Ancient Aliens s11e13 Episode Script
Beyond Roswell
1 RICHARD DOLAN: Roswell is probably the single most well-known UFO event in human history.
LINDA MOULTON HOWE: What people don't realize is this was not the first crash.
WILLIAM HENRY: World governments have been collecting and trying to reverse-engineer alien technology for decades.
DAVID CHILDRESS: You have to wonder if we've been purposely given this technology.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Due to retrieving extraterrestrial technology, we have reached a level that put us on our path to the stars.
NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has credited its origins to gods and other visitors from the stars.
What if it were true? Did extraterrestrial beings really help to shape our history? And if so, could more evidence be found by looking beyond Roswell? NARRATOR: Washington D.
C.
, April, 2011.
The FBI releases thousands of files as part of its online FBI vault.
One particular file draws the attention of the media and independent researchers.
The memo, dated March 22, 1950, is a briefing to FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover regarding informant information about three "flying saucers" that were recovered in New Mexico.
Investigators immediately connect the memo to the infamous Roswell incident: a purported UFO crash that many people believe was covered up by the military in 1947.
But this document is just the latest in a series of government files that have been released in recent years, suggesting there may be more to the Roswell crash than the public was told.
As an investigative reporter, I think what I am amazed by is how many leaked documents from the 1940s have actually come out into the world and lay out details about what really happened at Roswell.
On July 4, a rancher named Mac Brazel finds all kinds of strange silver debris.
He knows he doesn't understand what he's walking through.
He decides to go into Roswell and tell the sheriff, "Something has crashed on my ranch.
" Intel coming out of Roswell Army Air Field get assigned to go to the debris field.
And these men are told that they are to pick up every single thing that is in the debris field on the Mac Brazel ranch.
Everything is to be picked up.
NARRATOR: On July 8, 1947, the headline on the front page of the Roswell Daily Record reports that the military had retrieved a flying saucer.
But the following day, the official story is suddenly changed to suggest it was nothing more than a failed weather balloon.
NICK POPE: Roswell was the home of the 509th Bomb Crew.
This was the only atomic bomb-capable squadron anywhere in the world.
These people were the best of the best.
The idea that intelligence personnel at this base would mistake a weather balloon for something exotic is preposterous.
So that, arguably, is the start of the UFO cover-up.
TSOUKALOS: Weather balloons, swamp gas, meteorite-- it doesn't matter.
It's always something else but a UFO.
The Roswell crash was covered up.
The fact that they retracted the story of having captured a flying saucer, in my opinion, it was quick PR damage control.
The world was told, "Nope, just a weather balloon.
" And for more than 30 years, that's where it was left, until witnesses started to surface, saying, no, it was actually an extraterrestrial craft.
And that people saw alien bodies.
NARRATOR: In April of 2014, ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos traveled to Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, to meet with the city's mayor, Del Jurney, and to get a rare look at the hangar where the Roswell wreckage and extraterrestrial bodies were allegedly first taken.
TSOUKALOS: Wow.
This is huge.
JURNEY: So what do you think? TSOUKALOS: Man, I have goose bumps right now.
I mean, we're walking on history here.
JURNEY: It's amazing, isn't it? Are you familiar with where the spot is, where they actually put them? Well, you know, the information that I have says that it's probably right over here in the corner.
Uh, they took them over there, did an examination of the bodies.
TSOUKALOS: So this is where it was.
JURNEY: This is it.
Yeah, come on in.
They had the debris out here in the hangar area and they bring the bodies inside this room.
TSOUKALOS: I really don't know what to say, 'cause, I mean, if this was it -You're standing where -In it, yeah.
where extraterrestrial beings might have been.
Where did the debris go? Where did it end up? Well, it ended up with the government, of course.
Uh, my understanding is that they took the bodies to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, certainly probably took the debris as well, and have it well preserved in a military installation someplace.
NARRATOR: Roswell researchers suggest a government-sanctioned bond of secrecy has prevented witnesses of the crash and retrieval from coming forward publicly.
But many did choose to come forward later in life, including the first military officer to arrive at the Roswell crash site, Major Jesse Marcel.
According to his grandson, Marcel privately shared many details of his experience with the family.
JESSE MARCEL III: My grandfather, Major Jesse Marcel, was the head of intelligence for the 509th bombing group.
As a kid, basically around the dinner table, we talked about Roswell.
And through conversations, we learned that my grandfather was the lead investigator into what has become known as the Roswell incident.
And when he was looking at the debris, he couldn't make heads or tails or any sense out of what he was looking at.
He had gathered some of the debris and decided to take it home with him.
He kind of came to this idea that, he said, "You know, whatever this stuff is, it's very significant "and it's gonna change humanity, "and I want my family to be a part of it.
This is very important.
" NARRATOR: According to the family's story, Major Marcel came home after his first visit to the site and laid the debris out on the floor of their kitchen.
Some of the material was a strange thin metal similar to foil, except when crumpled up into a ball, it would bounce back to its flawless state.
Marcel also claims the metal was not the same material featured in newspaper photographs being held by his grandfather.
MARCEL III: There's a pretty famous picture of him holding a piece of debris, which is a piece of foil basically, and it was weather balloon material.
He begrudgingly went along with the story, held it.
And if you take a look at that, you'll notice that he's not looking at the camera.
He's looking up at somebody barking him orders.
He fell in line, uh, begrudgingly, and did what he was supposed to do.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that an alien craft really did crash in Roswell? And if so, might there be a larger conspiracy that goes beyond New Mexico? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, but they also believe that Roswell was not the first, or only, extraterrestrial crash on Earth.
NARRATOR Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
April 12, 1941.
9:30 p.
m.
(phone ringing) Reverend William Huffman gets a call from local police informing him that there has been a crash and he is needed at the site to offer spiritual comfort to the victims.
HENRY: He probably thought it was gonna be an automobile crash.
But to his surprise, when he arrived, there is a disc-shaped craft, and there are three alien looking bodies on the ground-- tiny, big heads, big eyes, small mouths.
CHILDRESS: The military was there, the FBI was there.
