1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000 In the spring of 1952, something extraordinary happens. 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,800 UFO sightings go off the charts. 3 00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:16,760 For years, the U.S. government has told the post-war public that UFOs do not exist. 4 00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:21,940 But secretly, U.S. Air Force commanders are divided. 5 00:00:21,940 --> 00:00:27,040 Some Air Force personnel believe the sightings are explainable atmospheric phenomena. 6 00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:34,040 But others wonder if we have been visited by a more technologically advanced alien civilization. 7 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:46,040 Join us as we investigate the 1952 UFO wave, a spike in sightings so extreme that the U.S. government is forced to confront the UFO phenomenon. 8 00:00:46,040 --> 00:00:47,040 Head on. 9 00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:53,040 A global effort has begun. 10 00:00:53,040 --> 00:01:00,040 Files hidden from the public for decades detailing every UFO account are now available to the public. 11 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:05,040 We are about to uncover the truth behind these classified documents. 12 00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:08,040 Find out what the government doesn't want you to know. 13 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:12,040 Unsealed alien files. 14 00:01:12,040 --> 00:01:15,040 Exposing the biggest secret on planet Earth. 15 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:19,040 July 29, 1952. 16 00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:28,040 Major General John Samford, the Director of Intelligence for the U.S. Air Force, holds the largest press conference since World War II. 17 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:29,040 The reason? 18 00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:33,040 I am here to discuss the so-called flying saucers. 19 00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:44,040 The Air Force's interest in this problem has been due to our feeling of an obligation to identify and analyze to the best of our ability. 20 00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:51,040 Anything in the air that may have the possibility of threat or menace to the United States. 21 00:01:51,040 --> 00:02:00,040 Throughout the spring and summer of 1952, there are more reported UFO sightings in the U.S. than at any other time in history. 22 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:05,040 The public knows it, and Samford tries to calm their nerves. 23 00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:13,040 Of this great mass of reports, we have been able adequately to explain the great bulk of them. 24 00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:20,040 But what about the hundreds of UFO sightings that radar and eye witnesses cannot explain? 25 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:28,040 To understand arguably the most unique year in modern UFO history, we must go back to the beginning. 26 00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:34,040 1952 begins with fewer than one reported UFO sighting per day. 27 00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:38,040 By April and May, sightings increase to three per day. 28 00:02:38,040 --> 00:02:45,040 Then in June, the rate of reported sightings doubles, and they have yet to peak. 29 00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:52,040 This was orders of magnitude beyond anything that the American military had seen before. 30 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:57,040 It took the UFO phenomenon to a completely new level. 31 00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:04,040 From July 22nd to July 29th, UFO sighting spiked to 27 per day. 32 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:10,040 The sighting spike is considerable, so you have to ask what exactly was going on in the nation. 33 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:13,040 The Air Force is gravely concerned. 34 00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:19,040 Their job is to patrol the skies, but something is happening that they cannot explain. 35 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:26,040 Unsealed case file, the Hawaii sighting, March 1952. 36 00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:34,040 Navy Secretary Dan Kimball and Admiral Radford are flying in separate planes over Guam, en route to Hawaii. 37 00:03:34,040 --> 00:03:41,040 During the course of this flight, Kimball and Radford looked out the window and saw an unidentified flying object that they couldn't explain. 38 00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:45,040 As they watched this object, they said it streaked across the sky. 39 00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:50,040 Air Force Insider and co-founder of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, 40 00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:59,040 Major Donald Keeho reports Kimball assaying the object circled us twice and then took off, heading east. 41 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:05,040 There was another Navy plane behind us, with Admiral Arthur Radford on board. 42 00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:11,040 Kimball reports, in almost no time, Radford's chief pilot called back. 43 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:14,040 The UFOs were now circling their plane. 