02x02 - Pilots Speak Out

[bunniefuu]

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

-Do you have any traffic...

Can’t really say how far,
but at my 12:00.

-When I looked at it
through my binoculars,

you could see a
perfectly clear defined,

so-called cigar-type shape.

-No idea what it was.

Stay away from 17,000 [feet.]

-These were official
Department of Defense

unexplained objects.

-What we were seeing
out there were essentially

radar contacts that we
didn’t think belonged there.

[pilot] Look at that thing!

-Commercial pilots,
military pilots,

have been sharing a lot
of their experiences and

what they’re seeing on
a regular basis.

-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.

-People would say,

"Yeah, you should be
wearing a tinfoil hat."

I would say 50% of the
pilots that were working for

the same airline that I
did have seen something.

-Their sightings go all
the way back to the 40s and



-If you said
something about UFOs to me,

I would’ve laughed at you.

-Picture the
brightest, shiniest,

silver that you’ve ever seen.

-As I first saw it,
it came into view,

glinting off of the horizon.

-I want to make it clear
that these pilots, I think,

are being entirely honest.

But one thing people have
to realize now is the sky

is full of stuff.

-And up to this point,

it’s been difficult
for airline pilots,

or military pilots,
to say anything.

-Some airlines do not
wanna be known as the airline

you fly in
order to see UFO.

-We get reports every night.

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

-Rotating right around it.

[♪ theme music playing].

-The US Navy, documented
several hundred observations

of phenomena that
are unexplainable in

restricted military airspace.

These are very credible
witnesses who have seen these

objects on a range of
government platforms.

My name is Tim Gallaudet.

I’m a retired rear admiral
in the US Navy.

In 2015, I was in charge of
all the meteorologists in the

Navy and oceanographers
providing weather forecasts

for safety of flight.

I was a one-star admiral
working for the United States

Fleet Forces Command.

I had a top-secret clearance,

and I'd been read into
special access programs.

For example, if there was a
very special weather sensor

that we own that we didn't
want our adversaries to have,

that's something I would
have a need to know as the

head meteorologist
of the Navy.

There were pilots flying
off the USS Theodore Roosevelt

that were having
experiences witnessing UAP and

I received a email on the

Navy's Secret Network
from the operations officer,

and the subject of it was,

"Urgent Safety of Flight Issue."

And he had attached a video.

-Object on the... whoa, got em!

Woo-hoo!

[Tim Gallaudet] The video
shows an object moving rapidly.

It seemed to be just
basically a white sphere.

It really didn't have
any means propulsion,

there was no exhaust.

The text of the
email was short,

and it just said,

"If any of you know
what this is, tell me ASAP."

And it was addressed to
me and the 20 or so other

subordinate commanders
under US Lead Forces Command.

So these are one
and two-star admirals.

Some of 'em are in charge
of carrier strike groups.

The disconcerting
thing is the next day,

that email was wiped
from my computer.

And no one talked
about that incident.

It was never discussed.

We were forced to do
nothing about a serious risk.

-I was aboard the USS
Theodore Roosevelt in 2015.

I used to fly the F18
Super Hornets in the Navy

for about 11 years and
it was very uncertain what

we were dealing with here.

The pilots that saw the
object described as a dark gray

or a black cube inside
of a clear sphere about

four to six feet in diameter.

And I assumed that with enough
chatter the video we saw that

it would go up the proper
channels and there would be

some type of
response but it didn't.

And this wasn't the
first time that we had

seen these things.

A few years earlier one
of these actually almost

hit one of our aircraft.

Two aircraft about


One of these objects went
right between the two aircraft.

That was what we would
consider "a near midair."

I saw the pilots when they
came back from the flight,

they were in the ready
room with all their gear on.

And the pilot
looked at me, he said,

“I almost hit one
of those damn things.”

He just had a look
of shock on his face,

his mouth was open.

We all knew what he
was referring to when

you said “those things.”

We didn't really
have a name for them,

but we all understood that
there were these unknown

objects in our airspace.

-There was a spike and a
surge around 2015 of encounters

involving US Navy ships.

We were having
sightings of UFOs,

on a regular basis.

We're getting hundreds
of reports per year now.

Clearly that’s not something
that just changed overnight.

