Giant UFO in Texas (Full Episode) | UFOs: Investigating the Unknown

foreign January the 8th 2008 [Music] it was approximately 6 p.m in the afternoon then the sun was just going down and my buddy Mike Odom called me and says you want to come over and enjoy the afternoon we'll be able to camp fire up on the hill and just hang out and shoot the breeze and I said sure can second I got out of my pickup I noticed some lights coming at us at a very high rate of speed I asked Mike and Lance if they were seeing what I was seeing they replied back yes we're seeing it we saw craft coming from the East going west had extremely large lights like a magnesium flare almost burnt your eyes to look at it and it was moving extremely fast faster than any normal aircraft that we have around here and as we watched it we saw that it had two F-16 jets in Hot Pursuit after it chasing it I know what a F-16 is I'll go to air shows and pretty familiar with aircraft it was unbelievable it left us all in shock you know it was a out of this world last week several people in Stephenville Texas witnessed what many are calling a UFO the Air Forces lied about UFOs for 60 years actually and this would be in keeping with that in the late 40s and early 50s there was so many sightings across the United States it was in the middle of Cold War so government officials were trying to figure out what these objects were the government examined over 12 000 UFO sightings many of those wore a striking resemblance to what we're seeing today there have been a certain percentage of reports by credible observers of relatively incredible things the Air Force I think for a time may have been making an honest effort to clear the air about the phenomena unfortunately it didn't last too long to this time there is no valid scientific proof that we have been visited by spaceships they were inundated by these reports and just wanted to be done with the whole thing we are not hiding anything we have nothing to hide this became the launch of taboo on a more official level ridicule became sanctioned I would like to have answers but I'm not sure if we'll ever get any we get reports every night I don't know what the hell it is wrong in 2017 two colleagues and I published a story in the New York Times about a Secret Pentagon program studying UFOs the story was on the front page of the New York Times and it was huge it was covered everywhere all over the world it was like such a sea change for me as a journalist and also for the issue of UFOs in general for most people this was the first time they heard anything about any official relationship between the government and UFOs [Music] but actually in the late 1940s the government was really starting to wake up to what this issue was really all about it's extremely important to understand that the Cold War affected both the perception of UFOs and how it was handled by the military it's hard for us today to remember what the mindset was but it was Dire it was life and death between the United States and Soviet Union there was people out with binoculars all over the country constantly searching the skies for a Russian strike it was only natural that during the Cold War UFOs sort of got folded into this overriding fear of what might attack us at any given time and then in 1947 just when these Cold War fears were starting to take hold there was a very famous sighting by a pilot named Kenneth Arnold that was the sighting that marked the beginning of the modern era of UFOs it all began with an incident which occurred in 1947. on the afternoon of June 24th of that Year Kenneth Arnold made the first report on flying saucers Kenneth Arnold was a Private Pilot searching for a military plane that had crashed sometime earlier and he sees off in the distance a chain of nine silvery objects he said they look sort of like silver pie plates with a crescent cut out of them many times they went going over a thousand miles an hour nothing in 1947 was capable of traveling 1200 miles an hour nor did we have any aircraft that looked like this they seem to flip and Flash in the sun just [Music] yes he landed at his next stop at the next airport and told the flight crew what he had encountered and people pretty much just laughed him off but when he got to his next stop there were reporters waiting for him he described their movement as a saucer skipping across the water and that reporter thought ah flying saucers that's what we'll call them and that's what we've been using ever since in the aftermath of Kenneth Arnold's report there were hundreds and hundreds of reports pouring into the air force every day and the Air Force couldn't just ignore that it was in the middle of Cold War so government officials were trying to figure out what these objects were General Twining saw this phenomenon as a possible threat to our country so he issued a very famous memo in which he said the phenomenon reported is something real not Visionary or fictitious those were pretty big words coming from a general in the Air Force in the summer of 1947. the Twining memo marked the beginning of an era in which the Air Force would become deeply involved with the question of UFOs the government was put in a position where it had to decide was it going to engage with this phenomenon and if so how much of it was it going to make public that continued on in the decades that followed and it impacted all the cases that came decades later the Stephenville Texas UFO case is very intriguing to me in 2008 a large unidentified flying object