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00:00Tonight, on The Proof Is Out There, Alien Edition.
00:03A possible UFO, a passenger jet, and a near miss over New York City.
00:09What really happened in the sky?
00:11When I looked back, there was something in there.
00:13I definitely did see something.
00:14At 30,000 feet, a pilot reports a strange encounter.
00:18What did he see when the instruments showed nothing at all?
00:22Nothing was seen on radar.
00:24It would move, and then it would go out.
00:26And over China, another pilot records a UAP no one can explain.
00:31I don't know what they need to say.
00:33That is some weird s**t.
00:35These orbs seem to be blinking in some kind of pattern or signal.
00:41With UFO reports at an all-time high,
00:44we're examining the most compelling evidence caught on camera.
00:47Tonight's focus, pilot and passenger encounters.
00:51Our experts will analyze the evidence and then pass a verdict.
00:55I can't tell you what this is.
00:57So, categorically, it's a UFO.
00:59That these things can and absolutely will be an air safety issue.
01:04The Proof starts now.
01:13Good evening, and welcome to The Proof Is Out There.
01:16Due to ongoing tensions with its neighbor, India, Pakistan is highly sensitive about anomalous incidents in its airspace.
01:25So, when a team of Pakistani commercial pilots spotted a mysterious object outside their window,
01:31they took notice and took out a camera.
01:34January 23rd, 2021, a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 is on a routine flight from Lahore to Karachi
01:44when suddenly, the pilots notice a bright ball in the sky over the city of Raheem Yarkand.
01:55At first, the object appears to glow and pulsate,
02:00but that's because the camera is trying to focus on it.
02:03Slowing down, the video shows the object appears to be a solid white orb.
02:08Excitement grows as they struggle with a smartphone to zoom in and hold the object in frame.
02:15It's moving. It's moving. It's moving.
02:16This isn't the first time pilots have reported strange or black objects over Pakistan skies.
02:23In January of 2019, a report was filed that the crew on a flight from Karachi to Secur
02:28saw an object floating about 105 feet above their aircraft.
02:33The object they saw wasn't bright. It was kind of oval-shaped.
02:37The incident was immediately reported to air traffic control in Karachi,
02:42but the details of the sighting were never released to the public.
02:50For decades, commercial and military pilots faced scorn and ridicule for reporting UFO sightings,
02:57which could have resulted in a loss of critical information.
03:01Our team of experts is about to give this Pakistani airline crew's footage the attention it deserves.
03:13We don't see rotors.
03:15We don't see rotors. We don't see a jet engine. We don't see anything that would propel it.
03:20We don't see control surfaces, that type of thing.
03:23And so it's not a plane or a helicopter.
03:26These experienced commercial pilots had no idea what they were seeing.
03:32Could that be because it's something not of this world?
03:36We know that from the Pentagon and their official UAP investigative office that the spear or round shape are the
03:46most commonly reported UFOs that they have.
03:48So, you know, this shape of UFO is very consistent.
03:52But Macmillan also notes, if it's a UFO, it's certainly not acting like one.
03:57Typically, when you're thinking of UFO, you're talking about sightings of objects that perform in ways that we can't comport
04:05with any known technology.
04:07So, is there anything in this video that I see that would tell me that it requires an explanation for
04:14it being alien?
04:15No.
04:16Instead, Macmillan believes the orb-like shape of this object isn't that unusual to find in the sky.
04:21And he disagrees with one of the pilots on board.
04:24This is not a phenomenon?
04:25The round spear shape is not an aerodynamic shape.
04:29So, it's something that is having to maintain altitude by lighter-than-air gases.
04:35And for me, the only type of airborne object that it would be consistent with would be a balloon.
04:40So, is there a clue to the kind of balloon it is?
04:44This might be a Pakistani version of a Chinese spy balloon.
04:48If so, that payload would be hanging directly beneath the balloon, lost in the glare.
04:53You'd never see it, because those payloads are closer to the balloon.
04:56They're not hanging way down below like many aerial weather balloons have hanging from them.
05:02But proving it, Macmillan admits, for now, the full evidence isn't there.
