02x01 - The UFO Whistleblower

[bunniefuu]

[♪ mysterious music playing]

-I love UFOs.

And the reason I love
UFOs is 'cause I don't know

what they are.

-Hollywood has given us
three scenarios for our

first contact with an
alien civilization...

Invasion.

[expl*si*n]

The radio message
from outer space.

[electronic pulse]

And then you have the lone,
stranded explorer scenario.

Probably all 3 of them,
every bit of that, is wrong.

-Oh my God!

-The truth probably is
much more ambiguous and

much more puzzling.

-The US Navy has finally
acknowledged that videos

appearing to show UFOS flying
through the air are real.

[pilot] Oh, my gosh, dude.

-The lead pilot saw an object
zip right by his aircraft.

-It was white, pure white.

It had no windows, no wings.

-Like, what the
[bleep] was that?

-In the last few years,

we’ve gone from a
point where you couldn’t

touch this subject,
to a point where the government

acknowledges the videos
of UAP are authentic.

-Now, we have a duty as
scientists to explain them.

-More and more
scientists feel comfortable

talking about this,
and even investigating it.

-Most UAP sightings
are explainable.



The 2% is what matters.

-The hope is to find UAPs.

Where are they hiding
and why are they here?

-I had had a number of
very strange encounters.

They were so intrusive
and so physical.

-Alien abduction experiences
are a mystery to this day.

-So many times I wondered
what they saw in me,

it’s a profound question
to have for an entire life.

-Maybe these people have
a common brain structure.

Supposedly the government
has some things.

Let’s get the data.

-What do they have
inside the government?

What do they actually
know about UFOs?

And why can’t more be
released to the public?

-I think belief is too easy.

I think debunking is too easy.

I think the truth of the
matter is way more complicated

and way weirder.

-We get reports every night.

-I don't know
what the hell it is.

[overlapping radio chatter]

[♪ theme music playing].

-Americans will soon
learn more about UFOs.

The House Oversight Committee
will hold a hearing on

Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.

-It is going to be about
UAP whistleblower claims.

Sort of the first of its kind.

-If there’s one issue
that can bring Democrats

and Republicans together,
it’s UFOs.

-The House Oversight Committee
will hold a hearing on

Unidentified Anomalous
Phenomena, UAPS...

I prefer to call them UFOs.

We're going to get to the
bottom of it, daggummit,

whatever the truth may be.

-I’m about to walk into a
congressional hearing and

witness something that I
never thought I would see.

It’s the first hearing that
we’ve actually had witnesses

to events speak at.

Nothing like this has
ever happened before and

we don’t know what
they’re going to say today.

I've been writing and reporting
on UFOs for over 20 years.

And all during those years,

I was really up against the
belief that UFOs aren't real.

Saying UFOs are
real does not mean that

they’re alien spacecraft.

It just means these are real,
physical objects in our skies,

and we don’t know
what they are.

In 2017, I co-wrote a story
for the New York Times about a

secret program within the
Department of Defense that was

investigating UFOs and
no one knew about it.

-The groundbreaking article
that Leslie and I and

Helene Cooper wrote
revealed a secret

Pentagon unit called AATIP,
that investigated these things,

that according to
the government,

officially didn’t exist.

[Leslie Kean] The article also
included official Navy videos

of unexplained objects
that pilots were witnessing.

And we’d never seen
anything like that before.

-The New York Times unveiled
the existence of a real-life

X-Files Department...

[Leslie Kean] It was
an expl*sive article,

I mean front page
New York Times about UFOs.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
That article spurred an

enormous amount of
Congressional interest.

They redefined UFO to UAP:

Unidentified
Anomalous Phenomena,

to account for objects
that operate in space,

in the air, and
potentially underwater.

So Congress recognizes
that there is a major

national security risk of
unidentified objects passing

through restricted,
sensitive airspace.

After learning about AATIP,

Congress formalizes
the mission and forms the

UAP Task Force,

which then eventually
becomes what we have now,

the All Domain Anomaly
Resolution Office.

Leave it to the government
to come up with wonderful

acronyms and names.

AARO.