-These are pilots of some
of the most advanced fighter

planes in the world saying,

“I experienced an
encounter with something that

I can't explain.”

One of the challenges
with almost any sighting

is that there are a lot
of possible mundane

answers as well.

These could be craft from
China or Russia or Iran.

Or it could even be US
technology that the pilots

encountering it don't
understand is our own.

-One thing people have
to realize now is the sky

is full of stuff.

Everything from kids' balloons,

you know, that
rise up high enough to

be moving at high speeds,

to all kinds of drone
technologies and such.

So, you know, there's
a whole list of things.

And so, you know,
for any individual case,

you have to actually look at
the data,

you know, examine it, unpack it,
unpack the time of day,

unpack the weather
that was happening.

And you typically find
that the vast majority of

them are explainable.

[Tim Gallaudet] My job
was safety of flight.

I knew these objects are not
of our own origin because we,

the US government,
doesn't conduct experiments

in training ranges.

And I had a
top-secret clearance.

I knew all the
threat capabilities,

what China and Russia
owned and I knew they didn't

have any
technology like that.

-At the very beginning of this,

we actually assumed
it was a radar error,

but once we
started correlating these

sightings with
our m*ssile systems,

with our camera systems,

and eventually
with our eyeballs,

we absolutely had to
assume that these were

physical objects that
could hurt our aircraft.

-Did you box
the moving target?

-No. It’s in auto track.

[pilot] Oh okay.

[Tim Gallaudet]
When I saw that email,

and then it was
removed from my computer,

I didn't speak out because
I wanted to keep serving.

And I realized okay,
this is classified.

I'm not supposed
to have seen it.

I'll just salute smartly
and move on because if I

tried to speak out,

I would've been forced
to leave the military.

But I had to change my
thinking a bit once I got

out of the government.

because I knew these
were causing risk to the

safety of flight.

We needed to address that.

That's why I've
decided to speak up.

[Ryan Graves] I will say
that when I made the decision

to talk about UAP
and pilot reports,

I also knew I was
essentially slitting my

own throat in some ways.

[host] Does it sound possible
to you that that kind of secrecy

is still happening?

-Well, that just
seems to be the case.

-Ryan Graves kinda
jolted the world,

certainly in Washington.

[Ryan Graves] I’ve been
reporting on unidentified

objects since 2014 and 2015
off the coast of Virginia Beach.

-How common was this,
and what were they saying?

-They upgraded our radar
systems and when we flew

with the new radars,

we started seeing
objects on our radars.

-I don't think I would've
made those statements if I

thought I was going to
be in the Navy for the

rest of my career at that point.

The stigma and the fear
of repercussions would've

been much too strong, frankly.

But in the same token,

that's a massive
problem because this was

a recognized safety issue.

[Christopher Mellon]
Unfortunately, the stigma

around the UAP issue
was so great that nobody

would touch it.

You couldn't discuss this
topic at all in the military.

And we're now learning
that it's a relatively frequent

occurrence for commercial
airline pilots as well.

These pilots have greatly
feared the damage to their

reputations and careers
from discussing UFOs.

-Some airlines do not wanna
be known as the airline you

fly in order to see
a UAP off, off the wing.

My name is Richard Haines,

and I established NARCAP,

the National Aviation Reporting
Center on Anomalous Phenomena.

I was a senior
research scientist at NASA

for about 21 years.

I was involved in
the Gemini program,

which is a two-man
capsule in the Earth orbit.

That went on to the Apollo
program and then eventually

to Space Station.

I was initially quite
skeptical of the subject of UAP.

It didn't fit my paradigm
or my colleagues.

Didn't fit traditional science.

But I eventually met pilots,

commercial pilots that came
to NASA Ames in California

to carry out research in
our flight simulators there.

And I would just,

once in a while ask
‘em a question, um,

“Have you ever seen
anything you couldn't identify

in your flying career?”

Once in a while
they would look at me

with a strange
expression and say,

“Well, if you promise
not to tell anybody,

I'll tell you my story.”

That's what got me hooked.

I can tell you one story
that a pilot told me.

He was flying left seat,
that's senior captain with a

younger man in the right seat.

And the captain got to
talking about strange,

anomalous phenomena.