And he was astonished to find that this was a crash of some kind of UFO, and that the being was an extraterrestrial.
WILCOCK: He had the chance to look inside the disc, and found that there were hieroglyphic type inscriptions on the walls inside.
The government told him, "You're not to say a word about this to anyone.
This is totally classified.
" NARRATOR: Huffman's account would remain a secret until after his passing, when his wife, on her deathbed in 1984, divulged the details to the rest of the family.
Witnesses have since come forward to corroborate the account, including the sheriff's brother and members of the fire department.
Further details about the military response have since been leaked, and the incident has become known as "The Bombshell Before Roswell.
" The story is that a military unit from Sikeston, Missouri, only about 30 miles away from the crash site, comes in, with orders to gather up these bodies, gather up this disc and fly it to Washington D.
C.
So, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, from 1941, appears to be where our retrieval, as a government, of things that were described as "from another world" began.
The Cape Girardeau crash was a preparation for the military's response to the Roswell crash.
And the military learned an awful lot about how to handle these events and how to make sure that they put a blanket of secrecy over future crash events.
NARRATOR: While the Roswell crash is now infamous, what is lesser known is that similar incidents were reported all across America around the same time.
These incidents include crashes in San Antonio, New Mexico; Twin Falls, Idaho; Hebgen Lake, Montana; Braxton County, West Virginia; and many others.
But why were so many mysterious crashes suddenly being reported? Many believe the defining event of the 20th century was World War II.
It was a conflict that would involve nearly every nation on Earth and cost the lives of over 60 million people.
The war gave rise to weaponry far more advanced and deadly than modern man had ever known, including the atomic bomb.
It also gave rise to a tremendous surge in UFO reports.
But why? CHILDRESS: A large portion of these alleged UFO sightings have occurred in the decades during World War II and immediately afterwards.
And part of the theory there is that, because the United States had developed atomic weapons, and used them on Japan and then continued to test them in Nevada, New Mexico and other areas, that the extraterrestrials themselves were very concerned about this.
TSOUKALOS: Some have suggested that the moment that we developed nuclear capabilities, that this somehow signaled the extraterrestrials that we have reached a level of technology.
Because one thing can be said for sure: that worldwide, the eyewitness accounts or reports for UFO sightings have gone up ever since the deployment of our first hydrogen bomb.
So, is it possible that we, by doing that, signaled extraterrestrial life out there? CHILDRESS:.
You have to wonder what was going on, because various UFO crashes were allegedly happening throughout North America in the late '40s, '50s and '60s.
NARRATOR: Did the dawning of the nuclear age really usher in a new era of extraterrestrial encounters? And if the U.
S.
military was actively retrieving UFO wreckage, just where were they taking it? Groom Lake, Nevada.
Just 900 miles from Roswell, New Mexico.
Perhaps the most well-known site rumored to be hiding alien debris is the secret engineering base known as Area 51.
After years of denying its existence, on August 16, 2013, the United States government officially acknowledged the base.
It was one of the single most sensitive hidden military bases.
Everybody who worked there was sworn to secrecy, to death.
And it was not until 2013 that there was a confirmation that Area 51 is real and had been real for a very long time.
NARRATOR: Believed by many to hold the wreckage from the infamous Roswell crash of 1947, the U.
S.
government still claims the secret engineering base has never housed any extraterrestrial remains.
STANTON FRIEDMAN: The announcement seems to have been tossing the public a bone, that we indeed have an area of advanced research and development, and what we refer to as Area 51.
Who knows what's really going on there? Just because they said this, that or the other thing doesn't mean it's true.
And would anybody trust the CIA to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? When you listen to people who have left Area 51, they claim that it's got extraterrestrial craft that we have tested and reverse-engineered.
There's no question in my mind that Area 51 has been a very secretive government base for all kinds of things.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that Area 51 actually houses otherworldly artifacts-- artifacts that were retrieved from extraterrestrial crashes? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest that even more evidence can be found by examining some of mankind's latest, and most extraordinary, technological advancements.
NARRATOR July, 1997.
On the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident, retired United States Colonel Philip J.
Corso publishes his book The Day After Roswell.
In it, he not only confirms that an extraterrestrial craft crashed in Roswell, but also that the wreckage had been secretly collected and stashed by the United States military.
Philip J.
Corso was a lieutenant colonel, uh, in the United States Army, who had a long and actually very successful career in the military; he was highly decorated.
And in The Day After Roswell, he made an incredible claim that he worked at the Foreign Technology division within the Army Research and Development, and had key access to E.
T.
technology from the Roswell crash.
NARRATOR: According to Colonel Corso's account, military scientists and engineers tried for years to make sense of the debris collected at Roswell, but were unsuccessful.
POPE: Colonel Philip Corso claimed that part of his duties on the Army's Foreign Technology desk was to take extraterrestrial technology recovered from the crash at Roswell and without disclosing the source of this, in other words, not-not letting on that this was extraterrestrial, was to get this into the hands of scientists with some of the big U.
S.
corporations.
NARRATOR: In his book, Colonel Corso stated that he seeded the alien materials and information to high-tech companies under the guise that it was recently acquired foreign technology.
MICHAEL SALLA: What Corso described in his book was that they would identify corporations that had already made breakthroughs in certain areas, and so he was giving them kind of strategic inspiration in what direction they should operate in order to be able to successfully develop those advanced technologies.
Only after the Roswell crash did companies like IBM all of a sudden flourish.
And the reason why IBM flourished is because they just happened to be at the right place at the right time, that were given the assignment to reverse-engineer some of these things.
NARRATOR: According to Colonel Corso's account, night vision was engineered from the lens on an eye of an extraterrestrial pilot.
Kevlar came from studying alien space suits.
And integrated circuits were developed from their spacecraft's control panel.
NOORY: Isn't it interesting that after the 1947 crash in Roswell, New Mexico, our technology took off just like a rocket? Silicon chips and all kinds of other technology, laser technology, fiber optics-- all of this stuff came right after 1947, when Roswell crashed.
PAUL HELLYER: The Day After Roswell is a real thing.
