Government Breaks Silence: Strange Encounters | UFO's Investigating the Unknown

can you start off by telling me your name and a little bit about your career in the Navy my name is Ryan Graves I was a lieutenant in the Navy for about 11 years and I was with the vfa 11 red rippers in 2015 we were aboard the USS theater Roosevelt while we were off the coast of Virginia Beach what we were seeing out there were essentially radar contacts that we didn't think belong there work area two aircraft from my Squadron were flying out to the area one day they were about 100 ft or so apart as they were flying through the area the lead pilot in this aircraft saw an object zip right by his aircraft what they described was a dark Cube uh inside some type of clear sphere where the corners of the cube were touching inside of that sphere when the crew came back they were shocked they're like hey we almost hit one of those damn things there was really no answer of what what it was and so our Squadron filed a safety report and we continued filing reports Ryan Graves and many other Pilots reported these strange encounters with these unknown aircraft that had no wings no cockpit no intakes no exhaust and that Were Somehow seemingly able to fly there's a whole Fleet of them look on Thea my gosh they began to have numerous encounters weekly almost daily in some cases this continued month after month year after year I can't tell you how many times I've talked to Pilots both civilian and Military say hey Lou the reason why I didn't report this because I didn't want to lose my job I got a mortgage to pay I got kids you know if if I report this they're going to think I'm crazy so we've been battling this stigma for a while I couldn't just ignore the things that I was seeing just because everyone else was uncomfortable talking about it's just a matter of time until there's a midair Collision you can't Muzzle you can't squelch the truth our entire democracy is based on the principles of Truth we get reports every night I don't know what the hell it is look like a rotating light around it I'd like to report a [Music] UFO the government's UFO files are stored here at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery Alabama notes documents and interviews on 12,618 UFO cases since 1969 the investigation has been closed they said all of the stuff was was not to be taken seriously or believed even though there was 701 cases still on the table that were uh unexplained there is nothing in Air Force files that come to a conclusion that spaceships have visited the Earth when the government said you're not seeing what you're seeing that immediately created a distrust in the government UFO activists have gotten Mighty vocal in recent weeks we want the truth we want the truth because of that mistrust people developed all kinds of conspiracy theories many conspiracy theories start with a colonel of Truth so you had uh a lot of focus for instance on Area 51 a secret facility in the Nevada desert the base has been cloaked in secrecy for decades Area 51 is the place where some of our most advanced legendary aircraft were developed in secret for the CIA and for the Air Force but the excessive secrety launched an entire mythology that they have crash spaceships that are being reverse engineered at Area 51 Area 51 where the military has conducted for the past 50 years classified experiments involving extraterrestrial technology what can you say goes on at this uh test facil darn little part of the mythology is that there's an alien craft stored there and this stems from a crash of something in Roswell New Mexico in the 1940s for people who are deep into the UFO experience they believe that whatever was discovered at Roswell was taken at some point to Area 51 if there are in fact any uh extraterrestrial type equipment or um anything that's been recovered it's most likely out here somewhere I've been Area 51 on more than one occasion and it was just really interesting some of the stuff they had a Soviet helicopter opter but my personal feeling and my all the knowledge I have I think anyone that talks about having wreckages from outer space and I just don't think that exists but the American people want information the one way we always get in trouble in government is trying to hide stuff trying to be non-transparent Harry Reid played such a critical role to the progress that we've made on on the UFO issue he instigated a program with the Department of Defense to investigate UFOs and he became very outspoken about the need for an official disclosure and transparency as far as I'm concerned there needs to be a tremendous amount of government resources put into this because the American people are entitled to know what the hell's going on the New York Times Detailing our nation's secretive search for signs of intelligent life the advanced Aerospace threat identification program reportedly dates back to 2007 and one of its patron saints is said to be former Senator Harry Reed the military spending millions of dollars to look into UFO sightings and videos from American fighter pilots all being made public the New York Times article that came out in 2017 started this journey for us as a country it revealed several things first of all the fact that the US government was still looking at UFOs and that there was enough information there to convince a lot of people that it was real when you learn about a program on UFOs and then we see the videos were released and well this is fantastic what we've now had to come to grips with is that we have not learned hardly anything about the specifics of what they did in this secret project President Obama says that there is footage and uh records of objects in the skies these unidentified aerial phenomenon and he says we