The Unidentified: Are we alone in the universe? | Under Investigation

[Music] now we see them these pictures taken by u.s fighter jets they're high-tech radar systems locked onto objects moving at unearthly speeds and trajectories what the hell is that means the us military has ufos in its size you have the us government saying look these things are real we would see them in the displays in our jets the question now seems to be not do they exist but are they earthly or not something legitimate serious physical is out there and do they pose a military threat we still don't know where these things came from and where they went the pentagon is not alone in asking that question one of the world's top scientists claims that in 2017 we were visited by an object created by extraterrestrial life it would have a profound impact on our future suddenly a topic that was previously pushed to the fringes of science and into science fiction is being taken very seriously something is going on tonight incredible revelations what the us fighter pilot saw a dark or gray cube inside a clear sphere our experts investigate the mystery of these modern ufos at least 10 people have told me stories about seeing the exact same thing are they chinese russian or dare we ask the next question what's out there are we alone good evening i'm liz hayes and this is under investigation joining me from boston massachusetts ryan graves a former u.s fighter pilot who encountered these unidentified objects from the cockpit of an fa-18 super hornet and greg aguigian professor at penn state university who is researching the history of the ufo phenomenon in adelaide associate professor alice gorman an internationally recognised space archaeologist from flinders university in canberra dr malcolm davis defense analyst with the australian strategic policy institute and here with me in sydney dr jackson rhyme science editor with cnet people were startled when they saw three flying saucers high over hollywood boulevard ufos extraterrestrials intelligent life in the universe it's a decades-old fascination the stuff of hollywood right here and excitable reporting looked up and gasped gasped we say theories of alien invasion and the obsession of an entire subculture of so-called ufologists i've seen orbs balls of light movie erratically i did the math one time it was about 23 000 miles an hour all dismissed by science and the military until now these extraordinary videos shot by u.s navy pilots and released by the pentagon well it's getting close changed everything can i start with you professor gigi what's substantially different do you think about these ufo sightings well i think when it comes to these recent sightings for me it's about the fact that the military has come forward and said these are real physical objects something serious is out there and they need to study it examine it make sense of it analyze the data and go from there malcolm davis uh the fact that the defense department in the u.s has acknowledged this is that the difference for you yes that is a key difference now you have the us government saying look these things are real uh we're not sure what they are but they're real and we need to investigate them further ryan graves you don't doubt for a minute that this is something that is independent and um and it is a solid mass of some sort i have no doubt that's that's what the data has showed us and that's what we've seen with our eyeballs there are four or five of these flying in a formation in front of this larger object and then they performed turn the larger object followed they were very physical and we were flying very close to them and alice gorman your take on this what we're seeing reported has so many similarities with ufo reports from the past but it's not usual to get this straight from the mouth of defence uh jackson um it's changed the conversation basically yeah you're absolutely right listen i don't think anyone's actually trying to question the credibility of people like ryan anymore it's more about being able to separate the idea that these are real objects from imagined objects from outer space or something like that and once you're able to do that credibility isn't even a question anymore [Music] in the us on june 25th last year president biden's director of national intelligence released a report on ufos using a new code word uap unidentified aerial phenomena for the first time in history the us government acknowledged that ufos are real and present a military threat suddenly ufos were making headlines across the united states and around the world the ufos featured in these remarkable u.s navy videos we've seen these things at the exact same point in the sky from a number of sensors from a number of aircraft as well all this getting pumped in from our entire strike group ryan graves was a u.s navy test pilot he and other pilots from his fa-18 fighter squadron encountered ufos in restricted space off the u.s atlantic coast every day for at least two years detected by a number of sophisticated military sensors what was very interesting to me was that out of those reports were 11 near misses for us as as aviators and near miss is a very big deal how close is the near miss you would define it as maybe within 500 feet would be the technical term so that is close [Music] so what we would see typically on our radar is we would see the actual track file we call it where the object is and how fast it's going and what direction we would see them in the displays in our jet malcolm davis would this be the first