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Unidentified Inside Americas UFO investigations S01E01 The UFO Insider TEPES
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00:14in 2017 this New York Times headline shocked the world a clandestine US
00:21government program have been investigating UFOs the Pentagon has
00:26confirmed the existence of the advanced aerospace threat identification program
00:30that studied UFOs and they released video for eight years the secret program
00:39was run by this man Lou Elizondo time and time again we were coming up with
00:44these mystery objects performing in a way that defies logic frustrated by what
00:50he says was a cover-up Elizondo quit and joined forces with an elite group of
00:55former government insiders we're gonna figure out how to get to the bottom of
00:59it now they have one mission to expose what they say is the truth about UFOs
01:05US airspace is being violated by vehicles of unknown origin with advanced
01:10capabilities it was raining UFOs I put my entire career and future on the line
01:15because I believe in what I believe it
01:19Carl Sagan once famously said extraordinary claims require
01:24extraordinary proof he was absolutely right but now we have the proof
01:55we're trying to build a case here for the jury and so when you're building a
01:58case for the jury there is nothing more compelling than eyewitness testimony they
02:03were there and by the way they're trained observers these are people who can think
02:06critically and this particular pilot has never given an interview about this
02:10incident ever in 2004 this Navy fighter pilot was training for deployment on
02:17board the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier now a high-ranking officer this is her
02:22first on-camera interview about the incident she wants to keep her identity
02:26hidden due to the sensitivity of what she's about to say I want to make sure
02:31that everybody from understand so that her identity is to remain protected at all
02:35times so when that even includes when you're writing notes on email back to
02:38executives hey that's a great interview with don't write that don't put it in
02:43there just say the pilot wingman pilot would be appropriate okay so that's what
02:48with the wingman pilot well I still have a security clearance so as a result we will
02:52not be discussing anything classified at all during this interview it's in fact if
02:56at any time anything is discussed at classified we will stop the interview
03:00right there and then sure Elizondo was still bound by note of secrecy so he hopes
03:06his testimony like this will force the government to acknowledge UFOs are a
03:10threat to national security and to take action because this issue is such
03:14kryptonite inside the national security establishment he needed to figure out a
03:19way to do it so that what he's gathering could be made public these are not crazy
03:24people that are reporting this stuff these are the people that we entrust our
03:27security to why don't we just start from the beginning we're operating off the
03:31coast of California in a designated military working area with our carrier
03:37strike group we had launched to perform a practice fight against each other to
03:45rehearse our maneuvers on November 14th 2004 this pilot took off from the deck of
03:52the Nimitz as the wingman to a second jet flown by her squadron commander she
04:00soon found herself in the middle of one of the most significant UFO encounters on
04:04record it was daylight oh yeah it was in the middle of the night clear blue skies
04:09middle of the day normally fighter pilots are directed by a radar plane known as a
04:15Hawkeye but the two FAA-18 Super Hornets are suddenly redirected by controllers on the USS Princeton
04:23we were interrupted by a ship-borne controller their tone was urgent and their requests were
04:33unusual this is not an exercise this is a real-world intercept didn't have much experience I thought
04:41maybe it's a drug runner or something coming up the coast of Mexico and I thought wow that would be
04:46cool with no information about their target as the two jets arrive at the designated location
04:51they're confused my heart sank there was something in the water there was a churning and I went from
05:00being sort of giddy excited to thinking oh my god now we're on-scene commanders of a wreck somebody's
05:06crashed and you know this aircraft is sinking and this is when you notice an object we were all
05:15clamoring to get on the radio do you see in the water what is that a bizarre craft is hovering
05:25over the
05:26churning water what does it look like no windows no flight surfaces so no wings at all no wings no
05:35smooth white no intakes no smoke trail it looked like a giant tic-tac give me a rough size maybe
05:4740 feet
05:47okay 40 feet fair enough large enough to scare the out of me it was so unnerving because it was
05:56so
05:56unpredictable high G rapid velocity rapid acceleration so you're wondering you know how can I possibly
06:04fight this we have no ordinance on board you know unless one of us ram this thing which the way