don't know exactly what they are what do you think that it is I would ask him again thank you you can only imagine what they have and what they've learned in this secret program that they're not revealing to us when are we going to have access to that if you hide the information rather than revealing it to everyone one then it becomes much easier for it to be seen as conspiratorial so being able to shed light on all of this and make it available for objective study can eliminate the conspiracy aspect of any of this with the information we have right now there's no reason in my opinion why they shouldn't do some public hearings on this it's a perfect time to do it Harry Reid remained involved with this right up until the time that he died thankfully there was another person in government who came along to carry on his legacy and pick up the torch my name is Kiren gbrand I'm a senator from New York and I sit on the Senate armed services committee and the Senate select committee on Intelligence on the armed services committee over the last decade we've had very minimal reporting on uaps unidentified aerial phenomenon and I was talking to some staff and they said well if you are interested in this topic you should really talk to Harry Reid so I called him and I said Harry I I'm really interested in this issue of uaps can you give me some advice on it and he said well it's really important and you should definitely work on it the more I sort of pushed on this issue the more I realized that our armed forces were able to capture a video no footage of unidentified aerial phenomena but over time have decided it's best to say nothing if you see something that you can't identify because you may well be seen as someone who uh is crazy and that it will harm your career we just need to know the facts and that is certainly our responsibility as members of Congress to demand those facts we spend a lot of time a lot of resources ensuring that our aircraft operate safely and to think that we would ignore a potential safety issue because of a little skepticism around a you know three-letter acronym it just doesn't make sense I thought that we had to express this in the public light and make it okay to talk about not just for people right but for elected [Music] officials dude well if there's it's rotating the pirot know what they are seeing they're not crazy they are seeing something which is there and they are documents photographs images that proved that there was something we did not understand as a number of these Pilots came forward interest in Washington seemed to increase in this topic and those Pilots actually breef members of Congress about what they had seen I did have the opportunity to go to the Pentagon personally to tell my story in a classified environment other Pilots went there to discuss this as well I'm Alex Dietrich I'm a retired naval officer I serve 20 years in the US Navy my name is David fraver I'm a retired Navy Commander Super Hornet pilot where I flew for 18 years for the United States Navy Dave fraver and I were asked by the p on if we would agree to go into closed session we spoke to some individuals in Congress giving us a chance to talk about the incident we were flying a training exercise in Southern California off the coast Commander David fraver in the lead aircraft he was the commanding officer of the Squadron we look down and we see a long cylindrical white object with rounded ends roughly 40 ft long that looked like a giant Tic Tac when you have a face-to-face meeting with these Pilots when they describe in detail the incidents and the encounters and you feel the emotion it becomes virtually impossible to deny that this is something serious and something real d one of the meetings with the highest group of officials was supposed to be 30 minutes it was an hour and a half they literally did not want to leave and a couple of them were thralled like could not stop asking questions what concerned should we be about the briefing that you received on UFOs is that a concern for Pilots you know I'm not going to get into any of the contents of the briefing was a classified briefing the military and others are taking this issue seriously which I think in previous generations may not have been the case some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic and some kind of you know giggle but I I I don't think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answered a very fundamental question clearly something's going on American public wants to know and frankly we deserve to know Congress wanted to get to the bottom of this get everything on the table that was known about it ultimately Congress did something unprecedented for many years government investigations into these Close Encounters were shrouded in secrecy now the curtain may be lifted they asked the intelligence Community to to provide them with a report about what they know about UFOs in June the Pentagon will issue a report to Congress the release next month of a highly anticipated military report for this report from the Director of National Intelligence we didn't know how response of the services would be the Air Force in particular we were very eager to see what they would come up with the US intelligence Community has finally release its highly anticipated UFO report the Pentagon is taking it seriously saying it's possible this is a national security issue and a danger to flight in this report it states specifically that there were 144 incidents that this report reviewed now the study released on Friday found only one of those can be explained just one there were 18 incidents that showed unusual air characteristics start stop hovering incredible speed things that they couldn't explain the report established that UFOs are