1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,000 January the 8th, 2008. 2 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,000 It was approximately 6 p.m. in the afternoon. 3 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,000 Then the sun was just going down. 4 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:23,000 And my buddy Mike Odom called me and says he wanted to come over 5 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:24,000 and enjoy the afternoon. 6 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,000 We'll be able to camp fire up on the hill and just hang out. 7 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:28,000 And shoot the breeze. 8 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:30,000 And I said, sure can. 9 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:33,000 The second I got out of my pickup, I noticed some lights coming at us 10 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:35,000 at a very high rate of speed. 11 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:39,000 I asked Mike and Lance if they was seeing what I was seeing. 12 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:43,000 They replied back, yes, we're seeing it. 13 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,000 We saw craft coming from the east going west. 14 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:49,000 We saw the wind blowing through the trees. 15 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:51,000 We saw the wind blowing through the trees. 16 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:53,000 We saw the wind blowing through the trees. 17 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,000 We saw the wind blowing through the trees. 18 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:56,000 The wind was blowing through the trees. 19 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:58,000 The trees were going west. 20 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:01,000 The trees were going west. 21 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:06,000 It had extremely large lights, like a magnesium flare. 22 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:08,000 It almost burnt your eyes to look at it. 23 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:12,000 And it was moving extremely fast, faster than any normal aircraft 24 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:14,000 that we have around here. 25 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:19,000 And as we watched it, we saw that it had two F-16 jets in hot pursuit 26 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,000 after it, chasing it. 27 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:23,400 I know what an F-16 is. 28 00:01:23,500 --> 00:01:26,100 I'll go to air shows and pretty familiar with aircraft. 29 00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:30,340 It was unbelievable. 30 00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:32,880 It left us all in shock. 31 00:01:32,980 --> 00:01:35,580 You know, it was out of this world. 32 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:44,760 Last week, several people in Stephenville, Texas, 33 00:01:44,860 --> 00:01:47,200 witnessed what many are calling a UFO. 34 00:01:47,300 --> 00:01:51,600 The Air Force has lied about UFOs for 60 years, actually. 35 00:01:51,620 --> 00:01:54,300 And this would be in keeping with that. 36 00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:56,200 In the late 40s and early 50s, 37 00:01:56,300 --> 00:01:59,740 there was so many sightings across the United States. 38 00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:01,240 It was in the middle of Cold War, 39 00:02:01,340 --> 00:02:03,800 so government officials were trying to figure out 40 00:02:03,900 --> 00:02:05,840 what these objects were. 41 00:02:05,940 --> 00:02:10,520 The government examined over 12,000 UFO sightings. 42 00:02:10,620 --> 00:02:13,220 Many of those were striking resemblance 43 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:15,180 to what we're seeing today. 44 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:17,960 There have been a certain percentage of reports 45 00:02:18,020 --> 00:02:22,860 by credible observers of relatively incredible things. 46 00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:25,020 The Air Force, I think, for a time 47 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:27,460 may have been making an honest effort 48 00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:30,200 to clear the air about the phenomenon. 49 00:02:30,300 --> 00:02:32,340 Unfortunately, it didn't last too long. 50 00:02:32,440 --> 00:02:35,800 To this time, there is no valid scientific proof 51 00:02:35,900 --> 00:02:38,940 that we have been visited by spaceships. 52 00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:41,640 They were inundated by these reports 53 00:02:41,740 --> 00:02:44,480 and just wanted to be done with the whole thing. 54 00:02:44,580 --> 00:02:46,280 We are not hiding anything. 55 00:02:46,300 --> 00:02:47,900 We have nothing too high. 56 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:52,180 This became the launch of taboo on a more official level. 57 00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:54,680 Ridicule became sanctioned. 58 00:02:54,780 --> 00:02:56,480 I would like to have answers, 59 00:02:56,580 --> 00:02:58,620 but I'm not sure if we'll ever get any. 60 00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:02,420 We get reports every night. 61 00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:03,760 I don't know what's happening. 62 00:03:03,860 --> 00:03:06,100 It's just like a road peg right around it. 63 00:03:06,200 --> 00:03:08,260 I'd like to report a UFO. 64 00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:20,680 In 2017, two colleagues and I published a story 65 00:03:20,780 --> 00:03:21,780 in The New York Times 66 00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:25,280 about a secret Pentagon program studying UFOs. 67 00:03:25,380 --> 00:03:27,480 The story was on the front page of The New York Times 68 00:03:27,580 --> 00:03:28,580 and it was huge. 69 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:30,980 It was covered everywhere, all over the world. 70 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:34,660 It was like such a sea change for me as a journalist 71 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:38,200 and also for the issue of UFOs in general. 72 00:03:38,300 --> 00:03:40,000 For most people, this was the first time 73 00:03:40,100 --> 00:03:42,660 they heard anything about any official relationship 74 00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:44,700 between the government and UFOs. 75 00:03:45,700 --> 00:03:47,920 But actually, in the late 1940s, 76 00:03:48,020 --> 00:03:50,760 the government was really starting to wake up 77 00:03:50,860 --> 00:03:53,700 to what this issue was really all about. 