And that is the entity that
is now the official government

UFO analysis office.

-So, the 2017 article kind of
changed the climate on UFOs.

And then a few years later,

I was introduced to a
man named David Grusch.

He was an intelligence official
who wanted to come forward with

some very stunning revelations.

So Ralph and l wrote a story
for an online publication

called The Debrief and now,

two months after
the David Grusch story

was published, a House
oversight committee is holding

an open hearing and our
article helped pave the way.

People are lining up
outside the building to get in.

They flew in from all over
the place, even overseas.

How early did you
guys get in line?

-Uh, 3:30 a.m., 3:16.

-Incredible! Really?
-Yeah.

[Leslie Kean] There are three
witnesses being called today,

but the first person that
people really want to hear from

is whistleblower David Grusch.

-The subcommittee hearing on

Unidentified Anomalous
Phenomena or UAPs,

will come to order.

Mr. Grusch...

-Mr. Chairman, ranking
members, and congressmen.

My name is
David Charles Grusch.

I was an intelligence
officer for 14 years.

My testimony is based on
information I've been given by

individuals with a
longstanding track record of

legitimacy and
service to this country.

Many of whom...

[Leslie Kean] David Grusch
worked for both the

National Reconnaissance Office

and the National Geospatial-
Intelligence Agency.

He had very high clearances
within those agencies and

he was the representative
sent to the UAP task force

when it was in operation.

He started looking into the
questions of crashed retrieved

objects within various programs
that may have been hidden away.

He told us for our article that
he had evidence which he had

gained from 40 people he
interviewed at high levels,

that the government,

or some agency
within the government,

possessed craft of
non-human origin.

[Ralph Blumenthal] He was
talking about things that no

country on earth could produce.

Alien spacecraft, I mean,
there’s no other way to put it.

[Leslie Kean] He claimed that
he could not be shown the craft,

but he was shown
documentation, photographs,

and was able to gather very,

very specific information
from people directly involved.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff] He
alleges that the government

is operating a decades-long
UFO retrieval and reverse

engineering effort, illegally,

outside of the purview
and oversight of Congress.

[Leslie Kean] Oversight was
not being provided to programs

which were legally
required to have oversight,

and he felt it was his
obligation to report them.

-I have taken every step I can
to corroborate this evidence

over a period of four years
while I was with the

UAP task force

and do my due diligence
on the individual sharing it.

I became a whistleblower
through a urgent concern filing

in May 2022 with the
Intelligence Community

Inspector General.

-Mr. Grusch, why did you
come forward on this issue?

-Purely a sense of duty.

I first swore an oath when
I was a cadet 18 years ago,

and I still uphold that
even out of the uniform.

[Leslie Kean] During the time
that he gave the information to

the Inspector General,

he was under oath and
the ICIG had ruled that

what he told them
was credible and urgent.

-I was informed in the course
of my official duties of a

multi-decade UAP
crash retrieval and reverse

engineering program.

[Garrett Graff] A lot of
eyebrows went up both in the

room and people who
were watching that live

around the country.

As someone covering
national security in Washington,

I got interested in UFOs,

not as someone who
was raised on Star Trek,

but because I began
to see serious people talking

seriously about this subject.

UFOs are real, you know,

we know that there
are unidentified objects

in our airspace.

Even John Brennan,

the former CIA director,
has said, effectively,

"There's weird stuff
out there flying around.

We don't know what it is.
It puzzles me."

-I figure there can't
be that many things that

puzzle John Brennan.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
There's no question that the

government retrieves objects
that may have been abandoned or

recovered from adversaries.

[Garrett Graff] The US
government has had a UFO crash

retrieval program for 100 years.

UFO in this case though,

doesn't necessarily
mean alien spacecraft.

You know, this is how,
in World w*r II,

this unit was able
to get its hands on crashed

Japanese Zeros or
in the Cold w*r,

Soviet MIG fighters.

-Dave Grusch is alleging
something different, something,

you know, quite
more extraordinary.

Evidence of extraterrestrial
or off-Earth technology.

I think, you know, he presented
as a very credible person

in that he was an
intelligence officer,

he had security clearances.

