(digital chirping)
(suspenseful music) (radio static) - [Narrator] In 2017, this New York Times headline
shocked the world. A clandestine US
government program had been investigating UFOs. - [Male One] The Pentagon
has confirmed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program that studied UFOs, and
they released video. - [Pilot] There's
a whole fleet of 'em. My gosh. - [Narrator] For eight
years, the secret program was run by this
man, Luis Elizondo. - Time and time again,
we were coming up with these mystery objects, performing in a way
that defies logic. - [Narrator] Frustrated by
what he says was a cover up, Elizondo quit and joined forces with an elite group of
former government insiders. - [Luis] We're gonna figure out how to get to the bottom of it. - [Narrator] Now they
have one mission. To expose what they say
is the truth about UFOs. - [Male Two] US airspace
is being violated by vehicles of unknown origin with advanced capabilities. - [Male Three] It
was raining UFOs. - [Luis] I put my entire
career and future on the line because I believe
in what I believe in. - Carl Sagan once famously said, extraordinary claims
require extraordinary proof. He was absolutely right. But now we have proof. (suspenseful music) - [Narrator] Luis Elizondo is on his way to
interview a key eyewitness to one of the most stunning
UFO events in recent history. - [Luis] We're trying to
build a case here for the jury and so when you're building
a case for the jury, there is nothing more compelling
than eyewitness testimony. They were there, and by the
way they're trained observers. These are people who
can think critically. And this particular pilot
has never given an interview about this incident, ever. - [Narrator] In 2004,
this Navy fighter pilot was training for deployment aboard the USS Nimitz
Aircraft Carrier. Now a high-ranking
officer, this is her first on-camera interview
about the incident. She wants to keep
her identity hidden due to the sensitivity of
what she's about to say. - I wanna make sure that
everybody in this room understands that her identity
has to remain protected at all times, so with that
includes when you're writing notes on email
back to executives. Hey, that was a
great interview with. Don't write that. Don't put it in there. Just say the pilot. So that's the wingman pilot. I still have a security
clearance so as a result we will not be discussing
anything classified at all during this interview. In fact if at any time, anything is discussed
that's classified we will stop the interview
right there and then. - [Wingman Pilot] Sure. - [Narrator] Elizondo
was still bound by an oath of secrecy, so
he hopes testimony like this will force the government to
acknowledge UFOs are a threat to national security,
and to take action. - Because this issue
is such kryptonite inside the national
security establishment, he needed to figure
out a way to do it so that what he's gathering
could be made public. These are not crazy people
that are reporting this stuff. These are the people that
we entrust our security to. - [Luis] Why don't we just
start from the beginning. - [Wingman Pilot] We were
operating off the coast of California in a designated
military working area with our carrier strike group. We had launched to
perform a practice fight against each other to rehearse our maneuvers. - [Narrator] On
November 14th, 2004, this pilot took off from
the deck of the Nimitz, as the wingman to a second jet, flown by her squadron commander. (airplane engine scereaming) She soon found
herself in the middle of one of the most significant
UFO encounters on record. - [Luis] It was daylight and--
- [Wingman Pilot] Oh yeah. - It wasn't in the
middle of the night? - [Wingman Pilot] Clear blue
skies, middle of the day. - [Narrator] Normally
fighter pilots are directed by a radar plane, known as a hawk eye. (female speaking over radio)
But the two F/A-18 super hornets are suddenly
redirected by controllers on the USS Princeton. - [Wingman Pilot] We were
interrupted by a shipborne controller. Their tone was urgent and their requests were, unusual. This is not an exercise. This is a real-world intercept. Didn't have much experience. I thought maybe it's a
drug run or something coming up the coast of Mexico. And I thought, wow
that'd be cool. - [Narrator] With no
information about their target, as the two jets arrive at
the designated location, they're confused. - [Wingman Pilot] My heart sank. There was something
in the water. There was a churning, and I went from being
sort of giddy, excited, to thinking, oh my God, now
we're on-scene commanders of a wreck, somebody's
crashed and, you know this aircraft
is sinking. - [Luis] And this is when
you notice an object. - [Wingman Pilot] We
were all clamoring to get on the radio. Do you see, in the water, what the ---- is that? - [Narrator] A bizarre
