[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Hidden away in
an underground archive are row upon row of
files few have seen. The life's work of history's
greatest UFO hunter. And they may contain proof
that we are not alone. In 1957, America's
most advanced aircraft is followed by something that
had the power to disappear. BILL SCOTT: 1957, you
don't have an aircraft that can jump from 11 o'clock to
2 o'clock instantaneously. NARRATOR: A landing in the
desert turns sand to glass and leaves behind
other physical traces. PAT USKERT: These weren't just
random holes in the ground. This was an engineering craft. Who came out to
investigate this? FBI. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: And the
most sought-after photographs in UFO history. BILL BIRNES: These photos
have become the holy grail of ufology. NARRATOR: Corroborating reports,
strange marks in the desert, and a picture too
perfect to be a hoax. BILL BIRNES: It's
a perfect match. NARRATOR: This is case number
54103, The Lost UFO Files. [THEME MUSIC] 1954, the Arizona desert
outside of Tucson. Near sunset, James E
McDonald, a senior physicist at the University of
Arizona is driving through the expansive desert
with four meteorologists. Off in the distance, McDonald
notices a strange point of light hovering
above the mountains. The bright anomalous object
appears to be made of aluminum. He points it out to his
colleagues but none of the men are able to identify it. It disappears without
much of a reaction. Little did these men know that
this mysterious sighting has just changed the
course of UFO history. BILL BIRNES: James
McDonald became fascinated with the controversy
over UFO studies. And the more his
fascination grew, the more he realized that these
cases had to be investigated. NARRATOR: Over
the next 16 years, McDonald interviews
over 500 witnesses, uncovers important
government documents, and gives presentations
of UFO evidence to huge crowds
across the country. He was the first man to
take hard science into the UFO phenomenon and bring it into
the scientific community. NARRATOR: Today,
McDonald's legacy lives on in the archives of
the University of Arizona, an untapped resource of UFO
investigation and evidence. There's a massive
amount of material here. The collection is extensive,
very meticulously detailed handwritten notes,
we've got film, video, physical artifacts. There could be some pretty
interesting information here. NARRATOR: With special
access to his archived files, UFO Hunters aims to piece
together the investigations of James McDonald by
bringing classic case files into the 21st century. UFO Hunters meet with archivist
Scott Kosal who escorts them into the vault. All right, so here we are now. This is the archive of the
University of Arizona Special Collections. The James McDonald papers
run from here all the way down that way. This is a restricted area. Happy hunting. Wow. NARRATOR: Bill
Birnes will reopen one of the most controversial
cases in UFO history, the 1965 Heflin photographs, and put
them through vigorous tests and visual analysis. BILL BIRNES: These four images
have become the holy grail of ufology. If they're real, they're
the best pictures of a UFO we have anywhere. NARRATOR: Dr. Ted Acworth will
dig into the RB47 UFO sightings of 1957 when a UFO reportedly
pursues an Air Force crew for over 90
minutes and 700 miles. One of McDonald's
most compelling cases, the incident includes
three verifiable sources-- the pilot, a ground
radar station, and the plane's state-of-the-art
electronic counter-measure technology. Did all three see a UFO with
staggering capabilities? This one looks pretty
good because it's not just witness testimony, but if we
can uncover more technical data about the radar-- and it wasn't just the radar
systems on board the aircraft but also the radar
on the ground. There were active radar
installations actually picked up the UFO at the same time. So maybe through
this research here, maybe we can dig
up something new. NARRATOR: Pat Uskert is looking
closer at the 1964 sightings of a strange craft by Lonnie
Zamora, a police officer in Socorro, New Mexico. The case involves a
shiny capsule-like craft that blasts off leaving
hard evidence behind. PAT USKERT: Now, in the Zamora
file, there were sketches, there were photographs
in his testimony. What I'd like to do is using
our more modern techniques and tools that we have today is
pick up where McDonald left off and see what actually happened
