02x03 - Scientists on the Cutting Edge

[bunniefuu]

-Well, the flying saucer myths,

there’s not a single verified

or checked-out report
which is at all connectable

with the possibility
of extraterrestrial life.

It’s all very pseudo-scientific.

-Ufology is a mythology that’s
based on superstition wrapped

inside a fairy tale telling a
story that’s simply not true.

-There of course has been a
stigma towards the scientific

study of UAP/UFOs.

This is something that
has been, essentially,

taboo for many, many decades.

To talk about this as a
scientist may have been

considered professional suicide.

-Maybe you can just
set up, you know,

the term 'abduction'.

-I don’t wanna talk
about abductions.

-If you could give an
overview of the major high

watermarks of gathering
anecdotal [evidence].

-Yeah, that’s what I
don’t wanna talk about.

-Okay.
-Can we skip these questions?

-Sure, sure. Sure.
-Oh, god.

Do I really want
to say anything?

-Oh, I’ll tell you
something off-camera.

-Okay.
-Okay.

-Since 2017, and the
articles that were published

in the New York Times,

it was an occasion
when more scientists became

aware that Unidentified
Aerial Phenomena could

justify a scientific
investigation.

-We are now no longer
talking about whether

there are UFOS/UAP.

The question now is,
what are these things,

and where are they coming from?

-We don’t know what
these things are.

I mean who couldn’t
be interested in this?

-We are trying to
bring this subject to the

mainstream of science.

Look forward to identifying
the unidentified.

-One of my
colleagues asked me,

“Why are you
studying these things?

Why would you do
this to yourself?”

And I said,

“This really could be
the biggest discovery

in human history.

And as a scientist, I
can’t walk away from that.”

[♪ theme music playing]

-We get reports every night.

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

-It's rotating right around it.

[♪ theme music playing]

-Anomalies are
observations or phenomena

that resist explanation in
terms of prevailing beliefs.

Anomalies are often
not immediately taken

seriously by scientists.

A really good example
of this is meteorites.

For centuries, it was
denied that rocks fall

from the sky.

This was a phenomenon that
was presumed to be magical

in some way.

It was widely ridiculed.

And then in the last few
decades of the 1700s,

there were mass sightings and
there was material recovered

and a physicist by the
name of Ernst Chladni looked

at almost 20 cases and
he concluded from this

that this phenomenon
is actually real.

He suggested that these
rocks are actually coming

from outer space.

And so that discovery
overturned a widely held idea

that interplanetary space
is completely empty.

And so part of the challenge
of scientists is to push aside

all of the popular
explanations in order to

acknowledge the
phenomenon itself is real.

So in the case of UAP,

these phenomena really
seem to fall outside of

what we expect.

And so myself and other
scientists have advocated,

simply for the study
of the phenomena.

Let's try to detect it and
let's try to characterize it.

-2017 really started it all.

There was a lot going on.

You have the New York Times
article where we learned that

the Pentagon had been
studying UFOs for years and

later there was the release
of the three Navy videos,

which were interesting
and exciting.

You really had this
realization that you know,

oh my God,
some aspect of this is real.

For me, as a scientist,

what’s interesting is that
the more you get into this,

the more unbelievable it gets,

which makes you wonder
what’s really going on.

My name is Kevin Knuth.

I'm a professor of physics
at the University at Albany.

I mainly focus on
studying exoplanets,

planets orbiting other stars.

But I also do some work
related to the physics of UAPs.

These are clearly
anomalous things that we

don't know what they are.

And that's, that's exciting.

But I had never seen a UAP
and I didn't have equipment

to go look for them.

So I just started reading up
on them and learning about

what has been observed.

So, I learned about the
AATIP Program and that our

government had
been studying UFOs.

They defined five
"observables," they called them.

Five characteristics
that were unique to UAPs.

One of these was
transmedium travel,

the ability to travel from
one medium to another,

air to water typically.

Another one is
instantaneous acceleration.

So these things go from
zero velocity to an extremely

high velocity in a
very short period of time.

Another is a hypersonic speeds.

That's the ability to fly
through the air without a

sonic boom or a fireball.

Another is low
visibility or cloaking.

These objects can kind
of fade away or disappear

and reappear again.

