[music playing] NARRATOR: The Twin Ports of
Los Angeles and Long Beach are among the
busiest in the world. Thousands of vessels,
both large and small, travel through these deep,
dark waters each year. But some of the most compelling
stories about these waters eminate from below the
surface, not above. In 1966, an unidentified
object that reportedly emerged from the Channel is filmed
traveling at up to 170 miles per hour over the island. This is the first of numerous
reports of nautical objects displaying many of the
same characteristics as so-called UFOs. But these UFOs have
been witnessed traveling into and out of the water. A bright white light,
moving pretty quickly towards the water. NARRATOR: They
are known as USOs, unidentified submerged objects. There is something really
extraordinary in these waters. NARRATOR: For the first
time, new witnesses have come forward-- We got struck with
a beam of light. NARRATOR: --supported by
documentation and police reports, and scientific
testing and analysis. I think we've got
our smoking gun. Absolutely. NARRATOR: The team from
"UFO Magazine," publisher Bill Burns, investigator Pat
Uskert, science intern Jeff Tomlinson, along with science
expert Dr. Ted Acworth, opened the case of USOs
around Catalina Island. The USOs are using this place
kind of like a hunter's blind. So we're the prey. NARRATOR: Is this rash of
sightings simply the result of overactive imaginations, or
is it possibly something more? I saw a set of lights
unlike any other lights I'd ever seen before. NARRATOR: The team
attempts to get one step closer to the answers. That's a tail of an
airplane, right there. That's it. NARRATOR: For the first
time on television, this is case number 66307,
Unidentified Submerged Objects. THEME SONG: Yes. I'm not the only
one, the only one. I'm not the only
one, the only one. [ominous music] NARRATOR: Catalina is a 175
square mile Island, 22 miles to the west-southwest of
Los Angeles, California. The Catalina Channel,
which separates the island from the coast, is the main
corridor for one of the busiest harbors in the world-- the Twin Ports of Los
Angeles and Long Beach. To most the island appears
to be an idyllic spot. But the mystery
of this area stems not from what is
about the surface, but what is beneath it. It all began on April 15,
1966, at approximately 9:45 AM. An object with no tail and no
visible means of propulsion, was photographed
over Catalina Island, traveling between 130
to 170 miles per hour. [music playing] The craft, silver
and disk shaped, make no sound as it moved
swiftly over the mountains and out of sight. This is the first recorded
case of the UFO seen hovering around the island
and over the channel. It wouldn't be the last. Here's the case. I just spoke with Noah Felice,
who's a private pilot who 30 years ago had an encounter
with an unidentified submerged object-- a USO in the
waters off Catalina-- when bam, the object illuminates
him with a bright light, totally disorients
him, and his plane crashes into what he says
is a UFO in Rippers Cove. So you're saying that
Noah Felice's plane crashed as a direct result of
contact with a USO? That's what Noah says. Well, if we find that wreck,
we might find evidence of USOs. That's right. Baywatch investigated
this case 30 years ago, and they actually
found the wreckage. Even if we do find
it 30 years later, aluminum under saltwater-- it's
likely to have deteriorated. We'll do the best we can. OK. So, Pat, roll your equipment. Ted, you're doing the research. I'm out of here to talk to
Noah Felice and fly the route. [music playing] While Bill is
flying with Noah, I'll be talking to Paul
Allione and David Russo about their sightings, which
are very similar to each other. And they're very similar to
the famous 1966 sighting that was caught on film. So we have a lot of strong
cases around the Catalina area and the channel. NARRATOR: During the late
afternoon of December 29, 1968, attorney Paul Allione a resident
of Palos Verdes, California, witnessed strange lights over
the Santa Catalina Channel. According to Allione the
lights flew information, then unexpectedly stopped just
above the surface of the water. I looked up. And on the horizon I
saw a set of lights that were unlike any other
lights I'd ever seen before. It started to tilt and list. It got to about the 11
o'clock, 5 o'clock position and it wasn't moving. I really, to this day,
can't tell you what it was. It was nothing I'd ever
seen before or after. NARRATOR: During the
sighting, Allione clicked on his walkie-talkie
and heard something that still disturbs him to this day. I dashed into the garage and
I did kind of a-- you know, a childish thing, is I went and
got a walkie-talkie that I got for Christmas. And I'm thinking, hey, I'm
going to talk to this thing. But what happened
was I picked up a ship to shore transmission. The gentleman on