06:11it
06:11was maneuvering would have been impossible so I stayed high cover the wingman watched from above
06:17as her commander flies directly at the strange craft
06:30now Elizondo is on his way to interview the other pilot in the air that day the wingman's commander
06:37these are reports from military pilots they've been in combat and this is something that they cannot
06:44explain and it's shaking them up to the point that they're willing to risk their professional
06:49standing by coming forward and talking about it brother Dave how are you how are you doing man
06:54I'm doing better than I deserve how you doing good boy you live in a castle man
07:01retired U.S. Navy commander David Fravor led the Black Aces squadron flying combat missions over
07:06the Middle East and Africa he now works in the private sector as an aeronautics consultant
07:14commander Fravor is a very rare breed he's one of the few folks that actually run towards danger not
07:19away from it Fravor was the wingman's commanding officer that day over the Pacific
07:27he had that fighter instinct so it wasn't surprising his actions on that day I really
07:34wanted to see what it was I mean if I could have joined right up on it and you know
07:39got like Blue Angel
07:40so close then I probably would have done that as Fravor attempted to get a closer look his wingman
07:45watched from above this object seemed to recognize that we were there and went from this very low
07:54altitude to maneuvering in an erratic very rapid manner so the hair on the back of my neck is standing
08:04up
08:05I'm thinking I'm going to be watching a disaster here
08:10coming up on unidentified how does the story end this rapidly accelerates and it's gone
08:16the government needed to discredit this phenomenon get your government to do what
08:21it's supposed to do and find out what this is wake up this is real wake up
08:37most of my questions are going to be focused on the five interrogatives right the who what when where
08:42how and why just like we're doing a terrorism or espionage investigation
08:45Lou Elizondo may be the most significant U.S. official to ever claim the UFO phenomenon is real
08:52for two decades he served as a counterintelligence officer for the Department of Defense Lou is in
08:59many ways an enigma here was a guy who had spent decades really in the intelligence community whether
09:06it was the Taliban or as Al Qaeda or as Isis or as Guantanamo Bay he had to deal with
09:12all of it Lou
09:12Elizondo has the most insane career you would ever hear he started out in special operations with the U.S.
09:20Army and then he moved his way up into all these shadow organizations doing all these all that
09:26really secret crazy stuff you see in the movies and then he ended up becoming the guy that's in
09:31charge of all those programs Lou is the rare exception who is willing to stick his neck out
09:37and take risks you know that is not usually rewarded in the bureaucracy the strategy that most people
09:43adopt is to keep their heads down and you know go along to get along don't draw attention to yourself
09:48keep that pension in mind and Lou was a guy who was willing to to really engage and stick his
09:56neck
09:56out and and try to be a change agent he was handling some very sensitive issues then he had the
10:03kind of
10:03savvy that you need to be successful at that level because you're really dealing with areas that are that are
10:11gray areas oftentimes where there's no clear authority to get things done you have to persuade people and
10:17you've got to be someone with some character personality and willingness and ability to engage
10:21people and and Lou had all of those attributes
10:24Lou is not somebody who uh you would think would come up with these fanciful stories about UFOs
10:32but as I got to know him as I met with him several times over a couple of months I
10:36came to believe that
10:37he was someone who had come into this issue very skeptical and came out of it almost a religious believer
10:45that
10:45wow this stuff is really happening these are really credible reports from pilots from other people
10:50that are not wacky and so I think he became a convert and not just a convert but someone who
10:57felt that it
10:58was his job to try and get more senior leaders in the Pentagon to pay attention to this in 2009
11:04Elizondo took
11:05over the 22 million dollar advanced aerospace threat identification program or a tip that
11:11investigated encounters between UFOs and the US military
11:17is this three reports this is five reports we were made aware of many many many many incidents it
11:26remains of a sensitive number those numbers are increasing on a regular and routine basis some of
11:31these incidents are very very recent and very compelling but in 2017 he made the shocking
11:38announcement he was walking away from a 20-year military career and going public i had tried in
11:45vain to work within the silos of the organization but i ultimately left the department of defense
11:52because of my loyalty to the department and to the secretary not disloyalty for the past year