that day to Lonnie Zamora. After all these years, this
has never really been resolved. NARRATOR: The files are the
culmination of 17 years of work by McDonald. He began assembling them
in 1953 while a professor at the University of Arizona. Within McDonald's files, cases
originally conducted by Project Blue Book are reopened. His research uncovers
some of the first proof that the CIA was
investigating UFOs. His documents revealed
the possibility that the Air Defense Command,
Air Force Intelligence, and even the
Strategic Air Command were involved in UFO incidents. His conclusion, the
public is being deceived. BILL BIRNES: You
can't do any research into the work of James McDonald
without examining the Heflin case. McDonald was fascinated
by the Heflin case. In fact, he couldn't let it go. NARRATOR: August 3, 1965,
Santa Ana, California, approximately 12:30 PM. Traffic investigator
Rex Heflin is about to take a picture
of a tree branch that is obscuring a road sign. But out of the
corner of his eye, he witnesses
something fascinating. A saucer-shaped craft
moving across the horizon just 150 feet above the ground. According to Heflin, he
snaps these three pictures with his Polaroid
101 instant camera. As the object travels left
to right across the road, the first taken through the
front windshield, clearly shows a saucer-shaped
objects that appears to be off
in the distance flying above the ground. The second seems to
show the same disk as taken through the side
window of Heflin's truck. In the third picture, the
object seems to be smaller as if traveling away from the camera. Within two minutes,
the alleged saucer disappears but leaves behind a
peculiar smoke ring in the sky. BILL BIRNES: James McDonald
wasn't the only person fascinated by the
Rex Heflin case. The Air Force investigated it,
Project Blue Book investigated it, and also the
Condon Committee investigated this case. All of those groups
dismissed the case as a hoax. NARRATOR: Project Blue
Book was the Air Force's official program studying UFO
phenomenon until 1968 when the Condon Committee, headed
by physicist Edward Condon, determined that UFO research
was unlikely to yield any serious results. Blue Book was abandoned
two years later in 1970, but James McDonald believed
Condon's conclusions were highly flawed and
showed a blatant disregard for the high number of
unexplained incidents. Bill's investigation
begins with Ann Druffel who not only maintains copies
of the Heflin photographs but is also James
McDonald's biographer. BILL BIRNES: These
photos have become almost like the holy grail of ufology. ANN DRUFFEL: It did. But you see, Rex Heflin
didn't think anything of it. He had lent them first
to two military sources that wanted to analyze them. And both of these
sources returned them. NARRATOR: But then according
to McDonald's files, Heflin states that two men
claiming to be from NORAD-- the North American
Air Defense Command-- asked to borrow the photos. ANN DRUFFEL: Now,
Rex Heflin was used to working with official
sources because of his job. So he gave them the
photos expecting that they would be
returned within a few days, but they never were. And all we had left were
second generation copies. NARRATOR: After Heflin claims
his originals are not returned, the US Air Force
officially labels them a photographic hoax. With only copies to
analyze, some debunkers claim to see a line
just above the UFO, indicating some type of wire
or connection to the object. Others disagree, saying these
are defects or alterations seen only in the copies. Without the original photos,
there is no way to be sure. So suddenly, other
copies of the photos began to spread through parts
of the community, UFO community? ANN DRUFFEL: Yes, of course,
they had been altered. BILL BIRNES: So if
one were paranoid, one would say there was some
kind of a disinformation thing going on with various
copies of the photos that kept turning up. NARRATOR: Some believe that
the originals were taken for precisely this reason. And then almost 20 years
later, something miraculous One day his phone rang and
a woman's voice said, have you happens. checked your mailbox lately? And Rex was puzzled,
but he went out and he saw an envelope there. He opened it and there were
the three original photos that the so-called NORAD men
had borrowed 20 years before, or so. NARRATOR: Today, Ann Druffel
is the closest source for getting to the original
photographs taken by Heflin. And she gives Bill copies of
the photos for further analysis. BILL BIRNES: Heflin died
