1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,640 On November 17th, 1986, a Japanese Airlines Boeing 747 left Paris headed for Tokyo. 2 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:20,640 While flying over Alaska, Captain Kenjū Terauchi noticed strange lights moving in front of his aircraft. 3 00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:26,140 The unidentified object suddenly headed towards the aircraft. 4 00:00:26,140 --> 00:00:34,580 The Japan Air 1628 Roger, we have traffic in sight about one mile, moving off left wing to our six o'clock position. 5 00:00:34,580 --> 00:00:42,380 What the flight captain first thought was a fighter jet turned out to be a round craft, twice the size of a jumbo jet. 6 00:00:42,380 --> 00:00:45,380 The incident still remains unclassified. 7 00:01:26,140 --> 00:01:41,140 On June 24th, 1947, Kenneth Arnold, an American pilot, saw nine unidentified objects about Mount Rainier, Washington. 8 00:01:41,140 --> 00:01:49,140 Convinced that these objects were Russian in nature and fearing an invasion, Arnold reported the incident to the local FBI office. 9 00:01:49,140 --> 00:01:59,140 In December of that year, faced with a growing number of sightings, the Air Force was officially mandated to investigate these mysterious flying saucers. 10 00:01:59,140 --> 00:02:02,140 But the military weren't the only ones recruited. 11 00:02:02,140 --> 00:02:06,140 The idea of an invasion also were its security agencies. 12 00:02:06,140 --> 00:02:15,140 John Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI and Admiral Roscoe Hillencoder, director of the recently created CIA, quickly became interested in the sightings as well. 13 00:02:15,140 --> 00:02:24,140 However, the public was not to discover their real role in the UFO matter until 30 years later, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. 14 00:02:24,140 --> 00:02:33,140 For many years, it was the contention of all government offices in the United States that the sole investigator of UFOs was the Air Force. 15 00:02:33,140 --> 00:02:36,140 We now know this is absolutely untrue. 16 00:02:36,140 --> 00:02:45,140 We know that UFO reports were distributed throughout the United States military, all of the branches, the Air Force, the Army, the Navy. 17 00:02:45,140 --> 00:02:47,140 There were Marine Corps sightings. 18 00:02:47,140 --> 00:03:00,140 The CIA initiated an interest in UFOs as early as 1948, a very strong interest covering worldwide sightings and collected, in fact, some very, very good reports. 19 00:03:00,140 --> 00:03:08,140 We also know that the FBI collected many UFO reports, not just in 1947, but beyond that. 20 00:03:08,140 --> 00:03:22,140 Other government agencies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, Joint Chiefs of Staff, there were, my goodness, emergency UFO reports that went to the White House at various times. 21 00:03:22,140 --> 00:03:39,140 So that none of this was known until the era in the United States of the Freedom of Information Act, which really the Freedom of Information Act became effective in practice after 1974. 22 00:03:39,140 --> 00:03:52,140 You might call the first ten years of the Freedom of Information Act a kind of glory age in which it was relatively, relatively easy for UFO researchers to get some good documents out of the government. 23 00:03:52,140 --> 00:04:01,140 In particular, I think under Jimmy Carter, President Carter in the late 70s, who seems to have encouraged a somewhat liberal interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act, 24 00:04:01,140 --> 00:04:13,140 which meant basically that it would not be overly expensive for people to request such documents and that government agencies would have to respond quickly. 25 00:04:13,140 --> 00:04:30,140 By the mid-1980s, this was really no longer the case, but for a good ten years in the United States, UFO researchers were able to get thousands upon thousands of documents from the CIA, the FBI, the DIA, Navy, Army, 26 00:04:31,140 --> 00:04:45,140 Air Force, and elsewhere pertaining to UFOs. National Security Agency, the NSA, sometimes known as no such agency, appears to have had a very strong interest in UFOs. 27 00:04:45,140 --> 00:04:59,140 We have one NSA UFO report going back to 1953, a few months after the agency was founded, despite the fact that the NSA had maintained that they had absolutely no interest in UFOs at all. 28 00:04:59,140 --> 00:05:03,140 So we now know that none of this was the case. 29 00:05:03,140 --> 00:05:15,140 Well, in the 1970s, the United States government released, under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, thousands of pages of documents relating to UFO reports and to the subject in general, 30 00:05:15,140 --> 00:05:24,140 from agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and later many other agencies produced reports. 31 00:05:24,140 --> 00:05:31,140 Interestingly, this was after years of denial that they had any such reports. 32 00:05:31,140 --> 00:05:45,140 However, many documents remain classified at what amounts to an above-top secret level, and even many top secret documents are still being withheld in the interests of national security, 33 00:05:45,140 --> 00:05:56,140 and that information is not guesswork. That is actually stated within the context of the security classifications in the documents that have been released. 34 00:05:56,140 --> 00:06:01,140 But it's quite clear that there's still a lot being withheld, in my opinion. 35 00:06:01,140 --> 00:06:07,140 And I think the most sensitive material is not contained in any document. 36 00:06:07,140 --> 00:06:16,140 I think if you talk to anybody in the intelligence community, they'll tell you that the most sensitive information is not written down on the United States government memoranda. 37 00:06:16,140 --> 00:06:20,140 So there's still a lot to be, there's still a lot being withheld. 