78 00:03:55,700 --> 00:03:57,800 It's extremely important to understand 79 00:03:57,900 --> 00:04:02,300 that the Cold War affected both the perception of UFOs 80 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:05,040 and how it was handled by the military. 81 00:04:05,140 --> 00:04:09,580 It's hard for us today to remember what the mindset was, 82 00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:11,080 but it was dire. 83 00:04:11,180 --> 00:04:14,180 It was life and death between the United States 84 00:04:14,260 --> 00:04:15,880 and the Soviet Union. 85 00:04:15,980 --> 00:04:18,480 There was people out with binoculars all over the country, 86 00:04:18,580 --> 00:04:21,680 constantly searching the skies for a Russian strike. 87 00:04:22,780 --> 00:04:24,980 It was only natural that during the Cold War, 88 00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:28,780 UFOs sort of got folded into this overriding fear 89 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:32,080 of what might attack us at any given time. 90 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:35,180 Here to fence, go ahead. 91 00:04:35,280 --> 00:04:40,580 Blavro Hotel 3-5, Black West, check, thank you. 92 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:43,080 And then, in 1947, 93 00:04:43,180 --> 00:04:46,080 just when these Cold War fears were starting to take hold, 94 00:04:46,180 --> 00:04:50,180 there was a very famous sighting by a pilot named Kenneth Arnold. 95 00:04:50,280 --> 00:04:52,480 That was the sighting that marked the beginning 96 00:04:52,580 --> 00:04:54,680 of the modern era of UFOs. 97 00:04:56,280 --> 00:04:59,880 It all began with an incident which occurred in 1947. 98 00:04:59,980 --> 00:05:02,980 On the afternoon of June 24th of that year, 99 00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:06,980 Kenneth Arnold made the first report on flying saucers. 100 00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:09,980 Kenneth Arnold was a private pilot, 101 00:05:09,980 --> 00:05:13,380 searching for a military plane that had crashed sometime earlier. 102 00:05:13,480 --> 00:05:15,980 And he sees, off in the distance, 103 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:19,880 a chain of nine silvery objects. 104 00:05:19,980 --> 00:05:22,880 He said, they look sort of like silver pie plates 105 00:05:22,980 --> 00:05:24,880 with a crescent cut out of them. 106 00:05:24,980 --> 00:05:28,380 And he times them at going over 1,000 miles an hour. 107 00:05:29,280 --> 00:05:33,880 Nothing in 1947 was capable of traveling 1,200 miles an hour. 108 00:05:33,980 --> 00:05:37,380 Nor did we have any aircraft that looked like this. 109 00:05:37,380 --> 00:05:39,780 They seemed to flip and flash in the sun, 110 00:05:39,880 --> 00:05:44,280 just like a mirror, kind of weaving and going at a terrific speed. 111 00:05:45,280 --> 00:05:47,780 He landed at his next stop at the next airport 112 00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:49,980 and told the flight crew what he had encountered 113 00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:52,780 and people pretty much just laughed him off. 114 00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:54,780 But when he got to his next stop, 115 00:05:54,880 --> 00:05:56,780 there were reporters waiting for him. 116 00:05:58,280 --> 00:06:02,780 He described their movement as a saucer skipping across the water. 117 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:05,280 And that reporter thought, ah, flying saucers, 118 00:06:05,380 --> 00:06:06,780 that's what we'll call them. 119 00:06:06,780 --> 00:06:09,180 And that's what we've been using ever since. 120 00:06:09,280 --> 00:06:12,680 In the aftermath of Kenneth Arnold's report, 121 00:06:12,780 --> 00:06:17,180 there were hundreds and hundreds of reports pouring into the Air Force every day. 122 00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:19,680 And the Air Force couldn't just ignore that. 123 00:06:19,780 --> 00:06:21,680 It was in the middle of Cold War, 124 00:06:21,780 --> 00:06:24,680 so government officials were trying to figure out 125 00:06:24,780 --> 00:06:26,680 what these objects were. 126 00:06:26,780 --> 00:06:33,180 General Twining saw this phenomenon as a possible threat to our country. 127 00:06:33,180 --> 00:06:36,580 So he issued a very famous memo in which he said, 128 00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:42,580 the phenomenon reported is something real, not visionary or fictitious. 129 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:46,580 Those were pretty big words coming from a general in the Air Force 130 00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:48,580 in the summer of 1947. 131 00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:52,080 The Twining memo marked the beginning of an era 132 00:06:52,180 --> 00:06:55,080 in which the Air Force would become deeply involved 133 00:06:55,180 --> 00:06:57,580 with the question of UFOs. 134 00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:01,080 The government was put into position where it had to decide 135 00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:03,480 was it going to engage with this phenomenon, 136 00:07:03,580 --> 00:07:06,480 and if so, how much of it was it going to make public? 137 00:07:06,580 --> 00:07:09,480 That continued on in the decades that followed. 138 00:07:09,580 --> 00:07:13,980 And it impacted all the cases that came decades later. 139 00:07:17,080 --> 00:07:22,480 The Stephenville, Texas UFO case is very intriguing to me. 140 00:07:22,580 --> 00:07:26,980 In 2008, a large, unidentified flying object 141 00:07:26,980 --> 00:07:32,380 was observed by a large number of people from the ground. 142 00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:36,380 When we first saw it, it had seven lights across the back of it, 143 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:39,880 all blinking in no particular order. 144 00:07:39,980 --> 00:07:44,380 As it approached Stephenville, these seven lights became 145 00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:48,880 an arch shape of seven lights, and then a brief moment later, 146 00:07:48,980 --> 00:07:52,380 they burst into a flame, and it looked to me like 147 00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:56,380 the flame was contained in a rectangle box. 148 00:07:57,380 --> 00:07:59,280 Somebody had made the comment, 149 00:07:59,380 --> 00:08:02,280 well, is it half the size of a Walmart? 150 00:08:02,380 --> 00:08:05,780 I say it's much bigger than the normal Walmart. 151 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:09,280 What made the Stephenville case so interesting 152 00:08:09,380 --> 00:08:12,780 was that in a four-hour period of time, 153 00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:17,780 you had dozens of reports of an object. 154 00:08:17,880 --> 00:08:20,780 They all described seeing the same thing. 155 00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:24,780 It happened about 12 and a half, 13 years ago. 156 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:28,180 I still think about it quite often. 