in 2005 and never wavered from his story that he
photographed an actual object, albeit an unusual object. The question remains today,
did he hoaxed the photo? Or was it a real object? NARRATOR: Will the wire or line
appear in the original copies? Closer analysis and crucial
data from McDonald's files may reveal if these are really
photos of a flying saucer. It's a perfect match. NARRATOR: After
his death in 1971, physicist James McDonald
left behind an amazing array of files, precise notes, photos,
audio files, and other evidence meticulously collected
over years of research into UFO phenomenon. UFO Hunters has selected three
of the most intriguing cases to follow up with
new investigations. April 24, 1964, 5:45 PM,
Officer Lonnie Zamora of the Socorro, New
Mexico Police Department is pursuing a black Chevrolet
speeding down Old Rodeo Street when he hears a loud
roar and sees a bluish flame to the Southwest. Zamora abandons pursuit
of the vehicle and radios that he is investigating
a possible explosion. As he nears the spot, he
expects to see an accident. Instead, he sees something
entirely different, a shiny metallic object that has
landed to the side of the road in the desert. He estimates it is approximately
30 feet wide, the size of a small RV today. He also claims the egg-shaped
craft has four landing supports at its base. Suddenly, the object lifts
off with the same bluish flame traveling to the Southeast. It disappears within minutes. Pat is in Socorro, New Mexico
hoping to find new leads based on James McDonald's file. It's really hard to emphasize
how significant the Lonnie Zamora case is. It's been a part of
every major UFO reports since Project Blue Book. So this case has
never been solved and that's why we
have to look at it. NARRATOR: Local historian and
reporter Paul Harden recently covered Zamora's sighting
in the El Defensor Chieftain newspaper. And after more than 40 years, he
found that Zamora's story still has legs. Can you tell me
why people are still talking about this incident
40 years after it happened? PAUL HARDEN: That's
a good question. I was kind of surprised myself. I do a lot of history articles,
never UFO articles before. You don't consider
yourself a ufologist? No, not really. [LAUGHS] I was really surprised
at how many people in town actually remembered it
or were involved in it. And so it got kind
of interesting. So from a historical point
of view, this is real history. This really happened. No doubt in my mind that
the incident happened. The only thing that
history can't tell you is what did Mr. Zamora see? I can't answer that. NARRATOR: Zamora's account is
one of the most specific UFO sightings ever recorded. According to
McDonald's Zamora file, not only did he provide
descriptions of the object size, appearance,
speed and behavior, but reports described
marks left in the sand by the object as well as
fused sand and scorched brush. Numerous witnesses to these
strange physical traces are on scene within
minutes after the sighting. So immediately, you have a
fair number of law enforcement agents that were at the scene
10 minutes or so after Lonnie saw it. When you say at
the scene, you mean they went to the landing site. They went to the
actual landing site. OK, and so these were law
officers that could confirm that there were landing
impressions in the dirt and that there were
burned bushes-- As a matter of fact, in
the original El Defensor Chieftain's story, they cite how
when they arrived at the scene, the plants were
still smoldering. Wow. So you know, tells
you something happened. NARRATOR: Many people have
looked into the Zamora sighting but few have come up with
any solid conclusions. Some believe this is
because Zamora has remained silent for over a decade,
but Pat is on his way to hear this story firsthand. Lonnie Zamora has agreed
to break his silence. As Pat heads out
into the desert, Ted travels to Castle Air
Museum in Atwater, California to meet with aviation
expert Bill Scott. The two are looking into James
McDonald's file on the sighting of a UFO trailing a state
of the art RB47 in 1957. Now, Professor McDonald was
really interested in this case because he felt there was
an awful lot of technology involved which was giving
up serious hard evidence. It was our most sophisticated
listening technology on the planet, really. NARRATOR: The RB47E was
the reconnaissance backbone of the US Air Force
during the 1950s. It was specifically
outfitted not to carry weaponry
but highly sensitive ELINT or Electronic Intelligence
