Ancient Aliens s05e02 Episode Script
Aliens and Cover-Ups
Sourced By: Deafdude Mysterious stories of extraterrestrial contact If we were to know the truth, society as we know it would collapse.
Secret messages from alien beings If it wasn't our technology and it certainly wasn't the Russian technology, then whose technology was it? and inexplicable events hidden from the public.
Just because something is a cover-up, doesn't mean you can't reach the truth.
All around the planet, evidence points to proof of otherworldly visitors, yet governments continue to deny their existence.
Most of 'em are afraid of it, and they run away from it.
They don't know anything.
So their only option is lie, lie, lie.
Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true? Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history? And if so, what is the truth behind aliens and cover-ups? Omaha, Nebraska, Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, October 1973.
As Cold War tensions between the United States and Russia simmer, the world remains on edge.
Suddenly, an object picked up on SAC radar sends the base onto high alert.
Sergeant Ken Storch was part of the Strategic Air Command's top secret Trident Defense.
This alarm went off on the computer, and at the very top of the message it said, "Alert, alert, alert, this is not a drill.
" Five unidentified objects had been picked up coming in over the Pacific Northwest.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff initially felt that it was a pre-emptive strike by a Russian submarine, and that they had launched ballistic missiles.
According to Storch, the unidentified objects flew over the entire Canadian territory in less than two minutes.
The UFO's then made a course correction that defied conventional physics.
Could it be, as some ancient astronaut theorists believe, that these objects were extraterrestrial crafts visiting Earth? These five objects went across the Bering Sea into the Soviet Union.
Richard Nixon was the president at the time.
He picked up what we called the Bat Phone and called the Kremlin, and Nixon said, "They are not ours.
" Is it possible that both nations knew the unexplained aircraft were piloted by extraterrestrials? Might the alien craft have actually wanted to be seen? But if so, why? The next day, CIA and air force investigators moved to block the story from becoming public.
I had to sign a security contingency form.
This one was specific to this incident, that I would not talk about it, uh, for 30 years.
That I would keep my mouth shut, and I did.
Could this incident involving two of the world's most powerful nations be one of hundreds of UFO events that have been known to governments the world over, but covered up as ancient astronaut theorists believe? And might this be additional evidence of a long history of extraterrestrials attempting to contact and communicate with the human race? Los Angeles, California, February 25, 1942.
In the early morning hours, something ignites a firestorm that lights up the sky.
That was he famous Battle of Los Angeles.
And this photograph that's been all around the world, showing all of those arc lights coming up to it.
Those arc lights were aimed at a diamond lozenge, eyewitnesses said that nearly 2,000 rounds of army anti-aircraft artillery was fired.
They could tell nothing was interacting.
It was as if it had a force field around it.
We fired thousands of rounds.
Unfortunately, civilians lost their lives.
The next day, no sign of this craft.
Could it have been extraterrestrials? All the evidence points to some type of craft not of this world.
According to researchers, five years later a UFO crash-landed outside Roswell, New Mexico in July of 1947.
Following this incident and numerous other UFO sightings, the public demanded to know who or what was behind these unexplained objects seen in the skies.
The government responded not by answering the question, but by creating the National Security Act.
Six weeks after the Roswell incident, the National Security Act that Harry Truman signed essentially says to youas an American citizen, we the government, don't have to answer that question in the "interests" of national security.
The sightings and close encounters only continued.
And the mysterious visitors appeared to grow even bolder.
But was there a message behind these increasing contact events? Washington, D.
C.
, July 19, 1952.
In the skies over the heart of the United States government, multiple unidentified flying objects are picked up on radar by air traffic controllers at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base.
There were jets scrambled to intercept them.
When the jets would get there, they would disappear.
When the jets would land, they would reappear again.
Basically, it was all over the news, all over the entire world.
So it happened twice on two consecutive weekends, meaning that more and more people saw the same thing: they were flying over the heart of Washington.
So that is essentially the equivalent of landing on the White House lawn.
According to ancient astronaut theorists, there was a reason that alien beings chose the nation's capital to make contact.
We had a series of UFO sightings that were buzzing the White House, the U.
S.
Capitol, I think in an attempt to make a very symbolic direct contact saying, "Hey, we'd like to talk to you guys.
" But it just seems to me like somehow we didn't get the message.
In the days following the mysterious sightings over the nation's capital, the U.
S.
government refused to acknowledge any extraterrestrial connection.
We have, as of date, come to only one firm conclusion, and that is that it does not contain any pattern of purpose or of consistency that we can relate to any conceivable threat to the United states.
In 1952, the Air Force created Project Blue Book to investigate the growing number of sightings and contact events.
But was this simply an attempt on the part of the U.
S.
government to suppress the truth? You've got too many tangible objective sightings, and of objects, by the way, that were doing things, just utterly incredibly extraordinary.
We've got a physical phenomenon.
It's real.
The question is why, and that's something we don't have the answer to.
If the United States government and others around the world knew that extraterrestrials were real, why was this information being covered up? Could it be that authorities feared the threat that these unconventional spacecraft represented to national security? There's a long litany of reports that, uh, the U.
S.
government has authored on UFOs, and many of them show dramatic UFO evidence for real.
And yet their conclusion was, it's either hoaxes or mistaken sightings of natural phenomenon and so forth.
That's the history of U.
S.
government studies on UFOs.
In modern times there's the idea that there's a secret and small elite body of people who are covering up the truth from the rest of society; that aliens from space have visited planet Earth, but nobody else is allowed to know about it.
In 1969, the air force abruptly terminated Project Blue Book.
Could it be that the government denials regarding extraterrestrial contact were failing to convince the public? Or is it possible that officials knew far more than they admitted about these events that were being reported again and again? One of the scientific advisors for the air force's Project Blue Book was J.
Alan Hynek.
Hynek became disenchanted with the fact that certain cases were not being followed up on and that there appeared to be some sort of cover-up going on.
According to researchers, the United States government and others around the world have continued to secretly investigate alien encounters that now number in the tens of thousands.
But might extraterrestrial contact actually have been documented and covered up for hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years? Luxor, Egypt.