craft is hovering over the churning water. - What does it look like? - [Wingman Pilot] No windows. No flight surfaces. - So no wings at all? No wings, no? - [Wingman Pilot] Smooth, white. No intakes, no smoke trail. It looked like a giant Tic Tac. - [Luis] Give me a rough size. - [Wingman Pilot] Maybe 40 feet. - Okay, 40 feet, fair enough. - [Wingman Pilot] Large enough
to scare the ---- out of me. It was so unnerving because it was so unpredictable. High G, rapid velocity,
rapid acceleration. So you're wondering:
"how could I possibly fight this?" We have no ordinance onboard, unless one of us ram this thing, which, the way it
was maneuvering would have been impossible, so I stayed in high cover. - [Narrator] The wingman
watched from above as her commander flies
directly at the strange craft. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Now Elizondo
is on his way to interview the other pilot in
the air that day. The wingman's commander. - These are reports
from military pilots. They've been in combat,
and this is something that they cannot explain and it's shaking
them up to the point that they're willing to risk
their professional standing by coming forward
and talking about it. - Brother Dave, how are you? - What's up Brother Luis,
how you doin' man? - [David] I'm doin' better
than I deserve, how you doin'? - [Luis] Good, boy you
live in a castle, man. - I wouldn't call it a castle. - [Narrator] Retired US
Navy commander David Fravor led the Black Ace's squadron, flying combat missions over
the Middle East and Africa. He now works in
the private sector as an aeronautics consultant. - [Luis] ...due to this sudden
and instantaneous acceleration - [Luis] Commander Fravor
is a very rare breed. He's one of the few folks that actually run towards
danger, not away from it. - [Narrator] Fravor was the
wingman's commanding officer that day over the Pacific. - [Wingman Pilot] He had
that fighter instinct, so it wasn't surprising
his actions on that day. - I really wanted
to see what it was. I mean, if I could have
joined right up on it and got like Blue Angel close, then I probably
would have done that. - [Narrator] As Fravor
attempted to get a closer look, his wingman watched from above. - [Wingman Pilot] This object
seemed to recognize that we were there, and went
from this very low altitude to maneuvering in an
erratic, very rapid manner. So hair on the back of
my neck is standing up. I'm thinking I'm gonna be
watching a disaster here. (digital chirping) - Most of my questions
are gonna be focused on the five interrogatives. The who, what, when,
where, how, and why. Just like we're
doing a terrorism or an espionage investigation. - [Narrator] Luis Elizondo
may be the most significant US official to ever claim
the UFO phenomenon is real. For two decades, he served as
a counterintelligence officer for the Department of Defense. - Luis is in many
ways an enigma. Here is a guy who has
spent decades, really, in the intelligence community. - Whether it was the
Taliban or it was Al-Qaeda or it was ISIS, or it
was Guantanamo Bay, he had to deal with all of it. - [Narrator] In 2009, Elizondo took over
the $22 million Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program, or AATIP, that investigated
encounters between UFOs and the US military. - [Pilot on radio] What the
hell is that, man? Look at it fly! - We were made
aware of many, many, many, many incidents. It remains a sensitive number. Those numbers are increasing
on a regular routine basis. Some of these incidents
are very, very recent, and very compelling. - [Narrator] But in 2017, he
made the shocking announcement. He was walking away from
a 20-year military career and going public. I had tried in vain to
work within the silos of the organization,
but I ultimately left the Department of Defense because of my loyalty
to the department and to the secretary,
not disloyalty. - [Narrator] For the past year, Unidentified's cameras
have had exclusive access to Elizondo and his new team as they track down
military personnel willing to go on the record with their incredible
encounters with UFOs. (car doors slamming
and engine starting) - You are able to
provide a play-by-play of what actually went
down those moments that you were
encountering that Tic Tac. - That's correct. - So all that's gonna
be hugely important. - [Narrator] Today, he's
meeting with one of the Navy's top former fighter pilots who came face-to-face with a
Tic Tac shaped UFO in 2004. - [David] Flying a Navy fighter
is probably one of the most spectacular jobs
you could ever have in the entire world. It's like a rollercoaster
times 10,000. And I got to do it in some
semblance of a tactical airplane for 18 years. - [Narrator] On
November 14th, 2004, Commander David Fravor and his wingman pilot took off from the USS Nimitz,
which was on maneuvers south of Sand Diego. - [David] I was the
commanding officer of strike fighter squadron
41 the Black Aces. We flying brand