Technology used to intercept radar signals. BILL SCOTT: Its job with all
its electronic gear on board would be to fly along
the border of the Soviet Union, for instance, and listen
for the Russian radars that were transmitting. In the 1950s, when this
aircraft was launched, it was our most sophisticated
radar-listening equipment in the world, right? BILL SCOTT: That's
exactly right. 1950s technology, of course,
but that was a state of the art. It was critical to
our national security. So of course, we had
the best electronic gear that was available. NARRATOR: But the US Air Force's
best available technology would soon encounter something
beyond its own capabilities. July 17, 1957, just after 4:00
AM, an RB47 with a six-man crew is on a routine training
mission over the Gulf of Mexico near the town of
Gulfport, Mississippi. On the number 2 monitor,
one of the officers detected a signal
moving rapidly. For the next 90 minutes and
700 miles, the aircraft ELINT, ground radar installations,
and even the Air Force pilots themselves will observe
a strange object tracking one of the Air Force's
most important aircraft. TED ACWORTH: This
crew was on their way back from a training mission,
all six of them aboard, three of whom were
the ELINT operators. So this is the end
of their training. They were about to ship out. So they're probably at the
height of their expertise, just finishing up an extensive
training program in the states before deployment. At the time, this was our
front line fighting force, a strategic air command. So these ELINT operators would
have been very well-trained because literally, the fate of
the country were in their hands and the pilots that
flew these airplanes. How about the ELINT equipment? How long had that been out? Is there any chance that this
equipment was malfunctioning or in such a brand new
technology that there's some question there? Was this tried
and true hardware? I would say it's probably
tried and true hardware at the time, so it was cutting
edge, very well-maintained. NARRATOR: According to
James McDonald's report, despite this being the most
advanced equipment in service, the officer who first spots
the object on the island ELINT thinks the equipment
is malfunctioning. They had one of the other
operators double checked it, tried it on another monitor
which would use a different set of antennas on the RB47. They established very early on
that the equipment was working fine, everything was perfect. NARRATOR: But the
rest of the crew is about to get an up close
and personal view of whatever is appearing on their scope. As the RB47 approaches Jackson,
Mississippi for the second part of its exercise, one of the
pilot spots what he first thinks are landing lights of
another jet coming in fast. As the single bluish white
light closes rapidly, he alerts the rest of the crew
to be ready for sudden evasive maneuvers. But before he can
attempt anything, both he and his co-pilot see
the light instantaneously change directions and flash
across their flight path. Then it blinks out. In these rare recordings
from the files, James McDonald is heard
conducting an interview with a pilot who encountered the
object, Colonel Lewis D Chase. Now, these were
trained aircraft pilots. These are United States
Air Force officers. These guys know what
aircraft look like. NARRATOR: Nothing in
the US military arsenal has the ability to
simply blink out. In the report, the
pilot, a 20-year veteran, claims the object moved
at a velocity, quote, he'd never seen matched
in his flight experience. And for them to be really
shocked about something they saw visibly says a lot. So now, you add to
that, that in addition to the visible sighting,
we had this aircraft, the technology back
here in the bay, was our most sophisticated
listening system for listening to radar. NARRATOR: With no surviving
images from the flight's ELINT, Ted turns to the testimony
in McDonald's files to verify the object's
incredible maneuvers. And Bill zeros-in on
Rex Heflin's photographs with a field test putting
the hoax theory on the line. [CAMERA CLICKS] James McDonald's files are
offering up intriguing leads on some of the top UFO
cases ever recorded. From Lonnie Zamora's strange
encounter in the desert to highly trained RB47 pilots
being buzzed by objects they cannot describe. But perhaps, the most well-known
case involves these photos. Four images of a
saucer-shaped objects taken in 1965 by Rex Heflin
in Santa Ana, California. Many have claimed that
