01x04 - File: Goverment's UFO Conspiracy

[bunniefuu]

[sparse tense music plays]

[man] I got outta bed one morning,

and I couldn't bear weight

on my right leg,

and my knee hurt.

This was in October of 2012.

I told my wife,

"You need to take me to the hospital

so I can get my leg checked out."

The radiologist asked me,

"Have you been in an accident?"

And I said, "No,

I've never had any injury to that knee."

And he says,

"Well, there's an artifact here."

And he put the X-ray up on the light box,

and he pointed it out to me.

Square little structure in my knee,

about the size of a fingernail,

with two wires attached to it.

And I said, "That's inside my leg?"

He said, "Yeah."

"But but you don't have a scar."

[dramatic music plays]

Just the visual of seeing the X-ray

and finding out that it's under my skin

without an explanation

just ramped up my anxiety.

And then I started having nightmares

of something that actually happened

to me decades ago,

a replay of somethin'

that really happened.

While I was in the Air Force,

I went camping with a friend.

- [energy pulses]

- And I'm just having fun.

Until I see these lights

flashing at odd intervals,

and a UFO the size of a Walmart

appears over us.

From dead center of this thing,

there came a milky white light

that took me inside the ship.

And I'm screaming as loud as I can,

and then I was out, unconscious.

I woke up to the flashing

yellow, orange, and white lights

outside the canvas of the tent.

I'm thinkin', "What is this?"

[theme music plays]

[ethereal music plays]

- [woman] Oh my God.

- [man] What is that?

[narrator] Over the years,

countless videos of strange lights

and objects in the sky

have been shared and re-shared

on social media.

But in April of 2023,

Pentagon officials surprised the public

when they announced

they were tracking over 650 reports

of unidentified flying objects and lights,

a drastic increase from recent years.

Many of these reports,

under official investigation,

have been submitted by military personnel.

While the sightings

seem to defy explanation,

some say the government has known more

about these types of events for decades.

[planes whirring]

[man] During World w*r II, pilots began

to see what they called the Foo Fighters,

sometimes overseas in the Pacific

and European theater.

[theremin music plays]

[narrator] Foo Fighter was the name

given to formations of orange lights

seen moving at high speeds.

[Chris] Things really picked up

in and around Los Alamos, in New Mexico.

Scientists, security personnel,

civilians, military pilots

All kinds of people were seeing

these unidentified flying objects.

So at that point,

the Air Force began to study it.

There was ultimately Project Blue Book.

[narrator] The project had two main goals.

To analyze UFO data,

and determine

if these unidentified objects

were a threat to national security.

So with the public and civilians

reporting these things,

there was a tremendous amount of activity.

[officer] I am here to discuss

so-called flying saucers.

The Air Force interest in this problem

has been to identify anything in the air

that may have the possibility

of threat or menace to the United States.

They amassed over 12,000 sightings,

were unable to explain over 700 of them.

This was becoming

almost national pandemonium.

There were articles

with block letters this big

about UFOs over the capital.

Hundreds of reports

of strange objects in the sky

have been filed with the Air Force.

They ultimately were not able

to resolve this

and wanted to get this off their plate.

So the Air Force commissioned a study

which reached the conclusion

they wanted it to,

that there's nothing of interest here

for science or national security,

even though the data

contradicted that conclusion.

And they walked away from it.

[interviewer] The Air Force

has been accused from time to time

of hiding information about UFO.

What do you have to say to that,

Col. Tacker?

Those charges are absolutely untrue.

[Chris] To this day, people report

a wide range of experiences, interactions.

There are people

that have reported wounds and illnesses

from being in close proximity,

which provides evidence

that they were affected

in some very real way,

as a result of some experience

or encounter that they had.

In 1977, I was a non-commissioned officer.

I was a staff sergeant,

and stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base

in western Missouri.

I was trained as an EMT,

and I worked with my friend Toby.

You know, we socialized together

on the weekends.

And he says, "Hey, I got an idea.

Let's go camping."

[suspenseful music plays]

June 11th, 1977, we exited the base

and drove south.

Toby said, "Well, there's supposed

to be this piece of high ground."

I had never been down there,

and, uh, it was amazing.