time that you've not doubted that there's something out there look it's very clear that these are physical objects they're real they're certainly not illusions or imagined defence analyst dr malcolm davis has studied the us ufo report and military eyewitness accounts he firmly believes that however extraordinary their technology these ufos are man-made the fact that these have occurred a number of times in areas where the u.s military have been undertaking exercises is very interesting because it does suggest that whatever these objects are they have an interest in monitoring and observing the ability of the us military to undertake air combat maneuvering in fast jets the intelligence report based on extraordinary encounters by pilots like ryan graves focused on the threat to u.s national security i don't think it was terribly surprising to see it framed as a threat i mean what we have to remember is that the skies above us have been militarized since at least world war one for instance in 1947 you have these first sightings of what were at the time called flying saucers they were instantly thought about in terms of whether or not these pose a threat to national security [Music] coming up what was visually seen was a cube that's correct a close encounter we just hadn't seen anything like that before with something that very simply is a threat to us that defies explanation we still don't know where these things came from and where they went that's next on under investigation a top secret unit within the u.s defense intelligence agency has been investigating ufos which it calls uaps unidentified aerial phenomena [Music] dozens of these objects were witnessed by highly trained navy pilots and captured on a variety of sensors over the last 20 years to the pentagon they're a security threat possibly from russia or china others ask the question are they extraterrestrial [Music] three of the unidentified craft detected by the us military and witnessed by military observers were given the names of tic tac gimbal and go fast they were captured on video recorded by u.s navy pilots [Music] there's a whole fleet of overlook on the sa what he saw was a group of these lieutenant ryan graves was one of those navy pilots three to four to five uh other vehicles in a formation that appeared like a wedge we were all going out on a flight together doing an air combat training mission while we were off the coast of jacksonville florida one of my wingmen went back a little bit earlier as as is normal and on the return the base he gained the object on the radar ryan flew alongside the aircraft whose nose cone camera recorded this video of the ufo dubbed gimbal what's interesting about the gimbal is that we don't see an exhaust we don't see anything that would indicate that any heat flow is emanating from this object gimbal had no observable flight surfaces or means of propulsion and seemed to be surrounded by an energy field we had been dealing with these objects for a long period of time so we're not surprised to see them out there but the gimbal was different it looked different the shape of it we just hadn't seen anything like that before given your you're a fighter pilot you're out there when you see something that doesn't make sense is that a threat you know a threat means something very specific for us in a very specific scenario so an unknown aircraft operating in our training space or we're not expecting other aircraft that very simply is a threat to us a threat is about uncertainty it's not about intent [Applause] ryan's fa-18 naval fighter squadron had just upgraded its radar system and initially wondered if malfunctions might account for the ufos being picked up but when the objects were also detected on their aircraft's infrared sensor system called flear which positively identified the objects as solid the conversation changed i think the mood shifted a bit and that's when we started submitting safety reports wondering why perhaps some classified program was working in places they shouldn't what was the technology that these objects seem to have that you found astounding so these objects would look on our flea as if they were cold so no exhaust plumes no propellers no heat radiation there's a restricted area though right in this coast area here that we'd see them out in the areas as we kind of fly down here ryan and his navy group initially believed the ufos they were encountering on a daily basis had to be part of a top secret military project really that was the most logical thing for us at that point we weren't jumping to you know some kind of exotic vehicle our first assumption was this had to be something that we had and that we the pilots didn't know was operating there but we should have [Music] the extraordinary flight characteristics of these ufos included no visible means of propulsion hypersonic velocity the ability to change directions instantly low observability and trans-medium travel that is moving seamlessly between air and water i think there's two rational explanations for these sightings first is it's a u.s black project that's being tested and as ryan said you know that the u.s fighter pilot community should have known if that was the case but clearly you know if there are black project vehicles being tested then the u.s defense department wouldn't want to make that public defense analyst dr malcolm davis believes the mystery objects are most likely advanced military aircraft created by a hostile foreign power the second rational explanation is that somehow these are foreign controlled