After they landed,
he got a call,

“We're gonna schedule
you to see the psychiatrist

for our office.”

I came to understand that
pilots have a wide range of

motives for not telling a story.

And one of the reasons not
to tell a story is it collides

with our belief system.

And so that's hard to admit.

But another reason and
I think one of the most

prominent reasons is they
didn't wanna lose their job.

-My name is Brent Sipley.

I'm a commercial airline pilot.

I've been flying for
about 36 years now.

My sighting occurred in 2019.

We were operating
from Dallas to Louisville.

It was about 10:00
in the morning.

When we first
picked up the object,

we thought it was
another aircraft.

But as we got
closer to the object,

we could see that it
had no air surfaces,

no engines,
no anything.

It was just a sphere.

And it was extremely reflective,

very bright, brighter
than any lights I've ever seen

on an aircraft.

And then it started
to turn green,

almost like it was so
reflective that I was picking

up the ground.

My first officer Jake
grabbed his phone and

got the video of the UAP,

and he got a
good beat on it.

Right here you can
see the sphere as we're

going under it,

it's very, very bright
and it's going

right over top
of the aircraft right now.

And I contacted Indy Center
and I was like,

"We've got high
altitude traffic, 12:00."

And he goes, “I don't
have anything here,

let me switch over to primary.”

The primary is just a
raw sweep of the radar.

And then you hear
him just go, “Huh.”

And there was a
really long pause and

just dumped us.

Basically Air Traffic Control
at that point was telling us,

“We don't want to hear
about whatever you're

seeing right now.”

I'm not going to say
I've seen everything,

but in 36 years of flying,

I've seen a lot of things
from Venus and Jupiter rising.

I’ve seen weather balloons.

They looked nothing like
this that I saw that day.

I didn't really want to come
forward with any of this

because it could be
something that could

potentially end a career.

The stigma
associated with it is,

it's much more than just
people whistling The X-Files

when you walk by.

Pilots have to go through
medicals every six months.

We have to do training
every six months.

There's lots of ways
that people can get you

out of your flying seat,

and why give
them ammunition?

[Garrett Graff] I'm dubious
that all of the characteristics

of some of these craft
are being captured

accurately by the witnesses.

Or that aliens
are visiting Earth.

But, you know,

it’s clear that some
of these encounters

are still unsolved.

The government has
said UFOs are not aliens,

but it has never
answered what UFOs are and

it has never seemed
particularly interested in

figuring out what they
are if they’re not aliens.

[Christopher Melon] When
we look back at US government

investigations of UAP,

Project Blue Book
went on until 1970.

But it was not really a
scientific investigation.

It was really more
of a propaganda

public relations effort.

[Leslie Kean] People lost
faith in Project Blue Book

over the years.

So the Air Force
commissioned this study,

basically saying that
there was nothing to it and

it wasn't worthy of
investigation and

Blue Book was shut down
as a result of that study,

which was of course
fine with the Air Force.

[Richard Haines] After
Blue Book was basically put

to bed in 1969,

pilots had almost
nowhere to go to report their

sightings until the formation
of a number of private

organizations because
when an airplane and a UFO

or a UAP come in
close proximity,

there is always a safety issue.

Why?

Because the pilot never
knows what that object

or phenomenon's gonna do.

[Leslie Kean] I think
that Project Blue Book

didn't treat
witnesses very well.

There was an effort
to ridicule witnesses,

to explain cases away
when they really didn't

have adequate explanations.

And there was a sense in
the general public that there

was a cover-up going on,

that they were not
telling us the truth.

-Professional pilots,
both commercial and military,

do see UFOs,

but the culture of
silence within their ranks means

the public almost
never hears about it.

[Leslie Kean] After the
government shut down its work

on UFOs and declared
that there was nothing to it,

the work fell into the
hands of civilian groups.

[Richard Haines] Well, there've
been quite a number of them

over the ages,

the Aerial Phenomena
Research Organization.

Then MUFON, Mutual UFO
Network came on the scene.

And then there is
NARCAP, N-A-R-C-A-P,

which I helped to establish,

the National Aviation Reporting
Center on Anomalous Phenomena.

A colleague and I,
his name is Ted Roe,

got together one day in 1999.