38 00:06:20,140 --> 00:06:33,140 But what has been released quite clearly evinces evidence, if not proof, of serious government involvement and the delicacy of classification. 39 00:06:33,140 --> 00:06:52,140 I mean, there's an FBI document going back to 1949 which says that the subject matter of flying disks, flying sources, unidentified objects, and so forth, is considered top secret by a number of the military agencies such as the United States Air Force, Army, and Navy. 40 00:06:52,140 --> 00:06:56,140 So that information alone is very, very important. 41 00:06:57,140 --> 00:07:09,140 National Security Agency was taken to the Supreme Court in 1982 to disclose the reasons why there were withholding a certain amount of documents. 42 00:07:09,140 --> 00:07:19,140 And they gave their reasons for withholding the documents in a 21-page above top secret affidavit, which was classified top secret umbra. 43 00:07:19,140 --> 00:07:29,140 I should mention right now top secret means information, the unauthorized disclosure of which can reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the security. 44 00:07:29,140 --> 00:07:31,140 So already we're talking about sensitive material. 45 00:07:31,140 --> 00:07:38,140 But the fact that material about UFOs is being classified at an above top secret, I think tells the whole story. 46 00:07:38,140 --> 00:07:44,140 As it happens, I've spoken to somebody who has seen that 21-page above top secret affidavit. 47 00:07:44,140 --> 00:07:54,140 And I don't know the details, but I know that the gist of it is that it doesn't talk about recovered alien bodies, United States government contact with aliens, and everything. 48 00:07:54,140 --> 00:08:02,140 If there's any information like that, it's unlikely to be on any documents which are shown even in the United States Supreme Court. 49 00:08:05,140 --> 00:08:12,140 Release documents reveal that the CIA initially believed that the UFO phenomenon was simply a rumor spread by subversives. 50 00:08:12,140 --> 00:08:17,140 In July 1952, an incident occurred that seemed to support their theory. 51 00:08:17,140 --> 00:08:25,140 On July 19 and 26, unidentified objects were detected on radar screens at the National Airport in Washington, D.C. 52 00:08:25,140 --> 00:08:32,140 These objects were flying around the White House and the Pentagon, where airspace was restricted at all times. 53 00:08:32,140 --> 00:08:37,140 F-94 fighter jets were dispatched, but they never caught up with the speedy objects. 54 00:08:38,140 --> 00:08:48,140 While the situation was getting out of control in the air, on the ground, telephone switchboards in the nation's capital were literally paralyzed by calls from concerned citizens. 55 00:08:48,140 --> 00:08:52,140 An unexpected turn of events which threatened public safety. 56 00:08:52,140 --> 00:08:59,140 A press conference was held on July 27, and the only explanation put forth by the Air Force was temperature inversions. 57 00:08:59,140 --> 00:09:04,140 To the CIA, it was beginning to look as if they had a national crisis on their hands. 58 00:09:04,140 --> 00:09:11,140 If enemies of the state had wanted to paralyze the country's emergency response teams, they couldn't have found a better way to do it. 59 00:09:11,140 --> 00:09:15,140 The CIA demanded a meeting to discuss the flying saucer problem. 60 00:09:15,140 --> 00:09:20,140 This meeting took place in January 1953 and was known as the Robertson Panel. 61 00:09:20,140 --> 00:09:25,140 Its conclusions had a major impact on the future of UFO investigations. 62 00:09:25,140 --> 00:09:34,140 The Robertson Panel is one of the most important turning points in the history of the American study of UFOs. 63 00:09:34,140 --> 00:09:38,140 Most people don't really appreciate the significance of it. 64 00:09:38,140 --> 00:09:48,140 In 1952, the UFO wave in the United States reached an absolute peak in terms of the quality and the quantity of what was being seen. 65 00:09:48,140 --> 00:09:54,140 As a result of that, the U.S. Air Force held a major press conference in July 52 that said, 66 00:09:54,140 --> 00:09:58,140 no, no, it's all temperature and weather phenomena. 67 00:09:58,140 --> 00:10:02,140 In the public matter, in the public domain, that laid the matter to rest. 68 00:10:02,140 --> 00:10:07,140 But in the classified world, I think people understood that this was not a true explanation. 69 00:10:07,140 --> 00:10:13,140 Now, the Harry Truman presidency was ending in January of 1953. 70 00:10:13,140 --> 00:10:24,140 Very hastily, a panel of Nobel and Nobel caliber scientists was assembled by the CIA to do a classified study of UFOs. 71 00:10:24,140 --> 00:10:29,140 This became known as the Robertson Panel after H.P. Robertson who led it. 72 00:10:29,140 --> 00:10:36,140 We now know that the Robertson Panel conclusions were written before the panel convened. 73 00:10:36,140 --> 00:10:41,140 And in fact, this panel convened during the very final weekend of the Truman presidency. 74 00:10:41,140 --> 00:10:52,140 Rather significant. What the panel said was that UFOs were not a matter of national security. 75 00:10:52,140 --> 00:10:55,140 They did not represent any alien technology. 76 00:10:55,140 --> 00:11:05,140 And that furthermore, it would be important for the American government to debunk and educate the public on the true nature of UFOs, 77 00:11:05,140 --> 00:11:09,140 which was that they were all explainable natural phenomena. 78 00:11:10,140 --> 00:11:17,140 Following the Robertson Panel, it seemed that the FBI, the CIA, and even the NSA, the National Security Agency, 79 00:11:17,140 --> 00:11:20,140 took an avid interest in UFOs. 80 00:11:20,140 --> 00:11:27,140 This interest was heightened during periods of political unrest, like the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. 