So this isn’t somebody
walking in from the outside.

This is an insider.

-You say that the government
is in possession of potentially

non-human spacecraft,

do you believe our
government has made contact

with intelligent
extraterrestrials?

-That’s something I can’t
discuss in a public setting.

-If you believe we have
crashed craft as stated earlier,

do we have the bodies of the
pilots who piloted this craft?

-Biologics came with
some of these recoveries.

Yeah.

-Were they, I guess human
or non-human biologics?

-Non-human.

And that was the assessment
of people with direct knowledge

on the program I talked
to that are currently still

on the program.

[Garrett Graff]
Non-human biologics.

Effectively alien bodies.

You know, this is the
biggest possible secret that

you could imagine any
government really keeping.

[Leslie Kean] To be sitting
there and hearing members of

Congress asking these questions
in a very serious context

was just astonishing.

-But as I stand
here under oath now,

I am speaking to the facts
as I've been told them.

I am driven by a commitment of
both the truth and transparency.

I'm asking Congress to
hold our government to this

standard and thoroughly
investigate these claims.

I am hopeful that my actions
will ultimately lead to a

positive outcome of
increased transparency.

[Leslie Kean] The congressional
hearing in July of 2023

isn’t the first time that
we've had individuals advocating

for greater transparency
and trying to undo the secrecy

involved with the UFO issue.

[Garrett Graff]
Across all of human history,

people have seen strange
things in the sky.

We see this, particularly In
the early years of the

Flying Saucer era,

the late 1940s
and early 1950s,

as pop culture and
Hollywood movies began to

link the ideas of UFOs and
flying saucers with aliens.

And key among that interest
was a former military officer

named Donald Keyhoe

-Our first guest on
To Tell the Truth

is one of the world's
leading authorities on

unidentified flying objects.

What is your name, please?

-My name is Donald Keyhoe.

-My name is Donald Keyhoe.

-My name is Donald Keyhoe.

-Only one of these gentlemen
is the real Donald Keyhoe.

[Christopher Mellon]
Major Donald Keyhoe is one

of a number of people,

who encountered
the UFO issue,

were initially skeptical,
but the more they learned,

the more they began to realize
there's something going on here.

-Now they do come in
sort of different shapes

and sizes, right?

-Uh, the main...

...Most of the sightings
describe disk-shaped objects.

[Garrett Graff] Donald Keyhoe
was a respected

former military officer.

He gets interested in this
subject of flying saucers and

UFOs after being asked to
look into it by the editor of

True Magazine,

one of the nation's
leading sci-fi and paranormal

magazines of that era.

-Keyhoe had begun as
an airplane pilot.

Then a writer.

He began to write
for True Magazine.

In 1949, the editor
somehow learned that pilots

were reporting strange
things in the sky,

that the Air Force
was denying it,

and he felt this
needed to be looked at.

And Keyhoe,
because of his background,

was given the assignment.

-He particularly becomes
interested in the case of

Captain Thomas Mantell.

Mantell, a decorated Kentucky
Air National Guard pilot,

World w*r II veteran, is
dispatched to investigate the

sighting of a UFO over
the skies of Kentucky.

[Garrett Graff] Mantell spots
it in the sky and sends back a

series of radio messages.

[Garrett Graff] And then
all contact with him is lost.

[reporter] Mantell had
crashed 5 miles southwest

of Franklin, Kentucky.

Captain Mantell was k*lled.

[Garrett Graff] This is
probably the nation's first

UFO-related fatality.

It's only years later, the
Air Force puts together,

through, you know, various
military and Navy records,

that the path of a secret
research balloon would have

almost exactly matched
the path of the object

that Mantel encountered.

[Linda Powell] But for
Keyhoe and many others,

his crash has never been
adequately explained.

Keyhoe went to the Pentagon
and asked them about this

sighting but he didn’t
come away any the wiser.

[Garrett Graff] Donald Keyhoe
remained convinced

that the government
was covering up the truth.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
There's been a long history of

public perception of coverups
and nefarious activities

by the government.

That a very, very credible
individuals like David Grusch

are bringing back to the fore.