And we talked about what can
we do to make a reporting center

for professional pilots,

a safe place to
report their sightings.

We pulled together
a board of directors.

We had air traffic controller,

meteorologist,
pilots, physicists, chemists,

because that's
how science operates.

-NARCAP was probably the best
group there was at the time.

It was the closest thing
we had to a government agency

because of the
caliber of people involved.

-Our objective in
NARCAP was to collect

a body of evidence that
would be sufficient to take

to the International
Civil Aviation Organization

to work out
safety procedures.

And so I started collecting
cases and I ended up with

thousands of pilot sightings
that would demonstrate

a relationship between
UAP and flight safety.

[pilot] If you said
something about UFOs to me,

I would've laughed at you.

[Richard Haines]
Has it changed your outlook?

[pilot] Yeah.

Because I've been
out there and saw them

flying all over town.

[Leslie Kean] Back in those
days NARCAP had a website and

they actually had a
phone number there.

And Richard Haines was
very responsive to these calls

and he would talk to these
pilots year after year and

record the conversations.

[Richard Haines] In
other words, you couldn't see it

through your front window,

but only... the door window?

[Captain Price] Right,
it depends on how I move.

It was just moving in
and out the whole time.

It made an abrupt
change in attitude.

And then it zipped
across the sky

and then when it climbed
it made another abrupt change.

[Leslie Kean] Dr. Haines
has many, many tapes,

audio tapes of conversations
he had with pilots.

And they're just, just
amazing to listen to.

[Captain Haney] It came through
a path just north of Seoul

and I turned around

to make our approach
into the airport,

and we saw this steel
hovering right in front of us.

and then it just took off.

So the pilot just had to keep
quiet about it, because...

career.

[Captain Shultz]
Picture the brightest,

shiniest silver
that you’ve ever seen

and multiply that 100 times

and try to get how
shiny this object is.

[Leslie Kean] And
from the audio tapes

of those conversations,

Richard Haines wrote
this report and that was

about 100 pages.

And in that report,

he documented all
kinds of incidences between

pilots and UFOs.

All of them affecting
aviation safety,

but in a lot of different ways.

[Richard Haines] And I
had sent those copies out to,

I'd say at least
a dozen recipients:

the American government,
and all the major airlines,

and I waited.

I hoped that it would
elicit some kind of response.

But I didn’t get one response.

-There were
a lot of cases way before

the ones that we're
seeing now that also should

have been paid attention to.

But in those days, it
was so deeply ignored.

It was totally taboo
in the United States,

as opposed to
other countries where it

was completely different.

France sees it as a
scientific problem.

It had an official agency
that went back to the 1970s.

The Chilean government
set up an official agency

under the purview of
the Air Force in Chile

and it was known to
the world at large,

especially to all the
pilots that there was a

place they could go to
report UFO sightings.

-“People are
becoming more aware that

this is a certain phenomenon

that needs to be analyzed
from a multidisciplinary

point of view.”

[Leslie Kean]
Without an entity,

an agency or an
organization for the pilots

to go to to report UFO
sightings or UFO events,

we're losing lots
of valuable data.

We shouldn't be making
it hard for pilots to report.

The UK actually
requires its pilots to

fill out reports
of any sightings.

[Ray Bowyer] My name is
Captain Ray Bowyer.

I started, uh, flying
training in 1984 and, uh,

finished flying in about 2015.

About 31 years.

[controller]
...544 zone, pass message.

[Ray Bowyer] Do you
have any traffic, er,

- can't really say how far,
about my 12 o'clock level?

-It was 2007 in the springtime.

We were flying a
scheduled airline service

from Southampton in
England on the south coast

into Alderney,
Channel Islands.

I think there were about
nine or ten people on board.

And just as we got into the
cruise sector of the flight,

I noticed something ahead,

a very bright yellow dot
in front of us.

Brilliant, brilliant yellow
with this band of, uh,

interfacing light
between going up and down

this dark band and
the yellow interface,

the dark band.

And there was these
lights going up and

down at different speeds.

Uh, quite impressive to see.

[Ray Bowyer] Very flat platform,

looking at it through
binoculars as we speak.

I was about 60 miles
north of Alderney when

I first saw the aircraft.