81 00:11:27,140 --> 00:11:34,140 Why? Did these federal agencies all believe that UFOs could be used to destabilize the balance of world power? 82 00:11:34,140 --> 00:11:39,140 Were they aware of something more significant with regards to the phenomenon? 83 00:11:39,140 --> 00:11:44,140 Unfortunately, documents released to the public do not give us much of a clue. 84 00:11:44,140 --> 00:11:50,140 We do know that some of the sightings classified as unidentified objects by Project Blue Book, 85 00:11:50,140 --> 00:11:58,140 the team set up to investigate UFOs between 1952 and 1969, were actually CIA spy planes. 86 00:11:58,140 --> 00:12:05,140 Did their desire to hide the existence of these spy planes from the American public justify their interest in UFOs? 87 00:12:05,140 --> 00:12:09,140 One thing is clear from the thousands of pages of released documents. 88 00:12:09,140 --> 00:12:17,140 The primary motivation of information agencies was not to undertake any serious research into the true nature of these UFOs. 89 00:12:17,140 --> 00:12:30,140 Many people say that the federal governments, the American CIA, the NSA, and whatever intelligence organizations there are, 90 00:12:30,140 --> 00:12:41,140 and in Canada as well, that these various organizations are really overtly displaying no interest whatsoever in the subject, 91 00:12:41,140 --> 00:12:48,140 but in fact have sort of a secret concern with it and are interested in the subject, and that might very well be true. 92 00:12:48,140 --> 00:12:56,140 We have almost no evidence of this, however, and it might be just sort of a triumph of hope over fact. 93 00:12:56,140 --> 00:13:02,140 But my guess is that they really don't care much about the subject at all. 94 00:13:02,140 --> 00:13:11,140 I think that the Canadian government and the American government gets its cues essentially in a subject like this from the scientific community, 95 00:13:11,140 --> 00:13:19,140 and the scientific community is resolutely hostile to the subject, and it's gotten worse with the scientific community. 96 00:13:19,140 --> 00:13:23,140 There's this very little wiggle room, as they say. 97 00:13:23,140 --> 00:13:36,140 And so in my own research on the subject, I have found no serious evidence of any kind of major studies going on for any country, at least in North America. 98 00:13:42,140 --> 00:13:48,140 In the United States, there was another agency that was often associated with UFOs. NASA. 99 00:13:48,140 --> 00:13:54,140 According to some authors, every spaceflight was accompanied by extraterrestrial vehicles. 100 00:13:54,140 --> 00:13:58,140 Obviously NASA has been tight-lipped about these incidents. 101 00:13:58,140 --> 00:14:05,140 One such incident was filmed during the Space Shuttle Discovery's mission STS-48 in September 1991. 102 00:14:05,140 --> 00:14:11,140 The film was analyzed by University of Nebraska physics professor Jack Kasher. 103 00:14:12,140 --> 00:14:23,140 The Space Shuttle Discovery was flying near Australia at the time, and they had the television cameras on, and it was looking out at the night sky because nothing interesting was going on. 104 00:14:23,140 --> 00:14:31,140 And suddenly there appeared a bright light on the right-hand side. There were a number of bright lights that were significant, but this was the most important. 105 00:14:31,140 --> 00:14:36,140 And it had started drifting slowly to the left, and it got to a certain point. 106 00:14:36,140 --> 00:14:46,140 Suddenly there were two quick flashes on the lower left-hand part of the screen, and apparently in reaction to that, the object shot back up very sharply to the right, 107 00:14:46,140 --> 00:14:55,140 and shortly after that two streaks went through the picture. One right where it had been, or very close to that, and another over here. 108 00:14:55,140 --> 00:15:04,140 There was also a second object that had been drifting up. It reacted by moving off also, and there were some over on the right, and they reacted as well. 109 00:15:04,140 --> 00:15:11,140 So you had several objects, a double flash reaction, and then streaks going into where the objects had been. 110 00:15:11,140 --> 00:15:16,140 The NASA answer is a reasonable one because it does happen. 111 00:15:16,140 --> 00:15:22,140 They said that they were ice particles that were close to the shuttle, and there are ice particles close to the shuttle frequently. 112 00:15:22,140 --> 00:15:31,140 And they said that the attitude of jester rockets went off, and the exhaust from those rockets then blew those ice particles away, and that's what happened. 113 00:15:31,140 --> 00:15:41,140 That can happen. And to someone just casually looking at the video, if that's all you do, then it probably seems like a reasonable explanation. 114 00:15:41,140 --> 00:15:48,140 I went far beyond that though because I took the video and I took the position locations as functions of time, 115 00:15:48,140 --> 00:15:58,140 and I made graphs and I made a very careful scientific study of how the objects reacted and how they moved and how the flashes would interact with that. 116 00:15:58,140 --> 00:16:08,140 And basically bottom line, I developed what I consider five fairly significant and strong proofs that the objects could not have been ice particles. 117 00:16:08,140 --> 00:16:16,140 The film produced during mission STS-48 is not the only one of its kind in NASA archives. 118 00:16:16,140 --> 00:16:24,140 Countless numbers of strange objects have been filmed from the time of the Mercury program in the early 1960s to recent shuttle flights. 119 00:16:24,140 --> 00:16:39,140 In July 1969, the day before the first astronauts landed on the moon, the crew of Apollo 11 filmed two odd lights, which were later rationalized as reflections off the windows of the lunar excursion module. 