We found it right away.

We set up the camp,

and we're chatting back and forth,

and then, uh

[mysterious music plays]

Not only did it get quiet, it got still.

And Toby has his head turned to the left,

which would've been toward the west.

He says, "Hey, Terry,

were those lights there before?"

And I'm like, "What lights?"

You know, we're in the middle of nowhere,

there should be no lights.

So I take a step back.

And on the horizon,

there was a triangle

made of very bright stars.

They were all the same luminosity.

The three stars rotated clockwise

about 120 degrees.

I think that what we were looking at

was a triangular-shaped craft,

and it was clear

that it was coming in our direction.

And this thing did a complete somersault,

and it did that twice.

The exterior of the thing

was about the size of a Walmart,

several stories in height,

and there were windows,

and there was light

pouring out of the windows.

From dead center of this thing,

there came a light

about same diameter as a softball.

And it was a milky white light,

and it landed

square in the middle of our campfire.

[energy pulses]

I don't know how, but Toby and I both

were inside this triangle thing.

Now, I open my eyes and I'm thinkin',

"Am I dreaming?

What is this? What is this place?"

But it felt too real to be a dream.

It wasn't a dream.

I know it wasn't a dream.

I had heard Toby screaming,

'cause I recognized his voice.

But I can't move.

I can't turn my head.

I can't lift a finger.

The only thing I can move is my eyes.

I saw a line of six or seven beings.

They wore tan-colored flight suits

with an orange patch on their shoulder.

The guy in front

was doin' something on a panel.

[beeping]

And they took me down a long corridor

to a white room with a domed ceiling.

And there was

a pretty standard-looking X-ray table.

There were two beings in the room,

and they were seven-foot tall.

I got this clinical, medical vibe

from them.

I didn't think they were gonna k*ll me.

I thought they might hurt me.

Uh, and they did.

And then, uh, I was out,

in a deep sleep.

And I woke up

to these orange and white flashing lights

outside the canvas of the tent.

So I wake up and I

I kinda don't have my wits about me.

I turn to my friend Toby, and I'm like,

"Toby, what's out there, man?"

He didn't really give me

a coherent answer,

and I was just absolutely terrified.

[gentle intriguing music plays]

It was 45 minutes before dawn,

and we watched this thing take off.

And then we're both sitting in this tent,

still scared to death.

And Toby's like,

"We gotta get outta here."

"Let's make a run for the car."

On our drive back from Devil's Den,

we were both hurting,

and we were both severely dehydrated.

This was right at dawn,

and the light from the morning sunshine

was just killin' my eyes.

I was just terribly photophobic.

When I got home,

I didn't even know what to tell my wife.

I wasn't even sure what had happened.

Both of our wives took us

to Whiteman Air Force Base Hospital

because my wife is like,

"What happened to you?"

I said, "I I don't know."

"I woke up like this."

When the doctors asked me what happened,

I had no idea what to tell them either.

It was difficult

to make sense of it back then.

[ominous tone plays]

I found out that I had

what they call flash burns.

It's a sunburn to the cornea of your eye.

It's the same injury

an arc welder would get

if they didn't wear

that hood with the smoked glass.

It was very painful.

It was treated.

I spent several nights in the hospital.

The doctors kept the lights off

in the room,

and they put this salve in my eyes,

and, uh, came in with an injection for me,

for pain and to help me sleep.

On the third night,

OSI agent,

from the Office of Special Investigations,

came in my room.

And he walked over to my bed

and he put his hand against the door,

and he got down right in my face

and he said,

"Son, I know and you know

you two knuckleheads

stumbled onto something out there,

and I think you know what I mean."

And I didn't know how to answer him.

I had no clue what had happened,

but he knew I saw a spaceship.

[mellow music plays]

[narrator] When Terry is released

from the hospital,

he is given orders

by his commanding officer

to never discuss what happened

that night at Devil's Den with anyone,

and to cease all contact with Toby.

They cut orders for Toby to go to Japan,

and they cut those orders at light speed.

I mean, he was gone in a matter of weeks.

And I was thinkin'

that if I could say goodbye to this guy,

that would kind of give me

some element of closure to this.