11:59unidentified's cameras have had exclusive access to Elizondo and his new team as they track down
12:05military personnel willing to go on the record with their incredible encounters with ufos
12:17you are able to provide a play-by-play of what actually went down those moments that you were
12:23encountering that tic-tac that's correct so all that's going to be hugely important he's meeting
12:29with one of the navy's top former fighter pilots who came face to face with a tic-tac shaped ufo
12:34in 2004
12:40flying a navy fighter is probably one of the most spectacular jobs you could ever have in the entire
12:45world it's like a roller coaster times 10 000 and i got to do it in some semblance of a
12:52tactical
12:53airplane for 18 years on november 14 2004 commander david fravor and his wingman pilot took off from
13:03the uss nimitz which was on maneuvers south of san diego i was the commanding officer of strike fighter
13:10squadron 401 the black aces we're flying brand new super hornets the nuclear-powered uss nimitz was the
13:18lead vessel of a carrier strike group that included the destroyers uss higgins and chafee the attack
13:24submarine uss louisville and the radar-equipped missile cruiser uss princeton if you asked any
13:30senior military officer what is the crown jewel of the american military arsenal they would say the
13:35aircraft carrier battle group if we have to go into combat sometime quickly it's likely going to be a
13:42carrier battle group that's going to be there first and it's going to be in action first
13:46it was an air defense exercise two good guys against two bad guys probably 70 miles 60 miles
13:56off the coast in the gap between san diego and ensenada suddenly the pilots are contacted by radar
14:02operators on the princeton the princeton control comes up and says we're going to suspend training
14:08we have real world testing the pilots are re-vectored to a new destination but aren't told why so we
14:15start heading off to the west the other airplane is on my left hand side it was the junior pilot
14:22trying to keep up with the senior pilot and the lead aircraft we're looking we don't see anything on
14:29our radars at all and we're talking to each other trying to figure this out the princeton's aegis spy one
14:34radar system is powerful enough to track an object as small as a baseball at an altitude of 80 000
14:39feet but the jets are flying blind we tried to see what was out there which is difficult when you
14:45know what you're looking for it's even harder when you don't know what you're looking for
14:51so it goes down 60 50 40 30 20 gets all the way down they get to a point where
14:56they can't separate us
14:57from the blimp they call it merge plot which means you're in the same space as whatever you're looking
15:02for and you got to start looking outside because the radar can't help you anymore then far below
15:07in the water they see what looks like a plane crash or a submerging submarine but the weapons
15:13officer in the rear seat of fravor's jet spots something else i hear hey skipper do you see
15:20and as he's saying that i noticed the tic-tac
15:25it's white it has no wings it has no rotors i go holy what is that and he goes i
15:32don't know
15:33according to this leak summary of the incident contact was made here 30 miles off the coast 70
15:39miles south of the u.s mexico border at first the strange craft stays close to the surface moving
15:46unlike anything the pilots had ever seen this thing would go instantaneous from one way to another similar
15:52to if you throw a ping pong ball against the wall and we start to kind of orbit because now
15:57we're
15:57going to watch this thing we start a right hand turn and we're going from a clock code the object
16:02is
16:02in the middle of the clock and we're at six o'clock and we're driving around the circle so we
16:08get to about
16:08nine o'clock and it's just still doing its little erratic thing kind of moving around this disturbance
16:12in the water and and i go hey i'm gonna go check it out i'm gonna go down there as
16:19we're coming down
16:20nice and easy we get to about the 12 o'clock position and all of a sudden it goes and
16:23it kind
16:23of turns and it's now it's mirroring us and it starts coming up we're like okay now it knows we're
16:28here it seemed to be aware and it seems to recognize him it goes from basically just almost a hover
16:34into a pretty aggressive climb up to our altitude so there's a bit of fear because now you're out there
16:39dealing with something that you have no idea what it is it's actually reacting to what we're doing
16:48i'm kind of pulling nose you know to where he's going to be and he's coming up he just rapidly
16:52accelerates beyond anything that i've ever seen crosses my nose and it's gone and i'm like whoa
17:01the tic tac appears to have vanished but as the jets streak towards a pre-arranged rendezvous location
17:07known as the cap point the radio chatter becomes frantic the controller from the princeton comes up right