120 00:16:39,140 --> 00:16:43,140 I can't say for sure that they were hiding information in this case. 121 00:16:43,140 --> 00:16:54,140 I do suspect that NASA has been involved with UFOs and it really would seem reasonable to me that if they are involved with UFOs, they would tend to cover it up. 122 00:16:54,140 --> 00:17:02,140 UFOs are very interesting objects and it's not really a matter of whether the government is covering up UFO information. 123 00:17:02,140 --> 00:17:09,140 It's a matter of court record that the government has documents that deal with UFOs and they are classified. 124 00:17:09,140 --> 00:17:14,140 So there are those documents that exist and so quite possibly NASA has some too. 125 00:17:14,140 --> 00:17:30,140 I cannot say for sure that they are specifically involved in the STS-48 as a cover-up, but I do have confidence in my study and I think that I can establish fairly well that these were actually spacecraft of some kind, not ice particles. 126 00:17:30,140 --> 00:17:41,140 I've spoken to many astronauts. The majority of them, I believe, have not in fact seen UFOs and they become distressed when a lot of reports have been attributed to them. 127 00:17:41,140 --> 00:17:52,140 But there certainly have been a number of unexplained reports. For example, James McDivitt told me that he was puzzled by an object that he saw in one of the Germany flights. 128 00:17:53,140 --> 00:18:00,140 And I've had letters from other astronauts saying they've been puzzled by certain things, some of which have been explained. 129 00:18:00,140 --> 00:18:11,140 I think all the so-called smoking gun, I don't know if you're familiar with the smoking gun, the shuttle footage, I'm totally unconvinced. 130 00:18:11,140 --> 00:18:21,140 I think that nearly all those pictures show ice crystals being blown away by the directional thrusters on the shuttle. That's my own opinion. 131 00:18:21,140 --> 00:18:31,140 So I think that's all nonsense about those things. The idea that NASA would release all this stuff openly every day to the public is ridiculous if they were actual UFOs. 132 00:18:31,140 --> 00:18:38,140 They don't look like UFOs, they don't behave like UFOs and they're not UFOs in my opinion. 133 00:18:38,140 --> 00:18:48,140 NASA has released a number of documents which in fact I've published in Beyond Top Secret, which is the revised and updated edition of Above Top Secret. 134 00:18:48,140 --> 00:18:55,140 And I've published quite a lot of information also in Above Top Secret, my first book, which is now out of print. 135 00:18:55,140 --> 00:19:01,140 And quite clearly that indicates a serious involvement on the part of NASA. 136 00:19:02,140 --> 00:19:11,140 NASA itself classifies a lot of information at Confidential Secret, Top Secret and Above Top Secret. 137 00:19:11,140 --> 00:19:20,140 We know that, I know that from their physical security handbook. And I'm quite sure that a lot of material by NASA is being withheld. 138 00:19:21,140 --> 00:19:27,140 In Canada, the UFO matter was never really assigned to civil authorities as it was in the States. 139 00:19:27,140 --> 00:19:32,140 The only significant episode dates back to the early 1950s. 140 00:19:32,140 --> 00:19:46,140 Wilbert Smith, an engineer working for the Federal Department of Transport, undertook an initiative of his own with the support of his superiors to study all of the UFO reports collected by the Department of National Defense and Transport Canada. 141 00:19:47,140 --> 00:19:54,140 Smith was hoping to draw valuable scientific information from these reports. His study was known as Project Magnet. 142 00:19:56,140 --> 00:20:12,140 In 1950 and 51 and in 1952, Canadian scientist and government official, Wilbert Smith, with the Department of Transportation, had a very, very strong interest in UFOs. 143 00:20:12,140 --> 00:20:18,140 And I think what appears to be on his own initiative did a tremendous amount of research on this topic. 144 00:20:18,140 --> 00:20:29,140 Spoke to many American officials, including a defense scientist named Robert Sarbacher, who told him that UFOs in America were considered the highest matter of security. 145 00:20:29,140 --> 00:20:35,140 Wilbert Smith also became very close with Donald Kehoe, who organized NICAP several years later. 146 00:20:36,140 --> 00:20:43,140 Wilbert Smith was able to get approval for something known as Project Magnet, which occurred in Canada. 147 00:20:43,140 --> 00:20:58,140 And this was a study that would attempt to measure the appearance of UFOs by setting up instrumentation that would detect them through electromagnetic means. 148 00:20:59,140 --> 00:21:07,140 It is believed, in fact, that the project did record a success shortly before it was closed down in the early 1950s. 149 00:21:07,140 --> 00:21:18,140 It has been said that the project was going to be closed down anyway due to either lack of interest or an unwillingness on the part of the Canadian government to support the project. 150 00:21:19,140 --> 00:21:31,140 Following Project Magnet is very similar in a sense to the closing of Project Blue Book in the United States, which was basically a policy of debunking and shutting off of good UFO information. 151 00:21:36,140 --> 00:21:41,140 Smith did not hide the fact that he believed the UFOs were interplanetary craft. 152 00:21:41,140 --> 00:21:48,140 So in anticipation of Smith's conclusions, the Department of Transport withdrew its support in 1954. 153 00:21:48,140 --> 00:21:52,140 He was told to cease all activities related to Project Magnet. 154 00:21:52,140 --> 00:21:56,140 Smith ended his study and submitted his conclusions. 155 00:21:56,140 --> 00:22:02,140 As expected, the engineer wrote that the phenomenon was definitely extraterrestrial in nature. 156 00:22:02,140 --> 00:22:10,140 Another study was being carried out at the same time by the Second Story Committee, a joint venture by the Department of Transport and DND. 157 00:22:10,140 --> 00:22:13,140 This committee's conclusions were far more conservative. 