I decided to swing by Toby's house

to say goodbye to him.

And he comes out of the bedroom,

and his hair is all wonky,

and he's got on a dirty T-shirt.

And he looked up at me

and his eyes are bloodshot,

and I could smell liquor on his breath.

He said, "It happened, didn't it, Terry?"

And I said,

"Yes, my brother, it really happened."

"You're not losin' your mind."

And he said, "Yeah, but why us?"

And I said,

"Man, I don't have a" expletive, "clue."

That was the last time I saw Toby.

Years later,

I found out Toby had passed away.

[ominous music plays]

[narrator] And Terry isn't

the only service member

to conceal the fallout

of a strange encounter.

[Chris] I think probably

most of the people that report this

are probably having sleep paralysis

and things like that.

But there's some cases

where there's enough evidence

that you really do wonder.

In one extraordinary case,

an individual named John Burroughs,

who was an Air Force

security officer in England,

got very close

to a bizarre unidentified flying object

that was in the woods

adjacent to his base.

I was stationed

at at RAF Bentwaters-Woodbridge.

[mellow suspenseful music plays]

The Rendlesham Forest event

took place outside the East Gate

at RAF Woodbridge

on the 26th of December 1980, at 0300.

About three o'clock in the morning

I was ridin' with my supervisor,

and he saw some strange lights in the sky

coming down into the forest.

So a decision was made at that point

to go ahead

and, uh, have a squad investigate

to see if something

crashed into the forest.

So we went ahead and departed the base,

went down into the forest

on a service road,

went as far as we could

before we were blocked by a fence.

Nothin' felt right.

It It was like, uh, the forest itself

had, like, a white light in it.

Within the white light,

there seemed to be an oval-type red ball

with blue lights

and a white light below it.

And eventually, whatever it was

rose up into the trees

and then shot off towards the coast.

Our higher-ups,

they weren't sure what happened.

They told us to go out

to the site in daylight

to take a look around, which we did.

We found some indentations in the ground

and then some damage

to the canopy above us in the forest.

[ethereal music plays]

I wasn't consumed

by this encounter in the forest.

I was just like,

"Well, somethin' happened

and I can't explain it,

and I'm going on with my life."

My life went back to normal.

I did my two years,

and I left Woodbridge Air Force Base.

[Chris] The Air Force

actually classified his records.

We have a very arcane secrecy system,

and different services and organizations

can classify information

at such a high level

that even the chairman

of the Intelligence Committee

is not privy to it.

Sort of smoke and mirrors,

palace of secrets that we have,

that's hard to negotiate

and impedes the flow of information.

They can classify stuff

based off of whatever happened

in a a military operation.

They can deny access to anybody.

That's why I'll never understand

how my name got leaked out,

but somehow some of the people involved,

their names were exposed.

That's when these different people

started trying to track us down,

including CNN.

CNN was doing an investigation.

[narrator] Four years

after the event occurred

at RAF Bentwaters-Woodbridge,

CNN airs their special investigation.

[reporter] This is Woodbridge Airfield,

an American Air Force base

in eastern England.

[engine roars]

[intriguing synth music plays]

[reporter] Woodbridge Field was the site

of something that witnesses say

seemed to be taken from science fiction.

All I can tell you is

at the time the incident became public,

it was done through a memo

for the Ministry of Defense.

It leaked out,

and the Air Force could no longer deny,

neither could the MOD deny,

that something took place.

That was the big story,

aliens were involved

at Bentwaters Air Force Base.

I was approached by CNN,

but I refused to do an interview

because I was asked

to sign certain non-disclosure stuff,

you know, prior to departing,

uh, RA Bentwaters.

[narrator] While others shared

their shocking accounts with CNN

on the condition of anonymity.

But I think I saw a UFO,

some kind of a spaceship

from someplace not of this Earth.

Anything that happens inside the military,

if the press gets involved,

you have to report it

to your chain of command,

and they have to determine

what you can and can't say

and how it's handled.

They knew that the the investigation

was gonna be made public.

I don't know what the Air Force felt,

as far as to how far this would go,

but it clearly it'd gotten more traction

than they were comfortable with.