157 00:08:28,280 --> 00:08:32,680 We're still trying to find out and discover what the cause of it was. 158 00:08:32,780 --> 00:08:36,680 It just had two large, bright, intense red lights 159 00:08:36,780 --> 00:08:39,180 with a white light in the center of it. 160 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:41,680 And it had two military jets behind it, 161 00:08:41,780 --> 00:08:43,680 which everybody saw in town, the jets. 162 00:08:43,780 --> 00:08:46,680 They was running full throttle, but they wasn't able to catch it. 163 00:08:46,780 --> 00:08:49,180 There were fighter jets chasing those lights, 164 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:51,680 and the jets couldn't keep up with them. 165 00:08:51,680 --> 00:08:55,580 And then it just left. It was gone that fast. 166 00:08:55,680 --> 00:08:57,580 What do you think it was? 167 00:08:57,680 --> 00:09:00,580 I don't know what it was, but I know what an airplane. 168 00:09:03,680 --> 00:09:06,580 After that, I spoke to probably 200 or 300 people 169 00:09:06,680 --> 00:09:11,580 that witnessed it, business owners, city councilmen, policemen. 170 00:09:11,680 --> 00:09:16,580 But no one could say what we saw that night. 171 00:09:16,680 --> 00:09:19,080 I called a Stephenville Empire Tribune 172 00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:21,980 to see if anybody may have got a visual on it. 173 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:26,980 The editor directed me to a newspaper reporter named Angela Joyner. 174 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:28,980 She interviewed me over the phone, 175 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:33,980 and she started digging deep to help find out what we were seeing. 176 00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:36,980 She was hell bent to find out the truth. 177 00:09:44,080 --> 00:09:45,980 My name is Sarah Vandenberg, 178 00:09:45,980 --> 00:09:50,880 and I was the managing editor of the Stephenville Empire Tribune for 14 years. 179 00:09:50,980 --> 00:09:54,880 In 2008, Steve Allen and a couple of his friends saw some suspicious lights, 180 00:09:54,980 --> 00:09:58,880 and they called into the newsroom and talked to Angela Joyner. 181 00:09:58,980 --> 00:10:02,880 Angela Joyner was one of my reporters at the Empire Tribune. 182 00:10:02,980 --> 00:10:06,880 Sadly, Angela passed away with COVID last year. 183 00:10:06,980 --> 00:10:10,880 Angela was a super fun person, but she took her job seriously. 184 00:10:10,980 --> 00:10:13,880 Good writer. She was thorough. She was a good reporter. 185 00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:17,780 Steve Allen called me and said, Hey, I got a story for you. 186 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:21,780 And I could tell by talking to him, you know, the way his voice changed 187 00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:26,780 and his inflections changed, and he was just so sincere 188 00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:29,780 when he was describing it to me. 189 00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:34,780 I knew this guy saw something. He really saw something big. 190 00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:37,780 After Steve Allen called, she pitched the story to me and said, 191 00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:39,780 here's what's happened. What do you think? 192 00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:42,780 Did you have any concern at that point about reporting on this? 193 00:10:42,780 --> 00:10:45,680 Yeah, it just seems like, you know, it's the thought of the little green men 194 00:10:45,780 --> 00:10:50,680 coming out of the spaceship. It was sort of tabloidish to me. 195 00:10:50,780 --> 00:10:53,680 That was my concern. As a journalist who wanted to be taken seriously, 196 00:10:53,780 --> 00:10:57,680 I was afraid that, you know, this would somehow taint my reputation. 197 00:10:57,780 --> 00:11:01,680 So I said, put something together and pitch it to me tomorrow evening 198 00:11:01,780 --> 00:11:04,680 when I get back to the office, and then we'll talk about it. 199 00:11:04,780 --> 00:11:08,680 This setting was like right here in our core readership area, 200 00:11:08,780 --> 00:11:10,680 and I thought, you know, the readers are going to like this. 201 00:11:10,680 --> 00:11:12,580 They're going to really like this. 202 00:11:12,680 --> 00:11:16,580 And the people, they know the people in the story. 203 00:11:16,680 --> 00:11:21,580 That's another thing. So that was another reason I went ahead and did it. 204 00:11:21,680 --> 00:11:23,580 Do you have one? 205 00:11:23,680 --> 00:11:25,580 And the editor left early. 206 00:11:25,680 --> 00:11:29,580 You had to cut that part. But she did. 207 00:11:34,680 --> 00:11:36,580 Next morning, at the end of my driveway with the paper, 208 00:11:36,580 --> 00:11:41,480 I picked it up and across the top had UFO sightings in Erath County 209 00:11:41,580 --> 00:11:44,480 and like 72-point font. It was just huge. 210 00:11:44,580 --> 00:11:47,480 After I had left for the day, the publisher and Angela, 211 00:11:47,580 --> 00:11:50,480 we did the front page and went to press and I had no idea. 212 00:11:50,580 --> 00:11:52,480 I almost had a nervous breakdown right then. 213 00:11:52,580 --> 00:11:55,480 I could not believe that that had happened overnight. 214 00:11:55,580 --> 00:11:58,480 Two hours into my day, I got a call from the publisher. 215 00:11:58,580 --> 00:12:00,480 She said, things are blowing up. 216 00:12:00,580 --> 00:12:02,480 We've sold out of all the papers we've had. 217 00:12:02,580 --> 00:12:06,480 That was my first indication like, wow, people are really interested in this. 218 00:12:06,580 --> 00:12:09,480 You need to get a helmet. 219 00:12:09,580 --> 00:12:12,480 It generated a lot of excitement here. 220 00:12:12,580 --> 00:12:15,480 A lot of businesses had t-shirts made and sold those 221 00:12:15,580 --> 00:12:17,480 and the high school kids had fun with it. 222 00:12:17,580 --> 00:12:21,480 Stephenville may be typical, but what's happening in the skies above it 223 00:12:21,580 --> 00:12:23,480 is a whole other story. 224 00:12:23,580 --> 00:12:26,480 It kind of is the talk of the town right now. 225 00:12:26,580 --> 00:12:29,480 Angela Joiner is a reporter with the town's newspaper. 226 00:12:29,580 --> 00:12:34,480 She's now on the strangest and possibly the biggest story of her life. 227 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:41,380 It went from this little story to this huge out of control worldwide frenzy. 228 00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:44,380 I started getting phone calls from all over the world. 229 00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:49,380 Brazil, Japan, England, and the next thing you know, CNN, 230 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:54,380 quite a few other TV things showed up and wanted our story. 