Along the east bank of the Nile River, lie the ruins of the Karnak temple complex, dating to the 32nd century B.
C.
Here, in ancient Egyptian society, the pharaohs were considered perfect humans to be worshiped above all others as supreme living gods.
This religious hierarchy was in place for over a thousand years, until one pharaoh came into power and changed everything.
His name was Akhenaten.
According to legend, Akhenaten descended from the stars, and when he came to power, the worship of multiple gods ended.
The pharaoh replaced the old deities with a single sun god that some believe had interacted with and gave birth to Akhenaten.
This god was called Aten.
What we have with Akhenaten is very brief period of time when Egypt radically departs from its standard behavior.
We see Akhenaten is becoming obsessed, saying that he can contact the gods.
Also, he is remodeling the way he looks, not physically, but on his monuments.
Akhenaten looked very odd.
And the other statues that were created during that time all featured elongated heads, bizarre bodies and chicken legs.
The whole reign of Akhenaten leads us to think that he had contact with extraterrestrials.
Akhenaten's wife, Queen Nefertiti, and their children were also depicted with similar elongated heads.
But might there be a specific reason why the pharoah and his descendants were illustrated in this way? Clearly Akhenaten and various other people were confronted with deities who had these elongated skulls.
And so they reshaped their heads because this somehow would bring them closer to the gods, and maybe even in contacting or being amongst the gods.
Could the sun god Aten have been an alien being that visited Earth, as some ancient astronaut theorists contend? Or it it possible that Akhenaten himself had an extraterrestrial origin? Might Akhenaten have received messages from Aten? Messages that would have had a profound effect on Egyptian society during the pharaoh's reign? They visited him.
He had actual physical contact with them.
And so that was the reason why he instituted this one-god rule.
And in other theories also, that Akhenaten himself was in fact half-human half-extraterrestrial.
Akhenaten ruled for the magnificent city he built to the sun god was partially destroyed and his mysterious depictions were defaced or obliterated.
Aten, the god who some believe may have delivered messages to the pharaoh, was also virtually erased from the records.
Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists contend, that the pharaoh's relationship with extraterrestrial beings was covered up for nearly 1,000 years? All the other pharaohs left wall descriptions and describing their glory and brilliance.
But for some reason, around Akhenaten, it was all scribbled out, as if to hide them like an ancient cover-up.
Could this be because Akhenaten was perhaps actually extraterrestrial? Might contact with alien messengers have been kept secret by the ruling elite around the world for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years? Perhaps further evidence of this contact can be found where science and religion met, and struggled with the truth, or as some believe, tried to deny it.
Rome, Italy, February 17, 1600.
Here, astronomer and philosopher Giordano Bruno spent his last day imprisoned during the Roman Inquisition.
Among his alleged crimes, the scientist had asserted his belief that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and that the cosmos is filled with life.
In the 16th and 17th century, the, uh, Catholic Church was against certain developments in science, and among these heresies made by Giordano Bruno was the idea that there's a lot of life out there.
Bruno believed in the existence of extraterrestrial beings.
We also know that the Vatican is able to cover up this material extremely well.
So this is just one example of almost two thousands of years of Vatican power.
Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists claim, that Giordano Bruno had been visited by extraterrestrial beings? And might these same beings have shared messages with Bruno and other scientists including Copernicus and Galileo, messages that the Vatican learned of and greatly feared? In the Renaissance, scientists like Galileo and Copernicus were excommunicated because the Catholic Church had a very strong interest in controlling information.
So, of course, they did everything they could to silence scientific discoveries.
Bruno's revolutionary assertions included the belief that the universe was made up of an infinite number of worlds, which were populated by intelligent beings.
The problem with all these statements was that they violated one of the basic tenets of religion at that point, which was we were the center of creation.
We were the crown of creation.
We were top dog in the cosmos.
Bruno angered scholars and theologians across Europe with his teachings, and the scientist was finally arrested by order of the Vatican.
He endured eight years locked in a dungeon and was tried for heresy, but Bruno refused to recant his beliefs.
For his crimes against the Catholic Church, Bruno was burned at the stake.
But is it possible that the Vatican knew Bruno had been receiving messages from alien beings? And might it be that the Vatican wanted to deny the existence of extraterrestrial life, a species that far exceeded human capabilities and eluded the Vatican's control? The existence of this cover-up feeds our worry today that government, uh, and science could be engaged in a cover-up to hide the evidence of contact with extraterrestrial life.
Bruno's writings were condemned by the Catholic Church and banned for decades.
Many of his works were destroyed, and researchers believe they included revelations of messages he had received, and that the Vatican wanted to erase.
But might the information Bruno may have received from extraterrestrials still be locked away? And if so, does it remain a threat to Catholic doctrine? Does the trial of Bruno point to a cover-up by the Vatican? Perhaps the answers can be found in a small village in western Portugal and the story of a miracle that could offer proof that we are not alone.
The Vatican Vatican City, Italy.
In the 17th century, Pope Paul V ordered select documents of the Catholic Church moved from the Vatican Library and closed to outsiders until 1881.
Today, the Vatican Secret Archives are closely guarded and some researchers believe they contain revelations so explosive that they threaten the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
You have to wonder if the secret library at the Vatican, which they acknowledge exists, doesn't have records or chronicles about extraterrestrial contacts that the Catholic Church has recorded and knows happened but is keeping a secret.
Might the Vatican Secret Archives contain the details of messages Giordano Bruno may have received from extraterrestrials information that supports his pronouncements about the universe? When we look at certain specific examples, like Giordano Bruno, we know that there was so more to it than this.
The Vatican Archives, whenever they're going to be opened, are going to reveal extraordinary levels of details.
According to researchers, the Vatican Secret Archives holds hidden evidence connected to the Miracle of Fatima.
It was here, in 1917, that three children claimed to have received messages from what some Catholic theologians believe was the Virgin Mary.
In Fatima, children saw an apparition they said was the Virgin Mary and 70,000 people came to this same sheep pasture.
And people said that they saw a spinning silver disc.
The Catholic Church, for a very long time, would not acknowledge what was happening with the children or Fatima.
The extraterrestrials give to the children a telepathic message, saying you are not alone on this planet.