And finally, no
apparent propulsion.

So objects that are able to
fly and we don't know how.

Those are very
strange behaviors that we

really don't understand.

And so I thought maybe I can
apply what I've done most of my

life to cases to try to
learn something about UAPs.

I focused on the Nimitz 2004
incident because of all of the

data that was collected.

-In November of 2004,

I was a Navy Commander
Super Hornet Pilot.

We were flying, we were
training our aircrew.

The USS Princeton is using
their radars to direct us.

The ship came up
and said, "Hey sir,

we're going to hold
on training today."

They said, "Hey, we got
real-world investigation.

We got an object."

They said, "We've been
seeing these things on radar.

We have no idea what they are."

To investigate they turned us
off to the west and they asked

what kind of weapons
we have on board.

So we're kinda doing this,
looking around to see where

it's at because it's somewhere
around you and you don't know.

And I looked out,
I go, "What is that?"

And I saw a long
cylindrical white object:

no windows, no wings,

no visual signs of
propulsion roughly 40 feet long,

that looked like
a giant Tic-Tac.

And this thing was going
like this and I describe it

as like if you put a ping-pong
ball and it was bouncing

off a wall.

And as I come up I can
see him as he's crossing

in front of me,

it starts to accelerate,
gets right on my nose,

and disappears.

[Kevin Knuth] The Nimitz case
was quite interesting because

I could somewhat
reliably estimate

accelerations and speeds.

The radar operator had
been noticing that there were

objects that would appear
on his radar and these objects

would periodically drop
from 28,000 feet to sea level

in .78 seconds.

I mean, you're looking at
dropping five and a half miles

in less than a second.

And if you work through this,

you find out that the
accelerations are

on the order of 5,000 times
the acceleration of gravity,

which is extremely high,

that’s extremely
high acceleration.

So, I mean,
the F-35 fighter,

the wings will rip off
at only 13 and a half Gs.

And we're looking at
something like over 5,000 Gs.

The altitude and the time that
it took for this maneuver were

all estimated from the radar
data and we learned about that

through speaking with
the radar operator.

Every time the pilots were
being directed to one of these

objects, they actually
encountered an object.

And of course, there was
the video that we all saw.

So that is evidence that the
radar wasn't malfunctioning.

So these are real objects
doing real things.

If the data we have
already is accurate,

they're clearly
going faster than most of

our spaceships travel.

Could they be interstellar
spacecraft being able to

get up to that speed?

Yes, they could be
interstellar spacecraft.

It's really quite shocking.

I was always interested
in UFOs as I was in space.

I was 12 years old when
Star Wars came out,

so that had quite
an impression on me.

And around that time we
had a TV show In Search Of

with Leonard Nimoy.

And there were often
stories about UFOs in that,

which were intriguing
and interesting.

[Leonard Nimoy] They’ve
been seen but fleetingly.

And their extraordinary
presence creates

a frightening mystery.

[Kevin Knuth] Of course
I was skeptical and

I'm still skeptical,

but you can't be
skeptical to the point of

shutting down conversation
and shutting down

exploration and study.

That's potentially dangerous.

You know, especially when
you hear from the Navy.

When the Navy's concerned,
it's a different issue.

-So I think when the Navy comes
out and says it's anomalous,

I'm going to take
them at face value,

it means it's unexplained.

But the possibility that
one of our adversaries has

next-generation technology
also has to be explored.

[Kevin Knuth] While it's
possible that they could be the

craft from a foreign adversary
or experimental craft,

it's hard to believe that
if that were the case,

that they wouldn't be used.

They would be incredibly
useful for the military.

Performing these calculations
from the Nimitz case was far

more anomalous than what I
expected the results to be.

The speeds and accelerations
were just unreasonable.

Not only could these
be interstellar craft,

but they could be
excellent ones.

These are huge discoveries
that could have a huge

impact on humanity.

These are something that
we really should understand

what they are.

Of course, you get much less
data than you would hope for,

which makes it much
harder to study.

[Adam Frank] So when it comes
to doing scientific studies of

UFOs and UAPs, I have
no problem with that.

We just need better data.

