerie music]
- This is Lake Okanagan.
It has a long history and tradition
of lake monster sightings that go back centuries.
The local natives talked
about something called the N'ha-a-itk,
which was a great serpentine animal that lived in the lake.
- [Tony] These indigenous people
would even leave sacrificed animals in the water,
believing that allowed them safe passage from the monster.
According to Ken Gerhard,
the Ogopogo has more compelling photographic evidence
than any lake monster around the world.
- In fact, about a month earlier,
a couple sailing out on Lake Okanagan saw the head
of some type of strange animal
that almost looks like a dragon.
[camera clicking] - [Tony] In this photo,
you can see the creature's brownish tone
and what appear to be two horns jutting
from the sides of its head.
- Many of the descriptions of the Ogopogo include something
that has horns and will describe the head
as having a horse-like or sheep-like shape to it.
- [Tony] The majority of these Ogopogo sightings
are clustered in the months of September and October,
like this one.
Gerhard believes there's a good reason for that.
- It's important because those
are the peak salmon fishing months at the lake.
The salmon runs in British Columbia come in,
starting in June and July and August,
and then the salmon begin to spawn in the lake
in September and October.
So if this creature is feeding on salmon,
then it would make sense that there are more sightings
of the Ogopogo during those months.
[suspenseful music] [graphics whposhing]
- Fans of the show may recall that our experts were unable
to explain this alleged Ogopogo video from 2019.
Will they be able to solve this mysterious sighting?
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
Marine biologist Dr. Shea Steingass dives
into one of the prevailing theories
that this is just the result
of something called the thermocline.
- When different densities
and temperatures of water collide in a lake,
you can get these really large-scale disturbances
that appear to propagate through the water
and maybe look a bit like a sea serpent.
But this is a pretty calm day and being in a lake like this,
you would be less likely to have such a dynamic thermal wave
interrupting the water like we see here.
- [Tony] So could it be the legendary Ogopogo we're seeing?
Steingass is doubtful
due to the frigid temperature of the lake.
- Ogopogo is said to be 15 feet long or longer.
An animal like this would not be able
to the thermoregulate in Lake Okanagan.
When you look at aquatic animals and cold environments,
you often see what is known as a fusiform body shape,
essentially the body that's shaped like a football.
They have less surface area to warm up
and to thermoregulate.
A long, sinuous sea monster
would simply have too much surface area
that it would have to constantly heat.
It would simply be too cold.
- [Tony] And as for that horned creature
that was photographed a month earlier,
many have pointed out that if you look closely,
you can see what appears to be the head
and bill of an upside down duck.
And these horns are most likely just a pair of webbed feet.
So if the Ogopogo is a myth, then just what is this thing?
We turn to wildlife biologist Dr. Stephanie Manka.
- What I believe is happening
is that wind is hitting this part of the lake
and creating a wave effect and the wave is casting a shadow.
If there was an animal swimming and it came to the surface,
you would expect circles rippling.
We don't see anything like that.
So people think that they're seeing an animal in the water,
but really it's the shadow of a wave.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
- Our verdict?
We are calling this a visual effect created by wind.
So we did not find Ogopogo this time,
but there have been enough alleged sightings
to keep us on the hunt.
- Any superhero fan knows that once Peter Parker
was bitten by a radioactive spider, he became Spider-Man,
able to climb walls and catch thieves.
But that's all comic book stuff, right?
Certainly no one in the real world
could possess those abilities.
Well, this next video might change your mind.
It's July 9th, 2023 in Pingtan, China,
known as the County of Islands.
A mother and her children are at home watching something
on television when something
in their own living room steals the show.
The family's home surveillance camera is rolling
as one of the kids climbs onto the back of the sectional
and then makes her way up the wall,
perching herself in the upper corner of the room.
Another video, this one taken on a phone camera,
shows a closer angle of the eight year old
demonstrating her wall climbing talent.
- It's incredible,
and it doesn't seem like it should be possible.
The girl's mother uploaded the video
and the internet actually nicknamed her Spider-Girl
because what we're seeing here is very similar
to the abilities that Spider-Man has.
- [Tony] Some have even compared the video
to another alleged wall climber we've shown you before.