We are here.
We have been here some thousands of years ago.
We observe you.
Please prepare mankind that we will return again.
So all this story of Fatima went to the Vatican.
But is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists contend, that the Catholic Church censored the messages that were received in Fatima? The kids were given three messages, and the Pope refused to release the third message.
The third message apparently talks about extraterrestrial life.
Now that is sensational because, to me, to deny the revelation of that particular message.
And that is exactly what the Pope did and I wonder why? Some contend that the Miracle of Fatima is one of many events that describe visitations from extraterrestrial messengers.
Researchers also point to the voices described by Joan of Arc, visions received in Lourdes by Bernadette Soubiros and countless stories depicted in the Hebrew Bible, in which similar events are described.
Perhaps the Vatican knows far more about life in the universe than they have acknowledged.
But does a belief in alien life question the omnipotence of a Supreme Being? Of course the Vatican knows about extraterrestrial life.
But to suggest that, because extraterrestrials exist, that means there is no God, is total nonsense.
Safford, Arizona.
The Mount Graham International Observatory.
Here, the Roman Catholic Church quietly operates a massive telescope that scans the heavens day after day, as does another telescope in Rome.
What do they expect to find? We're doing all kinds of research work into various aspects of the heavens.
So, from the very nearest-around planets nearby our own solar system out through to our galaxy, galaxies beyond that, and then the universe as a whole.
Might the Catholic Church be monitoring our cosmic neighbors and preparing for the day when science and governments acknowledge their existence? The Vatican Observatory, uh, on Mount Graham, is very near the San Francisco Peaks, which is the Sacred Mountain to the Hopi and Zuni Indians, where the Sky People come and go from.
I find it very interesting that the Vatican should have an observatory right at this very sacred and crucial spot, also well known as a corridor for UFO activity.
If you are a Vatican, a government, and you have secret knowledge that there is other life in the universe, they're going to be forced into public statements consistent with the Catholic view of the divine.
In 2008, the Vatican stunned the world when it announced that the possibility of extraterrestrial life was not in conflict with church teachings.
Might they know something we don't? Do you think they came forward with such a statement out of thin air, willy-nilly? No.
There was a deliberate calculation behind releasing such a statement.
All you have to do is open your eyes and it becomes quite clear we've been visited, and the Vatican knows that.
The Vatican does not have a specific stance on extraterrestrial life.
If extraterrestrial life was found, then the church would react as it does with any data: What's about it to learn? A living experience would be the experience of extraterrestrials.
Might the growing accounts of messages shared with a select few, here on Earth, have prompted the Vatican to begin acknowledging other life in the universe? And if extraterrestrials are delivering messages to humans, could they be signaling a reunion with our ancient ancestors? Suffolk, England.
The decommissioned American Bentwaters Air Force Base.
December 2010.
Two retired airmen have returned here, still searching for answers to a mysterious event they claim to have witnessed It went from a sleepy, boring night to, all of a sudden, within a matter of minutes, we were dealing with something we didn't know what it was.
The incident has haunted them for three decades, and compelled them to finally revisit the site of their close encounter.
But why? Our journey has begun.
John and I knew we were going to do this years ago; that's the strange part.
December 26, 1980.
Shortly after midnight, an unidentified object is picked up on radar over the Bentwaters Air Base and appears to go down in the nearby Rendlesham Forest.
Some of the security police saw strange lights in the forest; it was clear to the military personnel that they were looking at something highly unusual, and that they needed to go and investigate.
Three enlisted men, including Sergeant James Penniston and Airman John Burroughs, entered the forest expecting to find a downed aircraft.
I could see all these multiple color lights and I was, uh, trying to rationalize my own mind that it was an aircraft crash.
There was a weird feeling in the air.
It's hard to explain.
It just felt like there was electricity or something in the air.
When we got into this clearing, there was something there.
And the whole area just lit up in a bright white light.
I was dumbfounded by what was going on.
I started seeing a silhouette of a, uh, triangular craft.
It was, uh, completely black in color except for these occasional bits of blue and orange light and yellow light running through it.
It appeared to me like there was something there making us feel like we wanted to get closer.
I was running towards it; it came over the top of me, and then it exploded into blue objects and lights, but I disappeared into what it was.
Then the next thing I know I was standing in the field, and I had no idea what had happened.
As Penniston approached the object, he observed strange, hieroglyphic inscriptions on its side.
Reaching out to touch it, his mind suddenly became bombarded by images of numbers.
It's like someone was holding a picture up, of this zeros and ones and after another.
I could see it in my mind's eye.
What do they mean, I don't know.
The craft was on the ground approximately 45 minutes.
Then there was a bright flash of light.
I don't know, the craft just took off.
Jim and I both had watches on, and it was behind in other words, when we were finished, it showed like what time it really was.
But the 45 minutes of missing time actually came from the shift commander and some other people saying that, for awhile, what they attributed it to was they lost radio contact with us.
The next day, James Penniston was compelled to write down the strange series of numbers in his notebook.
It filled an astonishing 22 pages.
I pull out my notebook and started writing it down.
I think the part that was okay for me, was that once I did that, they went away then.
Uh, did I tell anybody? No way am I gonna tell anybody that.
Penniston and Burroughs were ordered by their superiors to document the events they witnessed in Rendlesham Forest.
But both men claim they were pressured to leave out certain details of the event, especially those suggesting the craft may have been extraterrestrial.
What I remember is a triangular craft, and it didn't have no sharp edges to it at all.
It was equally on all sides.
Black in color, warm to touch.
I had to give this sanitized story.
I left out everything from the feeling of the electricity, the feeling of being drawn into it, also the description of the craft.
There's a lot of detail that was left out.
And truth by omission is not the truth.
It's a lie.
They didn't want it to appear like the government was trying to cover it up, but I clearly felt that they didn't want me to go and tell all the details.
For the next two evenings, more mysterious sightings were reported by other soldiers stationed at Bentwaters.
Yet virtually nothing was recorded except for a top-secret report written by Deputy Base Commander, Colonel Charles Halt.
What makes the Rendlesham incident important is really the military witnesses who were involved in this.