231 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:59,380 What's notable about the Stephenville case and other cases that are similar to that 232 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:04,380 is that despite the numbers of witnesses seeing these gigantic craft, 233 00:13:04,480 --> 00:13:07,380 nobody in positions of authority came to investigate. 234 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:11,380 That's in contrast to what was going on in the 40s and 50s 235 00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:18,380 where there was an Air Force program and they would investigate cases. 236 00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:21,380 Here is a picture that was released just today. 237 00:13:21,480 --> 00:13:26,380 It shows four luminous objects in formation in the sky over Salem, Massachusetts. 238 00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:31,380 Now here on this map are pinpointed locations where some 30 saucers have been sighted 239 00:13:31,380 --> 00:13:34,280 and are still unexplained. 240 00:13:38,380 --> 00:13:44,280 In 1949, the military started looking into all these stacks of UFO reports 241 00:13:44,380 --> 00:13:47,280 that the Air Force was receiving. 242 00:13:47,380 --> 00:13:50,280 Headquarters, United States Air Forces, as you may directed, 243 00:13:50,380 --> 00:13:54,280 for a detailed study of flying disc reports. 244 00:13:54,380 --> 00:14:00,280 The program was initially called Project Sign, then became Project Grudge 245 00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:05,180 and then it was named Project Blue Book. 246 00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:13,180 Project Blue Book was operated out of the dingiest office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. 247 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:17,180 They had a malfunctioning coffee pot, they had a couple desks, 248 00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:23,180 they had a big map up on the wall and that was it, but they just had a system down. 249 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:27,180 Project Blue Book started as a good faith effort by the government 250 00:14:27,180 --> 00:14:31,080 to collect reports and investigate UFOs. 251 00:14:31,180 --> 00:14:36,080 When there were big cases, they would sometimes dispatch someone to interview the witnesses. 252 00:14:36,180 --> 00:14:40,080 The Air Force was pretty open about Project Blue Book. 253 00:14:40,180 --> 00:14:44,080 Major Quentin Ellis, what are the objectives of Project Blue Book? 254 00:14:44,180 --> 00:14:51,080 First of all, to try to determine if the UFO phenomena presents a threat to the security of the United States. 255 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:56,980 And second to determine if the UFO phenomena exhibits any technology for Atlantis. 256 00:14:57,080 --> 00:15:04,980 Alongside the military employees, the Air Force felt that they needed a credible scientific opinion 257 00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:07,980 to support their research. 258 00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:13,980 Is it in the realm of possibility that there are spaceships someplace in this universe? 259 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:18,980 Well, if you put it in the word, use the word possibility and not probability, 260 00:15:18,980 --> 00:15:25,880 then I would have to say, I think as any scientist would have to say, it is certainly possible, yes. 261 00:15:25,980 --> 00:15:31,880 J. L. and Heineck was a mild-mannered college professor from Ohio State University. 262 00:15:31,980 --> 00:15:36,880 His job was to go through all these stacks of UFO reports that the Air Force was receiving 263 00:15:36,980 --> 00:15:39,880 and try to find out what's going on. 264 00:15:39,980 --> 00:15:45,880 Project Blue Book examined over 12,000 UFO sightings. 265 00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:50,780 Many of them bore a striking resemblance to what we're seeing today. 266 00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:54,780 Crafts with a similar shape, sometimes the same color. 267 00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:59,780 Hovering, then shooting off instantaneously at hypersonic speeds. 268 00:15:59,880 --> 00:16:02,780 Multiple, multiple cases like that. 269 00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:09,780 While working for Project Blue Book, Heineck noticed that he was able to explain 80% of cases. 270 00:16:09,780 --> 00:16:16,680 But he also noticed that there was about a 20% residue of cases that he hadn't been able to explain away. 271 00:16:16,780 --> 00:16:22,680 Heineck came into the UFO project with the attitude, which is there's nothing to UFOs. 272 00:16:22,780 --> 00:16:30,680 But he was a good enough scientist to say, wait a minute, I'm seeing reports here that are not easily explainable. 273 00:16:30,780 --> 00:16:39,680 The Air Force and their UFO study project may have been making an honest effort to clear the air about the phenomenon. 274 00:16:39,780 --> 00:16:45,680 Unfortunately, it didn't last too long, simply because they were just overwhelmed with reports. 275 00:16:45,780 --> 00:16:50,680 Everyone got the window in there, because this strike to God saved our team. 276 00:16:50,780 --> 00:16:56,680 And it goes to us in return of Blue Green, Britain's right. 277 00:16:56,780 --> 00:17:00,680 Balls were ahead of us and all of a sudden they zapped away from us. 278 00:17:03,780 --> 00:17:09,680 This is the Kremlin. Russia today is regarded as a grave threat to our nation, to our freedom. 279 00:17:09,780 --> 00:17:12,680 To the peace of the world. 280 00:17:15,780 --> 00:17:20,680 In the 40s and 50s, tensions with Russia were building. 281 00:17:20,780 --> 00:17:28,680 The Cold War was so intense at that point, so there was a genuine concern that the UFO phenomenon could be exploited. 282 00:17:28,780 --> 00:17:37,680 The US government felt adversaries could hoax UFO sightings and then clog up our reporting channels and then have a surprise attack. 283 00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:44,580 So the idea was that the UFO problem was not a security problem as such, meaning aliens aren't going to land and attack us. 284 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:51,580 What the UFO problem was, it was a sociological problem. And it was one that demanded a different approach. 285 00:17:52,680 --> 00:18:06,580 The CIA, under the picture, by convening a panel of top scientists to examine the UFO phenomenon, the thinking was that the enemy could exploit UFOs as a decoy in the preparation for an attack on the United States. 286 00:18:06,580 --> 00:18:15,480 Five outstanding scientists and various Air Force and CIA representatives would have met. Among the panel members was J. Allen Heineck. 287 00:18:15,580 --> 00:18:28,480 In 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency formed a scientific panel led by a highly regarded scientist named Robertson to examine this phenomenon and its implications. 