17:13as we're doing all this and says hey sir you're not going to believe this he goes but that thing
17:19is at your cap point according to fravor the tic tac accelerated from a standing position and flew
17:25approximately 60 miles in under a minute as fast as 3 700 miles an hour
17:32how did the tic tac know the pilot's cap point and how did it accelerate so quickly
17:37you got something that can accelerate and disappear and then show up 60 miles away
17:41kind of in awe a little bit because you go whoa we don't have that you know and i'm talking
17:45we're flying a one of the premier airplanes on the planet what was this there was a capability out
17:52there don't know where it's from not saying it's from outer space but not saying it's from here either
17:59back on the nimitz the pilots tell the rest of the squadron what just happened the next crew is getting
18:05ready so we're talking to him about this and they're like you gotta be kidding they took us seriously
18:10and the wizzo the guy in the back seat said i'm gonna go find it
18:16the next jet to launch had a targeting pod with an infrared sensor and camera
18:23it jammed the radar but he got a lock on it and that's the video that you see
18:30that doesn't weird you out i don't know what does
18:34coming up on unidentified i have no idea what that thing is and it's not acting like a
18:41aircraft it's not acting like anything i've ever seen
18:44it's not acting like it's not acting like it's not acting like it's not acting like it's not acting
18:49hey guys how are you good lou how are you good hope he can shed some light on a few
18:55things
18:58on november 14 2004 two pilots launched from the uss nimitz and intercepted a ufo over the pacific
19:05south of san diego what does it look like no windows no flight surfaces it looked like a giant tic
19:13attack they believe this video recorded later that day by a pilot from their squadron shows the ufo
19:19they saw it's one of three department of defense ufo videos lou elizondo helped get released to the
19:26public when the three videos came out there was this shock by the world community that oh my gosh
19:34these are real videos this effort that we are embarking on i think is going to change a conversation
19:39forever now elizondo is meeting with two leading aviation experts to analyze the videos and see if
19:46they can help explain the pilots extraordinary encounters what i'd like to do is go through these
19:53videos very carefully and get your thoughts on these the providence on these videos is very well
19:59established they are genuine dod military videos retired lieutenant colonel chris cook is a top gun
20:06pilot who spent a career flying the military's most sophisticated fighter jets ross aimer flew
20:12commercial aircraft for more than four decades and works as a consultant for the national transportation
20:17safety board it's the first time the three men have spoken so the first video i'm going to show you
20:23this afternoon was taking into 2004 time frame
20:29the first video shows the tic-tac shaped object seen by the nimitz pilots captured by an f-18's infrared
20:35camera if you look at it out of context you think oh this is just another ufo video but from
20:40my
20:41perspective he absolutely captured what we saw earlier in the day the grainy 90-second video shows
20:48the tic-tac flying slowly then sipping away at what appears to be a high rate of speed
20:56the altitude is 20 000 feet we're in the tv mode now so it's visual the display's indicators are familiar
21:04to
21:05the pilots but the image on screen is confusing it doesn't appear to have any characteristics of any
21:11normal aircraft that i've witnessed flying the experts wonder how the craft is staying airborne
21:17without wings no flight control surfaces i don't see that does not look like an aircraft yeah but in
21:25these images of a fighter jet also shot with an infrared camera the heat from the engine is clearly
21:30visible everything we know about propulsion systems is they create an intense amount of heat so if it
21:36was a conventional type aircraft you would most most definitely see some type of a heat an ir signature
21:44plume behind the airplane if you want to defy earth's gravitational force the way to do it is with
21:54either a propeller to mechanically displace air jet engine to compress air and to create an equal and
22:00opposite reaction or a chemical explosion like a missile or a rocket each one of those has a tall
22:05tail signature yet here are things that are able to seemingly effortlessly defy earth's gravitational force
22:11and maneuver in ways that are complete contrary to anything that we would presume should be able to fly
22:20the ability to fly without wings or an engine is one of five distinct characteristics elizondo's pentagon
22:25team discovered he calls them the observables and considers them the program's breakthrough discovery
22:33anti-gravity the ability to fly without apparent means of propulsion or lift instantaneous acceleration
22:40the ability to reach a high rate of speed in a short amount of time hypersonic velocity speeds over