There are probably several hundred people who were either direct witnesses to the UFO or were involved in a more peripheral sense.
But few witnesses stationed at Bentwaters were willing to go on record about what they saw.
The event was kept from the public, and no mention of the triangle UFO was divulged until years later.
Rumors had been spreading about this incident for some time.
But it was not until 1983 that the story actually broke in the media after a Freedom of lnformation Act request.
Most were interested.
Some were more skeptical.
Uh, but this was definitely a big story.
When pressed for comment, military officials claimed the men mistook a nearby lighthouse for a UFO, or perhaps fabricated a hoax.
We're living in a world that until governments and police authorities say this happened and speak in microphones for TV and radio and print, it becomes a non-event.
They know how to control the media.
Penniston and Burroughs retired from the military in the mid-1990s, but each were plagued with nightmares for decades.
In the fall of 2010, after three decades of trying to forget the incident, Penniston and Burroughs reconnected for the first time in many years.
Something was compelling them to return to Rendlesham Forest.
We couldn't explain how we got from point A to point B.
I don't know how we got there.
Nope.
Neither do I.
The best thing would be for us to go back out and go step-by-step.
That's what we need to do.
Come right up to where we were, right where we had it happen.
- We need to do that.
- I know we do.
There's a drive in us that says we have to go.
I suppose we'd like to have some closure.
The situation never leaves you.
I mean, it is a life-changing event.
It happened there at Bentwaters.
I would gladly give that to somebody else to be burdened with for all their life.
One of the things that always bothers you is who are they, what was it, what were they doing, what were their intentions and what would happen if they did come back? Why would Penniston and Burroughs want to revisit the site of a 30-year-old nightmare? Is it possible that by returning, they will discover who or what they had encountered in the forest, and the key to decoding the mysterious message they had received? Suffolk, England, December 26, 2010.
On the 30th anniversary of their close encounter while stationed at Bentwaters Air Force Base, James Penniston and John Burroughs were compelled to return to the place that left them with reoccurring dreams and many unanswered questions.
We know this is different.
- Yeah.
- The gate wasn't here.
It was all the way down to the end of that perimeter.
Accompanied by journalist Linda Moulton Howe, the men hoped that revisiting Rendlesham Forest where they encountered the triangle UFO, would confirm their memories.
Well, let's go down this road.
All right.
and see if that meets up with the Eastgate Road and see if there's a logging road between here - and the Eastgate Road.
- Yeah, sounds good.
- Go ahead.
You lead the way.
- All right.
We got to walk out into the forest with them and see if they could remember.
We were trying to find the exact spot where they think that all of this occurred.
So this is the eerie feeling.
These are the trees I remember.
This is it, yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
John Burroughs seemed to begin to actually recall details of what he remembered.
This is right where the whole thing started.
At one point, the white lights were emanating right all through this whole forest, was lit up.
This whole forest was lit up.
But I think you saw that, too, right? From the gate? - It was brilliant, wasn't it, that light? - Yeah.
- It was just a really white light.
- Yeah.
And Jim Penniston, he really did seem to start going back to that time, remembering touching those symbols and having his mind filled with the zeroes and ones.
It was dead silent out here, there was no sound at all.
Went around from the front side, what appeared to be front.
I started touching it back here.
It was warm.
Then I noticed up here on the left side there was an inscription or something.
And I touch them.
And then there's, like, intense light again.
I got images in my head that I can't explain.
And it took at least two days for things to start focusing down through their minds.
But it is a testimony to the nature of this phenomena that it can come, it can be here, it can interact with humans, and humans are left 100% in the dark about what happened.
Later that evening, Penniston, Burroughs and a team of researchers returned to the site at the exact time and place where they were But would retracing their steps reveal new details about the craft and its purpose? I'm watching.
Feeling like something might happen tonight.
There is a feeling of anticipation.
Yes, feeling like something's gonna happen.
As you can clearly see tonight, whatever it was, it wasn't the lighthouse or anything else that's out here.
It had to have been something that came into the area.
I saw the lights in the sky and the beams coming down.
And this is where the beam shot at us.
I think everything's much clearer.
It's obvious that we had the answers to begin with.
I think this was necessary for us to come back out here and clarify it.
I know that it is the beginning.
We have other things we got to do.
This is not over.
Although Penniston and Burroughs recalled long forgotten memories of the encounter, the investigation failed to answer the questions that have haunted them for decades.
But is it possible that the answer lies not in the forest, but remains locked in the brain of James Penniston? And in the notebook which contains the hundreds of ones and zeros he was compelled to write down? Two months before the return to Rendlesham Forest, computer programmer Nick Ciske attempted to decode the mysterious number sequence found in five pages of Penniston's notebook.
But could this random string of zeros and ones really contain an alien message? After I had decoded the binary, there appeared to be a message that read, "Exploration humanity.
" And then it says, "Continuous.
For planetary advance.
" And then some numbers that included coordinates I looked those coordinates up.
They were off the west coast of Ireland.
So if I were to interpret this message, it would seem to be that this alien race has come to to explore humanity and help us along.
Does this prove that? Well, I don't know.
Could the remaining pages contain even more vital information from an extraterrestrial source? I mean, it seemed like it was supposed to happen.
So, I don't know.
Maybe I was just the one along with John and we were supposed to be out there.
I cannot explain to you what we were dealing with, and how it did what it did, and the last thing would be, why us? What is the secret of the Bentwaters incident? And what was so important that both the U.
S.
and British military needed to cover it up and hide it from the public? And why have so few witnesses been willing to come forward? There seems to be a concerted effort to really cover up evidence that aliens have been coming here and interacting with humans for thousands of years.
There does seem to be some type of international cover-up taking place.
Tangible evidence of some type of craft in the sky that's possibly not from this world.
This is a global phenomenon where we're being visited by extraterrestrials.
I think we've evolved to the point where we're able to understand and accept interaction with another extraterrestrial.
It's out there.
If you go looking for it, the evidence is there.
Will we ever really learn the truth about the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors to our planet? And if they are real, why do governments and religions throughout the world continue to deny their existence? Perhaps we are like Penniston and Burroughs, compelled to keep exploring the mystery of our past.