new super hornets. - [Narrator] The nuclear
powered USS Nimitz was the lead vessel of
a carrier strike group that included the destroyers, USS Higgins and Chafee, the attack submarine
USS Louisville, and the radar-equipped missile
cruiser, USS Princeton. - If you asked any
senior military officer, what is the crown jewel of
the American military arsenal? They would say the aircraft
carrier battle group. If we have to go into
combat sometime quickly, it's likely gonna be a
carrier battle group that's gonna be there first and it's gonna be
in action first. - [David] It was an
air defense exercise. Two good guys against
two bad guys. Probably 70 miles, 60
miles off the coast in the gap between San
Diego and Ensenada. - [Narrator] Suddenly,
the pilots are contacted by radar operators
on the Princeton. - [David] The Princeton control
comes up and says: "We're gonna suspend training." "We have real-world tasking." - [Narrator] The
pilots are revectored to a new destination,
but aren't told why. - So we start heading
off to the west. The other plane is
on my left hand side. - [Wingman Pilot] I was
the junior pilot trying to keep up
with the senior pilot in the lead aircraft. - [David] We're looking, we
don't see anything on our radars at all, and we're talking to each other trying to figure this out. - [Narrator] The Princeton's
AEGIS SPY-1 radar system is powerful enough
to track an object as small as a baseball, at an altitude of 80,000 feet, but the jets are flying blind. - [Wingman Pilot] We're trying
to see what was out there, which is difficult when you
know what you're looking for. It's even harder
when you don't know what you're looking for. - So it goes down,
60, 50, 40, 30, 20, it gets all the way down. They get to a point where
they can't separate us from the blimp. They call it merge plot, which means you're
in the same space at whatever you're looking for and you gotta start
looking outside because the radar
can't help you anymore. - [Narrator] Then far
below in the water, they see what looks
like a plane crash, or a submerging submarine. (radio chatter) But the weapons officer in
the rear seat of Fravor's jet spots something else. I hear, hey skipper, do you see, and as he's saying that, I notice the Tic Tac. It's white, it has no wings. It has no rotors. I go, holy, what is that? He goes, I don't know. - [Narrator] According
to this leaked summary of the incident,
contact was made here, 30 miles off the coast. 70 miles south of the
US, Mexico border. At first, the strange craft stays close to the surface, moving unlike anything
the pilots had ever seen. - This thing would
go instantaneous from one way to another, similar to if you
threw a ping pong ball against a wall. And we start to kind of orbit 'cause now we're gonna
watch this thing. So we start a right hand turn. And we're going
from a clock code, the object is in the
middle of the clock, and we're at six o'clock, and we're driving
around in circles. So we get to about nine o'clock and it's just still doing
its little erratic thing, kind moving around this
disturbance in the water, and I go, hey, I'm
gonna go check it out. I'll go down there. As we're coming
down nice and easy, we get to about the
12 o'clock position, and all of a sudden it
goes, verp, and it kinda turns, and now it's mirroring us and it starts coming up. Now it knows we're here. - [Wingman Pilot] It
seemed to be aware and it seems to recognize him. - It goes from basically
just almost a hover into a pretty aggressive
climb up to our altitude, so there's a bit of fear because now you're out
there dealing with something that you have no
idea what it is. It's actually reacting
to what we're doing. - I kind pull a nose
to where he's gonna be, and he's coming up, he
just rapidly accelerates beyond anything
that I've ever seen, crosses my nose, and it's gone. And I'm like, whoa. - [Narrator] The Tic Tac
appears to have vanished, but as the jets streak
towards a pre-arranged rendez-vous location
known as the cap point, the radio channel
becomes frantic. - The controller from
the Princeton comes up right as we're doing
all this and says, hey sir you're not
gonna believe this. He goes, but that thing
is at your cap point. - [Narrator]
According to Fravor, the Tic Tac accelerated
from a standing position and flew approximately 60
miles in under a minute. As fast as 3,700 miles an hour. How did the Tic Tac know
the pilot's cap point? And how did it
accelerate so quickly? - You got something
that could accelerate and disappear and then
show up 60 miles away. Kind of in awe a little
bit 'cause you go whoa, we don't have that. I'm talking, we're
flying a, one of the premiere airplanes
on the planet. What was this? There was a
capability out there. Don't know where it's from. Not saying it's
from outer space, but not saying it's
from here, either. - [Narrator] Back on the Nimitz, the pilots tell the