44 00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:18,040 They estimated it actually covered a distance of about 50 miles in less than two minutes. 45 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:24,040 The UFO eventually took off and disappeared and was no longer in sight. 46 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:30,040 When he inquires about the status of the investigation, he receives a surprising response. 47 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:39,040 He was actually denied access. The Air Force said that they could not disclose to the eyewitness what the status was of the case. 48 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:46,040 One month later, on April 29, 1952, history is made. 49 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:52,040 Unsealed case file, AFL 200-5. 50 00:04:52,040 --> 00:05:06,040 Air Force Letter 200-5 is a landmark Air Force directive stating that all UFO reports must be wired immediately to Air Technical Intelligence Command, the home of Project Blue Book. 51 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:15,040 They talked about the urgent need to use electronic means of reporting, really within a day. 52 00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:21,040 But secondly, not to talk about these things to the media and to the public. 53 00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:31,040 So right from the outset, what we have is this veil of secrecy surrounding military encounters with UFOs. 54 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:42,040 AFL 200-5 authorizes Project Blue Book to investigate UFO sightings made by Air Force personnel without the need of going through any chain of command. 55 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:53,040 This all-access pass is highly unusual and underscores the urgency of the situation. 56 00:05:53,040 --> 00:06:06,040 In the spring of 1952, the United States Air Force responds to mounting UFO sightings across the country by giving Project Blue Book unprecedented access to investigate UFOs. 57 00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:19,040 Its mission? To investigate UFO reports from civilians and military personnel and determine if UFOs are a threat to the nation and to identify them. 58 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:28,040 Air Force Officer Edward Rupelle, stationed at Ohio's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, is appointed to lead Project Blue Book. 59 00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:37,040 So this was the guy in day-to-day charge of investigating the sightings reported to the government and the military. 60 00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:48,040 Although he still accepted anecdotal accounts and reports from the public, the whole focus of Project Blue Book was effectively reconfigured 61 00:06:48,040 --> 00:06:53,040 on pilot sightings and on radar cases. 62 00:06:53,040 --> 00:07:04,040 But one case in July of 1952 confounds him. Unsealed case file, the Trementon film. 63 00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:16,040 July 2nd, 1952, Navy Warrent Officer D.C. Newhouse is driving through Utah with his wife when they notice a strange group of objects in the sky. 64 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:26,040 They stop the car to get a better look and cannot believe their eyes. A group of 10 to 12 objects overhead are flying in a westerly direction. 65 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:33,040 There were multiple objects that were seen flying through the sky that were not like any conventional aircraft that anyone had ever seen. 66 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:40,040 Newhouse later describes the objects as, shaped like two saucers, one inverted on top of the other. 67 00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:48,040 He runs to the trunk of his car and grabs his 16mm camera just in time to shoot this compelling film. 68 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:55,040 Every now and then you'll see sort of like an implied constellation of stars. So there seems to be some sort of a communication going on there. 69 00:07:55,040 --> 00:08:04,040 What's interesting is that that sort of sighting occurs even now in the skies over the United States and people film it. 70 00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:20,040 Rufelt later writes about Newhouse in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, saying, when he and his family first saw the UFOs, they were close to the car, much closer than when he took the movie. 71 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:27,040 The Trementon Newhouse film was shot by a witness that saw what can only be described as a fleet of UFOs in the sky. 72 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:40,040 I love those cases because they were the kind that you can't really fake. You know what I mean? They come from the old school and they haven't been put up on a photo shop or some sort of video editing in May. They're actually real. 73 00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:46,040 Four years later, Project Blue Book analyzes the footage and issues a report. 74 00:08:46,040 --> 00:08:55,040 They wanted to try and explain it away as balloons, which sounds like a viable explanation. Unfortunately, they could never prove it. So it went on the books as a true unknown. 