22:483700 miles per hour five times the speed of sound low observability the capacity to cloak or conceal
22:57transmedium travel the ability to move through space air and water any one of these mind you would
23:05be an absolute strategic game changer for any foreign adversary to have and yet here we have things doing
23:12all five nobody that i know is aware of some breakthrough that we've made in technology that
23:21could allow aircraft to do what these reportedly are doing brian bender is one of the reporters who broke
23:28the story of the pentagon's secret ufo program these aircraft seem to defy all of the known aerodynamic
23:34properties that we're familiar with so let's let's let the film keep rolling the object the navy pilot is
23:41tracking suddenly seems to get bigger so what just happened there what is he doing he's changing the zoom
23:49the object then appears to accelerate rapidly disappearing off screen that's a significant
23:55rate of acceleration in a horizontal plane off to the left that's very fast the object appears to
24:05perform a similar maneuver to what the pilots witnessed we're all amazed at how fast this thing just took
24:11off and disappeared instantaneous acceleration at this rate would produce a force of gravity or g-force
24:17so extreme it would crush a human being i have no idea what that thing is and it's not acting
24:23like a
24:26aircraft it's not acting like anything i've ever seen if there are vehicles out there uh aircraft that
24:32are doing things aerodynamically that we've never even thought of then i think uh we potentially could
24:40have real trouble down the road there was another f-18 that was flying with commander dave fravor that day
24:52and for the first time frankly ever we were able to talk to that individual um there was there was
25:01some
25:01frustration frankly there was there was a little bit of fear lou elizondo is briefing his team on new
25:07information he's learned about the uss nimitz incident this elite group of former government
25:12insiders was formed in 2017 bound by their conviction that the craft in these videos must be investigated
25:20we can make a difference and do things because we have the connections in the network and if we can
25:25continue to establish credibility with people in the hill in the executive branch we might be able to
25:29take this the next step chris mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence
25:35operations steve justice was a top aviation engineer at lockheed martin's legendary skunkworks
25:42al putoff was a scientist for the cia if you were trying to come up with the a-team of
25:49former
25:50high-level government officials who would come forward on this issue you can't really think of a
25:55better team lou elizondo chris mellon these are guys who still have security clearances still have
26:00networks in washington still are in the business if you will chris mellon who's put his entire
26:05family's reputation on the line to do this steve just has left a very lucrative job at lockheed skunk
26:11works to do this but by far the most unlikely member of elizondo's new team is the man who brought
26:18them all together the last show i played was in front of 100 000 people the lights and the pyrotechnics
26:25all that stuff was going on right behind me and then they wonder why i'm not doing that now so
26:31back
26:31it up introduce yourself yeah my name is tom de long a lot of people know me from my band
26:39blink 182
26:40i started that band when i was 16 but i got to that point where my daughter was two years
26:46old and i was
26:48gone for two years straight and i really really needed a break the only other thing i was ever interested
26:54in
26:54was ufos i was so fascinated with this topic specifically because i think it was like an
27:01escape from growing up in a broken family in suburbia the idea of who we are and how we see
27:09ourselves and where we're going and where we're from and what this is all about that all seemed to be
27:14wrapped up in this idea of of unidentified flying objects and a lot of people would ask why i said
27:20well
27:21you know you're dealing with a subject that has science and that has religion and it has government
27:28secrecy and national security and it has uh physics and consciousness there's like you there's like a
27:34never-ending rabbit hole in any one of those things de long walked away from stardom and dedicated
27:40himself to disclosing what he believes is the truth about ufos i needed to get into the government and i
27:46needed to find the people that deal with this subject and let them know what i'm thinking of
27:51doing de long says he was able to secure a meeting with a high-level aerospace executive with deep
27:57connections to the military all of a sudden out of nowhere i had an opening and i just go i
28:02am not
28:03naive to this subject i understand the national security implications of this subject but i am asking
28:09for your help because i need guidance i just need somebody to help me and give me advice and he
28:15leans back and he goes okay that's when my life changed completely soon de long was covertly