05:07It certainly has all the appearance and shape of a balloon.
05:11And so, what type of balloon it could be, could be anybody's guess.
05:19Our verdict?
05:20Macmillan is leaning balloon.
05:22But the pilot himself insists that's not what this was.
05:26For now, to be safe, we're going with unidentified object.
05:30The frantic camera work just doesn't give us a clear enough image to be definitive.
05:34A rep from the airline claims they don't know what the object was either.
05:39But they won't be launching their own investigation.
05:44What do Pakistan, New Mexico, and Colombia have in common?
05:49If you're a regular viewer, you know that they're all locations where strange flying objects have been caught on camera
05:55by professional pilots.
05:57August 9, 2022, the Pacific Ocean.
06:01Commercial airline pilot Chris Van Voorhis is about 90 minutes into a flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles when nearby
06:08pilot chatter calls his attention to an anomaly in the sky.
06:11At this point in time, when we started looking outside, we were able to pick up the anomaly that they
06:16were talking about.
06:17Through the cockpit window, Chris records a bright orb appearing to the northwest just below the Big Dipper.
06:24Okay, there it is.
06:25Let's slow it down and take a closer look.
06:28The light moves around a bit before quickly disappearing.
06:32Oh, dang it, went away.
06:33Chris continues recording for more than two minutes as the light intermittently disappears and reappears.
06:44We were rather awed by it and dismayed at the same time.
06:48Nothing was seen on radar.
06:50It would move and then it would go out.
06:53Now, sometimes this is indicative of a satellite.
06:56And usually we'd see satellites during either sunset or sunrise and it would be reflecting the sun from their solar
07:03arrays.
07:03But this wasn't directly after sunset or sunrise.
07:07But this sighting is far from a first for either Chris or his fellow pilots.
07:12I've seen quite a bit up there and I know quite a few pilots that have seen these orbs or
07:16anomalies, maybe up to 50%.
07:19Chris's video appeared in national news coverage on the growing topic of pilot encounters.
07:24This is not unique.
07:26There's videos captured like this all the time.
07:29Needless to say, it's always a bad combination to have a commercial airline flying in the vicinity of an unknown
07:37object.
07:37That is an air safety issue.
07:40In fact, pilots overseas are facing similar safety concerns.
07:44There's also reports by pilots in European countries of these strange lights.
07:49One sighting wasn't on the pilot's radar and air traffic control, or ATC, also did not report the incident.
07:58And these sightings can leave a lasting impression.
08:01This has changed my beliefs tremendously.
08:04It's opened my mind to the possibilities of everything from interdimensional travel and portals and time travel and extraterrestrials.
08:17One of the more prominent pilot whistleblowers is Ryan Graves, the first active duty U.S. Navy aviator, to go
08:25public about regular UAP sightings.
08:27He testified about his own encounter to Congress in 2023.
08:31So, did Chris C12?
08:33Our experts review the data.
08:40Is this just a case of mistaken identity?
08:43We first ask if this ball of light could be natural, like a meteor or fireball.
08:48A fireball is a very fast-moving object.
08:51It looks like an object that is leaving some sort of, like, a small trail in the video that we
08:57see here.
08:57We don't see trails.
08:58So, perhaps this light is emitting from a man-made craft, like the afterburners found at the rear of a
09:05jet.
09:05Like Chris, we don't see it.
09:08When a fighter jet is using afterburners, it's the equivalent of just slamming your foot on the gas in a
09:14car.
09:15And so, you wouldn't see afterburners just burning consistently over any length of time,
09:20because the act of putting your foot on the gas burns a lot of fuel.
09:25Okay, while this is the middle of the Pacific,
09:27could it be some secret military technology we were never meant to see?
09:32It is in this weird corridor in the Pacific between California and Hawaii
09:37that is frequently used by the government for various testing.
09:41In fact, the nearby Pacific Missile Range Facility is the largest range of its kind
09:46and is known to test advanced technology systems.
09:50So, it's not totally out of the question,
09:52but normally that's done in a very controlled setting where it wouldn't be visible to the public.