Understanding why UFOs
have been sort of outside

of science for so long really
comes down to a single term,

"standards of evidence,"
which I consider to be the

most important and most
boring topic in the universe.

Science only works
because we have very,

very rigorous standards for
what we consider to be evidence

that supports a claim.

The Navy pilot videos are
only gonna take you so far.

The problem with them,

is those cameras are
not scientific instruments.

That's not what they
were designed for.

We don't know whether,

was this instrument
just refurbished,

what kind of software
does it have?

And you know that's not
the way you take data.

You could do the same thing
about radar and how often there

can be problems.

You know, the whole point of
science is you have to be able

to control your instruments.

What needs to happen for
true scientific investigation

of UAP phenomena is you
build your own instruments.

You start from scratch, and
you design a research program,

and let's see where it leads.

[Alex Delacroix] Hi, Avi.

-Hi, Alex.
So, you are there already?

-Yes I’m on site.
-Okay we are driving now.

My name is Avi Loeb
and currently,

I am leading the
Galileo Project that was

established at
Harvard University for

the scientific research of

unidentified
anomalous phenomena.

I'm a theoretical
astrophysicist,

I started my career studying
the first stars and galaxies.

Now, I'm also interested
in the question of whether

UAPs are real.

We’re heading to Pigeon Run,

which is the code name for
the Galileo Project observatory,

which is the site
where we get data.

If there are any UAPs
out there we’ll see them.

The Galileo Project was
funded by generous donations at

a few million dollars.

What we needed is an
observatory that monitors the

entire sky all the
time with fully controlled

scientific instruments.

This is the scientific approach.

At the same time,

there is pushback from
the scientific community

to such studies because it
goes against the status quo

of saying we are alone,
we haven’t seen anything.

There are billions
of other stars in the

Milky Way galaxy alone.

By now we know that a
substantial fraction

of all stars,

maybe a quarter of them,

have planets like
the Earth where liquid water

may exist on the surface
and the chemistry of life

as we know it may blossom.

And so the interesting
question is are we alone?

[reporter] The ultimate
question, yet unanswered...

...are we
alone in the universe?

A Harvard astronomer theorizes
it’s possible we are not.

[Avi Loeb] On
October 19th, 2017,

the PANSTARRS telescope in
Hawaii discovered an object

that moves very fast.

And it was given
the name 'Oumuamua.

-‘Oumuamua was a very exciting
event for astronomers.

It was the first time we’d
ever seen a object coming from

outside the solar system that
was just passing through.

And so what we expected
was that it was going to be

a comet or an asteroid.

But then Avi Loeb said,
you know this could be an

interstellar artifact,
an artifact of technology.

[reporter] When Harvard
professor Dr. Avi Loeb

suggested the new discovery
could be a sign of

extraterrestrial life,

it created a rift in the
academic research community.

[Avi Loeb] 'Oumuamua
was discovered by the

PANSTARRS Telescope in Hawaii.

They found it was the
size of a football field.

And what was peculiar
about it is that it was most

likely flat in its
shape based on the

reflection of sunlight.

And moreover, it was pushed
away from the sun by some

mysterious force without showing
any cometary evaporation.

So the question is what was
pushing it away from the sun?

My explanation to the
unusual propulsion of ‘Oumuamua

was that it was pushed
by reflecting sunlight.

For that to be the case,

the object had to be
very thin like a membrane and

nature doesn't
make such objects.

-Avi Loeb came out
questioning whether it

might be some kind of
an alien artifact and

not a natural object.

There was an outcry among
the scientific community

because for them this
was an outrageous claim.

There was a lot of pushback
on Avi Loeb for daring

to draw that kind of conclusion.

[Adam Frank] People who were,
you know, experts in comets

were able to postulate
that it was perhaps a comet

made out of frozen nitrogen,

which, if it was outgassing,

making jets would be
very difficult to detect.

[Avi Loeb] One suggestion
was put forward that it may

be a nitrogen iceberg
chipped off the surface of a

planet like Pluto that has
solid nitrogen on its surface.

But we've never
seen nitrogen icebergs

in the solar system.

[Leslie Kean] Avi Loeb
said that basically,

they were just taking one
anomalous possible explanation

and replacing it with another
anomalous possible explanation,

and he didn't believe that
that was the right one.