the photos are a hoax. One reason they cite is that
Heflin could not have possibly shot three Polaroids
in just 20 seconds with his old 1950s camera. But could he? Bill has brought in a senior
scientist from Polaroid, Ted Mcleland to put this
theory to the test. Was it possible for Rex
Heflin to snap three photos in 20 seconds using
a Polaroid 101? [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Ted has brought an
authentic Polaroid 101 camera. It is the exact same
model Rex Heflin used in his everyday work and to
take the infamous photos. The film very simply goes
in to the back of the camera, close it up, and
everything is light tight. Raise the viewfinder and
hit the shutter button and pull the frames out
and I'll demonstrate that. So you're not
waiting for the film to actually process inside
the back of the camera, you just take the whole pack
right out as soon as you're done with the photo. You take the frame out as
soon as you snap the shutter. OK, well, acid test. Ready? Ready. Go. [CAMERA CLICKS] You're doing good. 17 seconds, there you go. NARRATOR: But with one debunking
point crossed off the list, there are still others that
plague that Heflin evidence. Several claims have been made
that the shots are too focused, suggesting a double exposure. A double exposure happens
when two photos are taken on the same frame of film. If this was a hoax, Heflin
could have taken one photo out of his window of the sky. And then taken a second photo
of a hubcap or similar object on the same film, making it
appear as if the two images are one. So Ted, another really big
issue in this whole Heflin controversy is this. Look at this shot. This looks like it's in focus. That looks like it's in focus. That looks like it's in focus. And these vague here looks
like they're in focus, and this is in focus,
the rearview mirror. So one of the issues is
that these are somehow double exposures or hoax shots. NARRATOR: Depending on the
camera settings and the film stock, objects close to the
lens or far in the distance can appear out of focus. Heflin's ability to capture a
crisp foreground and background led many to question the
validity of the photos. Using this camera, we're
having it set on infinity with 3,000 ASA speed film,
you would be in focus from 3 feet to infinity. OK, so what you're saying is
that that camera can keep all of these disparate objects-- this, this, this, and
the lining of the road going off into infinity here
in focus at the same time? Correct. NARRATOR: Another point
that plague James McDonald was seen in Heflin's
fourth and final photo. Heflin's last image appears to
show a smoke ring that lingers after the craft flies away. The first three photos show
what seems to be clear skies. But the four supposedly
taken only two minutes after the first three
shows clouds in the sky. BILL BIRNES: So looking at
these three photos taken from inside the
car, in fact, you can't see any clouds
in these photos, whether they're there or not. Gets out of the car, takes
this, now, suddenly, clouds appear in the photo. So the question is,
where are the clouds? This camera, the
automatic exposure is probably tricked by the
darkness within the band and in setting the
exposure closer to that, the outside photo the last
one is nothing to interfere the auto exposure and it's
picking up exactly what it seems. So let me get this straight. Here, it's getting darkness
from inside the truck. Correct. Overexposes this. Therefore, totally white sky
against the totally black Correct. background. But here, he's outside so
the automatic exposure only takes what it sees from
the light that's coming in the lens, nothing
interferes with it, it takes exactly what it
sees i.e., the clouds. Correct. That's mystery solved. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: While some of
the major debunking points have been dismissed,
the harshest one of all is that the object
itself is a fake. Project Blue Book labeled
the photos as a hoax, calculating that the object
was only 9 inches in diameter, 12 feet off the ground,
and about 15 to 20 feet in the distance. There is no hoax. I saw holding up the
negatives of this, magnifying this as best I
could, I saw no signs of a hoax. So no strings, no piano wire. Nothing like that. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Yet the
strongest proof that this is a true UFO may
lie in calculations by James McDonald himself. But Pat is still in
search of something solid on the Lonnie Zamora file. PAT USKERT: I'm here at
