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00:00Tonight on The Proof is Out There, the famous footage of the Mississippi Bigfoot.
00:06Is this the real deal?
00:07It's not out of the question that a Sasquatch would find a home there.
00:11The White House ordered a UFO shot down over Lake Huron.
00:15Looks like some kind of octanean shoot object.
00:18What did the Air Force pilots really see?
00:20The military doesn't shoot things out of the sky that it doesn't perceive as a possible threat.
00:25Alleged alien corpses presented to Mexico's government.
00:28What will forensic testing reveal?
00:30X-rays revealed that one of these mummies actually contained eggs.
00:34What's causing these weird sky waves in a war zone?
00:38The patterns of these lines almost look like rippling ocean waves.
00:43And what's the secret of the world's most mysterious book?
00:47Is the Voynich Manuscript proof of a civilization that's lost to history?
00:51Around the globe are videos.
00:58What are those things?
01:00It's moving.
01:01Photos and sounds that defy explanation.
01:05We don't know where they come from, who made them, or how they operate.
01:14What are they?
01:15Some sort of bizarre mutation.
01:17What's exciting is nobody really knows.
01:19Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.
01:22I'm Tony Harris.
01:25And as a journalist for more than 30 years, I've followed the facts where they take me.
01:30Now I'm bringing that spirit of investigation to the world's strangest sounds and images.
01:36We'll analyze each one with top experts.
01:39It's a credible case.
01:41It's a credible video.
01:42And pass a verdict on what it is.
01:45This video is clearly fake.
01:46Good evening and welcome to The Proof is Out There.
02:00By popular demand, we've decided to look at a famous piece of Bigfoot footage.
02:07It's got many online speculators wondering if Bigfoot was born on the bayou.
02:11October 24th, 2013, about nine miles west of Tunica, Mississippi, it's 6 p.m., and a man
02:19who goes by the name Josh Highcliffe is supposedly in the swamp hunting hogs when he hears a noise
02:25behind a tree.
02:26He pulls out his phone and records this.
02:3350 yards away, we see what appears to be a dark-haired animal in the forest tearing apart
02:39a cypress tree.
02:42After filming for a minute, the creature suddenly stands up, doubling its size.
02:46Josh drops his camera and runs away, absolutely terrifying.
02:52Field researcher Cliff Barrickman, along with many other Sasquatch enthusiasts, believes this
02:57video could be the real deal.
03:00When this footage first came online, the community was abuzz because it looked like very, very promising
03:04footage.
03:05The activity that the animal was engaged in looked very normal as tearing apart some sort
03:10of dead stump, presumably looking for termites or some other food source.
03:14The habitat was appropriate for a skunk ape.
03:16The skunk ape is the local name for Bigfoot in the south, a Sasquatch who can thrive in the
03:21swampy marshes of southern states like Florida and Louisiana.
03:25Known to have a pronounced stench far greater than alleged Bigfoots in other areas, Barrickman
03:30says Mississippi is a great place for skunk ape sightings.
03:34Because there's almost 20 million acres of forested land in Mississippi, there's a ton
03:39of animals that live there as well, but not a ton of Bigfoot researchers.
03:43Therefore, we don't hear about a lot of the reports that happen there.
03:47A similar sighting occurred by a pond near Jackson, Mississippi.
03:51In October 1979, four young men were out in the woods drinking in their truck by this
03:57pond, and they turned the lights on in the rig.
04:00Then on the other side of this small pond was a seven-foot-tall, shaggy, hairy creature
04:06just staring at them in the moonlight.
04:08Those guys threw their beer bottles out the window and split.
04:12Years later, those same men would describe their encounter to a sketch artist who created
04:17this illustration.
04:18Could this video actually depict a Sasquatch foraging in the swamps of Mississippi?
04:26The fact that it does not hear the videographer that's probably 50 or less feet behind them
04:31is concerning, and the credibility of the footage itself is going to come down to the credibility
04:36of the videographer.
04:40According to several major newspapers, the alleged videographer Josh Highcliffe swears his footage
04:47is real, and many have called it the best Bigfoot footage ever recorded, with almost one million
04:52views online.
04:54We checked with our experts to see if that unbridled enthusiasm is justified.