And the second object appeared
about 20 miles away from

a landing point.

And getting closer to them

they started
getting larger and larger.

[Ray Bowyer] It was a shape
about 20 to 1 aspect ratio.

And it came to the point
where I didn't need binoculars

to see it anymore, and
we're still 30 miles away.

The air traffic controller
asked if there were any other

aircraft that could
witness this.

And there was another aircraft.

That was quite a relief
simply because it's been backed

up by somebody else.

I was quite relieved that the
objects were picked up on radar.

And this was what we
found to have appeared.

This is my aircraft coming in
from the Northeast into land.

This is the other aircraft
from Blue Islands coming in

from the Isle of Man.

This shows the tracks
and the times of the

object traveling
from North to South.

And this is the object
traveling from South to North.

The other pilot was
going southeast and

over his left shoulder,
looking in his 7:00,

he could see the
nearest object.

But his company wouldn't
allow him to come forward.

[Leslie Kean] When
Ray Bowyer landed,

he filled out a report and
made a drawing right in that

report of what he saw.

He also did some interviews
on BBC within a few days later,

his airline did not
force him to stay quiet.

-I actually had no intention
of explain it to anybody,

to be fair.

I just thought it was
just gonna go away.

And then everyone, everyone,

and their dog wanted
to know what it was.

-So, tell me some of the
things that people have said

to sort of excuse
what your sighting was.

-They normally say,

"How many beers have you
had before you went flying?"

-I would never tell anybody
they didn't see what they saw.

You know, as every cop
and prosecutor will tell you,

eyewitness testimony is the
worst kinds of testimony.

Memory is not a record.

-I’ve seen a lot of strange
things in the air, you know,

all sorts of different
atmospheric anomalies.

It looked nothing like that.

[Garrett Graff] There's a lot
of stuff out there that

appears as UFOs

but that also are very
easily identifiable as ordinary

technology or ordinary
astronomical, meteorological,

or atmospheric technologies.

-I think most people find
it a credible sighting simply

because another aircraft
in a different place saw it.

It's on radar.

And of course, there
was a 150-page report.

It was very in-depth.

It was very, uh,
scientifically done.

But, um, yeah, they couldn't
find an explanation for it.

-Over the years,

the US government
has had a tendency to try

to explain away these
events with information

that doesn't really
fit the facts.

But other governments,
even right over our border,

say in Canada,

are much more willing
to just acknowledge when

they investigate a case
that they don't have an

explanation for it.

-Look at the contrail.
-Yeah.

-Guy’s up at 38,000 feet.

Beginning in 1947,

the FAA issued a reporting
form and it would be mailed

to you and you
would fill it out.

-They said,
“If you see something,

you should report it.”

But you saw
something and reported it,

you invariably ended up
having to answer a bunch of

mental stability questions
that maybe you shouldn't

have had to answer.

-My name's Ralph Loewinger
and I am a former

Air Force tanker pilot.

And after I separated
from service,

I went to work for
Pan-American World Airways.

-I'm Michael Littlepage.

I went through a civilian
air training program before

joining Pan-American and

I have a total of
approximately 39,000 hours

of flight time.

-On the night of
October 4th, 1967,

we were flying a
Boeing 707 cargo airplane

from New York to London.

We took off from
Kennedy at about midnight,

and an hour and a half later
that would have put us up

approaching the south coast
of Nova Scotia near Yarmouth

which would've put
Shag Harbor to our right

and not very far away.

[Michael Littlepage] Ralph
was busy flying the airplane

and Captain Kurt Olson
was talking on the radio to

air traffic control.

[pilot] Flight to Sierra,
Atlanta bridge control,

radar contact.

-It was a beautiful,
clear night.

I was the first one to
see this light formation,

five or six lights at
our 11:00 position.

And I said,
“Ooh, watch this guy,”

because it looked
like another airplane

banking towards us.

[Michael Littlepage] It was
moving at the same airspeed.

It was at the same
altitude and it very slowly

drifted towards our
left wing tip to the point

where we felt that
we were in danger of having

a midair collision.

-Maintain 8,000. Kilo...

-I asked Boston Center, I said,

“Do you still
have us in radar?”