I recognized the names of the generals and the airfields that he was talking about from my days in defense.
So, this was not new territory for me.
And, uh, I spoke to a general.
He said, "Every word is true and more.
" NARRATOR: Colonel Corso would also claim that the reverse-engineering of various downed alien crafts was not limited to the United States, but was happening worldwide.
And the funding for the research and development of this extraterrestrial technology required an elaborate ruse.
A ruse that would also function as a distraction from increased UFO sightings: the Cold War.
JOHN LEAR: The Cold War was never really a war.
It was an agreement between Russia and the United States that we're gonna give the public something else to worry about: atomic bombs falling onto their heads, rather to think about UFOs and flying saucers.
CHILDRESS: During the Cold War, when Russia was supposedly our enemy, we had a joint military base, at the South Pole, with the Russians.
And we had a joint space base with the Russians, too.
So you have to ask: what was going on here? I believe governments all across this planet have been hiding the knowledge of extraterrestrial visitations and crashes on this planet.
They're not telling us the truth.
We've had crashes in Russia.
We've had crashes in Roswell, New Mexico.
We've had a crash in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
It's happening all over this planet.
The big question is: why? NARRATOR: Is it possible that the retrieval and reverse-engineering of downed alien spacecraft goes far beyond Roswell? And might the Cold War and space race have provided a cover to justify innovations derived from extraterrestrial technology? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest that further evidence can be found by examining what some researchers refer to as "The Russian Roswell.
" NARRATOR: Astrakhan Oblast, Russia.
500 miles south of Moscow.
June 19, 1948.
11 months after the Roswell incident, at the Soviet military rocketry research and development base Kapustin Yar, erratic blips appear on the radar screens.
(radar beeping) At the same time, a MiG jet fighter pilot sees an unidentifiable cigar-shaped object flying in front of him.
What we have now come to understand is that there was an engagement of the Soviet military with an unknown object that came into the airspace at, or near, Kapustin Yar.
And a Soviet MiG fighter was scrambled to intercept.
The aircraft engages in a three-minute dogfight with the UFO.
The jet was able to fire off a missile.
And the missile apparently hit the craft just as the craft hit the MiG with some kind of blinding flash of light that caused the MiG, with the UFO, to crash.
When people talk about UFO crashes, they talk about Roswell as if it's the only time it ever happened, but it's happened repeatedly.
Kapustin Yar is another great example of a genuine Roswell type crash, this time in the Soviet Union, and totally classified under the umbrella of national security.
There are special teams designed to create a cover story.
And the wreckage goes off to warehouses in which that technology is analyzed and understood.
NARRATOR: Rumors have circulated for years that nearly a quarter-mile beneath the surface of the Kapustin Yar base are hallways and chambers containing downed extraterrestrial craft and rooms where alien autopsies have been performed.
DOLAN: This is really the Soviet Union's Area 51.
It was very, very remote.
The Soviets did all of their major rocket testing, a lot of their advanced back- engineering of Nazi technology from World War II.
This is a very, very sophisticated place.
Some people came up with the idea that this was the main storage of the crashed UFOs in the Soviet Union and the secret tests are being done there.
NARRATOR: Curiously, at this secret facility, the Soviets developed better nuclear weapons and delivery systems in 18 months than they had anticipated creating in five years.
In 1959, the United States Central Intelligence Agency began to monitor the covert base and collect aerial photographs from a U-2 reconnaissance mission.
HENRY: When the United States sent recon missions over there during the Cold War, they looked down and they saw these incredible carved images on the ground around Kapustin Yar.
WILCOCK: When we actually look at the depictions of these geoglyphs, they look similar to what we see in crop circles and in certain ancient landforms visible on Earth.
So there clearly appears to have been an attempt to communicate with the extraterrestrials, perhaps saying, "X marks the spot.
Come here, guys.
" Kapustin Yar was one of the former Soviet Union's most secretive air bases.
The rumor is, is they were researching UFO technology there.
And one wonders if it's possible if those symbols were, in fact, used to attract UFOs.
NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists, this so-called "Russian Roswell" isn't the only site of its kind.
In the middle of Australia lies the military base, Pine Gap.
Located in an area that has long been associated with UFO activity, the facility is said to extend five miles underground and is rumored to have been used for researching electromagnetic propulsion since the 1960s.
In the remote hills of China, there are a series of bizarre runways over a mile long and over a half mile wide.
Researchers have spotted strange aircraft parked along the runways and believe it is the testing ground for extraterrestrial spacecraft.
And at the Royal Air Force's Rudloe Manor, located in the countryside of Wiltshire, England, many believe the British Ministry of Defence has been storing crashed UFOs since the 1950s.
HENRY: With the existence of all of these places around the world, it suggests that world governments have been collecting and trying to reverse-engineer alien technology for decades.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that not only Area 51, but also other secret military sites across the globe, contain extraterrestrial artifacts? And if so, how is it that so many UFO crashes occurred at roughly the same time period, and scattered across multiple continents? CHILDRESS: You kind of have to wonder if the extraterrestrials realized that conflict throughout our planet does actually help us develop better aerospace and other technology.
And so it would seem that, with these various UFO crashes that were allegedly happening all over the world, these extraterrestrials are purposely trying to advance us forward.
HOWE: Maybe a lot of what we were dealing with, including some of the crashes in the '40s and the '50s, might have been planned to put certain technologies in human hands to start a process in which humans would begin to try to develop technology.
LEAR: I had a friend that was involved in the research of trying to back-engineer the UFO propulsion.
The information that we've gotten from these craft is way too advanced for us to copy.
They're using materials that are unobtainable on Earth, or anywhere in this solar system.
NARRATOR: With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, there were many who believed that the development of alien technology would no longer be kept a secret.
Unfortunately, this was not the case.
HELLYER: When the Cold War ended, the truth embargo, which is what it was and is, should've been lifted, and the public should've been brought into the situation and should've been told what was going on.
It is taxpayers' money who have financed all of this stuff.