drone technology developed by a major power adversary such as china or russia some sort of breakthrough that we don't know about in terms of maneuverability and aerodynamics and they want to gather intelligence on u.s military activities and so they're testing these things out [Music] there's no doubt that china in particular is developing highly advanced aerial weaponry and aircraft recently testing a hypersonic missile and displaying this long-range stealth drone how dangerous do you think that these objects are then if they are coming from another country look if they are coming from china or russia and somehow they find a way to deploy them to those areas where those objects were cited uh then that's a very serious issue indeed because it does suggest then that our adversaries have developed some sort of breakthrough technology in terms of propulsion uh aerospace engineering and materials science that would enable the sorts of characteristics that you know ryan talked about if it's a throaty it's likely to be one of surveillance and of course this is happening all over the world all the time our skies are full of military satellites whose job it is to monitor the military actions of other nations and our lower skies are full of unmanned aerial vehicles drones of all kinds the skies have never been fuller of eyes than they are at this point in time and and yet we still don't know where these things came from and where they went space archaeologist associate professor alice gorman points out that although these particular ufos have been verified by the military their characteristics match other sightings reported over previous decades this kind of report of objects in the sky changing direction suddenly moving at speeds that seem unnatural going against wind direction has been a feature reported of ufos for a very long time which suggests that whatever this technology is it has also existed for a very long time without the cover being blown then we have two hypotheses it's it's of a local terrestrial origin or possibly an extraterrestrial origin but it has to come from somewhere and it has to go to somewhere i think we have to acknowledge something that virtually every single characteristic of the kinds of things we're now hearing about um are things we heard about dating back all the way to the 1940s and 1950s when when the whole ufo phenomenon of flying saucers as they were of course talked about back then was playing out so one of the more intriguing questions to ask ourselves is if this isn't new are we dealing with the same phenomena but just as with ufo sightings in years past there are still skeptics science journalist dr jackson ryan says despite the us military confirming these latest reports many say the proof is far from definitive one of the complaints jackson seems to be it's always grainy footage yeah i mean it is always grainy footage and i think part of the the issue with having grainy footage is that it is not the most ideal evidence right and for instance with tic tac you've got people who have looked at that footage extensively um if they're from the military sometimes they say we can't explain this then there's other people who look at it and say that looks like a distant plane to me i mean has ryan heard those kind of explanations before the biggest criticism i have about that type of analysis is the fact that that analysis is occurring based on those on the videos these are tools that do very specific jobs in very narrow circumstances and so what we get from them are are low quality because they're doing something they're not designed to do while it was easy in the past to write off ufos as optical illusions and from sources considered dubious this time the us government confirms the evidence is compelling the first time we actually had one of these incidents it was literally at the entry area to the working point so at about ten thousand feet their presence has been detected not just on video but also on highly advanced radar and other military detection systems brian you don't doubt for a minute that what is being witnessed in this footage is independent and um and it is a solid mass of some sort i have no doubt that's that's what the data has showed us and that's what we've seen with our eyeballs and and would you be able to elaborate any more on that one of these objects were located at the very entrance to our working area and so as uh to the aircraft from my squadron we're flying out to the area this object was parked right at the entrance essentially flew in between the two aircraft that were going out there and this was actually the first time that any of the aircrew had seen one of these with their own eyeballs and they were saying you know i almost hit one of those darn things and their mouths were open they didn't know what to do at that point [Music] coming up what the hell is that one of these objects went about 20 feet next to their canopy the jaw dropping eyewitness description a darker gray cube inside a clear sphere there's a whole fleet of them there wasn't just one sighting you know at least 10 people have told me about seeing the exact same thing that's next on under investigation [Music] [Music] multiple sightings of ufos by the us military reporting to a top secret unit in the pentagon has reignited debate about what these mysterious objects are and where they came from u.s navy fa 18 fighter pilot lieutenant ryan graves was part of an aircraft carrier group operating off america's atlantic coast we'd see them out in the areas as we kind of