- That video shows a woman climbing a wall
and she's actually holding another woman by her hair
as she climbs.
And when the woman reaches the top of the wall,
she lets the other woman go. [victim screaming]
Our experts determined
that that video was a fake, thankfully.
This video, though, appears pretty authentic,
so maybe it is the real deal.
[graphics whooshing]
- If this girl keeps going,
she may one day scale the heights of Alain Robert,
also known as the Human Spider.
In 2015, Robert broke the world record
for most buildings climbed
after he scaled his 121st skyscraper.
So is this footage a fraud
or do this girl's wall climbing talents stick?
Let's find out what our experts think.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
First, is the video for real?
- As you watch, you can see the subject's reflection,
the way that the feet are positioned, the hand motions,
and even the hair all appear
to be consistent with one another,
so the video appears to be genuine.
- [Tony] Then, does this girl really
have spider-like climbing abilities?
To answer that, we need to know how spiders really climb.
- First of all, spiders are really light
so that works towards their advantage
because gravity is not acting upon them as much.
Also, they have small hairs on their feet
and those hairs have smaller hairs called setules,
and they form triangular tips.
And what happens is there's temporary forces
that form between the spider feet
and the walls called Van der Waals forces.
- [Tony] Named for the Dutch physicist,
Johannes Diderik van der Waals, who first proposed the idea,
a Van der Waals force is an electrostatic attraction
that occurs between molecules in extremely close proximity,
like a 25 millionth of an inch.
This is due to the positive and negative charges
within molecules attracting each other
like opposing magnets.
- These small hairs enable spiders to grip to surfaces
with a force 107 times greater than their weight.
- [Tony] But this girl clearly lacks a number
of these arachnid features.
- She doesn't have the tiny spider hairs
and her skin looks pretty smooth.
She's also not obviously as light as a spider,
- [Tony] So is there some other way she's defying
the relentless force of gravity here on earth?
Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku explains what he thinks
is actually going on,
and it has something to do with the location
where this was filmed,
on an island right off the mainland.
- Notice that A, she's small,
B, the amount of muscle mass per kilogram
is higher for small objects than for big objects.
The fact that they're near the ocean
and the air is humid helps to a degree.
If there's too much water vapor in the air,
then you slip and fall down.
If there's only a little bit, then you stick.
- [Tony] That's because the small amount of water sandwiched
between the girl's skin and the wall acts as a binding glue,
increasing the friction and causing the skin to stick.
- So the fact that she's small,
she's skinny and she sweats a little bit,
allows her to perform these feats
that a large person could never perform.
- [Tony] So while she may not be Spider-Girl,
her technique does bear some resemblance
to the arachnids, in principle.
- It's somewhat similar to what spiders do in
that her skin is resisting the wall
and becoming kinda like sticky to it,
but she has another wall to support her,
where spiders are just working
with the bottoms of their legs and the one wall surface.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
- Our verdict?
This is the result of the muscle mass on the girl
and the moisture in the air.
We don't have to test out
this girl's web spinning abilities
to know she's not exactly Spider-Girl,
but that doesn't make her talent
for wall climbing any less impressive.
- Syria is one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions
of the world,
but a mid-20th century archaeological excavation
has left some wondering if a giant human once lived there
who would've towered over most dinosaurs.
It's 1955 in the village of Ain Dara, Syria
on the east bank of the Afrin River.
An archaeologist has discovered
a 3,000-year-old Hittite temple
with stone sculptures of lions, sphinxes and mountain gods,
but among the usual carvings and sculptures
lie enormous imprints of mysterious origin,
two three-foot long human-like footprints emerge out
of the stone floor at the portico
where the temple once stood.
Another left footprint lies a few feet in front of the pair,
and a final right footprint
is embedded at the threshold of the main hall,
some 30 feet away.
- We don't see the right footprint
until the other side of this enclosure.
For someone to make a 30-foot stride,
that person would have to be at least 65 feet tall.
We have to wonder if these aren't some type of ancient gods
or giants that walked upon the earth.
- [Tony] Now, the Hittites were an ancient people
who first occupied what is now western Turkey.