rest of the squadron what just happened. - The next crew
is getting ready. So we're talking
to them about this and they're like, you
gotta be kidding me. - [Wingman Pilot] They
took us seriously. And the WSO, the guy
in the backseat said, I'm gonna go find it. - [Narrator] The
next jet to launch had a targeting pod with an
infrared sensor and camera. - [David] It jammed the radar but he got a lock on it and that's the
video that you see. That doesn't weird you out,
I don't know what does. (suspenseful music) - [Luis] Hey guys, how are you? - Good Lu, how are you? - [Luis] Good. Hopefully you can shed
some light on a few things. - [Narrator] On
November 14th, 2004, two pilots launch
from the USS Nimitz and intercepted a
UFO over the Pacific, south of San Diego. - What does it look like? - [Wingman Pilot] No windows,
no flight surfaces. It looked like a giant Tic Tac. - [Narrator] They
believe this video, recorded later that day by
a pilot from their squadron, shows the UFO they saw. It's one of three Department
of Defense UFO videos Luis Elizondo helped
get released to the public. - When the three
videos came out, there was this shock
by the world community that oh my gosh,
these are real videos. This effort that
we are embarking on I think is gonna change
the conversation forever. - [Narrator] Now
Elizondo is meeting with two leading
aviation experts to analyze the videos, and see if they can
help explain the pilots' extraordinary encounters. - [Luis] What I'd like to do is
go through these videos very carefully and get
your thoughts on these. The providence on these videos
is very well established. They are genuine
DOD military videos. - [Narrator] Retired
lieutenant colonel Chris Cooke is a top gun pilot who spent a career
flying the military's most sophisticated fighter jets. Ross Aimer flew
commercial aircraft for more than four decades and works as a consultant for the National
Transportation Safety Board. It's the first time the
three men have spoken. - So the first video
I'm gonna show you this afternoon was taken
in the 2004 timeframe. - [Narrator] The first
video shows the Tic Tac shaped object seen
by the Nimitz pilots, captured by an F-18's
infrared camera. - [Wingman Pilot] If you looked
at it out of context you'd think, oh this is
just another UFO video, but from my perspective
he absolutely captured what we saw earlier in the day. - [Narrator] The
grainy 90-second video shows the Tic Tac flying slowly, then zipping away at
what appears to be a high rate of speed. - [Chris] The altitude is
20,000 feet. We're in the TV mode
now so it's visual. - [Narrator] The display's
indicators are familiar to the pilots, but the
image onscreen is confusing. - [Chris] It doesn't appear to
have any characteristics of any normal aircraft
that I've witnessed flying. - [Narrator] The experts
wonder how the craft is staying airborne
without wings. - [Ross] No flight control
surfaces, I don't see that. - [Chris] Does not look like
an aircraft to me. - Yeah. - [Narrator] But in these
images of a fighter jet, also shot with an
infrared camera, the heat from the engine
is clearly visible. - [Chris] Everything we know
about propulsion systems is they create an
intense amount of heat, so if it was a
conventional type aircraft, you would most definitely
see some type of an - Heat. IR signature plume - Signature, yeah. behind the airplane. - [Luis]Interesting. - If you wanna defy Earth's
gravitational force, the way to do it is
with either a propeller to mechanically displace air. Jet engine to compress air and to create an equal,
opposite reaction, or a chemical explosion
like a missile or a rocket. Each one of those has
a telltale signature, yet here are things
that are able to seemingly effortlessly defy
Earth's gravitational force and maneuver in ways that are complete contrary to anything that we would
presume should be able to fly. - [Narrator] The ability
to fly without wings or an engine is one of five
distinct characteristics Elizondo's Pentagon team
discovered. He calls it the observables. He considers them the program's
breakthrough discovery. Anti-gravity, the ability to fly without apparent means
of propulsion, or lift. Instantaneous acceleration, the ability to reach
a high rate of speed in a short amount of time. Hypersonic velocity, speeds over 3,700
miles per hour. Five times the speed of sound. Low observability, a capacity to cloak or conceal. Trans-medium travel, the ability to move
through space, air, and water. - [Luis] Any one of these, mind
you, would be an absolute strategic game changer for
any foreign adversary to have. And yet, here we have
things doing all five. - Nobody that I know is
aware of some break though that we've made in technology that could allow
aircraft to do what these reportedly are doing. - [Narrator] Bryan Bender
is one of the reporters who broke the story of the
Pentagon's secret UFO program. - These aircraft seem