158 00:22:13,140 --> 00:22:16,140 After that, UFOs were relegated to no man's land. 159 00:22:16,140 --> 00:22:23,140 The Department of Transport didn't want anything more to do with the matter, and DND didn't see the point in collecting these reports. 160 00:22:23,140 --> 00:22:30,140 In 1967, the reports were turned over to the Ottawa-Hersburg Institute, part of the National Research Council. 161 00:22:30,140 --> 00:22:34,140 But their primary interest in the reports had nothing to do with UFOs. 162 00:22:35,140 --> 00:22:42,140 The Hardsburg Institute was the centre for geophysical studies, in particular many astronomy studies. 163 00:22:42,140 --> 00:22:56,140 A number of individuals there, particularly Dr. Peter Millman, were studying how meteor observations can lead to the discovery of the meteorites themselves on the ground. 164 00:22:56,140 --> 00:23:10,140 To do that, he got the cooperation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to collect reports of unusual lights in the sky, reports of UFOs in some cases, 165 00:23:10,140 --> 00:23:20,140 and take the reports from the RCMP to the National Research Council, which was the repository in the Hardsburg Institute. 166 00:23:21,140 --> 00:23:33,140 These reports were then examined to see if they were, in fact, possible reports of a fireball or meteor that may have landed on the earth for possible recovery by the geophysicists themselves, 167 00:23:33,140 --> 00:23:36,140 in which case it would be very important scientifically. 168 00:23:36,140 --> 00:23:42,140 If they were not considered to be meteors, they were considered non-metioric, 169 00:23:42,140 --> 00:23:54,140 and the Hardsburg Institute had a very small file every year of perhaps 20 to 30 cases of reports from people who had seen unusual objects in the sky, 170 00:23:54,140 --> 00:23:58,140 which were not meteors and were something else, something much more mysterious. 171 00:23:58,140 --> 00:24:04,140 You see, the National Research Council itself was not interested in UFOs, 172 00:24:04,140 --> 00:24:11,140 but the possibility that UFO reports might lead to the recovery of meteorites. 173 00:24:11,140 --> 00:24:16,140 But in order to do so, they had to collect the case reports and the sighting reports themselves. 174 00:24:16,140 --> 00:24:26,140 So every year, the file accumulated larger and larger and was transferred at the end of each year to the National Archives of Canada, 175 00:24:26,140 --> 00:24:35,140 and these files of UFO reports can be seen today by anyone who wishes to do so at the National Archives. 176 00:24:36,140 --> 00:24:46,140 Gathering of information is basically left up to the discretion of federal, provincial and municipal police forces. 177 00:24:46,140 --> 00:24:53,140 Whenever a complaint is filed by a Canadian citizen, a police officer is sent to investigate the matter. 178 00:24:53,140 --> 00:24:59,140 Most officers just smile to themselves when they find out that it's an alleged UFO sighting. 179 00:25:00,140 --> 00:25:08,140 To them, it just means more paperwork to be done, extra work for them to do, and they don't consider it much fun. 180 00:25:08,140 --> 00:25:14,140 They investigate the matter anyways, but only because they have to since a complaint was lodged. 181 00:25:14,140 --> 00:25:19,140 Of course, in the best of scenarios, the police officers would arrive at the scene and see the UFOs still there, 182 00:25:19,140 --> 00:25:22,140 making them witnesses to the incident as well. 183 00:25:22,140 --> 00:25:26,140 This did in fact happen in Satayas since five, six years ago. 184 00:25:26,140 --> 00:25:30,140 It also happened in Quebec City, in Cochrane and in other places. 185 00:25:30,140 --> 00:25:35,140 It has certainly happened a lot more often than we think, but they never tell us about it. 186 00:25:44,140 --> 00:25:51,140 On November 7th, 1990, dozens of people, including local police officers and national RCMP agents, 187 00:25:51,140 --> 00:25:55,140 saw a bright object hovering over the Bonaventure Hotel in Montreal. 188 00:25:55,140 --> 00:26:03,140 The round object, which was surrounded by an amber light, stayed visible for hours before disappearing into a thick cloud covering. 189 00:26:03,140 --> 00:26:11,140 Two years later, Richard Haynes, a senior research scientist working with the Space Human Factors Office of the NASA Ames Research Center, 190 00:26:11,140 --> 00:26:19,140 produced a report concluding that the object was indeed a physical apparition and not simply a reflection or the aurora borealis. 191 00:26:19,140 --> 00:26:25,140 According to Haynes, the object was flying at an altitude of 3,500 to 9,000 feet. 192 00:26:25,140 --> 00:26:32,140 After analyzing a photo taken by a local journalist, Marcel Arash, as well as weather conditions at the time of the sighting, 193 00:26:32,140 --> 00:26:40,140 it was concluded that the unidentified flying object was approximately 1,783 feet across. 194 00:26:40,140 --> 00:26:45,140 The length of five football fields. The incident is still unclassified. 195 00:26:45,140 --> 00:26:49,140 Several police officers witnessed the UFO over the Bonaventure Hotel. 196 00:26:49,140 --> 00:26:53,140 But do any special procedures exist for reporting this type of incident? 197 00:27:02,140 --> 00:27:09,140 If you're asking me whether we have specific procedures for reporting unidentified flying objects, then the answer is no. 198 00:27:09,140 --> 00:27:13,140 They're reported the same way as anything else that happens each day. 199 00:27:13,140 --> 00:27:20,140 If a person sees something suspicious in the sky, or something that has just landed on the ground or in the water, 200 00:27:20,140 --> 00:27:26,140 then we open a calling card and gather information. 201 00:27:26,140 --> 00:27:35,140 Our telecommunications agent then assigns a police vehicle to the case, and the vehicle is dispatched to investigate the incident. 