NARRATOR: Was the Cold War really an orchestrated event intended to serve as a smoke screen for governments to harvest extraterrestrial technology? And if so, what does the end of the war suggest about the world's next generation of advanced scientific breakthroughs? NARRATOR: Lund University, Sweden.
August 27, 2013.
Researchers confirm the existence of a new element on the periodic table created through nuclear fusion.
They name it ununpentium, or Element 115.
Although most scientists still don't know much about this unique radioactive component, it shares commonalities with Plutonium, used in experimental rocket fuels.
DOLAN: Element 115 has its own lore in UFO history.
So, this was said to be an element described by a gentleman named Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked just south of Area 51 on "an E.
T.
flying saucer.
" The government is holding, uh, nine alien spacecraft, um that are propelled by a modified gravity generator.
Uh It's being-- work is being conducted 15 miles south of Groom Lake.
At that isolated area only, designated as S4, um, that at least one of those crafts operate.
DOLAN: According to what Lazar said, these alien craft ran on Element 115.
And there's no evidence that we have this even occurring naturally anywhere on Earth.
Well, it turns out that scientists now claim to have created Element 115 by atomic collisions.
SALLA: I think this recent discovery of ununpentium really does help us understand the significance of Bob Lazar's testimony.
This was a man who was exposed to a very rare element that was allegedly part of the propulsion system of an extraterrestrial vehicle.
NARRATOR: On December 23, 2015, yet another groundbreaking material makes headlines.
Scientists working at the University of California announce the creation of a new metal that is strong and lightweight, but also flexible and resistant to extremely high temperatures.
MICHAEL DENNIN: What's really exciting about this material is you don't lose a lot of its flexibility, what we call its plastic-like properties.
A lot of metals, when you make them strong, become very brittle.
So this material has a large number of application, whether it be a car, an airplane or a spaceship.
NARRATOR: While this miracle metal is unlike any alloy developed before, some believe its description is actually familiar, and that it may be a match to the strange material allegedly retrieved by Major Jesse Marcel from the infamous Roswell crash.
FRIEDMAN: Most of the stuff at Roswell was extraordinarily lightweight, very thin foil-like material, very, very strong, but weighing next to nothing.
That's from people who handled it.
The UCLA guys are doing research, open research more or less, with the stuff from Roswell.
This material is the beginning of an entirely new revolution in materials science, where we are now going to be able to engineer materials at the molecular level.
And this does appear to be the fruits of a long-term reversing-engineering program, where those technologies are being brought into the corporate sector and now it's become something that we all take for granted.
HELLYER: It's been seven decades since the, what I call, the first lie, which was the foundational lie at Roswell happened.
And still, the official line of the United States is that this is a subject they don't know about and don't care about.
Which is about as far from the truth as you could possibly get.
We're beginning to understand the extraterrestrial craft, its mechanism, how it works and how it functions.
And I'm convinced we're gonna be able to travel in space, sooner than later, the same way that these E.
T.
s have come here.
HENRY: It's almost as if these extraterrestrials are giving us a little bit here, a little bit there, and they're leading us somewhere, which we're ultimately gonna find out very soon where this is going.
NARRATOR: Is it possible modern-day scientists are finally decoding the puzzle of the advanced technological debris left scattered across the globe? Could it be that we have finally reached a level of technological sophistication that allows us to fully understand extraterrestrial technology and prepares us for yet another alien encounter? NARRATOR: Tucson, Arizona.
June 17, 2014.
Just two months before his death, Boyd Bushman, a senior scientist at Lockheed Martin working with missile and laser technology, records a video confessional to be released after his death.
My name is Boyd Bushman.
I'm a senior scientist from Lockheed Martin.
Um I have 27 patents, and I've changed the world several times.
NARRATOR: According to Bushman, while working at Lockheed Martin he met with individuals with the highest clearance at Area 51.
These individuals provided him materials he understood to be extraterrestrial technology.
They would give me pieces of UFOs, and I would come to my laboratories.
There's three elements which the UFO is contained.
One is telluride, the other's germanium, the other's palladium.
And not only that, but the things pick up and fly using anti-gravity.
NARRATOR: But perhaps the most intriguing claim made by Bushman involves knowledge of extraterrestrials aiding government scientists at bases like Area 51.
They're approximately five-five feet-- four-and-a-half to five feet tall.
We have a total of at least 18 that exist and operate with our facility.
Now notice, the eyes are different, nose are different, but they do have five fingers, five toes, uh, two eyes.
NARRATOR: The release of the video online creates a stir, with many viewers insisting that it must be a hoax.
But why would a renowned engineer and physicist lie about something so important? Could it be that the long-held rumors of reverse-engineering of otherworldly technology and even stories of extraterrestrial involvement in secret military projects are actually true? HOWE: So much of the digital world goes right back to the retrieval of extraterrestrial craft and beings.
Which the government drew a wall and said, "No one is to know.
" But the truth is, the 21st century is being built on extraterrestrial technology.
How is it possible that, in the last 70 years, we've accomplished more than in the last 5,000 years, technologically speaking? What makes us so special today that we didn't know about 5,000 years ago? So I think that the technological advancements we've made are due to retrieving extraterrestrial technology.
One has to wonder if these puzzle pieces were left here deliberately or on accident.
If the U.
S.
military, and perhaps other militaries around the world, have gained technology from crashed alien ships on our planet, then you would think that the extraterrestrials themselves want us to have this technology, and that we've actually been given this same kind of technology.
I mean, we've seen staggering technological developments recently.
It's been suggested that this is part of a program to bring us up technologically.
One of the most amazing things about this idea of reverse-engineering alien technology is that it's taken quite a while for us to actually be able to understand it and to be able to utilize it.
Maybe we are now reaching a level of technological sophistication that we're going to be able to match the advanced extraterrestrials.
HELLYER: All these things come back to the question of: what are their designs on our planet, and are they interested in our best interest or are they interested in their best interest? NARRATOR: Might Roswell, and other crashes covered up worldwide, have been orchestrated by aliens in order to technologically advance the human race? Have world governments been secretly reverse-engineering the extraterrestrial debris scattered across the globe? Perhaps the time has arrived for humanity to become a truly spacefaring civilization, as may have been intended by our alien ancestors all along.