real physical phenomenon it also stated that they were not American Technology and there was no evidence that they were either Russian or Chinese so we know that what we don't know is what caused this phenomena with the coming out of this report it's opened up a door because the report in effect is inconclusive they came back with a report that was pretty lame I thought I I said I could have written it when I was in the fifth grade very short and nothing it was very clear to most people that the Air Force was conspicuously absent from that recording and I think some of that goes back to when the Air Force was tested originally to in Project Blue Book to look at this topic of UFOs their civilian astronomer Dr alen heinik became increasingly dissatisfied as a scientist because they weren't approaching it in a scientific way and we've always honored accredited media when they wanted to investigate a given specific sting there's nothing to hide there's nothing to hide at all so this just continues to fine long tradition of the Air Force neglecting uh the UFO problem the air force of course has the most sensors the most capability and the responsibility for monitoring air in space that's the primary source you return to for information and they were not forthcoming what I fear is that government will feel they were asked to do a report they did a minimally acceptable report and now they can go back and forget about it I fear [Music] that when I joined the intelligence committee I began to see that we weren't actually getting the reporting that I thought Congress would have been getting on uaps that gave me very serious concern that we're not given the information we need to do our jobs it's like trying to put a puzzle together when the pieces are in different rooms all over different buildings Dr Heek told me very wisely that there is no such thing as the US government there are a number of agencies with their own Focus their own Technologies and their own budgets so it's very difficult to get those agencies to converge on a new phenomenon that doesn't seem to belong to anyone government agencies definitely need to play a role in gathering data about UFOs but if they don't organize this data and centralize it then a lot of it could be lost we know of at least one case where the material was passed around from agency to agency and that was the Aguadilla case ailla is an incident where the local airport detected a UFO they notified the US Customs Enforcement aircraft with a sophisticated infrared camera system they were able to observe it and film it for 5 minutes or so it's a curious little craft that doesn't appear to have rotors it's un clear how it manages to fly without wings when people say how come there are no pictures well here's quite an extensive video officially taken by the US government of yet another UAP the iWood video was shuffled around in homeland security and apparently they sent a copy of the video to the Air Force and said could you guys tell us what this is and the Air Force replied back why don't you contact a civilian UFO group and so that's how we got access to the video this is the object that's being tracked by the homeland security aircraft you have latitude longitude coordinates and you have all the information and pause right there currently I'm an executive board member with the scientific Coalition for UAP studies this organization consists of about 160 people almost all of them have backgrounds in science we provide a location where scientists can actually come and research the subject without the stigma that's often associated with it we broke the video down into individual frames and looked at it frame by frame and the first time I saw the video I'm watching it and you see this little dot moving along and then to me you see the object go into the water and I can hardly see a splash I mean how did it do that but the really exciting part was it comes out of the water and then you see two objects right there now there's two objects the pilot you'll see he's magnified because he's like what in the heck is going on when I looked at it frame by frame to me it was crazy it was clear to me that there was not another object that came out of the water I thought this object could simply split in half half and became two objects that's what really made that video so anomalous but I have no explanation for it that's just what the data showed the Aguadilla video could have easily fallen through the cracks there are probably other videos that just sit in some agency that we don't even know about we had this video in data at the Pentagon we actually had this but there's a lot more there's there's there's a lot more videos there it's not up to me to release or talk about but I can tell you that I've personally had access to them along with my colleagues there's some that are that are extremely compelling we need to have a place where all this information can be brought together that is what a responsible thoughtful approach towards something you do not know what it is would be and so that's what I put into the defense Bill and that is what is going to be Place moving forward the headlines are screaming about legislation from New York Senator kirston gilbran a bipartisan Amendment proposed in the National Defense authorization act would create a permanent office permanent government office tasked with investigating unidentified aerial phenomenon these are serious issues of National Security and technology that we should know about in December of 2021 Congress enacted the Gill brand Amendment which created a new office to study the UAP phenomenon what I would expect it to be is some of the brightest Minds in the whole country focused on this specific review mathematicians and scientists and