Because only then, will we come ever closer to discovering our future.
Secret messages from alien beings If it wasn't our technology and it certainly wasn't the Russian technology, then whose technology was it? and inexplicable events hidden from the public.
Just because something is a cover-up, doesn't mean you can't reach the truth.
All around the planet, evidence points to proof of otherworldly visitors, yet governments continue to deny their existence.
Most of 'em are afraid of it, and they run away from it.
They don't know anything.
So their only option is lie, lie, lie.
Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true? Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history? And if so, what is the truth behind aliens and cover-ups? Omaha, Nebraska, Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, October 1973.
As Cold War tensions between the United States and Russia simmer, the world remains on edge.
Suddenly, an object picked up on SAC radar sends the base onto high alert.
Sergeant Ken Storch was part of the Strategic Air Command's top secret Trident Defense.
This alarm went off on the computer, and at the very top of the message it said, "Alert, alert, alert, this is not a drill.
" Five unidentified objects had been picked up coming in over the Pacific Northwest.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff initially felt that it was a pre-emptive strike by a Russian submarine, and that they had launched ballistic missiles.
According to Storch, the unidentified objects flew over the entire Canadian territory in less than two minutes.
The UFO's then made a course correction that defied conventional physics.
Could it be, as some ancient astronaut theorists believe, that these objects were extraterrestrial crafts visiting Earth? These five objects went across the Bering Sea into the Soviet Union.
Richard Nixon was the president at the time.
He picked up what we called the Bat Phone and called the Kremlin, and Nixon said, "They are not ours.
" Is it possible that both nations knew the unexplained aircraft were piloted by extraterrestrials? Might the alien craft have actually wanted to be seen? But if so, why? The next day, CIA and air force investigators moved to block the story from becoming public.
I had to sign a security contingency form.
This one was specific to this incident, that I would not talk about it, uh, for 30 years.
That I would keep my mouth shut, and I did.
Could this incident involving two of the world's most powerful nations be one of hundreds of UFO events that have been known to governments the world over, but covered up as ancient astronaut theorists believe? And might this be additional evidence of a long history of extraterrestrials attempting to contact and communicate with the human race? Los Angeles, California, February 25, 1942.
In the early morning hours, something ignites a firestorm that lights up the sky.
That was he famous Battle of Los Angeles.
And this photograph that's been all around the world, showing all of those arc lights coming up to it.
Those arc lights were aimed at a diamond lozenge, eyewitnesses said that nearly 2,000 rounds of army anti-aircraft artillery was fired.
They could tell nothing was interacting.
It was as if it had a force field around it.
We fired thousands of rounds.
Unfortunately, civilians lost their lives.
The next day, no sign of this craft.
Could it have been extraterrestrials? All the evidence points to some type of craft not of this world.
According to researchers, five years later a UFO crash-landed outside Roswell, New Mexico in July of 1947.
Following this incident and numerous other UFO sightings, the public demanded to know who or what was behind these unexplained objects seen in the skies.
The government responded not by answering the question, but by creating the National Security Act.
Six weeks after the Roswell incident, the National Security Act that Harry Truman signed essentially says to youas an American citizen, we the government, don't have to answer that question in the "interests" of national security.
The sightings and close encounters only continued.
And the mysterious visitors appeared to grow even bolder.
But was there a message behind these increasing contact events? Washington, D.
C.
, July 19, 1952.
In the skies over the heart of the United States government, multiple unidentified flying objects are picked up on radar by air traffic controllers at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base.
There were jets scrambled to intercept them.
When the jets would get there, they would disappear.
When the jets would land, they would reappear again.
Basically, it was all over the news, all over the entire world.
So it happened twice on two consecutive weekends, meaning that more and more people saw the same thing: they were flying over the heart of Washington.
So that is essentially the equivalent of landing on the White House lawn.
According to ancient astronaut theorists, there was a reason that alien beings chose the nation's capital to make contact.
We had a series of UFO sightings that were buzzing the White House, the U.
S.
Capitol, I think in an attempt to make a very symbolic direct contact saying, "Hey, we'd like to talk to you guys.
" But it just seems to me like somehow we didn't get the message.
In the days following the mysterious sightings over the nation's capital, the U.
S.
government refused to acknowledge any extraterrestrial connection.
We have, as of date, come to only one firm conclusion, and that is that it does not contain any pattern of purpose or of consistency that we can relate to any conceivable threat to the United states.
In 1952, the Air Force created Project Blue Book to investigate the growing number of sightings and contact events.
But was this simply an attempt on the part of the U.
S.
government to suppress the truth? You've got too many tangible objective sightings, and of objects, by the way, that were doing things, just utterly incredibly extraordinary.
We've got a physical phenomenon.
It's real.
The question is why, and that's something we don't have the answer to.
If the United States government and others around the world knew that extraterrestrials were real, why was this information being covered up? Could it be that authorities feared the threat that these unconventional spacecraft represented to national security? There's a long litany of reports that, uh, the U.
S.
government has authored on UFOs, and many of them show dramatic UFO evidence for real.
And yet their conclusion was, it's either hoaxes or mistaken sightings of natural phenomenon and so forth.
That's the history of U.
S.
government studies on UFOs.
In modern times there's the idea that there's a secret and small elite body of people who are covering up the truth from the rest of society; that aliens from space have visited planet Earth, but nobody else is allowed to know about it.
In 1969, the air force abruptly terminated Project Blue Book.
Could it be that the government denials regarding extraterrestrial contact were failing to convince the public? Or is it possible that officials knew far more than they admitted about these events that were being reported again and again? One of the scientific advisors for the air force's Project Blue Book was J.
Alan Hynek.
Hynek became disenchanted with the fact that certain cases were not being followed up on and that there appeared to be some sort of cover-up going on.
According to researchers, the United States government and others around the world have continued to secretly investigate alien encounters that now number in the tens of thousands.
But might extraterrestrial contact actually have been documented and covered up for hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years? Luxor, Egypt.
Along the east bank of the Nile River, lie the ruins of the Karnak temple complex, dating to the 32nd century B.
C.