And he said, “Roger,
we still have radar contact.”

I said, “Well, who's this guy
out here on our left side?”

He paused a minute
and he said,

“I don't have any
traffic out there.”

-It was the biggest thing that
I have ever seen in the sky.

We quickly realized that
this was not an airplane

with its landing lights on,

but we were looking
into a lighted space object.

The light was diffused,

it was slightly
orange in color,

and I couldn't see
anything on the inside.

And the five of us sitting
there mesmerized,

I was actually terrified.

If it had come a little bit
closer and impacted our

airplane, that would've
been the end of us.

[Ralph Loewinger] This
light formation just sped up

and hurdled towards
the eastern horizon,

approaching the southern
coast of Nova Scotia,

getting smaller and smaller,
and then it disappeared.

It was later that same evening,

there were sightings
all over Nova Scotia and

we weren't aware of
that until some years later.

-We didn't know anything
about Shag Harbor at the time.

-On the night of
October the fourth, 1967,

which is the night known
as the night of the UFOs,

there were numerous sightings
from the center of Nova Scotia,

In Metro Halifax, Dartmouth,

to the southern southwestern
tip of the province.

And if you were outside
that night and looked up,

you would've seen
something unusual in the sky.

Laurie Wickens was a local
fisherman in Shag Harbor.

And he was the very first
individual to contact the RCMP,

the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police.

-Me and a friend of mine,

we were coming
from Barrington when we got

on top of the hill
there and that is where we

happened to see the lights.

We just thought it was a
plane and it was going along

no faster than we was and
it had four lights on it.

One would come on, two,

then the third one,
the fourth one.

They’d all be on
for a second or so.

And then they all went
out and started over again.

We lost sight of it for
about two seconds.

Made it top of the hill.

We could see the,

see a light in
the water up here,

about 200 yards
from here and about



We figured it was
a plane that crashed.

So we went to
the phone booth,

called the RCMP.

First thing he said,
“What you've been drinking?”

I said, “Nothing.”

[Chris Styles] The RCMP,
of course had received

several other calls.

Most of the eyewitnesses
that contacted the nearby

RCMP reported simply
that they thought an

aircraft had crashed.

Nobody was reporting a UFO.

The concern was for the
possibility of survivors that

they may have indeed seen the
crash of a commercial aircraft.

-I think one of the more
interesting reports is this

Shag Harbor Nova Scotia
sighting.

That's, that's fairly well
documented because all these

civilians who
reported these objects,

they just thought a
plane had crashed.

So they, they weren't
even trying to go after any

kind of UAP story.

They were being honest,

good citizens trying to
help public safety officials

respond to what
might've been a mishap.

[Chris Styles] Once the
RCMP arrived on the scene,

they tried to approach the
strange light that had remained

in the water, but
before they reached it,

it either submerged
or disappeared.

The search effort went
on for several days.

The RCMP said,

“We don't really know
what we're looking for.

We know it wasn't a
conventional aircraft.

In fact, we don't
know what it was.”

There was just nothing
that would account for it.

And eventually, the
search was terminated,

claiming nil results.

It was the authorities that
would first refer to it as an

unidentified flying object.

What I have here in my
hand is a bunch of telexes.

Telex, back in the day,

was the primary
form of communication.

But the great thing about
these telexes is often what the

staffers wrote in the margins.

And when you
look at this one,

some staffers
started to write,

“Could this be a meteorite?”

And then it's all crossed out.

“This could not
possibly be an aircraft.”

And it's all crossed out.

So again, very telling.

Here we have a few
days later into the search.

And it says, “What
is the situation?”

They write,
“Unidentified Flying Object,”

and they circle it.

And the case remains to
this day in the present,

open and unsolved.

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

of light formations that
were reported in Shag Harbor.

-I had never been a
believer or denier of UFOs.

I know what I saw,

and I can remember
the apprehension,

the helplessness, and
abject terror really.

That was, that was a real
emotion that I felt that night.

[Garrett Graff] You would think
that organizations like the FAA

would be more interested in
cataloging things that exist

in our national airspace
that we can't identify.

And it's really remarkable
to me how unseriously the

government has
dealt with this subject,

up until the present day.