was observed by a large number of people from the ground when we first saw it it had seven lights across the back of it all blinking in no particular order as it approached Stephenville these seven lights became a heart shape of seven lights and then a brief moment later they burst into a flame and it looked to me like the flame was contained in a rectangle box somebody had made the comment well is it half the size of a Walmart says much bigger than the normal wall bar what made the Stephenville case so interesting was that in a four hour period of time you had dozens of reports of an object and they all described saying the same thing it happened about 12 and a half 13 years ago I still think about it quite often we're still trying to find out and discover what the cause of it was it just had two large bright intense red lights with a white light in the center of it and it had two military jets behind it which everybody saw in town the Jets they was running Full Throttle but they wasn't able to catch it there were fighter jets chasing those lights and the Jets couldn't keep up with them and then it just left it was gone that fast what do you think it was I don't know what it was but I know what an airplane after that I spoke to probably two or three hundred people that witnessed it business owners city councilman policeman but no one could say what we saw that night I called a Stephenville Empire Tribune to see if anybody may have got a visual on it the editor directed me to a newspaper reporter named Angela Joyner She interviewed me over the phone and she started digging deep to help find out what we were seeing she was hell-bent to find out the truth [Music] my name is Sarah Vandenberg and I was the managing editor of the Stephenville Empire Tribune for 14 years in 2008 Steve Allen and a couple of his friends saw some suspicious lights and they called in to The Newsroom and talked to Angela Joyner Angela Joyner is one of my reporters at the Empire Tribune sadly Angela passed away with covid last year Angela was a super fun person but she took her seriously good writer she was thorough she was a good reporter Steve Allen called me and said hey I got a story for you and I could tell by talking to him you know the way his voice changed and his inflections changed and and he was just so sincere when he was describing it to me I knew this guy saw something he really saw something big after Steve Allen called she pitched the story to me and said here's what's happened what do you think did you did you win a reporting on this yeah it just seems like you know it's the thought of the little green men coming out of the spaceship it was sort of tabloid-ish to me that was my concern as a journalist who wanted to be taken seriously I was afraid that you know this would somehow taint my reputation so I said put something together and Pitch it to me tomorrow evening when I get back to the office and then we'll talk about it this siding was like right here in our core readership area and I thought you know the readers are going to like this they're going to really like this so and the people they they know the people in the story that's another thing so that was another reason I went ahead and did it to uh and the editor left early cut that part [Laughter] next morning at the end of my driveway was the paper I picked it up and across the top had UFO sightings in Erath County and like 72 Point font it was just huge after I had left for the day the publisher and Angela we did the front page and went to press and I had no idea I almost had a nervous breakdown right then I could not believe that that had happened overnight two hours into my day I got a call from the publisher she said things are blowing up we've sold out of all the papers we've had that was my first indication like wow people are really interested in this did a lot of excitement here a lot of businesses had t-shirts made and sold those and the high school kids had fun with it Stephenville may be typical but what's happening in the sky is above it is a whole other story it kind of is the Talk of the Town right now Angela Joyner is a reporter with the town's newspaper she's now on the strangest and possibly the biggest story of her life it went from this little story to this huge out of control worldwide Frenzy I started getting phone calls from all over the world Brazil Japan England and next thing you know CNN and quite a few other TV things showed up and pointed our story similar to that is that despite the numbers of witnesses seeing these gigantic craft nobody in positions of authority came to investigate that's in contrast to what was going on in the 40s and 50s where there was an Air Force program and they would investigate cases here is a picture that was released just today it shows four luminous objects in formation in the sky over Salem Massachusetts now here on this map are pinpointed locations where some 30 saucers have been cited and are still unexplained in 1949 the military started looking into all these stacks of UFO reports that the Air Force was receiving headquarters United States Air Forces issued a directive for a detailed study of flying disc reports the program is initially called project sign then became project Grudge and then it was named Project Blue Book Project Blue Book was operated out of the dingiest office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base they had a malfunctioning coffee pot they had a couple desks they had a big map up on the wall and that was it but they