For Avi Loeb the question
of what ‘Oumuamua actually was

was never
definitively determined.

[Adam Frank] One problem
with ‘Oumuamua is it

came through and it left.

So we only had a little
while to collect data.

And if your claim is,

“We're being visited by
aliens from another planet,”

you're going to need
data to be able to even get,

you know, a
fraction of the way to

supporting that claim.

[Avi Loeb] To me, that
was a very fair question to

put out in the
scientific literature.

I thought it will inspire us
to collect more evidence and

encourage future data
collection on

objects like ‘Oumuamua.

The only way for us to
arrive at the truth is

by collecting evidence,

and that’s why I established
the Galileo Project.

-Hello Alex, how are things?
-Oh pretty good.

-PTZ’s working? Connected?
Or-

-Yes, yes it’s working.

I’m going to fine-tune
it and do some tests.

-Okay, excellent.

-My name is Alex Delacroix.

My background
was mechanical engineer

at Cal Tech in
astrophysics

designing astrophysics
instruments.

So I design most of the
instruments that are here

and I’m assembling them,
maintaining them.

This is a direct view
from the visible camera.

You can really increase
the size of the image and

see exactly what it is.

This was a satellite
tumbling as an example.

So it’s a pretty
powerful instrument.

[Avi Loeb] It took two years to
assemble all the instruments,

which include the radio
sensors and an acoustic sensor

that detects sound
from the skies.

-We hope to find the unknown.

To be able to characterize and

give a definition
of the object that people

have seen for years.

It's extremely exciting.

It’s difficult to stop working!

[Alex Delacroix] So the
data we’re collecting here

transferred to
Harvard for analysis with

our AI system that Richard
is developing with the team.

-We're using artificial
intelligence to sort through

the data because it just
wouldn't be feasible to have

people sitting there watching
the cameras entirely for 24/7.

Humans are error-prone.

So by having artificial
intelligence look at our data,

rather than humans,
it's quicker and also

it's more reliable.

At the moment the
models are very good at

just picking out objects
in the sky and tracking them.

And we are in the process
of developing our models to

actually differentiate known
objects from unknown objects.

And allow for things like,
is it a bird?

Is it an airplane?
Is it a balloon?

And from that we'll be able
to properly analyze whether

it's something that's
behaving in a way that is not

typical of known objects.

[Avi Loeb] We're training the
system to report back whether

there is anything anomalous,
anything that looks unfamiliar.

So far we haven't seen any,

but we are just
at the beginning.

The goal is to build telescope
systems and distribute them in

many geographical locations.

We are currently assembling
a second one in Colorado.

And my hope is that
within the coming years,

the observatories of the
Galileo Project will be able to

tell if there is anything out
there that appears anomalous.

A number of reporters
recently gave me the title of

the “Alien Hunter.”

I don't care
how you call me.

If a question has
huge significance for

the future of humanity,
you cannot ignore it.

-Avi Loeb is far from the
first scientist to have been

ridiculed for studying UAP.

I'm Jacob Haqq Misra.
I'm an astrobiologist.

And as a scientist,

I sometimes do get a little
perplexed why there's not more

excitement about this
UAP topic because there's

something we don't know.

It deserves study until
we figure out what it is.

What got me interested in
taking this seriously was when

I learned about
James McDonald.

-In my opinion,
the UFO problem is the

greatest scientific
problem of our times.

[Wesley Watters]
James McDonald was an

eminent atmospheric physicist.

And as an
atmospheric scientist,

he was especially well-equipped
to interpret and

understand UFO reports.

Especially anything related to
atmospheric optical phenomena

like sun dogs.

He was very familiar with
weather balloons and thought

very deeply about how
mirages, for example,

how high they could
be above the horizon.

-McDonald was meticulous
and he actually took the time

to look into the cases
from Project Blue Book,

the official longest-term
Air Force analysis of UFOs.

[James McDonald] My
study of the problem leads me

to take the position that

there has not been
application of the best

scientific facilities available,

adding up to inadequate
UFO investigations.

I take, as an example,
the Lakenheath case on the

east coast of England.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
Lakenheath is one of the most

bizarre UFO cases in history.