-Since the congressional
hearing with the Navy pilots,

the Navy has placed guidelines
in effect now asking their

pilots to report these things.

The commercial pilots,
nothing's really changed.

We contacted the FAA
to ask them about their

reporting procedures
for commercial pilots,

and they didn't have any.

Since there's no
reporting mechanism in

place for commercial pilots,

they don't even really
feel comfortable talking about

these cases because
there's nothing they can do.

But these events can be
safety problems and we’re not

gathering the data we need
in order to address that issue.

[Ryan Graves] Should a
pilot want to report an issue,

they can report it to a
number of civilian UFO groups

but there is no way for that
information to then therefore

be processed or
further looked at.

So what I've been
doing at the organization,

Americans for
Safe Aerospace

is provide a
reporting mechanism so that

that information can
get to the proper channels

for further investigation.

It was never intended
to be a UFO or

UAP organization at all.

Our primary mission is to
identify what's in the sky.

And just ensuring that
pilots have the proper tools

to be able to do their
job and be safe in the air.

After the hearing
on Capitol Hill,

commercial pilots and
others have reached out

to our organization to say,

“Hey, one, we support you.

Thank you for doing this.

And two, let me tell
you what I'm seeing.”

-The light appeared,
disappeared.

Four, four times.

Just a small
distance apart.

-I don't know what it was.
I'd love to be able to tell you.

I'd love to have an
explanation on what it was.

But, like I said it would
turn into a debrief item and

I never really even
thought about it until after my,

after my encounter.

[Chris Van Voorhis]
We have a lot of pilots that

have come forward
to me and say,

"Hey, you know, I've
seen stuff out there

that I can't explain..."

-Wow.
-“But I don't have an avenue

really to express what I've
seen without repercussions

from the airline.”

-My name is Chris Van Voorhis
and basically I started flying

when I was 14 years old
and worked my way up the

chain of command all
the way up to 747 Captain.

My initial sighting
back in 2005.

We were flying back
from Fukuoka, Japan around


about 4:30 in the morning

just past Midway Island,

when we saw three
actual discs come

into the atmosphere.

They sat there for a
little while and took off.

It's not like they
even accelerated.

They were just at speed
and gone over the horizon.

This was something
that really kind of

rocked my world and I've seen
a lot of the pilots now that,

kind of, feel
the same way.

They're like, "Hey it
opened my eyes that we're not

maybe alone out there."

Back then, though, we
couldn't tell anybody.

The UAP world,

it’s something that I
think you almost have to

have a personal
experience with it in

order to understand it.

-Navigate, navigate,
communicate.

Pilots are trained to
do those three things.

They've gotta
fly their airplane.

They have to
communicate with the ground.

They have to follow all the
rules and laws of aviation.

And all of a sudden,

they have to integrate
this incursion by

a new phenomenon.

And this is a challenge.

-Pilots are affected
differently by their encounters.

I mean, it depends on
the nature of the encounter,

whether it was dangerous
or not, how dramatic it was.

-Does it affect their
cognitive processing?

Does it something that
keeps them awake at night?

Is it interfering with
their well-being every day?

Can they talk about this?

My name is Dr. Iya Whiteley.

I'm a space psychologist
with expertise in

clinical psychology and
aviation human factors.

I'm looking at this phenomena
more from the point,

not what they're seeing,

but I'm interested what
is happening in their mind.

Initially, my work was
not related to UAP.

I came across this quite
recently and I felt that if it

has an effect on
their performance,

if it's in any way affecting
their decision-making,

then we need to see
how we can assist.

-Hello
-Hi! Hi, Chris.

-How are you doing again?
-Yeah, good to see you.

I am at my very early
investigation regarding what

pilots are seeing.

As a psychologist in me,

I feel there is something
that they’re holding back

because they’re not
comfortable talking about this.

So what do we need
to support the pilots

post this encounter,
post the observation?

-Proper reporting channels
and proper interaction between

the company and the pilots
and the unions.

Knowing that they won't be
subject to any repercussions

from the company
if they do report it.

-We want to collect enough
variety of stories that then

becomes a database.

But we only can have that
through pilots having no

repercussions for talking
about what they’re seeing.

-It was a very interesting
type of experience.