[narrator] The government uses

the news media to deliver information

to the public on a daily basis.

But certain information

is deliberately withheld from news sources

through non-disclosure agreements

and the classification of sensitive data.

With only partial view of the facts,

it would be impossible

to see the full picture

of what's really going on.

[ethereal music plays]

[Chris] It's hard for people

in the government to talk about this.

There absolutely were cases

where NDAs were signed

and personnel refused

to share information,

even with other

cleared military personnel.

Could people be leery a little bit

about talking about stuff? Sure.

But in reality, you have to follow

the order of the military law

or you would be in trouble,

no matter what the incident is.

[narrator] For decades,

service members like John and Terry

have been forced

to keep their strange encounters secret.

[Terry] Before I saw the X-rays,

it was 2012,

and the incident was 40 years in my past,

and I felt like I was finally

coming to grips with it,

and I knew that I would never tell a soul.

But those X-rays,

when I saw the thing,

it validated for me that these things

had put their hands on me,

and I decided to write this book,

Incident at Devil's Den.

I decided to speak publicly about it.

I was thinkin'

that if enough people talk about it,

it will have some sway on the government

to come clean.

When I started writing my book in 2017,

I wanted to get a copy

of my medical records from 1977.

I did a written request, and, um

I was there six years,

and the packet of stuff I got

was no bigger than that.

My medical records

should've been fatter than that.

I like to say there were holes in this

you could drive a truck through.

So, when I realized

that I really couldn't process this

on my own,

I researched alien implants,

and I came up with Derrel Sims.

[Derrell] I'm a private investigator

in the state of Texas.

I was a former military police officer

and I was in the CIA.

Now I look for physical and medical

evidence of human-alien contact,

and I've been doing

some research myself with implants.

There's a lot we don't know about.

[narrator] Implants are foreign objects

occasionally found

underneath the skin of abductees.

While they largely remain a mystery,

some implant experts believe

they are used to study the human body.

[Derrell] I think

that some of the implants

are designed to monitor bodily functions,

but those rare people that have 'em,

they don't know.

They find 'em accidentally.

[Terry] Who is responsible

for putting this thing in my leg?

You know, I I'm torn

between saying that it was E.T.

or saying that it was my government,

and I think it could've been either.

My thought was

it's a tracking device of some kind.

The whole thing is very unsettling.

I met Terry Lovelace and, uh, just had

a really interesting conversation.

I invited him down to Houston, Texas.

Uh, we've been friends ever since.

- Hey, Terry.

- Derrell, how you doin', Doctor?

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you. Give me a hug.

- Nice. Been a while, buddy. Oh, man.

- Yes, it has. Too long.

- I brought you films

- Ah!

that I don't think you've seen before.

These are 2017,

November 2017, X-rays of my leg.

The X-rays that show the implant.

The problem I'm having,

if it were if it were human tech,

it would be easily discernible.

You'd see it.

[Terry] You know, my question would be,

if this was in my body,

how did it get there

without there being a scar somewhere?

I'm baffled by it.

I contacted a surgeon,

and I sent him copies of my X-rays.

And we talked on the phone,

and I told him,

I said, "I'd like it removed."

So I had planned to go in December.

And then in November,

the thing vanishes.

November 16th, I think,

would've been the morning.

- I I'm goin' from memory here.

- Mm-hmm.

But I woke up and I had a lotta pain

at the top of both of my legs.

And I had puncture wounds

at the top of both of my legs.

I mean, I had the feeling

that they came and got their merchandise.

It's unnerving to know

that something is under your skin,

and then the next thing you know,

it's gone.

So, what problems have you had

getting X-rays, Terry?

Well, you know, I knew that I didn't

wanna go back to the VA hospital.

- [both laugh]

- I knew

- So

- I think we both agree on that.

I decided to go to, uh, a chiropractor

and get the X-rays,

because, uh, I don't

I don't trust the VA.

[tense music plays]

The government does keep medical records

from military personnel.

Terry is a good example.

I don't know

some of these other people personally,

but I can tell you that it's a mess

trying to find medical records

and get help from the VA.

[John] The first issue that I had

was when I got sick.

When I came in the Air Force,

I had a clean bill of health.

