- 5 hours ago
- #realitycentralusa
#
#RealityCentralUSA
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00I'm seeing a flying disc out by C-17.
00:02Among the quiet towns and bustling epicenters around the world,
00:06reports pour in of unusual aerial phenomena.
00:09It shoots high into the air.
00:11It's moving in an erratic way.
00:14This is not a terrestrial craft.
00:17Flying discs, hovering orbs,
00:19strange biological substances falling from the sky.
00:23To determine what it might have been,
00:25you'd have to eliminate all the other possibilities.
00:28The sensational becomes credible once it's crowdsourced.
00:32Thousands of people claim to see these orbs.
00:36UFO hotspots light up on the map.
00:38What's made these places the target of otherworldly attention?
00:42This might be the location of the vortex.
00:45As vessels reappear in the same locations,
00:48can we use the earthly to guess at otherworldly motives?
00:52Are these mysterious visitors friends or foe?
00:55And should we fear their return?
00:57All over the world, repeat sightings of UFOs baffle researchers.
01:02UAP are in our airspace, but they are grossly underreported.
01:05The pattern begins to emerge.
01:07These sightings are not rare or isolated.
01:09They are routine.
01:10What is the meaning behind these hotspots?
01:12I can't go beyond what I've already stated publicly.
01:14Congress, the government is not prepared.
01:17Are we being mapped?
01:21In Yelm, Washington, something strange is happening.
01:24On July 29th, 2017, at 9.58 p.m., an off-duty pilot is standing at his living room window.
01:34He has spent thousands of hours flying through the skies here, but he has never seen anything like this.
01:44An impossibly bright, silvery-white light streaks across the horizon at mind-bending speed.
01:55Had the pilot been in the air, he would have been able to confirm the strange object with the ground crew.
02:01But now there is only one place he can report to.
02:08In Davenport, an operator stationed inside an abandoned missile site tries to understand the pilot's description of the impossible object.
02:18It sounds like a meteor.
02:21The pilot protests.
02:23He's seen meteors before.
02:24This light is steady, more like a missile, but far faster, crossing the sky at an estimated speed of 12,000 kilometers per hour.
02:37The Davenport operator has worked for the National UFO Reporting Center for more than three decades.
02:44Descriptions of the impossible are all too familiar.
02:48On this night alone, he will receive 12 other reports about the strange light in Yelm.
02:54It will be recorded and filed as one in thousands of unidentified objects that have confounded scientists and citizens in the region for more than 70 years.
03:11June 24, 1947.
03:15Amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold flies his single-seater plane high above Washington State,
03:21carefully observing the vast Cascade mountain range below.
03:25He decides to take a detour to try and find a military plane that has downed recently with several potential fatalities.
03:37A $5,000 reward is being offered for news of the plane, which had disappeared seven months earlier with 32 Marines aboard.
03:47Looking for a downed aircraft in a mountainous area is probably one of the toughest search and rescue tasks there is.
03:54It's the proverbial needle in a haystack.
03:57The aircraft could be snow-covered.
03:59It could be buried in amongst the foliage of the forest.
04:02It could be hidden up in some valley.
04:04Shortly before 3 p.m., Arnold Banks left, 32 kilometers from the Cascade's highest peak, Mount Rainier.
04:15Suddenly, a bright flash to the northeast catches his eye.
04:19At first, he thinks the flash is just a reflection from another aircraft.
04:25But the reality is far stranger.
04:29What he encounters is something that appears to be a group of alien aircraft.
04:35In fact, nine of them in total.
04:39Arnold said that these aircraft were weaving and dipping and that they appeared to be disc-shaped.
04:47Astonished at the speed of the objects, Arnold times the fleet between Mount Rainier and nearby Mount Adams.
04:55He estimates that they are flying between 1,900 and 2,700 kilometers per hour.
05:01This is in 1947, at the dawn of the jet age.
05:06We really don't have any aircraft at that point in time that can approach anywhere near those speeds.
05:14And if they were going that fast, they would certainly leave one heck of a sonic boom.
05:19Unless they were defying the laws of physics and aerodynamics, then what he saw was not what he thought he saw.
05:26The whole Kenneth Arnold episode basically unleashes a kind of UFO mania in the United States throughout the late 1940s and into the 1950s.
05:38And we even see for the first time the term flying saucer arising.
05:43All these other reports pop up, and in some cases, having one story come out means that the other people who might have had something odd happen now feel more comfortable sharing theirs.
05:55Now for others, it could be that some people crave attention.
05:59It's kind of a me too. I can have a sighting and I can do it.
06:01But then there's another side, a bit more negative. They're being quite nasty towards him.
06:07Maybe he's making it all up. Is he crazy?
06:11There's obviously a huge amount of skepticism, whether or not he's experienced a hallucination,
06:17or whether or not it's a kind of a trick of the light that he is mistaken for a series of UFOs.
06:23One suggested explanation is an unusual type of cloud formation known as lenticular clouds.
06:32Lenticular clouds are a wild-looking cloud because most of the time we sort of associate big puffy cauliflower shapes as to what clouds look like.
06:43But lenticular clouds can be very smooth-sided on all sides.