the transmission said, quote, "That's right, Bob. I don't know what
the hell it is. It's about 200 yards off my
bow and it's starting to tilt." And he started to go on to
explain exactly what it was that I was seeing. And that's all I needed
to freak out, and I did. The next night when the
evening news came on, one of the lead stories was she
said something to the effect, well, we've got an answer
to all those telephone calls that we've been getting
about the strange lights that were seen last night. For a story to make the
news about telephone calls and inquiries, there had
to have been more than just a few crackpots calling. There must have been at
least dozens of people, probably hundreds of people that
got all excited, to the point where somebody felt as though
they needed to offer up an explanation. It's that explanation that
I found to be rather hollow. The answer was it was
these two crazy college kids that were fooling around
with a weather balloon. PAT: What did you
think about that? But it seems to me
there's an inordinate amount of explanations that are offered
up as being weather balloons. Including the Roswell crash. Now, as I look back with that
knowledge, these explanations, I realize even more that to
me it confirmed what I saw as being a legitimate anomaly. And-- Because the explanation
given was so absurd. Yeah. It was absurd and it fit into a
pattern of absurd explanations. NARRATOR: Allione's sighting,
along with the 1966 film, were the start of a rash
of sightings in this area. According to the "Long Beach
Independent," on January 23, 1968, Avalon Sheriff's
Deputy Richard Callen witnessed a quote, "mysterious
unidentified floating object" that had quote, "lights
in its portals." And then the object exploded. According to the paper quote, "a
bright light illuminated waters around the object, and minutes
later a series of flares were shot into the
air from the object." Another story that swept
the media was reported. By the "Los Angeles
Times" on March 23, 1977. Sheriff Sergeant Vincent Rupp
received dozens of quote, "UFO sightings reported
from Sacramento, Salinas, Los Angeles, Orange
County, and March Air Force Base between 3:45 and 4:00 AM." According to the
paper, these witnesses included military personnel
from March Air Force Base, and several law enforcement
officers around Los Angeles. One witness, Mark Hogan,
a runway worker at LAX said, quote, "The teardrop or
tin can shaped lights sweep in at high speed from the
direction of Santa Catalina Island about 3:30 AM. In my opinion, they
weren't natural." A military spokesman at March
Air Force Base confirmed that the objects had, in
fact, been seen from the base, and said, quote, "There had
been no rocket or missile testings which could have
accounted for the lights. The objects did not show
up on any radar readings." PAT: Now I'm off to talk to
David Russo about his USO experience. Now, what's significant about
David Russo's USO sighting is that after the
sighting he took the time to make a sketch of the
craft while the details were fresh in his mind. And the more
information we have, the closer we are to
solving the mystery of USOs around Catalina. I live in Long Beach,
and a couple of blocks from the ocean. NARRATOR: David Russo,
a retired attorney, reportedly witnessed bright
lights over the channel on August 4, 2006, while
walking along the shoreline. Late at night, about 11:30,
11:35, a bright white light off to the west, out near
San Pedro, caught my eye. And it was moving towards the
water at a very steep angle, moving pretty quickly. It got to a point,
maybe a half a mile, a mile out in front of
me, and it just stopped. PAT: Over the water? On the water? DAVID: Over the water. PAT: Over the water. Maybe 10, 15, 20
feet above the water. A shorter side had three
or four blue lights on it, and the longer side seemed to
have six or eight blue lights. PAT: OK. DAVID: It rotated and did
this for about a half a minute to 45 seconds. Then the blue lights
went off and it just-- from a stopped-- gone-- went out towards Catalina
Island in less than a second. I'd rather would
have not seen it. You think life
would be easier-- Yeah. --if you just hadn't seen it. And now there's
this little piece back here that just is always
wondering and always thinking, what the heck did I see. And will I ever know? [music playing] NARRATOR: Is it possible that
a USO somehow brought down pilot Noah Felice's
single engine aircraft in these same waters in 1980? That's a tail of an
airplane, right there. That's it. [ominous music] NARRATOR: The dark,
mysterious waters surrounding Catalina Island,
one of the most active hot spots on Earth for reported
USO sightings, unidentified submerged objects. On January 26, 1980, a pilot's
reported encounter with a USO above the Santa Catalina
Channel left one man dead, and has become one of the