-Mr. Grusch,
are you aware of any individuals

that are participating in
reverse engineering programs

for non-terrestrial craft?

-Personally, yes. Mmm-hmm.
-Have you seen the spacecraft?

-I have to be
careful to describe what

I’ve seen firsthand,
and not in this environment,

but I can answer that
question behind closed doors.

-Okay.
And so, with that being said...

-The controversy surrounding
David and his testimony

is that he doesn't have
firsthand knowledge.

He has not seen
any such craft.

It's all secondhand.

-He would have very
legitimate bans on being able

to talk about so-called
special access programs that

he was a part of.

It could lead to jail terms
if you disclose knowledge of

classified material that
you are sworn to protect

and keep secret.

[Shane Harris] The question
of whether the government

has already
recovered evidence of

extraterrestrial existence
and is covering it up.

I mean, that's the part that
I'm just really skeptical of.

And even someone like
Dave Grusch, who again,

is a very compelling
witness by his own testimony

does not have
firsthand evidence of what he

claims to exist.

That does not mean
that he's lying.

It doesn't mean
that he's wrong,

but it's not the kind of
evidence that I think the

public is gonna need to really
believe that the government is

hiding existence
of terrestrials.

-I think everybody wants to
see that picture of that craft.

In Grusch's defense,

he had already provided
classified details such as

program names,
the people allegedly involved,

and the locations of where
craft apparently are stored,

in many hours of closed
briefings to Congress.

-Is there evidence
that there are aliens?

-No, not evidence
that would convince a

skeptical scientist, no.

There are people
holding their hand up,

swearing to tell the
truth in Congress.

That’s not how we establish
objective truths in science.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
But it wasn’t just David Grusch

making these allegations.

A former high-level army
officer who worked on the

UFO problem for
the government,

named Karl Nell also
supported Grusch's allegation.

[Karl Nell] Non-human
intelligence exists.

Non-human intelligence has
been interacting with humanity.

This interaction is not
new and it's been ongoing and

there are unelected people
in the government that are

aware of that.

David Grusch has
said the same thing.

David Grusch cleared for
presidentially level material.

So you're looking at people
that are in a position to know

this and they're telling
you the same thing.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
The Congressional hearing was

fascinating because there were
two narratives all about UFOs.

One narrative is that the
government is withholding an

extraordinary secret
from the American public.

And the other is the fact that
military aircrews and aviators

are observing objects,
not just with eyeballs,

but with multiple
sensors, radar, infrared.

-As we convene here,
UAP are in our airspace,

but they're grossly
under-reported.

These sightings are not rare
or isolated, they are routine.

-Ryan Graves was
there because he had been

reporting Navy sightings.

Some of the pilots in Ryan’s
squadron had been picking up

strange objects on radar and
actually had a near collision

with one of them.

After hearing about
these encounters,

Ryan Graves realized
that this was a safety issue.

And Commander David Fravor
was there as a witness to

the 2004 Nimitz incident,
the famous Tic Tac case,

which was one of
the best-researched

UFO cases ever.

He was a Navy pilot
flying off the USS Nimitz.

They’d been picking up these
fast-moving objects on radar.

He described it as
like a ping-pong ball

zig-zagging around,
no signs of propulsion.

-The Tic Tac object we
engaged in 2004 was far superior

to anything we had on time,
have today,

or are looking to develop
in the next ten years.

-I have a few questions
for Mr. Graves.

What percentage
of UAP sightings,

in your belief,
go unreported by our pilots?

-I would estimate
we're somewhere near



-So like 95%
basically don't report?

-That's just my
personal estimate.

In the late 2013-2014
time period,

that's when we first
started to notice that there

were other objects
in the area with us.

-Frankly, I was scared
that someone was going to hit

one of these.

And that's really what
pushed me over the edge

to speak publicly about this.

I knew this hearing would be
an extremely important venue

to be able to communicate
for all these pilots and

military operators that
had been reaching out to me

to share what they
had been going through.

Folks like Jeffery Nuccetelli,

a former security officer
at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

-Leading up to that hearing,

it's hard to describe
how I was feeling.