288 00:18:28,480 --> 00:18:39,380 The Robertson panel was a group of hand-picked scientists who came together to try to determine a way to damp down public interest in UFOs. 289 00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:45,380 Dr. Heineck was actually brought in to be a consulting witness to the Robertson panel. 290 00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:52,380 The panel members were seated around this table. It was a rather somber and impressive occasion, actually. 291 00:18:52,380 --> 00:19:01,280 The mission given by the Robertson panel was essentially to make people stop filing UFO reports. 292 00:19:01,380 --> 00:19:16,280 They proposed two methods to damp down public enthusiasm. One was through debunking. The second one was through education, teaching people to explain UFOs in other ways and something extraordinary. 293 00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:24,180 It was an extremely important moment in the evolution of how government was going to engage with this topic. 294 00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:31,180 This became the launch of taboo on a more official level where it was becoming policy in a way. 295 00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:35,180 Riddicule became sanctioned. 296 00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:40,180 The Robertson panel conclusions seemed to have a big impact on Project Blue Book. 297 00:19:40,180 --> 00:19:51,080 The project began to dismiss as many cases as possible and provide sometimes ridiculous explanations for them, just have an answer and make them go away. 298 00:19:51,180 --> 00:20:02,080 Heineck's job became going through all these UFO reports and explain them away as natural occurrences. Comet, Meteor, Shooting Star, Sun Dog, Eclipse. 299 00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:16,980 I would say the great majority are balloons, meteors, satellites, aircraft seen with the sun glinting off of them, generally quite usual things seen under unusual circumstances or surprising circumstances. 300 00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:24,980 Dr. Heineck did his job very thoroughly. Allen was a fellow trying to please the Air Force and what they wanted. 301 00:20:25,980 --> 00:20:31,880 Heineck would have a bunch of reports dropped on his desk and he would explain them all away. 302 00:20:31,980 --> 00:20:39,880 If a report said probable airliner, they would cross out probable and just say airliner. That's what the witness saw. 303 00:20:39,980 --> 00:20:45,880 It was kind of an insult to the intelligence of the American people. 304 00:20:45,980 --> 00:20:48,880 Heineck had taken the job for the extra money. 305 00:20:48,980 --> 00:20:53,880 Struggling young professional with a growing family, of course he's not going to turn down work. 306 00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:59,780 But behind the scenes, Heineck gradually realized that this was a scientific problem. 307 00:20:59,880 --> 00:21:10,780 But he wouldn't go out and state it publicly. He didn't want to do that because it would have been what the Air Force didn't want him to do. 308 00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:23,780 Even though it took place in 1953, the Robertson panel was so potent in terms of its desire to clamp down, to ridicule, to debunk and to, quote, educate people to interpret UFOs in other ways. 309 00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:32,780 Its legacy carried on through the decades and it impacted cases like Stephenville and other cases of the time. 310 00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:44,780 Last week, several people in Stephenville, Texas, a small rural town of about 15,000, witnessed what many are calling a UFO. 311 00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:52,780 In Selden, Texas is Steve Allen. Also there is Angela, a joiner, staff writer for the Empire Tribune, the local newspaper in Stephenville. 312 00:21:52,780 --> 00:21:55,680 Angela, what are some witnesses telling you? 313 00:21:55,780 --> 00:22:04,680 The thing that I hear over and over and over is how bright the lights were. So I think there's been a lot of consistency in the spottings. 314 00:22:04,780 --> 00:22:17,680 It was Angela that started digging deep. She was hell bent on trying to find out what we saw and what happened. And it almost consumed her. 315 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:26,580 The incredible thing about the Stephenville sightings was the witnesses reported seeing F-16 fighters pursuing this object. 316 00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:33,580 I heard this really, really loud noise and I ran out the front door and there were fighter jets chasing those lights. 317 00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:39,580 Angela wanted to know what the Air Force knew about the two F-16s and what we saw. 318 00:22:39,580 --> 00:22:46,480 So she got in touch with the Naval Air Station in Fort Worth and talked to Major Carl Lewis. 319 00:22:46,580 --> 00:22:51,480 Major Carl Lewis said we didn't have any aircraft in your area at that time. 320 00:22:54,580 --> 00:23:01,480 I feel like we wasn't given the truth and the military didn't seem like they was interested in any questions. 321 00:23:01,580 --> 00:23:06,480 Then on about the tenth day, the military issued a press release. 322 00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:17,380 Now in a plot line that's out of the X-Files, Air Force officials are saying they concede they had F-16s over Stephenville, Texas on the evening of January 8th. 323 00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:22,380 Major Carl Lewis says there was an internal communications mistake. 324 00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:28,380 Well, there was an error that was initially reported, sir, and we went and corrected that error as quickly as possible. 325 00:23:29,380 --> 00:23:33,280 The plot thick and with the Air Force wouldn't say why. 326 00:23:33,380 --> 00:23:37,280 They did in fact have F-16s in the area. 327 00:23:38,380 --> 00:23:47,280 Angela Joyneth says that the Air Force's admission that it did indeed have fighter jets as reported by the witnesses bolsters their story all around. 328 00:23:47,380 --> 00:23:55,280 Military coming out with this at this point just is going to fuel the fire for okay, there is something going on now, what is it? 329 00:23:56,280 --> 00:24:02,180 We thought their attempt to try to explain it away was terribly strange. 330 00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:06,180 We had more questions than answers. 331 00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:16,180 UFO reports, hoax or serious sightings wind up here at Wright Patterson airfield in Dayton, Ohio. 332 00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:20,180 The Air Force investigative unit is known as Project Blue Book. 333 00:24:20,180 --> 00:24:29,080 In the wake of the Robertson panel, Project Blue Book was investigating these civilian reports as a way to tamp down public concern. 