In August of 1956, two
separate radar stations

tracked multiple UFOs.

Objects moving at


conducting very, very
strange maneuvers.

Formations of objects
bunching up into one object and

then moving off at rapid speeds.

That happened on three
separate occasions.

[James McDonald] There
was a C-47 pilot at 4,000 feet

over the field

who, concurrent
with the radar,

saw a bright object
move below his aircraft from

west to east.

From that time on,
both radar and visual

observers were available.

-So this case was
particularly noteworthy to

McDonald because it
contained all the elements that

we hoped for, for
a good UFO case.

There were numerous
pilots that saw these.

There was both ground-based
and airborne radar

that captured these,

so multiple modes
of collecting data.

If, according to McDonald,
Project Blue Book had been

adequately staffed with
scientists who were approaching

this with the kind of
rigor that he was doing,

maybe he would've
learned something more,

instead of just
dismissing this as a case

that could be explained.

So to McDonald, this is one
of the truly puzzling cases,

that should have received much
more attention than it did.

[James McDonald] To regard
this as anything but a problem

of considerable
scientific importance,

I think will be to miss
something that we've already

missed far too long.

-Many people say that, okay,

there is no evidence for UFOs,
why are you wasting your time?

But it's a catch-22.

If nobody ever puts in one
hour into this research,

we will never get the evidence.

It's time to think of
alternative ways of searching

for UFOs around the earth.

[Beatriz Villarroel]
So the Galileo project,

they're looking for everything
that passes on the sky.

They are looking also
inside our atmosphere.

My project is very different.

I'm looking very deep
into the solar system by using

these old photographic plates.

My name is Beatriz Villarroel.

I'm an astronomer.

I work at the Nordic Institute
for Theoretical Physics

in Stockholm.

I lead the project where we
are looking for identifiable

signatures of alien spaceships.

[Jacob Misra] There are
a lot of efforts in the search

for life elsewhere
that are based on

new technologies and
collecting new data.

But there is also a lot that
could potentially be learned

from archival sources of data.

Perhaps the discovery of
extraterrestrial life is

already on some
photographic plate and

we just haven't
looked at it right.

[Beatriz Villarroel] The
first thing I used was images

from the Palomar Observatory
in the early 1950s.

In the past, when one was
taking images of the sky,

one had these big glass
plates and one put it in

the telescope and let
it expose an image for

maybe 50 minutes.

Like films.

So we started
studying these plates.

I was sitting
with 24,000 images and

I looked them through,
one by one, myself.

Then I found that we had
one image where nine objects

seemed to appear and
vanish within one hour,

which was completely crazy.

Because a star is not
going to appear and vanish

within one hour.

That’s completely unthinkable.

When I first found
the nine transients,

I thought that
something must be wrong.

A transient is a short-lived
astrophysical phenomenon that

you see is something
that changes.

Like a supernova is a transient.

A comet is a transient.

[Jacob Misra] One of
the values in the approach

Beatriz is taking,
using historical plates,

is these are astronomical
observations of the sky before

the satellite era.

This is before Sputnik launched,

before we had anything else
artificial orbiting the planet.

So if you find evidence of
some sort of transient object

in the sky during the
early 1950s,

it can't be a
human satellite,

so what is it?

[Beatriz Villarroel] So we
started studying this case and

we started doing all kind
of tests to see what could be

wrong with the image.

We were worried that
this could be some kind

of plate defects.

Let's say some kind of
scratch on the plate.

The thing with these plate
defects is that they usually

have random shapes,

there is no reason why
they would get a perfect

starlike shape.

It can happen maybe once.

But our issue was that
we had nine of them.

It seems pretty unlikely.

And we have kept finding
examples of these interesting

images of transients
and vanishing objects.

So here we see three stars,

looking just like any
other of the bright stars

in the same field.

They're there, and you can’t
see them if you compare to the

other image that is taken later.

More excitingly and more
recently we found our

absolutely best candidate for
Alien Probes around the earth.

So what you see here are
five flashes of light.

And if you look there,
they're not seen later.

But they are also lying
along a narrow stripe.

The probability to find five
random objects lying along this

stripe is one in 10,000.

If it's along one line,

it could in principle
be one object.