05:03To check the authenticity of this footage, we met with forensic video analyst Michael Primo.
05:08Through frame-by-frame examination, it appears that the camera is handheld that's documenting
05:14this interaction, and there's some rapid movement with motion blur based on just general physical
05:21aspects of the scene.
05:22Analysis does appear to be real.
05:24With the footage appearing to be genuine, we spoke with biologist Floyd Hayes to check
05:29if this was maybe just some local fauna, like a bear.
05:32My first thought was that this was a black bear.
05:35Bears often rip apart tree trunks looking for grubs.
05:39However, it didn't appear like a bear once it stood straight up.
05:43Bears would roll over onto all fours before they would stand up.
05:47We asked anatomist and Bigfoot expert Jeff Meldrum for his take on this suspected skunk ape.
05:53When this creature stands up in limb proportion, more resembles that of a human rather than of a
06:00gorilla.
06:01The proportions against that tree trunk, it gives the impression that it is seven to eight
06:07feet in height, perhaps.
06:09So if it is a hoax, it was a very cleverly contrived hoax.
06:13However, author and Bigfoot investigator Steve Coles does not share Meldrum's optimism.
06:18So the person who submitted this video went by the name of Josh Highcliffe.
06:23Nobody seems to know who he is.
06:25They've never yet come forward with a picture of him or even record a statement from him.
06:30Which prompted Coles to dig even deeper.
06:33I did an internet search and a private investigation database search.
06:38And it turns out the only Josh Highcliffe I was able to find was a character in a television
06:44series called Beasts of the Bayou, which premiered shortly after the video was released.
06:50It would appear that Josh Highcliffe wasn't even a real person, but possibly a fictitious
06:56character played by an actor.
06:58This was kind of a spoof type of documentary.
07:02It's all staged for the TV program.
07:08Our verdict?
07:10We think this is a potential hoax.
07:12Although no members of the television crew have come forward to talk about this video's
07:16validity, we agree with Coles that something smells a bit off here.
07:22Until the real Josh Highcliffe steps forward, we are left guessing at the true nature of this
07:27footage.
07:30Now let's move up north from the Mississippi Delta to the Great Lakes and a mysterious
07:35object seen in the sky.
07:37We don't have any photos or video, but a recorded verbal description of it helped lead the U.S.
07:44president to order it shot out of the sky.
07:47Have a listen.
07:48It's February 12th, 2023, above Lake Huron, near the Canadian border.
07:53The U.S. military sends two F-16 fighter jets to investigate a TOI, or track of interest.
08:00That's pilot's fee for an airborne object that poses a potential threat to national security.
08:04We obtained recordings of the cockpit conversations that took place during this incident.
08:09As the pilots make their way up to 20,000 feet, they discuss the mission.
08:13We plan on just going to the cabin, trying to coordinate with them, intercepting the TOI.
08:19But once they arrive, what they find is hard to describe.
08:24Looks like something, some kind of object that's suspended in the air.
08:29It's almost like a octiana shape, but I can't tell if it's metallic or what.
08:33It looks dark, but I can get it pretty good as I can go on top of it.
08:37Whatever it is, after meeting with military experts, President Biden orders the craft shot down.
08:43Journalist M.J. Banayas recalls following the event as it unfolded.
08:47The newsroom kind of erupted as we were trying to figure out what was happening.
08:52It was pretty chaotic, allegedly.
08:54The reason for shooting it down was because it posed a hazard to flight safety.
08:58And Banayas says the speculation immediately centered around one thing.
09:03This incident came off the back of a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down.
09:07So there was already heightened stress that there could be other spy balloons.
09:11But was it just a balloon?
09:13Unlike other recent run-ins with military jets, like the infamous Tic Tac and Gimbal UAPs,
09:19the government hasn't released any gun camera videos of this incident.
09:23U.S. officials are simply calling it an unidentified object.
09:26There were a lot of people kind of speculating online that this was a cover-up, that these were actually UFOs.
09:33There were a lot of people claiming that this was some sort of alien invasion.
09:36The U.S. and Canada would join forces to try and locate the wreckage, but none was ever found.
09:42To this day, no country or organization has claimed responsibility.
09:47It still remains a bit of a mystery.