just had a system down Project Blue Book started as a good faith effort by the government to collect reports and investigate UFOs when there were big cases they would sometimes dispatch someone to interview the witnesses the Air Force was pretty open about Project Blue Book what are the objectives first of all to try to determinate some useful phenomenally against the threat to the security of the United States from second to determining for youthful phenomena exhibit any technological advantage alongside the military employees the Air Force felt that they needed a credible scientific opinion to support their research is it in the realm of possibility that there are spaceships someplace in this universe well if you put it in the word use the word possibility and not probability then I would have to say I think is any scientists would have to say it is certainly possible yes jln heineck was a mild mannered college professor from Ohio State University his job was to go through all these stacks of UFO reports that the Air Force was receiving and try to find out what's going on Project Blue Book examined over 12 000 UFO sightings many of them bore a striking resemblance to what we're seeing today crafts with a similar shape sometimes the same color hovering then shooting off instantaneously at Hypersonic speeds multiple multiple cases like that while working for Project Blue Book heineck noticed that he was able to explain 80 percent of cases but he also noticed that there was about a 20 residue of cases that he hadn't been able to explain away Alan Haida came into the UFO project with the attitude which is there's nothing to UFOs but he was a good enough scientist to say wait a minute I'm seeing reports here that are not easily explainable the Air Force and their UFO study project may have been making an honest effort to clear the air about the phenomenon unfortunately it didn't last too long simply because they were just overwhelmed with reports [Music] and it turned a blue green bring up light walls were ahead of us and all of a sudden they Zapped away from us this is the Kremlin Russia Today is regarded as a grave threat to our nation to our freedom to the Peace of the world 40s and 50s tensions with Russia were building Cold War was so intense at that point so there was a genuine concern that the UFO phenomenon could be exploited the U.S government felt adversaries could hoax UFO sightings and then clog up our reporting channels and then have a surprise attack so the idea was that the UFO problem was not a security problem as such meaning aliens aren't going to land and attack us what the UFO problem was it was a sociological problem and it was one that demanded a different approach [Music] the CIA Under the Picture by convening a panel of top scientists to examine the UFO phenomenon the thinking was that the enemy couldn't exploit UFOs as a decoy in the preparation for an attack on the United States five outstanding scientists in various Air Force and CIA Representatives would immediate among the panel members was J Allen the heineck in 1953 the Central Intelligence Agency formed a scientific panel led by a highly regarded scientist named Robertson to examine this phenomenon its implications the Robertson panel was a group of hand-picked scientists who came together to try to determine a way to damp down public interest in UFOs Dr heineck was actually brought in to be a Consulting witness to the Robertson panel the panel members were seated around this table it was a rather somber and impressive occasion actually the mission given by the Robertson panel was essentially to make people stop filing UFO reports they proposed two methods to damp down public enthusiasm one was through debunking the second one was through education teaching people to explain UFOs in other ways than something extraordinary it was an extremely important moment in the evolution of how government was going to engage with this topic this became the launch of taboo on a more official level where it was becoming policy in a way ridicule became a sanctioned the Robertson panel conclusions seemed to have a big impact on Project Blue Book the project began to dismiss as many cases as possible and provide sometimes ridiculous explanations for them just have an answer and make them go away heineck's job became going through all these UFO reports and explained them away as natural occurrences Comet meteor shooting star Sundog Eclipse I would say the great majority are balloons meteors satellites aircraft seen with the sun glinting off of them generally quite usual things seen under unusual circumstances or surprising circumstances Dr Ryan did his job very thoroughly Allen was was a fellow trying to please the Air Force in what they wanted would have a bunch of reports dropped on his desk and he would explain them all away if a report said probable airliner they would cross out probable and just say airliner that's what the witness saw it was kind of an insult to the to the to the intelligence of the American people heineck they've taken the job for the extra money struggling young professional with a growing family of course he's not going to turn down work but behind the scenes heineck gradually realized that this was a scientific problem but he wouldn't go out and state it publicly he didn't want to do that because it would have been what the Air Force didn't want him to do even though it took place in 1953 the Robertson panel was so potent in terms of its desire to clamp down to ridicule to debunk