Here, in ancient Egyptian society, the pharaohs were considered perfect humans to be worshiped above all others as supreme living gods.
This religious hierarchy was in place for over a thousand years, until one pharaoh came into power and changed everything.
His name was Akhenaten.
According to legend, Akhenaten descended from the stars, and when he came to power, the worship of multiple gods ended.
The pharaoh replaced the old deities with a single sun god that some believe had interacted with and gave birth to Akhenaten.
This god was called Aten.
What we have with Akhenaten is very brief period of time when Egypt radically departs from its standard behavior.
We see Akhenaten is becoming obsessed, saying that he can contact the gods.
Also, he is remodeling the way he looks, not physically, but on his monuments.
Akhenaten looked very odd.
And the other statues that were created during that time all featured elongated heads, bizarre bodies and chicken legs.
The whole reign of Akhenaten leads us to think that he had contact with extraterrestrials.
Akhenaten's wife, Queen Nefertiti, and their children were also depicted with similar elongated heads.
But might there be a specific reason why the pharoah and his descendants were illustrated in this way? Clearly Akhenaten and various other people were confronted with deities who had these elongated skulls.
And so they reshaped their heads because this somehow would bring them closer to the gods, and maybe even in contacting or being amongst the gods.
Could the sun god Aten have been an alien being that visited Earth, as some ancient astronaut theorists contend? Or it it possible that Akhenaten himself had an extraterrestrial origin? Might Akhenaten have received messages from Aten? Messages that would have had a profound effect on Egyptian society during the pharaoh's reign? They visited him.
He had actual physical contact with them.
And so that was the reason why he instituted this one-god rule.
And in other theories also, that Akhenaten himself was in fact half-human half-extraterrestrial.
Akhenaten ruled for the magnificent city he built to the sun god was partially destroyed and his mysterious depictions were defaced or obliterated.
Aten, the god who some believe may have delivered messages to the pharaoh, was also virtually erased from the records.
Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists contend, that the pharaoh's relationship with extraterrestrial beings was covered up for nearly 1,000 years? All the other pharaohs left wall descriptions and describing their glory and brilliance.
But for some reason, around Akhenaten, it was all scribbled out, as if to hide them like an ancient cover-up.
Could this be because Akhenaten was perhaps actually extraterrestrial? Might contact with alien messengers have been kept secret by the ruling elite around the world for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years? Perhaps further evidence of this contact can be found where science and religion met, and struggled with the truth, or as some believe, tried to deny it.
Rome, Italy, February 17, 1600.
Here, astronomer and philosopher Giordano Bruno spent his last day imprisoned during the Roman Inquisition.
Among his alleged crimes, the scientist had asserted his belief that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and that the cosmos is filled with life.
In the 16th and 17th century, the, uh, Catholic Church was against certain developments in science, and among these heresies made by Giordano Bruno was the idea that there's a lot of life out there.
Bruno believed in the existence of extraterrestrial beings.
We also know that the Vatican is able to cover up this material extremely well.
So this is just one example of almost two thousands of years of Vatican power.
Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists claim, that Giordano Bruno had been visited by extraterrestrial beings? And might these same beings have shared messages with Bruno and other scientists including Copernicus and Galileo, messages that the Vatican learned of and greatly feared? In the Renaissance, scientists like Galileo and Copernicus were excommunicated because the Catholic Church had a very strong interest in controlling information.
So, of course, they did everything they could to silence scientific discoveries.
Bruno's revolutionary assertions included the belief that the universe was made up of an infinite number of worlds, which were populated by intelligent beings.
The problem with all these statements was that they violated one of the basic tenets of religion at that point, which was we were the center of creation.
We were the crown of creation.
We were top dog in the cosmos.
Bruno angered scholars and theologians across Europe with his teachings, and the scientist was finally arrested by order of the Vatican.
He endured eight years locked in a dungeon and was tried for heresy, but Bruno refused to recant his beliefs.
For his crimes against the Catholic Church, Bruno was burned at the stake.
But is it possible that the Vatican knew Bruno had been receiving messages from alien beings? And might it be that the Vatican wanted to deny the existence of extraterrestrial life, a species that far exceeded human capabilities and eluded the Vatican's control? The existence of this cover-up feeds our worry today that government, uh, and science could be engaged in a cover-up to hide the evidence of contact with extraterrestrial life.
Bruno's writings were condemned by the Catholic Church and banned for decades.
Many of his works were destroyed, and researchers believe they included revelations of messages he had received, and that the Vatican wanted to erase.
But might the information Bruno may have received from extraterrestrials still be locked away? And if so, does it remain a threat to Catholic doctrine? Does the trial of Bruno point to a cover-up by the Vatican? Perhaps the answers can be found in a small village in western Portugal and the story of a miracle that could offer proof that we are not alone.
The Vatican Vatican City, Italy.
In the 17th century, Pope Paul V ordered select documents of the Catholic Church moved from the Vatican Library and closed to outsiders until 1881.
Today, the Vatican Secret Archives are closely guarded and some researchers believe they contain revelations so explosive that they threaten the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
You have to wonder if the secret library at the Vatican, which they acknowledge exists, doesn't have records or chronicles about extraterrestrial contacts that the Catholic Church has recorded and knows happened but is keeping a secret.
Might the Vatican Secret Archives contain the details of messages Giordano Bruno may have received from extraterrestrials information that supports his pronouncements about the universe? When we look at certain specific examples, like Giordano Bruno, we know that there was so more to it than this.
The Vatican Archives, whenever they're going to be opened, are going to reveal extraordinary levels of details.
According to researchers, the Vatican Secret Archives holds hidden evidence connected to the Miracle of Fatima.
It was here, in 1917, that three children claimed to have received messages from what some Catholic theologians believe was the Virgin Mary.
In Fatima, children saw an apparition they said was the Virgin Mary and 70,000 people came to this same sheep pasture.
And people said that they saw a spinning silver disc.
The Catholic Church, for a very long time, would not acknowledge what was happening with the children or Fatima.
The extraterrestrials give to the children a telepathic message, saying you are not alone on this planet.
We are here.
We have been here some thousands of years ago.
We observe you.