They began expanding into northern Syria
and by 1340 BC,
became one of the most dominant powers in the Middle East.
And coincidentally,
godly giants were depicted in the Hittite empire.
- One of the biblical tales
is that fallen angels actually came down
and mated with human females,
and the offspring of this were known as the Nephilim,
half god, half man, very violent, large giants.
Is it possible that Ain Dara is one of the actual locations
where the Nephilim may have resided?
- [Tony] And Martell says that Ain Dara
isn't the only place where ancient gods
and their giant offspring once reportedly roamed.
- In Baalbek in Lebanon,
there are huge trilithon stones stacked to make a platform.
Across the globe in Mexico, we have in Teotihuacan,
large step pyramids that look as though they were built just
for the gods to walk down these large steps.
Many of these locations all seem
to have similar properties which speak to the idea
that at one point giants did walk upon the earth.
[graphics whooshing]
- In 1577, a large skeleton found near Lucerne, Switzerland
was interpreted as the bones of an ancient giant.
The skeleton measured about 19 feet tall,
but was later determined to belong to a mammoth
or some similar form of ancient elephant.
Yet these prints in Ain Dara can't be mistaken
for those of an elephant.
So let's ask our experts
to put their stamp on these enigmatic indentations.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
Anthropologist Kathy Strain says there is evidence that
giants once roamed the earth, but were they giant enough?
- In 1998, Emory University did a study
where they found this gene called the X lineage
and some believe that it leads to taller people.
In the 1800s, the Smithsonian was doing excavations
when they found some skeletons
that were roughly seven foot, six inches tall.
We know that there are other people in the eight foot range,
and so it's possible
that this X lineage does lead to taller people.
However, it's still not going to get you in the range
of 65 feet tall.
- [Tony] Archaeologist Dr. Ed Barnhart says
there's also something about these imprints
that just doesn't add up.
- There are really only four footprints.
If indeed this was made by some giant being,
we could track those footprints out much farther
across the stone than simply the last four steps.
And if it was actually a 65-foot-tall person
in a Hittite world,
there would be a giant temple with a giant tomb,
with a giant body.
I'm an archaeologist, show me the artifacts.
- [Tony] So were these footprints forged?
- To me these represents carved footprints.
They were meant to have the sense that the god
or the goddess is walking in, standing in their own temple,
and then walking to where they would sit to be worshiped.
- They are symbols
that a giant person had walked into this temple
to pray there or perhaps to be prayed to.
An archaeological site usually is hiding secrets.
Maybe there was something that would illuminate
what these footprints meant to the Hittite people,
but unfortunately in 2018,
the Turkish Air Force bombed the site.
[bomb exploding]
- [Tony] The temple was sadly a casualty
in a Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces
in northwestern Syria during the Civil War.
- And so, a lot of the site was ruined in that bombing
and we can't recover what's now lost.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
- Our verdict?
These footprints
are likely manmade symbolic representations.
Tragically, the remaining secrets of this site
are now lost to history.
- Is Bigfoot stalking the wilderness of Canada?
If that feels like a no brainer,
let me give you another one.
Is Bigfoot swimming in the waters of Canada?
That question might just be answered in our next video,
but the footage is still a mystery in itself.
While the true origins of this video remain unknown,
internet rumors suggest this footage
was filmed in Ontario, Canada, sometime in 2022.
Two boaters are recording their voyage when their camera pans
to the shoreline of an unpopulated island
and they spot something emerging from the woods.
It's large, seemingly uniform in color and bipedal.
Let's zoom in on the footage and slow it down.
The creature appears to be almost
indistinguishable in color
from the forest behind it
and it bears at least one striking similarity
to the most famous alleged Bigfoot ever caught on camera.
- It is leaning forward at the waist
about five degrees or so,
which is also seen in the "Patterson-Gimlin film,"
which is of course the best example
of the way a Sasquatch moves.
It quickly goes back into cover because Sasquatches,
is like all wild animals,
don't particularly like to be observed.
That mottled color to the fur
is actually a benefit if you're trying to camouflage
that would help it blend into its environment.
- [Tony] One wrinkle though, this is on an island,
and though most mammals are able to swim instinctively,
a notable exception is the great apes.