seminal USO events in history. Noah Felice, a pilot
with 14 years experience, and his cousin Mark, take off
from Catalina Island heading toward Las Vegas in Noah's
1972 Piper Cherokee. According to Felice, he
spots an object in the water. As he loops around
to get a better look, the unidentified object suddenly
shoots out a beam of light that renders Noah's
plane inoperable. Moments later, the
plane falls over 1,000 feet into the deep
waters of the channel. Noah is rescued. His cousin Mark
does not survive. And it's an important
case for three big reasons. One, it's current. You're not talking about
some 60-year-old case where all the
witnesses are gone. Two, Noah's a pilot. He's a trained observer. He knows what he's looking for. He's not given to fantasies. Three, that credibility
is tested in court because Noah Felice is
a private investigator. In every single case,
he's on the witness stand, he's testifying. It's as credible as you can get. It's a great story. We're excited to investigate. So why don't you tell me what
it was like as you took off from here 28 years ago and
flew out to the island? I took off, and just
out of the clear blue sky my little cousin told me he
add five to six months to live. BILL: This was a person you've
known since you were what? NOAH: We grew up together. We were close to biological
brothers, I think, as two males could get. Once he said that, they he had
five or six months to live, I was going to get
a vector in the air and go right
straight to Las Vegas and kind of lighten the mood. So, basically, you were just
going to head off to Vegas and spend some time together. Yeah. 'Cause you didn't know
how long you really had. NARRATOR: Noah and
Bill boarded a plane to fly Noah's original
route from 1980. BILL: You took off from
here, and what happened then? NOAH: We were flying
along, and I started to get very strange feelings,
kind of like the hair goes back onto your back. And I see a very strange
optic in the water, about the size of two houses. No definitive shape that I
could see because of the water. NARRATOR: From here, Felice's
account takes a radical turn. He says that as he came
around to get a closer look at the craft, he saw figures. NOAH: On the top of
this object was a door. It wasn't really a person,
but it wasn't not a person. I didn't know what to think. That's why I decided
to make a turn and come around back
and get a better view. And what happened then? We were struck
with a beam of light. NARRATOR: According to Felice,
after he made this turn he was blinded with an extremely
bright light emanating from this object. The light tracked the plane
for the next 34 seconds. At the same time, it
seemed to also take control of the plane's instrumentation. NOAH: It was alive. It was like, a liquid light. That's when sound
started shutting off. You couldn't feel the
vibration in the-- in the chair from the engine. And we got hit
with a second beam. NARRATOR: The second
beam, according to Felice, took even more control
over the plane, finally bringing it
to its tragic fate. NOAH: The inside of the
airplane was glowing. And I knew we were moving
because the light was becoming more intense. And it seemed as though
we would pass through not a doorway physical,
but a doorway of a port or some sort of
framework of the light. And then it was bang. NARRATOR: Noah, along with
his cousin Mark's body, were recovered by a Baywatch
patrol craft 20 minutes later. Upon impact, Noah believes
he would have been thrown from the cockpit, his seat
belt would have been torn, and the windshield would have
been certainly destroyed. But no such trauma occurred. Noah only sustained a
concussion and a broken leg. Noah is convinced that he was
somehow rescued by the USO. And he further believes
that when the plane is found underwater by the team, both
seat belts will be fastened and the windshield
will be fully intact. It was unbelievable. I was freezing. I remember blood everywhere. I mean, it was--
it was horrible. It was bad. I was dead for 15 to 20
minutes before they found me under the water. Dead for 15 to 20 minutes? That's close to a
medical impossibility. Theoretically, after blood
stops reaching your brain for something like
five to seven minutes, your brain cells shrink
and you become brain dead. And the other thing-- I don't understand why
the sharks didn't get me. We're going to go down to
the bottom of that trench. And if that plane's down there,
we're going to bring it up. Let's see what we can find. We've just flown the
route with Noah Felice to see where the
USO shot him down. Now it's up to Pat to get
out there to find the wreck. Noah said he doesn't remember
getting out of the cockpit, but he had no cuts
or scratches on him. How did he get out of a cockpit
if not through the windshield? Is the seat belt attached? If it's attached, that gives
credibility to his story that the aliens took