astrophysicists and people who understand how to look at this phenomenon and analyze it the people interested in this have been calling for this for so long and that it's finally happening is just amazing and this is only the [Music] beginning the legislation that was proposed by Senator Kristen gilbran was important in so many ways but one thing that stood out was she wanted the office to research materials that are allegedly connected to Crashed UFOs we should never be afraid of what we don't know I know nothing about Crash materials I don't even know if they exist if there are of course they should be studied and if we don't know what it is it's not an appropriate response to say well then let's not look at [Music] it I'm Gary Nolan I'm a professor of pathology at Stanford my background is in genetics microbiology virology and cancer biology when some scientist friend heard that I was working on UFOs he said well you're going to ruin your career it got me mad it's just data I'm not coming to any conclusions people have been seeing these things for so long and somehow we seem to feel like we need government to tell us that it's okay to believe in it I don't agree with that kind of approach to life I don't need anybody to tell me what it is that I know is real Gary's a Nobel nominee and a Stanford researcher and he's just now coming out of the Shadows he's dealing with something here with the UAP phenomenon as just something outside of our current understanding but that doesn't mean we should shy away from it it just means we should understand it I've got some of them with me in your opinion does the US government have crashed materials in their possession yes what's really important about physical materials is that they could possibly reveal that these were not from Earth Gary works with jacqu valet on these studies jacqu he's a computer scientist an astronomer he also has been studying UFOs of course and has been one of the most original thinkers in that field I brought some of the other materials here that we've been looking at I mean there was 30 lbs of this dropped on the ground in a molten State there are a number of cases where people saw an object coming from the sky and crashing in a field and they've recovered something when I spoke to physicists they said well you know Jack you know it's fascinating but you haven't given me something I can take to my lab something I can put under microscope but that's started to happen in the last few years this is a magnesium isotope ratios for uat tuba I I wonder why people always expect it to be very complex you know meta materials one of the cases that Gary studied involved a UFO event that occurred in 1957 jacqu had collected samples and he brought them into the lab and worked with Gary on the [Music] case the ubatuba event was a fisherman he sees a glowing object over the ocean that suddenly exploded and just shattered these magnesium chunks bright silvery metal all over the ground and in the water the fisherman went back and collected this stuff decades later Gary was able to study it in his lab he found that for the Magnesium sample and the way it was held together was something that had been manipulated it's pretty clear that they were part of some industrial process that had engineered them to be different that is interesting maybe it was being used for propulsion maybe it was used for energy generation it's a physic we just don't understand but who couldn't be excited about potentially understanding it cuz imagine what we could do with it if you could so easily move from one place to another as in the videos that have been seen the energy that is necessary to do that who needs Coal Fired power plants anymore so that to me is one of the most important parts about thinking about the phenomenon if you take the data off the table and you don't allow it to be part of the solution the solution could be staring you in the face but you just threw it in the garbage that's not how a scientist approaches science fear grows in darkness it's essential that you have light and transparency there's nothing to me that is frightening or worrisome about research and study and Analysis that is what scientists and academics are extremely good at it is what they are there to do so why not use our best and brightest to get a clear handle on what's known and what's unknown now the UFO topic has been authenticated as real by the government so that has drawn people in there's just a much wider Arena of people that are involved now when the government came forward in the form of the report from the Director of National Intelligence and talks about objects they cannot identify that's very significant if the government doesn't really know what they are then it's the duty of the scientific Community to come to the help of the government in figuring it out so a month after Pentagon reports I established the Galileo project in July 2021 a team of international scientists is embarking on a new research project that just a few years ago would have been dismissed as very fringed what Professor Avy lobe has made man to do was create this body of scientists who are willing to say to hell with social stigma we're going to have the courage as a scientific Community to look at this topic from a scientific perspective that is in itself revolutionary [Music] [Music] at Harvard astrophysics Professor AI lob is hoping to collect scientific data on the kinds of mysterious objects that have been spotted by fighter pilot the Galileo project would look at unidentified objects near Earth and try to identify the nature of interstellar objects that enter the solar system from outside whose nature is unclear we will keep the data open not lfi what Professor Avy lobe has managed to do is create this