09:48At the time of this incident, General Glenn Van Herc was the head of NORAD.
09:54That's the agency responsible for overseeing North American airspace.
09:58When the media first asked him about these events, he refused to rule out extraterrestrial forces at play.
10:04That was later walked back by officials.
10:06But it hasn't prevented the UFO community from suspecting a cover-up.
10:10What will our experts think?
10:12We first asked military aviation expert Tim McMillan if there are any clues in the pilot's audio.
10:22Is it possible this object was another plane?
10:25Based on what the pilots are describing, the object is not moving very fast at all.
10:30It makes it incredibly difficult to really get a handle on it,
10:34because any time you get close to it, it whizzes past you.
10:37Boy, is it so slow and so small, you can't see it because you're so close.
10:42I'd honestly be worried about hitting it before you stalling it.
10:45A plane is going to stall out at that speed.
10:49It's not going to be able to maintain that type of slow speed.
10:52So we can really just rule out plane easily.
10:55Could this be some kind of drone?
10:57Looking outside, it's kind of like a blackish, I'm going to call it like a container.
11:02The pilots observed it at around 20,000 feet.
11:04That it's much higher than any commercial drones would be able to achieve under normal circumstances.
11:10And when you're talking about military-grade or really professional-grade drones,
11:15when you see they have wings, they have control surfaces,
11:18so those would be really easily identifiable.
11:21So what could drift about 20,000 feet in the air and isn't a plane?
11:26The first conclusion that I started leaning towards was,
11:29is it possible this was another spy balloon of some kind?
11:32Spy balloons, like the one from China, have what's called a payload attached to the bottom of the balloon
11:37that contains the actual surveillance equipment.
11:40But then, D'Antonio says he hears a clue in the audio that shuts down his theory.
11:44You can see some strings or something hanging down below it.
11:47You can't tell it was holding anything.
11:49The pilot said it had strings hanging down.
11:52What the pilot didn't see was the small payload.
11:55It tells me that this was probably a normal balloon of some type that was shot down.
12:01So if it was octagonal, was it a group of balloons tied together?
12:06All we know is a national security spokesman says the object did not match the Chinese spy balloon
12:11shot down over the Atlantic coast.
12:14And after that spy balloon shoot-down, the radar used by NORAD,
12:17the North American Aerospace Defense Command,
12:20had been adjusted to detect these kinds of aerial objects.
12:23Our verdict?
12:29Because the pilots mentioned strings, we're going with balloon in this case.
12:34Admittedly, it's impossible to determine that definitively without the recovery of the object.
12:38But we do know that it cost more than $400,000 to fire the missile that brought the thing down.
12:44With that price tag for taxpayers, you'd think we'd be able to know what we hit.
12:48Our next story was one of the biggest and most controversial of 2023.
12:57It's about alleged alien corpses.
13:00And coincidentally, it went wide the same week NASA released its first UFO report.
13:06Mexico's government took this case seriously.
13:09Should you?
13:10Take a look.
13:11Mexico City, September 2023.
13:14It's Mexico's first public congressional UFO hearing,
13:18and ufologist Jaime Moussen stands next to two boxes purportedly retrieved from Cusco, Peru.
13:25This could be one of the big findings of the history.
13:30The war is going to be speechless.
13:32A closer look reveals the extraordinary.
13:35Two tiny white corpses, roughly humanoid in shape.
13:38Beneath their ridged forehead appears two eyes, a nose, and a mouth with no teeth.
13:43The arms and legs are both elongated, with three fingers stretching out on both hands.
13:49Field researcher Ken Gerhardt explains how Moussen says he found these bodies in the first place.
13:55According to Moussen, these two alien bodies were excavated from a mine in 2017,
14:02near the ruins of Sacsayhuaman, which is near Cusco, Peru,
14:05which actually lies adjacent to many ancient and mysterious Inca ruins.
14:10In addition to presenting the bodies, Moussen also brought along an expert to the hearings
14:15who testified that the mummies had been x-rayed and that one of the individuals actually contained eggs
14:22and that both of them had strange metal implants.
14:26Moussen claims carbon dating performed by Mexico's National Autonomous University
14:30shows these corpses are nearly 1,000 years old.