Please prepare mankind that we will return again.
So all this story of Fatima went to the Vatican.
But is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists contend, that the Catholic Church censored the messages that were received in Fatima? The kids were given three messages, and the Pope refused to release the third message.
The third message apparently talks about extraterrestrial life.
Now that is sensational because, to me, to deny the revelation of that particular message.
And that is exactly what the Pope did and I wonder why? Some contend that the Miracle of Fatima is one of many events that describe visitations from extraterrestrial messengers.
Researchers also point to the voices described by Joan of Arc, visions received in Lourdes by Bernadette Soubiros and countless stories depicted in the Hebrew Bible, in which similar events are described.
Perhaps the Vatican knows far more about life in the universe than they have acknowledged.
But does a belief in alien life question the omnipotence of a Supreme Being? Of course the Vatican knows about extraterrestrial life.
But to suggest that, because extraterrestrials exist, that means there is no God, is total nonsense.
Safford, Arizona.
The Mount Graham International Observatory.
Here, the Roman Catholic Church quietly operates a massive telescope that scans the heavens day after day, as does another telescope in Rome.
What do they expect to find? We're doing all kinds of research work into various aspects of the heavens.
So, from the very nearest-around planets nearby our own solar system out through to our galaxy, galaxies beyond that, and then the universe as a whole.
Might the Catholic Church be monitoring our cosmic neighbors and preparing for the day when science and governments acknowledge their existence? The Vatican Observatory, uh, on Mount Graham, is very near the San Francisco Peaks, which is the Sacred Mountain to the Hopi and Zuni Indians, where the Sky People come and go from.
I find it very interesting that the Vatican should have an observatory right at this very sacred and crucial spot, also well known as a corridor for UFO activity.
If you are a Vatican, a government, and you have secret knowledge that there is other life in the universe, they're going to be forced into public statements consistent with the Catholic view of the divine.
In 2008, the Vatican stunned the world when it announced that the possibility of extraterrestrial life was not in conflict with church teachings.
Might they know something we don't? Do you think they came forward with such a statement out of thin air, willy-nilly? No.
There was a deliberate calculation behind releasing such a statement.
All you have to do is open your eyes and it becomes quite clear we've been visited, and the Vatican knows that.
The Vatican does not have a specific stance on extraterrestrial life.
If extraterrestrial life was found, then the church would react as it does with any data: What's about it to learn? A living experience would be the experience of extraterrestrials.
Might the growing accounts of messages shared with a select few, here on Earth, have prompted the Vatican to begin acknowledging other life in the universe? And if extraterrestrials are delivering messages to humans, could they be signaling a reunion with our ancient ancestors? Suffolk, England.
The decommissioned American Bentwaters Air Force Base.
December 2010.
Two retired airmen have returned here, still searching for answers to a mysterious event they claim to have witnessed It went from a sleepy, boring night to, all of a sudden, within a matter of minutes, we were dealing with something we didn't know what it was.
The incident has haunted them for three decades, and compelled them to finally revisit the site of their close encounter.
But why? Our journey has begun.
John and I knew we were going to do this years ago; that's the strange part.
December 26, 1980.
Shortly after midnight, an unidentified object is picked up on radar over the Bentwaters Air Base and appears to go down in the nearby Rendlesham Forest.
Some of the security police saw strange lights in the forest; it was clear to the military personnel that they were looking at something highly unusual, and that they needed to go and investigate.
Three enlisted men, including Sergeant James Penniston and Airman John Burroughs, entered the forest expecting to find a downed aircraft.
I could see all these multiple color lights and I was, uh, trying to rationalize my own mind that it was an aircraft crash.
There was a weird feeling in the air.
It's hard to explain.
It just felt like there was electricity or something in the air.
When we got into this clearing, there was something there.
And the whole area just lit up in a bright white light.
I was dumbfounded by what was going on.
I started seeing a silhouette of a, uh, triangular craft.
It was, uh, completely black in color except for these occasional bits of blue and orange light and yellow light running through it.
It appeared to me like there was something there making us feel like we wanted to get closer.
I was running towards it; it came over the top of me, and then it exploded into blue objects and lights, but I disappeared into what it was.
Then the next thing I know I was standing in the field, and I had no idea what had happened.
As Penniston approached the object, he observed strange, hieroglyphic inscriptions on its side.
Reaching out to touch it, his mind suddenly became bombarded by images of numbers.
It's like someone was holding a picture up, of this zeros and ones and after another.
I could see it in my mind's eye.
What do they mean, I don't know.
The craft was on the ground approximately 45 minutes.
Then there was a bright flash of light.
I don't know, the craft just took off.
Jim and I both had watches on, and it was behind in other words, when we were finished, it showed like what time it really was.
But the 45 minutes of missing time actually came from the shift commander and some other people saying that, for awhile, what they attributed it to was they lost radio contact with us.
The next day, James Penniston was compelled to write down the strange series of numbers in his notebook.
It filled an astonishing 22 pages.
I pull out my notebook and started writing it down.
I think the part that was okay for me, was that once I did that, they went away then.
Uh, did I tell anybody? No way am I gonna tell anybody that.
Penniston and Burroughs were ordered by their superiors to document the events they witnessed in Rendlesham Forest.
But both men claim they were pressured to leave out certain details of the event, especially those suggesting the craft may have been extraterrestrial.
What I remember is a triangular craft, and it didn't have no sharp edges to it at all.
It was equally on all sides.
Black in color, warm to touch.
I had to give this sanitized story.
I left out everything from the feeling of the electricity, the feeling of being drawn into it, also the description of the craft.
There's a lot of detail that was left out.
And truth by omission is not the truth.
It's a lie.
They didn't want it to appear like the government was trying to cover it up, but I clearly felt that they didn't want me to go and tell all the details.
For the next two evenings, more mysterious sightings were reported by other soldiers stationed at Bentwaters.
Yet virtually nothing was recorded except for a top-secret report written by Deputy Base Commander, Colonel Charles Halt.
What makes the Rendlesham incident important is really the military witnesses who were involved in this.
There are probably several hundred people who were either direct witnesses to the UFO or were involved in a more peripheral sense.