fly down here he says he and his fellow pilots encountered ufos on a daily basis for at least two years the ufos were also seen on advanced radar systems and a range of other detection technology but it went well beyond detection to astonishing eyewitness encounters a darker gray cube inside a clear sphere [Music] this detailed description of the ufo was given by dozens of highly trained navy pilots and just just so i heard it correctly what was visually seen was a cube did you see that's correct our dark gray or black cube where the the points of the apex of the cube were touching that kind of inner surface of the sphere can i ask the sphere did it seem to be solid or did it seem to be translucent or a field of energy or what how can you describe the sphere it was described to me as a clear sphere which of course also means that it wasn't perfectly clear because they were able to see it and that would tell you what malcolm it's just curious that you've got a physical cube which is clearly a non-aerodynamic object inside a sphere which could be an aerodynamic object why would you have a sphere surrounding a cube and how would that propel it through the sky and i'm now getting into speculation which i really don't want to get into but you know some sort of electro gravity propulsion system which would be once again way beyond what the us has what china has what russia has yeah and you know there wasn't just one sighting you know at least you know 10 people have told me about seeing the exact same thing even about a year ago a good friend of mine who's still in the navy you know contacted me and he just you know he was out doing a test and they had to knock it off because one of these objects went about 20 feet next to their canopy while they're out doing a training mission perhaps the most famous of the videos was the ufo dubbed tic-tac because of its shape it was seen dozens of times during naval exercises by the uss nimitz aircraft carrier group of california in 2004 including by the commander of the fa 18 squadron on the nimitz david fraver so as we're looking down off the right side the back seater in the other airplane jim says hey skipper do you and that's about what he gets out of his mouth and i go what the hell is that and then we see this little white tic tac because we're about 20 000 feet above it and it's doing it's going basically north south and then east west north and so it's abrupt it's very abrupt so then i go hey i'm gonna go check it out and the other pilot says i'm gonna stay up here and i said yeah stay up high because now we get different perspective the oval shaped ufo approximately 12 meters long was hovering above a rolling patch of white water so i'm coming down and as i get to 12 o'clock as the tic takes doing this it literally it's like it's aware of us and it just goes blue and it kind of points out towards the west and starts coming up so now it's obviously knows that we're there whatever this thing is it knows over there we watch this thing on a crystal clear day with four trained observers and it just as it crosses our nose it just it accelerates and literally in less than you know probably less than a half second it just goes and it's gone ryan what did you make of it i have great respect for dave you know him and i are friends it's so hard to look at and just be anything other than in all of what they were able to experience if you trust what this pilot and you know the other three air crew saw and the radar system saw then it's just such an exceptional story so concerned is the u.s defense department that it has mandated for a more advanced scientific study of the ufos being encountered by its military pilots it said very clearly that the instruments and technologies that have been available up until this point were not suited for researching in any sort of refined precise way the uap the the unidentified aerial phenomena so yes the the next step has been to request additional funding and among other things supposedly will be new technologies for that very purpose coming up are they extraterrestrial there is no bigger question than are we alone one of the world's leading scientists weighs in are we the smartest kid on the block why he believes we have visitors from outer space he went straight to the most exotic explanation you can think of one of the reasons i'm seeking intelligence from space is that they don't often find it here on earth that's next on under investigation [Music] the us military has confirmed that ufos are real oh my god that its fighter jets have been buzzed by objects that defy all known flight capabilities and that highly trained navy pilots have provided extraordinary eyewitness descriptions a darker gray cube inside a clear sphere there are four or five of these flying in a formation in front of this larger object the ufos encountered by lieutenant ryan graves and dozens of u.s navy pilots and seen across a range of advanced military detection systems produced a stunning admission by the pentagon that there are inexplicable objects in the sky objects that many outside the military immediately wanted to call extraterrestrial and proof that we're not alone in the universe of course there's going to be speculation about what's out there you know are we alone you know i for one do not believe for a second that humanity is the only intelligent life in this universe but the laws of physics tell us that it's very very difficult to get across interstellar distances and you know i'm not seeing any extraordinary evidence to change my mind that