and to quotes educate people to interpret UFOs in other ways its Legacy carried on through the decades and it impacted cases like Stephenville and other cases of the time last week several people in Stephenville Texas a small rural town of about fifteen thousand witnessed what many are calling a UFO in Selden Texas as Steve Allen also there is Angela Joyner staff writer for the Empire Tribune the local newspaper in Stephenville Angela what are some witnesses telling you the thing that I hear over and over and over is how bright the lights were so I think there's been a lot of consistency in the spottings it was Angela that started digging deep she was hell-bent on try to find out what we saw and what happened and it almost consumed her the incredible thing about the Stephenville sightings was that Witnesses reported see F-16 Fighters pursuing this object I heard this really really loud noise and I ran out the front door and there were fighter jets chasing those lights Angela wanted to know what the Air Force knew about the two f-16s than what we saw so she got in touch with the Naval Air Station in Fort Worth and talked to the major Carl Lewis major Carl Lewis said we didn't have any aircraft in your area at that time I feel like we wasn't given the truth in the military it didn't seem like they was interested in any questions then on about the 10th day the military issued a press release now in a plot line that's out of the X-Files Air Force officials are saying they concede they had f-16s over Stephenville Texas on the evening of January 8th major Carl Lewis says there was an internal Communications mistake the plot thickened Litton Air Force wouldn't say why they did in fact have f-16s in the area Angela joyneth says that the Air Force's admission that it did indeed have fighter jets as reported by the witnesses bolsters their story all around military coming out with this at this point just as is going to fuel the fire for okay there is something going on now what is it we thought their attempt to try to explain it away it was terribly strange we had more questions than answers [Music] UFO reports hoax or serious sightings wind up here at Wright-Patterson Airfield in Dayton Ohio the Air Force investigative unit is known as Project Blue Book in the wake of the Robertson panel Project Blue Book was investigating these civilian reports as a way to Tamp down public concern for example in Michigan there were at one point a large number of sightings by people in a community there and Walter Cronkite the Arbiter of Truth for many Americans covered the story great Flying Saucer mystery of 1966 began here near Dexter Michigan late in March as I turned around to come back on the porch I looked to the north of me and looked like a fallen star who beat her it was red kind of coming down and break my nerves UFO remained over his swamp more than four hours 40 miles away another swamp land and another UFO sighting I believe that I can't fathom it because it seems so unreal this was a huge National story everyone was demanding that Blue Book solved the case and so they called in heinek his Air Force Project Blue Book boss said get out there and put a lid on this the Air Force said its Chief scientific consultant on UFOs Professor Jay Allen heineck to check the Michigan sightings illusion of motion frequently is given by the fact that a little bit of swamp light appears here it goes out another one appears over here that goes out then and but the illusion As A View From a Distance is if the objects have moved back and forth and sometimes as gas will gather into a ball and actually float away Allen made an ill-fated remark about well some of these sightings could be caused by swamp gas and the Witnesses were upset to say the least the people of Michigan thought that heineck was making fun of them that he thought they were all loonies and Kooks and the whole thing blew up in heinek's face they think you're a nut tell you the truth that's just what they figure you are and I'm not going to take it anymore I don't want nobody down in here I just leave me alone when heinek came up with the swamp gas explanation we don't really know whether he believed that or not but we do know that he was working for the Air Force and they were committed at that point to discrediting sightings like this one it was a real turning point for the beginning of people really uh just having had enough of these kinds of bogus explanations for these events following the swamp gas incident the public was outraged and even members of Congress became involved I had several incidents in Michigan that many reliable citizens felt were sufficient to justify some action by our government and not the kind of flip and answer that was given by the Air Force where they passed it off as a swamp gas Gerald Ford who was a congressman at the time at Michigan decided that his constituents were not being taken seriously Gerald Ford listened to his constituents and decided that he should call for Congressional hearings I think the American people would be more assured that there were or were not in such a public hearing was held on April 5th 1966 Harold Brown the secretary of the Air Force and J.L and heinek walked into the Capitol Building to answer questions about Blue Book's investigation into UFOs we have not been hiding anything the investigations have been made public the explanations of those where there is a clear explanation have been made public they brought in the secretary of the Air Force and he just stonewalled