him out of the seat. And what about the instruments? If we find an instrument
magnetically locked in a certain position, it will
tell us what hit that plane. [music playing] To solve this case, we've
got to find that plane. Let's shove off. Coming up now for our first
point where the Avalon Sheriff's station is
saying their report says the wreckage lies,
which is on Empire Landing. The Isthmus Baywatch says
it's over in Rippers Cove. NARRATOR: The team has secured
the reports from the Avalon Catalina Sheriff's station. It says there are two probable
locations for Noah's plane-- Empire Landing and Rippers Cove. Both locations are approximately
eight miles from Avalon, and are on the Los Angeles
side of the island. The team is heading to the
first location, Empire Landing, where the water's
depth reaches 60 feet. PAT: How much more
do we have to go? Another 40 feet. Another 40 feet? Yeah. NARRATOR: The team is lowering
the side scan sonar device that will be towed behind the boat. Side scan sonar
bounces radio waves off the bottom of the channel,
and sends a signal back up to a computer on board
that converts the soundings into a picture. Joining the team are the sonar
operators from Aqua Survey. What would a target look like? What should I be looking
for on this screen? High reflectivity. Metal. BILL: So anything
that's too straight, anything that looks joined,
anything that's not curved, doesn't look eroded? Right. Like they said, it's
sort of like pornography. You can't describe it, but you-- But you know it
when you see it. [music playing] NARRATOR: The team
arrives at Empire Landing. MAN: We're here. Now, are we in the area
right now, in the target area? Yeah. We're coming up on it. NARRATOR: The Aqua Survey
team begins their sweep, and will scan along parallel
search lines called transits. Each transit takes approximately
30 minutes to cover. According to the Avalon
Sheriff's report, the plane should be along
one of these transits. So what's that? The mark here? Are we close to the site? CAPTAIN (ON RADIO): We're close. You should definitely
start looking. Oh, yeah. We've just gone through
a debris field there. CAPTAIN (ON RADIO): Right. But he said that debris
field is bull kelp. NARRATOR: What showed up on
sonar is actually bull kelp, a fast growing type of seaweed
common on the Pacific coast. The density of the kelp
has given a false reading on the sonar. Do we think it's a plane? I don't think so. I don't think so. No. It didn't look
like a plane to me. That's a negative. NARRATOR: The team has confirmed
that the wreckage is not at this site. It heads to the second possible
location, Ripper's Cove, 4.5 miles to the east. I feel the urgency to follow
this route 4 and 1/2 miles east of the Isthmus. And I'm sure we're going to
hit that plane between here and that peak. I want that plane. [music playing] Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Whoa. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Now look at-- look at the
signal strength returned here. Now, that's high. That's a tail of an
airplane, right there. That's it. Look at that. That's a 15-foot wing-- 30-foot wingspan. Look at the tail. Look at the tail. I think we got a
tail and a wing. See it? BILL: I see it. Check that out. We got a tail and a wing. Could this be it, Noah? Pat, come over here. Take a look at this. We're passing over
a debris field. No way. Look at that. Does that look like a wing
and a tail fuselage and a tail to you? Oh, my god. Yeah. Hey, Captain Dave. CAPTAIN: Yeah. Looks like we're over
some kind of debris field. I think it's time to put
some divers in the water. Sounds good. Let's get 'em in. OK. Jake! We got 70 foot of water
underneath the boat. Head due north, U pattern. Don't go below 100 foot. OK, Jake, if
you find the wreck I want you to look to see first
if the windshield is intact. I want you to look inside
the cockpit if that's intact. If the cockpit's
intact, look to see if the seat belts, either
one, are still hooked up. NARRATOR: After the
crash, Noah claims he was removed from the plane
by an unknown entity, possibly the same entity that
brought the plane down. Noah was rescued
outside of the plane. The only way out would have
been through the windshield. If the seat belt and
windshield are intact, it would support Noah's
story of what happened. Noah, give him
the tail number. It's 81 Mike. Eight one Mike. Good luck. Bring her up for us. [music playing] NARRATOR: Has the team found
the wreckage of Noah's plane? I found our target. NARRATOR: Could this plane
wreck show proof of contact with the unidentified
submerged object? [music playing] In January, 1980, an
unidentified submerged object shoots a beam of light at
pilot Noah Felice's plane, causing it to crash into
the Santa Catalina Channel. The team is now searching
for the downed plane. If they find this wreckage