LINDA MOULTON HOWE: What people don't realize is this was not the first crash.
WILLIAM HENRY: World governments have been collecting and trying to reverse-engineer alien technology for decades.
DAVID CHILDRESS: You have to wonder if we've been purposely given this technology.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Due to retrieving extraterrestrial technology, we have reached a level that put us on our path to the stars.
NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has credited its origins to gods and other visitors from the stars.
What if it were true? Did extraterrestrial beings really help to shape our history? And if so, could more evidence be found by looking beyond Roswell? NARRATOR: Washington D.
C.
, April, 2011.
The FBI releases thousands of files as part of its online FBI vault.
One particular file draws the attention of the media and independent researchers.
The memo, dated March 22, 1950, is a briefing to FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover regarding informant information about three "flying saucers" that were recovered in New Mexico.
Investigators immediately connect the memo to the infamous Roswell incident: a purported UFO crash that many people believe was covered up by the military in 1947.
But this document is just the latest in a series of government files that have been released in recent years, suggesting there may be more to the Roswell crash than the public was told.
As an investigative reporter, I think what I am amazed by is how many leaked documents from the 1940s have actually come out into the world and lay out details about what really happened at Roswell.
On July 4, a rancher named Mac Brazel finds all kinds of strange silver debris.
He knows he doesn't understand what he's walking through.
He decides to go into Roswell and tell the sheriff, "Something has crashed on my ranch.
" Intel coming out of Roswell Army Air Field get assigned to go to the debris field.
And these men are told that they are to pick up every single thing that is in the debris field on the Mac Brazel ranch.
Everything is to be picked up.
NARRATOR: On July 8, 1947, the headline on the front page of the Roswell Daily Record reports that the military had retrieved a flying saucer.
But the following day, the official story is suddenly changed to suggest it was nothing more than a failed weather balloon.
NICK POPE: Roswell was the home of the 509th Bomb Crew.
This was the only atomic bomb-capable squadron anywhere in the world.
These people were the best of the best.
The idea that intelligence personnel at this base would mistake a weather balloon for something exotic is preposterous.
So that, arguably, is the start of the UFO cover-up.
TSOUKALOS: Weather balloons, swamp gas, meteorite-- it doesn't matter.
It's always something else but a UFO.
The Roswell crash was covered up.
The fact that they retracted the story of having captured a flying saucer, in my opinion, it was quick PR damage control.
The world was told, "Nope, just a weather balloon.
" And for more than 30 years, that's where it was left, until witnesses started to surface, saying, no, it was actually an extraterrestrial craft.
And that people saw alien bodies.
NARRATOR: In April of 2014, ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos traveled to Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, to meet with the city's mayor, Del Jurney, and to get a rare look at the hangar where the Roswell wreckage and extraterrestrial bodies were allegedly first taken.
TSOUKALOS: Wow.
This is huge.
JURNEY: So what do you think? TSOUKALOS: Man, I have goose bumps right now.
I mean, we're walking on history here.
JURNEY: It's amazing, isn't it? Are you familiar with where the spot is, where they actually put them? Well, you know, the information that I have says that it's probably right over here in the corner.
Uh, they took them over there, did an examination of the bodies.
TSOUKALOS: So this is where it was.
JURNEY: This is it.
Yeah, come on in.
They had the debris out here in the hangar area and they bring the bodies inside this room.
TSOUKALOS: I really don't know what to say, 'cause, I mean, if this was it -You're standing where -In it, yeah.
where extraterrestrial beings might have been.
Where did the debris go? Where did it end up? Well, it ended up with the government, of course.
Uh, my understanding is that they took the bodies to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, certainly probably took the debris as well, and have it well preserved in a military installation someplace.
NARRATOR: Roswell researchers suggest a government-sanctioned bond of secrecy has prevented witnesses of the crash and retrieval from coming forward publicly.
But many did choose to come forward later in life, including the first military officer to arrive at the Roswell crash site, Major Jesse Marcel.
According to his grandson, Marcel privately shared many details of his experience with the family.
JESSE MARCEL III: My grandfather, Major Jesse Marcel, was the head of intelligence for the 509th bombing group.
As a kid, basically around the dinner table, we talked about Roswell.
And through conversations, we learned that my grandfather was the lead investigator into what has become known as the Roswell incident.
And when he was looking at the debris, he couldn't make heads or tails or any sense out of what he was looking at.
He had gathered some of the debris and decided to take it home with him.
He kind of came to this idea that, he said, "You know, whatever this stuff is, it's very significant "and it's gonna change humanity, "and I want my family to be a part of it.
This is very important.
" NARRATOR: According to the family's story, Major Marcel came home after his first visit to the site and laid the debris out on the floor of their kitchen.
Some of the material was a strange thin metal similar to foil, except when crumpled up into a ball, it would bounce back to its flawless state.
Marcel also claims the metal was not the same material featured in newspaper photographs being held by his grandfather.
MARCEL III: There's a pretty famous picture of him holding a piece of debris, which is a piece of foil basically, and it was weather balloon material.
He begrudgingly went along with the story, held it.
And if you take a look at that, you'll notice that he's not looking at the camera.
He's looking up at somebody barking him orders.
He fell in line, uh, begrudgingly, and did what he was supposed to do.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that an alien craft really did crash in Roswell? And if so, might there be a larger conspiracy that goes beyond New Mexico? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, but they also believe that Roswell was not the first, or only, extraterrestrial crash on Earth.
NARRATOR Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
April 12, 1941.
9:30 p.
m.
(phone ringing) Reverend William Huffman gets a call from local police informing him that there has been a crash and he is needed at the site to offer spiritual comfort to the victims.
HENRY: He probably thought it was gonna be an automobile crash.
But to his surprise, when he arrived, there is a disc-shaped craft, and there are three alien looking bodies on the ground-- tiny, big heads, big eyes, small mouths.
CHILDRESS: The military was there, the FBI was there.
And he was astonished to find that this was a crash of some kind of UFO, and that the being was an extraterrestrial.