So what does Bigfoot think of aquatic activity?
- Sasquatches do not fear the water at all.
They've been seen swimming off of southeast Alaska
and wading through lakes in Minnesota.
They're very often seen foraging
for plants around the edge of water.
- [Tony] Another theory worth considering,
could we be seeing a hermit or mountain man
who has forsaken modern civilization
for a life in the wilderness?
- There's a certain type of person
that lives in far-flung corners of the continent,
whether it's Ontario or Alaska,
the type of person
that doesn't wanna be around other people,
a lot like Sasquatches.
These people like very often live alone
in a very rough life.
So is what we're seeing in this particular footage
just a glimpse of one of these hermits living off the grid
and perhaps wearing fur
to stay warm in such harsh environments?
[graphics whooshing]
- Perhaps the most famous American hermit was Chris Knight
who spent 27 years living in the woods
and stealing from homes in the North Pond area of Maine
until his arrest in 2013.
So what are we looking at here?
A criminal on the land, a Sasquatch out for a swim,
or something else?
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
First, let's start with a simpler theory.
Ontario's black bear population
is the second largest in North America,
and we know they can swim.
Could that be what we're seeing?
- The hair color kind of matches
with what you would think of a bear.
However, even though bears
can walk on two legs for a short distance,
the legs are shorter.
So I can safely rule out that that is a bear.
- [Tony] If it isn't a black bear,
could it be a person simply living off the grid?
- The gait and how it walks is very human-like.
It's got two arms that swing as it walks,
just like what humans do,
and the proportions of the legs
to the arms look correct for humans.
- [Tony] But anatomy is one thing, covering is another.
- I can't see anything like clothing,
belts or anything like that.
So I can conclude that it's not wearing clothing.
What we are seeing is something that has fur or hair.
Because it's covered head to toe with hair,
we can rule out that it's a human being.
- [Tony] Professor of anatomy Dr. Jeff Meldrum
explores the idea that this could be a Bigfoot
that swam to the island.
He says it's true great apes can't swim instinctively,
but some have learned.
- There are examples of apes that have learned to swim
and frequent swimming pools, even utilize aqua lungs,
clear regulators and swim in the deep end of the pool.
It's really quite fascinating, the potential that they have,
that possibility does exist amongst the great apes as well.
- [Tony] However, for Meldrum,
the issue isn't the swimming, it's the walking.
- The thing that concerns me is the gait.
The stoop seems overly exaggerated.
It doesn't have that natural spontaneity
that we see in the "Patterson-Gimlin film"
where the subject does in fact lean forward
about five degrees consistently.
This looks like a very self-conscious stoop
as if it were encumbered with artificial feet
and on an uneven surface.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
- Our verdict, it's not a hairy Bigfoot or a hermit.
We're calling this a hoax.
It's this kind of stuff
that gives serious Bigfoot research a bad name.
On the other hand, it makes doing this show a lot of fun.
- In 2010, an airport in China was shut down
for more than an hour
after air traffic controllers saw what they believed
to be a UFO buzzing around.
Chinese officials later denied the incident even happened,
claiming it must have been military exercises.
But can that be said for this next Chinese incident?
December 19th, 2022.
It's a clear night in Ordos City,
located in China's Inner Mongolia region.
Suddenly something appears in the sky above
that grabs everyone's attention.
One man points his phone up and captures this.
- A large spotlight in the shape
of an upside-down jellyfish seems to expand
and take over the heavens.
In its center, a bright cone of light descends right here.
Underneath it, a tadpole-shaped beam,
like a small lightning bolt, appears frozen in time.
What is this thing?
- We did have plenty of speculation
regarding this phenomena being some sort
of extraterrestrial event.
- [Tony] Some believe China's UFO story begins
with a set of disks found near the Tibetan border
called the Dropa stones,
which allegedly are 12,000 years old
and tell the tale of an alien spaceship crash.
Today, like the United States,
China has its own investigatory body
for unidentified aerial objects.
It's run by the People's Liberation Army,
or PLA, China's principal military force.