202 00:27:35,140 --> 00:27:40,140 These officers are my eyes and ears. 203 00:27:40,140 --> 00:27:50,140 The men or women who check into the incident report back to me and the telecommunications agent that assigned the case. 204 00:27:50,140 --> 00:27:58,140 We depend on the skills and judgment of the officers who investigate the scene and prepare a preliminary report. 205 00:27:58,140 --> 00:28:03,140 They meet with witnesses and verify any evidence that is submitted. 206 00:28:03,140 --> 00:28:07,140 They then make a decision based on those elements. 207 00:28:07,140 --> 00:28:14,140 Their job is to gather and relay the facts, and then we decide what action to take based on those facts. 208 00:28:14,140 --> 00:28:32,140 Sometimes we send forensic specialists, or if it seems to be a case of a genuine UFO, we send support staff to secure the area or assist with the investigation. 209 00:28:33,140 --> 00:28:41,140 Obviously, in the event that the incident poses a threat to national security, police forces have mechanisms in place for passing on information. 210 00:28:41,140 --> 00:28:47,140 In the case of the UFO over the Bonaventure Hotel, the Air Force was called. 211 00:28:47,140 --> 00:28:53,140 Unfortunately, with nothing showing on their radar screens, officers at the Trenton Military Base in Ontario, 212 00:28:53,140 --> 00:29:00,140 who were responsible for the safety of Eastern Canada, did not feel that it was necessary to send out fighter jets. 213 00:29:00,140 --> 00:29:05,140 If they had done so, the incident may have turned out differently. 214 00:29:05,140 --> 00:29:15,140 If we see that a case is not well founded, we don't bother contacting the RCMP or the Canadian forces. 215 00:29:15,140 --> 00:29:20,140 They have a lot of better things to do with their time, and so do we, for that matter. 216 00:29:20,140 --> 00:29:28,140 If a case is genuine, then yes, we have an agency, or rather, I should say an office called the Territory Surveillance Bureau. 217 00:29:28,140 --> 00:29:33,140 They are the ones with the official connection to the Canadian forces in the RCMP. 218 00:29:33,140 --> 00:29:43,140 If we see that there is something worth further investigation, a national security concern, then the Territory Surveillance Bureau goes into action. 219 00:29:43,140 --> 00:29:47,140 It advises the RCMP or the Canadian forces. 220 00:29:47,140 --> 00:29:52,140 We also see the Canadian forces and the security of the country depending on that. 221 00:30:17,140 --> 00:30:24,140 The agency, independent of any military structure, but having the same investigative privileges as police detectives, 222 00:30:24,140 --> 00:30:31,140 and whose primary objective would not be to protect Canadian territory, but rather to study UFOs. 223 00:30:31,140 --> 00:30:40,140 Utopia? No. An agency such as this does exist. It is the only one of its kind in the world, called CIPRA. 224 00:30:41,140 --> 00:30:49,140 Within France's National Space Research Center, CNES, there is a civil agency dedicated to studying aerospace, 225 00:30:49,140 --> 00:30:59,140 since CNES's mission is to study satellites, rockets, and anything else that passes through France's aerospace. 226 00:31:00,140 --> 00:31:10,140 In 1977, when Minister Robert Galli was interviewed by a journalist regarding the strange apparitions seen after the war, 227 00:31:10,140 --> 00:31:21,140 commonly referred to as UFOs, the minister admitted to the journalist that the French police force had received accounts of bizarre incidents, 228 00:31:21,140 --> 00:31:31,140 and that they were planning on studying them. But more from a scientific point of view, rather than a journalistic perspective, 229 00:31:31,140 --> 00:31:33,140 or simply for media hype. 230 00:31:36,140 --> 00:31:45,140 CNES was tasked with setting up an agency for this purpose, and it was given the name JAPAN. 231 00:31:45,140 --> 00:31:57,140 JAPAN was monitored by a scientific council. It was not just left on its own to study these matters. 232 00:31:57,140 --> 00:32:05,140 It was told that the scientific council had laid out a path for JAPAN so that it could gather information, analyze it, 233 00:32:05,140 --> 00:32:10,140 and formulate conclusions on what was behind this flying saucer phenomenon. 234 00:32:16,140 --> 00:32:30,140 When JAPAN was created in 1977, CNES set up agreements and protocols with all civil and military agencies, defining the roles of each agency. 235 00:32:31,140 --> 00:32:40,140 The French police force and air force are responsible for collecting information, since pilots naturally observe objects in the sky as part of their job. 236 00:32:41,140 --> 00:32:47,140 Pilots report any strange sightings to the police, who pass the information on to us here at CEPRA. 237 00:32:48,140 --> 00:32:53,140 We then analyze the reports and offer our expert opinion on the matters. 238 00:32:53,140 --> 00:33:12,140 The system has been working this way since 1977. Today, we have all of the information stored in a database. 239 00:33:12,140 --> 00:33:16,140 Every incident reported is entered into the computer. 240 00:33:16,140 --> 00:33:24,140 We now have a very large volume of information, with close to 6,000 reports. 241 00:33:32,140 --> 00:33:39,140 This will enable us to prepare an analysis of the sightings reported over the past 50 years or so. 242 00:33:40,140 --> 00:33:47,140 The cooperation established between the agencies has allowed for vital exchanges of information. 243 00:33:52,140 --> 00:34:01,140 When we first set up this cooperative effort, procedures were put in place, and each police officer knows what to do if an incident occurs. 244 00:34:02,140 --> 00:34:10,140 If it's simply a case of a person reporting something that they saw in the sky, a report is filled out and it ends there. 245 00:34:10,140 --> 00:34:15,140 The report is sent to our office a few weeks later. 