Consortium of like minded scientists and when I say like-minded scientists I don't mean Believers okay I mean scientists all who agree that this topic is worthy of study I look at problems differently because fundamentally I'm a farm boy I used to drive the tractor to the hills of the village and read philosophy books because I was mostly interested about the fundamental questions how did everything start is there life elsewhere if we see an object in the sky we should not assume that it's natural or human-made but rather get more evidence on it if it doesn't look familiar so this is the roof of the Harvard College Observatory it's a tution that existed for more than 170 years this is where the telescope system will be over there yeah what we will have is a dome shaped array of infrared cameras that look at the entire sky at all times we will monitor the sky and have an artificial intelligence software that analyzes what we see and tries to identify whether it's a bird a drone an atmospheric phenomena or something else we allow for the possibility of an extraterrestrial technological origin which makes us different from the rest of the scientific community that does not even allow for that possible interpretation the Galileo project is an extraordinary step that Dr L has taken because you have the credibility of a major scientific institution behind it and it's giving people permission to talk about it this is a turning point on November 10th 2021 there was the ignasius Forum that took place in the Washington National Cathedral it was attended by the head of NASA Bill Nelson the Director of National Intelligence arriel Haynes Jeff Bezos and myself my point is simple let's look at the sky and check if there is any equipment that were sent by other civilizations and that's the goal of the Galileo project The ignasio Forum was a discussion about the theological implications of discovering a smarter kid on our Cosmic block it was fascinating for me to sit next to averel Haynes the Director of National Intelligence when she made a statement that some of the objects might be from an extraterrestrial origin the main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about are basically safety of flight concerns and Counter Intelligence issues but of course there's always the question of is there something else that we simply do not understand that might come extraterrestrial to me that was very revealing because it now appears that government is willing to discuss that possibility of an extraterrestrial origin ail haes who is a Director of National Intelligence saying that it was possible that the strange encounters could be extraterrestrial life she said they may be coming extraterrestrial she opened up that door to that possibility it's a sign of how things have changed imagine one of these objects happened to be from another civilization that would change the future of humanity people want to know is this otherworldly is it from our solar system My Hope Is that the UFO Community along with government officials will work together in a way that will answer some of these questions I'm just about to talk to representative Andre Carson who is going to be holding open hearings on UAP it's been more than half a century since hearings in Congress so it's like major news that we're having open hearings there's an email that just came in conference line in 10 [Music] minutes hello Mr Carson thank you so much for do taking this call with me what an honor thank you I mean I'd love to know you know what you really hope to accomplish from having the hearing next week uaps present a very real National Security risk and this is an area of high public interest getting UND secrecy can serve as an obstacle to solving the mystery or it really could prevent us from finding solutions to potential vulnerabilities I think for far too long people have said oh the public isn't ready to know about these things but I think that the public is ready now more than ever don't the house oversight committee will host its first public hearing on this issue since 1969 representatives from the Pentagon will be asked questions by lawmakers about what the US government knows about all those strange lights in the sky these things very well may be real and it's about time we heard more about what our government knows about them this is really a historic moment it's a milestone that we are having an open Congressional hearing about UFOs I wasn't asked to be here but I felt personally I wanted to have the opportunity to come down here and try to take this thing full circle frankly the Navy trained me as a safety officer and at the end of the day you know we have objects that are nearly hitting these aircraft and it is a safety issue and it's a tactical issue and it's a strategic issue the subcommittee will come to order [Music] the last time Congress had a hearing on uaps was half a century ago I hope that it does not take 50 more years for Congress to hold another because transparency is desperately needed the members of Congress represent the people of the United States the people want information Congress wants more transparency from the Pentagon on this topic under Secretary of mtry Mr Bray the two witnesses that are being called are high level officials Ronald mulch is the under secretary defense for intelligence and security and Scott Bray is deputy director of Naval intelligence both of them obviously know a great deal about the pentagons for search into UFOs there have been no collisions between any us Assets in one of these uaps correct we have not had a collision we've had at least 11 n misses do we have any sensors underwater uh to detect submerged uaps so I think that would be more appropriately addressed in closed session sir okay can you say