75 00:08:55,040 --> 00:09:02,040 And even more disturbing, it looked eerily similar to a famous sighting just two years earlier. 76 00:09:04,040 --> 00:09:08,040 Unsealed Case File, The Mariana Film. 77 00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:20,040 August 1950, Great Falls, Montana. While inspecting a local baseball stadium with his secretary, Nick Mariana sees something flash out of the corner of his eye. 78 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:25,040 Two bright silver objects fly over Great Falls. 79 00:09:25,040 --> 00:09:29,040 This really depicted again multiple objects in the sky. 80 00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:34,040 He grabs his camera from his car and shoots this 16 seconds of film. 81 00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:43,040 The next day, The Great Falls Tribune carries the story. And in the weeks to come, Mariana shares his film at several local screenings. 82 00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:49,040 But the Air Force considers the objects on the Mariana film to be two of their own. 83 00:09:50,040 --> 00:10:00,040 After the witness got their film back from the United States Air Force, they claimed that they were missing frames from the footage, like it was cut out, cover up by the United States Air Force. 84 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:12,040 Mariana claims the frames clearly showed silver discs. The Air Force denies the allegations. But many in Great Falls who witnessed the original film support Mariana's claim. 85 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:15,040 So the question is, if that's true, what are they covering up? 86 00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:26,040 In July of 1952, two years after the Mariana film, Captain Ruppelt, head of Project Blue Book, requests to reanalyze the footage. 87 00:10:26,040 --> 00:10:33,040 The original analysis that the objects in the sky were reflections from F-94 jets is dismissed. 88 00:10:33,040 --> 00:10:42,040 Ruppelt states, the lights appeared too steady to be reflections. We drew a blank on the Montana movie. It was an unknown. 89 00:10:43,040 --> 00:10:47,040 The controversy over the missing frames is never resolved. 90 00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:55,040 Could this be truly evidence of alien craft in the sky? And so they wanted to kind of omit that section that really drove it home? 91 00:10:55,040 --> 00:11:07,040 Or was this top secret technology that the Air Force didn't want this guy to have and said, well, you can't really discern it here, but you can through frames, tend through whatever and snip that out. 92 00:11:08,040 --> 00:11:21,040 By early July 1952, UFO sightings dramatically increase across North America, forcing the U.S. Air Force to make UFO investigation a top priority. 93 00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:29,040 But nothing could prepare them for what occurs over the most heavily guarded airspace in the world, the nation's capital. 94 00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:35,040 Unsealed case file. The Washington, D.C. flap. 95 00:11:35,040 --> 00:11:44,040 On July 19, 1952, an air traffic controller at Washington National Airport picks up seven objects on radar. 96 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:49,040 He later describes them as completely radical compared to ordinary aircraft. 97 00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:54,040 Headlines the next day read, saucers swarm the capital. 98 00:11:55,040 --> 00:12:03,040 On July 26, a national airlines flight reports more UFOs. Andrews Air Force Base tracks them on radar. 99 00:12:03,040 --> 00:12:09,040 Witnesses describe the lights as traveling faster than any shooting star. 100 00:12:09,040 --> 00:12:15,040 By July 29, the Air Force issues an unprecedented shoot down order. 101 00:12:16,040 --> 00:12:25,040 The Washington Post writes, no pilot has been able to get close enough to take a shot, as the objects are out flying the jets by a thousand miles an hour. 102 00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:30,040 But exactly what is in the skies above Washington, D.C.? 103 00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:37,040 There's something in our skies. It's faster than us. It's more maneuverable than us. 104 00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:42,040 We track them on radar. We send our pilots up to train, intercept them, and yet they give us the slip. 105 00:12:42,040 --> 00:12:45,040 What's going on in our skies? 106 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:51,040 Are these UFOs interplanetary ships from outer space? Or is there another explanation? 107 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:58,040 With dozens of witnesses and radar evidence, the Air Force must calm an uneasy public. 108 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:08,040 July 29, 1952, General John Samford, director of Air Force Intelligence, holds a press conference. 109 00:13:08,040 --> 00:13:21,040 We've been able to explain them as folks as erroneously identified friendly aircraft, as meteorological or electronic phenomena, or as light aberration. 110 00:13:21,040 --> 00:13:31,040 One of the explanations that was put forth for this by the Air Force was that this was caused by a temperature inversion. 111 00:13:31,040 --> 00:13:37,040 But many in the UFO and scientific communities are unable to believe the explanation. 