06:47If you've never seen this before, it absolutely will cause you to go,
06:53I have no idea what I'm looking at, and this is the wildest thing ever, and it must be a UFO.
06:59Another possibility is a medical condition called hypoxia.
07:04And that is a physiological state where you're breathing, but the oxygen is not under enough pressure to get into your bloodstream and feed the brain.
07:11And when that starts to happen, you can experience sometimes hallucinations of a sort.
07:20Arnold dismisses his skeptics and sticks to his story.
07:26As news of this strange encounter spreads, media outlets and U.S. military agents alike search for evidence to corroborate the story.
07:34And they find it.
07:35At 2.30 p.m., a man in Richland, Washington, reports several silver disks flying rapidly westward towards Mount Rainier.
07:49At 3 p.m., a member of the Washington Forest Service on Firewatch reports sudden flashes above the mountain, moving in perfect formation.
07:57And as Arnold flies over with his aircraft, just after 3 p.m., prospector Fred Johnson spots the mysterious disks from the base of Mount Adams.
08:11Even stranger, Johnson soon discovers that his compass is swaying wildly.
08:17Could that be down to the mountains, or the environment, or was it due to the occurrence of a UFO sighting?
08:23Well, the obvious question is, if there are UFOs in this area, what are they doing there?
08:30What is it that makes extraterrestrials want to come to that spot?
08:42Extending more than 1,100 kilometers over three U.S. states and into Canada,
08:48the Cascade Mountain Range is Washington's most striking geological feature.
08:52The effect of the Cascade Mountain Range is quite dramatic on the landscape.
08:58Western side, it's subtropical.
09:01But then if you go to the eastern side, you get this really arid, more desert-like landscape.
09:06While many of the peaks here reach well over 3,000 meters,
09:11none are as tall as Mount Rainier, ascending more than 4,300 meters.
09:16As beautiful as the Cascades are, it comes with its dangers.
09:19There can be unpredictable weather, there can be air currents that cause turbulence,
09:24and this is especially to the detriment of pilots in the region.
09:29Mount Rainier isn't just a mountain.
09:33It's an active, very dangerous volcano that's sitting very close to a large urban metropolis.
09:42The entire Pacific Northwest is very geologically active,
09:48and that's because it sits right on the border of two tectonic plates.
09:52So a mountain like Rainier is always in motion,
09:57because magma is moving underneath that mountain at all times.
10:02The activity at Mount Rainier started about a million years ago,
10:07with the most recent significant eruption being about 1,000 years ago.
10:12And in the lifespan of volcanoes, 1,000 years is nothing.
10:17So while the volcano isn't active in the sense that it's erupting,
10:22it really does have the potential to erupt again.
10:24The many volcanic peaks in the Cascades leave local communities in near-constant fear of a possible eruption.
10:36In the spring of 1980, these nightmares become a reality,
10:40144 kilometers south of Mount Rainier, on Mount St. Helens.
10:45For a couple of months prior to the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980,
10:51there were some pretty dramatic effects.
10:55When magma is moving and it begins to increase in pressure
10:59because it's forcing its way to the surface,
11:02you're going to get earthquakes, you're going to have steam vents happening,
11:05you're going to have all kinds of indications that something is about to happen.
11:10On the morning of May 18th, with no apparent warning,
11:16a magnitude 5 earthquake strikes Mount St. Helens.
11:21The entire side of Mount St. Helens slid down,
11:25one of the largest landslides in recorded history.
11:30What happened then was all the pressure blasted out sideways instead of straight up.
11:40The landslide sends 2.5 billion cubic meters of debris,
11:48equivalent to the volume of 1 million Olympic swimming pools flowing downwards.
11:55While a stream of ash and rock blows out of the nearly formed crater,
11:59reaching a height of 24 kilometers within 15 minutes.
12:06Underneath it, it must have looked like the end of the world.
12:09The sunlight can't get through at all,
12:12so it goes day to night.
12:14It's unbelievable.
12:18Hundreds of homes were destroyed.
12:21Bridges and roads and miles of railroad infrastructure were just wiped away.
12:2857 people died.
12:30There, of course, was the vast ecological damage.
12:33Wildlife were killed and huge swaths of land were just left barren after.
12:42The activity on Mount St. Helens continues into October,
12:46with five more eruptions rocking the volcano.
12:48But after months of chaos,
12:53life around the mountain finally begins to return to normal.
12:59Until nearly one year later.
13:01On March 17th, 1981,
13:04in the small town of St. Helens,
13:07on the border of Washington and Oregon,
13:09famous for its view of the volcano.
13:10Shortly after 4 a.m.,
13:16Sergeant Russell Yocum drives his usual patrol route along Highway 30,
13:20west of the Columbia River.
13:25Suddenly,
13:26a strange light appears,
13:28surrounded by a thick fog.
13:31The light is moving towards the nearby Portland airport.
13:35Sergeant Yocum dismisses the light as a passing plane.
13:42It's very easy to mistake a UFO for something conventional,
13:46especially for a conventional craft, an airplane.
13:50And this is especially so if you're driving in a car.
13:53Just the speed at which you're driving,
13:55looking out your windshield,
13:56and seeing something else moving
13:57will cause all kinds of optical illusions.