the police station here in Socorro, New
Mexico where I'm going to meet the chief of
police, Lawrence Ramiro. NARRATOR: Lawrence has agreed to
take Pat to meet Lonnie Zamora at the landing site. Pat is hoping to get a clearer
picture of Zamora's sighting and revisit some of James
McDonald's lingering questions. PAT USKERT: So what is
your opinion on Lonnie. Lonnie is very upfront type of
guy, excellent police officer. He's a pillar of
his church also. So you don't doubt
his story at all? No. So are we close
to this site now? Yes, we are. We're about 400 feet, 500 feet. NARRATOR: By finally meeting
Lonnie Zamora, the key witness in the case, Pat aims to dig
deeper into one of McDonald's strangest cases. What touched down in the desert
outside of Socorro, New Mexico on that cold spring day? PAT USKERT: This is one of
the original indentations? NARRATOR: Pat is in
Socorro, New Mexico and has come to meet with Lonnie
Zamora, the subject of one of James McDonald's
top UFO cases. Zamora hasn't talked about his
1964 encounter in the desert in over a decade. But after years of
scrutiny, Lonnie hopes that he can help prove
what he saw was not a hoax. So what did you see
from this vantage point? From here I could see down on
top of it sort of a egg-shaped object. I'd say about 30
to 40 feet wide. I didn't know what it was until
I started moving towards it. I realized it was something
that I had never seen before. So I thought maybe it would
be some kind of Air Force experiment, you
know, at the first. So at first, you thought maybe
this was a military aircraft of some sort? Yeah, something like that. Well, it was investigated
and they found out that there was no such aircraft. LONNIE ZAMORA:
No, there was no-- nothing here at all. NARRATOR: The odd
shape and structure of the object Lonnie describes
is similar to the lunar module. In fact, Air Force
investigators initially theorized that this
might be a test of this top secret vehicle. But further analysis quickly
proved this theory wrong. A flyable working model
of the lunar module was not ready until 1965, a full
year after Zamora's sighting. But whatever landed here
left evidence behind. Now, you're saying there
were actual indentations from the craft down here. Yes, the craft
hovered over there. There's no one in the
station right there. This is one of the
original indentations? Yeah, right there. OK, one of them-- Another one over there. OK. Where the rock is. And they have one over
there and one over here. There was four. So right after the
craft lifted off, these indentations were fresh? Right, right. Fresh. NARRATOR: The indentations are
not the only physical traces the craft leaves. According to Lonnie,
bushes burn and rocks smolder at the landing site. So Lonnie, where were
these bushes exactly? Well, there was a big one
right there and one right there and one up here. And they were all burning. This was a lot of
burning more, you know, they couldn't get near it. It was just burning. Do you think this fire
here was directly related to the object you saw? Yeah, where that
took off, yeah. NARRATOR: But this
evidence is quickly confiscated by Air Force
investigators who arrived soon after Lonnie does. And McDonald reveals it
wasn't the Air Force that asked for this debris to be
collected and taken away, it was the FBI. Adding to the mystery,
the files reveal that the FBI didn't want anyone
to know they were working on the case. The reason is never
fully revealed. LONNIE ZAMORA: They were
really excited about it. Tried to ask questions
but they wouldn't let me answer any questions. Just keep it quiet for a while. PAT USKERT: Air Force told you
to keep this quiet for a while? NARRATOR: James McDonald
was interested in breaking that silence and doggedly
tracked down specialists who had been brought in by the
government to investigate Lonnie's sighting. His files indicate one expert,
a Mary Mayes from the University of New Mexico was enlisted
to analyze plant material. In an interview with McDonald,
Mayes described the location and reported seeing a 25 to
30-inch patch of fused sand at the landing site. According to her, a small area
of desert that turned to glass. One test may shed additional
light on Lonnie's story. [MUSIC PLAYING] In hopes of adding to
McDonald's investigation, Pat aims to find out just
how much energy it would take to melt the sand from the
site of Zamora's encounter. PAT USKERT: I'm meeting Patrick
Morrisey, a glass blower with 30 years of experience. He's going have told me exactly