WILCOCK: He had the chance to look inside the disc, and found that there were hieroglyphic type inscriptions on the walls inside.
The government told him, "You're not to say a word about this to anyone.
This is totally classified.
" NARRATOR: Huffman's account would remain a secret until after his passing, when his wife, on her deathbed in 1984, divulged the details to the rest of the family.
Witnesses have since come forward to corroborate the account, including the sheriff's brother and members of the fire department.
Further details about the military response have since been leaked, and the incident has become known as "The Bombshell Before Roswell.
" The story is that a military unit from Sikeston, Missouri, only about 30 miles away from the crash site, comes in, with orders to gather up these bodies, gather up this disc and fly it to Washington D.
C.
So, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, from 1941, appears to be where our retrieval, as a government, of things that were described as "from another world" began.
The Cape Girardeau crash was a preparation for the military's response to the Roswell crash.
And the military learned an awful lot about how to handle these events and how to make sure that they put a blanket of secrecy over future crash events.
NARRATOR: While the Roswell crash is now infamous, what is lesser known is that similar incidents were reported all across America around the same time.
These incidents include crashes in San Antonio, New Mexico; Twin Falls, Idaho; Hebgen Lake, Montana; Braxton County, West Virginia; and many others.
But why were so many mysterious crashes suddenly being reported? Many believe the defining event of the 20th century was World War II.
It was a conflict that would involve nearly every nation on Earth and cost the lives of over 60 million people.
The war gave rise to weaponry far more advanced and deadly than modern man had ever known, including the atomic bomb.
It also gave rise to a tremendous surge in UFO reports.
But why? CHILDRESS: A large portion of these alleged UFO sightings have occurred in the decades during World War II and immediately afterwards.
And part of the theory there is that, because the United States had developed atomic weapons, and used them on Japan and then continued to test them in Nevada, New Mexico and other areas, that the extraterrestrials themselves were very concerned about this.
TSOUKALOS: Some have suggested that the moment that we developed nuclear capabilities, that this somehow signaled the extraterrestrials that we have reached a level of technology.
Because one thing can be said for sure: that worldwide, the eyewitness accounts or reports for UFO sightings have gone up ever since the deployment of our first hydrogen bomb.
So, is it possible that we, by doing that, signaled extraterrestrial life out there? CHILDRESS:.
You have to wonder what was going on, because various UFO crashes were allegedly happening throughout North America in the late '40s, '50s and '60s.
NARRATOR: Did the dawning of the nuclear age really usher in a new era of extraterrestrial encounters? And if the U.
S.
military was actively retrieving UFO wreckage, just where were they taking it? Groom Lake, Nevada.
Just 900 miles from Roswell, New Mexico.
Perhaps the most well-known site rumored to be hiding alien debris is the secret engineering base known as Area 51.
After years of denying its existence, on August 16, 2013, the United States government officially acknowledged the base.
It was one of the single most sensitive hidden military bases.
Everybody who worked there was sworn to secrecy, to death.
And it was not until 2013 that there was a confirmation that Area 51 is real and had been real for a very long time.
NARRATOR: Believed by many to hold the wreckage from the infamous Roswell crash of 1947, the U.
S.
government still claims the secret engineering base has never housed any extraterrestrial remains.
STANTON FRIEDMAN: The announcement seems to have been tossing the public a bone, that we indeed have an area of advanced research and development, and what we refer to as Area 51.
Who knows what's really going on there? Just because they said this, that or the other thing doesn't mean it's true.
And would anybody trust the CIA to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? When you listen to people who have left Area 51, they claim that it's got extraterrestrial craft that we have tested and reverse-engineered.
There's no question in my mind that Area 51 has been a very secretive government base for all kinds of things.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that Area 51 actually houses otherworldly artifacts-- artifacts that were retrieved from extraterrestrial crashes? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest that even more evidence can be found by examining some of mankind's latest, and most extraordinary, technological advancements.
NARRATOR July, 1997.
On the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident, retired United States Colonel Philip J.
Corso publishes his book The Day After Roswell.
In it, he not only confirms that an extraterrestrial craft crashed in Roswell, but also that the wreckage had been secretly collected and stashed by the United States military.
Philip J.
Corso was a lieutenant colonel, uh, in the United States Army, who had a long and actually very successful career in the military; he was highly decorated.
And in The Day After Roswell, he made an incredible claim that he worked at the Foreign Technology division within the Army Research and Development, and had key access to E.
T.
technology from the Roswell crash.
NARRATOR: According to Colonel Corso's account, military scientists and engineers tried for years to make sense of the debris collected at Roswell, but were unsuccessful.
POPE: Colonel Philip Corso claimed that part of his duties on the Army's Foreign Technology desk was to take extraterrestrial technology recovered from the crash at Roswell and without disclosing the source of this, in other words, not-not letting on that this was extraterrestrial, was to get this into the hands of scientists with some of the big U.
S.
corporations.
NARRATOR: In his book, Colonel Corso stated that he seeded the alien materials and information to high-tech companies under the guise that it was recently acquired foreign technology.
MICHAEL SALLA: What Corso described in his book was that they would identify corporations that had already made breakthroughs in certain areas, and so he was giving them kind of strategic inspiration in what direction they should operate in order to be able to successfully develop those advanced technologies.
Only after the Roswell crash did companies like IBM all of a sudden flourish.
And the reason why IBM flourished is because they just happened to be at the right place at the right time, that were given the assignment to reverse-engineer some of these things.
NARRATOR: According to Colonel Corso's account, night vision was engineered from the lens on an eye of an extraterrestrial pilot.
Kevlar came from studying alien space suits.
And integrated circuits were developed from their spacecraft's control panel.
NOORY: Isn't it interesting that after the 1947 crash in Roswell, New Mexico, our technology took off just like a rocket? Silicon chips and all kinds of other technology, laser technology, fiber optics-- all of this stuff came right after 1947, when Roswell crashed.
PAUL HELLYER: The Day After Roswell is a real thing.
I recognized the names of the generals and the airfields that he was talking about from my days in defense.