and the windshield is intact, they may have evidence
of USO contact. [music playing] Jake, any luck? PAT: What? Well, at first I
thought it was the plane. And I was like, oh, man. Here it is. I started, like, moving around,
looking at it, looking at it. I go to the back and I see
this very familiar shape. It's an outboard motor. NARRATOR: Outside of
Felice's testimony, two other credible sources
continue to list this area as the crash location-- Catalina Baywatch and the
Avalon Sheriff's station. But now the mystery
has deepened. The aircraft is not here. Jake's come out of the water,
he's done a lot of diving. He found a lot of
targets down there, but didn't find
Noah Felice's plane. Where is it? We're going to send
Jeff and Ted to the lab. They're going to analyze the
currents, the slope, the tides, the winds. They're going to find out what
might have happened to Noah's plane. This is a mystery. But maybe in the lab
we can figure out what happened to all that
wreckage of Noah Felice's plane. NARRATOR: Since 1980, the
plane could have drifted from its original position. Hey, John and Jeff. Hey. Jeff and I are here
in Tindall's lab. And we're going to
recalculate the position, see if we can uncover any
additional information that would help us get a better
estimate of the location of the aircraft. NARRATOR: Science producer
John Tindall will demonstrate the forces at work below
the surface of the water, and what effect that might
have had on Noah's plane over the past 27 years. The Bernoulli effect basically
says that fluid in motion has less pressure
than static fluids. If you look at these
two cards right here, we can actually
pull them together by speeding up the
liquid between them or the fluid in the
case-- in this case, air. It pulls them right together. We see this all the time
with airplane wings. The air moving over
the top of the wing is moving faster than
the air under the wing. It creates a low pressure
zone and you get lift. What we think might have
happened to this wreck under the water is that as you
have the wreck sitting there and as the water currents
are going over this, it's lifting it slightly. And, if it's on an incline, it
could be lifting and sliding down and lifting and sliding
down, and pumping itself deeper and deeper and deeper. Let's see if we can prove that
the aircraft fuselage has been agitated by Bernoulli effect. If you look at the
topography of the location just offshore there
on Catalina Island, you have a very steep cliff face
coming down to the waterline. And it actually continues
at a very steep slope down into the depths. And if the aircraft landed
up close to the shoreline, and we believe that it landed
in 40 to 50 feet of water, then it settled on in the bottom at
a steep slope angle, which could lead to it sliding, moving
over 30 years down slope and down into the depths. JOHN: So I'm going to
start the current flow. It's going to be a little
loud, but we'll just have to talk over that. TED: Yeah you see how
it's actually digging out underneath the front
side of the object and building up material
on the back side. JOHN: Oh, there it
goes, down right there. TED: There, it's settling. It's settling down. NARRATOR: As water
rushes toward the sample, the ocean floor would be pushed
away, allowing gravity to pull the object further downhill. I think with the first
dive we didn't really have a good sense of just
how steep this drop off was. NARRATOR: In order to determine
the location of the plane after almost 30
years of drifting, Ted uses the length of the
Catalina air strip as a guide. Catalina air
strip, at this scale, is a little bit over an
inch and a half in length. We're getting a contour
here that in about 0.2 inch is 60 feet of additional depth. NARRATOR: The amount of
drift caused by the current, along with the steepness of
the ocean floor in this area, may have caused the plane to
fall deeper into the channel. This effect is known
as mass wasting. Mass wasting is any time
you have movement of rocks, dirt, debris, downhill being
pulled by gravity, that's how you get mudslides. Or in the case of
underwater, you get the debris moving downhill. In this case in
Catalina we have a number of the factors that would
really exacerbate that effect. NARRATOR: The team believes the
wetness of the soil, the lack of cohesion in the ocean
sand, and the angle of incline are all causes for why
this plane is missing. TED: You can see the
big rocks are already-- already rolling down. You know, so look at
this mass wasting. Now just imagine if
there were an object on the surface of the sand. It would just be traveling
right down the hill with the whole pile of sand. So now there's our-- you
know, our airplane fuselage sitting on the surface. So you're actually pushing
water uphill against it, and we're going to see if
it still falls downhill against that. [humming] There it goes.