334 00:24:29,180 --> 00:24:42,080 For example, in Michigan, there were at one point a large number of sightings by people in the community there and Walter Cronkite, the arbiter of truth for many Americans covered the story. 335 00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:48,980 Great flying saucer mystery of 1966 began here near Dexter, Michigan late in March. 336 00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:59,980 As I turned around to come back on the porch, I looked to the north of me and it looked like a fallen star. It was red, kind of coming down. 337 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:09,980 Frank Manners UFO remained over his swamp more than four hours, 40 miles away another swamp land and another UFO sighting. 338 00:25:09,980 --> 00:25:14,880 I believe I saw it but I can't fathom it because it seems so unreal. 339 00:25:14,980 --> 00:25:21,880 This was a huge national story. Everyone was demanding that Blue Book solve the case. 340 00:25:21,980 --> 00:25:30,880 And so they called in Heineck, his Air Force Project Blue Book boss, to get out there and put a lid on this. 341 00:25:30,980 --> 00:25:37,880 The Air Force said it's chief scientific consultant on UFOs, Professor J. Allen Heineck, to check the Michigan sightings. 342 00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:46,780 The illusion of motion frequently is given by the fact that a little bit of swamp light appears here, it goes out, another one appears over here, that goes out then. 343 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:51,780 But the illusion, as a view from a distance, is that the objects have moved back and forth. 344 00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:57,780 And sometimes the gas will gather into a ball and actually float away. 345 00:25:57,780 --> 00:26:09,680 Allen made an ill-fated remark about, well, some of these sightings could be caused by swamp gas. 346 00:26:09,780 --> 00:26:14,680 And the witnesses were upset, to say the least. 347 00:26:14,780 --> 00:26:23,680 The people of Michigan thought that Heineck was making fun of them, that he thought they were all loonies and kooks, and the whole thing blew up in Heineck's face. 348 00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:28,580 They think you're a nut, to tell you the truth, that's just what they figure you are. 349 00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:33,580 And I'm not going to take it no more, I don't want nobody down in here, I just leave me alone. 350 00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:39,580 When Heineck came up with the swamp gas explanation, we don't really know whether he believed that or not. 351 00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:46,580 But we do know that he was working for the Air Force and they were committed at that point to discrediting sightings like this one. 352 00:26:46,580 --> 00:26:57,480 It was a real turning point for the beginning of people really just having had enough of these kinds of bogus explanations for these events. 353 00:27:00,580 --> 00:27:07,480 Following the swamp gas incident, the public was outraged and even members of Congress became involved. 354 00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:27,380 We've had several incidents in Michigan that many reliable citizens felt were sufficient to justify some action by our government and not the kind of flip-and-answer that was given by the Air Force where they passed it off as swamp gas. 355 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:34,380 Gerald Ford, who was a congressman at the time at Michigan, decided that his constituents were not being taken seriously. 356 00:27:34,380 --> 00:27:40,280 Gerald Ford listened to his constituents and decided that he should call for congressional hearings. 357 00:27:40,380 --> 00:27:48,280 I think the American people would be more sure that there were or were not such a public hearing was held. 358 00:27:48,280 --> 00:28:05,180 On April 5th, 1966, Harold Brown, the secretary of the Air Force and J. L. and Heineck walked into the Capitol Building to answer questions about Blue Book's investigation into UFOs. 359 00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:17,180 We have not been hiding anything. The investigations have been made public. The explanations of those where there is a clear explanation have been made public. 360 00:28:17,180 --> 00:28:36,080 They brought in the secretary of the Air Force and he just stonewalled and then came to Heineck's turn to talk. He made his own statement that he hadn't shared with anyone and he said, look, we need to sponsor a scientific study and tell us whether this is something we need to keep studying. 361 00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:41,980 How many really mysterious incidents are there that you'd like to go back and look at again? 362 00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:50,980 As I mentioned in the hearings this morning, I have picked some 20 cases. I think those I would recommend that they be looked at quite closely. 363 00:28:51,080 --> 00:29:01,980 A scientist has to keep open-minded on an investigation. A scientific one without fanfare, a quiet look at the data, I think, is in order. 364 00:29:01,980 --> 00:29:09,880 Heineck was initially a skeptic, but as he went through the years, he gradually learned that there really is something to this. 365 00:29:09,980 --> 00:29:20,880 Heineck started to believe that we could learn a lot more about the phenomenon through a better scientific study. And in fact, that's what happened in Stephenville, Texas. 366 00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:31,780 Good evening, everyone. My name is Steve Hudgens. I'm Senior Bill Investigator for MUFON. We're down here to investigate this extraordinary event. 367 00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:38,780 We have our fiction director from Waco, Dave Peele, and director of research, Robert Powell. 368 00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:47,780 My name is Robert Powell. My educational background is in chemistry and I work in the semiconductor industry as an engineering manager. 369 00:29:47,780 --> 00:29:56,680 Early January of 2008, I'm the director of research at MUFON. The term MUFON stands for Mutual UFO Network. 370 00:29:56,780 --> 00:30:03,680 I went up to Stephenville with multiple investigators and we began to interview the witnesses. 371 00:30:03,780 --> 00:30:05,680 Hey. How are ya? 372 00:30:05,780 --> 00:30:07,680 I'm good, how are you? 373 00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:13,580 I met several key people such as Angela Joyner, Steve Allen, and Leroy Gaten. 