09:58So, while possible, the fact that Chris and other commercial pilots were allowed to fly here
10:02makes secret tech unlikely.
10:05Then, could it be a genuine UFO?
10:07I don't see any characteristics that are unusual or anomalous,
10:11but at the same time, I can't tell you what this is.
10:15So, categorically, it's a UFO.
10:18And if you add into the mix the eyewitness testimony,
10:22maybe this is more unusual than the video gives it credit.
10:29Our verdict? Genuine UFO.
10:32If you're a commercial pilot or a veteran who wants to report a sighting,
10:37Ryan Graves' non-profit Americans for Safe Aerospace can help.
10:41The organization provides a secure system to collect information through its witness program.
10:46And while you're at it, you may as well let us know, too.
10:52Let's talk about air travel.
10:53The procedure typically involves baggage check, security, boarding, takeoff, and UFO sighting.
11:01March 25th, 2024.
11:03It's a beautiful day above New York City.
11:05Michelle Reyes is on a commercial airline preparing for landing at LaGuardia Airport.
11:11Michelle pulls out her phone to record the skyline out her window.
11:14But Michelle's shot is interrupted by something speeding by.
11:19Let's play that back in slow motion.
11:22A black, oblong object enters frame right, just above the horizon.
11:28The object appears to be tilted slightly forward.
11:31In less than a second, it exits frame left, leaving Michelle unsure if she saw anything at all.
11:37Until she watches that video back.
11:39When I looked back, there was something in there, so I was like, all right, I'm not going crazy.
11:44I definitely did see something.
11:45I posted it online.
11:46Just to see if someone could say, like, hey, this is not out of the ordinary, and we see this
11:51all the time.
11:52I was just really curious.
11:53Many online share Michelle's curiosity, so much so that her video is picked up by multiple national news outlets.
12:01Across the country, people are perplexed by Michelle's sighting, and it's not hard to see why.
12:07There's been a lot of reports of these larger cylinder-shaped or cigar-shaped craft.
12:13So people looking at this and saying they see a cylindrical UFO, I can certainly understand why they would see
12:18that.
12:19In fact, these cylindrical UFOs have crossed paths with commercial aircraft in recent years.
12:24There was an incident in 2021 with an American Airlines pilot flying to Phoenix, Arizona, reported over New Mexico seeing
12:33a large cylindrical object fly directly over his own aircraft.
12:37We just had something go right over the top of us that, I hate to say this, looks like a
12:42long cylindrical object.
12:43But these near misses didn't just start in the last few years.
12:47They actually go back almost as far as the modern UFO age as we know it.
12:52In 1948, two commercial pilots were flying over Alabama in the early morning hours when they saw a wingless cylindrical
13:00craft speeding toward their plane.
13:03The pilots veered to the side, dodging a near collision.
13:06What's worrisome is that these near misses seem to be getting more frequent as the years go on.
13:12Long Island-based researchers Jerry and John Tedesco have seen it themselves, not far from where Michelle Reyes recorded her
13:18sighting.
13:19It was October of 23, early morning, and I was just videotaping flight traffic in and out of the airport.
13:25And on the extreme zoom, I saw an airliner making its rotation to come into JFK.
13:30And I saw this object passing the path of the airliner.
13:34The cylinder-shaped object seemed to be showing up quite often in these reports.
13:38So it's consistent. It's a persistent pattern. It's definitely got to be taken seriously.
13:42That's because if objects like these are sharing the skies with civilian aircraft, it's a problem.
13:48The greatest concern here is that air traffic control didn't see this and didn't report it.
13:54That is proof positive that these things can and absolutely will be an air safety issue if we don't do
14:00something about it.
14:04In 2023, a New York Times investigation found that near misses involving commercial aircraft were happening multiple times a week
14:12nationwide.
14:13Will our investigation reveal another kind of safety threat in our skies?
14:21Could this indeed be a cylindrical UFO crossing paths with this commercial plane?
14:27Well, while from the side it might look like a cylinder, it might be something else entirely.
14:33When you do closer analysis, you can actually see that there's something kind of spinning.