14:34And he says under oath that upon testing the body's DNA,
14:38over 30% was of completely unknown origin, with no match to any living organism on Earth.
14:44We're going to have to rewrite history.
14:47It's going to have to be accepted that we were visited 1,000 years ago.
14:52After the hearing, CT scans like these were performed on the alleged creatures.
15:03The conclusion was the bodies belonged to a single skeleton
15:07and that there was no evidence of assembly or manipulation of the skulls.
15:12But are the remains extraterrestrial or not?
15:16Our experts investigate.
15:17Jaime Moussen makes the extraordinary claim that 30% of the DNA comes from a completely unknown source.
15:28Could that mean it's something extraterrestrial?
15:31We take that question to Dr. Hope.
15:33I don't think so.
15:34If it had evolved from another planet, we'd expect 100% of the DNA to be unknown,
15:40even to the fact we'd perhaps have completely different genetic building blocks.
15:44So I think all of these things point at something that has been created on Earth.
15:50So can we then identify the 70% of the remaining DNA?
15:54If the bodies are at least partially human,
15:57could they be mummified children from an ancient Inca tribe?
16:00If we examine the x-ray, there are lots of features that tell us that this isn't a human baby.
16:06The skull has a very prominent supraorbital ridge.
16:10That's the bony eyebrow ridge, which you wouldn't expect to see on a baby.
16:15Even looks like there might be remnants of ribs further down in the body,
16:19whereas humans only have ribs in the thoracic spine.
16:22We showed the data to anthropologist Kathy Strain,
16:26and she said instead of a human,
16:27certain features reminded her of a different South American mammal.
16:31I believe that the skull is likely that of a llama with, it's just its brain case.
16:37If you remove the frontal bones of the llama and just use what is left of the brain case,
16:44flip it around, and then you can create something that has that brow ridge on what you see the alien.
16:52But the rest of the x-ray, Strain says, leaves us with far more questions than answers.
16:57Everything about it is biologically wrong.
17:02These eggs, as an example, are extraordinarily large,
17:06and they're not even in where you would think the uterus would be.
17:10They're kind of scattered in the middle of the skeleton.
17:13It's not natural to a human or other animals that I am familiar with.
17:20I think the skeleton, to me, just doesn't look right.
17:23If you look at the hip joint, it looks like it would be very prone to dislocation.
17:27It doesn't look like it would be compatible with life.
17:30Things like that make me believe that this is not actually a true organism.
17:34If this is truly a hoax, Gerhardt says it wouldn't be Mousen's first offense.
17:39My friends in the UFO community were actually very skeptical when this all unfolded.
17:43There have been multiple times in the past when Jaime has presented what he described as mummified alien bodies.
17:50In a remarkable situation like this, with remarkable claims being made, there has to be peer review.
18:00Given the present circumstances and what our experts have to say, we are calling this case a probable hoax.
18:07And since we first started investigating, subsequent events confirmed that conclusion.
18:11In January 2024, authorities in Peru announced they stopped a shipment headed to Mexico of similar looking creatures.
18:21Forensic experts concluded those were nothing more than dolls made of materials including paper, glue, animal and human bones.
18:29So, no aliens for now.
18:32But when the next discovery is made, we will be sure to investigate.
18:36The UFO in our next photograph has been the subject of debate for almost 20 years.
18:45And some even believe the photograph is evidence that UFOs can bend the rules of space and time.
18:53November 7th, 2006.
18:55It's a typical day at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
18:59When just after 4 p.m., an airline employee makes a surprising call to the control tower.
19:04Fire tower, this is Dave.
19:07Hey, did you see a flying disc out by C-17?
19:09Why, you're seeing flying discs?
19:11Well, that's what the pilot and the ramp guys are telling us, the C-17, they saw some flying discs.
19:15But here's the thing.
19:16It's not just one person.
19:18Multiple airport employees also report seeing a strange craft hovering over the gate.
19:23And later, an anonymous source claims to have captured the UFO on his phone and sends this image to investigators.
19:30A gray, seemingly saucer-shaped object can be seen over the airport gate.
19:37The various eyewitnesses differ on its size, with estimates ranging from as little as 10 feet to as large as 88 feet in diameter.