You couldn't have gotten in the Air Force

with a heart murmur.

That was one of the disqualifying things.

And then when I got

out of active duty in '88,

I had the e exit physical

showing that I had heart damage.

Eventually, I started havin'

some eye issues

where my eyes were acting up.

And the doctor looked into my eyes,

he said, "Have you been

exposed to radiation?"

And I looked at him

and I said, "Not that I'm aware of."

He goes, "Well, you have

radiation damage in your eyes."

Right after the event, I

I had some issues

where I didn't feel well, but it wasn't

it wasn't at the point where I correlated

not feeling well to the incident.

But after research I did,

it became clear that what we encountered

in Rendlesham caused my injuries.

[narrator] When John Burroughs

requests his medical records

through the Freedom of Information Act,

he is denied.

He is also unable to access

the veteran's benefits he's due.

If your records are classified,

they can't acknowledge other records

that would've supported my claim.

The Air Force decided to not acknowledge

the fact that I was in from '79 to '82.

My name is Cheryl Bennett,

and I was a staff assistant

for Senator John McCain.

I took care of, uh, constituents

that were having problems,

you know, with the VA.

[ethereal music plays]

In August of 2013,

I met John Burroughs

from the US Air Force.

He came in to seek help for his DD-214s

and his medical records.

Everybody has one DD-214

when they get out.

[narrator] A DD-214 form

is issued to service members

who have been honorably discharged

from active duty.

They are used to verify military service

to obtain benefits.

[Cheryl] John never got that when he left.

And then when he finally decided

he needed some medical attention,

that's when this whole problem started.

"Oh no, you "[scoffs]

"You weren't in the military."

I mean, at at a point,

he had to question himself,

"Am I insane? Am I going crazy?"

You know, "Did this really happen

or not happen?"

[John] The Department of Justice

got involved.

Cheryl told me they brought in somebody

with a high clearance to review my stuff,

who couldn't even get access

to my records.

And the fact is,

they couldn't verify anything

other than I was in

at the time I said it happened.

All my stuff was still classified.

[Cheryl] I mean,

when your records are classified,

you're pretty much SOL

because they will not release them to you.

I mean, I even had a letter

sent back to me

from one of the lieutenants

from the Department of Justice

saying that, "I don't care."

"You can't throw

John McCain's name out there."

"It's not gonna get you anywhere."

That pissed me off.

Congress, uh, the CIA, the FBI,

the Department of Justice,

the Department of Defense,

all the higher liaisons

that I was working with,

they were covering up his records,

all of 'em.

[narrator] But for some service members

and officials,

the central issue

isn't government manipulation.

They believe the real problem

is a lack of intelligence.

[mysterious music plays]

[man] I went to school for, uh,

mechanical and aerospace engineering.

And shortly after that, I joined the Navy,

ended up flying the F-18 Super Hornet

off the east coast of Virginia Beach

for a number of years.

So, in 2014, as we were flying around,

we would have these objects

brought on our radar.

We'd have all our sensors on it,

and all those sensors

actually get plumbed into our helmet.

So as we look out into the sky

outside of our c*ck,

it's like a augmented reality.

There's only supposed to be

F-18s out there.

So we'd go out there

and see someone that didn't belong,

that immediately stuck out.

But, okay. That could happen

with commercial air traffic.

But what's unique about these objects

is that they weren't behaving

like aircraft.

They were stationary,

they were at very high or very low speeds,

and they were out there all day,

so who were they?

[narrator] In recent years,

the term UFO,

"Unidentified Flying Object,"

has been replaced with the term UAP,

"Unidentified Aerial Phenomena."

[Ryan] Our culture has had UFO

on our minds for quite some time.

As soon as you say "UFO,"

people immediately think,

"Aliens coming from another place."

So the term has a lot of baggage,

and we needed to get away from that

and find something that was more neutral

and more objective.

"Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon"

acknowledges they may not even be objects.

It could be plasma.

It could be an atmospheric phenomenon.

[gentle intriguing music plays]

[Ryan] Over the course of time,

as we observed these objects,

the only natural conclusion we'd come to

was this was some super top-secret program

that we were just not aware of.

[Chris] Is this a foreign adversary?