14:37So it could be just a large disk.
14:40Still sound like aliens? Not so fast.
14:42In 2019, Romanian engineers successfully built their own flying saucer called the All-Directional Flying Object, or Adifo.
14:51In other words, a disk-shaped drone.
14:54But wouldn't something like that have been noticed?
14:56The pilots would have been able to see it coming by and explain it.
15:00Air traffic control would have picked it up.
15:02This was not picked up by any radar system.
15:04So is this just something ordinary captured in a way that makes it look extraordinary?
15:09You've got the aircraft going north, the wind coming from the opposite direction,
15:14which is really meaning that this is going maybe wind speed.
15:16So you have the aircraft and then the wind speed carrying it aloft creates this effect where it's zooming by.
15:23I think that it's more like a party balloon.
15:26Specifically, we're thinking of those number-shaped balloons that people usually get to denote their age.
15:32The theory is one of those numeric balloons may have gone astray.
15:36I think it's a zero.
15:37At the beginning of the clip, top right-hand corner, there is the aircraft's wing.
15:43So what you're able to see is that this object is just beyond.
15:46And so the size matches.
15:49The winds were moving along in such a way that it's potentially coming from Staten Island.
15:55Everything matches up in terms of it being a zero balloon.
15:59And she happened to see it as they were going by.
16:07Our verdict?
16:09Party balloon.
16:10See how this zero-shaped balloon looks turned on its side?
16:15That's what we think Michelle saw when she looked out her plane window.
16:19It's amazing what a change of perspective can do.
16:24For millennia, Turkey has been a bridge between cultures, a crossroads between Europe and Asia.
16:31But as you're about to see, it might also have been the meeting point between human civilization and extraterrestrial life.
16:40It's May 13, 2009, and night owl Yolcin Yalman is stargazing in the suburbs of Istanbul, Turkey.
16:48Shortly after 3 a.m., something strange appears in the sky over the sea of Marmara.
16:53Yolcin immediately grabs his Canon mini-DV camera, a videotape, and records this.
16:59It appears to be some sort of saucer-shaped craft.
17:02It's hovering silently for half an hour about a mile away and 500 feet above the sea.
17:07But watch what happens when Yolcin zooms in.
17:10Do you see that?
17:12Now take a look at the footage when we zoomed in and cleaned it up for you to get a
17:16better look.
17:17Yolcin says that what you're seeing here is a cockpit window.
17:21And there, inside the alleged craft, he's saying you can see two aliens piloting this thing.
17:26Right here and right here.
17:30Yolcin is sure he's made contact.
17:32In fact, he claims it's been happening for years.
17:52For millennia, strange things have been reported in the skies over Turkey.
17:56In 74 B.C., during a battle between Greek and Roman armies, thousands of soldiers witnessed a flaming object of
18:03molten silver, shaped like a wine jar flying above them.
18:07In 2016, Turkish air pilots reported that they saw a UFO go over their plane with green lights.
18:14The pilots say they saw this UFO about 17,000 feet, but the airport authorities reported that they had no
18:21evidence on their radar of any of the sightings that the pilots saw.
18:24Now, we've never seen a window on a UFO before.
18:27Yolcin's cockpit aliens appear to be a unique phenomenon, and one the Turkish government has taken very seriously.
18:34The Turkish government came back and said that this is authentic, and this spacecraft has nothing to do with any
18:39military programs or anything.
18:41So this could be extraterrestrial.
18:45UFOs are such a hot topic in Turkey that in 2001, a museum opened in Istanbul containing various photos, videos,
18:53reports, models, and even a library about UFOs and extraterrestrial life.
18:59But are we ready to add this video to the collection?
19:03Our experts take a deeper dive into the footage.
19:10We always look to the metadata first, and this block-like pixelation, this is an indication that excessive amounts of
19:17compression were applied to these pixel areas.
19:20But I don't detect any evidence of this program interacting with something that would introduce CGI.
19:25There's no indication that they were trying to deceive or mislead.
19:28So if it doesn't appear we have a doctored video, has Yolcin really been dealing with aliens?