these things aren't trust you in origin [Music] ryan graves when you were growing up before you became a pilot did you think about ufos and did you have a view and and has any of that changed um i i have to assume that every little kid looks up and wonders if there's someone else out there i was no different certainly um life has a funny way of making you pay attention sometimes and it's certainly got your attention now it does so and do you feel stigmatized at all advancing any of your thoughts uh publicly you know from my perspective this is a very pragmatic thing for me you know people i know are flying big expensive aircraft and they're almost hitting things so you know skepticism is the least of my concern [Music] the time has definitely come to discuss objects near earth that may represent equipment from other civilizations as one of the world's most respected astrophysicists harvard professor rv loeb is putting his reputation on the line pushing his belief ufos could be evidence of extraterrestrial life the report that was delivered to congress about unidentified aerial phenomena was important in the sense of providing statements that some of the objects were detected by multiple instruments they were seen by multiple military personnel at that point it became clear to me that scientists should engage and figure out the nature of these objects professor loeb's own research has concentrated on a strange object filmed by the world's highest definition astronomical camera at the pan stars observatory in hawaii [Music] they named the mysterious object umua roughly translating as scout in hawaiian astronomers thought that it's just a rock it's a comet or an asteroid coming from another star on film it exists only as a brief light trail but astronomical data revealed its speed and trajectory seems to defy physics there were more and more peculiar facts about this object as it was tumbling every eight hours the amount of sunlight reflected from it changed by a factor of 10 and that meant that it has a very extreme shape and then i thought to myself well if it's very thin nature doesn't make such objects perhaps it's artificial in origin professor loeb found that umuamua accelerated away from the sun impossible he says unless it was somehow being propelled then came his bombshell in the wake of the ufo videos released by the u.s military he proposed that umua was possibly a huge solar sail that could have been the propulsion system for an alien spacecraft he knew his theory would shock but he wanted to shake up his colleagues and he did if we find that an object like is a technological relic from another civilization that would have a huge impact on society and obviously scientists would ask for extraordinary evidence but such evidence would never be found if the search is not funded alice how do you view what rv lobe is saying i think it's really interesting the hypothesis that this is a solar sail made by an extraterrestrial intelligence that has just flitted through our solar system but professor loeb has the same data and information as all the other scientists who've been investigating and i don't think the evidence supports it when i read my astronomical colleagues work yeah i would i would agree with what dr gorman is saying but i would add that i think as an academic an astronomer from harvard university um he has been able to play a really unique role here and in fact he has increasingly tried to advocate for scientists and academics in general to take the ufo phenomenon more seriously and to try to in fact drum up sponsorship for research along these lines well i think it's an obligation of science to clear up the fog on topics that are of great interest to society and there is no bigger question than are we alone are we the smartest kid on the block it is an unavoidable and inevitable question that has come from the ufo debate opened up by the u.s military videos and australia is part of an international joint venture in search of the answer a square kilometer radio telescope array has been built here to conduct space research including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence known as seti seti's goals are essentially i guess trying to find alien civilizations and that is a legitimate endeavor and it's one that will hopefully answer one of the biggest questions we have which is are we alone and professor rv loeb has announced the galileo project a telescope array searching for other objects like amuamua one of the reasons i'm seeking intelligence from space is that i don't often find it here on earth and really i would like the company of more intelligent beings just so that i can learn from them they could have visited us a million years ago there was nobody around to listen uh and it's sort of like saying nobody is knocking on our door therefore we have no neighbors coming up extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence where did they come from that first report was the rare admittance that the government didn't know something the ufo debate heats up it's very simple for me ufos are real they exist for sure oh so it's the secrecy that would concern you it's not aliens until it's aliens that's next on under investigation [Music] [Music] in france like america the flying saucer mystery makes headlines ufos have been part of popular reporting for over 50 years there are some people who claim it's a fact that flying sources have landed here the first known story about a ufo sighting was in 1947 a local rancher found what he claimed to be a flying