14:02The strange light grows brighter,
14:04lighting up the Columbia River like a sunrise.
14:07This is no ordinary aircraft.
14:11Most aircraft wouldn't be a yellow light.
14:14They don't have the intensity and the brightness,
14:16and they don't illuminate things
14:18so we can see detail as well.
14:20But when you have a really bright white light
14:23and you shine it through water vapor,
14:25it actually removes the blue spectrum.
14:28It shifts towards the yellow end of the spectrum
14:31and has more of an appearance of a sunrise-type color
14:34rather than being the original white, intense light.
14:38A lot of attention gets paid to the light
14:40and the light source itself.
14:42But for me, the most interesting part is the fog.
14:45I can't think of many conventional aircrafts
14:48that could produce this kind of fog
14:50that surrounds the aircraft.
14:56Sergeant Yoakam radios police headquarters
14:58before joining two other officers
15:00on the banks of the Columbia River to investigate.
15:03St. Helens PD promptly contacts
15:08Portland International Airport
15:10to report the strange sight.
15:12Staff at the airport confirm
15:14that their radar has detected the object.
15:18Shortly after making the call,
15:20the police officers receive a call back
15:23from the airport.
15:24And they've done the classic confirm
15:27and then quickly deny what they said.
15:29They backtrack and said, in fact,
15:31they didn't see anything on the radar at all.
15:34By the banks of the Columbia River,
15:36the light is shining as brightly as ever.
15:39Then the UFO starts to do something strange
15:42in that it starts making a sound.
15:46And it's odd because that's actually not typical
15:48for UFO sightings.
15:50In my experience, UFOs don't make any sounds at all.
15:56Then, at 4.43 a.m., the light vanishes.
15:59The thick fog that had accompanied it disappears,
16:03leaving behind an eerily blue sky.
16:07This incident takes place over a 45-minute time period,
16:11which is actually a long period of time,
16:13if you think about it.
16:15And it really gives an opportunity
16:17for those involved to take stock
16:19of what they're actually seeing,
16:20getting over the initial shock
16:23and beginning to process what it is
16:25that's in front of them.
16:26The police officers were able to record
16:30the sound of the UFO
16:31and send the recording to sound analysts
16:34hoping for answers, but to no avail.
16:39Nothing on record can seemingly explain
16:41the strange apparition in St. Helens.
16:46But could there be a connection
16:48between the massive volcanic eruption of May 1980
16:51and the appearance of a UFO nearly a year later?
17:01While the eruption of Mount St. Helens makes history
17:04as the most destructive volcano ever recorded
17:06in the United States,
17:08experts fear that an eruption
17:11of the larger Mount Rainier
17:12could be far worse.
17:14When you're dealing with a mountain that size,
17:18it goes off with gigatons of force and ash.
17:23Given where Seattle is in relation to Mount Rainier,
17:27the devastation could be beyond anything
17:30we have ever seen in North America.
17:34One technology instrumental in tracking
17:37the potential timeline
17:38for the next disastrous eruption
17:40is satellites.
17:41The spacecraft that we have,
17:45for example, orbiting Earth
17:47or beyond to look out to space
17:49can also be used to look towards Earth,
17:51capturing things like volcanic eruptions.
17:54And this is incredibly important
17:55because satellite imaging
17:57can give us a unique perspective
17:59on what's happening on Earth.
18:01When it comes to volcanoes,
18:03these satellites are really, really important
18:05because what they allow us to do
18:07is overlay images
18:09of the shape of mountains
18:12day to day
18:13or month to month
18:13or year to year.
18:15And we can start seeing changes
18:17in the shape of the mountain,
18:19whether magma chambers are filling
18:21and domes are forming
18:22within the craters of volcanoes.
18:24And it can give us a lot of data
18:26about how and when volcanoes may erupt.
18:31In 1980,
18:32the 24-kilometer column of ash and debris
18:35erupting from Mount St. Helens
18:37was captured by satellites orbiting the Earth.
18:40And not surprisingly,
18:42it could have been viewed from space,
18:44not just by our technology,
18:46but also potentially by alien technology.
18:51When you look at the images from space,
18:52it actually, frankly,
18:53looks like an atomic bomb blast.
18:55This is the scale of this
18:57and the terrifying nature of it.
18:59Maybe aliens might have thought
19:00this was the first outbreak of a war going on
19:04and they would have wanted to know
19:05exactly what it was.
19:07Anyone in space observing volcanic activity
19:10on Earth would learn a great deal
19:12about the planet's structure.
19:15Humans love to draw lines on things.
19:17And we have all sorts of different countries
19:19with little lines.
19:20But we can also map our planet
19:22through looking at things like geology.
19:26The ring of fire
19:28that runs around the entire Pacific basin
19:31is a great way to map things out.
19:33The ring of fire is a 40,000-kilometer-long stretch
19:39where the Pacific plate
19:40meets the other tectonic plates around it.
19:43So that entire area
19:44is extremely geologically active
19:47and that's where we find
19:49a vast majority of volcanoes on planet Earth.
19:51Could the sightings over the Cascades
19:55be an alien intelligence
19:56monitoring geologic activity
19:58along shifting tectonic plates
20:00to map our world?