374 00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:20,580 And Leroy just gave me the best description of what happened that day to him. 375 00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:29,580 As I walked out to my car, I saw 10 to 12 bright fluorescent orbs. 376 00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:34,580 They're moving really quickly and then they stop and then all of a sudden they shoot off. 377 00:30:34,580 --> 00:30:42,480 But what was surprising is I'm still looking probably 20, 30 seconds. I hear two jets. 378 00:30:42,580 --> 00:30:50,480 After interviewing Leroy, the first thing I decided that I could do was get radar data. 379 00:30:50,580 --> 00:31:01,480 Freedom of information requests to the FAA. And I got that data back after about six to eight weeks. And it was incredible. 380 00:31:04,580 --> 00:31:10,480 Good morning. My name is Robert Powell. I'm the director of research with the MUFON organization. 381 00:31:10,580 --> 00:31:16,480 We obtained radar data from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Stephenville area. 382 00:31:16,580 --> 00:31:18,480 I talk about this a little bit on the screen here. 383 00:31:18,580 --> 00:31:30,480 One of the first things I do when I get the radar data is I find the F-16s and I match that yes, that matches the time they went by Leroy's home. 384 00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:44,380 Then I look on the radar data for unknowns and I find two miles south of his home just like he told me, objects on radar that are basically stationary just like he said. 385 00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:55,380 And then the really interesting part was on radar, these objects that were over his home, the next radar blip, 386 00:31:55,380 --> 00:32:05,280 the object is to the northeast, towards Stephenville, and it had traveled at a minimum speed of 1,900 miles per hour. 387 00:32:05,380 --> 00:32:09,280 And that is from stationers. 388 00:32:09,380 --> 00:32:14,280 There's no way for me to know what it was. The only thing I can say is what it was not. 389 00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:29,180 It was not any type of aircraft because no aircraft can hover and then move to a speed of over 1,900 miles an hour at low altitude and then stop and hover again. 390 00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:32,180 It's just not something we have the ability to do. 391 00:32:32,180 --> 00:32:56,080 There are so many UFO sightings and the vast majority of them can be explained, but then there are those that involve mass sightings of something really unusual and in those cases people deserve an investigation by the officials. 392 00:32:56,080 --> 00:33:04,980 In the aftermath of the swamp gas case, the government decided to fund a college research program of the UFO phenomenon. 393 00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:12,980 At the time, the Air Force was trying to find a way to get out from under the burden of having to investigate UFOs and comment on this. 394 00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:23,980 And so a scientific panel was established to investigate and assess the issue. It was led by a Dr. Robert Condon. 395 00:33:23,980 --> 00:33:34,880 The Air Force has turned to the University of Colorado to investigate unidentified flying objects and they've asked Dr. Edward U. Condon to head the project. 396 00:33:34,980 --> 00:33:38,880 How do you propose to go about studying this particular phenomenon? 397 00:33:38,980 --> 00:33:47,880 We'll pick certain selected cases that seem especially interesting and go out and try to learn more about them and those few in greater depth. 398 00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:54,780 The guy who was leading it, Professor Edward Condon, had no interest in the subject and had to be talked into it. 399 00:33:54,880 --> 00:34:02,780 So you have a professor who was not looking to do a project, that was given the project and things didn't go well. 400 00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:09,780 They reviewed 59 cases and wrote them up in a study that was close to a thousand pages. 401 00:34:09,780 --> 00:34:20,680 One of the events they covered was the McMinnville incident in 1950 where the farmer and his wife took a photograph of a disc shaped object that came over their farm. 402 00:34:20,780 --> 00:34:36,680 The McMinnville photograph taken by a poor rural couple in a remote area who didn't seek any press and it showed a UFO very clearly in black and white, maybe 200, 300 yards away. 403 00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:40,580 Here's what the Condon report said about the McMinnville sighting. 404 00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:56,580 This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object flew within sight of two witnesses. 405 00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,580 And there were other cases they described in similar ways. 406 00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:08,480 When the final report came out, the main body of the report was open to the possibility that UFOs might be real. 407 00:35:08,580 --> 00:35:13,480 But the final summary of the report was written by Dr. Condon himself. 408 00:35:13,580 --> 00:35:18,480 Dr. Condon said it's time for the government to just wash its hands of this whole thing. 409 00:35:18,580 --> 00:35:21,480 That's about the only thing most people read. 410 00:35:21,580 --> 00:35:28,480 The Condon report concluded in 1969 this was not a threat to national security. 411 00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:37,380 There was no indication of extraterrestrial connection and there was likely no benefit scientifically from continuing to study this phenomenon. 412 00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:47,380 Dr. Robert Condon was somebody that was strenuously opposed to the idea that UFOs could be alien craft of any kind. 413 00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,380 So from the outset he had his mind made up. 414 00:35:50,380 --> 00:35:56,280 Word is that Dr. Condon himself didn't even bother to read the report or review the data. 415 00:35:56,380 --> 00:36:02,280 He just brought his conclusion because that's what the Air Force wanted to hear. 416 00:36:02,380 --> 00:36:06,280 Condon was definitely the nail in the coffin for Project Blue Book. 417 00:36:06,380 --> 00:36:11,280 The Air Force had been involved with looking into UFOs for more than 15 years. 418 00:36:11,380 --> 00:36:18,280 They were inundated by these reports, frustrated and just wanted to be done with the whole thing. 419 00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:23,180 The result was the Air Force said well we don't need to follow this anymore. 420 00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:27,180 So they used that as a rationale to close down Project Blue Book. 421 00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:35,180 Shortly thereafter Dr. Allen Heineck renounced the whole process and the way the Air Force handled it. 422 00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:41,180 Some of us who followed this whole phenomena became interested in the Condon report. 