So, this was not new territory for me.
And, uh, I spoke to a general.
He said, "Every word is true and more.
" NARRATOR: Colonel Corso would also claim that the reverse-engineering of various downed alien crafts was not limited to the United States, but was happening worldwide.
And the funding for the research and development of this extraterrestrial technology required an elaborate ruse.
A ruse that would also function as a distraction from increased UFO sightings: the Cold War.
JOHN LEAR: The Cold War was never really a war.
It was an agreement between Russia and the United States that we're gonna give the public something else to worry about: atomic bombs falling onto their heads, rather to think about UFOs and flying saucers.
CHILDRESS: During the Cold War, when Russia was supposedly our enemy, we had a joint military base, at the South Pole, with the Russians.
And we had a joint space base with the Russians, too.
So you have to ask: what was going on here? I believe governments all across this planet have been hiding the knowledge of extraterrestrial visitations and crashes on this planet.
They're not telling us the truth.
We've had crashes in Russia.
We've had crashes in Roswell, New Mexico.
We've had a crash in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
It's happening all over this planet.
The big question is: why? NARRATOR: Is it possible that the retrieval and reverse-engineering of downed alien spacecraft goes far beyond Roswell? And might the Cold War and space race have provided a cover to justify innovations derived from extraterrestrial technology? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest that further evidence can be found by examining what some researchers refer to as "The Russian Roswell.
" NARRATOR: Astrakhan Oblast, Russia.
500 miles south of Moscow.
June 19, 1948.
11 months after the Roswell incident, at the Soviet military rocketry research and development base Kapustin Yar, erratic blips appear on the radar screens.
(radar beeping) At the same time, a MiG jet fighter pilot sees an unidentifiable cigar-shaped object flying in front of him.
What we have now come to understand is that there was an engagement of the Soviet military with an unknown object that came into the airspace at, or near, Kapustin Yar.
And a Soviet MiG fighter was scrambled to intercept.
The aircraft engages in a three-minute dogfight with the UFO.
The jet was able to fire off a missile.
And the missile apparently hit the craft just as the craft hit the MiG with some kind of blinding flash of light that caused the MiG, with the UFO, to crash.
When people talk about UFO crashes, they talk about Roswell as if it's the only time it ever happened, but it's happened repeatedly.
Kapustin Yar is another great example of a genuine Roswell type crash, this time in the Soviet Union, and totally classified under the umbrella of national security.
There are special teams designed to create a cover story.
And the wreckage goes off to warehouses in which that technology is analyzed and understood.
NARRATOR: Rumors have circulated for years that nearly a quarter-mile beneath the surface of the Kapustin Yar base are hallways and chambers containing downed extraterrestrial craft and rooms where alien autopsies have been performed.
DOLAN: This is really the Soviet Union's Area 51.
It was very, very remote.
The Soviets did all of their major rocket testing, a lot of their advanced back- engineering of Nazi technology from World War II.
This is a very, very sophisticated place.
Some people came up with the idea that this was the main storage of the crashed UFOs in the Soviet Union and the secret tests are being done there.
NARRATOR: Curiously, at this secret facility, the Soviets developed better nuclear weapons and delivery systems in 18 months than they had anticipated creating in five years.
In 1959, the United States Central Intelligence Agency began to monitor the covert base and collect aerial photographs from a U-2 reconnaissance mission.
HENRY: When the United States sent recon missions over there during the Cold War, they looked down and they saw these incredible carved images on the ground around Kapustin Yar.
WILCOCK: When we actually look at the depictions of these geoglyphs, they look similar to what we see in crop circles and in certain ancient landforms visible on Earth.
So there clearly appears to have been an attempt to communicate with the extraterrestrials, perhaps saying, "X marks the spot.
Come here, guys.
" Kapustin Yar was one of the former Soviet Union's most secretive air bases.
The rumor is, is they were researching UFO technology there.
And one wonders if it's possible if those symbols were, in fact, used to attract UFOs.
NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists, this so-called "Russian Roswell" isn't the only site of its kind.
In the middle of Australia lies the military base, Pine Gap.
Located in an area that has long been associated with UFO activity, the facility is said to extend five miles underground and is rumored to have been used for researching electromagnetic propulsion since the 1960s.
In the remote hills of China, there are a series of bizarre runways over a mile long and over a half mile wide.
Researchers have spotted strange aircraft parked along the runways and believe it is the testing ground for extraterrestrial spacecraft.
And at the Royal Air Force's Rudloe Manor, located in the countryside of Wiltshire, England, many believe the British Ministry of Defence has been storing crashed UFOs since the 1950s.
HENRY: With the existence of all of these places around the world, it suggests that world governments have been collecting and trying to reverse-engineer alien technology for decades.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that not only Area 51, but also other secret military sites across the globe, contain extraterrestrial artifacts? And if so, how is it that so many UFO crashes occurred at roughly the same time period, and scattered across multiple continents? CHILDRESS: You kind of have to wonder if the extraterrestrials realized that conflict throughout our planet does actually help us develop better aerospace and other technology.
And so it would seem that, with these various UFO crashes that were allegedly happening all over the world, these extraterrestrials are purposely trying to advance us forward.
HOWE: Maybe a lot of what we were dealing with, including some of the crashes in the '40s and the '50s, might have been planned to put certain technologies in human hands to start a process in which humans would begin to try to develop technology.
LEAR: I had a friend that was involved in the research of trying to back-engineer the UFO propulsion.
The information that we've gotten from these craft is way too advanced for us to copy.
They're using materials that are unobtainable on Earth, or anywhere in this solar system.
NARRATOR: With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, there were many who believed that the development of alien technology would no longer be kept a secret.
Unfortunately, this was not the case.
HELLYER: When the Cold War ended, the truth embargo, which is what it was and is, should've been lifted, and the public should've been brought into the situation and should've been told what was going on.
It is taxpayers' money who have financed all of this stuff.
NARRATOR: Was the Cold War really an orchestrated event intended to serve as a smoke screen for governments to harvest extraterrestrial technology? And if so, what does the end of the war suggest about the world's next generation of advanced scientific breakthroughs? NARRATOR: Lund University, Sweden.