and then came to be heinek's turn to talk he made his own statement that he hadn't shared with anyone and he said look we need to sponsor a scientific study and tell us whether this is something we need to keep studying how many really mysterious incidents are there that you'd like to go back and look at again as I mentioned in the hearings this morning I have picked some 20 cases I think those I would recommend that they'd be looked at quite closely scientists has to keep open-minded on an investigation scientific one without Fanfare a quiet look at the data I think is in order heinek was initially a skeptic but as he went through the years he gradually learned that there really is something to this heinek started to believe that we could learn a lot more about the phenomenon through the better scientific study and in fact that's what happened in Stephenville Texas good evening everyone my name is Steve Hudgins I'm senior field investigator for moofah we're down here to investigate this extraordinary event we have our kitchen director from Waco Dave field and director of research Robert Powell my name is Robert Powell my educational background is in chemistry and I work in the semiconductor industry as an engineering manager early January of 2008 I'm the director of research at mufant the term mufon stands for Mutual UFO Network I went up to Stephenville with multiple investigators and we began to interview the witnesses hey how are you I'm good how are you I met several key people such as Angela Joyner Steve Allen and Leroy Gayton and Leroy just gave me the best description of what happened that day to him as I walk out to my car I saw 10 to 12 bright fluorescent orbs they're moving really quickly and then they stop and then all of a sudden they shoot off but what was surprising as I'm still looking probably 20 30 seconds I hear two jazz are interviewing Leroy the first thing I decided that I could do was get radar data Freedom of Information requests to the FAA and I got that data back after about six to eight weeks and it was incredible [Music] good morning my name is Robert Powell I'm the director of research with the move on organization we obtained radar data from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Stephenville area I talk about this a little bit on the screen here one of the first things I do when I get the radar data is I find the f-16s and I match that yes that matches the time they went by Leroy's home then I look on the radar data for unknowns and I find two miles south of his home just like he told me objects on radar that are basically stationary just like he said and then the really interesting part was on radar these objects that were over his home the next radar blip the object is to the Northeast towards Stephenville and it had traveled at a minimum speed of 1900 miles per hour now and that is from stationaries there's no way for me to know what it was the only thing I can say is what it was not it was not any type of aircraft because no aircraft can hover and then move to a speed of over 1900 miles an hour at low altitude and then stop and hover again it's just not something we have the ability to do [Music] there are so many UFO sightings and the vast majority of them can be explained but then there are those that involve Mass sightings of something really unusual and in those cases people deserve an investigation by the officials in the aftermath of the swamp gas case the government decided to fund a college research program of the UFO phenomenon at the time the Air Force was trying to find a way to get out from under the burden of having to investigate UFOs and comment on this and so a scientific panel was established to investigate and assess the issue it was led by a Dr Robert Condon what's his turn to the University of Colorado to investigate unidentified flying objects and they've asked Dr Edward yukonden to head the project how do you propose to go about studying this particular phenomenon we'll pick certain selected cases that seem especially interesting and and go out and try to learn more about them in those few in Greater depth the guy who was leading it Professor Edward Condon had no interest in the subject and had to be talked into it so you have a professor who was not looking to do a project that was given the project and things didn't go well they reviewed 59 cases and wrote them up in a study that was close to a thousand pages one of the events they covered was the McMinnville incident in 1950 where the farmer and his wife took a photograph of a disc shaped object that came over their Farm the McMinnville photograph taken by a poor rural couple in a remote area who didn't seek any press and it showed a UFO very clearly in in black and white maybe 200 300 yards away here's what the condom reports said about the McMillan sighting it's investigated geometric psychological and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object flew within sight of two witnesses and there were other cases since they described in similar ways when the final report came out the main body of the report was open to the possibility that UFOs might be real but the final summary of the report was written by Dr Condon himself Dr Conan sets time for the government to just wash its hands of this whole thing that's about the only thing most people read the Condon report concluded in 1969 this was not a threat to National Security there was no indication of extraterrestrial connection and there was likely no benefit scientifically from