20:01The ring of fire runs along the perimeter
20:08of the largest body of water in the world,
20:11the Pacific Ocean.
20:12Washington's Pacific coastline
20:16is another of the state's most iconic landscapes
20:19and another hotbed of unexplained activity.
20:23There's a long history in UFO lore
20:26of UFO interest in bodies of water
20:29and particularly large bodies of water.
20:31And so there's lots of sightings along coastlines.
20:34It does raise questions
20:37as to whether UFOs are attracted to the water
20:42or are they even emanating out of the water?
20:46Are they coming from underwater bases somewhere?
20:50A really common form of UFO reported
20:53along coastlines is that of the orb.
20:55And they're described as spherical often
20:58and particular colours as well.
21:00The really common colours are just white,
21:02yellow or orange.
21:03There's a lot of optical illusions
21:06that happen on the horizon
21:08or across bodies of water.
21:10So that could be one reason
21:11why you're seeing more there.
21:13At the same time,
21:14when the stories start talking
21:15about underwater bases
21:16or other things happening with it,
21:18it is a bit unknown.
21:20We haven't explored it all.
21:22The Pacific Ocean is twice the size,
21:25twice the volume of the Atlantic.
21:27And it really is an uncharted,
21:30underexplored mass of water,
21:33with trenches and mountains on the seabed.
21:37a huge amount of things still yet to discover.
21:41The unexplained lights
21:53seen flitting along the Washington coastline
21:55have baffled locals and scientists for decades.
21:59And several kilometres inland,
22:02even stranger phenomena materialise
22:04when residents of the small town of Oakville
22:07endure a surreal experience
22:09during the summer of 1994.
22:14So we can imagine a very typical rainy,
22:18overcast Pacific Northwest day,
22:20but there were multiple witnesses
22:22who described the rain quite differently.
22:26Initially, people were not quite able
22:28to make out what is odd about it
22:31until a police officer operating his windscreen wipers
22:35notices that it's like Jell-O.
22:38I mean, it's the most bizarre gelatinous substance.
22:42This is not regular rainfall.
22:45Shortly after this,
22:47people start to feel sick
22:48with really unexplained symptoms.
22:50And so there's a lot of suspicion
22:52about what's going on here.
22:52Five more strange gelatinous showers
22:56follow the first.
22:57Rumours start to spread very quickly.
23:00And one of the more extreme theories
23:02or claims about this
23:03was that the gelatinous mass falling
23:05actually contained white blood cells.
23:09Suspecting the link
23:10between the mysterious rains
23:12and the rash of sudden illness,
23:14one local resident collects a sample.
23:17Analysis of the sample
23:19disproves the white blood cell theory.
23:21But scientists from the hazardous material unit
23:24at the State Department of Ecology
23:26are nevertheless confounded by the results.
23:30Tests showed up cells of different sizes
23:33and two previously unidentified forms of bacteria.
23:38But really, experts struggled
23:40to try and understand
23:41what the hell this substance was.
23:45Without a clear explanation
23:47for the odd showers over Oakville,
23:49several theories begin to emerge,
23:52each one stranger than the next.
23:55Was it industrial waste?
23:57Is the government experiment gone wrong?
23:59And then, of course,
24:00is it something from another world?
24:05Some think that the blobs were fluid waste
24:07from a passing airplane toilet.
24:09But this theory was quickly disproved.
24:11Another small but vocal group
24:15believes that these are actually parts of jellyfish
24:18dispersed into rain clouds
24:20after bomb tests by the military over the Pacific.
24:26Others speculate
24:28that it's a mysterious star jelly
24:30reported as far back as the 14th century,
24:33thought to have rained down
24:34from passing meteor showers.
24:35As far as we have ever found,
24:40that is not a thing.
24:43We do not see any sort of gelatinous anything on meteors,
24:49especially after they've entered our atmosphere,
24:51because they are entering at ludicrous speeds,
24:55and anything organic on the surface
24:58is going to be vaporized fairly quickly.
25:03The Oakville blobs remain an enduring mystery,
25:06leading some to wonder
25:07whether this mysterious shower
25:09is connected to the UFO sightings
25:11along the nearby coast.
25:15Certainly, there are going to be people
25:17who suggest that it's of extraterrestrial origin,
25:19but we don't have any evidence
25:22of past events happening that are similar
25:24where we could say
25:25this would be an example
25:26of what could reproduce this phenomena.
25:29You know, the sad bit
25:30is that the samples weren't kept.
25:31And we've got better techniques to analyze it now.
25:34And I think that's something that is changing,
25:36that we're making sure that we keep things
25:38because we know that we're going to get better
25:40at looking into things
25:41and figure out what's happening.
25:47As unanswered questions
25:49continue to plague Washington's coastal areas,
25:52still more sightings occur
25:53along the shores of the state's Pacific Inlet,
25:56Puget Sound.
26:00Puget Sound is a vast, complex system
26:03of estuaries with a shoreline
26:05spanning well over 160 kilometers.
26:09The waters run more than 270 meters deep,
26:13and powerful storms regularly roll across the water
26:16to batter the state's largest city, Seattle.
26:21When you look further into the reports,
26:24you'll actually notice that
26:26it's like a hub of activity in Seattle.