But few witnesses stationed at Bentwaters were willing to go on record about what they saw.
The event was kept from the public, and no mention of the triangle UFO was divulged until years later.
Rumors had been spreading about this incident for some time.
But it was not until 1983 that the story actually broke in the media after a Freedom of lnformation Act request.
Most were interested.
Some were more skeptical.
Uh, but this was definitely a big story.
When pressed for comment, military officials claimed the men mistook a nearby lighthouse for a UFO, or perhaps fabricated a hoax.
We're living in a world that until governments and police authorities say this happened and speak in microphones for TV and radio and print, it becomes a non-event.
They know how to control the media.
Penniston and Burroughs retired from the military in the mid-1990s, but each were plagued with nightmares for decades.
In the fall of 2010, after three decades of trying to forget the incident, Penniston and Burroughs reconnected for the first time in many years.
Something was compelling them to return to Rendlesham Forest.
We couldn't explain how we got from point A to point B.
I don't know how we got there.
Nope.
Neither do I.
The best thing would be for us to go back out and go step-by-step.
That's what we need to do.
Come right up to where we were, right where we had it happen.
- We need to do that.
- I know we do.
There's a drive in us that says we have to go.
I suppose we'd like to have some closure.
The situation never leaves you.
I mean, it is a life-changing event.
It happened there at Bentwaters.
I would gladly give that to somebody else to be burdened with for all their life.
One of the things that always bothers you is who are they, what was it, what were they doing, what were their intentions and what would happen if they did come back? Why would Penniston and Burroughs want to revisit the site of a 30-year-old nightmare? Is it possible that by returning, they will discover who or what they had encountered in the forest, and the key to decoding the mysterious message they had received? Suffolk, England, December 26, 2010.
On the 30th anniversary of their close encounter while stationed at Bentwaters Air Force Base, James Penniston and John Burroughs were compelled to return to the place that left them with reoccurring dreams and many unanswered questions.
We know this is different.
- Yeah.
- The gate wasn't here.
It was all the way down to the end of that perimeter.
Accompanied by journalist Linda Moulton Howe, the men hoped that revisiting Rendlesham Forest where they encountered the triangle UFO, would confirm their memories.
Well, let's go down this road.
All right.
and see if that meets up with the Eastgate Road and see if there's a logging road between here - and the Eastgate Road.
- Yeah, sounds good.
- Go ahead.
You lead the way.
- All right.
We got to walk out into the forest with them and see if they could remember.
We were trying to find the exact spot where they think that all of this occurred.
So this is the eerie feeling.
These are the trees I remember.
This is it, yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
John Burroughs seemed to begin to actually recall details of what he remembered.
This is right where the whole thing started.
At one point, the white lights were emanating right all through this whole forest, was lit up.
This whole forest was lit up.
But I think you saw that, too, right? From the gate? - It was brilliant, wasn't it, that light? - Yeah.
- It was just a really white light.
- Yeah.
And Jim Penniston, he really did seem to start going back to that time, remembering touching those symbols and having his mind filled with the zeroes and ones.
It was dead silent out here, there was no sound at all.
Went around from the front side, what appeared to be front.
I started touching it back here.
It was warm.
Then I noticed up here on the left side there was an inscription or something.
And I touch them.
And then there's, like, intense light again.
I got images in my head that I can't explain.
And it took at least two days for things to start focusing down through their minds.
But it is a testimony to the nature of this phenomena that it can come, it can be here, it can interact with humans, and humans are left 100% in the dark about what happened.
Later that evening, Penniston, Burroughs and a team of researchers returned to the site at the exact time and place where they were But would retracing their steps reveal new details about the craft and its purpose? I'm watching.
Feeling like something might happen tonight.
There is a feeling of anticipation.
Yes, feeling like something's gonna happen.
As you can clearly see tonight, whatever it was, it wasn't the lighthouse or anything else that's out here.
It had to have been something that came into the area.
I saw the lights in the sky and the beams coming down.
And this is where the beam shot at us.
I think everything's much clearer.
It's obvious that we had the answers to begin with.
I think this was necessary for us to come back out here and clarify it.
I know that it is the beginning.
We have other things we got to do.
This is not over.
Although Penniston and Burroughs recalled long forgotten memories of the encounter, the investigation failed to answer the questions that have haunted them for decades.
But is it possible that the answer lies not in the forest, but remains locked in the brain of James Penniston? And in the notebook which contains the hundreds of ones and zeros he was compelled to write down? Two months before the return to Rendlesham Forest, computer programmer Nick Ciske attempted to decode the mysterious number sequence found in five pages of Penniston's notebook.
But could this random string of zeros and ones really contain an alien message? After I had decoded the binary, there appeared to be a message that read, "Exploration humanity.
" And then it says, "Continuous.
For planetary advance.
" And then some numbers that included coordinates I looked those coordinates up.
They were off the west coast of Ireland.
So if I were to interpret this message, it would seem to be that this alien race has come to to explore humanity and help us along.
Does this prove that? Well, I don't know.
Could the remaining pages contain even more vital information from an extraterrestrial source? I mean, it seemed like it was supposed to happen.
So, I don't know.
Maybe I was just the one along with John and we were supposed to be out there.
I cannot explain to you what we were dealing with, and how it did what it did, and the last thing would be, why us? What is the secret of the Bentwaters incident? And what was so important that both the U.
S.
and British military needed to cover it up and hide it from the public? And why have so few witnesses been willing to come forward? There seems to be a concerted effort to really cover up evidence that aliens have been coming here and interacting with humans for thousands of years.
There does seem to be some type of international cover-up taking place.
Tangible evidence of some type of craft in the sky that's possibly not from this world.
This is a global phenomenon where we're being visited by extraterrestrials.
I think we've evolved to the point where we're able to understand and accept interaction with another extraterrestrial.
It's out there.
If you go looking for it, the evidence is there.
Will we ever really learn the truth about the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors to our planet? And if they are real, why do governments and religions throughout the world continue to deny their existence? Perhaps we are like Penniston and Burroughs, compelled to keep exploring the mystery of our past.
Because only then, will we come ever closer to discovering our future.