19:33Back in 2009, we didn't have the cameras we have today.
19:36He's zooming in on it all the way.
19:39And in my view, I don't think that you're going to be able to see anybody in a craft like
19:44that.
19:45Turkey is a NATO member and has the second largest army in the organization.
19:49So is it possible this could be an experimental aircraft?
19:52This is a particular area where you do have military drills.
19:56And in fact, NATO holds different annual drills that are simulating wartime environments.
20:01However, all of the telltale signs of aircraft as we know them are really kind of thrown out of the
20:07window.
20:08We definitely don't have any aircraft that are lenticular or saucer-shaped.
20:14Beyond that, if it's going to be an aircraft, you're going to hear something, whether it's the jet engines of
20:18a plane or that rotor thunder of a helicopter.
20:22And in this case, the individual said he didn't hear anything while filming it.
20:26So what else could this be?
20:28It's a case that's been around for a long time.
20:31That doesn't mean it's true.
20:32It just means it's not solved yet.
20:38Our verdict?
20:39We're going to classify it as a genuine UFO.
20:43Our experts make good points.
20:45And we'll agree that those images in the windows probably aren't alien space pilots.
20:50But that doesn't mean we can identify what this thing actually is until we get more definitive evidence.
20:58The U.S. military has had some now-famous encounters with UFOs in recent years, but it may not be
21:05alone.
21:06Back in the final years of the Cold War, an encounter in the skies over the low countries of northwestern
21:12Europe prompted a robust military response.
21:16That sparked a controversy over what really happened, which continues to this day.
21:22It's March 1990 over the Belgian countryside.
21:26Two F-16s are deployed by the Belgian Air Force after radar spots an ominous object hovering in the air.
21:34They see this.
21:36You're looking at an actual recording of what was on their flight radar lock-on.
21:41In the center of the screen, at an altitude of 7,000 feet, is a diamond-shaped blip.
21:46This blip indicates there's something solid in the sky, though it doesn't necessarily represent what this solid object actually looks
21:54like.
21:54The radar's altimeter, measuring in thousands, indicates the odd object races thousands of feet higher, then plummets back down again
22:02at breakneck speed.
22:03And it seems to accelerate to 990 knots, or more than 1,000 miles per hour, before bolting out of
22:10range.
22:11The pilots never make visual contact, but back on the ground, the one resident of Brussels claims to capture this
22:18footage of three lights in a triangular pattern passing overhead.
22:22This video was shot in March of 1990 over Belgium on the same night of the radar sighting.
22:28A few months later, Belgian Air Force Colonel Wilfred de Brouwer holds a press conference about the incident.
22:35What these pilots detected was well outside the normal flying envelope of an airplane.
22:43Sometimes it had speeds between 150 knots till 990 knots, an acceleration which occurred in a few seconds.
22:52These speeds would be impossible to tolerate for a human being.
22:58And there's another layer to this story.
23:01This wasn't the first Belgian sighting.
23:03There'd been a string of strange encounters just months before.
23:07It starts in November of 1989.
23:11Multiple reports start coming in of seeing three lights in the sky.
23:17During that first wave of sightings, no less than 30 different groups of witnesses describe seeing three bright lights up
23:25in the sky.
23:25What they see is that these aren't three distinct lights, but rather three points of light on one very large
23:33triangular shaped object.
23:35The witnesses claim to have seen the object slowly glide at low altitude northeast across the Belgian landscape from the
23:42town of Liège to the border with the Netherlands and Germany.
23:46More than half a dozen police officers working that evening also spotted the mystery aircraft.
23:50But it wasn't until months later when the Air Force picked up that strange UFO on radar and this footage
23:56was captured that they seemingly had proof that this was a technologically amazing craft.
24:02There was nothing that existed that could outperform this F-16 aircraft, but the pilot says that as he's pursuing
24:11this object, the object makes essentially a quick turn and deviates off his radar system and he loses it.
24:20In total, this Belgian triangle was seen by more than 1,000 witnesses over these several months.
24:26With so many viewers and the military involved, could this be the real deal?