Look at that. JOHN: There it goes.
It came at it. TED: It fell towards-- against the current. JEFF: The relationship between
gravity and the cohesion effect on the granules-- we can see that over
a short period of time the object moved fairly quickly. And over a long period
of time, say 30 years, this object could have
traveled quite far. Guys-- JOHN: [laughs] --I think we've
got our smoking gun. Absolutely. JEFF: Yup. TED: I have no doubt
that in the location where we expect this crash site
to be, with that slope and all the factors, that we've got a
good amount of mass transport moving downhill into the depths. Based on these-- this model
and these experiments, we know this aircraft
is further offshore. JOHN: Right. And will to set
up a new search grid just a bit further offshore. [music playing] NARRATOR: The team dives deeper
into the mysterious waters off Catalina. What they find only
deepens the mystery. How many plane wrecks
are around here anyway? [music playing] NARRATOR: Based on the
experiments in the lab, the team heads out for a
new area where they believe the wreckage has drifted. It's two miles east of their
original search location. Based on some new
information we have, which is the expected
water current in that area, we've extended the search
pattern into some deeper water. NARRATOR: The new search
area moves the team closer to the San Pedro Basin. At a depth of
almost one mile, it is one of the deepest
sections of the channel. Many UFO researchers believe
that the high concentration of USO sightings here
might be somehow related to this deep trench. They say that the depth offers
an ideal hiding spot for USOs. And this is what
we're looking for. It's a Piper Cherokee Low Wing. We think that the wreck is
somewhere around here, right? And the previous
scans we've done are along this highlighted
area what we're predicting here is that this wreck has actually
been slowly working its way down this steep
slope, getting out into deeper and deeper water. NARRATOR: The strong
current in the channel will cause objects
to drift over time. As the current lifts
objects from the floor, gravity will slowly pull
it deeper into the channel. This is the scientific theory. But the team now has to
consider a new theory. Could the plane wreckage have
possibly been taken by a USO? We're going to speak
to Preston Dennett. Preston is going to tell
us what some of the stories are about the mysteries of
this particular channel. He's written a lot of
books on UFOs and USOs over Southern California. He's going to help us comb
the mysteries of this channel, and find out exactly
what's going on with USOs over the Catalina Trench. I think it's one of the
hot spots for USO activity, in particular, in the world. It's extraordinary. The activity here goes
back to at least 1947, the dawn of the
modern age of UFOs. I've collected probably 50, 100
reports of this kind in just this area here. NARRATOR: USO researcher
and author, Preston Dennett, has tracked numerous reports
in the Santa Catalina Channel, and has a controversial theory
on the concentration of USO sightings in this area. And I came up with a
theory that perhaps there is an underwater base here,
which sounds fantastic, I know. But how else can you explain
the huge number of reports? Why would they choose this
place as a base, of all places? They're here because of us. And what's unique about
this particular area is it's very close to a large
population base, Los Angeles. So my theory is that the
USOs are using this place kind of like a hunter's blind. They're able to
hide their craft, do whatever they need to
do, and still have access to a very large population base. It turns out that the
geography of this area is riddled with caves and
underground tunnels leading from, say, Edwards Air
Force Base to Vandenberg-- BILL: Oh, wow. PRESTON: --to Catalina Island. So there is some military
involvement here. I've got a case which
took place here in 1967. A gentleman was actually
abducted right here in Avalon Harbor, off the boat. And he recalled, under hypnosis,
being taken to an area where there was rock walls. He had the distinct impression
this was underground. It had to be somewhere close. Where else would it be but,
you know, in the bay here? NARRATOR: The Santa
Catalina Channel has a depth of almost one mile. And if there were caves and
tunnels beneath the water, conventional technology
would have trouble even confirming their existence. We cannot travel to the
extreme depths that these craft can. Even a big nuke
submarines can't travel down to those bases? Not with the ease and-- that these craft can do. These craft are able to actually
come up out of the water and fly straight up. We have nothing
that can do that. BILL: Had you thought about
what kind of technology it takes that they
may have to do this? Whatever it is, it's
way beyond, I think, anything that we have. What's spooky that