19:45They claim it immediately accelerated at a steep angle and punched through the 19,000-foot cloud ceiling, leaving a hole.
19:52The FAA concluded that airport employees had confused a weather phenomenon with a UFO.
20:00But needless to say, UFO enthusiasts do not consider this case closed.
20:05In fact, a team of scientists from the privately funded research group Applied Physics has proposed that, based on the eyewitness reports,
20:12the O'Hare UFO shows signs of a propulsion system called the Alcubierre warp drive.
20:18It was theorized by Miguel Alcubierre in 1994.
20:22It's a warp drive that would allow a craft to travel faster than the speed of light by bending space and time around it.
20:29The theory is to stretch the fabric of space-time in a wave which would cause the space ahead of an object to contract,
20:35while the space behind it would expand.
20:37The spaceship inside this wave would then ride this warp bubble of flat space.
20:42The chief researcher of Applied Physics said that the ideal shape for a spacecraft like this would be a saucer,
20:49because it's the most efficient one.
20:51Is this a flying disc out by C-17?
20:53So that kind of mimics what was seen at O'Hare Airport.
20:58Could warp drive, just like we see on Star Trek, be a reality one day?
21:04Believe it or not, scientists from NASA have put their minds to it and published papers examining the possibility.
21:12But did eyewitnesses really see the O'Hare UFO jump to light speed?
21:21According to the FAA, no airplanes were detected on radar over the gate or seen by air traffic controllers.
21:27They concluded what the eyewitnesses thought was a UFO was naturally occurring in something called a hole punch cloud.
21:34A hole punch cloud develops where an airplane traverses across a cloud and causes an instantaneous condensation of those water droplets.
21:43But hole punch clouds are not normally seen this low.
21:46They occur between 10,000 to 20,000 feet, not at about 1,000 feet above the ground.
21:52And for a hole punch cloud to develop, you need sub-freezing temperatures.
21:57At the location and the height that this was reported, there were no sub-freezing temperatures at this time.
22:03I don't think this is a weather event.
22:04But eyewitnesses claim they saw an actual craft, not just a hole in the cloud, and that the craft instantaneously accelerated upwards to disappear in a flash.
22:15Is that burst of speed what could have caused a hole in the cloud?
22:19Could it be the signature of a UFO engaging its Alcubierre warp drive?
22:24I don't think so, because we're talking about incredible amounts of energy to compress space in front of you.
22:31It would be enough to flatten our airport and take a good chunk of Illinois with it.
22:37And as for that image in the photo, it's so small and low res, it's hard to authenticate.
22:43In fact, NARCAP, the National Aviation Reporting Center for Anomalous Phenomena, examined the photo as soon as it was anonymously submitted during their investigation.
22:52Their analysis determined the image was manipulated and that the disc-shaped object was inserted into the picture.
22:58The smoking gun?
23:00The NARCAP team located online the original source image of the airport gate the UFO was cut and pasted onto.
23:11Our verdict?
23:13Faked photo.
23:15But while this picture isn't legit, we still can't explain what we heard in that recording
23:20and why so many people are certain they saw not just a hole in the cloud, but an actual physical object in the sky.
23:29For now, that part of the story remains unexplained.
23:37Decoding the Rosetta Stone in the 1800s opened the door for the understanding of ancient Egyptian.
23:43But there's one old manuscript that is so bizarre, no one has been able to figure out what it says.
23:48It's even been called the world's most mysterious book.
23:53Take a look.
23:55It's 1912 outside Rome, Italy.
23:58A Polish-American book dealer named Wilfred Voynich buys a text from a Jesuit college.
24:04This late medieval manuscript is made up of roughly 240 pages bound in vellum made from calf skin.
24:11Many pages feature colorful drawings of unusual plant life.
24:14But then we come to this.
24:17This, some believe, seems to show the heliocentric theory, which is the sun is at the center of the solar system
24:26and the planets and celestial bodies are orbiting around it.
24:29This wouldn't be so odd if it weren't for the fact that this codex was apparently created a century before astronomer
24:36Nicolae Skopernik has first modeled his theory that planets revolve around the sun.
24:41And what's stranger still is this manuscript is written in a language no one has ever heard of.
24:47So far, no one has been able to figure out what the Voynich manuscript says or what it even is.