- According to the PLA,
they refer to UAP,
or unidentified aerial phenomena as UAC,
or unidentified air conditions.
- [Tony] So what did the PLA
have to say about this sighting at Ordos?
- There is limited intelligence
because China is keeping it very close to its chest
and not releasing very much about it.
- [Tony] Banias notes that silence has led some to wonder
if instead of a war of the worlds,
we should worry about a conflict much closer to home.
There's been speculation this could be connected
to some secret Chinese space weapon.
It wouldn't be the first.
- Space, just like any domain, is going to be a battlefield.
One particularly interesting weapon that China has developed
is the Shijian 17 satellite.
Essentially it's an object that has a grappling arm on it
and grabs onto the adversarial satellite
so they can de-orbit the satellite making it unusable.
Fundamentally, this could very well be used
as a weapon should somebody need it to.
[graphics whooshing]
- What have we got here?
So far the only peep we've heard from the Chinese government
came through the local Inner Mongolia Weather Bureau,
which said it was not a weather phenomenon.
Will our experts reach the same conclusion?
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
We begin with military aviation expert Tim McMillan.
By the end of 2022, there were nearly 7,000 satellites
in orbit around the earth,
and on average one falls back to earth every week.
Could it be a crashing satellite like the Shijian 17?
- No, for a couple of reasons.
One being a satellite as it reenters the Earth's atmosphere,
you're gonna see that same level of motion
that you would expect from a shooting star.
But we don't see anything
that resembles that in these videos.
- [Tony] Then, is the object a candidate
for what the PLA calls an unidentified air condition,
what we call a UFO?
McMillan has a hunch we're seeing something very much
from this planet.
- To be honest with you, if I walked outta my house
and saw this in the night sky, I'd probably freak out.
But there are telltale signs
that as otherworldly as it looks,
this is gonna be a manmade object.
We can tell from the video here,
these bright plumes are actually calls from an interaction
between different gases in the Earth's atmosphere.
All of the characteristics point to it,
very likely a multi-stage rocket,
which is why we see the kind of differing variances
of light there.
- [Tony] Astronomer and video effects designer
Mark D'Antonio agrees, and sees even more clues.
- To me, this is the early smoke trail rising in the air,
and then as it gets up higher, we're looking up into it.
- [Tony] D'Antonio notes that smoke trail
has the hallmarks of an exhaust plume,
specifically from a rocket.
- Then the rocket changes perspective
and looks like it changes its angle of attack.
It's now heading more toward the horizon,
toward the horizontal.
- [Tony] In fact, he believes it all adds up
to a rocket launch.
- So in the anatomy of this, we have the beginning plume,
we have the later plume of the launch,
and then we see here this is where it all emanates from.
- [Tony] As for the type of rocket this could be,
D'Antonio offers a theory.
- I think that it's one of the ICBMs, which stands for
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.
- [Tony] ICBMs can have a range of over 3,500 miles
and are primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery.
According to news reports,
the People's Liberation Army
began building an ICBM test site
in nearby Ordos City in 2021.
If this is an ICBM test,
it could mean that site is now fully operational.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
Government secrets are tough to crack, especially in China.
Our verdict?
All we can say is this is a Chinese rocket launch,
but what was it carrying,
a satellite, some new kind of space weapon?
For now, that's unknown.
- In earlier episodes, we've featured videos from Italy
of oddities in the sky that couldn't be easily explained,
but this next clip may be one of the most compelling
to ever come out of that ancient land.
Take a look and you'll see what I mean.
In the early 2000s,
journalist Paola Harris is handed a mysterious videotape
with an alleged UFO sighting.
Paola isn't told any details about the recording,
including when it was filmed.
All she knows is that it took place near the town
of Aviano, Italy.
- We didn't get the name of the photographer.
There was no return address,
so I didn't know what I was getting until I got home.
- [Tony] And when Paola plays the cassette,
she is shocked by what she sees.
An aerial craft shaped like a saucer flies gracefully
along what appears to be a riverbed.
As the UFO gets closer to the camera,
we see it appears to have several vents
and flaps on its oval body.
- It's a pretty big object
and it's very clear it's a classic disc
and it almost had like lights
around the circumference of it.