you're telling me about is when you call this
place on hunters blind. Because if it's a hunter's
blind, there's a hunter. Right. And the only other
people around here are us, and we're the prey. I know. It's a little disconcerting. I think the witnesses have
come to the realization that we are not alone, and
that we have not been around for a long, long time. [music playing] Well, if I'm a little
bit green in the face it's because the cross into
Catalina was a bit rough. We had about an hour of
bouncing on 8 foot swells, so that didn't really go
well with my scrambled eggs breakfast that I
had this morning. Let's get this
fish in the water. Yeah. OK. NARRATOR: Captain
Ray Arntz has been sailing the waters of the
Catalina Channel for over 20 years. OK. We're set up and rolling. Let's make it record. PAT: We've got our side
scan sonar in the water, or our fish, as it's called. And we're going back and
forth on our grid searching for our target. We got a little bit of
a head on the side scan. What we want to do now is we
want to run the sounder over it and see if we can find a target. So what does
the hit look like? RAY: It's cylindrical. Cylindrical. TED: Like an aircraft
fuselage, perhaps? RAY: Yeah. PAT: Would we not also see
wings or anything else? Why would we only
see the fuselage? Could have broken
off on impact. It could be the orientation
where you can see the wings. Maybe there here, looking
right down a long way. Lots of reasons. NARRATOR: The team continues
its search of Rippers Cove. RAY: Hey, Ted, better
take a look at this. TED: What do you got? I got one that looks just like
an airplane on the side scan. PAT: Yeah. Excellent. Very distinctive. Looks like an engine, wings-- that definitely looks
like an airplane. Wow. So it's not just a target. It actually looks like a plane. That's an airplane. Actually, I'm going to go in
the water with you this time. Let's both go. [music playing] PAT: I'm really excited that we
have a target it actually looks like a plane, and
there's a high likelihood that this is the plane. If he was taken by
extraterrestrials from the craft, the
windshield wouldn't be broken and the seat belts
should still be intact. So I'm hoping to find a
windshield that is not broken and seat belts that are intact. And that would lend
credibility to his story of extraterrestrial contact. [music playing] NARRATOR: Pat and Ted
search a plane crash website at 33 degrees 27 minutes North,
and 118 degrees 25 minutes West. The wreck sits approximately
100 feet below the surface. It is a small,
discolored plane that matches Noah's description. Could this be Noah's plane? And, if it is, can
the team confirm that it was brought down by
an unidentified object? Well, plane. It was a plane. It wasn't a Cherokee, though. PAT: How do you know? Cargo door, port
side on the stern. I think it was a Piper Warrior. It's the next size up. The Cherokee did not
have a cargo door. [bleep] NARRATOR: Noah's plane was a
Piper Cherokee, a low wing four passenger aircraft. The plane at this location
is larger, and features a cargo door on the
port stern, a feature not found on Noah's Cherokee. The plane has
seemingly vanished. Well, that's [bleep]. How many plane wrecks
are around here anyway? Well, it's possible that
it's drifted down-- down slope. RAY: Backs up your theory. TED: And the plane we're looking
for went in 28 years ago, so it could have drifted
even further than this one. It could be
quite a bit deeper. We found a plane, but
it's not Noah's plane. Now, according to
Ted's lab science, the plane should have moved
right around this area. The problem is, the
plane is not here. So my question is
where is the plane. For me, it just deepens the USO
mystery around Catalina Island. So what do we have
for our theories? Number one is that the plane has
been pushed up onto the shore and destroyed. Number two theory is that
because of the wave motion, the tide motion,
and the wind motion, it's been agitated and fallen
down the slope into the depths. If we are considering
that there is a USO base around here, maybe
they took the plane or did something with the
plane to hide their presence. I don't think we can confirm
or deny that hypothesis. Well, Noah Felice is
a very credible witness. And, I mean, I-- I feel strongly that
something happened here. So I-- I say we can't dismiss
that possibility of some sort of extraterrestrial
intervention with this plane. NARRATOR: What is the connection
between the USO stories of the Catalina Channel
and Noah's plane crash? This is the dangerous part. NARRATOR: Scientific
analysis is enacted-- OK, Jeff! NARRATOR: --with
surprising results. Wow. [music playing] NARRATOR: In 1980,
pilot Noah Felice asserts that his plane was
attacked by a beam of light, that took control of his
craft and caused it to crash. The team wants to
know, is it possible that an aircraft