Is this Russia or China?

Have they developed a breakthrough

that allows them to operate with impunity

in restricted military airspace?

If these looked like a Russian aircraft

or a Chinese aircraft,

there would be much to-do about this.

Air National Guard'd probably be

brought in. It'd be a major issue.

[narrator] And Ryan would soon witness

the most widely discussed UAP

in recent history.

In January of 2015,

my squadron and I were operating

off of Jacksonville, Florida,

when we captured the gimbal video.

[ominous music plays]

So, we see here,

the aircraft taking this

is at 25,000 feet above the ocean.

Uh, and this object is basically

at the same altitude.

This looks pretty refined

as far as the image goes.

And then we see

the the rotation of the object.

You see, it just rotates like a gimbal.

[narrator] A gimbal is a mechanism

that allows a device to rotate on an axis.

[Ryan] In 2017, I saw

the New York Times article

that came out with the the gimbal video.

I was like, "I was I was there

when that film was taken."

I recognized the voices.

Those are my buddies.

- [man 1] But if there's

- [man 2] Look at that thing!

[man 1] It's rotating.

[narrator] On social media platforms,

the gimbal video reinvigorates

the debate surrounding UAP.

[Chris] After I had left

the Pentagon formally,

I became aware

that we were having violations

of restricted military airspace

on an ongoing basis,

and had been already

for a couple of years,

and nobody was doing anything about it.

[man 1] Wow, man, look at it flying!

[man 2 laughs]

[Ryan] The objects that we were seeing

didn't look or didn't behave

like our threat nations

or our adversaries,

and so it seemed to get ignored

in a way that it otherwise wouldn't

have been ignored.

[narrator] So, is there an unofficial

"Don't ask, don't tell" policy

when it comes to UAP,

or simply a lack of protocol?

There were all kinds of organizations

in the national security community

that were touching parts of this problem,

and none of them had a

a s a place to report this.

And it was at that point

that I really got involved,

uh, ultimately, in a very public way.

[tense music plays]

The Appropriations Committee

was still of the the mindset

that this is, you know, wacky stuff, UFOs.

They were not interested

in supporting anything in this area,

and they didn't have the information yet.

So, my suggestion

was ask for a report, a public report

from the intelligence community

on this issue.

So, that report came out in June of 2021.

[narrator] The preliminary report

says accounts of UAP

generally fall into five main categories.

Airborne Air Clutter,

Natural Atmospheric,

Foreign Adversary Systems,

Classified Developmental Programs,

and Other, the events without explanation.

[dramatic classical music plays]

[Ryan] When the preliminary report

went to Congress,

it was very unique

because it was the first time

that we've ever really

publicly acknowledged, as a military,

that there is this uncertainty there.

[Chris] Someone like Ryan Graves

is also an aerospace engineer,

in addition to being a pilot.

So, when somebody like that

[laughs]tells you that he's seen

one of these things out there,

and seeing 'em on a regular basis,

uh, you can take that to the bank.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

are a potential national security threat.

For too long,

the stigma associated with UAPs

has gotten in the way

of good intelligence analysis.

Pilots avoided reporting,

or were laughed at when they did.

What it's done is validated

the statements of the operators

that were at the very low level.

And it gets just goes to show

the amount of stigmatism

that had to be overcome, right?

We had to go through such extreme lengths

to get that information

from the operators to the decision-makers.

And these reports

are are part of that process.

That's why there is

an All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office

within the Department of Defense now.

That office is now charged

with receiving all information

from all government organizations,

analyzing it,

reviewing all intelligence records

back to World w*r II,

creating a whistleblower process

where people can come in,

regardless of any NDA they signed,

and talk openly about what they saw

and what they knew.

We didn't win the Cold w*r

because we were better

at protecting secrets.

We won the Cold w*r

because we were better

at moving and sharing information.

But I think they've been trying to avoid

anything that would set the press off,

and anything that could be construed

as proof or evidence

that there are craft out there

that might be alien.

[narrator] Though any effort

to downplay the strange events

happening in US airspace

became impossible in February of 2023.

February of 2023, the United States

shot down a number of objects,

four total objects,

over the continental United States.