24:52It has six sections, botany, astronomy and astrology, cosmology, biology, pharmacological,
25:01and then a text section that appears to be recipes.
25:04Cryptology researcher Ilanka Dunin says who wrote this manuscript is entirely unclear.
25:10But we do know it passed through many hands.
25:14The general sense is that it came from somewhere around the north of Italy.
25:19Because if we zoom in to the tiny pictures, there's a castle with a swallowtail merlon.
25:26And really the only place those kind of castles existed was in northern Italy.
25:30But that still leaves the question of its unknown language open to interpretation and speculation.
25:36Some people believe that the Voynich may be a previously undiscovered language dialect
25:42of a civilization that no longer exists.
25:45We've found cities under sand and wiped off the face of the earth by floods.
25:51So maybe this comes from a civilization like that.
25:55Yet even that wouldn't explain why this text seems to depict earth orbiting the sun
26:01long before that theory was modeled.
26:02Some people think that the person who created the Voynich had this extra cosmic knowledge
26:08that people on earth didn't have.
26:10In other words, an extraterrestrial.
26:17The greatest cryptanalyst in history, including the first chief of cryptology at the NSA,
26:24have tried to crack this code over the years.
26:26Yet thus far, linguists, computer scientists, and even computers themselves have failed.
26:33So let's see if our experts can help further our understanding of this centuries-old mystery.
26:42Over the years, some have wondered if Voynich actually wrote this cryptic book himself
26:46just to make a quick buck.
26:48So anthropologist Kathy Strain looks into if this could all be just an elaborate hoax.
26:53This book was radiocarbon dated to be between 1404 and 1438, so we know it's very old.
27:01It's made of vellum, and vellum was a more expensive kind of paper.
27:05For someone 600 years ago to think to themselves,
27:09well, I'm going to spend all this money and invest the time to make it look like language
27:14just to pull off a hoax, that seems like an awful lot of work
27:18for something that person would never live to see the benefit of.
27:22Despite its peculiarities, archaeologist Dr. Ed Barnhart says the book fits with the style of the time.
27:29Visually and structurally, it looks like an alphabetic text.
27:36It's got short words and long words.
27:39There are words that repeat.
27:40There are complete sentences.
27:42It's organized in paragraphs, but there's not a single pattern
27:48that they can actually start to translate what it says.
27:52So could this actually be the work of intelligent beings from out of this world?
27:57It really doesn't evoke somebody who is advanced in technology.
28:03I doubt aliens even use cursive or pen to paper.
28:08If it's not aliens, then could this actually be from a lost civilization?
28:13Archaeology is all about patterns.
28:16So the fact that the best minds in the world have tried to find things associated with it and failed,
28:22there's no way that a book, which is a fragile artifact, remained,
28:28and none of the other materials of this ancient civilization remained whatsoever.
28:33So then who did write this mysterious manuscript?
28:37One key clue may be that at the time,
28:40cutting-edge scientists proposing controversial theories of the universe
28:43were subject to punishment from the church for radical views.
28:48I think it's very possible that it could be hiding information.
28:53There were many things that scientists of the time wouldn't want the church to know,
28:58especially with alchemy, and that would involve plants.
29:01So were these scientists communicating in code to avoid punishment?
29:07We think that maybe it was some kind of brilliant cipher that these scientists were using,
29:15where they could share information in books like this,
29:18but if the church got a hold of it, they would have no idea what they were talking about.
29:26Our verdict?
29:27The person or persons who wrote this manuscript, what it says, and why, are still unknown.
29:34It's possible scientists of the early Renaissance created it to share controversial new theories,
29:40like the idea that the Earth orbits the sun.
29:43But unless we crack the code, we'll never know for sure.
29:46Syria's civil war has led to some of the deadliest use of weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century.
29:56So when something strange started taking place above one of its bloodiest battle zones,
30:02it's no wonder people took notice.
30:05It's February 2020, outside Aleppo, one of the most war-torn cities in Syria.
30:11People in the countryside spots something in the sky that leaves them in a state of awe.
30:17One witness starts recording a video that shows an unusual pattern up in the sky.
30:21It's made up of several long, thin, almost pipe cleaner-like white lines that move upward through the atmosphere.