to defy all of the known aerodynamic properties
that we're familiar with. - So, let's let the
film keep rolling. - [Narrator] The object
the Navy pilot is tracking suddenly seems to get bigger. - So what just happened
there, what's he doing? - [Chris] He's changing
the zoom. - [Narrator] The object then
appears to accelerate rapidly, disappearing off screen. - That's a significant
rate of acceleration in a horizontal plane
off to the left. That's very fast. - [Narrator] The object
appears to perform a similar maneuver to
what the pilots witnessed. - We're all amazed at
how fast this thing just took off and disappeared. - [Narrator] Instantaneous
acceleration at this rate would produce a force of gravity or g-force so extreme it
would crush a human being. - I have no idea
what that thing is. It is not acting like a-- - Aircraft. - It's not acting like anything
I've ever seen. - [Ross] Yeah. If there are vehicles out there, aircraft that are doing
things aerodynamically that we've never
even thought of, then I think we
potentially could have real trouble down the road. (light music) - There was another
F-18 that was flying with Commander Dave Fravor
that day and for the first time frankly ever, we were able
to talk to that individual. Um, there was some
frustration and frankly there was a little bit of fear. - [Narrator] Lu Elizondo
is briefing his team on new information he's learned about the USS Nimitz incident. This elite group of
former government insiders was formed in 2017. Bound by their conviction,
that the craft in these videos must be investigated. - We can make a
difference and do things because we have the
connections and the network and if we can continue to
establish credibility with people on the hill
and the executive branch we might be able to
take this the next step. - [Narrator] Chris Mellon
served as Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Intelligence. Steve Justice was a
top aviation engineer at Lockheed Martin's
legendary Skunk Works. Al Puthoff was a
scientist for the CIA. - [Bryan] If you were trying to
come up with the A-team of former high-level
government officials who would come
forward on this issue, you can't really think
of a better team. Lu Elizondo, Chris
Mellon, these are guys who still have
security clearances, still have networks
in Washington, still are in the
business if you will. Chris Mellon who's put his
entire family's reputation on the line to do this. Steve Justice left a very lucrative job at Lockheed's
Skunk Works to do this. - [Narrator] But by far
the most unlikely member of Elizondo's new
team is the man who brought them all together. (applause) - [Tom] The last show I played was in front of 100,000 people. The lights and the pyrotechnics
and all that stuff was going off right behind me and then they wonder why I'm
not doing that now. (slate clicks) - [Interviewer] So back
it up, introduce yourself. - Yeah, my name is Tom Delonge a lot of people know me
for my band Blink-182, I started that
band when I was 16 but I got to that point where
my daughter was two years old and I was gone for
two years straight and I really really
needed a break. The only other thing I was
ever interested in was UFOs. - [Narrator] Delonge
walked away from stardom and dedicated
himself to disclosing what he believes is
the truth about UFOs. - I needed to get
in the government and I needed to find the people
that deal with this subject and let them know what
I'm thinking of doing. - [Narrator] Delonge says he
was able to secure a meeting with a high-level
Aerospace Executive with deep connections
to the military. - All of a sudden out of
nowhere I had an opening and I just go, I am not
naive to the subject, I understand the national
security implications of this subject but I
am asking for your help because I need guidance. I just need somebody to
help me and give me advice and he leans back
and he goes, "okay". That's when my life
changed completely. - [Narrato] Soon Delonge
was covertly communicating with powerful people including
General William McCasland, the former head of a
billion-dollar Air Force research lab and John Podesta, the
former presidential advisor who once said his biggest
regret in the White House was not releasing the
government's UFO files. - Tom called me out
of the blue, sort of, "who is this fellow and
why is he calling me" and we began to chat
and I began to chat with some of the other
people he was talking to and he clearly was establishing
a network of people who had serious credentials. There are people like me who
see this as an incredible mystery and enigma that
needs to be resolved. - [Narrator] Delonge says they were all part
of an elite group of high-ranking officials
dedicated to UFO disclosure but they wanted to
remain in the shadows. - [Tom] Do you think
there's a way over time that we can open up some
of these discussions, declassify material? - We ought to be serious about