24:31Our experts tried to identify both the object on radar and the one that was filmed.
24:36Are they one and the same?
24:38If so, what could it be?
24:46The important thing here is to notice that there are three objects in the view, and the objects don't get
24:52any closer to each other or move apart from each other.
24:55They stay near each other, almost as if they're connected in some way through a structure.
25:00So we're probably looking at a cohesive, singular object that has lights on it.
25:06So could this be a real triangular UFO?
25:10I can never pronounce that this is real.
25:12There's no data indicating that it is.
25:14I can only say that it's compelling.
25:17From my point of view, the jury is still out.
25:21So does that make it a hoax?
25:22No.
25:23Does it make it real?
25:24No.
25:26But it doesn't take away from the fact that this footage exists of an F-16 fighting Falcon tracking an
25:34object on its radar.
25:36Sources say the ground footage was filmed at around 2.20 a.m., about two hours after the F-16
25:42spotted something on their radar.
25:44So could these two incidents be connected?
25:46And what would that mean?
25:47What this radar screen is telling us is that essentially this object descended from 10,000 feet to roughly 500
25:56feet or below in just a matter of seconds.
26:00To do that, we're talking about something that would have to be moving exceptionally fast.
26:06Upwards of Mach 40, those types of G-forces would crush a person.
26:13So McMillan agrees with the Belgian Air Force.
26:16A human couldn't withstand these forces, but maybe an alien could.
26:20Well, hang on.
26:21McMillan has a different theory as to what the F-16's radar screens may have detected.
26:26I think possibly what we're looking at here is something called Bragg scattering.
26:32It's a scattering effect with the radar.
26:34Pockets of high humidity, ice crystals, cloud cover, different things like that can actually cause the radar to produce false
26:43echo returns.
26:44The pilots themselves never visually saw anything, only the radar.
26:50In this particular case, I would say that the idea that radar scattering caused these false returns could be a
26:58very plausible explanation for it.
27:01But remember, this object was detected on multiple radar systems, so it's unlikely it would be Bragg's scattering in every
27:10case.
27:10That's why many who've studied this incident remain perplexed.
27:19Okay, it's true.
27:21The incredibly fast speeds caught on the F-16's radar could be a glitch.
27:26But our verdict is genuine UFO.
27:29We have no way of confirming if the object seen on radar is the same one filmed in Brussels.
27:34But it does seem remarkable that these two pieces of footage came within hours of each other.
27:39And decades later, the former Air Force colonel and now-retired Major General de Brouwer
27:45still can't account for the thousands of UFO sightings reported in Belgium over those months.
27:53In November of 2021, the Pentagon announced the establishment of a new UFO task force.
28:00And just in time for our next sighting, which took place on that very same day.
28:06Coincidence?
28:07We'll let you decide.
28:09November 24th, 2021.
28:12A commercial plane is on an early morning flight near Hong Kong.
28:15As the plane flies over the South China Sea at 39,000 feet, an unusual sight out of the right
28:20window prompts the pilot to whip out his cell phone and record this.
28:26Nine orbs are moving across the sky in three organized rows.
28:30Let's zoom in.
28:32The wildest part?
28:33Watch how the orbs on the left disappear before three more orbs reappear on the far side of the formation,
28:39and the cycle repeats.
28:46These orbs seem to be blinking in some kind of pattern or signal, until finally, one by one, they slowly,
28:55slowly disappear.
28:56And then they're all just gone.
29:00The video quickly goes viral, racking up nearly 300,000 views.
29:04But the question is, what could they be?
29:06There were a number of theories as to what the lights could actually be.
29:10One of the most popular is, of course, that they were UFOs.
29:14Patterns of strange lights in the sky have been observed for decades.
29:17In 1951, a group of scientists from Texas Technical College claimed to see a group of 15 to 30 bluish
29:24-green objects flying in formation.
29:26A student at the college snapped these photographs, and the phenomenon became known as the Lubbock Lights.
29:32The incident grabbed headlines across the nation.
29:35But why would this formation of lights be so near another airplane?