Something that is moving.

So it's a quite
interesting image.

It's a very unlikely alignment.

We have to rule out every
astronomical phenomenon we

could think of like comets,
asteroids, supernova.

[Jacob Misra] The biggest
criticism of Beatriz’s work is

that it’s very, very
difficult to explain what it

is you’ve found.

So if you’re left
with something that

you can’t understand,

and you perhaps
have extraordinary hypotheses,

like maybe these are
extraterrestrials,

maybe they are.

But how do you know?

How do you follow up on
an observation that was

taken over 50 years ago?

[Beatriz Villarroel]
Photographic plates capture

one single image.

And we want to have multiple
images of the same phenomenon

before we can
claim a real E.T. probe.

But there’s two fun
coincidences when it comes to

the dates of these transients.

So the triple transient happens
on the 19th of July, 1952,

and a second from the


They coincide with one of the
most famous UFO flyovers called

the Washington DC flyover.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
In the summer of 1952,

over two consecutive weekends,

was perhaps the most
significant wave of UFO

sightings in U.S. history.

[Beatriz Villarroel] Air
traffic controllers could see

multiple mysterious objects
moving on their radars.

And also, there
were many witnesses,

like pilots and stewards,
that saw mysterious objects.

The US Air Force held a
press conference to discuss

the “flying saucer” invasion.

During this press conference,

they said that everything
were misidentifications.

And this was based on the
interpretation of an astronomer

called Donald Menzel.

[Donald Menzel]
A layer of warm dry air

will bend the
radar beam back to Earth.

This was what
happened in Washington

in 1952.

[Jacob Misra] Donald Menzel
was a scientist who worked with

Project Blue Book,

and he took it to be one
of his personal tasks in

his career to challenge and
debunk many of these UFO cases.

Menzel and McDonald definitely
went head-to-head many times.

[James McDonald] Dr. Menzel,
I cannot agree with the

optical, physical,
astronomical principles.

I do not believe they represent
scientifically sound analyses.

[Donald Menzel]
It’s time that we put an end

to chasing ghosts, hobgoblins,

visions and hallucinations.

And as for the true believers,

bless their little hearts,

let them go on
believing in UFOs,

fairies, or Santa Claus,
if they want to.

[host] Mr. McDonald,
you have been highly critical

of your own government's
attitude towards UFOs.

-Indeed, indeed I have, yes.

I've taken a very good look
at the American official

investigation program,
Project Blue Book,

run by the Air Force, and
I have quite unequivocally

described it to scientific
colleagues back in the States

as "superficial
and incompetent."

[Jacob Misra] As McDonald
became more interested and

especially vocal in his
advocacy for studying UFOs,

it definitely led him to
a professional isolation.

He received not just pushback,
but ridicule and harassment.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
In 1971 he testified in front

of Congress, not about UFOs,
but about dangers

to the Ozone Layer.

[Wes Watters] McDonald
was one of the very first

atmospheric scientists
worried about the Ozone Layer.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff]
One of the members of

Congress asked, basically,

“If you believe in little
green men and flying saucers,

how can I take your
testimony on the depletion of

the ozone layer seriously?”

-This completely
discredited his testimony.

And in science your
reputation is everything.

Ultimately, his funding sources
were attacked and taken away.

[Jacob Misra] It did
not take a good toll on his

mental health, arguably.

And unfortunately, he
died at the age of 51.

He was found in the desert
with a g*n and what appeared to

be a suicide note.

We can only speculate as
to what was really going

on in his head.

I think there were some
things going on in his

personal life that
may have been a factor.

But of course,

when you face
significant pushback from your

colleagues for doing
what you believe is acting

in integrity as a scientist,

one can only imagine
that that might have been

at least a factor in what
led him to such a terrible end.

For scientists who
believe that there is

something to be studied,

McDonald, he created
the template for how to do this.

And he inspired scientists
to talk about things,

even if there
might be backlash,

there might be stigmatization.

[Garry Nolan] This
is a turning point.

And there’s a whole expanding
field of scientists who agree

that the data is interesting
and worth following up.

[♪ whimsical music playing]

-The objective here is to
bring people like this together

to legitimize and
professionalize your ideas.