30:29The wave pattern continues for almost 30 seconds and then disappears.
30:33In the background, a man is heard yelling in Russian.
30:36Investigative journalist M.J. Benayas is convinced something bizarre is taking place here.
30:45We have reaction from people on the ground as this event is happening.
30:51So it only lends to some of the credibility here that these waves are being seen by people
30:58and this is not some camera effect or some sort of hoax.
31:03This isn't the first strange sighting in the Middle East.
31:05So some think we're looking at something that may not even be of this world.
31:11There was some speculation online that this was an extraterrestrial craft.
31:15That what people are seeing here is signs of a UFO essentially in Syrian airspace.
31:22Less than 400 miles from here, the U.S. military captured footage,
31:27which was later released by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell as a still image.
31:31It shows an unidentified silver metallic sphere flying over the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2016.
31:39And since then, other nearby incidents have made headlines.
31:42In July of 2022, a metallic spherical object was spotted multiple times in the region.
31:49And this came out as a result of a U.S. Senate hearing on the topic of UAP.
31:53So we have a lot of incidents regarding UFOs in the Middle East that are now coming to light.
31:59One theory is that this is not a craft itself,
32:02but waves induced by a sonic boom from an invisible man-made or alien aircraft.
32:08Or is there some other explanation?
32:13The bombings in Syria have slowed down since the height of the war in the 2010s.
32:18Yet the residents of this brutalized region still look to the sky with fear.
32:22Our experts examine exactly what type of danger may be lurking in the clouds above.
32:33First, forensic video analyst Michael Primo authenticates the footage.
32:37Forensics, which has a known database of sample recordings
32:40and can detect evidence of manipulation software,
32:44did not identify any kind of particular software program
32:47that was used to manipulate the recording.
32:49And what's seen within the recordings is compelling.
32:51Next, physicist Dr. Michio Kaku considers if these could be contrails,
32:57the trails left by jets as a result of engine exhaust.
33:00Contrails leave a distinct pattern, not the pattern shown here.
33:05We're talking about the pattern of hot gases emitted from an airplane wing,
33:09which looks totally different than the shape of these waves.
33:13With all of these earthly explanations rolled out,
33:16could these waves actually be coming from an extraterrestrial source?
33:20This is not characteristic of the UFO exhaust that we've seen.
33:24In fact, most UFOs have no exhaust at all.
33:27Yet if this is, in fact, a terrestrial phenomenon,
33:31then what exactly are we seeing?
33:33This could be a pressure wave.
33:35A pressure wave develops when there is a large explosion
33:39or a large change in temperature that causes molecules to bump up against each other fairly rapidly.
33:46That compression creates a lot of pressure, and it's exerted in all directions.
33:51We know some suggested this could be a sonic boom,
33:54but it may not actually be a jet plane exceeding the speed of sound that's producing this pattern.
33:59Highly compressed air moving outwards from the source of high-order explosives
34:03can also move at supersonic speeds,
34:06creating a strong pressure wave known as a blast or shock wave.
34:10So is that what we're witnessing here?
34:12We're talking about these videos taking place during wartime in the Middle East
34:18when bombs were going off,
34:19and these bombs in turn could have created waves
34:23which were then made visible
34:25because these waves were moving along with water vapor.
34:29Our verdict?
34:35This unusual cloud formation was likely a pressure wave from a nearby explosion.
34:41During the very month this video was filmed,
34:43there were reported pro-government airstrikes in Aleppo.
34:46So considering both the timing and location of this video,
34:50we think it's likely a side effect of the brutal conflict in the region.
34:54Finally tonight, how does China deal with UFOs?
35:01It's been reported the People's Liberation Army is using artificial intelligence
35:05to help identify what they call unidentified air conditions.
35:11So, does our next video qualify as a potential candidate?
35:15June 27, 2023.
35:18A man is admiring the panoramic view from an observation deck
35:21in Anji County in eastern China.
35:24Suddenly, he notices something rapidly descending from the clouds,
35:27takes out his phone, and captures this.
35:31A black object traces a long gray tail across the heavens.
35:35It looks like it's either speeding or maybe even crashing towards the earth.