investigating what's going on Other countries have done
that, other countries have declassified the
information they've had. - He's one of the most tenacious
individuals I've ever met. He got to the highest
levels of the US government to include Podesta. (audience cheering) - [Hillary] Hello, South LA. (audience cheering) - [Narrator] But in
October 2016, on the eve of the heated
Presidential Election, Delonge was thrust
into a media storm. - [Female Reporter] WikiLeaks
released more emails. - [Male Reporter] The result,
it appears, of massive hacks into the National
Democratic Committee, private email account of
Clinton Campaign Chair, John Podesta, and
who knows who else. - [Narrator] Delonge's
communications with John Podesta and others were stolen
by Russian hackers and published
online by Wikileaks. - The one rule they
had is we will help you but don't go out and
tell anybody who we are, that's the only ------- rule. - [Narrator] Overnight
Delonge found himself at the center of the
decades-old debate about UFOs. (engine purrs) - I think a lot
of people thought that Tom Delonge was being
used, was being used as a tool. They'll tell him some stuff
that's not true and it'll be a diversion and we'll fool the
Russians or fool the Chinese. - [Narrator] George Knapp is
an investigative journalist who has reported
extensively about UFOs. - No, no I think Tom DeLonge
has plotted out his own course. He's got some
really good advisors who are not part
of the government. All of these events
that have happened are because Tom DeLonge
used shoe leather, knocked on doors,
made phone calls. What Tom has started in the
last year is unprecedented, I think in the history of
the study of this field. - [Narrator] By
the fall of 2017, DeLonge had assembled his team. - Thanks for joining us
live today... - [Narrator] Then he
learned the head of the Pentagon secret UFO Program had resigned in protest
and wanted to join forces. - It was Luis Elizondo,
he was the guy that I wasn't supposed
to know his name ever. It was the guy that
worked at the office of the Director of
National Intelligence. And they said, but
there's one other thing. There's the first
three videos of UFOs are going to be declassified for the first time
in US history. [Pilot 1 on radio]
Oh my gosh dude. - [Pilot 2 on radio]
Wow, what is that? - [Pilot 1 on radio]
Look at it fly.
(laughs) - [Police Officer on radio]
Building number one is on fire. - [Dispatch] The whole
outside of the building there was just a huge explosion. - [Narrator] Chris Mellon
understands what it means for America to be under attack. On 9/11, he was one of the
highest ranking officials inside the Pentagon. - I have lived through and
survived intelligence failures including the attack
on the Pentagon. This was a group of 20
guys with no special skills or capabilities or technology and they were able to wreck
massive havoc on our country. To me, what is most
interesting about this case, most pilots don't report
these kinds of incidents and more people are bringing
information in case it does which is a sign that, you
know, we're establishing some credibility
and some presence. - [Narrator] Now Mellon's
out of government, part of an elite team
of investigators, raising the alarm
about what they see as another potential
aerial threat. - [Chris] What is really
motivating me right now is the Nimitz case. We had multiple naval aviators and what they saw
in broad daylight over an extended period
of time was corroborated by the most sophisticated
sensor systems, air defense systems on earth. Any reasonable person
would have to conclude defies present understanding
of what aircraft are capable of doing,
it was clearly something beyond the compare. - Chris Mellon's is
an innocent character. He's never been very
public, his jobs have sort of demanded him
to work behind the curtain. - [Narrator] Mellon hails
from one of America's richest and most powerful families. The Mellon's made
fortunes in oil, aluminum, and banking and wielded
power for generations. But Chris Mellon found his
calling in Intelligence. Overseeing the budgets for some of America's most
secret programs. - [Chris] I was at the Senate
Armed Services Committee and a report emerged
indicating the United States had lost a nuclear
weapon, so they sent me to try to find out what happened
to the missing nuke warhead. - Back when I was
a junior person in the Department of Defense, we all knew who
Christopher Mellon was. This was a man who
had all the secrets. - [Chris] I was in area 51
talking to some guys there, working some
programs and I said, do you guys ever see
anything really strange? I was almost embarrassed
to even ask about it because of the stigma
surrounding the topic and much to my surprise
these guys said, yeah we see some really
strange stuff here at night. - [Narrator] The
deeper Mellon looked into the controversial