[Chris] There was coverage

in any leading news organization

in the United States.

The Pentagon briefing reporters,

just before we came on the air,

saying they are now tracking

a suspected Chinese spy balloon

hovering over the northern US.

[reporter] For the third day in a row,

and the fourth time in just nine days,

the United States has shot down

an unidentified high-flying object.

They were over Alaska,

Canada's Yukon Territory, and Lake Huron.

This, after a Chinese spy balloon

was shot down more than a week ago

off the coast of South Carolina.

Tonight, the US is still not able to call

the three objects shot down

by the United States

over the course of three days

anything but "objects."

This is completely unprecedented

for a number of reasons.

We were told very clearly

that there was a Chinese spy balloon

that was operating in our vicinity.

And then, in the very same note,

the next three objects we shot down

remain unidentified

and unattributed as well.

[narrator] Given the unanswered questions

surrounding these events,

and the experiences of military members

like Terry, John, and Ryan,

do we even have the capabilities

to know what's really in the skies?

[ominous music plays]

[intriguing music plays]

[Ryan] We just simply don't

have enough data.

At the end of the day, the only way

we're gonna be able to figure it out

is we put energy and attention into it.

Congress recognizes

the subject of UAPs is multifaceted

and requires

a careful data-driven approach.

Today, we are not just debating

the existence of UAPs,

we are deliberating on the principles

that define our republic,

which is a commitment

to transparency and accountability.

We can see that conversation

moving into the public sector.

I think that's gonna be key

to moving the conversation forward

in a open manner.

The American public has a right to learn

about technologies of unknown origins,

non-human intelligence,

and unexplainable phenomena.

Now, the sheer number of reports,

whistleblowers,

and stories

of unidentified anomalous phenomena

should raise real questions.

If you believe we have crashed craft,

as stated earlier,

do we have the bodies of the pilots

who piloted this craft?

As I've stated publicly already

in my NewsNation interview,

uh, biologics came

with some of these recoveries, yeah.

Were they, I guess,

human or non-human biologics?

- Non-human.

- [people chattering excitedly]

[narrator] Many consider these claims

as confirmation of alien life.

News spreads quickly on social media,

where many share

their shock and disbelief.

We can't afford to not know

who's overflying our country.

It's much, much better,

but there's still more progress

that needs to be made.

[brooding music plays]

[Derrell] What do you know now

you didn't know before?

Nothing.

What are you gonna know next month?

Nothing.

What are you gonna know

six months from then? Nothing.

Oh, there'll be a little leak here

and a little leak there.

If that's good enough for ya,

that's all you're gonna get.

Bring a congressional investigation,

and guess what you're gonna get,

another big cover story.

[John] They've acknowledged that there's

stuff they can't, uh, explain totally,

and they're investigating it,

but disclosure

on what it is'll never happen.

I was injured in the line of duty

in Rendlesham Forest,

and eventually the Air Force

and the DOD and the VA agreed

that I was injured in that event.

But they've never publicly

or privately stated

to Cheryl, myself, or anybody else

what exactly happened to me,

what injured me.

[Cheryl] I got that letter saying

that he will never get

his medical records.

John got the same thing, saying, you know,

"You'll get your benefits,

you'll get what you need,

but you'll never get

your medical records, ever."

Now, who does that? Why?

Why are they doing that?

They won't answer you.

So it's still, to me,

an unknown phenomenon.

I think that we have

some kind of alien technology.

We got somethin' that's kept

under lock and key, and outta sight.

The only reason that I can think of

that they couldn't tell us

would be if it's

a matter of national defense,

and maybe it is. I don't know.

But I'd like to know.

[narrator] While we may never know

what is responsible

for the unexplained lights

and objects in the sky,

one thing is certain.

If answers ever do come to light,

they could radically shift

the course of history.

There are so many still-unresolved

questions around this topic.

Is it possible

that we're encountering probes

from a distant civilization?

I don't think we should be surprised

if that proves to be the case.

So, this is something that has

the most profound possible implications,

and it's potentially very upsetting

for many people,

and yet we have

to be faithful to the data,

uh, regardless of where it goes.

That's what we need to do.

[ominous, droning music plays]