35:41What I find interesting about this footage is
35:44there's clearly something at the very tip of the object that's more dense,
35:49that's the focal point of whatever it is.
35:51While there was speculation this was some kind of crashing UFO,
35:56an astronomy expert from Shizhong Natural Museum examined the video
36:01and did come to one definitive conclusion.
36:03It wasn't something natural or man-made from outer space.
36:07It wasn't an object that they could identify because the speed and trajectory
36:11didn't seem to match any type of meteorite or known space debris.
36:15And there were also no reports of manned vessels that had crashed in the area.
36:21But this video was filmed four months after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon over the United States.
36:27And some see a similarity.
36:29Did the United States retaliate against China with their own spy balloon?
36:34Both of these objects seem to have a stream coming behind them.
36:38So could this be something similar of a spy device that was shot down?
36:43Others have speculated the smoke trail indicates debris from something much more solid than a balloon.
36:49If the U.S. was spying on China, chances are they would have used one of their newest and most secret pieces of technology.
36:57First launched in 2010, the X-37B is a reusable robotic spacecraft that is known to operate under the U.S. Air Force.
37:06The ship functions like a much smaller space shuttle at around 29 feet long and 10 feet tall.
37:11The X-37B has a payload area about the size of a pickup truck bed.
37:17It can orbit at altitudes between 150 and 500 miles.
37:21And being unmanned, it has spent more than two years in space on one mission.
37:27Now, we don't understand exactly what it's being used for.
37:31It is labeled as a top secret project.
37:34There's rumors that the X-37B was being used to possibly spy on a Chinese space lab.
37:40Did the Chinese shoot down the X-37B, possibly in retaliation?
37:48The concern over China militarizing space isn't just fringe theory.
37:54In 2007, China launched a ballistic missile into space, intentionally destroying one of its own satellites.
38:01Another launch in 2014 was also believed to be an anti-satellite weapons test.
38:06So what is this object plummeting to Earth?
38:08And was it an accident or not?
38:15First, we asked science writer and video analyst Mick West if this could be the top secret X-37B.
38:22The X-37B is believed to be basically a military spy space plane.
38:27But we don't know what the X-37B actually does.
38:30However, West notes, according to reports, at this time, the X-37B would have been back on Earth, having ended a mission in November 2022, more than six months before this sighting.
38:41So could this have been a secret flight?
38:43I don't think this could be some kind of secret launch of the X-37B, because we have a pretty good idea about its schedule, when it departs and when it returns.
38:52It's tracked by amateur astronomers.
38:54And if the Chinese had shot that down, I think that would have been a rather major international incident.
38:58Perhaps it's not the X-37B.
39:02So then are the Chinese shooting down a U.S. spy balloon?
39:05The U.S. has used high-altitude spy balloons in the past, including to monitor the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
39:12But over the decades, those were replaced by planes and satellites.
39:16In fact, Rich Hoffman of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies doesn't think it's a balloon at all.
39:22It's not a weather or a spy balloon that's being shot down.
39:25But he believes the footage from the Chinese spy balloon shot down by the U.S. provides a clue.
39:32This alternate angle reveals that what some thought was a trail of smoke from the spy balloon is actually coming from the American military jet that shot it down.
39:40If you look at the smoke layer, you'll see that it has two trails that are moving along with a split in the middle of it,
39:50which would indicate that it's some sort of a contrail.
39:54What can produce those two types of trails?
39:57Most commonly, it's an aircraft.
40:00So in this video, I think that this is nothing more than an aircraft going across the sky creating a contrail.
40:06Mick West explains this is a fairly common optical illusion.
40:11What we're seeing here is actually a plane.
40:13It looks like it's flying down because eventually it has to get to the horizon.
40:17But in fact, it's actually flying along at exactly level altitude.
40:21The trails we're seeing are actually just regular airplane contrails.
40:26If you compare them to other similar contrails of this type, you will see this type of pattern.
40:32Our verdict, we are going to go with this being an unidentified plane.
40:42For us, the contrails are the dead giveaway.
40:45But beyond that, our investigation is up in the air.
40:49Let us know what you think.
40:50And that's our show for tonight.
40:52Thank you so much for watching.
40:53And remember to keep those cameras rolling.
40:56We'll see you next time.
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