The anticipation,

I've been waiting for this
for it seems like my whole life.

To me, it was like watching
the biggest Super Bowl ever.

And then
Representative Luna brought up

the Vandenberg case...

-My next question would
actually be for Mr. Graves...

-And I literally
fell out of my chair.

I literally could not
believe it was happening.

-Can you please explain to
me in detail the event that

occurred at
Vandenberg Air Force Base?

-Certainly.

In the 2003 timeframe,

a large group of Boeing
contractors were operating

near one of the
launch facilities at

Vandenberg
Air Force Base.

-I was stationed there in 2003.

At that time it was part of US
Space Command and our primary

mission was to develop tests
and launch space assets.

Rockets and test technology
to defend the country against

incoming ballistic missiles and
other threats of that nature.

The day began as a normal day.

I showed up to work
and as I pulled in,

I could tell that there
was something going on.

Just all of a sudden everyone
starts to try to tell me this

story about a real-world
UFO event that had

occurred that morning.

-They observed a
very large red square,

estimated to be
almost the size

of a football field,

approach the base
from the ocean and

hover at
low altitude

over one of the
launch facilities.

This object remained for about


off over the mountains.

-Very quickly I realized,
you know,

that this is not a joke.

They're not pranking me,

that this is a real
event that occurred.

And then sometime after dark,

a radio transmission
came in over the net.

“Be advised, we have
strange lights over the ocean.”

-My name is Chaz King.

I was on duty the
night of the incident.

Probably between 12:00
and 1:00 in the morning,

we were all in the
intra-control facility,

which is kinda like
a big glass building

that oversees everything.

It started out
as, like, a big ball light

over the ocean
off the coast.

Everyone kind of
was like, okay,

sometimes we have planes
fly into the flight line area.

Just got our attention but
nothing out of the ordinary

until it started
to come towards

our position.

-I was getting ready to
jump in my car and head

to that location.

And then just all
hell broke loose.

The radio transmissions
start to pour in.

People started to scream.

-As it became
closer and closer

to our position,

you could no longer
see the light.

You could just
see a massive object

in the sky.

It stopped
and hovered,

right over
the coastline.

It was
so massive,

it was almost like a
football field long.

There was no propulsion
systems, no lights,

no audible sounds,

and it just
hovered there.

I remember
the five of us

looking at
each other,

kinda dumbfounded,
in disbelief.

There was excitement,
a little bit of fear,

a little bit of panic,
a lot of chaos.

[Jeffrey Nuccetelli] And
that's when it became very

difficult to hear
the transmissions.

These are people
I'd spent years with.

We were very close,

and they're not people
that are easily frightened

or intimidated, and
they were frightened and they

were terrified and they were
screaming for help over the net.

[Chaz King] After a few seconds
we kind of sprung into action.

That's what we're
trained to do,

but then it just shot
away up the coastline,

seemed like it was a
million miles an hour,

like it was shot out of a
cannon and then it was gone.

-Was this documented in
any official form whether

it was a police blotter?

-Yes, they had official
documentation and records from

the event that the witness
held over the years.

-So this is the
Security Forces blotter,

and this is the actual
record of the event.

The title is Patrol Response,
Unidentified Flying Object.

So that's how it was
officially logged, as a UFO.

[Chaz King] We
received a briefing,

the next tour of duty,

that it was an
unauthorized aircraft landing.

And I remember all of
us kind of looking at

each other puzzled.

One, it never landed.

Two, the airfield wasn’t
even open that day.

I know personally,
I can’t explain it.

I’ve never seen anything
like it in my life.

The way it hovered,
to make no sound,

to have no
propulsion system.

Our aircraft
don’t do that.

[Jeffrey Nuccetelli]
At the time,

I didn't know what
to think other than,

this is extraordinary.

We didn't have any kind of
protocols in place to deal with

an incident like that.

But we upchannelled
all the information that we had

to higher headquarters.

And then we would drive
around just trying to keep an

eye on the sky.

[Jeffrey Nuccetelli]
Me and the people that

experienced the
Vandenberg encounters,

we talked about
it pretty regularly for a while.