26:28There seems to be the most sightings there.
26:31Now, of course, the obvious explanation
26:33is more people live there,
26:35but there is also that element
26:36of the water at Puget Sound.
26:38Could it be that UFOs are attracted there
26:41in the same way that they are attracted
26:43over the Pacific?
26:46The description of the sightings in Seattle
26:48is similar to those described along the coast.
26:52Often, they're described as these shining
26:54or flashing orbs in the sky,
26:57sometimes flying in formation.
26:59It's always striking when there's a conformity
27:02to the sightings.
27:04It tends to lend some more credence
27:06that something's going on here,
27:07or at the very least,
27:08people seem to be seeing much the same thing.
27:13Puget Sound is also home
27:15to some of the most important military bases
27:17in the United States.
27:18There is a kind of contradictory
27:22and tense relationship
27:24between the UFO community
27:27and the military.
27:28On occasion, the military
27:30might actually deem to validate
27:32some of the claims
27:34coming from the UFO community,
27:36but more often than not,
27:37they shut down,
27:39everything's top secret,
27:41they stymie any investigations.
27:44Although, of course,
27:46that in turn fuels
27:47even more speculation.
27:49They can be secretive,
27:50but there's usually a very good reason.
27:51The military does things,
27:53knows things,
27:54has things,
27:55that the population does not.
27:57They may have technology
27:58that they don't want
27:59the quote-unquote bad guys
28:00to get their hands on.
28:02If we look at the concentration
28:04of UFO sightings
28:07in Washington state,
28:08then map against that
28:10the location of military installations,
28:13it's uncannily similar.
28:16I mean, the two things
28:16sit on top of each other,
28:19which raises the whole question
28:20about alien interest
28:22in human military activity.
28:26After Kenneth Arnold's sighting
28:28in 1947,
28:29many turned to the military
28:31for an explanation.
28:32Over many decades,
28:34the U.S. has experimented
28:35with a lot of different types
28:37of aircraft,
28:37and one of the interesting ones
28:39is the flying pancake.
28:40one-man experimental aircraft,
28:47the Vought V-173 Flying Pancake.
28:51And this really is a flying wing.
28:56And one of the interesting things
28:57about flying wings
28:58is they have a huge surface area.
29:00And that means
29:01that they can actually fly
29:03really, really slow.
29:04They almost have the ability
29:06to hover,
29:07so these aircraft
29:08could potentially be
29:09misinterpreted as being UFOs.
29:12To a civilian,
29:13this is just literally outer space.
29:15They would say,
29:16hey, that's not normal.
29:17That's something
29:18that I've never seen before.
29:19It's bound to happen.
29:21The Flying Pancake's
29:23top speed, however,
29:24is only 222 kilometers per hour,
29:28around one-tenth
29:29of the speed of the objects
29:31Kenneth Arnold claims
29:32to have seen.
29:35The Vought Flying Pancake
29:36retires in 1947,
29:39leaving little explanation
29:40for the constant stream
29:41of reports
29:42in the following decades.
29:45But could this plane
29:46be responsible
29:47for the notorious
29:48Puget Sound sighting
29:50of June 1947
29:51that would lead
29:52to one of the most
29:53influential mysteries
29:55in the history
29:55of unidentified aerial phenomena?
29:59And this is the story
30:00of Harold Dahl,
30:01who's out on the water
30:02one day in a boat
30:03with his son and his dog.
30:05Now, they claim
30:06to see six UFOs,
30:09donut-shaped craft,
30:12hovering above them
30:13that then rain down
30:14an enormous amount
30:15of what could best
30:16be described
30:17as scrap metal
30:18out of the skies.
30:20This is something
30:21very strange.
30:21It doesn't happen
30:22very often,
30:22even in UFO stories.
30:24And this is actually
30:25cause for concern
30:26and some danger
30:27because he claims
30:28that one of these pieces
30:30of metallic material
30:31actually strikes
30:32and kills his dog
30:33right in the boat.
30:36Dahl then explains
30:37that when he brought
30:38his supervisor,
30:39Fred Chrisman,
30:40back to the same spot,
30:42one of the craft
30:43reappeared.
30:44A story borne out
30:45by Chrisman himself.
30:48Following the incident
30:50itself,
30:51it gets in some ways
30:52even stranger.
30:54Dahl and Chrisman
30:55are later visited
30:56by a man in black
30:58who warned them off
30:59of the whole matter
31:00altogether.
31:01The Maury Island incident
31:03really kickstarts
31:05the men in black phenomenon
31:06and it is one of the
31:08most iconic aspects
31:09of UFO history.
31:11Even if there is
31:12very little evidence
31:13for their existence,
31:14it nevertheless has
31:15exploded in
31:16the popular imagination.
31:21After two Air Force
31:23officers investigating
31:24the sighting
31:25are killed in a seemingly
31:26coincidental plane crash,
31:28the FBI opens
31:29its own inquiry
31:30into Dahl and Chrisman's
31:31claims.
31:33And now,
31:34Harold Dahl
31:35does the most
31:36extraordinary thing.
31:38He takes back
31:39everything.
31:40He says,
31:40guys,
31:41this was a hoax.