28:22communicating with powerful people including general william mccaslin the former head of a billion dollar
28:28air force research lab and john podesta the former presidential advisor who once said his biggest regret
28:34in the white house was not releasing the government's ufo files tom called me out of the
28:40blue sort of who is this fellow and why is he calling me and we began to chat and i
28:44began to chat
28:45with some of the other people he was talking to and he clearly was establishing a network of people
28:50who had serious credentials they're people like me who see this as an incredible mystery and enigma that
28:58needs to be resolved de long says they were all part of an elite group of high-ranking officials
29:04dedicated to ufo disclosure but they wanted to remain in the shadows do you think there's a way over
29:10time that we can open up some of these discussions declassify material we ought to be serious about
29:16investigating what's going on other countries have done that other countries have declassified the
29:20information they've had he's one of the most tenacious individuals i've ever met he got to the
29:24highest levels of the u.s government to include podesta hello south l.a but in october 2016 on the
29:32eve of the heated presidential election de long was thrust into a media storm wikileaks released more
29:38emails the result it appears of massive hacks into the national democratic committee private email
29:43account of clinton campaign chair john podesta and who knows who else de long's communications with john
29:48podesta and others were stolen by russian hackers and published online by wikileaks
29:56the one rule they had is we will help you but don't go out and tell anybody who we are
30:03that's the
30:04only rule overnight de long found himself at the center of the decades-old debate about ufos
30:12i think a lot of people thought that tom de long was being used was was being used as a
30:16tool
30:16they'll tell him some stuff that's not true and it'll be a diversion and we'll fool the russians
30:22or fool the chinese george knapp is an investigative journalist who has reported extensively about
30:27ufos i'm just going to ask you point blank is tom de long being controlled by a small group of
30:33powerful insiders no no i think tom de long has plotted out his own course he's got some really good
30:42advisors who are not part of the government all of these events that have happened are because tom
30:47de long used shoe leather knocked on doors made phone calls what tom has started in the last year
30:54is unprecedented i think in the history of the study of this field
31:01by the fall of 2017 de long had assembled his team
31:05thanks for joining us live today then he learned the head of the pentagon secret ufo program
31:10had resigned in protest and wanted to join forces
31:15it was luis elizondo it was the guy that i wasn't supposed to know his name ever it was the
31:21guy that
31:21worked at the office of the director of national intelligence and they said but there's one other
31:26thing there's the first three videos of ufos are going to be declassified for the first time in
31:35u.s history coming up on unidentified i was at area 51 talking to some guys there and i said
31:48you guys
31:49ever see anything really strange and much to my surprise these guys said yeah we've seen some
31:55really strange stuff here at night
32:06chris millen understands what it means for america to be under attack
32:10on 9 11 he was one of the highest ranking officials inside the pentagon i have lived through and
32:15survived intelligence failures including the attack on the pentagon this was a group of 20 guys with no
32:21special skills or capabilities or technology and they were able to wreck massive havoc on our country
32:31to me what is most interesting about this case most pilots don't report these kinds of incidents
32:38where people are bringing information in cases does which is a sign that um you know we're establishing
32:43some some credibility and some presence now melin's out of government part of an elite team of
32:49investigators raising the alarm about what they see as another potential aerial threat what is really
32:56motivating me right now is the nimitz case we had multiple naval aviators in what they saw in broad
33:04daylight over an extended period of time was corroborated by the most sophisticated sensor systems air
33:12defense systems on earth any reasonable person would have to conclude defies present understanding of
33:19what aircraft are capable of doing it was clearly something beyond the pale chris millen is an
33:26interesting character he's never been very public his jobs have sort of demanded him to work behind the
33:31curtain melin hails from one of america's richest and most powerful families
33:36the melons made fortunes in oil aluminum and banking and wielded power for generations
33:43but chris millen found his calling in intelligence overseeing the budgets for some
33:48of america's most secret programs i was at the senate armed services committee and a report emerged