[Chaz King] Having conversations
with family members, friends,

“Do you think it was,
you know, an alien?

Do you think it was this?”

I can only describe that,

I've never seen
anything like it.

You’re always
looking at the sky,

wondering will it come back?

What was it?

And then, you know,


locked it away after being told

to just forget about it.

-Some people believed it,
other people didn’t.

And some people got
very uncomfortable.

And we realized, people really
don't know this is real,

and they think that we're,
you know, we're making it up.

After a while I really
just quit talking about it.

There was really nowhere to go,

and then I found the
Merged podcast with Ryan.

-Welcome to Merged.
I’m Ryan Graves.

I wanted to create a platform
where pilots and reputable

professionals could
discuss this topic,

safe from ridicule.

-I said, this guy seems like
someone that I can trust,

that will take me seriously.

And I stayed up all night
one night typing up emails.

It took a lot of courage,
but I hit that send button,

and I think within
hours he replied.

And then things moved
very rapidly from there.

Ryan introduced me
to some lawmakers,

and then eventually to
the investigators at AARO.

So I provided them all
the documentation I had,

I gave them additional
witnesses that they could

follow up on.

They're looking for
historical records that could

back up the story.

And they’re gonna find if
there is any radar data.

Vandenberg is
covered in cameras.

There might be some
video or still pictures.

Hopefully, they can get
enough information where they

can try to resolve the case.

-Jeff, thanks for
joining me today.

-Thank you for having me.
It’s a pleasure.

[Jeffrey Nuccetelli] I ended up
being invited onto the podcast,

and I thought to myself,

you know, what are
you doing, man?

You're getting ready to go
out in front of the whole world

and talk about UFOs.

We want the stigma reduced.

The big shift now are people
like you and some of the other

people that are,

have come out in
the open and be like,

these events are real.

They're happening.

We're in the fight now.

-One step at a time.

Well, Jeff, thanks
for coming on...

[Jeffrey Nuccetelli] I think
the more witnesses we can

encourage to come out,
especially if they have some

kind of data or evidence,

the stronger position
that we will be in to force

the government to disclose.

-Major Keyhoe, you will
agree that most people in the

United States don’t
believe in flying saucers

from outer space.

They probably hold the view
of Columnist Bob Considine,

who wrote that flying
saucers are products of,

for the most part,

"pranksters, half-wits,
cranks, publicity hounds,

fanatics in general,
and screwballs."

-Well I wish I could show
him at any time a list of

about 800 witnesses,

some of the
big names in aviation,

including up to the rank
of Colonel in the Air Force.

If they’re screwballs
and incompetents,

why are they still on the job?

[Leslie Kean] In the
late 40s and early 50s,

there were sightings
across the United States.

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

so government officials
were trying to figure out

what these objects were.

-The government set up a
series of research programs

charged by the Air Force with
investigating UFO claims and

trying to solve the mystery.

First was Project Sign,
then Project Grudge,

then Project Blue Book.

[reporter] Project Blue Book
investigated 12,518 sightings.

[Garrett Graff] With time,
these projects would end up

running for about
a quarter century.

-Donald Keyhoe was
interested in all sightings.

And of course, the project
Blue Book sightings were of

tremendous interest to him.

[Leslie Kean] Project Blue Book
would often issue very silly

explanations for cases that
did not seem to fit the case.

[Linda Powell] They were birds,
the planet Venus, a balloon,

seagulls were favored
as being the culprits.

-They ignored lots of cases,

they were not
respectful of witnesses.

-And the ridicule that was
piled on these individuals

afterwards is astounding.

-Of this great mass of reports,

we have been able,
adequately, to explain the

great bulk of them.

-But Keyhoe was very
direct in his criticisms of

the Air Force.

-They are simply following
orders to explain away all UFO

sightings as quickly as
possible when they become

public and deny that
UFOs really exist.

-Keyhoe put the absurdity of
the Air Force's explanations on

display for all to see and
I think by many accounts,

the number of reports actually
started to drop because people

didn't want to
subject themselves to

the public ridicule.

[Garrett Graff] So Keyhoe
becomes the driving force

behind NICAP, The National
Investigations Committee

on Aerial Phenomena.