how sand fuses in the glass. And I've specifically brought
sand from the Socorro landing site where Lonnie Zamora
saw the craft lands. Now you know that there are
various theories about what happened. One of them is that
something landed, infuse the sand from
incredibly high temperatures. Another theory is that
there may be hoaxers somehow fuse the sand. So what I'd like to
know from you is, what does it take to
fuse sand into glass? First what we're going to do
is we're going to take it off We're going to use
this plate right here. of here. And then we'll put them
into our glass over here and see if we can melt it. So Patrick, while
this is heating up, I'd like to ask you
a few questions. Let's say these hoaxers came
out with some equipment, let's say a blowtorch,
could that work? If a hoaxer brought
out a blowtorch and tried to fuse sand-- It's a pretty good point,
but that would not really melt any glass at all. It's just not hot enough. So basically, you're saying
you need an oven to melt glass? That's right. PAT USKERT: I think I see
the sand changing color. It's starting to
bond a little bit. Now, don't let
that bond fool you. It's not glass, not yet anyway. NARRATOR: After
nearly 25 minutes, the sand sample from the Zamora
site is ready to be examined. It's kind of hot. PAT USKERT: About how hot? PATRICK MORRISEY: Right now,
it's definitely at least 2,100 degrees. PAT USKERT: So 2,100
degrees Fahrenheit is sufficient to melt sand? PATRICK MORRISEY: 2,100 degrees
is hot enough to the sand that you brought here. So now according
to our reports, there was a huge patch of fused
glass at the landing site. So you're saying it takes
2,100 degrees to create this. PATRICK MORRISEY: 25 minutes
to melt that little piece. Right. So the hoaxer scenario-- PATRICK MORRISEY: Is
kind of hard to believe. PAT USKERT: It takes over
2,100 degrees and some duration of time to melt sand,
maybe over 20 to 25 minutes to melt the sand. So in Patrick's
professional opinion, the hoaxer scenario is unlikely. NARRATOR: Pat's finding
adds great validity to Lonnie Zamora's story. Meanwhile, Ted continues
his investigation into James McDonald's RB47 case. What happens when the most
sophisticated aircraft in the US arsenal is upstaged
by something far more advanced? BILL SCOTT: 1957, you
don't have an aircraft that can jump from 11
o'clock to 2 o'clock instantaneously, and
then just blink out. NARRATOR: James McDonald's
files have provided new grounds for investigation for both
Rex Heflin's photos and Lonnie Zamora's sightings
in the desert. But with no radar records
or eyewitnesses from 1957, little is known about the
RB47 encounter where an object pursued a state of
the art Air Force jet for over 90 minutes
and 700 miles. With this in mind,
Ted and Bill Scott have plotted the
course of the aircraft in hopes of understanding the
strange events on that summer morning. TED ACWORTH: So the
aircraft turns West. And that's when the pilot has
a visual sighting right out And then what did they do over
this course here before Dallas? of the cockpit. That's when they're actually
trying to evade the object? BILL SCOTT: They started
accelerating and decelerating to see if they could
lose the object. And it always stayed right
with them all the time. TED ACWORTH: Now at this point,
the pilot contacts Duncanville with their ground-based radar. Not only does Duncanville
confirm they can see the UFO, but they can also
see the aircraft? One of the things that
fascinates me in this particular incident is that
when the pilots reported that the bright light disappeared,
the ground-based radar at Duncanville said they
lost the object and the ELINT operator said he lost
the object as well. So they all three
disappeared at the same time. And when it reappears, all
three of them see it again. NARRATOR: All three are agreeing
on the progression of the case, the visual of the pilots. The RB47's ELINT technology
and most amazingly, the radar on the ground as well. Everything is transpiring
at the same time. TED ACWORTH: Now at
this point, our pilot has received permission
to deviate from his course back to base. And now, he's basically going
after the object, right? That's right. The object is at
a lower altitude so the pilot of the RB47
dives towards the object. And all of a sudden the object
stops and they overshoot it. So at that time, the crew
starts a left hand turn to get back to where
it can see the object. Unfortunately at this point,
they're running low on fuel, right?