33:53indicating the united states had lost a nuclear weapon so they sent me to try to find out what
33:58happened to the missing nuke warhead back when i was a junior person the department of defense
34:05we all knew who who christopher millen was this was a man who had all the secrets he is by
34:10far one
34:11of the most astute and intelligent individuals i've ever had the privilege to work with he is a true
34:16legend a living legend he was an individual that was highly regarded as being one of the most
34:22proficient and professional individuals in the department chris millen has spent decades
34:27working not only in the department of defense but also with the senate but at the highest levels
34:33one of his large accomplishments being putting together the joint special operations command
34:37bill which is merging all of our special operations into one kind of division that reports all the way
34:43up to the president it's a major major piece of legislation he truly is a master strategist and so
34:48understanding how government works and how the intelligence community works and how congress works
34:53that takes a level of expertise you don't find every day chris mellon was a former staffer for the
34:59intelligence committee on capitol hill he was an intelligence official inside the pentagon and in
35:05the beginning it was a very opaque sort of process in other words he had something he was working on
35:11something that uh was bubbling up that was going to soon be ready for prime time ready to be shared
35:16with
35:16the public was i interested in talking about it and of course i was intrigued because i cover the
35:21pentagon and and anything from the intelligence world that uh may be coming out of the shadows into
35:27the light i was at area 51 talking to some guys there working some programs i said you guys ever
35:34see
35:35anything really strange i was almost embarrassed to even ask about it because of the the stigma surrounding
35:40the topic and much to my surprise these guys said yeah we've seen some really strange stuff here at
35:46night the deeper melon looked into the controversial subject the more he began to question why the
35:52government was doing nothing about it here's a guy who presumably would know or be able to find out
35:59if these sightings were related to some very secret military program that that these nimitz pilots for
36:03example were not aware of and clearly chris doesn't seem to think that these instances were military
36:11aircraft being tested and you know in secret he feels so strongly about it that he came out of the
36:15shadows when it's not really in his dna to do that chris mellon and lou elizondo weren't the only
36:23officials within the government concerned about a potential threat the pentagon secret ufo unit atip
36:30was established by a small group of senators including former astronaut john glenn world war
36:36ii veterans daniel inouye and ted stevens and former senate majority leader harry reid it's amazing that
36:45an individual who worked at such a high level for so long as the majority leader of the united states
36:52senate would choose this among all of the myriad of issues that he engaged on with all of the challenges
36:58confronting our country today and this is one that he chooses in the twilight of his career to try to
37:05carry forward in 2009 reid sent this letter to the deputy secretary of defense arguing america needed to
37:12study the potentially groundbreaking technology behind these bizarre craft before it got into the hands of
37:17our enemies reid requested a small unit with one of the highest levels of secrecy it was the birth of
37:24atip
37:26he's making that case and that the strategic implications are so great that we have to
37:30accord it special protection this wasn't the first time the u.s government studied ufos
37:37the air force launched project blue book in 1952 when a rash of ufo sightings put the nation on edge
37:44this is david brinkley in the radar room at washington national airport on these radar screens last saturday
37:52they saw something strange and unusual and at the moment unexplainable it was not an airplane it was
37:58not a cloud nobody knows what it was for the next 17 years the air force studied over 12 000
38:04ufo sightings
38:05and found 701 cases that couldn't be explained but they concluded the incidents posed no national
38:11security threat and officially shut project blue book down in 1969 it wasn't lack of compelling information it
38:19was actually the result of compelling information ultimately they determined that they needed to
38:25tamp down the concern the public concern in part because during the cold war this could create some
38:32kind of hysteria and overwhelm our air defense systems so the government behind the scenes concluded that
38:38they needed to discredit this phenomenon melanclaims project blue book created a stigma around ufos that
38:45continues to this day inside the military i talked to people in the pentagon who had relayed that they
38:51were concerned it was going to make the defense intelligence agency look bad they were more