Which becomes the
model for civilian

investigation into UFOs.

-Instead of being a subject
for ridicule, and a big joke,

actually it’s a serious
matter which could affect

the lives of all of us.

[Garrett Graff]
NICAP is conducting

its own investigations,
talking to witnesses,

as well as trying
to put pressure on the

government to release
the knowledge that it does

have about the
reality of UFOs.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
In many cases,

the Air Force didn't send
anybody to investigate.

They just took in reports
and stamped an explanation

on these incidents.

Whereas Keyhoe and
his organization,

they had investigators
around the country that met,

and analyzed a lot
of these incidents.

It’s an important
counterpoint to the Air Force’s

decades of saying,
“Nothing to see here.”

-I think that Project Blue Book
started off as a sincere effort

to try to get to the bottom
of what this phenomenon was.

But there was a sense in the
general public that there was a

coverup going on that they
were not telling us the truth

about what they
really knew about UFOs.

-In the mid-1960s,

the Air Force decided that
it would be prudent to have

an external academic review
of UFOs and the UFO cases.

And so in the mid-1960s,

the Condon Committee
was formed.

-Dr. Condon, do you hope to
find people from outer space

here on earth?

-Well I don’t know for sure
but we’ll try to just study the

reports and get as much
additional information as we

can to see.

-Dr. Edward Condon
was a physicist who had

a track record that
was quite respectable.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff] In
the years and months before

the final report came out,

Condon was on record
belittling the topic.

-Before the study even began,

he said in a speech
that the government should

get out of the UFO business,
there's nothing to it.

He later wrote the
authors of UFO books

should be horsewhipped.

[Leslie Kean] Condon is
actually on the record saying

that he didn't think the
Air Force should have anything

to do with UFOs, but, he said,

“I'm not supposed to make that
conclusion for another year.”

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
One of his staff members wrote

a memo that says,

the trick is to make
this thing appear objective.

And when the report
actually came out,

Condon wrote the
top-level conclusion.

[Leslie Kean] He wrote a
summary of his own report,

which basically said there’s
nothing to any of it,

it’s not worthy of
scientific investigation.

Whereas if you read the report,

there are many cases inside
of it that were not explained

and were stated as
such in the report.

-There are contradictions
in this report.

They state in the
beginning that all the

evidence is negative,

there is no evidence
indicating any reality of

UFOs as devices
under intelligent control.

However, in the report itself,
you will find numerous cases

which say that these,
apparently the object in there

was real and it looks as
though it could be a UFO.

[Linda Powell] Keyhoe
went all out to try and

discredit the report.

And he undermined
confidence in it,

but not sufficient
to overturn it.

-The government in 1969 closed
its official investigation

of UFOs with
Project Blue Book and said,

"There’s no alien craft,
you know, in the atmosphere,

end of story."

[Leslie Kean] In


and NICAP was really never
the same without his leadership.

-As for Major
Donald Keyhoe himself,

like most of us, he’s
never seen a flying saucer.

Which may just make
him like a mystic who’s

never seen a ghost.

But one must give him credit.

He has much faith.

[Linda Powell] Keyhoe was
always pushing at the door to

try and get disclosure.

He was permanently optimistic
it was going to come.

He never changed.

I think his role is
historically important.

It shows us how history
has repeated itself.

[Garrett Graff] In many ways
this feels like the same cycle.

Every 20 years the
government comes out with

a new report saying,

“We're definitely sure
that UFOs aren't aliens.”

As far as I’m concerned,

the government is
not engaged in some

large-scale cover-up
of alien spacecraft

and alien bodies.

But it does cover up
some chunk of the truth about

UFOs because the
government doesn't want to

talk about its own
secret research and

development projects or
advanced adversary technology.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
But the U.S. government will

now need to reckon with
some very serious politicians,

including Senate
majority leader Chuck Schumer,

and the UAP Disclosure Act.

This is a very serious, very
cautious politician proposing

some of the most extraordinary
legislation about UFOs that has

perhaps ever been seen in
the United States Congress.