246 00:34:20,140 --> 00:34:25,140 But when the incident is more complicated and difficult to understand, 247 00:34:26,140 --> 00:34:32,140 especially when there are physical elements to be examined, such as marks on the ground, 248 00:34:32,140 --> 00:34:42,140 then the police contact us directly, and we respond quickly with tools for analyzing these elements that the police and army do not have. 249 00:34:42,140 --> 00:34:48,140 The police and army do not carry out any actual investigations of the UFO phenomenon. 250 00:34:48,140 --> 00:34:52,140 They leave that up to the CNES. 251 00:34:55,140 --> 00:35:00,140 They are not involved in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. 252 00:35:00,140 --> 00:35:05,140 They are completely involved in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. 253 00:35:26,140 --> 00:35:31,140 The police found out of polished metal and was about the size of a compact car. 254 00:35:31,140 --> 00:35:36,140 It didn't have any visible traits to help identify what type of aircraft it might be. 255 00:35:36,140 --> 00:35:43,140 The object remained on the ground for a few seconds, then silently took off and disappeared into the sky. 256 00:35:43,140 --> 00:35:52,140 At the scene of the incident, the witness noticed that the object had left a circular trace on the ground, approximately 7 feet in diameter. 257 00:35:52,140 --> 00:35:57,140 The police, who then advised Jipun, as CEPRA was known at the time, 258 00:35:57,140 --> 00:36:02,140 analysis of the site revealed abnormalities in both the soil and the vegetation. 259 00:36:02,140 --> 00:36:08,140 No satisfactory explanation was ever given, and the incident remains unclassified. 260 00:36:14,140 --> 00:36:21,140 The most difficult part of the process is getting from the point where a person has seen something 261 00:36:21,140 --> 00:36:25,140 of what has been seen. 262 00:36:25,140 --> 00:36:31,140 Information is lost along the way, from the time that the incident is first reported 263 00:36:31,140 --> 00:36:35,140 to the time that an explanation is proposed. 264 00:36:35,140 --> 00:36:40,140 We have to try and come up with something that can be understood. 265 00:36:44,140 --> 00:36:48,140 What did these phenomena represent on a global scale? 266 00:36:48,140 --> 00:36:54,140 Of the cases reported since the 1950s, approximately 12% remain unexplained. 267 00:36:54,140 --> 00:36:58,140 What exactly does this 12% correspond to? 268 00:36:58,140 --> 00:37:05,140 It's a variety of phenomenon with a particular set of physical and technologically advanced characteristics. 269 00:37:05,140 --> 00:37:09,140 It could be an object that zigzags across the sky, 270 00:37:09,140 --> 00:37:14,140 or it could be a craft that moves silently 271 00:37:14,140 --> 00:37:18,140 and causes lights to flicker in a nearby car. 272 00:37:26,140 --> 00:37:30,140 It could be people who see strange forms near the ground, 273 00:37:30,140 --> 00:37:34,140 which suddenly disappear into thin air. 274 00:37:34,140 --> 00:37:39,140 It's a whole slew of incidents that cannot be lumped in with known phenomena. 275 00:37:44,140 --> 00:37:57,140 On January 28, 1994, while flying at an altitude of approximately 39,000 feet, 276 00:37:57,140 --> 00:38:03,140 the crew of an Air France Airbus noticed a large red disk flying to the left of their aircraft, 277 00:38:03,140 --> 00:38:07,140 approximately 25 nautical miles away. 278 00:38:07,140 --> 00:38:13,140 The object remained visible for a few seconds, then changed shape and disappeared. 279 00:38:13,140 --> 00:38:20,140 Controllers at the Taverni Air Defense Operations Center, who were ensuring radar coverage of the area at the time, 280 00:38:20,140 --> 00:38:25,140 saw an unidentified radar blip on their screens, which was crossing the Airbus' path. 281 00:38:25,140 --> 00:38:28,140 Then it disappeared off their screens. 282 00:38:28,140 --> 00:38:34,140 As unusual as this may seem, this sighting by the Air France crew was not an isolated incident. 283 00:38:34,140 --> 00:38:40,140 Each year, agencies that ensure air transportation safety face incidents such as this. 284 00:38:40,140 --> 00:38:46,140 Most of these agencies are overseen by IKAL, the International Civil Aviation Organization. 285 00:38:46,140 --> 00:38:50,140 These inexplicable sightings rarely make the headlines. 286 00:38:50,140 --> 00:38:55,140 However, in a lot of these cases, the passenger's safety has been compromised. 287 00:38:55,140 --> 00:39:02,140 On August 9, 1997, a Swiss Air Boeing 737 on its way from New York to Philadelphia 288 00:39:02,140 --> 00:39:06,140 barely missed colliding with an unidentified flying object. 289 00:39:06,140 --> 00:39:12,140 On January 6, 1995, a few minutes before touching down at Manchester Airport in England, 290 00:39:12,140 --> 00:39:18,140 a British Airways Boeing 737 almost collided with a bright, triangular-shaped object. 291 00:39:18,140 --> 00:39:23,140 The UFO was moving silently and was undetected by radar. 292 00:39:23,140 --> 00:39:30,140 In August 1984, a Condair Airlines aircraft had to make an emergency landing at Ipswich Airport in England 293 00:39:30,140 --> 00:39:33,140 after hitting an unidentified flying object. 294 00:39:33,140 --> 00:39:39,140 British Civil Aviation Inspectors reported that the aircraft had sustained major damage to one of its engines, 295 00:39:39,140 --> 00:39:44,140 a window, part of its fuselage, one of the ailerons and the hydraulic cables. 296 00:39:44,140 --> 00:39:49,140 In every one of these cases, no one was ever able to offer a rational explanation, 297 00:39:49,140 --> 00:39:54,140 neither the Civil Aviation Investigators nor Jean-Jacques Velasco of CEPRA. 298 00:39:55,140 --> 00:40:07,140 With regards to these unexplained cases, CEPRA's position is that we often see phenomena 299 00:40:07,140 --> 00:40:13,140 that do not correspond to any technology that we are aware exists today. 