subject, the more he began to question, why the government
was doing nothing about it. - [Bryan] Here's a guy who
presumably would know, or be able to find
out if these sightings were related to some very
secret military program that these Nimitz pilots for
example, were not aware of and clearly Chris doesn't
seem to think that these instances were military aircraft
being tested in secret. He feels so strongly about it that he came out of the shadows when it's not really
in his DNA to do that. - [Narrator] Chris
Mellon and Lu Elizondo weren't the only officials
within the government concerned about a
potential threat. The Pentagon secret
UFO unit, AATIP was established by a
small group of Senators including former
astronaut John Glenn, World War II veterans Daniel
Inouye and Ted Stevens and former Senate Majority
Leader, Harry Reid. - It's amazing
that an individual who worked at such a
high level for so long is a majority leader of
the United States Senate, would choose this among
all of the myriad of issues that he engaged on, with
all of the challenges confronting our country today and this is one that he chooses, in the twilight of his
career, to try to carry forward. - In 2009, Reid sent this letter to the Deputy
Secretary of Defense arguing America needed to study the potentially groundbreaking technology behind
these bizarre craft. Before it got into the
hands of our enemies, Reid requested a small unit with one of the highest
levels of secrecy. It was the birth of AATIP. - He's making that case and
that the strategic implications are so great that we have to
accord it special protection. - [Narrator] This
wasn't the first time the US government studied UFOs. The Air Force launched
Project Blue Book in 1952, when a rash of UFO sightings
put the nation on edge. - This is David Brinkley
in the radar room at Washington National Airport. On these radar
screens last Saturday, they saw something strange
and unusual and at the moment unexplainable it
was not an airplane, it was not a cloud that
nobody knows what it was. - [Narrator] For the next 17
years, the Air Force studied over 12,000 UFO sightings
and found 701 cases that couldn't be explained but they concluded the incidents posed no national
security threat and officially shut Project
Blue Book down in 1969. - It wasn't lack of
compelling information, it was actually the result
of compelling information. Ultimately they determined
that they needed to tamp down the concern,
the public concern, in part because
during the Cold War this could create
some kind of hysteria and overwhelm our
air defense systems. So, the government
behind the scenes concluded that they needed
to discredit this phenomenon. - [Narrator] Mellon
claims Project Blue Book created a stigma around UFOs that continues to this
day inside the military. - I talk to people in the
Pentagon who had relayed that they were concerned
it was gonna make the Defense Intelligence
Agency look bad, they were more concerned
about the optics of it. - [Luis] I wonder if at some
point this is gonna go down as a historical document where
people are gonna look back and say, you know
it doesn't matter what side of the
aisle you're on, that was heroic. (jet engine hissing) - [Wingman Pilot] I was never
formally debriefed and I wasn't taken seriously, (laughs)
um, for years. - [Narrator] For over a decade, the accounts of two
Navy fighter pilots of an encounter with
an unidentified craft South of San Diego were
dismissed by the U.S. Navy. - [Wingman Pilot] If I had
been a single seat pilot and I had encountered
it by myself, I probably wouldn't
have said anything. I wouldn't want to risk
my security clearance, I wouldn't want to
risk people thinking I was a freak or crazy. - You actually get four
people that are eyewitnesses to the performance of this thing
and then nothing gets done. So the frustration that
comes out of that is why? - It was not only ridiculed
but then the Intel people didn't seem to be
interested in their story. It was the worst of both worlds. - [Narrator] For months,
Lu Elizondo and former Assistant Deputy Secretary
of Defense for Intelligence, Chris Mellon, had been
working behind the scenes to organize a meeting
between the two pilots and members of Congress. - If people see the
evidence, they'll understand and they'll find it compelling. Sometimes it's only by
bringing the information public and bringing to the
attention of Congress that you get action. - [Narrator] Elizondo is
driving across the country and one of the pilots,
retired Navy Commander, David Fravor, calls to tell him the unprecedented meeting
has just taken place. - Fantastic and they asked
you some hard good questions? On the record, oh
my God, phenomenal. - [Narrator] Fravor
tells Elizondo, that he and his wing man pilot met in secret with
members of congress responsible for national
security. - Holy ---- dude. - [Narrator] The Senators