31:42I made the whole
31:44thing up.
31:45Forget I ever said
31:47any of it.
31:48But of course,
31:49some people had theories
31:50to denounce this,
31:52saying that he was
31:53forced to say
31:54it was a hoax.
31:54Maybe he feared
31:55for his life.
31:57It's hard to
31:57underestimate the impact
31:58of the idea
32:00of unidentified,
32:03very serious
32:03men in black
32:04knocking on your door,
32:05warning you to
32:06keep your mouth shut
32:07and not make any waves.
32:11The FBI
32:12eventually accepts
32:13Dahl's confession
32:14of a hoax,
32:15but doubt continues
32:16to this day,
32:18particularly in light
32:19of the many sightings
32:20that have occurred
32:21since.
32:21The search for answers
32:30about UFOs
32:31has led to even
32:32greater scrutiny
32:33towards Washington's
32:34military bases,
32:35not least to those
32:37housing nuclear technology.
32:39As with military bases,
32:42radioactivity seems
32:43to correlate
32:43with increased reports
32:45of unknown objects
32:46in the sky
32:47around sites
32:48with a nuclear presence.
32:49There have been claims
32:52that there was
32:53a UFO
32:54or alien presence
32:55at the Chernobyl
32:57disaster
32:58in the 1980s
32:59and also
33:00the Fukushima
33:01power plant
33:02disaster
33:03in Japan.
33:05If UFOs
33:06are interested
33:07in energy sources,
33:08this is one
33:09of the things
33:09that they might
33:10be interested in
33:11as a huge display
33:12of power.
33:13Nuclear energy
33:14is really an amazing
33:15thing because it
33:16can produce a lot
33:17of energy
33:18out of a very
33:18small area.
33:20For every kilogram
33:21of uranium,
33:23I get a million
33:24times the same
33:25amount of energy
33:26I can get out
33:28of fossil fuels.
33:31UFO sightings
33:32have been reported
33:33at nuclear bases
33:34across the United States,
33:36like Puget Sound's
33:37naval base Kitsap,
33:39the third largest
33:40in the United States,
33:41and an infamous
33:42UFO hotspot.
33:43In 1978,
33:47an 1800-liter
33:48radioactive
33:49coolants bill
33:50is just the latest
33:51in a series
33:52of accidents
33:53at the site.
33:54The naval base's
33:55infrastructure
33:56is highly specialized,
33:58which has led
33:59some people
33:59to speculate
34:00that maybe
34:01this was the reason
34:02for some UFO interest.
34:05It's home
34:06to both
34:06a nuclear weapons
34:07facility
34:08and a shipyard
34:09offering support services
34:10to the U.S.'s fleet
34:12of nuclear-powered vessels.
34:16The concrete
34:17in the area
34:18of the spill
34:19registers
34:19high radiation levels.
34:22It is broken up,
34:24packed into steel drums,
34:25and sent to one
34:26of the most dangerous
34:27places in America.
34:30The Hanford site
34:32looks from the air
34:33like an industrial
34:34installation,
34:36but it's what surrounds it
34:38that's particularly striking.
34:39It is a really
34:40suspiciously
34:41desolate landscape.
34:44This is somewhere
34:44that is
34:45incredibly
34:46eerie.
34:47I mean,
34:48one can't help
34:49feeling that
34:49it's not a place
34:51that you want
34:52to stick around in.
34:54The Hanford site
34:56was once home
34:57to the largest
34:57nuclear reactors
34:58in the world.
35:01Deserted
35:02since the late
35:021980s,
35:03the 1,600-square-kilometer
35:05site
35:06is notorious
35:07amongst locals
35:08for its mysterious
35:09apparitions
35:10and for its
35:11unidentified aerial
35:12activity.
35:14The sightings
35:15on the coast
35:16are very uniform
35:17in nature.
35:18There's a great
35:18conformity to them.
35:20People are generally
35:20seeing the same thing.
35:22It's quite the opposite
35:23at the Hanford site.
35:25There's a great variety
35:26of different types
35:27of sightings
35:28and different shapes
35:29and colors
35:29and movements
35:30of the UFOs
35:31reported there.
35:33In 2001,
35:35a silver sphere
35:36shoots above
35:37the site
35:37in broad daylight.
35:40Months later,
35:41fireballs are spotted
35:42falling towards
35:43the old buildings.
35:46In 2008,
35:48a silent,
35:49black,
35:49low-flying cylinder
35:50floats ominously
35:52over the area.
35:54In 2014,
35:56a neon-blue object
35:58rockets towards
35:59the abandoned site.
36:01Then,
36:02in 2022,
36:03another witness
36:05describes a cigar-shaped
36:06object similar
36:07to the cylinder
36:08from over a decade
36:09earlier.
36:11When you hear
36:11about these UFO sightings
36:13occurring over
36:14these alleged
36:15abandoned areas,
36:17it makes you question,
36:18is something
36:19drawing them there?
36:21Those looking
36:22for answers
36:23to these mysterious
36:24sightings might well
36:25turn to Hanford's
36:26haunting history.