saucer that had crashed on his land since 1947 we have received and analyzed between one and two thousand reports well it was round had lights all around it it's a subject that was initially taken very seriously there were three inside the ship then viewed as a joke hijacked by conspiracy theorists the head it seemed to come directly to their shoulder [Music] but now after a name change from ufos to uaps [Music] unidentified aerial phenomena are the subject of a new u.s government and military investigation it's a development welcomed by u.s navy test pilot ryan graves whose own encounter with ufos contributed to the pentagon report that stunned the world you know that first report was that the rare admittance that the government didn't know something and what we're seeing now is the formulation of a plan in order to figure it out and i you know i think it's i think it's a great step and putting cold hard cash behind uh investigations i think through to 2026 does that tell you it's serious about this it tells me that they're willing to take a look right so i i see this as a a very good first step in order to bring bring to the table the data that's needed this is a major step forward do you think great it's hard to know what all that money is going to buy how much will be revealed to the public that we just don't know oh so it's the secrecy that would concern you the concern is always that if if this is a purely military venture then the focus will consistently be on these questions of national security and threats so the question is what happens beyond that is there going to be something more that's looked at here beyond just simply determining the extent to which these things might be a threat and alice i presume that you would prefer that it'd not just be a military uh investigation well i want to know too i want to know as much as anyone else what's going on so certainly the military has to be involved for obvious reasons but it would be great to get some space agency or civilian or even community interaction here there's a wonderful australian project fireballs in the sky which asks the public to contribute their observations of meteorites and space junk so something like that we could add uaps or ufos into that [Music] [Applause] [Music] there's no doubt we live in interesting times just a few years ago it would have been difficult to have a serious debate on the existence of ufos backed by military and scientific observations so in conclusion there are two questions that may be answered in our lifetimes are we alone and may we have already been visited [Music] can i get your thoughts on that jackson uh yeah i mean it's very simple for me uh ufos are real they exist for sure i also believe that we aren't alone in the universe and and some place in some time we will find signs of ancient life i think those two things are completely separate we have to always remember that ufo is a really clumsy category because typically people who operate with it will often lump together a whole bunch of different observations under that category that said within that category yes i think there's something legitimate and something worthy of investigation um i think the general sense that i have about this is it's not aliens until it's aliens i can say that there is no archaeological evidence that aliens have ever visited earth during the whole history of human existence but i am very hopeful particularly that we will find microbial neighbors in the rest of the solar system and i'm personally pinning my hopes on venus yeah look i think statistically it's almost impossible to suggest that we're the only intelligent life in the universe the universe is vast with trillions and trillions of galaxies so i think it's highly likely that at some point we will find evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence so on the question of are we alone i think the arts will almost certainly know have we been visited extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and so far i'm not seeing extraordinary evidence that we have been visited all right um the final word to you ryan what message do you think is important for all of us uh when it comes to keeping our minds open to what we're trying to make sense of out there i'll offer one small pushback which is you know i think extraordinary claims require the same amount of proof as any other claim right there's no special magic proof that is required have we been visited or not i don't know you know i do think though we are going to figure it out and if somebody sees something that doesn't make sense you would encourage them to speak up of course of course we can't be afraid of things that are right in front of us [Music] well listen i want to thank you all very much for this conversation as a conversation i think some years ago we thought we may never have and i appreciate all your views and i thank you for joining me as well i'm liz hayes good night [Music] hello i'm liz hayes and thank you for watching under investigation subscribe to our channel now for exclusive clips and don't miss out on full episodes of under investigation online now and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 3,613,332

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, aliens, space, ufos, uap, roswell, spaceship, pyramids, other life, proof, exist, planets, mars, rocket, tic tac, pentagon, release, cameras, vision, captured, flying, witness, lies, conspiracy

Id: bSMfOPw8JA0

Length: 42min 9sec (2529 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 16 2022