[Leslie Kean] The SOL Foundation
is a research think tank

set up by Professor
Garry Nolan and his colleague

Peter Skafish,

to pull together some of the
best thinkers and scientists

who are looking
into the UAP issue.

[Garry Nolan] I think the
SOL Foundation is meant to be

an agent of change.

Here you now have everybody
realizing that it’s possible to

talk about this and that
they’re not going to be booed

out of the room.

My name is Garry Nolan.

I'm a professor in the
Department of Pathology at the

Stanford University of Medicine.

I’m a laboratory scientist.

I’m a practicing scientist.

My laboratory focuses largely
on biology in cancer and

autoimmune diseases.

[Leslie Kean] Some
scientists have been looking out

into the universe, or
even in our own atmosphere,

to try to study UFOs.

Others are focused on
collecting materials from sites

where UFOs have supposedly
either crashed or landed to

just try and understand the
nature of the material that is

associated with the craft.

-How do you get
involved in UFOs?

-So it was actually
rather unexpected.

Around 2012, I got a knock
on my door in my office at

Stanford and there
were these two gentlemen

standing there
outside from the CIA and

a aeronautics corporation.

They started talking about
UFOs and they wanted my help.

To be honest, at the time
I thought it was a joke.

I actually thought it
was a Candid Camera moment

of some sort.

I kept looking around to
see if there was a camera

somewhere else pointed at me.

But they were serious,
and uh, deadly serious.

I couldn't get them to
laugh about anything.

They had heard that my lab had
made one of the deepest immune

profiling devices in the world,
the mass spectrometer.

[Jacob Misra] With
mass spectrometry,

you essentially can analyze
samples and figure out what

atoms and what
molecules are in that sample.

Is this something we know
or is this something unusual?

-What the CIA wanted from
me was help in understanding

the blood of people
who had claimed that they

had seen UFOs to
help them understand what

had happened to these people.

But as I got deeper
and deeper into it,

it became pretty clear that
several of these patients,

these events had happened
to them up to a decade before.

And so there wasn't
gonna be anything I would be

able to find in the blood.

But as I developed a
relationship with these

individuals from the CIA,

they started saying,
“Okay, well, we also have

these materials that
supposedly some of these

craft had left behind.

What would you do with them?”

[Leslie Kean] Garry Nolan's
mass spectrometer can analyze

the composition
of blood samples,

and it can do the same
thing for non-biological

physical materials.

After Garry got involved with
doing some of these studies

with the physical material,

he met Jacques Vallée
because Jacques Vallée had

been interested in the
very same thing for decades.

-Welcome back to On the Record.

Dr. Jacques Vallée is an
astrophysicist who provided the

inspiration for the character
of the French scientist

in the film,

Close Encounters
of the Third Kind.

[speaking in French].

[translator] This is a
small group of people...

[speaking in French].

[translator] Who have
shared a vision in common.

-Look...

[Garry Nolan] Jacques Vallée is
probably one of the best-known

thinkers in the area
of anomalous phenomena.

[host] You are
something of an anomaly,

I mean a real scientist
who's studying...

-Well, there are a few of
us, there are a few of us.

Most of them stay underground
because they don’t want

to put their jobs in jeopardy.

-Tell me how long you have
been looking at UFOs, UAP?

-I’ve um lost um
lost count of that.

My background has been
mostly in computer science.

I've built about 15
different databases on UFOs.

And I've investigated
cases all over the world.

And I started gathering
materials or metals that were

deposited around encounters
with UFOs and UFO observations.

[Garry Nolan] That mass
spectrometer and the ability to

measure metals was I
think what triggered Jacques’

interest because he
had these metals and

it was like, "Well, okay,
can you help us analyze

these materials?"

So Jacques, start
with the new cases.

-There was an
observation of a large,

bright object close to a road.

Now we, we have the
actual material.

[Garry Nolan] He came with
some simple materials at the

beginning and as
the results started

getting more interesting,

he brought some more
interesting materials to study.

Like the Council Bluffs story,
as an example.

In 1977, Council Bluffs, Iowa,

at least three groups
of people saw a object

or at least lights
that were in the sky,

and something appeared
to drop from the object.