continuing to study this phenomenon foreign Condon was somebody that was strenuously opposed to the idea that UFOs could be alien craft of any kind so from the outset he had his mind made up word is that Dr Condon himself didn't even bother to read the the reporter review the data he just wrote his conclusion because that's what the Air Force wanted to hear Condon was definitely the nail in the coffin for Project Blue Book the Air Force had been involved with looking into UFOs for more than 15 years they were inundated by these reports frustrated and just wanted to be done with the whole thing result was the Air Force said well we don't need to follow this anymore so they use that as a rationale to close down Project Blue Book shortly thereafter Dr Alan heineck renounced the whole process and in the way the Air Force handled it some of us who followed this whole phenomena became interested in the Condon report what's your feeling about that well my feeling is that the condron report was a travesty on science you don't feel like presenting a fair picture Condon committee was unable to explain one quarter of the cases that were submitted that they studied [Music] our guest tonight is one of the world's foremost authorities on unidentified flying objects Dr J Allen heineck [Music] when Project Blue Book is shut down in 1970 it freed heinek to say and do whatever he wanted where UFOs were concerned Dr heineck worked nearly two decades on Project Blue Book and during that time in the data that Project Blue Book had collected the cases were still breaking down in that very same 80 20 ratio he was able to explain 80 percent of them away he was not able to explain 20 percent of them and now he started to worry about that he was a scientist and he saw a trend and he thought that might mean something if these things didn't fit patterns and then there's no way of studying it but when you get reports from Australia Japan France then you have to say well either there's a virus going around that's causing everybody to come crazy at the same time or there's something to it heinek was finally free to start investigating what UFOs are in any way he wanted so glad you're doing what you're doing there aren't that many reporters that take this seriously yeah I'm glad you're doing it I've gotten tons of people you know they walk up to me say thank you for reporting it it's straight news and then I think uh they just it was their news judgment the publisher and the editor that okay we don't want any more of this let's get back to normal some people said you were fired some people said well you kind of wanted to leave anyway so what was that given my notice um they I was asked not to cover anything else on UFOs I came in my computer was gone my Rolodex was gone and uh called to the Publisher's office and uh it wasn't a pleasant scene and they asked me to pack and go so I did sadly when Angela left we never spoke again I hate that that story really divided us but it did she just could not give back to doing her regular reporting it took over her life [Music] and I thought you know the readers are going to like this they're going to really like this so if that was another reason I went ahead and did it and the editor left early I have never seen this that's hilarious you know it's funny to see that um sorry I just I haven't seen Andrew in a long time and she loved that story and you know I look back on that time and I think I'm so wrong and I thought I was so smart and I was so wrong because they have the foresight to see something that I couldn't and people did love that story it was fun for them I've never spoken about this but about a year after this story died down I was driving my daughter to gymnastics in one evening [Music] it was Dusk and I saw the exact same thing that everyone else had been talking about the year prior a big thing with the lights the clear lights that kind of were all over the place they went straight line and it took off foreign just remembering it oh my God that's what we've been writing about for a year and I was the biggest skeptic of all and and here I am it was a strange moment for sure the next day I got to the office never planned to say a word to anybody and we had about a dozen calls that day from others who said oh my gosh I think I saw that again [Music] went okay there there really was something to this but it took me that long the government should be looking at this of course I have to believe that what happened in Stephenville County was big enough that it got the attention of the government I just believe that and I believe they know a heck of a lot more than than we do please welcome from the center of UFO studies in Evanston Illinois Dr J Allen heineck Dr heineck in the years that followed J.L and heineck became a hero advocating for the study of UFOs Dr heineck realized that this was a serious problem these things are coming over our bases over our nuclear facilities I thought we were under attack by who or what I had no idea [Music] thank you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 2,990,466

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, national geographic channel, Giant UFO in Texas, UFO, Giant UFO, Investigating the Unknown, Stephenville, UFO problem, Project Blue Book, UFO in Texas, UFO Investigating the Unknown, UFO: Investigating the Unknown, Project Blue, UFO phenomenon, ufo report, ufo sightings, flying saucer

Id: XNnSeAhYq1E

Length: 42min 13sec (2533 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2023