I was not a skeptic,

but I had never seen
anything that I could not

explain prior to that.

And this was something
that I couldn't explain.

It’s kind of one of
those moments you never

forget in your life.

It makes a huge impact.

-What I found
interesting with Chris,

that when he observed
the objects in 2005,

it’s almost like
marked his life.

That there was a life
before observing something and

then there was a life after.

There are experiments in
psychology that demonstrate

that if you don’t
want to see something,

you will not see it.

So if there are pilots
who don’t want to see a

UAP because of the stigma,

what else are
they not going to notice?

It’s safety critical.

[Chris Van Voorhis] What
we’re seeing is things that are

undescribable in the way
of conventional types of

propulsion or flight.

And airline pilots train,
you know, for weather anomalies.

They train for emergency
anomalies that we may have.

But no one ever trains
you on what you’re going

to see out there.

[Iya Whiteley] If there are
many of us speaking up from

various perspectives,

why not put all of
that effort together and then,

you know, we have much
better way of investigating.

-We have ignition.

All engines are running.

-Lift off from a
tropical rainforest to the

edge of time itself.

[Richard Haines] I
think it's fair to say that

science and technology
progresses on the shoulders

of those who have gone before.

What Ryan Graves
has done really,

he took the ball and
ran with it to form an

organization that would
carry on NARCAP’s work.

I think that with the
government sponsorship that

he is developing, we're
gonna see some breakthroughs.

-The 2024 National
Defense Authorization Act

had a historic amount of
legislation and language

regarding the UAP conversation.

But this is something that
these people really struggle to

integrate into their worldview.

So, how do we move this
conversation forward?

How do we gain the
trust of the American people

to show that, hey,

we are actually
resolving this potential

national security issue?

I advised a number of
representatives on the ways

I thought legislation
could be introduced.

One of those included
Congressman Garcia.

Ultimately, his office ran
with those suggestions and

has resulted in
him introducing the

Safe Aerospace
for Americans Act.

-Commercial pilots may
encounter a UAP and they have

no real way to report
to the government.

They can report
that to their airline.

But the pilots that
I've talked to feel that

if they reported a UAP,

that maybe they would get
fired from the airline or that

they would somehow be
tagged with a medical condition

or some kind of issue.

So there needs to be a
way to report any type of

UAP encounter or any type
of UAP experience in a way

that's safe to the pilot.

Our new proposal,
our Safe Aerospace Act,

is currently in the Congress.

It has both Republican
and Democratic support.

And it provides a transparent
process for pilots to report

any UAP encounter.

Those are collected and then
they are forwarded on to our

department within the US
government that actually

currently is looking at UAPs.

-If nothing else,
this will provide additional

data points for the commercial
airliners to better understand

the safety risks that their
aircrew are exposed to.

[Chris Van Voorhis] Can you
imagine the amount of data

that's been lost because pilots
are afraid to say something?

Over the years there's been
thousands and thousands of

hours flown with people
seeing things that they didn't

feel good about
reporting because they were

worried about repercussions.

-As we look at this data,

it helps us better
understand the total scope

of the problem.

It's going to inform our
ability to better detect UAP

in the future.

-One of the things I've
come to believe is that there

are fascinating frontiers
of meteorology,

atmospheric science, astronomy,

you know,
mind-bending physics,

that to us would be
just as interesting as the

answer being aliens.

-We have now available
to us lots of relatively

inexpensive sensors that
can monitor the sky and

the environment 24-7.

And um, in addition to that,
the advances in machine learning

and artificial intelligence
allow us to process

large amounts of
data in a short time.

-There was a lot going on
in 2017 that made a

big difference in
public opinion.

[anchor] Earlier this month,
it was revealed that the

Department of Defense
ran a $22 million effort to

document and research UFOs.

-As a scientist,

that mattered and it mattered
to my colleagues, you know.

My colleagues realized, wow,

there's apparently
something interesting here.

Yeah, it warrants
scientific investigation.

[Iya Whiteley]
Curiosity drives science.

So why aren't we not
curious about something that

many professionals
are reporting?

-There's no doubt that
there's a stigma attached

to this subject in the
science community still today.

But, if we're gonna
be scientists,

we need to lay it all out
and let people come to

their own conclusions.