[Jacques Vallée]
There were 11 witnesses in

three different locations.

All their views converged
over that particular spot.

And then the people who
were in the park itself found

that there was
a mass of metal.

It was melting.
It was red.

[Garry Nolan] Somebody along
the way called the police.

And the police arrived
very quickly thereafter.

Jacques did get a piece
of the material from one

of the witnesses.

And he got the original
photographs, the Polaroids,

from the police.

So, you know, I mean,
that's about as good as it gets.

[Jacques Vallée] So how do
you get a half a ton of molten

steel falling from the sky?

That's what we have to explain.

[Jacques Vallée] The
case of Council Bluffs,

it's certainly an
interesting whodunnit.

Now at the time
people thought it could be

a satellite reentry.

So this escalated to
NASA and to the Air Force.

Everybody was
on the same team,

which is very rare.

All the hypotheses
were looked at in detail

by professional investigators.

So the first thing
they thought it might be

was a Russian satellite,

but satellite debris is not
molten when it gets to ground.

-It was clear it wasn't
a meteor because a

meteor doesn't leave pools
of molten metal on the ground.

A meteor leaves a hole.

-So all that was
eliminated one by one and

then NASA and the Air Force
gave up their investigation.

So this was perfect for
Dr. Nolan to start looking

because we knew
this was a real case.

-And so we start analyzing
what it's made of.

-In 2021, Garry Nolan and
Jacques Vallée published the

results of their study.

And they were able to
present some unusual properties

of this material.

[Garry Nolan] In the
Council Bluffs event,

the material on the
ground was incompletely mixed

which is strange
because for instance if

you’re making cement
you add all the constituents and

then you mix them thoroughly
because if they’re not

thoroughly mixed
you’re gonna get cracks.

That’s a flaw in
the structure and then

the thing will break.

-You don't find partially
mixed compounds being

used for industrial purposes
and especially not out in the

middle of nowhere dropping
off of some kind of object

in the sky in a molten state.

The fact that it's
incompletely mixed just makes

it even stranger.

[Garry Nolan] The objects
are not just natural.

The objects are
manufactured in some manner.

Part of some industrial process
that had engineered them.

Now there've been all kinds
of attempts to disapprove it,

even recently, somebody
claiming it was just a hoax.

Well, could somebody have
carried this much metal here?

What's the closest
foundry where such metal

might be produced?

There was none
anywhere nearby.

There were no railway
cars that had gone nearby.

There were no tire tracks
anywhere nearby that would show

that it had been dumped.

I'm not saying that it
proves that it's a UAP.

These are just all
intriguing data points.

And so I want to study as
many materials as possible.

We’re actually setting
up standardized testing,

basically creating a
federation of other scientists

who can analyze the
data freely available.

I can’t look at everything
and know the answers but I

want to get the data
out there so everybody can.

[Jacques Vallée] I think there
is a lesson there that you don't

want to be alone
raising the issue.

You have to build
a coalition first,

and I think that's
what we're seeing now.

We can have a coalition
of scientists,

but one man is not
going to get anywhere.

Dr. McDonald was a
single scientist and he was

essentially dismissed, didn't
really get a real study going.

[Kevin Knuth] But the impact
that James McDonald had is

important because
he advocated for a

scientific approach to UFOs.

They should be
studied in detail,

with multiple types
of instruments,

which is what we're
trying to do today.

There should be multiple
disciplines involved such as

physics, chemistry, biology.

[Garry Nolan] With
the UAP phenomena,

the alternative
explanations are narrowing,

are being reduced.

And that to me is exciting
because if the answer is that

these things are not from here,

that's an even bigger
turning point for humanity.

-I saw this bright white light.

I suddenly felt weird.

And I felt like my
skin was on fire.

I remember thinking,
"Oh my God, I'm dead."

-If you talk to experiencers,

their story’s going to
get really weird really fast.

-I can remember being
levitated out of the car.

-When you’re sitting
with an experiencer,

it feels like there has
been something traumatic

that has happened.

[Leslie Kean] When you
have a mystery that big,

it’s valuable to study it.

There’s a lot that can be
learned from experiencers.

-I looked up, and all
of a sudden I’m like,

I’m on a UFO.