36:28The Hanford site
36:29is particularly
36:31significant historically
36:32because it was one
36:33of the main nodes
36:34for the Manhattan
36:35Project,
36:36which was the
36:37crash program
36:37to build
36:38the atomic bomb.
36:39It was important
36:40because the plutonium
36:41necessary for the bomb
36:42was produced
36:43at the site.
36:45The plutonium
36:46produced in Hanford
36:47was crucial
36:48to the Manhattan Project.
36:49It was used
36:50in the first
36:51atomic bomb test
36:52and was later used
36:53in the atomic bomb
36:54that was detonated
36:55in Nagasaki.
36:56Hanford was built
36:58on a truly
36:59impressive scale
37:01and there are
37:0150,000 people
37:03working there.
37:05So this is
37:06an enormous
37:07industrial complex
37:09and in fact
37:10it's basically
37:11a city.
37:13At the Hanford site
37:14they had a large
37:15number of nuclear reactors
37:16and the whole goal
37:17of these reactors
37:18is to produce plutonium.
37:21Plutonium is
37:22extremely radioactive
37:24and a very dangerous
37:25compound.
37:27You really need
37:28to separate
37:29your facility
37:29over a very
37:31large area
37:32so that you're not
37:33having such
37:34intense radiation
37:35that it would be
37:36harmful to the
37:37workers that are there.
37:39Following the end
37:41of the Second World War
37:42the Hanford site
37:43continues to produce
37:44plutonium
37:45for more than
37:4630 years
37:47until in 1987
37:49operations
37:50shut down
37:51completely.
37:53But once
37:54the gates
37:54close
37:54the real
37:55trouble begins.
37:57When we have
37:59huge nuclear
38:00facilities
38:01we have a lot
38:02of radioactive
38:03material around
38:04that's potentially
38:06going to cause
38:08site contamination.
38:09When we're
38:10talking about
38:11radioactive waste
38:12we're not just
38:12talking about
38:13the fuel
38:14we're talking about
38:15all the equipment
38:16used to process
38:17that material.
38:18So it makes
38:18these sites
38:19relatively highly
38:20radioactive.
38:21the Hanford site
38:24has 200 million
38:25litres of radioactive
38:27waste
38:27just sitting
38:28in underground
38:29storage tanks
38:30by the Columbia
38:30River.
38:31It's hard to even
38:33imagine
38:33that amount
38:35of nuclear waste
38:36just sitting there
38:37and all the risks
38:39that it could pose
38:41even despite
38:42the amazing
38:43advance in science
38:45and technology
38:46what a price
38:47we're paying
38:48for having
38:49that enormous
38:49amount
38:50of deadly
38:51substance
38:52just buried
38:53there at Hanford.
38:56With radioactive
38:57materials
38:58if the material
38:58is concentrated
38:59enough
39:00it can take
39:00thousands of years
39:01for it to get
39:02to a safe
39:03radiation level
39:03depending on
39:04the element
39:05that's present
39:05it may never
39:07become safe
39:08to deal with.
39:09A cleanup
39:10operation at Hanford
39:11begun in the
39:12mid-1990s
39:13is expected
39:14to take 50 years
39:15and cost
39:16more than
39:17$100 billion.
39:19But some
39:20living around
39:21the nuclear dump
39:22have already
39:23experienced
39:23irreparable
39:24damages
39:25including
39:26unusually high
39:27rates of cancer
39:27thyroid disorders
39:29and breathing
39:30problems.
39:32The scale
39:33of the environmental
39:34disaster at
39:35Hanford
39:36has attracted
39:36international
39:37attention
39:38and some
39:41wonder
39:41if visitors
39:42have been coming
39:43from even
39:43further afield
39:44to monitor
39:45the surges
39:46in nuclear
39:46energy.
39:48There's been
39:48a lot of
39:49theorizing
39:50about
39:50why aliens
39:52might be
39:53interested
39:53in nuclear
39:54power plants
39:56and nuclear
39:56installations
39:57and even
39:58nuclear bombs.
40:01If you want
40:02the most
40:02advanced
40:03technology
40:04that the
40:05human race
40:05has
40:06it's also
40:06it's most
40:07potentially
40:08destructive.
40:10Now
40:10would aliens
40:11be interested
40:12in that
40:12because they
40:13want to
40:14tap into
40:15it
40:15encourage
40:16it
40:17protect
40:18us
40:18from
40:18it.
40:20But even
40:21at its
40:21most potent
40:22this
40:23human-made
40:23technology
40:24pales in
40:25comparison
40:26to the
40:26destructive
40:26power of
40:27nature.
40:30The eruption
40:31of Mount
40:31St. Helens
40:32in 1980
40:33resulted in
40:34a blast
40:35eight times
40:35more powerful
40:36than the
40:37largest nuclear
40:38device
40:38ever detonated.
40:41The eruption
40:42of Mount
40:43St. Helens
40:44might simply
40:45be lumped
40:46together with
40:47human-created
40:48explosions
40:50and the
40:50whole thing
40:51seen as
40:51this is
40:52an explosive
40:53place.
40:55There's one
40:55theory that
40:56perhaps
40:57aliens are
40:58quite literally
40:59mapping,
41:00surveying our
41:01world for
41:02one purpose
41:02or another
41:03and using
41:04disasters
41:05to do so.