38:55concerned about the optics of it i wonder if at some point this is going to go down as a
39:00historical
39:01document where people are going to look back and say you know it doesn't matter what side of the aisle
39:04you're on that was heroic i was never formally debriefed and i wasn't taken seriously for years
39:21for over a decade the accounts of two navy fighter pilots of an encounter with an unidentified craft south
39:28san diego were dismissed by the u.s navy if i had been a single seat pilot and i had
39:34encountered it by
39:34myself i probably wouldn't have said anything i wouldn't want to risk my security clearance i wouldn't
39:40want to risk people thinking i was a freak or crazy you actually get four people that are eyewitnesses to
39:46the performance of this thing and then nothing gets done so the frustration that comes out of that is
39:51why it was not only ridicule but then that the intel people didn't seem to be interested in their story
39:57it was the worst of both worlds for months lou elizondo and former assistant deputy secretary
40:05of defense for intelligence chris mellon had been working behind the scenes to organize a meeting
40:10between the two pilots and members of congress if people see the evidence they'll understand and
40:15they'll find it compelling sometimes it's only by bringing the information public and bringing to
40:22attention of congress that you get action elizondo is driving across the country when one of the
40:29pilots retired navy commander david fravor calls to tell him the unprecedented meeting has just taken
40:35place fantastic and they asked you some hard good questions on the record oh my god phenomenal
40:41fravor tells elizondo that he and his wingman pilot met in secret with members of congress
40:53the senators don't want their names revealed because of the sensitivity of the issue
40:58the press was not informed and the meeting is not found on any official schedule
41:03do you feel positive that it was well received
41:07well congratulations you just made history brother again for the first time in history u.s senators
41:13were briefed for the record on ufos affecting u.s military aircraft and operations
41:22for elizondo this meeting is the first step in an effort to wake lawmakers up to a serious threat to
41:28national security how does the story end i have no idea who it was or what it was maybe it's
41:37elon musk or
41:38somebody out there coming up with some you know disruptive technology that's going to change our lives like
41:43an iphone you know if you'd show me an iphone when i was in high school i would have thought
41:46it was voodoo
41:47magic i hope it ends peacefully you have to ask yourself is it et or is it independence day you
41:55know
41:55what's the intent and right now we don't know
42:08i promise i will try not to yammer on too long i don't think necessarily disclosure is an event i
42:14think it's a process and i think that process began we trust the american people to know that there are
42:20certain countries that have nuclear warheads pointed at new york and los angeles that could
42:25wipe out millions of people in an instant and yet we don't trust the american people to know that
42:29there's something in our airspace that we don't know what it is there's a lot more i don't know
42:33than i do know but that's okay that's why we have to continue to seek to find the answers and
42:38collect
42:38the data because ultimately the data will speak for itself i think the public is closer to understanding
42:45the ufo mystery than at any time in my lifetime it's astonishing and yeah it's it's a little bit scary
42:56what's worst case scenario well i would tell you i would tell you already it's too late because it's
43:02here so we have a choice we can live with our heads buried in the sand and hope it goes
43:06away or we can
43:07take our head out of the sand and try to figure out how it works but it doesn't really care
43:10what we
43:11think in this room because it's here this season on unidentified never forget those voices you know
43:23those voices guys yeah elizondo's mission to track down more eyewitnesses if i hadn't seen it with my
43:29own eyes i don't know if i would have believed in either true true true it was raining ufos leads
43:34him to reveal a disturbing pattern they disappeared down off the coast i can tell you the latin one
43:38i saw a little sphere suddenly it it moved like that fast and to expose an even larger threat these
43:45ufos had an intense interest in anything nuclear what are they and where are they from the beams
43:51went down into the weapon storage area and i'm thinking oh my god now these objects have a global
43:58presence helicopter arrived and they requested all the data reporting they didn't want the world to know
44:05which is scary you don't know what else they're covering up unidentified vehicles are operating
44:10at will in restricted airspace just minutes from the nation's capital thousands of people have
44:15experienced unidentified flying objects it's time to look into it you can't ignore facts
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