-Is there anything else you
think that we can do with the

government to
encourage and facilitate

more civilian reporting?

-I think we're
doing it right now.

-Okay, great.

-I think this hearing is going
to show the American people

that their government
takes this topic seriously.

[Christopher Mellon] It's
easy in theory to say, well,

of course, you know,
transparency.

We should put
everything out there.

And I lean that way myself,
but I don't think we should

blithely assume that
it's an easy call.

If you’re the President
of the United States,

why do you want to terrify
the American public,

the world public,
with this information,

when we can't do
anything about it?

The markets are
gonna be rattled,

and your entire political
agenda is probably

gonna be overtaken.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
So with UFOs,

it’s not surprising that there
is some level of secrecy.

But in July of 2023,

in a move that
nobody really saw coming,

Senator Chuck Schumer,

along with Senator Mike Rounds
and a bipartisan group

of four other senators,

announced the
UAP Disclosure Act.

[reporter] Schumer is backing
legislation that would create a

commission with broad authority
to declassify documents

about Unidentified
Aerial Phenomenon.

-For a number of years,

members of the Senate have
questioned whether or not we

were getting all the
facts surrounding what was

actually going on with
unidentified flying objects.

Senator Schumer and I had
decided that what we really

wanted to do was two things.

Number one, provide a
central collection facility or

location with the
National Archives.

And then second,

we wanted a
board of esteemed,

capable individuals that
would actually look through

a lot of this material
and decide what could be

released to the
public and what should,

for national security purposes,
be kept private.

-The United States government
has gathered a great deal of

information about UAPs
over many decades but has

refused to share it
with the American people.

That is wrong,
and additionally,

it breeds mistrust.

-By allowing for an outside,

independent
collection of these records,

we can make progress
in terms of dispelling myths

and providing
accurate information to

the American people.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
Perhaps most shockingly,

the legislation made references
to non-human intelligence.

-Non-human intelligence.

That is what the actual
text of that amendment says.

-We’ve gone from a point
in which this entire topic

was not taken seriously
by the government.

And now Congress is
talking about the possibility

of aliens in legislation.

[Leslie Kean] Non-human
intelligence was cited in the

legislation at least


-What's impressive to me
is that it appeared at all.

-We knew that the
question was gonna be,

“Do you have knowledge of
non-human intelligence?”

We haven't seen that,

but at least we tried
to put it into statute to say

we want to get that
reported in the future.

-The truth may be out there.

But you won’t find it in
the annual defense bill.

The intelligence community
nixed provisions to declassify

what the government
knows about the unknown.

-100%. They just gutted it.
The gloves are off, man.

-Unfortunately, we didn't
get the whole bill through.

We did get it out
of the Senate,

but the House had a
different point of view.

They were more concerned
about the disclosure of items

that might be sensitive
to national security.

And they didn’t want to
make a big deal about UAPs.

-You had a very strong
amendment for government

transparency on this issue.

Whether you believe
my allegations or not,

this is a government
transparency issue at large.

I mean, total failure.

It’s one of the biggest
failures, probably,

in the history of Congress.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
Despite the House gutting some

of the elements of the
Schumer Disclosure Act,

President Biden signed into
law a very significant element

of that legislation.

-Basically, we got
part of the bill done,

and that was a central
location where material

would be archived,

but we didn't get
the disclosure board included.

So we’ll continue to
work on the issue.

-We will keep working,

I want to assure
the American people,

Senator Rounds and I
will keep working to change

the status quo.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff] We've
seen testimony from pilots,

we've seen the videos, we've
heard from the witnesses.

We're seeing, finally,

a true interest in
addressing this mystery,

solving this riddle,
and we should all be intrigued

by the unknown.

-I received a email on
the Navy’s secret network.

“Urgent safety of flight.”

The next day, that email
was wiped from my computer.

-There’s no doubt that
what we saw was the same

type of light formations
that were reported and

well-documented
from the ground.

-I can remember the
apprehension, the helplessness,

abject terror.

-Pilots are scared that if
they come forward individually,

they’re out the door.

But if we all go together,

the door’s not big enough
to get us all through it

at the same time.