41:06And there's
41:07plenty to
41:07choose from.
41:08Volcanoes
41:09erupting,
41:10plenty of
41:10earthquakes,
41:11lots of
41:11natural
41:12disasters
41:12abounding,
41:13especially
41:14these days.
41:15And then
41:15we've created
41:16our own
41:16fair share
41:17of them,
41:18from the
41:18atomic bomb
41:19to even
41:20something like
41:21the great
41:21garbage patch
41:22in the
41:22Pacific Ocean.
41:24Maybe aliens
41:25are doing a
41:25kind of
41:26cost-benefit
41:27analysis
41:28of planet
41:29Earth.
41:30They're looking
41:30at human
41:31beings,
41:32the impact
41:33they're having
41:33on the
41:33planet,
41:34and they're
41:34taking a
41:35view.
41:35One thing
41:37that's really
41:38interesting to
41:38think about
41:39is what
41:40would happen
41:40if aliens
41:41did detect
41:42us?
41:42What would
41:43they choose
41:43to do?
41:45In 2011,
41:47two academics
41:48from the
41:48University of
41:49Pennsylvania
41:50and an
41:50experienced
41:51NASA researcher
41:52publish a
41:53paper.
41:54In it,
41:55scientists
41:56examine what
41:57could happen
41:57if activity
41:58on Earth
41:58caught the
41:59attention of
42:00an alien
42:00civilization.
42:03The first
42:03option is
42:04that the
42:04outcome would
42:05just simply
42:05be neutral.
42:06They would
42:06decide that
42:07maybe that's
42:08of interest,
42:09but not
42:09enough,
42:10frankly,
42:10and so
42:11we'll just
42:11ignore them.
42:12Perhaps
42:13they're far
42:13more evolved
42:14than we
42:14are,
42:14and they
42:15don't want
42:15to mess
42:16with our
42:17evolution,
42:18technologically
42:18speaking.
42:19Maybe they're
42:20out there
42:20watching and
42:21determining
42:21we're just
42:22not quite
42:22ready yet.
42:24Another option
42:24would be a
42:25very positive
42:25one,
42:26that they
42:27would take
42:27a very
42:28active,
42:28benevolent
42:29approach
42:29to us,
42:30that they
42:30would see
42:30that we
42:31are a lesser
42:31civilization
42:32that could
42:33use some
42:34of the
42:34technology
42:35that they
42:35have,
42:35for instance,
42:36some of
42:36the advanced
42:37knowledge and
42:37help us to
42:39better ourselves,
42:40and that would
42:41be fantastic.
42:42But then, of
42:43course, the one
42:43that everybody
42:43worries about
42:44would be the
42:45more negative
42:45option, that
42:46they would
42:47take a look
42:47at us and
42:48really not
42:49like what
42:49they see.
42:50One reason
42:51for that is
42:53because of
42:54how we
42:54behave as
42:55a species.
42:57Throughout
42:57human history,
42:58the way that
42:59humans have
43:00interacted with
43:00one another,
43:01the way that
43:02we've treated
43:03our planet
43:03in more
43:04recent history,
43:05it's possible
43:06that there's
43:07an alien
43:07species out
43:08there that
43:09has strong
43:11feelings about
43:12how living
43:13things should
43:14operate within
43:15the universe.
43:15In the
43:16negative scenarios,
43:17you have the
43:18very obvious
43:19one, that the
43:20aliens would
43:20just decide to
43:22conquer us
43:23outright and
43:24become our
43:24new overlords.
43:26But there's a
43:27more intriguing
43:27negative scenario
43:29which is
43:30sometimes
43:30described as
43:31the universalist
43:33option, and
43:34that is that
43:35the aliens
43:36would decide
43:37that we pose
43:39an enormous
43:40threat to the
43:41rest of the
43:42universe, and
43:42we are a
43:43problem that
43:44needs to be
43:45destroyed, snuffed
43:46out.
43:49The exact
43:50reason behind
43:51the strange
43:52incidents in
43:52Washington state
43:53remain a
43:54mystery.
43:55They may or
43:56may not be
43:57aliens, but
43:57and their
43:58intentions are
43:59unknown, but
44:00we do know
44:01that it is
44:01more than
44:02likely that
44:03we are not
44:03alone in the
44:04universe.
44:05We have
44:06trillions and
44:07trillions and
44:08trillions of
44:09planets in the
44:09universe.
44:10The likelihood
44:11that there is
44:12life is becoming
44:13more and more
44:14likely because
44:15it's becoming so
44:17unlikely that
44:18there isn't
44:19conditions elsewhere
44:20that leads to
44:21life.
44:22I'm really
44:22sympathetic with
44:23theories that
44:24propose that
44:25aliens are very
44:27interested in us
44:28for our benefit.
44:29I think that
44:30that story, that
44:31narrative, has a
44:32lot of power for
44:33us.
44:34Aliens helping us,
44:35maybe mapping
44:35disasters so that
44:36we can avoid those
44:38disasters in the
44:39future.
44:39You don't have to
44:40believe in aliens to
44:41believe that this
44:42story can be
44:43powerful for the
44:43future of humanity.
44:44We'll be
Be the first to comment