423 00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:43,180 What's your feeling about that? 424 00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:46,180 Well my feeling is that the Condon report was a travesty on science. 425 00:36:46,180 --> 00:36:48,080 I don't feel like presenting a fair picture. 426 00:36:48,180 --> 00:36:55,080 Condon Committee was unable to explain one quarter of the cases that were submitted that they studied. 427 00:36:58,180 --> 00:37:03,080 Our guest tonight is one of the world's foremost authorities on unidentified flying objects. 428 00:37:03,180 --> 00:37:06,080 Dr. J. Allen Heineck. 429 00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:22,980 When Project Blue Book is shut down in 1970, it freed Heineck to say and do whatever he wanted where UFOs were concerned. 430 00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:31,980 Dr. Heineck worked nearly two decades on Project Blue Book and during that time in the data that Project Blue Book had collected. 431 00:37:31,980 --> 00:37:35,880 The cases were still breaking down in that very same 80-20 ratio. 432 00:37:35,980 --> 00:37:40,880 He was able to explain 80% of them away. He was not able to explain 20% of them. 433 00:37:40,980 --> 00:37:43,880 And now he started to worry about that. 434 00:37:43,980 --> 00:37:48,880 He was a scientist and he saw a trend and he thought that might mean something. 435 00:37:48,980 --> 00:37:52,880 If these things didn't fit patterns then there's no way of studying it. 436 00:37:52,980 --> 00:37:59,880 But when you get reports from Australia, Japan, France, then you have to say well either there's a virus going around 437 00:37:59,880 --> 00:38:04,780 causing everybody to come crazy at the same time or there's something to it. 438 00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:10,780 Heineck was finally free to start investigating what UFOs are in any way he wanted. 439 00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:25,780 I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing. There aren't that many reporters that take this seriously. 440 00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:26,780 Yeah. 441 00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:27,780 I'm glad you're doing it. 442 00:38:27,780 --> 00:38:32,680 Tons of people, you know, they walk up to me and say thank you for reporting it as straight news. 443 00:38:32,780 --> 00:38:40,680 And then I think it was their news judgment, the publisher and the editor that okay we don't want any more of this. 444 00:38:40,780 --> 00:38:42,680 Let's get back to normal. 445 00:38:42,780 --> 00:38:46,680 Some people said you were fired. Some people said well you kind of wanted to leave anyway. 446 00:38:46,780 --> 00:38:47,680 So what was the actual story? 447 00:38:47,780 --> 00:38:51,680 I had to give in my notice. I was asked not to cover anything else on UFOs. 448 00:38:51,680 --> 00:39:00,580 I came in, my computer was gone, my Rolodex was gone and called to the publisher's office and it wasn't a pleasant scene. 449 00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:03,580 And they asked me to pack and go. So I did. 450 00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:05,580 Thanks for your time. 451 00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,580 Sadly when Angela left, we never spoke again. 452 00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:13,580 I hate that that story really divided us, but it did. 453 00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:20,580 She just could not get back to doing her regular reporting. It took over her life. 454 00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:26,580 I thought you know the readers are going to like this. They're going to really like this. 455 00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,580 So that was another reason I went and did it. 456 00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:31,580 And the editor liked early. 457 00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:34,580 You had to cut that part. 458 00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:37,580 I have never seen this. That's hilarious. 459 00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:44,580 You know it's funny to see that. 460 00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:48,580 Sorry, I just, I haven't seen Angela in a long time. And she loved that story. 461 00:39:48,580 --> 00:39:55,480 And you know I look back on that time and I think I was so wrong and I thought I was so smart and I was so wrong. 462 00:39:55,580 --> 00:40:06,480 Because they had the foresight to see something that I couldn't and people did love that story. It was fun for them. 463 00:40:06,580 --> 00:40:11,480 I've never spoken about this, but about a year after this story died down. 464 00:40:11,580 --> 00:40:16,480 I was driving my daughter to gymnastics in one evening. 465 00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:23,380 It was dusk and I saw the exact same thing that everyone else had been talking about the year prior. 466 00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:34,380 A big thing with the lights, the clear lights that kind of went all over the place. They went straight line and it took off. 467 00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:39,380 I get goosebumps now even just remembering it. 468 00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:46,380 Oh my God, that's what we've been writing about for a year and I was the biggest skeptic of all and here I am. 469 00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:50,380 It was a strange moment for sure. 470 00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:55,380 The next day I got to the office, never planned to say a word to anybody. 471 00:40:55,480 --> 00:41:04,380 And we had about a dozen calls that day from others who said, oh my gosh, I think I saw that again. 472 00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:14,380 That's when I sort of went, okay, there really was something to this but it took me that long. 473 00:41:14,380 --> 00:41:16,280 The government should be looking at this, of course. 474 00:41:16,380 --> 00:41:23,280 I have to believe that what happened in Stephenville and Erath County was big enough that it got the attention of the government. 475 00:41:23,380 --> 00:41:29,280 I just believe that and I believe they know a heck of a lot more than we do. 476 00:41:29,380 --> 00:41:36,280 Please welcome from the center of UFO studies in Evansston Illinois, Dr. J. Allen Heineck. 477 00:41:36,380 --> 00:41:42,280 In the years that followed, J. Allen Heineck became a hero, advocating for the study of UFOs. 478 00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:47,180 Dr. Heineck realized that this was a serious problem. 479 00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:50,180 These things are coming over our bases, over our nuclear facilities. 480 00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:56,180 I thought we were under attack. By who or what, I had no idea.