29:39Grundhauser says some ufologists have theories.
29:41Some theories include that they are trying to show us the technology that they have, almost in comparison to the
29:48technology we're using.
29:49It's also possible that, especially when it comes to military aircraft, maybe the aliens are just getting the measure of
29:57us, seeing what our technology can do.
30:02Today, the formal U.S. government name of the UFO task force is the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization
30:12Group.
30:12Lord, if you can come up with a clunkier name, please, please email it to us.
30:17This organization wasn't established until after more than 100 incidents documented by military planes were officially classified as unexplained.
30:26So, did this pilot's strange encounter over the South China Sea merit a report with the department?
30:32We ask our experts.
30:39What's interesting about this recording is there is a moment where that automatic iris makes a change,
30:45and the white balance overall in the image changes, and the intensity of the objects doesn't.
30:50They stay fairly consistent, so I did not detect any evidence that these objects were overlaid into the recording or
30:56any CGI was used to create them.
30:58So, this video does appear to be genuine.
31:00Are we looking at some kind of atmospheric phenomenon?
31:03When we see lightning, it's a very quick flash.
31:05It's a discharge of electricity.
31:08In this case, it's a light that appears to be fairly static for a couple of seconds, and then it
31:14goes away.
31:14There really is no weather phenomenon out there that would manifest itself as an orb or a light.
31:21If it's not atmospheric, could these be actual alien ships?
31:25They're not doing anything amazing in terms of moving very fast.
31:28They don't appear to be shooting upwards, which is a typical thing that you see in UFO videos.
31:32So, it probably has a relatively earthly explanation.
31:37Maybe that steady formation that rules out UFOs rules in another explanation, drones.
31:42Now, we see very impressive aerial setups sometimes where lots of drones fly in synchronized shapes,
31:50but no one's going to be making a drone display at 20,000 feet over the South China Sea.
31:54And drones are probably not going to be bright enough to be seen at that distance.
31:59But West does find a clue in the video that he believes is key to solving the mystery.
32:03I think probably what we're looking at here are three military planes dropping flares.
32:10Many fighter jets employ decoy flares, which burn on contact with the air and at a temperature hotter than the
32:16engine exhaust.
32:17They're deployed to attract heat-seeking missiles, and it's possible this timed formation is due to a training exercise.
32:24These decoy flares, they need to burn as bright as possible initially so that they can guide the missiles away
32:30from the plane,
32:31and then they're just allowed to burn out.
32:33Meanwhile, U.S. government officials claim China has fully militarized at least three artificial islands they've constructed in the South
32:40China Sea.
32:41It's probably Chinese military aircraft just doing some kind of exercise.
32:45Fighter jets are usually highly camouflaged, so since it's dusk, there's gray clouds behind, it's simply too far away to
32:53see the planes.
32:59Our verdict? Military flares.
33:01The South China Sea has gained major geopolitical significance because a huge share of the world's maritime shipping passes through
33:09it.
33:09Given that the area has seen a variety of territorial disputes of late, it's not too surprising to see a
33:15military presence in the airspace above it.
33:20Germany has its own history of UFOs going back at least as far as World War II.
33:25This next puzzling footage is a much more recent sighting out of Deutschland.
33:30And whatever it is, we know it's not one of the 99 Luftballons.
33:36September 29th, 2014.
33:39It's a beautiful day in Boral, Germany, a rural southern village near the Swiss border.
33:45A photographer sets up his camera to film the perfect sunset.
33:49But when he watches the footage back, he has captured something else entirely.
33:55A bright streaking orb jetting across the sky.
34:02Suddenly, the object seems to zigzag violently before continuing downward.
34:07Let's see that again.
34:11The way that it moves, it doesn't look like the behavior that any earthly vessel could possibly undertake.
34:18Much of the online speculation centers on the location of the sighting.
34:23A place considered by some to be the birthplace of the modern UFO phenomenon.
34:27It was 1944 behind German lines.
34:31The Elite 415 Knight Fighter Squadron reported strange phenomenon in the skies over Germany.