August 27, 2013.
Researchers confirm the existence of a new element on the periodic table created through nuclear fusion.
They name it ununpentium, or Element 115.
Although most scientists still don't know much about this unique radioactive component, it shares commonalities with Plutonium, used in experimental rocket fuels.
DOLAN: Element 115 has its own lore in UFO history.
So, this was said to be an element described by a gentleman named Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked just south of Area 51 on "an E.
T.
flying saucer.
" The government is holding, uh, nine alien spacecraft, um that are propelled by a modified gravity generator.
Uh It's being-- work is being conducted 15 miles south of Groom Lake.
At that isolated area only, designated as S4, um, that at least one of those crafts operate.
DOLAN: According to what Lazar said, these alien craft ran on Element 115.
And there's no evidence that we have this even occurring naturally anywhere on Earth.
Well, it turns out that scientists now claim to have created Element 115 by atomic collisions.
SALLA: I think this recent discovery of ununpentium really does help us understand the significance of Bob Lazar's testimony.
This was a man who was exposed to a very rare element that was allegedly part of the propulsion system of an extraterrestrial vehicle.
NARRATOR: On December 23, 2015, yet another groundbreaking material makes headlines.
Scientists working at the University of California announce the creation of a new metal that is strong and lightweight, but also flexible and resistant to extremely high temperatures.
MICHAEL DENNIN: What's really exciting about this material is you don't lose a lot of its flexibility, what we call its plastic-like properties.
A lot of metals, when you make them strong, become very brittle.
So this material has a large number of application, whether it be a car, an airplane or a spaceship.
NARRATOR: While this miracle metal is unlike any alloy developed before, some believe its description is actually familiar, and that it may be a match to the strange material allegedly retrieved by Major Jesse Marcel from the infamous Roswell crash.
FRIEDMAN: Most of the stuff at Roswell was extraordinarily lightweight, very thin foil-like material, very, very strong, but weighing next to nothing.
That's from people who handled it.
The UCLA guys are doing research, open research more or less, with the stuff from Roswell.
This material is the beginning of an entirely new revolution in materials science, where we are now going to be able to engineer materials at the molecular level.
And this does appear to be the fruits of a long-term reversing-engineering program, where those technologies are being brought into the corporate sector and now it's become something that we all take for granted.
HELLYER: It's been seven decades since the, what I call, the first lie, which was the foundational lie at Roswell happened.
And still, the official line of the United States is that this is a subject they don't know about and don't care about.
Which is about as far from the truth as you could possibly get.
We're beginning to understand the extraterrestrial craft, its mechanism, how it works and how it functions.
And I'm convinced we're gonna be able to travel in space, sooner than later, the same way that these E.
T.
s have come here.
HENRY: It's almost as if these extraterrestrials are giving us a little bit here, a little bit there, and they're leading us somewhere, which we're ultimately gonna find out very soon where this is going.
NARRATOR: Is it possible modern-day scientists are finally decoding the puzzle of the advanced technological debris left scattered across the globe? Could it be that we have finally reached a level of technological sophistication that allows us to fully understand extraterrestrial technology and prepares us for yet another alien encounter? NARRATOR: Tucson, Arizona.
June 17, 2014.
Just two months before his death, Boyd Bushman, a senior scientist at Lockheed Martin working with missile and laser technology, records a video confessional to be released after his death.
My name is Boyd Bushman.
I'm a senior scientist from Lockheed Martin.
Um I have 27 patents, and I've changed the world several times.
NARRATOR: According to Bushman, while working at Lockheed Martin he met with individuals with the highest clearance at Area 51.
These individuals provided him materials he understood to be extraterrestrial technology.
They would give me pieces of UFOs, and I would come to my laboratories.
There's three elements which the UFO is contained.
One is telluride, the other's germanium, the other's palladium.
And not only that, but the things pick up and fly using anti-gravity.
NARRATOR: But perhaps the most intriguing claim made by Bushman involves knowledge of extraterrestrials aiding government scientists at bases like Area 51.
They're approximately five-five feet-- four-and-a-half to five feet tall.
We have a total of at least 18 that exist and operate with our facility.
Now notice, the eyes are different, nose are different, but they do have five fingers, five toes, uh, two eyes.
NARRATOR: The release of the video online creates a stir, with many viewers insisting that it must be a hoax.
But why would a renowned engineer and physicist lie about something so important? Could it be that the long-held rumors of reverse-engineering of otherworldly technology and even stories of extraterrestrial involvement in secret military projects are actually true? HOWE: So much of the digital world goes right back to the retrieval of extraterrestrial craft and beings.
Which the government drew a wall and said, "No one is to know.
" But the truth is, the 21st century is being built on extraterrestrial technology.
How is it possible that, in the last 70 years, we've accomplished more than in the last 5,000 years, technologically speaking? What makes us so special today that we didn't know about 5,000 years ago? So I think that the technological advancements we've made are due to retrieving extraterrestrial technology.
One has to wonder if these puzzle pieces were left here deliberately or on accident.
If the U.
S.
military, and perhaps other militaries around the world, have gained technology from crashed alien ships on our planet, then you would think that the extraterrestrials themselves want us to have this technology, and that we've actually been given this same kind of technology.
I mean, we've seen staggering technological developments recently.
It's been suggested that this is part of a program to bring us up technologically.
One of the most amazing things about this idea of reverse-engineering alien technology is that it's taken quite a while for us to actually be able to understand it and to be able to utilize it.
Maybe we are now reaching a level of technological sophistication that we're going to be able to match the advanced extraterrestrials.
HELLYER: All these things come back to the question of: what are their designs on our planet, and are they interested in our best interest or are they interested in their best interest? NARRATOR: Might Roswell, and other crashes covered up worldwide, have been orchestrated by aliens in order to technologically advance the human race? Have world governments been secretly reverse-engineering the extraterrestrial debris scattered across the globe? Perhaps the time has arrived for humanity to become a truly spacefaring civilization, as may have been intended by our alien ancestors all along.