300 00:40:13,140 --> 00:40:19,140 If we don't have this technology, then it must come from somewhere else. 301 00:40:19,140 --> 00:40:29,140 And if it comes from somewhere else, then the only reasonable theory we could put forth is that it comes from outer space. 302 00:40:29,140 --> 00:40:36,140 This cannot be verified in itself because obviously we do not have the means to interpret these phenomena, 303 00:40:36,140 --> 00:40:43,140 but it's a theory that scientists can work with. 304 00:40:43,140 --> 00:40:51,140 In France, we have had a unique situation since 1977 when CNES created an agency dedicated to studying UFOs. 305 00:40:51,140 --> 00:40:55,140 It was created by Claude Poirier, an engineer who is now retired. 306 00:40:55,140 --> 00:40:59,140 At the time, he was head of the Systems and Projects Division at CNES, 307 00:40:59,140 --> 00:41:03,140 and he became interested in the subject after reading the Condom Report 308 00:41:03,140 --> 00:41:08,140 and concluding that the subject must be interesting if you can write a thousand pages about it 309 00:41:08,140 --> 00:41:11,140 and then turn around and reject what was written. 310 00:41:11,140 --> 00:41:15,140 Then launched a series of investigations which continued over time. 311 00:41:15,140 --> 00:41:21,140 In the early 80s, CEPRA took over from Japan since CNES no longer considered the matter a priority. 312 00:41:21,140 --> 00:41:28,140 It had never really been a top priority, but in the 1980s, CNES became more interested in other issues. 313 00:41:28,140 --> 00:41:33,140 What I'm saying is that for some time now we've had a group studying UFOs. 314 00:41:33,140 --> 00:41:40,140 This group has raised controversy over the years since UFO researchers believe that they might be hiding the truth, 315 00:41:40,140 --> 00:41:45,140 just like the American government has been accused of hiding the truth about UFOs. 316 00:41:45,140 --> 00:41:48,140 The question is just how much can be done. 317 00:41:48,140 --> 00:41:53,140 I find it interesting that the French scientific community has undertaken such a task 318 00:41:53,140 --> 00:42:00,140 because it requires an open dialogue between them and the public. 319 00:42:00,140 --> 00:42:08,140 In the first few years, a lot was accomplished by Claude Poirier and Alain Esther, the founders of Japan. 320 00:42:08,140 --> 00:42:14,140 Unfortunately, in the later years, CEPRA was not able to keep up with demand 321 00:42:14,140 --> 00:42:18,140 and it did not release much information. 322 00:42:18,140 --> 00:42:28,140 Its primary mission was to study phenomena in the atmosphere. 323 00:42:28,140 --> 00:42:36,140 They were also investigating UFOs, but they seemed to put a lot less time and effort into that side of their operations. 324 00:42:36,140 --> 00:42:46,140 And there was no clear policy on follow-up of investigations. 325 00:42:46,140 --> 00:42:50,140 Controversy sprung up between CEPRA and UFO researchers, 326 00:42:50,140 --> 00:42:58,140 who wanted to be the spokesperson on the subject since they were so familiar with it. 327 00:42:58,140 --> 00:43:02,140 But Poirier and Alain Esther would just give him the brush off saying, 328 00:43:02,140 --> 00:43:06,140 oh, we're working on it. Just wait and see what we're doing. 329 00:43:06,140 --> 00:43:10,140 We can't always be answering letters and phone calls. They're just too much to handle. 330 00:43:10,140 --> 00:43:16,140 This created a polarization between the two groups and CEPRA was suspected of hiding the truth. 331 00:43:16,140 --> 00:43:20,140 I don't think that CEPRA has been hiding anything. You're just trying to do their jobs. 332 00:43:20,140 --> 00:43:25,140 The problem lies in the fact that scientists feel that UFOs aren't important. 333 00:43:25,140 --> 00:43:27,140 They have other things to do. 334 00:43:27,140 --> 00:43:32,140 The scientists feel that UFOs are important and efforts should be focused solely on them. 335 00:43:32,140 --> 00:43:35,140 They're caught between a rock and a hard place. 336 00:43:35,140 --> 00:43:40,140 To add to the problems, CNES has never considered CEPRA a priority, 337 00:43:40,140 --> 00:43:45,140 so it has never provided the group with the means that it requires to do its job properly. 338 00:43:45,140 --> 00:43:50,140 The group still exists and is still carrying on its work, but at a slower pace. 339 00:43:50,140 --> 00:43:54,140 No reports have been produced since Japan became CEPRA. 340 00:43:54,140 --> 00:44:00,140 Progress doesn't seem to get past the discussion stage, as is the case for the 1981 Trans-en-Provence incident, 341 00:44:00,140 --> 00:44:04,140 in which a witness saw a spacecraft landing on the ground. 342 00:44:04,140 --> 00:44:08,140 The case was investigated by Japan and is still being discussed, 343 00:44:08,140 --> 00:44:12,140 but hardly any progress has been made since the original investigation. 344 00:44:12,140 --> 00:44:19,140 Since the end of World War II, several civil agencies have come face to face with UFOs. 345 00:44:19,140 --> 00:44:23,140 The number of unclassified cases keeps on growing. 346 00:44:23,140 --> 00:44:28,140 Although a lot of information is still inaccessible, the thousands of pages of information released to the public 347 00:44:28,140 --> 00:44:36,140 over the past few years only go to prove that the phenomenon is a lot more significant than we were led to believe. 348 00:44:36,140 --> 00:44:44,140 Throughout the public and the media, skeptics and believers continue to debate the theory of visitors from outer space. 349 00:44:44,140 --> 00:44:49,140 Discussions might be more productive if we could study the facts without prejudice, 350 00:44:49,140 --> 00:44:53,140 instead of simply judging a book by its cover. 351 00:44:53,140 --> 00:44:57,140 In the end, people will believe what they want to believe.