BILL SCOTT: That's right. And that's when they decide
to break off and head back That's right, so then they
took off to the North, headed for home. back towards Forbes
Air Force Base Kansas, and the object tends
to stay with them. Right, stayed back. Stayed with them
almost halfway home. All the way back to Oklahoma
City, and in Oklahoma City it disappears. NARRATOR: After 90
minutes, the intense chase leads the pilots and the
ground-based radar operators dumbfounded. None of them have an explanation
for what has just occurred. TED ACWORTH: When
you string together the various descriptions
of the flight maneuvers of this object, would
you say that these are explainable through
conventional aircraft? Well, 1957, you don't have
an aircraft that can just blink out both in the electromagnetic
spectrum as well as the visual spectrum. And I would say we don't
have anything like that now. NARRATOR: Despite the
overwhelming evidence and testimony, Project Blue
Book dismissed the sighting quickly as the near collision
of two DC-6 American Airliners near Salt Flat, Texas. They give no details or
rationale for this explanation, except for the
following statement. Quote, it was definitely
established by the CAA that object observed in
the vicinity of Dallas and Fort Worth was an airliner. Blue Book's conclusion
is highly unlikely. The RB47's flight path
didn't come within 400 miles of Salt Flat, Texas. McDonald used this
quote in his report to demonstrate Blue Book's
poor methods of investigation. Yet the case is now carried in
the official Blue Book files as identified. I feel like there
must have been something out there, something going on. It sure looks like
something was there. What it is, I don't think we
know and here it is 50 years later, we still don't know. NARRATOR: The answers
to the RB47 case will never be fully known,
but the investigation can be sure of one thing,
James McDonald never agreed with Blue Book's findings. And for him, the case
remained unidentified. But there's one last hoax
claim left to be tested. Rex Heflin's photographs. Heflin claimed the
object he photographed was roughly 20 feet in
diameter and about an 1/8 of a mile from his truck. Project Blue Book said
the object was small, like a hubcap, and
close to the camera. Bill has brought in Ted and
image analyst expert Terrence Masson to give the
photos a closer look. Blue Book said it was a total
hoax, that the object was no more than 9 inches in
diameter, that it was maybe 12 feet off the ground, maybe
15 to 20 feet in the distance. NARRATOR: But Heflin's
account varies greatly. He describes a specific object
20 feet in diameter and 700 feet away. Using these specific
numbers, Terrence has constructed a 3D landscape
to test Heflin's claims. He places a 20-foot
diameter saucer 700 feet in the distance,
matching the description given by Heflin after the incident. If Heflin had hoaxed the photos
and simply made up numbers regarding the size and
distance of the object, there will be almost no
chance of the 3D model matching the photos. If he was telling the
truth, if he made an accurate estimation to his eyeball,
that object in our simulation has to line up. Here's our 20-foot
diameter object, 150 feet off the ground,
let's slide it along. We'll feed up our image and
put it on to get about 700-- Amazing. So that's better than close. Better than close? It's a perfect match. TERRENCE MASSON: This is just
very simple trigonometry. You just put it in a space,
that's very accurate, at the size of the object
and the height of the object that Heflin said it was. They match very, very precisely. So you eliminated somebody
throwing some stupid thing in the air like a hubcap. You knock that out because
that can come off this way. NARRATOR: The
investigation's theory is now that Heflin must have
been observing something not under his control, and that
he himself was not hoaxing it. In my estimation,
James McDonald did a really good job of
collecting relevant evidence for this case. They didn't have a lot of
computational power back then, digital image processing
was a brand new technology. We've enhanced what McDonald
said because we had these tools at our disposal and
therefore could definitively show by the mathematics of
that computer simulation that Heflin was right. NARRATOR: Given today's
extraordinary leaps forward in technology and
scientific analysis, James McDonald's investigation
into UFO phenomena would only have gotten stronger. But tragically, he
committed suicide in 1971. His personal life
unraveling as he pushed forward with his
scientific studies of UFOs. Now, his legacy and his tireless
work live on with other cases awaiting new investigations
and more answers still waiting to be discovered.