could be disabled by an electromagnetic pulse? Speculation is that this USO
sent an electromagnetic pulse, or an EMP at the
aircraft, disabling it. So he found himself with
no power and crashed. NARRATOR: The team
meets at Tindall's lab to test this hypothesis. This one's going to be
a little bit dangerous. But I think it's going to
give us some amazing insight into the case with Noah
Felice and the USO. We're going to see if our
strong EMP pulse can disable the function of the engine. We've taken a very, very
powerful electromagnet. Turn on a little
bit there, Jeff. You can see it. It holds the magnet
like-- now turn it off. OK. This magnet is unlike your
regular magnets, which have a North and South pole
and they remain that way. This magnet is an
alternating current magnet. It's working off
the AC, and it's fluctuating back and forth. Now, that means we
can induce current. That is to say we can
take this magnetic field, put it in close proximity
to this steel bar, and cause the electrons
to flow in that winding. And it'll light this light. OK, Jeff, turn that baby up. There, you see the
light coming on. This demonstrates how you can
actually create, and control, and direct a magnetic field, and
apply that to some other object without even touching
it, you know, from distance, and induce
an electrical current. NARRATOR: The
electrical current use to run the airplane engine
could have been interrupted by a strong
electromagnetic force. If the reports are true,
and the object did indeed shoot a strong
electromagnetic beam that engulfed Noah's plane, that
beam could have shut down the engine. In the magneto of an engine,
basically on the flywheel you have a permanent magnet. And what happens is, as
the flywheel goes around it passes through this
coil and generates an electrical impulse, which
comes up to the spark plug and fires the engine off. So what we're going
to try to do now is see if we can induce a
current that this engine is not counting on that will
cause the spark to die and the engine to die, as was
alleged in the USO incident. What we want to see is that,
if we can for all intents and purposes, model
an aircraft engine, generate our own EMP or
electromagnetic pulse, and disable the
function of the engine. Guys, this is the dangerous
part, so stand back. We have an EMP generator,
which is basically a high powered electromagnet. And we have an engine. And we will direct the
magnetic field at the engine and see whether or
not we can disable it. Clear? Clear prop. OK, Jeff! Pull! OK. Cut it, Jeff. Wow. Wow. Well, that did it. This was a small demonstration
of what could have happened at a larger scale. But it did demonstrate that as
he got that magnet close in, it overpowered the coil here,
disrupted the flow of electrons to the spark plug, and
disabled the engine. What occurred to me
is that airplanes-- because everything
is lightweight. Not much steel, not much iron
used, which are things that could diffuse a magnetic field. So if there was a magnetic
field focused at said airplane, it wouldn't really have
a whole lot stopping it before it did get to the
magneto or other wiring. TED: That's true. So could you
possibly induce through this electromagnetic too
much energy to the spark plug and possibly cause
it do something? If you could generate
an extremely strong magnetic field, make
it a directable, sort of weaponized
system, it is conceivable that you could disable a
general aviation aircraft engine from a distance like 1,000 feet. This is a really great
example of taking a story that's told by one of our witnesses,
modeling it out, and showing that what he says
works in the lab. [ominous music] I believe that this area is-- is some kind of UFO hot spot,
based on the highly credible witness testimony alone. I think it's all mostly
anecdotal evidence. It's testimony and
stories from people. And, frankly, without
finding that aircraft, I don't have the scientific
evidence, the meat that I can get into to really
come to any kind of conclusion. Well, where are you with
Preston Dennett's theory, that the USO itself took the
object because there were traces of that
USO on the object? If we are to believe that
they intervened in Noah Felice's crash, then we can't
deny the possibility that they intervened again and
did something with the plane. [music playing] The science behind USOs
says it's enormously possible. Our witnesses that
we've interviewed, phenomenally credible. In fact, their stories
are frightening. We have documentation
going all the way back to Christopher Columbus. And from Christopher Columbus,
all the way to recent calls to the sheriff's
station up in Lost Hills that people have seen USOs. You put all of these
together, and I believe that USOs are real. I believe they're real. I believe you're out there. I believe they're here
and have been here for thousands of years.