112 00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:43,040 It is this group of observations that we now are attempting to resolve. 113 00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:51,040 After Samford speaks, Major Donald Kehoe takes the microphone. And what he says is shocking. 114 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:57,040 With all due respect to the Air Force, I believe that some of them will prove to be of interplanetary origins. 115 00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:05,040 Just how much did the government know? And how far were they willing to go to keep it from the public? 116 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:09,040 Unsealed case file, the Robertson Panel. 117 00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:20,040 January 1953, after experiencing an unprecedented surge in UFO sightings, the CIA convenes the Robertson Panel. 118 00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:25,040 The Robertson Panel was a group of scientists, radar experts, nuclear physicists. 119 00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:32,040 People that were brought together by the CIA to try and figure out how to deal with the UFO problem. 120 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:38,040 The head of Project Blue Book, Captain Ruppelt, presents cases with the most compelling evidence. 121 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:42,040 Among them, the Tremonton and Mariana films. 122 00:14:42,040 --> 00:14:48,040 But Ruppelt quickly realizes the panel has already come to their own conclusions. 123 00:14:48,040 --> 00:14:55,040 The objective of the Robertson Panel was already determined before they stepped into that room and started deliberating what that evidence showed. 124 00:14:57,040 --> 00:15:07,040 After hearing just 12 hours of testimony over three days, the Robertson Panel's final conclusion is that UFOs do not pose a threat to national security. 125 00:15:07,040 --> 00:15:13,040 And that the overwhelming majority of sightings can be explained by natural phenomena. 126 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:20,040 Many experts now look at the documents and say, well, they really weren't doing their job as true investigators. 127 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:26,040 They were collecting these reports, analyzing them, and pretty much dismissing them one at a time. 128 00:15:26,040 --> 00:15:30,040 Weather balloon here, swamp gas there, the planet Venus over here. 129 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:34,040 And they were just completely dismissing anything that came in. 130 00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:41,040 Years later, the secretary of the Robertson Panel, CIA operative Frederick Durant, 131 00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:45,040 reveals that the Robertson Panel was not tasked with investigating evidence, 132 00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:52,040 but with quote, establishing a protocol for debunking UFO sighting claims. 133 00:15:52,040 --> 00:16:04,040 If you've got a case with a really obvious conventional explanation, publicize those cases and don't whatever you do, publicize the unknowns. 134 00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:14,040 This is the strongest evidence that Project Blue Book and the 12,000-plus cases that they investigated is not necessarily an investigation, but rather an explanation. 135 00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:17,040 And the Robertson Panel absolutely proves that. 136 00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:49,040 It is inconceivable to me as somebody who served in the Ministry of Defense for 21 years that one could receive credible reports and then dismiss them without some form of proper scientific investigation. 137 00:16:49,040 --> 00:16:56,040 Captain Edward Ruppelt, the head of Project Blue Book, is asked to brief Air Defense Command. 138 00:16:56,040 --> 00:17:07,040 In the meeting, Ruppelt allegedly reveals that based on a statistical breakdown of over 1,000 sightings, only 11% can be positively identified. 139 00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:16,040 The remaining 89% are categorized as probably identified, possibly identified, and unknown. 140 00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:24,040 It doesn't matter what these things are, we need to calm the public down because the real threat could be society itself. 141 00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:34,040 Since the extraordinary surge of UFO sightings in 1952, the American government to this day denies that it studies UFOs. 142 00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:37,040 But some believe otherwise. 143 00:17:37,040 --> 00:17:55,040 I am convinced that the government continues to investigate UFOs, but I suspect that they do it through the third-party offices of some defense contractor hidden away, well away from public scrutiny. 144 00:17:55,040 --> 00:18:05,040 Without a central organization to collect information on UFO sightings and investigate them, no one knows how many UFO events occur each year. 145 00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:14,040 Will there be another 1952? How will we know? And will the government even warn the public? 146 00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:23,040 This is Unsealed, Alien Files, exposing the biggest secret on planet Earth. 147 00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:30,040 Copyright © 2018 The Unsealed International Foundation