- [Tony] Then, after hovering for a few seconds,
we see the craft start to move again,
before quickly zooming off into the clouds.
Writer MJ Banias says Italy
has a long history of UFO sightings.
In fact, in June 2023,
former intelligence officer- turned-whistleblower David Grush
made a startling claim.
- David Grush believes that the Vatican
was responsible for the coverup of UFOs.
He makes the claim that in 1933,
there was a UFO crash in Italy and the Italian government
as well as the Church
essentially attempted to hush it up
and secure the downed object.
- [Tony] And when it comes to UFOs near Aviano,
this wouldn't be the first.
- There is a bit of history with Aviano and UFO encounters.
- [Tony] The area is home to a NATO air base.
And on July 1st, 1977,
an air force guard observed a strange craft
hovering over the base,
which housed two secret jet fighters in a large hangar.
- This particular object had a sort of dome-shaped top.
It was emitting multiple colored lights
and it was 45 meter in diameter about the size
of the Navy Pier Ferris wheel in Chicago.
- [Tony] A team of military guards
and radar personnel purportedly tried
to capture that aerial object, but when they did,
they were hit with a mysterious power outage
and the craft disappeared.
But what about this craft
seen hovering over the river near Aviano?
Is it an alien encounter with a military base?
[graphics whooshing]
To date, the Aviano footage has garnered nearly eight
and a half million views on YouTube.
A number of netizens have identified the location
as somewhere near this bridge,
which crosses the Ceolini stream.
But let's see what our experts think
about what this thing really is.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
We begin with military aviation expert Tim McMillan,
who points out this UFO flying over the river
may not be as alien as you think.
- That particular shape is not exclusive
to the UFO alien kind of lore.
And in fact, going back to the 1930s,
the flying disc or lenticular design,
was already identified
as really being an exceptional aerodynamic shape.
- [Tony] One of the most well-known
saucer-shaped machines is the Avro Car.
It was developed as part of a US military project
carried out in the early years of the Cold War.
- That particular program never got off the ground,
both figuratively and literally.
The Avro Car was only able
to achieve a few feet off the ground
for just several moments.
And there's a more recent attempt at this
with a smaller drone called the ADIFO,
which integrates fans
and then also a rotating jet engine on it
to try to replicate this flying saucer flight.
- [Tony] As the footage was taken so close
to a military base,
could this be some sort of early-2000s military craft?
Well, hold on.
McMillan notices something off about the footage.
- One of the major problems that I see is the fact
that this object is flying really close over the surface.
Just imagine a helicopter that's flying extremely low,
that should be generating
significant displacement on the ground.
We don't see that there.
How is it able to hover over without having any type
of external effect on the ground?
- [Tony] Rich Hoffman
of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies agrees,
there's something not quite right here.
- You don't have an original video
and you don't have metadata or anything to go on.
Could I create CGI to look like this?
The answer is yes, I could.
- [Tony] For Hoffman, the most suspicious parts
of the video occur at the end.
- When I saw the object become that indistinct line or blur,
to me that suggested it was like more
like a CGI type of an artifact.
And I'm giving you the illusion
that it's taking off at a very fast clip.
- [Tony] With the red flags flying,
we head to our video forensics expert, Michael Primeau.
- We don't know where this file came from,
structural attributes
to be able to say whether
or not it's a genuine recording.
With the reduction in the quality it becomes challenging,
because we can't see detail.
- [Tony] But surprise, unlike Hoffman,
Primeau doesn't detect the use of any special effects.
- No evidence of CGI,
no evidence of third party editing applications.
But again, those things can be stripped
and anti-forensic technology essentially can be introduced,
in which case the result
of this authentication is inconclusive.
Without more information about the chain of custody,
we can't opine as to whether or not this actually occurred.
[suspenseful music] [letters clicking]
- So this thing remains unidentified
and it is certainly flying,
but we're not certain if this is even an object
or just a video hoax.
And with the ongoing military presence at Aviano Air Base,
something tells me
we'll be seeing more anomalous incidents there
in the future.
And that's our show for tonight.
Thank you so much for watching,
and keep those cameras rolling.
[suspenseful music]