don't want their names revealed because of the
sensitivity of the issue. The press was not
informed and the meeting is not found on any
official schedule. - Do you feel positive
that it was well received? Well congratulations, you just
made history brother, again. For the first time in
history, the US Senators will agree for
the record on UFOs affecting US military
aircraft and operations. - [Narrator] For Elizondo,
this meeting is the first step in an effort to
wake lawmakers up to a serious threat
to national security. - How does this story end? - [Wingman Pilot] I have no idea
who it was or what it was. Maybe it's Elon Musk
or somebody out there coming up with some, you
know, disruptive technology that's gonna change our lives
like an iPhone. You know, if you'd show me an
iPhone when I was in high school I would've thought
it was vudu magic. I hope it ends peacefully. - You have to ask
yourself, is it ET, or is it Independence Day,
you know, what's the intent? And right now we don't know. (light music) - [Luis] I promise I will try
not to yammer on too long. I don't think necessarily
disclosure as an event, I think it's a process, and
I think that process began. We trust the American
people to know that there are certain countries
that have nuclear warheads pointed at New York
and Los Angeles that could wipe out millions
of people in an instant and yet we don't trust
American people to know that there's something
in our airspace and we don't know what it is. There's a lot more I
don't know than I do know, but that's okay. That's why we have to continue
to seek to find the answers, and collect the data
cause ultimately the data will speak for itself. - I think the public is
closer to understanding the UFO mystery than at
any time in my lifetime, it's astonishing and yeah,
it's a little bit scary. (suspenseful music) - [Male Attendee] What's
worst case scenario? Have you thought about it? - Well let me tell you,
I've thought about it, I'll tell you already, it's
too late, cause it's here. So, we have a choice, we
can live with our heads buried in the sand
and hope it goes away or we can take our
head out of the sand and try to figure
out how it works but it doesn't really care
what we think in this room because it's here. - [Narrator] This season
on Unidentified. - [Pilot] There's a whole
fleet of them, my gosh. Look at that thing, dude. - Never forget those voices. - You know those voices?
- I know those guys, yeah. - [Narrator] Elizondo's mission to track down more eyewitnesses. - If I hadn't seen
it with my own eyes, I don't know if I would've
believed it either. (shooting noises) - It was raining UFOs. - [Narrator] Leads him to
reveal a disturbing pattern. - [Man] They disappeared
down off the coast. I could tell you
the lat and long. - I saw it disappear,
suddenly it (swooshing noise), it moved (swooshing
noise) like that, fast. - [Narrator] And to expose
an even larger threat. - These UFOs had an intense
interest in anything nuclear. - [Narrator] What are they
and where are they from? - The beams went down into
the weapon storage area and I'm thinking, oh my God. - Now these objects
have a global presence. - Helicopter arrived and they requested all the data
recording. - They didn't want the world
to know which is scary. You don't what else
they're covering up. - [Chris] Unidentified vehicles
are operating at will in restricted
airspace, just minutes from the nation's capital. - [Man] Thousands
of people experience unidentified flying objects. - [Pilot] What the
---- is that thing? - It's time to look into it. You can't ignore facts. (eerie music)
Isn’t the “Wingman Pilot” Lt. Alex Dietrich? She was in 60minutes Documentary released a year ago.
I recommend watching the whole season 1 and the first episodes of season 2, if you're interested in the 2004 USS Nimitz UFO.
Here's a post with every episode of every season of the "Unidentified" History Channel show:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOB/comments/v9ttvq/unidentified_inside_americas_ufo_investigations/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Former U.S. government insiders brought together by rock star Tom DeLonge team up to reveal what the government knows about UFOs. This groundbreaking effort is led by Luis "Lue" Elizondo.
Haven't watched it yet. Is it worth watching? Is it a hypemachine and reality drama style stuff? Or there are some actual information in there?
Frankly I don’t think governments know so much about ufo. Imagine you could travel millions of km in space with such a technology but you came to the earth and crash the plane? Doesn’t make any sense, I believe aliens are real though. What are aliens? Could be coming from different dimensions or maybe even different universe and that universe has different elements we don’t have in this universe.
I guess now that TTS has changed shape we won't get a season 3?
I personally really liked this episode.