34:37The incident involved a Bristol bow fighter crew led by pilot Edward Schloider and his crewmates,
34:44who were flying over the Rhine Valley near Strasbourg.
34:49The crew described eight to ten orange oars flying at high speeds off of their left wing.
34:55The lights appeared from nowhere, moving at erratic angles, dancing around the planes.
35:01The puzzled squadron could not shoot them down.
35:03They also never appeared on radar.
35:06The pilots dubbed the bright light bogeys, allegedly captured in this photo, Foo Fighters.
35:12Since the Foo Fighters caused no damage, the American crewmen doubted that they were actually German secret weapons.
35:21German pilots claimed to have seen Foo Fighters as well, and they were just as baffled.
35:27But there are other modern instances of similar bright orbs descending on planes, too.
35:33On a previous episode, we analyzed this 2020 sighting from the Mexican skies,
35:38where veteran military and commercial pilot Captain Eric Delgado recorded this footage.
35:44Oh, man, that is phenomenal, dude. I'm so glad you saw that.
35:47And you saw it drop out of the sky and just, and just, and just stopped?
35:50And now it's a shooting star. And it just stopped.
35:53Oh, this is awesome, man.
35:56Captain Delgado says this thing dropped straight down from above and hit his plane with some kind of spotlight.
36:02It looked like a lighthouse in some thin fog as it's turning.
36:06So that really got my heart going.
36:08No doubt a UFO shining a light on your plane would be a terrifying moment.
36:12I thought there could have been a safety issue because initially this thing is turning into us,
36:17and then it decided to park itself off our left wing tip.
36:19The glowing orb maintains its position, pacing the plane.
36:24Delgado says it stayed there for 25 minutes before darting off at a sharp angle.
36:30He's a pulsating orb. Look at that, dude. Look at that.
36:33It's the kind of inexplicable maneuver we've come to associate with UFOs,
36:37from Foo Fighters to those encountered more recently by Navy pilots to this very video.
36:44Both the Foo Fighters legend and the modern footage shot by Captain Delgado remain mysteries.
36:50How will this German orb footage hold up to our expert scrutiny?
36:54Time for our team to dig in and find out.
37:01Is it possible all these highly maneuverable UFOs are a single type of craft, and this is one of them?
37:08It does seem to be going extremely fast, and also at one point executes a remarkable turn.
37:16That single hairpin turn might match Foo Fighter reports.
37:20So if it's not a Foo Fighter, could it be a meteor?
37:22This is a time-lapse video, which means that we're looking at the sun setting over a long period of
37:30time.
37:31If that's the case, this is way too slow, actually, to be a meteor.
37:37Most meteors are visible for seconds, burning up in a flash.
37:41So the revelation that this is a time-lapse video rules that out altogether.
37:46The skip in time from the time-lapse could also explain the erratic movement.
37:50So it's not a meteor or an alien spacecraft.
37:54Could it be a non-alien spacecraft, like a satellite?
37:57This could not be a satellite because it's still way too bright to see even the brightest satellites.
38:03Satellites do come out at sunset, but only after the sun goes down.
38:09Could this object have something to do with the camera?
38:13Here's the thing with cameras.
38:14Whenever you point them into the sun, you're going to get things you don't expect or don't want.
38:19Because the sun is immensely brighter than anything else in the field of view.
38:25So if this is something up in the sky, as soon as it starts to go down toward the horizon,
38:30it should slow down.
38:31To your eye, it's not.
38:32It stays the exact same speed.
38:35Indeed, that tells me that it's probably a camera artifact of some kind.
38:44Our verdict?
38:45Lens flare, or another kind of camera artifact.
38:49We wish we could say this video brought us closer to an answer on the Foo Fighter legend, but not
38:54this time.
38:55Those mysteries continue.
38:56And as we've seen tonight, strange encounters are happening on planes across the globe.
39:03So the next time you fly, you may want to book an aisle seat.
39:07Thank you so much for watching this special edition of The Proof Is Out There.
39:11Please send us any video, images, or sound that you think we should investigate.
39:16And remember to keep those cameras rolling.
39:21We'll see you next time.
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