with 100% certainty that they are physical objects I can say with certainty that a number of these are physical objects it's also been reported uh that there have been UAP observed flying over sensitive military facilities one such incident allegedly occurred at Malmstrom Air Force Base in which 10 of our nuclear icbms were rendered inoperable I'm not commenting on the accuracy of this I'm simply asking you whether you're aware of it I have heard stories I have not seen the official data on that well I was I it's a pretty high-profile incident you're you're the guy's investigating it I mean who else is doing it overall it's a huge step that the hearings even happened but it was frustrating because they just didn't say that much the Pentagon says today's hearings while it may not find new answers will help with how these report courts are handled this could be the first of several hearings with some lawmakers saying next they would like to hear directly from some of the pilots who have encountered those objects firsthand overall reaction to the hearings I said I thought it will be a cover up at some level and and I feel like that's what it was how you doing I'm Ryan Graves he was one of the pilots good gosh God bless how are you how you doing well say you got a pilot right here and he should have been the one talking in there okay uh he should have been the one talking explaining what the heck was going on Congress needs to give those Pilots some sort of whistleblowers protection and some guarantee that it will not be a mark on their record and we need to bring them in you talk well I I just really appreciate that that everyone took the time out here in order to uh pay attention to this issue from my perspective getting energy on this is simply just going to save lives at the end of the day for our Navy operators this is something that the American pop is very interested in and I think that they deserve to know what's going on when our own military fighter pilots the best in the world they're up there and they're saying what in the world is this we should be concerned Congress is doing exactly the right thing if their constituents are demanding answers then Congress needs to demand answers that's what the Constitutional framework of our democracy is all about it's about oversight and accountability and each branch of government having a responsibility now that the government has acknowledged that UFOs are real they're physical and they're National Security concern it raises a lot of questions the main one being what are these things where are they from why are they here the truth about UFOs is easy to summarize the UFO phenomenon is real and maybe the greatest scientific problem of all time think these things are let's try to break it down one by one in terms of the technology that we see we now know that these objects go between Mach 5 and mach 20 20 times the speed of sound they can fly in the air and they can go even underwater what could be behind that why should they go underwater surprisingly enough we've explored more of the Moon than we've explored of our Ocean Floors on this planet so our Ocean Floors are just as much of a mystery to us as are some of the moons orbiting some of the planets in our solar system people ask a lot well what do you think they are when I started out I was probably pretty convinced of the Extraterrestrial hypothesis that they were just visitors from another planet but I've come to learn since that the phenomenon is way more complicated it was traveling at Fantastic speed it was a series of about six lights in the shape of Lacrosse seemed to be rotating and it was hovering it was a rim of light in the shape of a triangle three of us up here side the length is unbelievable they're so diverse I just don't think it's this simple dis shaped ship that has traveled here from some Planet far away if we succeed and if we find that indeed there is an alien intelligence of some kind in our atmosphere it is going to be something that changes our world view changes our understanding of our place in the universe the way I see science is as a service to society the knowledge we obtain from studying the universe is relevant for everyone and benefits everyone do you think we will find evidence of Mr terrestrial intelligence in your lifetime I think we already have I don't need to think in the future why is there so much debate why all this controversy because what's at stake is nothing less than our role in the universe it Roots back to watching that space race as a kid growing up down three and a half overall the world benefited from having that sense of one wonder and that commitment to move human knowledge forward that all applied to the unidentified aerial phenomena question would spur Innovation tremendous thinking production of knowledge and that's why it shouldn't be locked in a a Secure Vault someplace it's exciting to see there's a lot more attention being given on this subject of uaps I hope that things don't go back and then 70 years from now we're still wondering what the UAP might be uh the truth about UFOs man that's the one question I was going to say you should ask me the truth is is that no one knows what they [Music] are but we have the ability to figure it out if we want to [Music] [Music]

Channel: National Geographic

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Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, The Government Breaks Silence, Strange Encounters, Navy Pilots, Report, UFO, No Wings, No Cockpit, No Exhaust, Fly with Agility, UFO's Investigating the Unknown, Cockpit, Exhaust, Breaking the Silence, Encounters, Agility, Investigating the Unknown

Id: hXO_RwR1UA8

Length: 42min 14sec (2534 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024